“Our time draws near,” he said, and Diana saw that he was not Theo. His face was pale as wax, his teeth yellowed points wet with blood. He wore a battered black helm, crowned by the face of a Gorgon.
Diana growled and shoved him from the car, tumbling with him to the ground.
“Get out of here, Alia!” Jason bellowed.
Diana heard the car door open and Alia’s footsteps as she ran.
“Phobos,” Diana said, looking down into the face beneath her. God of panic. A god beneath her.
He was beautiful until he smiled, the points of his teeth like spikes of sharpened bone. “We see you, Amazon. You will never reach the spring. War is coming. We are coming for you all.”
She could feel his power coursing through her, flooding her mind with terror. Her heart pounded a frantic rhythm; cold sweat bloomed on her brow. She had failed. Failed her mother, her sisters, herself. She had doomed them all. A wild, gibbering panic slashed at her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Run, her mind commanded. Hide. All she wanted was to obey, to let her legs carry her as fast and as far as they could, to find somewhere she could bow her head and weep. She wanted to cry out for her mother. Her mother. Through the horror, she held to the image of Hippolyta, warrior and queen, subject to no one.
“We are stronger,” Diana gasped. “Peace is stronger.”
“If only you believed that.” His grin widened. “Can you imagine the pleasures that await? I can already taste your suffering on my tongue….And it is sweet.” He drew the last word out, his tongue waggling obscenely from his mouth.
It isn’t real, she told herself. Nothing terrible has happened. There’s still time to reach the spring. This fear is an illusion.
She needed something real, something indestructible and true, the opposite of the false fear Phobos created. Diana seized the lasso at her hip and pressed its golden coils against Phobos’s throat. He screamed, a sound that seemed to pierce her skull, high and rattling.
“Get out,” she snarled.
“Out of what?” Theo said desperately, batting at her arms. “Just tell me and I’m gone.”
Diana rocked back on her heels. He sat up, looking dazed, his face as sweet and ordinary as it had ever been. She shook her head, eyes blinking furiously, body still trembling from the terror that had washed through her.
She shoved to her feet and rounded the other side of the Fiat. Nim was sobbing, but she was Nim again. The skin of Jason’s hands and forearms looked badly blistered, though she could see they were already starting to heal. Apparently, the blood of kings was powerful stuff. Alia stood a few feet away, arms tight around herself, chest heaving.
Diana could feel the fragility of these mortals, and for the first time, something inside her felt breakable, too.
“We need to go,” said Alia. She kept her arms wrapped around herself, as if trying to keep from flying apart, but her voice was steady, resolute. “Nim, can you drive?” Nim nodded, shakily. “Diana, can you and Theo switch the license plates?”
“Alia—” Jason began.
“We’re getting to that spring. If they didn’t think we were going to make it, they wouldn’t be trying to frighten us.”
Gods don’t work that way, Diana thought but didn’t say. Amazons were immortal. They didn’t think in minutes or hours or even in years, but in centuries. And the gods? They were eternal. Alia’s power had called to them, and like hibernating beasts they’d come awake with empty bellies. She could still hear Phobos crooning, Can you imagine the pleasures that await? The mirth in Eris’s teasing voice when she’d said, You and your sisters have evaded our grasp far too long.
Diana retrieved Theo from where he was lying on his back, panting in the dirt, and set about making herself useful, afraid that if she faced Alia now, Alia would see the truth in her face. Because Diana knew that Phobos and Eris weren’t worried. They’d been sure of themselves, smug. And they’d been hungry. What Alia had sensed in them was not anxiety but anticipation.
Now Diana understood what this war would really mean, and the terrible truth of the vow she’d made settled over her. If they did not reach the spring, she would have to face the horror of killing Alia, or live with the knowledge that she had helped set the gods’ terrible appetite loose upon the world—and offered her own people up for the feast.
