"You've been spying on me,” Athena said, eyes narrowing.
He shrugged. “Seemed a good idea at the time. You called the Gathering, but—” He shrugged again. “I don't know if you're worth my personal loyalty."
"I thought you were leading the coalition against Deryk."
"You have good information,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I started it, but ... immortals don't want a leader. Most of them, anyway."
"I'm hoping to change that,” she told him. “We'll never survive if we don't show some unity in the face of the Enemy."
He met her gaze for a long moment before nodding once. “I can read the newspaper. Things don't look too good. These goblins, for example. And what about all these costumed ‘freaks' showing up all over the place?"
"Well...” Athena couldn't help shifting her gaze to Renee. “If you're actually going to join the team, I suppose you should get a full briefing."
"That might be an idea,” he replied. “Sorry ‘bout the deception, but—well, you know how it is."
"Do I?” Athena offered up a thin smile. “You're as much a rebel as Loki is,” she said with a dry chuckle.
"No need to get insulting,” he growled. The tension between him and the Trickster had become the stuff of legends.
She laughed aloud this time, caught between amused and irritated. “He's been helping all the way through, Thor. In his own way sometimes, but he's been on my team from the beginning. That says something, wouldn't you think?"
He nodded reluctantly. “Fine. If you say so. So do you want me to maintain my glamour in the office, or can I drop it?"
"Somehow I don't think the ‘rock god’ look will work in my outer office,” she replied. “You sure you still want to be my X-A?"
He flashed a feral grin. “Positive. You're going to need someone competent to handle things when you're playing footsie with the president."
"Footsie?"
"With the President?” Renee was staring at her oddly now.
"While you were gone,” Athena explained, “President Keel called me. He's setting up a commission to study paranormal threats—wants me to be involved. He's also had Stone out recruiting many of the metahumans Loki didn't manage to bring aboard. Appealed to their patriotism or some shit.
"Good news for our side, at least. So, did you find anything at Hermes's place?"
"Your buddy here distracted me. Hermes's office is torn to hell. Looks like the place was tossed, but good."
"Tossed?” Thor grinned, somehow reminiscent of his arch-enemy's favorite expression. “You must watch a lot of cop shows."
"Or know a cop,” Renee retorted. “Any word from Loki?” she asked Athena.
"Nothing yet. I didn't really expect it, though. Too soon. I'm not sure how easily he can find Thoth, and I know Thorne's a bitch to track down. If I were you I wouldn't expect to see him until sometime tomorrow evening."
Renee's answering smile was chilly. “Fine. I'll see you tomorrow night.” She turned on a heel and walked out, sparing Thor a brief glance filled with something unreadable. Athena was willing to bet it wasn't friendly, whatever it was.
Sure. Contention in the ranks. That's all I need.
Fifteen
Athena loved Christmas and all its fripperies. Not for its particular symbolism, Christian or otherwise, but because, for a brief shining moment, the mortals actually seemed to care about one another. Shea had virtually ignored the holiday. Athena gathered charitable contributions and put together a huge holiday feast for the city's homeless population. She spared no expense, renting the building's nightclub for the day and covering it with decorations before bringing in top-flight chefs from all over the country to create a feast fit for a king's banquet.
She wasn't all that surprised to receive a few protests from some of the non-Christian employees. It was to be expected. She didn't insist that they celebrate Christmas itself, after all. They could decorate their workspaces with whatever they felt like doing. She simply preferred to celebrate Christmas.
* * * *
Athena stepped out onto her balcony early the day of the solstice, breathing in the cold, clear air. It had rained the night before, but the clouds had been swept away since, leaving the air crisp and energizing.
In the distance she could hear drums. She let her gaze follow her ears toward Fireman's Park, where a soft yellow-white glow was rising. She frowned, turned, and went back in—hurriedly throwing off her robe and donning warmer gear.
