“Let me say goodbye to Owen before we go,” Kala said to Talan.
She walked over to her foster dad and placed a hand on his arm. He turned and hugged her. “You leaving with Talan?” he asked as he pulled away.
Kala nodded. “He’s taking me to Lotun.” She watched Owen’s face for a reaction.
He didn’t seem surprised. “If any of the Malaks can help you, she can. She’ll know if Asmodeus was trying to trick you or not. She knows him better than anyone.”
“Really?” Kala mused. Interesting. “Were they friends? Lovers? Enemies? What?”
“I’ll let her tell you. I try not to think of Asmodeus,” Owen stated flatly.
She felt a pang of guilt. Owen knew she kissed the Demon and she didn’t want him to think less of her for it. But the gleam in his eyes when he looked at her told her that Owen would love her forever. “Tell Mom that I love her.” She had only called her foster mother mom once and that was four days ago, but she wanted to get used to it. And the ‘L’ word was getting easier to say, at least when talking about her parents. Owen and Linda were her mom and dad no matter what Iapetus said. And the expression on Owen’s face made it all worth it.
He squeezed her tight. “I will. I love you, Kala.”
“I love you, too.” She pulled away and headed to Talan.
Before she reached him, Antel stepped in front of her. She was truly a stunning woman, her dark skin and eyes to match. “May I have a word?” she asked politely.
“Sure.” Kala wanted to leave, but was curious what Antel wanted.
“Owen told me some of the things you’ve been able to do,” Antel started.
When there were at least ten seconds of awkward silence Kala prodded, “And?”
Antel smiled which made her even more beautiful. “And…I want you to be careful using your gifts. Atlas may have given you strength, but he was weak. A more powerful soul could kill you or worse, take over your body. I can see Atlas in you, but I also see something else… someone else.”
“Who do you see?” Kala’s interest was piqued.
Antel shook her head. “I don’t know, but there is something very special about you, Kala. You are Owen’s daughter and Talan’s soul mate, so I will protect you with my life.”
Soul mate? Kala didn’t feel like arguing the matter, though. Disagreeing with Grigori never ended with convincing them of anything. Once they believed something, that was it. Kala thought she was stubborn, but Grigori were ten times worse. She simply said, “Thanks.” Not knowing what else to say.
Did she swallow someone else, too, when she consumed Atlas? Or was the power that allowed her to swallow him in the first place from somewhere else? She needed answers. All she had was more questions.
She joined Talan’s side.
“Ready?” he asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” she responded.
Talan’s hand wrapped in hers and Kala felt the tingling sensation she always felt when Talan touched her. Which was why she had a no touching rule. But he was teleporting her, so they had to have contact. She shrugged inwardly. The Grigori may believe that she and Talan were soul mates, but she still knew that she had lost her true soul mate when she killed Jack.
Taking a deep breath, her surroundings turned to swirls of light as Talan teleported her away.
They arrived in the middle of a forest. Kala hated nature. Sure, it was beautiful, but it was full of bugs and creatures she wanted nothing to do with.
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere in France,” Talan answered. “Lotun doesn’t like cities. She prefers the forest.”
“Of course she does,” Kala grunted. It figured the one Malak that could potentially help her lived in the one place that Kala couldn’t stand.
The ground was a thick layer of pine needles making it feel spongy as they walked.
After twenty minutes of trudging past endless amounts of trees, Kala grew restless. “Are we going to have to search the entire forest for Malak-girl?”
“You are the most impatient person I know.” Talan appeared amused.
“Because you know so many people,” Kala retorted.
“More than you think,” he smiled.
Kala figured he was right. She knew practically nothing about Talan. Only that he was a Grigori who taught Turner and Roberta in disguise.
And that he had saved her… a lot.
Talan had showed her some of his past in a vision, but it didn’t really tell her anything about him personally. What did he do in his spare time? Did he have a hobby? Owen was Grigori and he had seemed so normal. Owen being in the Navy was the reason Kala had joined herself. He loved Linda and they did what human couples did: eat, sleep, shop, watch TV, and go to the movies. Owen was a bit of a gun enthusiast, which in turn, influenced Kala to be one as well. So if her foster father had interests and hobbies it made sense that Talan would have them too. She just couldn’t imagine him doing anything but stand there, teaching some kind of super-science-magic-trick or beating up Malaks or Demons.
She was about to ask Talan what his favorite color was, when a woman stepped out from behind a tree in front of them.