They drove on, all of them weary and shaken. They’d faced bullets, missiles, a plane crash. Still, thought Alia, it was different to know that the forces allied against you weren’t just humans who happened to be better trained and armed, but that actual gods were trying to take you down.
For a while, Diana and Jason passed the map back and forth, debating the best route to take to Therapne. They could save hours by cutting east across one of the major highways, but those roads would also probably be the most closely watched. Instead, they agreed to keep heading south to a twisting mountain road that would take them directly through the Taygetus. It was steep, empty of people, and rarely used by anyone but tourists eager for scenery. The sharp cliffs and rock overhangs also meant they’d be hard to get eyes on from the air.
The sun sank low over the horizon, and Nim’s pace slowed. They used their brights when they could, but sometimes they had to double back when they missed road signs, and they were all getting sleepy. Nim’s yawns grew more frequent. They rolled down the windows, turned the radio up loud. Jason kept offering her swigs of sugary soda from their supplies. But it was no good.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “If I don’t stop, I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel.”
“It’s okay,” Alia said gently. She could sense Diana’s frustration with their progress, but she also knew Nim had pushed as hard as she could. They all had. If the gods had meant to scare them off, they’d failed.
They’d been wending their way down the eastern side of a steep series of hills, and when they reached a flat-enough area, Nim steered the car carefully off the road behind a stand of lush poplars and brush that would hide the car from anyone on the road.
“We’ll camp tonight,” said Jason. “If we get an early start tomorrow, we’ll be in Therapne long before sunset.”
“We have to be,” said Diana. “At dawn, the new moon rises and Hekatombaion begins.”
Nim punched a button and the car’s engine went silent. She turned off the headlights.
“We have the blankets Diana took from the farmhouse,” said Jason. “Two people can sleep in the car.”
“Or we could all sleep in the car,” said Theo. “Not that I’m afraid of the dark. Which I am not.”
Nim’s hands gripped the steering wheel. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea. Not if our…friends come back.”
They opened the Fiat’s doors and stepped outside into the balmy air. The stars glimmered brightly, gilding the trees around them in silver. Diana dropped into a lunge, stretching her long legs, and Alia felt a pang of sympathy. If she felt this stiff after being crammed in that car, Diana must really have been hurting.
“Do you hear that?” said Theo. “It sounds like running water.”
They picked their way through the trees and brush toward the sound and emerged at the top of a wide outcropping of rock. Alia took a deep breath, something in her heart eased by the beauty of what she saw.
A waterfall. Two waterfalls, really. One that fed the small pool beside them, and another that cascaded over the rocks in a misty white veil, emptying into a wide, dark pond below.
Theo picked up a rock and tossed it over the cliff. It hit the surface with a resonant plunk, sending silver ripples marching toward shore. “Seems pretty deep.”
“Look,” said Nim. “A bell.”
She was right. An old iron bell hung from a metal bar that had been driven between the rocks. “I think there’s a cave back there,” said Alia. “But why a bell?”
“It might be a hermit cave,” said Diana. “Mystics—”
But her voice was cut off by the sound of Theo’s whoop as he ran past them stark naked and leapt off the rock. A tremend
ous splash sounded, and they raced to the edge to see him emerge in the frothing water and shake his head like a dog.
Did I really just see Theo Santos naked? Alia thought. Do not giggle, she warned herself, but it was really hard when her mind kept conjuring up the image of Theo’s starlit backside.
“Good news!” he called from below. “It’s deep enough!”
“He is unhinged,” said Nim.
Diana frowned. “How did he even get his clothes off that fast?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Jason grumbled.
“I don’t know,” said Alia. “We have to stop for the night, and that water looks pretty good.” Just for a minute, she wanted to forget all the horror they’d seen. She wanted to pretend she was an ordinary girl on a road trip, even if she knew the illusion wouldn’t last.
“Alia—”
“Jason, I am tired, sweaty, and grumpy.”
“That’s like three of the Seven Dwarfs,” said Nim. “I don’t want to know what happens when she gets to four.”
