Hunt of the Gods

by Amy Braun

  The only part of his outfit that clashed were the six neon strings of pearls hanging like a rainbow of triumph around his neck.

  “Thea said this was an emergency,” Selena grumbled, “and you took the time to boink a bunch of drunk party people?”

  Mason held up a finger, not looking the least bit ashamed. “I only took my time with one woman, and even that was short.” He lowered his hand, still smirking. “I caught the rest, and they didn’t complain.”

  Thea glanced at Selena. “Remind me again why we put up with him?”

  But it was Mason who replied. “I’m the heir of Zeus, I co-own a multi-million-dollar business, and I always look fantastic.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned suggestively. I knew that neither Thea nor Selena were susceptible to his flirting, and I was confident that Mason knew so as well, but damn it all if he didn’t make them smile.

  Mason slid his gaze to the right wall and winked. I followed his gaze and found my friend Corey blushing and looking away sheepishly.

  Corey was an old friend from our Periochí̱ Polemistés days. He was a shy, anxious wayfare scion with a mop of curly blond hair and bright-green eyes. Dressed in a well-worn shirt decorated with the blueprint of a fighter jet, dusty jeans, and sneakers, he was the polar opposite of Mason.

  Maybe that was why Corey was crushing on him so hard.

  I smiled at him and held out my hand. “How are you, Corey?”

  He shook my hand rapidly then stepped back. “My boss laid me off, so I’ve been picking up teleporting jobs on the side.” He shrugged. “It’s not much, but it’s money.” His eyes bulged suddenly. “Not that—I mean, sorry. I know you guys are—”

  Liam was already waving his hand. “Don’t even worry about it, man. We’ve got some jobs and are doing good.”

  We most definitely were not doing “good.” Our only source of income was picking up shifts at the dojo where Selena trained women in self-defense, and even her shifts were few and far between. Finding the Trinity Weapons and Cronus Shards for the Olympians had eaten up all our time, and not many people wanted to hire two ex-Region Warriors as bodyguards. It was much easier to hire a wayfare scion like Corey who could teleport in the blink of an eye.

  Liam and I nodded to greet Corey, and then Mason was talking again. “No collections, fellas? You know it’s a fertility festival, right? Lots of conquests to be had, and I know how you handsome war scions like to conquer.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Doesn’t appeal to me.”

  Mason raised an eyebrow, grunted, and settled against the edge of the counter. He toyed with his beads, as if showing us what we’d missed.

  In the silence that followed, I realized how much I’d missed them all. I didn’t often have friends. Liam and I had lost touch with our school friends the moment we joined the Periochí̱ Polemistés, and our former coworkers weren’t exactly the kind of people I would trust to have at my back. Until we started working with the rogues, Liam and Corey had been my only confidants. Now I had Mason, Selena, and Thea to add to the list. It might not seem like a lot to anyone else, but to me, it was everything.

  I needed to take them all out for a beer. When I could afford it again.

  “Not that it isn’t good to see you all.” I looked at Thea. “But I don’t think this is a social call.”

  The heir of Poseidon sighed. “No,” she confirmed. “I wish it were.”

  Thea fingered a seashell bracelet on the counter.

  I’d never seen her so uncomfortable. She was young, only twenty, but absolutely fierce, potentially more so than Selena. If she was nervous, it spelled bad news for us.

  “Thea?” Liam prompted. He took a step closer to her.

  She hesitated for another moment, then took a deep breath.

  “I found the Trident.”

  “Whoa,” Corey breathed. “Wow, that’s great!” Thea’s sharp look made him hesitate. “I mean, that is great, right?”

  She clearly didn’t seem to think so.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “One of the Marina Del Rey apartments. But its location isn’t the problem. It’s who’s guarding it.” She fell silent again.

  “Who?” Selena asked.

  Thea folded her arms around her stomach.

  “The Cetea Clan.”