The walk up to the park in the cool pre-dawn was invigorating. By the time she arrived her heart was pumping and her head felt like she was clearer than she'd been in a long time. The President's Commission had been put on hold until the new year, and not even the goblins had been out raising too much trouble over the past few weeks, but worries nagged at her almost constantly. She couldn't get away from them. Now it was Hermes, who'd seemingly disappeared without a trace. Not a difficult task for him, of course, but she couldn't see him walking away from his business like that. In the meantime she'd rounded up one of her own promising young execs to keep the business afloat. Hardly customary, and probably not very legal, but she owed Hermes at least that much.
Loki had returned with Thoth, who agreed, after some prodding, to help the Trickster locate any potential mages in the area. Someone had to, and Loki wasn't cutting it by himself.
Thor, with his power over the element of Air, could travel nearly as quickly as Hermes, so she occasionally put him to work tracking down other immortals. He'd found Bladesworth for her and, though she didn't ask how, got him to agree to ‘come in from the cold', as they said in the spy movies. He joined up without any trace of reluctance—at least not where Athena could see.
Both the escaped vampire and Gitano-Kali had gone to ground, and she had yet to receive any more communiqués from Hades. She hadn't decided if that were a good thing ... or a very bad thing.
At least her doubts about her own ability had faded somewhat. For the time being.
* * * *
Athena stood at the edge of the park, spotting a rather large group of people around the Gazebo, playing drums and other instruments—mostly flutes and harps—and dancing around while looking to the East. They seemed more or less oblivious to the glow surrounding them, though many of them had cast coats and other winter apparel aside as they capered.
A few noticed her—a tall, dark-haired woman wrapped in a fur-lined leather trench coat, watching curiously from the roadside. They returned her curiosity for a few moments, then seemed to dismiss her and went back to what they were doing.
She wandered toward them, drawn as much by the glow surrounding them as anything else. She approached the fringes, noting with some surprise that, as she entered the glow, the temperature rose considerably. She tapped a young woman on the shoulder. “Excuse me, but what are you doing?"
"Invoking the Sun,” the coltish young lady replied simply. “We do this every Yule."
"Yule? Winter Solstice, right?"
"Aye, Lass,” answered a burly, bearded man standing nearby, beating his hand rhythmically against a flat drum he held in the crook of his other arm. She couldn't tell if his Scottish accent was real or affected, which surprised her. Usually such things were transparent. Probably real, then, she decided.
"Who are you people?"
"Just your friendly neighborhood pagans,” interjected a second bystander, this one wearing a pair of glasses and a Mariners cap that looked somehow out of place amongst the costumes worn by many of the others, like a crow trying to blend in among peacocks.
She felt her eyebrow lift. “Pagans?” She felt a strange thrill suddenly. She hadn't realized that anyone still worshipped the old gods—her and her immortal companions, mostly. She found it pleasing, but somehow disconcerting at the same time. The one thing that Christianity had done was to release them from the burden they'd accepted upon themselves so many centuries ago.
"Mostly Wiccans,” he answered with a wry grin. “But there's a few
of us eclectic types around."
Wiccans. She remembered reading something about them once. “Oh—so you folks don't really worship the old gods, then?"
"Some do,” he replied with a shrug. “Some simply call upon the Lord and Lady and others, like me, don't anthropomorphosize at all."
"Oh.” She didn't know what else to say at that point. “So you're what ... doing magic?"
"Not so much. Oh, I suppose there's some magic in what we're doing, but it's just a greeting for the sun, symbolizing our gratitude that, from here on out, the days will be getting longer again until Midsummer."
Pagans. Athena nearly snorted. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or insulted. The whole city of Athens had been named after her. She'd been revered as a warrior and a bringer of wisdom. Now those were pagans.
These people—she wasn't sure what they were in actuality. But she was willing to bet that some of them had received Loki's gift. Real magic flowed in this place, called by those who'd contracted the Arcane virus.