“I am part man!” Theo shouted from far below. “But also part fish!”
“Besides,” said Alia, nudging Jason with her shoulder, “we need something good right about now.”
“She’s right,” said Diana. “We can’t keep driving, so it’s not as if we’re losing time.” She unbuckled the straps of her top and pulled it over her head.
“What are you doing?” squeaked Alia, trying not to stare. “Why is everyone suddenly allergic to their clothes?”
“I thought you wanted to swim,” said Diana, untying her sandals and yanking her leather trousers down.
“You’re…you’re…,” said Jason. He looked at the sky, the rocks, and then somewhere just over Diana’s shoulder. “You don’t have anything on.”
A furrow appeared between Diana’s brows. “Did Theo?”
“I don’t…I mean—”
“Is something wrong?” Diana asked, planting her hands on her hips as if she were about to start a cheerleading routine.
“Absolutely not,” said Nim. “Jason, Alia, you shut your mouths. I fell out of a plane. I got possessed by a war goddess. I deserve some happiness.”
“A thing I thought,” babbled Jason. “I had a thinking—”
“You should swim, too,” said Diana. “You may be suffering heatstroke.”
She turned her back and strode to the end of the rock, raising her arms overhead, her muscles flexing, her hair a gleaming tide over her shoulders. “Come on!” Diana called happily, and then she leapt, her body forming a perfect arc, her skin shining as if lit by some secret source of moonlight. A splash sounded from below.
“I should exfoliate more,” said Alia.
“This is the best moment of my life,” said Nim.
Jason had apparently given up on speech.
—
They swam for well over an hour. Alia had been sure Jason wouldn’t join, but eventually he’d cannonballed over the top of the falls and made a very un-Jason-like splash.
Despite the laughter and Theo’s continued crooning of “Don’t go chasing waterfalls,” she was aware of how cautious everyone was being, the distance Nim and Theo kept from each other, the alert way that Diana and Jason watched them. And yet she was right: They’d needed something good, and this—lying on her back in the water, the stillness of the pond filling her ears, the spangle of stars so dense above her it felt like she was looking into time itself—was very good.
Tomorrow they would reach the spring. Would its waters feel different on her skin? Would she know something inside her had changed forever?
When they were all thoroughly waterlogged and pruny, Diana jogged back up the hill to retrieve her leathers and brought their clothes and a blanket down from the car. Since they were away from the road, it seemed safe to make a fire and, after they gathered enough kindling, Diana set the little pile ablaze with ease.
“If all the Girl Scouts looked like her, I would have joined,” Nim murmured.
“And worn that green uniform?”
Nim retched. “Never mind.”
Diana claimed there were rabbits in the woods and offered to hunt them, but Nim was a vegetarian and no one was quite hungry enough to go that rustic. They ate most of what was left of the snacks from the gas station, and warmed themselves by the crackling of the flames.
“I’m exhausted,” said Alia at last. “But I don’t know if I can sleep.”
“Theo and I will crash outside tonight,” said Jason. “You guys can take the car.”
“I know you’re not going to like this,” said Diana. “But we should probably restrain both Theo and Nim.”
“I don’t mind,” said Nim. “I really don’t want that thing in my head again.”
Theo shuddered and nodded.
“We can rig something up with the blanket for Theo,” said Jason. He paused. “Can you use the lasso on Nim?”
Diana’s fingers brushed the golden loops of rope at her hip. “It’s not really meant to be used that way. I’ve heard of people being driven mad when bound too long in its coils.”
“Why?” asked Alia.
“No one wants to live with the truth that long. It’s too much.”
“I’ll say,” said Nim. “Jason looked like his head was going to explode.”
“Nim!” said Alia. Did she really have to go kicking that particular beehive?
But Diana just looked Jason in the eye and said, “That was wrong of me. To use the lasso on a compatriot without his consent. I swear it won’t happen again.”
