Theta

by Lizzy Ford

  “To harness my power, I’d have to kill her first,” I said, thoughts on the third trial I had not yet completed.

  “All the more reason to keep you in check,” Cleon said wisely.

  They made too much sense. As much as I didn’t want Cecelia to be my enemy, it was looking as if she were going to be the next name on my memorial wall instead of Cleon.

  “How do I kill her?” I asked quietly.

  “You have to touch her, and then you’d have to overpower her,” Pythia said. “With her guard up, it’s virtually impossible. You can’t access the full power you need to beat her in a direct confrontation, and she’s likely safeguarding her body in a manner which would prevent you from reaching her to try.”

  “If I can’t get to her from my world, can I from here?”

  “You understand too well,” Pythia said. “How long have you been here, waiting for me?”

  “An hour. Maybe two,” I answered. “We came to ask you about my visions, but stopping Cecelia seems more important.”

  She was looking into the distance, towards the compound. “What of them?” she sounded distracted.

  “How do I know which ones I want, and which ones lead to total annihilation?”

  “With a gift as strong as yours, the visions will follow a sequence or pattern or contain meaning only you can understand. A single vision may tell you nothing, but looking at the larger picture created by several will reveal clues you wouldn’t see otherwise,” she said. “Is there a common theme? Location? Sequence of events?”

  “Adonis,” I said. “He appears in three of them, and he’s always dead.”

  Cleon drew nearer. Our minds were working hard to identify other trends.

  “What else?” Pythia asked.

  We were quiet, our thoughts bouncing back and forth through one another’s minds. Cleon was stuck on the vision I hadn’t wanted to look at too closely, the one of me in Hades speaking to Adonis. The more he dwelt on this particular premonition, the more I began to see what he did.

  “Adonis is the key, but I don’t know how,” I said. “Lantos is convinced I’ll kill him, and he appears in Hades to … find me? Warn me?” I looked at Cleon.

  “It has to be warn,” he said. “Based on what he told you, his death isn’t an accident.”

  “He dies because …” My eyes went to Cerberus. “… because he knows I can see him, no matter what world I’m in, which must mean, my body and my mind are separated.”

  “Good,” Pythia said. “What else?”

  I closed my eyes. I felt so close to understanding.

  “Adonis is sent to Hades to warn me in one vision. In another, I am with Cecelia …” I started.

  Cleon picked up the thought. “… in the caverns, where Lantos stands and claims he will die a hero for betraying everyone …”

  “… while Tommy – who can speak to Thanatos – looks on …”

  “They’re not watching me, but something happening in a place where only Tommy can speak to one of the gods present.”

  I gasped suddenly, and the visions clicked into place. “They all occur on the same day, in reverse order in which I foresaw them!” I exclaimed.

  “Adonis is killed in the morning. The walls are breached around noon, while Lantos is standing in the cavern with us. At dusk, the world ends,” Cleon said.

  “To stop this sequence, Adonis can’t die,” I said and glared pointedly at Cleon. “This is the warning, isn’t it? Lantos said Adonis was the key, and he also said I’d kill Adonis when I wasn’t in control of my body.”

  “I would guess this is correct,” Pythia said. “It is not always possible to discern the why behind what we foresee, only the event itself. Somehow, the death of Adonis causes a chain of events that results in you being unable to stop Cecelia.”

  Neither Cleon nor I were able to understand how this was possible. It was implied from the vision that Adonis’ death was purposeful.

  “Lantos,” I said. “Lantos kills Adonis. It’s why he and Tommy are in the cavern.”

  “Betray them all, die a hero,” Cleon recited the words Lantos had spoken. “We are frozen, and he can’t reach us any other way then to send someone you care about into Hades.”

  “It’s not me directly who murders Adonis. It’s his best friend because of me. Because my mind is lost.” My heart was pounding. “So if Adonis lives, we have a chance to stop the end of the worlds.”

  “Yes,” Pythia said.