  Mason launched off the counter and unleashed a stream of curses. Liam joined him. Corey and Selena went as pale as milk. I pinched the bridge of my nose to stem the coming headache.

  Of course. Of course we would get the news we needed along with a catastrophic obstacle in our path. Somewhere, the Fates are laughing their asses off.

  “Thea.” Selena sounded wary. “Are you sure?”

  Thea nodded.

  None of us spoke, but I imagined our collective line of thought.

  Every region had a major gang of scions. Having power over an element, being highly trained in weapons and combat, and being able to perform enchantments and spell craft made it inevitable that some scions would turn criminal.

  The Cetea Clan was the largest and most ruthless gang in Néo Vasíleio. Since their inception in the early days of the Re-Emergence, they’d overpowered many of the previous gangs ruling Old California’s criminal underworld.

  They took their name from sea monsters usually set after heroes like Perseus or Heracles. The creatures were vicious, relentless, and completely at home in the ocean.

  If only the Clan stayed in the ocean as well.

  The Cetea Clan dealt mostly in drugs and weapons, but they were also known for human trafficking and assassinations. They owned all of Santa Monica’s piers and most of the civilian docks, and often wore tattoos of the Cetea on their bodies.

  To know that the Trident of Poseidon was in their hands… Gods above and below.

  “How did they even get it?” Mason asked. “How did they know where to search?”

  Thea looked at Selena, and something passed between them, something Thea wanted to hide. Maybe she would have if Selena hadn’t shaken her head.

  Thea wrapped her arms around her middle and leaned against the sales counter. “Because of me.”

  “They followed you?” Liam asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s… it’s more than that.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if they know about the Shards, but they know the Trinity Weapons are missing. They paid me a visit shortly after Zeus got his Thunderbolt back. They were asking about the Trident, specifically if I knew where it was.”

  “How could they possibly know the Weapons are missing?” Mason asked. “We didn’t advertise we’re looking for them. The gods don’t want anyone assuming they’re not at one hundred percent. Nobody’s supposed to know but them and us.”

  Thea lowered her eyes. “I know.”

  “Then how did they find out?” My question was wary, and my eyes were fixed on Thea.

  She lifted her eyes to me. “I didn’t tell them, if that’s what you were wondering.”

  Suspicion prickled the back of my neck. “Why would they come to you in the first place?”

  Thea’s aquamarine eyes met mine. “Because I used to be one of them.”

  Tension knifed through the small store. Corey, Mason, Liam, and I could only stare as we processed Thea’s words. Selena shifted closer to Thea and stood beside her. She watched us carefully, as if daring us to say something mean to her friend.

  I trusted Selena’s judgement in most things. She’d known Thea for much longer than I had and clearly still trusted her, but I was hesitant to follow suit.

  Not until I knew more.

  “It was a long time ago,” Thea explained, as if sensing my thoughts. “I was an orphan and jumped around foster homes until I was eleven. Kallis Faidon, the head of the Cetea Clan, and his kids recruited me from my last home, and… and I learned to be one of them. I didn’t get very high in their ranks. I mostly just stayed close to his twins, Catalina and Alexi. But I still did the crimes—theft, breaking and entering, vandalism, assault, things like
that. It put me in juvie for a couple of years, but I gave investigators everything they could want on Faidon and his Cetea, and I behaved. I got out early and did my community service. I was close with my social worker for a long time. She made sure I stayed clean, but…”

  “You never really got out,” Mason finished.

  She looked at him. “I’m going to be very clear right now. I’m not going back to them. They tricked me into… into doing something horrible, and I’ll never forgive myself for it. I turned myself in because I hated who I had become. I still hate that part of my life and never want to go back to it. I’m straight now, and I never want to see them again. But they don’t just let you walk away, especially if they know you wanted to leave.” She picked up a trinket, a pirate ship made of seashells, and toyed with it. “They started following me soon after I got back from the whole Thunderbolt adventure. I would see them from the corner of my eye, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that they came back in force and… got a bit more demanding.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Liam asked. His eyes were narrowed in anger, but not at Thea. He was thinking of faceless gangsters, people he couldn’t fight but wanted to.