Jason held her gaze, and Alia felt a little like she was witnessing something private. “I should have told you. You gave me the chance, but I was too cowardly to take it.” Then he seemed to remember they were sitting around a campfire. “I should have told all of you. Mom and Dad had their theories about where my strength came from, that it was tied to the bloodline and had just somehow skipped Dad, but…I never really believed it all.”
“So that thing,” said Nim, pointing at the lasso. “It really compels the truth?”
“Yes,” Diana said.
“Had you used it before?” said Jason.
“No,” she admitted.
He raised a brow. “What if it hadn’t worked?”
The faintest smile tugged at her lips. “I wanted the truth. I was going to get it.”
“But where did it come from?” said Nim. “How did you make it?”
“I didn’t. It was woven by Athena on a spindle forged in Hestia’s fire, of fiber harvested from Gaia’s first tree.”
A few days ago, Alia would have laughed, but after tangling with a pair of spiteful battle gods, she wasn’t inclined to scoff.
“Big deal,” said Theo. “You can probably get one on eBay.”
“Off what coast is that located?” Diana asked.
Theo opened his mouth. Shut it. “Good question.”
“So it’s basically organic, locally sourced super string,” said Nim. “Athena is the goddess of war, isn’t she?”
“She’s the goddess of war, but also of knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge is basically—”
“The pursuit of truth,” said Jason.
Diana nodded. “And like the truth, the lasso can’t be altered or broken. I think that’s why I was able to use it against Phobos. It’s true in a way that the terror he inspires isn’t.”
“Nothing’s indestructible,” said Nim.
Diana looped a coil around her hand and flung the rope into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks.
Alia gasped, but the lasso didn’t catch. It lay in the flames, unaltered, visible through the fire like a stone through clear water.
Diana drew it back and passed it to Nim. “See?” she said.
Nim squealed. “It’s not even warm!”
“We should try it,” Theo said.
“Jumping into the fire?” said Nim. “Definitely go for it.”
“The lasso, Nim.”
“It isn’t a toy,” Dian
a said.
“Come on,” said Theo. “One question each. Like truth or dare.”
“I don’t know…,” said Alia.
“Please?” Nim begged.
“You’re actually agreeing with Theo?”
“I’m curious! And Jason survived.”
Jason shook his head. “You don’t want to mess with this. I’ve felt the lasso’s power, and you’re not going to like it.”
“Meaning you’re tough enough to handle it, but we aren’t?” said Theo. His tone was light, but Alia could sense the tension in his words.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Come on, Diana,” Theo said. “Let’s do this.”
Diana hesitated, and Alia wondered if she knew just how much of Theo’s pride was wrapped up in this moment. She breathed a small sigh of gratitude when Diana said, “Okay, but only for a second.”
“Me first!” shouted Nim.
“But I—” protested Theo.
“I called it, and by Holy Right of Dibs, it is mine.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Go on,” he said. “I hope it melts your tiny brain.”
Diana bit her lip and formed a loop with the lasso. “You’re sure?”
Nim bobbed her head. “Hit me.”
Diana slipped the rope over Nim’s head and down to her shoulders.
Suddenly, Nim’s eyes went blank. She sat up straight, slack-jawed.
“Nim?” said Alia.
“What do you wish to know?” Nim replied. Her voice was oddly formal.
“Umm…what should we ask her?” said Alia. “Quick!”
Diana frowned. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anyone react that way.”
“Did you cheat on our U.S. History final?” said Alia.
“The system is corrupt. It was my duty to subvert it.”
“Are you kidding?” said Alia.
“I must tell the troooooth,” said Nim. “You should own more than one color of lip glossssss.”
Alia punched Nim in the arm. “You are the worst.”
“I am the best. See? Truth. And I can’t believe you would ask me something that boring. Of course I cheated on the history final. Mr. Blankenship is a terrible teacher. If he wants to bore me to death, he should expect me to cheat on his crappy test.”
Wonder Woman: Warbringer Page 26