"I'm Chaz. Chaz Bishop.” He extended a hand. “What's your name?"
"Athena,” she murmured, taking his hand. His grasp was firm and cool.
The air around her went still as half a dozen hands fell from the rhythm and at least as many heads rotated to look at her. Ah, jeez. “Athena Cross. I own that building—over there.” She pointed. “I heard the drums from my balcony and just had to see what was going on."
Most of the others turned away, no longer interested. Chaz, on the other hand, still regarded her with a serious emerald gaze. “I know who you are. Seen your picture in the paper when Deryk Shea disappeared. I work for you, actually."
"You do? I've never seen you around."
He reached out and tapped the burly bearded guy on the shoulder. “Hey, I'm going to take off. Tell everyone I'm sorry I missed the breakfast."
"Aye. Will do, Laddie."
Chaz turned back to her. “Care to take a walk that-a-way for a minute or two?"
She shrugged. Why not? I've probably learned all I can here. “Sure."
Once they'd gotten out of earshot, he paused, glancing over at her. “I wanted to get a chance to speak with you alone. Nice to know the universe can be coaxed into cooperating on occasion."
"Speak with me alone? Why?"
"Did you know there's an R&D lab here in your building?"
"Uh ... no."
"Good. That means we've been ghosting very well.” He sighed. “Nothing personal, but scuttlebutt says you're Deryk's ex-bimbo or some crap. Now that I've met you, I can't believe it."
"Rumor's not a good thing to base an opinion on,” she growled.
"Tell me about it. Simple enough. Deryk wanted us to keep a low profile anyway. There aren't five people throughout the company who even know we exist down there. We're set up in the basement, use a separate entrance, and don't mingle with the rest of the employees. Better that way, believe me."
"So what do you do down there?"
"I'm in charge,” he replied coolly. “Hard to believe, isn't it?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. So you're a scientist then?"
"Engineer, mainly, but, yeah, I guess you could call me a scientist. Deryk hands me a problem and my team and I chew on it for a while. I have to say, the last thing that crossed my desk before he vanished is just not going to happen."
"And what was that?"
"Flying cars. Ridiculous idea, really. I mean, aside from the nuisance for air traffic control, there's a serious downside to the idea. When your car breaks down, you push it to the side of the road. When your ‘sky’ car breaks down ... well, you get my meaning."
"Yeah. I do. So what's an engineer ... a scientist ... doing hanging out with a bunch of pagans? You don't believe in all that mumbo-jumbo, do you?"
"All I've got to say is that while a lot of it doesn't ring quite true, some of it does. I believe everything's interconnected. Like you showing up here. I almost didn't come myself. The Mercury project has me banging my head against a wall right now."
"Mercury?” She grasped him by a sleeve of his leather jacket. “What do you know about Mercury?"
"Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten. An e-mail went around through our secure server that you weren't supposed to find out anything about it. Came from that putz in San Jose.” He glanced down at her hand, which she withdrew. “I don't give a shit what he thinks anyway. The damn flying car thing originated with him, too. He's an idiot.
He leaned close and spoke softly. “Mercury is still theoretical, but it makes sense. It involves folding space in small increments to squirt information between compatible devices."
"Sounds dangerous."
"Well ... suffice to say, we can't do it here."
"Here?"
"On this Earth. Quantum theory holds that there are multiple universes, each like a reflection of the others, where history followed a slightly different path in each one. All we have to do is find one where we've wiped ourselves out somehow and fold space there. The devices can be designed to reach out into the other universe and catch signals from other compatible devices.
"That's the plan, anyway. Of course, it involves discovering a way to reach this other universe in the first place, but we've been working on that, too."
"I take it that this is your baby."
He actually blushed. “Something like that. I'm afraid I get a little excitable when I talk about it."
"Sounds interesting, anyway. Tell you what. Come to my office ... say, around one this afternoon. I'll free up some time and we can go over the details then."