  “Not seriously,” she replied. “Bruises were the first wounds I learned to heal.”

  She stated it casually, like it didn’t matter, but I could see Liam seething.

 

  His eyes cut to me.

  I confessed,

  Anger still burned in his eyes, but his shoulders relaxed, and his fists unclenched.

 

  Liam rolled his eyes, but there was no real exasperation in the gesture. He was back to himself as quickly as he’d slipped.

  “You should have told us,” Selena was saying.

  Thea looked at her friend. “I wasn’t going to drag any of you into it. If they weren’t hounding me for the Weapons, I wouldn’t have said anything at all. They’re my problem, and I can handle them after these damned missions are over.”

  Selena frowned, clearly not liking her friend’s blasé reply.

  “So how do we do this?” Mason asked. “I can bargain with a lot of people, but being chopped up by a mob of power-hungry water scions isn’t how I like to end my deals.”

  “Give me a minute,” Selena said. “I’ll try to See what they’re doing.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed slowly and evenly, letting her Farseer abilities take over. The rest of us were left in uncomfortable silence.

  “Um,” Corey started. “Mason?”

  The storm scion glanced at the shy wayfare scion. “Yeah, Speeds?”

  Corey blushed. The poor guy was so awkward around his crush that it was almost painful to watch. Then again, he seemed as if he was about to ask Mason something personal in front of all of us. That was a big step, and I admired him.

  “How are your hands?”

  And then he said that.

  I watched Mason’s expression slip, watched the confidence he once flaunted dampen. Mason had money, looks, power, and charm. He hadn’t really been flawed before becoming involved with Athena and the rogues.

  Before meeting us.

  “They’re fine,” Mason responded.

  His tone made it clear that he was done with the conversation and that he was lying.

  Corey looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear for a while. Across from him, Mason tugged the cuffs of his gloves. He tried to make the motion as casual as possible, but I noticed.

  The silence became even more awkward after that. At least Selena had escaped into her mind to use her powers. The rest of us just had to stand around and figure out things to say.

  As much as I cared for and missed these people, I knew I wasn’t really one of them yet. We’d met a few times after returning the Thunderbolt to Zeus, but after saying “How are you?” and “What’s new?” we’d gotten to work. We were a long way from cracking open a couple of beers, having barbecues, and just hanging out for the sake of being friends.

  Still, I could hope. I glanced briefly at Selena. It was amazing how much impact a single person could have on your life.

  Liam walked toward Thea. She looked up at his approach, and he stopped a couple of feet away from her. His eyes were downcast, fixed on the little ship in her hands.

  “That’s made entirely out of seashells?”

  “Yeah. I made it a couple years ago, but it hasn’t sold yet. Most of the shells are augers, snails, ceriths, and a couple conches, but mainly small ones I found when I was swimming.”

  “I don’t know what most of those words mean, but can I see it?”

  Thea handed it over. Liam took the ship carefully and turned it over in his hands. He examined the tiny creation so thoroughly that he had no idea Thea was watching him as if what he thought mattered to her.

  “Wow,” Liam breathed. “This is…” He looked up, suddenly aware of how close Thea was to him. “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  She smiled, and I thought my brother was going to swoon. “You can have it.”

  “How much is it?”

  Thea waved a hand. “Nothing. You can have it for free.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t—”

  “It’s been on the counter for half a year, and you’re the first person who’s given it more than a quick glance. If I give it to you, at least I know it won’t be discarded or forgotten.”

  His eyes darted across her face, taking in her sun-kissed skin, flowing black hair, full red lips, and brilliant, sea-colored eyes. Thea was older than Liam by a couple of years, groused at him more often than not, and hardly ever returned his advances, but he still looked at her like she was made from stars and sunlight.