  “That seems easy,” I said, growing excited. “We just tell Lantos, and he won’t kill Adonis.”

  “Lantos never should have been involved,” Pythia said. “I spoke to him a few weeks ago. He knew too much, and he was going to become an instrument through which Cecelia could bring about the apocalypse.”

  “You were his moment of clarity,” I said. “She twisted his mind like she did mine.”

  “I … stepped out of line to help,” Pythia admitted. “Cecelia, you and I have all seen the same sequence and interrupted it in different ways.”

  “She knew the only way to get to Adonis was either through me or Lantos.”

  “She chose the weaker of the two of you.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. I’d been chatting daily with Cecelia before she fell into her coma. She knew all about the friendship between Adonis and Lantos, because I told her. Before I could discuss this further with Pythia, Cleon gasped and leaned against a tree.

  “She’s found the next weak link,” Pythia said, eyes on him.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Cleon, irritated he chose now to have issues, when we were making such headway.

  “Vertigo.” He was unsteady and clinging to the tree.

  “Someone has his body,” Pythia said.

  Cleon paled, and I stared at her. “What?”

  Cleon pushed himself away from the tree, headed towards the compound, and then collapsed where he was. “Go,” he said urgently.

  I hesitated, not wanting to leave him only to discover he’d planned to take my body while I was distracted.

  “I will stay with him,” Pythia said, sensing my fear.

  After a long look at him, I bolted and moved through the brilliantly hued world with speed that wasn’t available to me in my own reality. The moment I stepped foot into the mall, I stopped. The flurry of activity was unreal, with lines of troops on the lawns, helicopters buzzing overhead and the shouts of commanding officers competing with the blare of alarms and voices over intercoms and radios.

  I started past the formations, headed towards the house. Halfway there, I sensed something out of place, a tickle to my instincts, and turned away.

  Cleon strode among the formations, flanked by officers with stars on their uniforms. Disoriented, I tried to process how he could be in two places at once, before Cleon’s thoughts surfaced loudly in my mind.

  That’s not me, he said.

  His alarm was second only to mine, and I rushed to the side of Cleon’s physical body, not understanding how his body was here, walking, when his mind was with Pythia. As if feeling my presence hovering, Cleon looked directly at me.

  I stepped back. This Cleon’s eyes were blue, not brown like the real Cleon’s. Blue like …

  Cecelia’s eyes.

  He smiled and moved on.

  I remained in place, trying to quell the tumbling emotions and thoughts that weren’t fully mine. Cleon was urging me to do something, to retake his body, to … I didn’t know. I had never seen or felt him this upset.

  My gaze turned towards my villa, and I raced across the lawn. The front door was open, and soldiers lined the hallways while another half a dozen tore the villa a part. I floated through the walls towards my bedroom, terrified of what I’d find.

  “Please be there,” I whispered to my body.

  Reaching my bedroom, I stopped to scan the damage. The bed was overturned, the mattresses shredded, and the rest of the furniture tossed around as if by a hurricane. I ran around my bed twice, searching for my body, before lif
ting my eyes to the soldiers tearing apart my closet.

  Our magic works here, Cleon reminded me.

  I reacted instantly to the jarring reminder and turned everyone in my room into a gummy statue. Shaking and desperate, I searched the entire room for my body before floating into the hallway. I turned all the soldiers into statues, lifted all the furniture in the villa and attached it to the ceilings, and searched everywhere.

  “Where is it?” I cried, panicking.

  I explored the entire villa again and returned to my bedroom, sucking in breaths fast and quick.

  “She’s been here.” Cleon’s voice made me whirl. His human body strode into the room, faded and ghostly. None other than accompanied him. “She might still be.”

  “If she is, I cannot see her,” Lantos said.

  I glared at the Supreme Priest. How long was he in on Cecelia’s plan? Why was he working with her, when he had been the first to dime her out to me?

  Did he know with whom he was dealing at all? Or did he believe he was talking to the real Cleon?

