Just as Selene decided they’d both be washed all the way to Brooklyn, the tide stilled. She treaded water for a moment, catching her breath, knowing full well that another wave would follow the first.
A strangled gasp drew her attention to Flint, who flailed wildly, vainly attempting to hold his bag of electronics over his head. He sank beneath the black water for a moment, the bag with him, then came up spluttering.
Philippe let go of his lamppost and struck out toward his stepfather, moving with surprising swiftness. He grabbed Flint under the arms and dragged him back to the lamppost. Flint clutched the pole, his head resting against his hands as his chest heaved.
Selene knew they had only a few minutes of respite. “Dash, come with me to find Paul!”
He pulled out one of his pistols, his face stricken as water poured from its barrel.
“Styx,” Selene snapped. “You can’t help if you’re not armed.”
Philippe swam toward her instead, brandishing his small bow. Selene would rather have had Dash’s speed, but she’d take whatever she could get.
They paddled as fast they could toward Castle Williams, Dash calling after them: “I’ll get the boat so we can skedaddle out of here—I’ll be waiting when you get back with Paul.”
As they reached the wall of the castle, a second wave rushed forward. But this time the rising water worked in their favor; it carried them up until they floated just below the roof. Selene hauled herself up the rough brownstone walls, then crawled across to peer down into the courtyard.
Philippe came up behind her, his yellow hair plastered to his head but his eyes bright with determination. The courtyard had flooded to the second story.
She could see no movement through the castle’s windows nor on the taller roof that ringed the opposite side of the building. The rubber raft, tied to a drainpipe, sat empty.
“Do you think they all drowned in there?” Philippe asked, his voice shaking—whether from cold or fear she couldn’t tell.
“Start a tsunami with no way to survive it? These guys seem more organized than that.” She tried to sound confident, but her pulse raced. I’d know if Apollo were dead, she told herself. Part of me would die with him.
“We’re going into the castle through the windows, then?”
Before she could reply, a low voice said, “Why not just wait for them to come out?” To her shock, Flint had clambered up behind them onto the roof.
“How did you get up here?” she asked.
He lifted one crutch so she could see the large silver balloon sprouting from the top. “Flotation device,” he muttered. “Works great … except when it jams.” He pressed a button on the side of the handle and the balloon quickly deflated, sucked back inside the hollow leg of the crutch like a chewing gum bubble.
Philippe grinned. “Bravo, Papa. Or you could learn how to swim.”
Flint just grunted.
On the opposite side of the courtyard, a large third-floor window swung open. Selene raised her bow and pulled a silver arrow from Paul’s quiver—at this point, she needed to save her last two gold shafts. Philippe nocked a dart to his own miniature bow.
“You going to make them all fall in love with you?” Selene asked, wishing again she had a more useful relative around.
A man in black body armor dropped through the window and into the waiting raft below. Selene didn’t hesitate. Her shaft streaked like a comet across the yard. With unerring aim, the arrow struck the man in the head—and bounced harmlessly off the opaque faceplate of his helmet. It tumbled into the water below as if it were no more powerful than a wooden shaft. Whatever special properties Paul’s divine arrows still possessed, they didn’t work for her—and now her clumsy attempt had only alerted the men to their presence.
“Try aiming for the crack between helmet and neck guard,” Philippe offered.
She grabbed a wooden arrow to do just that, but the man drew his gun and fired two shots toward the roof, forcing her to lie flat as the bullets whizzed above their heads.
“How invulnerable are you?” Philippe asked her.
“Not enough to risk getting shot in the face.”
He nodded. “Me neither. Not with this face anyway. What about you, Papa?”
“I heal no faster than a mortal.” Flint said it matter-of-factly, but Selene knew what the words must have cost him.
“So there goes a frontal assault,” Selene decided. She dared to lift herself up on her elbows, only to have another shot ring out, the sound echoing crazily in the round fortress. She flattened herself once more. “Good aim. These guys know how to fight, even if they aren’t Martin’s men.”