  Thea knew how he felt. She must have, the way she was returning his look, like maybe he was more than a quick-witted kid who just followed his older brother around.

  It made me realize that my little brother might get into trouble I wouldn’t want to protect him from.

  Selena inhaled and opened her eyes. Her gaze flicked around the room, taking in our uncomfortable expressions and the closeness between Liam and Thea.

  “Whoa.” Her lips tilted up into a smile. “What did I miss?”

  “Nothing.” I grinned to cover my lie. “What did you See?”

  Selena’s power was immense—she could look months into the future and See all sort of outcomes for different scenarios, whereas most Seers burned out after Seeing only a couple of days, too overwhelmed by the choices of one person affecting dozens more—but it wasn’t absolute. Selena had been hexed five years ago, and the curse had not only altered what she could See but had stolen eighteen years of her memories. She couldn’t remember anything before five years ago. Furthermore, when she pushed herself too far or was too close to an item of power, like the Thunderbolt or Cronus’s Heart, Selena felt an intense pain that nearly made her blackout.

  I worried about the pain she would feel the more Weapons and Shards we found, but she refused to give up her ability or leave things to chance when she could avoid it.

  “You were right about the Marina apartments, Thea,” Selena said. “I could See the Cetea there, but they’re just relaxing right now.” She looked at her friend. “They have the Trident.”

  “How did they get it?” Corey asked. He glanced at Mason. “The only way we got the Thunderbolt was because Mason was able to touch it. Anyone else…”

  Anyone else would have died. I’d been within spitting distance of the Thunderbolt, and it was sheer luck, reflex, and Mason’s fearlessness that prevented me from taking a bolt to the heart. I didn’t know what the Trident of Poseidon would feel like to Thea, but it wouldn’t be pleasant for any of us.

  “Someone else got it for them,” answered Selena. “There was more to my vision.”
>
  Her brows furrowed in thought. She didn’t seem to notice she’d stopped talking.

  “Sel?” Liam prodded.

  She blinked and came out of whatever thought had captured her.

  “There was someone else in the room. Based on what Thea’s told me, I recognized Kallis Faidon and his kids, but there was another person with them, someone I couldn’t See properly.”

  “Because of the hex?” I asked.

  Selena shook her head. “No, it… the vision was clear, except for this person. At least, I think it was a person. Felt like one. But they were wrapped in this gold light. It resembled Darius’s power.”

  I set my jaw. Darius Kosta had been Apollo’s heir, a light scion with powerful Sight. He may not have had the same scope that Selena did even with her hex, but his magic had let him See something awful in my future.

  He had Seen me as the Bringer, the general of an army of shadowmen and fire soldiers who would stand by the gods when the world ended. I hadn’t wanted to believe him—I still didn’t—but I would never forget the horrified look he’d given me when he’d pointed an arrow bolt at me.

  It’s you.

  “It’s hard to describe,” Selena went on, “but I think he Saw me.”

  “How?” Mason asked. “Seers can’t look into each other’s visions. They can only See what will happen.”

  Selena raised her eyes. A torrent of emotions shone in their silver-blue depths, but her voice was hard as stone.

  “No. A human couldn’t do that.”

  We all understood what she was saying, but we didn’t dare voice it.

  After all, there was nothing the Olympians enjoyed more than watching chaos unfurl in mortal lives. I imagined it only became more amusing with a group like us—a collection of people thrown together to fight monsters and steal back dangerous weapons from greedy hands.

  Gold light. That means…

  “Are you sure it was him, Selena?”

  She looked at me, and she knew I wasn’t questioning what she Saw. I trusted her visions. But if Apollo, God of the Sun, was working with the Cetea Clan, it would make everything we did ten times harder.

  “I’m not one-hundred-percent sure,” she admitted, “but I’m going to say that yes, it was. I couldn’t hear anything, so I don’t know if he was speaking, but no one seemed too bothered that he was there.”