  “Alessandra, if you’re here, it’s only a matter of time before I find your body and possess your power,” said Cecelia through Cleon’s mouth.

  I picked up the dresser with my power and hurled it at her.

  The real Cleon panicked. The dresser bounced off the green ribbon around Cleon’s body and smashed into the wall beside his body instead of hurting him directly.

  It wasn’t her ribbon I saw but mine. In choosing her host, Cecelia had picked one of the two people in the world I couldn’t hurt with my magic. Cold fear shot through me. How was I supposed to stop her? Where was my body?

  “She’s here,” Cecelia said. “Any luck finding Adonis?”

  “None. He disappeared.”

  “How can a human simply disappear on a compound this big?”

  “You called off the searches before the sweeps were complete. He obviously slipped through to the city,” Lantos said.

  Lantos was lying. He knew exactly where Adonis was, because he had been the one to take him away. I studied him, unable to understand his secrets.

  “First Niko, then Adonis, and now Alessandra. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had something to do with their disappearances,” Cleon rounded on Lantos.

  I held my breath.

  “Too bad you see me in your final vision, or you could just kill me off,” Lantos said with a confident smile.

  Any concern I had for him vanished. He could handle himself in any situation.

  Cecelia wasn’t pleased by the answer. She glanced around again. “Find her body!” she shouted to the soldiers outside the door.

  Lantos stepped aside as she stormed out. When certain she was gone, he stepped into the middle of my room. His smile and confidence seemed to fizzle, and his features became haggard.

  “Your body’s safe, Alessandra. Adonis is as well. I took him far away, so neither of us could hurt him,” he whispered. “I am trying hard to undo a great injustice I helped create. This is my fault, and I am sorry.”

  I stood before him, beginning to understand. By listening to Cecelia, he had thought he was helping prevent the inevitable, while in truth, he was furthering her agenda. I had fallen into a similar trap.

  For the first time since meeting Lantos, I pitied him.

  Cleon appeared at my side, staggered, and then darted after his body. His emotions were a frantic mess interfering with my ability to focus.

  “She’s ordered a strike on the Silent Queen’s compound,” Lantos continued. “It will start soon. If you can help her, please do so.” Genuine regret was on his features.

  Operation Bloodline. Site Persus.

  I didn’t have this inherent knowledge, but Cleon did. The details of the operation were as familiar to me as if I designed it myself.

  “Where is my body, Lantos?” I asked, alarmed to learn it had been hidden by the master of secrets, who could transverse a shadow world no one else on the planet could. “How did you know to hide it?” And what was he talking about when he seemed to be saying he wanted to right something he’d done wrong.

  He didn’t hear me.

  “Betray them all, die a hero,” he murmured.

  My breathing quickened. He had said the same thing while waiting with Tommy in the caverns in one of my visions.

  “What does this mean?” I whispered.

  A gunshot rang out, and Lantos staggered.

  I cried out and scrambled away, then realized I was safe in the alternate reality.

  Lantos fell to the ground in the middle of my bedroom. His eyes darted to the shadows under the bed nearby. Blood poured out of a wound in his neck, and he grabbed at it with both hands, desperate to stop the gushing blood.

  “In my premonition, I was in Alessandra’s body.” Cecelia was in the doorway. “You’ve disrupted the sequence of events I chose. Thirty years planning, and you did the one thing I couldn’t plan around.”

  Lantos opened his mouth and tried to speak. Nothing came out.

  “Unlike your friends, I don’t take betrayal well.” Cecelia lowered the weapon. “I definitely won’t trust you to lead me to her body without tricking me. You already changed the future, Lantos. I don’t need you anymore.”

  She turned and left him to bleed out.

  “No, no, no!” I knelt beside him and reached forward, wanting to help him, before recalling I couldn’t physically touch him. Sitting back, I wracked my mind for what to do. Lantos hands fell away from his neck, and his eyes took on an empty look. “Dr. Khan!” I cried.