He nodded. “I can do that. I'll just call Marianne, I gue—"
"She retired. You'll have to talk to my new X-A. His name is Adam Orage. I'll let him know you'll be calling."
"Sure. And, something that just hit me. You called all this stuff—” he waved a hand to encompass the gathering at the other edge of the park—"mumbo-jumbo. How can anyone really be as skeptical as you pretend to be with goblins living in the sewers and some six-armed attack bitch roaming the city?"
"What? Six-armed ... wait—you've seen her, haven't you? Personally."
"With my own four eyes.” He tapped his glasses. “She looks a lot like the representations of the Hindu goddess Kali that I've seen.” His gaze turned piercing. “You know something about her, don't you? I don't know what, but ... You weren't surprised that she exists, just shocked that someone had seen her. She hasn't made the news. She's turning into an urban legend around here."
"She's no legend,” Athena told him seriously. “If you see her again, stay away from her. There's no telling what she might do."
He nearly started jumping up and down on the spot, causing her to lower her estimate of his age from thirty closer to twenty. There was still a lot of kid in him, despite his obvious intelligence. “You do know something about her! You've gotta tell me."
She shook her head. “Not here. Not now. Come to my office. We'll talk there."
"Fine.” He sighed. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you."
"Nice meeting you too, Chaz. Happy Yule."
"You too, Athena.” He turned and walked back toward the gazebo just as the sun broke over the mountains. A cheer broke out among the revelers and he broke into a run.
She walked away shaking her head. Strange young man.
* * * *
Thor didn't look happy. “You're going to tell him everything, aren't you?"
She cocked her head to one side and smiled sweetly, leaning back in her chair. “Of course I'm not."
"Everything covers an awful lot, doesn't it?” he asked, with a rueful grin as he propped his back against the doorframe and folded his arms. “Let me rephrase that. You're going to tell him about us."
"Yep."
"How many mortals will that make? Hell, we don't even know how many government types have our number. You're on the verge of blowing us wide open."
"I'm not worried about Chaz, I'll tell you that much. He knows how to be discreet. I didn't even know he existed unt
il this morning. Pretty good, considering I sign his paycheck."
Thor's expression didn't change. “I'm still not comfortable with it."
She found herself gritting her teeth. “Dammit, Thor. He's an engineer. Do you have any idea how much easier we'd've had things all along if we'd had a real engineer in our ranks? Think about it. Not one of our two hundred immortals was a real engineer. Deryk was the closest of all, but even he only knew enough to pass his Command requirements. We can use him."
Reluctantly, Thor started to nod. “All right. I see your point. Since you seem to be bound and determined to drag the mortals into this battle—"
"—they're involved whether we ‘drag’ them in or not,” she snapped. “What do you think the idea behind Loki's project was, anyway? Just to create a bunch of freaks for the normal mortals to point and laugh at?"
"Of course not. But I've already told you what I thought of that whole idea."
She felt like screaming. “Oh, yes. You have. In detail. But the fact of the matter remains—this is their world. If we had to we could all leave again, jump that much farther ahead of the Enemy's forces. I, for one, have no intention of abandoning this world to their non-existent mercy.
"But we can't do it by ourselves. They will have to help. And the only way they will have a chance against the Enemy's myrmidons is if we give them power to match. Which is exactly what Loki did.
"That's not to say I entirely approve of his methods. It's as though he goes out of his way to do things in the most tempestuous way possible, the way most likely to sow chaos and confusion. But—"
"—that's Loki,” he finished. “I know. That's one of the things I've always disliked about him."
"Your feud with Loki is the stuff of legend. Literally. And, I'm telling you, it stops here and now. He may do the wrong things sometimes, but he usually does them for the right reasons. Intentions have to count for something. And this time I think he hit closer to the mark than ever.
"Seriously, Thor. What have you been doing while he's been helping me out? Playing in a rock band? Trying to drum up some sort of organized resistance to what must be done?
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