The creak of an opening door ripped her attention away from the courtyard to the upper roof opposite her position. The door to the stairwell swung open, and a second armored man emerged, holding a rifle. From his higher vantage point, he had a clear view of the three Athanatoi. Selene reached desperately for an arrow as another bullet from the man in the courtyard sent concrete chips flying just inches from her hand.
The armored man on the roof pointed his rifle straight at Flint’s broad chest. Before he could fire, Selene sent a wooden arrow into the chink between his shoulder and arm. She’d been aiming for his neck, but shooting a bow while lying prone was never easy, even for her. He dropped his rifle and clutched at his arm.
Selene slung her bow over her shoulder, where it clanged against Paul’s. She clambered up a ladder to the upper roof. As she pounded toward her quarry, she could smell his streaming blood. He snatched up his rifle with his left hand, tearing off in the opposite direction.
Selene sprang like an antelope, floating in a silent, graceful arc for three heartbeats before tackling him to the ground and ripping the rifle from his hand. She turned it on him, pressing her foot against his chest to hold him still.
“DON’T—” cried Flint just as she shot the man point blank in the neck.
“Merde, Selene!” Philippe shouted as he ran up behind her. “We could’ve gotten information out of him.”
“Before or after he shot you in the heart?” She ripped off the man’s helmet. He was still alive, but barely. His bloody lips moved, but she could make out only a single gurgled word: “Pater.” Then he fell still. A middle-aged man, face lean and weathered but unremarkable. Noticing a black arrow tattooed on his inner right wrist, she pulled up his sleeve to see the entire design: the spear and shield “male” symbol of the planet Mars. She checked his other wrist: the stylized hand mirror of Venus, also the universal symbol for “female.”
She had no time to look any further; a shot whizzed by her ear from the courtyard.
She threw herself to the ground, Philippe beside her. Flint, who’d only just managed to make it up the ladder, lay with his large duffel shielding his head.
“Come on, we’ve got to find cover!” she shouted.
Before her loomed a Civil War cannon that promised a bulletproof shelter. The massive iron weapon, its barrel fifteen feet long, pointed out over the water toward the lights of Manhattan. They crawled toward it and crouched behind its base. “Too bad we don’t have some cannonballs to lob at this asshole,” she complained. The shots fell like hail, ricocheting off the cannon with earsplitting pings. She peeked out between the iron struts, looking down into the courtyard.
“The rest of the men are coming out the window,” she reported. “They’re holding something shiny …”
“What?” Philippe couldn’t see with his back pressed against the cannon.
“Paul’s alive … but they’ve got him. And they’ve captured your father, too.”
Two black-clad soldiers held a net that shimmered in the moonlight like molten metal. The gleaming threads bent and twisted as the figures within it struggled to escape. Selene could make out Paul, stripped of his wool coat, his unbound hair tangled about his face. He writhed like a trapped cat, shouting curses at his captors. It’s going to be all right, she told herself. Mars is there, too—he’ll break them out. Yet the M
an-Slayer lay curled in a ball, his hands over his face. Selene recognized him only by his build—nearly seven feet tall, with arms as muscled as a wrestler’s and thighs that strained against the fabric of his military-issue fatigues. He crouched in the net’s grip like a babe afraid of the dark.
“That’s my golden net,” Flint grumbled from beside her, peering over her shoulder.
“The one you made to trap my parents?” Philippe asked. “How’d the cult get their hands on that?”
“I have no idea. I buried it on Lemnos millennia ago. But if it still works, they’ll never be able to break free.”
“Why not?” Philippe sounded desperate. “My father’s still strong.”
Flint paused before replying, as if ashamed of his words. “I made it so that only someone who truly loved me could rip it open.”
“Does Martin know that?” Selene demanded.
Flint shook his head.
“Then why isn’t he trying to escape?” None of it made sense. Not the tattooed attackers. Not the cowering god. Not the fact that her twin had walked right into a trap and she’d let him do it.