  Seconds later, the befuddled physician materialized in the doorway. She was in a bathrobe with wet hair, as if I’d caught her just after a shower. Looking around in surprise, she hesitated only a blink when she saw Lantos bleeding in the middle of the floor. Dr. Khan hurried forward and knelt beside him. She reached out immediately with one hand to apply pressure to the wound.

  I paced anxiously. I had wanted his name on my wall at one point, or thought I did. Watching him die, and knowing Adonis would be heartbroken by his death, I couldn’t help thinking it was wrong to wish him dead. He had, in his own twisted way, tried to help me.

  Within a minute of touching him, Dr. Khan sat back. Her white robe bloomed red from blood, and her features were drawn.

  “No, no, no!” I repeated and dropped beside her.

  The blood created a pool around them both, extending for two yards in every direction. Lantos’ eyes were blank, his face blanched.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Khan whispered to him.

  Tears stung my eyes, and I stared at his lifeless form.

  “Both our bodies are lost,” Cleon said. He was seated on my bed, slumping.

  Conflicting emotions immobilized me. I didn’t know what to feel about losing the one person who seemed to know what was going on, even if he used that knowledge to further his agenda. Now that he was gone, would the bond between Adonis and me be restored? Would I need my spirit back in body first?

  I looked from him to Lantos. Where exactly had he taken my body? And Adonis?

  Movement across the room caught my attention, and I stood, startled to see Lantos in the black-gray-mirror leading to Hades. He stood beside Cerberus in much better condition than how he’d left the world.

  He lifted a hand and waved to me. I waved back. With one of his characteristic smiles that made me wonder if he knew this would happen, he turned away and walked into the gateway leading into the underworld. Cerberus trailed him, and the gateway closed behind him.

  Numbed, I didn’t know what to do.

  “I do. We murder her,” Cleon said.

  Pythia was present, emerging from a wall. “Come with me. Quickly.”

  I wiped my face. Was it wrong for me to want to be as far from there as possible? Did this emotion somehow cheapen Lantos’ death or disrespect him? I had seen his spirit enter Hades, which I took to be a good sign.

  Disturbed, I followed Pythia through the villa and back to her forest. This time,
a third form was present, and my heart melted.

  “Mrs. Nettles?” I asked, grateful to see her.

  “Not quite,” Pythia said with a smile. “Artemis has been hidden in her body, spying on the titan’s son who is now dead.”

  I frowned.

  “Mrs. Nettles is fine,” Pythia assured me.

  Distressed by the murder I’d just witnessed, and struggling with what emotion I should feel, after Lantos’ betrayal, I sat on the boulder.

  “I have limited power,” Artemis said through Mrs. Nettle’s tiny body. “What is left, I promise to use to help you.”

  “You have always helped me,” I said. I fell quiet. My mind was wrestling with what I’d learned about the Holy Wars and the person who manipulated me the most. “Is all this my fault? Because I’m not strong enough?”

  “It is one path of many,” Pythia answered.

  “Cecelia put all this in motion long before you were born,” Artemis said. “She manipulated Lantos into betraying you all, in her favor, and would have continued to ruin your chances of making everything right, if the first Oracle hadn’t interfered when she did.”

  It wasn’t easy for me to accept I needed the help of gods when I’d been raised to believe they were a blight on humanity.

  “I have to stop her,” I said, mind on Cecelia. A different emotion was settling into my breast: fury. Lantos was a politician. His betrayal had stung, but Cecelia’s? She’d been trying to weaken me from the start under the guise of helping me. And if she succeeded, she brought about the apocalypse.

  “Only you can,” Artemis said. “On our world, there are many gods and goddesses with many different powers. We balance each other out. On this world, there’s only one with absolute power, and only her equal can face her.”

  Everything I’d learned about who I was and what I was supposed to do was wrong. This was not a battle against the gods, but between two Oracles.

  “Not wrong. Just not as straight forward as you thought,” Pythia said, reading my mind. “To send the gods home, you have to deal with the immediate threat first.”