The man holding the bottom of the net dropped into the boat, now floating halfway down the first story as the water receded. The other stood on the window ledge, holding the net steady. Selene rested a wooden arrow against her bowstring, took a deep breath, and leaned out from behind the cannon’s protective bulk. The arrow struck the man standing in the window, lodging in the gap between shoulder and neck. He gave a strangled cry and retreated into the fort, dropping his side of the net: It crashed into the boat, falling open as it went.
Paul rolled free before the men could stop him, slipping over the side of the raft like a seal and disappearing into the black water. Mars merely raised his head, looking dazed. His features were much as Selene remembered: a sharp blade of a nose, regal forehead, brows that slanted upward like an eagle’s wings. But his mouth, once a fierce, unsmiling line, now hung open like a bewildered child’s. He made a weak clutching gesture with his right hand, as if he expected his spear to be there. Then the two men in the boat threw the net back over his head. Mars barely struggled.
The men turned their attention back to the water, their gun barrels twitching as they searched for sign of Paul.
The rubber raft rocked as if something had fallen into it, and another man materialized in the stern, pulling a dark Grecian helm with long cheek guards from his head. In his right hand he gripped a gleaming spear, nearly eight feet long. His widow’s peak and sharp jaw reminded her of a hawk.
“Leave Apollo!” the man commanded. “We can’t risk losing what we already have.”
“He’s holding Hades’ helm and my brother’s spear,” rumbled Flint unnecessarily.
Selene barely heard him. She watched the water, desperate for any sign of her twin. Finally, she spotted him emerging onto the low rise of a hill over three hundred yards away—out of sight of the men in the courtyard. Paul crawled slowly from the water, but then turned and looked directly at her—their old connection still held. He gave her a weak wave.
She reached for another arrow to send toward the man with Mars’s spear but paused when Flint grabbed her arm. “Look!”
The man she’d shot in the shoulder had reappeared in the window, his pistol pointed straight at her. He’d removed her arrow; now blood streamed down his chest plate. Without his black military helmet, she recognized his olive skin and squashed face—the same man who’d attacked her in the Central Park blockhouse.
He pulled Hermes’ cap from the bag at his waist and flew toward them, the metal wings a bright slash against the dark sky. At the same time, the raft’s motor roared to life, and the boat headed toward the castle’s exit.
“You guys go after the raft. We can’t let them take Martin,” Selene said. “I’ll deal with the flying guy.”
“No,” Flint insisted, reaching for the hammer on his back. “It’s too dangerous. Let me—”
But Selene cut him off by stepping out from the cannon’s shadow with her hands raised in the air.
“Hi again,” she said calmly to the man flying toward her.
He hovered at roof level, his pistol aimed at her chest. Behind her, she was dimly aware of Philippe pulling Flint toward the stairwell entrance, but most of her attention remained glued to the gun wavering in her attacker’s hand. She was honestly surprised he could hold it at all with the arrow wound in his shoulder.
“Don’t move!” he shouted.
“Now, now, don’t shoot. You need me alive, don’t you? More victims for your special rites.”
“I’ll take you dead if need be.” His voice trembled. “You’ll all be dead before long anyway.”
“Oh?” she asked innocently. “It seems to me that you’re getting out of here with only Martin and me.”
“We didn’t expect so many of you or we would’ve brought reinforcements,” he answered defensively. She was surprised—he spilled his secrets like a sieve. Young, indeed.
A longer shudder passed through his body and his arm twitched. As he reached to loosen his armor where it chafed at the wound, she saw the tattoo on his neck. When she’d seen it in the park, she’d thought it a cross. Now she recognized it as an upside-down symbol for the planet Mercury: a circle with an arc on one end and a cross on the other, representing the god’s snake-twined caduceus.
While he struggled with his armor, she seized upon his momentary distraction and leaped off the roof like a bird of prey, catching him in midair. She landed a punch hard on his chin while grabbing his wounded shoulder with her other hand. He screamed in pain, eyes squinting shut, and dropped his gun from nerveless fingers into the last remaining feet of water. They jerked through the air like a kite on a gusty day as the cap strove to keep them both airborne.
As they careened over the ramparts of the castle, she punched her attacker in the face. She felt his cheekbone shatter under the impact, but he remained conscious. Teeth bared in anger, he raised both hands to her throat and squeezed. This feels familiar, she thought as she scrabbled with her free hand at his grip. Where moments before she’d felt like a raptor, now she was a mouse in a hawk’s talons.
She struggled, raising a knee into his groin, but only managed to bruise herself painfully on his armored crotch. Just as the lack of oxygen dimmed her vision, a steel dart sprang from the man’s chest, passing cleanly through his body armor. The God of Love has unerring aim when he shoots for the heart, she realized, grateful for once that Philippe still possessed some preternatural powers.
The man yelped, but the dart fell free with no sign of blood; its short tip must have barely pierced his flesh. He smirked at her, his confidence restored. “You think your weapons are any match for ours?” he asked, tightening his grip on her throat. She tried to croak out a response, but no air would come. This is it, she thought. Death at the hands of a mortal man who’s stolen our power for his own. It seemed apt, somehow, in this Age of Man.
The man’s face grew suddenly pale and sweat ran down his forehead. His eyes rolled desperately, and he gasped in pain. As he weakened, the cap’s wings began to jerk and spasm in response. She glanced down and saw Dash’s motorboat below her, the Messenger at the wheel, the Smith and the Bright One in the center, and the God of Love perched in front of the cockpit with his bow raised and a confident smile on his lips.
Her attacker released her. She plummeted through the air; the flying man—no longer flying—tumbled beside her, clutching at his chest as his heart finally succumbed to the God of Love and ceased beating.
She splashed into the water feet first, hitting the roadbed with a thud that nearly broke her ankles, then shooting back up through the frigid water like a cork. The tide had receded; she could nearly touch bottom, but not quite.
Her attacker’s corpse floated out to sea, but the winged cap bobbed beside her. She grabbed it by the wings and paddled to the side of the motorboat. Flint reached out a hand to heave her onboard.
He didn’t relea
se her right away.
A ripple of fear passed across his features. “I saw you up there with his hands around your throat …” Before she could respond, he dropped her hand and turned away.
Selene lay the winged cap on a bench and went straight to her twin, who huddled in the bottom of the boat, clutching his knees to his chest. Thin red lines scored his face where the golden net had cut his flesh. She squatted before him. “They’ll pay for this.”
She unslung his silver bow and placed it in his hands.
“I don’t want it,” he said hoarsely.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She wrapped his fingers around the grip. “You’re safe now, and we’re about to get these guys.”
Paul hung his head and let his weapon clatter to the deck. She growled in exasperation. She’d deal with her brother’s emotions later. Right now, they had another Athanatos to rescue.
Dash revved the engine and they took off, heading straight for the other yacht. There were only five men left aboard besides Mars. Pretty good odds, Selene decided. Then again, the cult members had a small arsenal of divine weapons. Poseidon’s trident, Hades’ helm, Mars’s spear, Hephaestus’s net. Who knew what else they might have in the hold?
Flint tore open his duffel and started pawing through his sodden equipment. He pulled out a tiny capsule no bigger than a vitamin pill. “Can you get this into my brother?”
“Not without shooting an arrow shaft clear through him. What is it?”
“Tracking device. Just in case we lose them.”
Selene set her mouth in a firm line. “We’re not going to lose them.”
Philippe raised a hand. “Give it to me, Papa. Sometimes a tiny bow comes in handy.” He quickly affixed the capsule to the end of a dart and aimed for the glimmering net in the back of the hold. His bow released with a comical twang, the dart flying too fast for even immortal eyes to see. Selene didn’t see it strike, but she glimpsed a slight twitch of the net. Mars’s captors didn’t react, so she could only hope the capsule had embedded in the target with them none the wiser.
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