Damn these angels and their good looks, Kala eyed the woman who she knew was Lotun. Though her clothing made her look like an ordinary camper with dark brown khakis and long sleeve, fitted t-shirt, there was nothing ordinary about her. Her eyes were overly large in contrast to her small nose and lips. Everything about her was delicate from her lithe figure to her tiny hands. Kala guessed that Lotun was five foot two at the most. Being only five foot six herself, Kala still felt like a giant looming over a child.
Lotun’s hair was long and pale blonde. It lay in perfect waves as if she had just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. Kala unconsciously touched her own auburn hair that she had tied up in a messy ponytail, feeling self-conscious in front of the Malak. She was over it in about a second when she realized she didn’t care.
Lotun spoke, first addressing Talan with bedroom eyes. “My Grigori has brought me a toy?” She eyed Kala with a smile.
Talan went straight to business ignoring her flirtations. “Hello, Lotun. We need your help.”
The Malak dismissed Talan’s plea for help as she stepped up to him, tracing her finger over his jawbone seductively.
That was it.
Kala couldn’t watch this a moment longer.
“Asmodeus sent us.” She thought she’d tell a half-truth, just to see what Lotun would do. And, more importantly, so she’d stop touching Talan.
Lotun finally turned to Kala with interest. “Did he?” But her interest in Kala was fleeting; she turned her attention to Talan. “Everyone knows you’ve been back, you know.”
“I told you.” Kala couldn’t resist. She loved being right.
Lotun focused on her. “Who are you?” Then she stared at Kala, really stared. Her eyes widened. “Atlas?”
At the sound of Atlas’s name, Kala was transported to another memory. This one was a doozy, and she began to lose consciousness. Feeling Talan’s hands hold her up felt as if it were happening to someone else. Kala was aware of his presence, but could do nothing to signal that she knew he was there.
The memory took over and flooded Kala’s vision.
She stood in the same forest, which only added to the surrealness of being in two places at once. It was almost as if someone had projected two movies on top of each other.
Different stories, but identical location.
Lotun was there and she appeared very angry with Atlas. Honestly, it didn’t feel all that different than the situation she was in now with Lotun. And Kala wasn’t surprised that Atlas pissed off another being of power. The guy was seriously annoying.
Before the memory version of Lotun could speak, Kala heard the real Lotun’s voice. “Interesting. She’s having a memory about me. Can you bring her back?”
Talan spoke. “Atlas shows her what she needs to see. She’ll return to us when it’s done.”
Ka
la’s mind reeled. Atlas shows her what she needs to see? Atlas? As if he was swimming around in her head, alive and well. She tried to tune Talan and Lotun and concentrate on the vision.
If a part of her subconscious was Atlas, then her brain was trying to show her information that could be valuable. Kala knew in the depths of her soul that Atlas was dead and not lurking in her head, but it was interesting that Talan wasn’t so sure. He really had no idea what was going on. It made Kala feel a little better that she wasn’t the only one in the dark. But at least she knew some things that no one else did. She liked secrets. It was one of the reasons she’d taken the job with Turner. Secrets usually kept you safe. The person that knew the most would often be the person with all the power.
The memory of Lotun screamed at Atlas. “This curse is a plague on us all!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I’m the one who has to do it.” Atlas crossed his arms defensively. “Why did you bring me to this horrible place?”
On that Kala and Atlas could agree. Nature was pretty on TV and in coffee table books, but not in real life.
“Because I can break the curse of balance.” Lotun’s voice was full of determination.
That had both Kala and Atlas’s attention.
Inside, Atlas’s pulse raced a mile a minute and he was beyond excited, but his voice was steady as he asked, “How?”
Lotun wore a look on her face that Kala didn’t like, but she could tell Atlas was clueless. She had seen that expression before a thousand times on the field when facing her enemies. It said: I’m going to have to kill you now. So she wasn’t surprised when the Malak admitted, “The only way to break it is ancient magic. I know the ritual and it will release what Zeus did to you and return the fates to their natural order. But Atlas, you’ll have to make the sacrifice.”
Atlas was too self-involved to understand what she was telling him. “I’ll make a sacrifice. What do you want? My children? Pleiades or Kalypso? Take them. They never did me any favors.”
What a prick.
Kala almost wished Lotun had killed him at that moment, but then… But then her life would have been perfect! She would have been with Jack because he never would have trained to be the Atlas-surrogate, and she never would have shot the President.
Yeah, she wished Lotun had killed him then and there.
But this was only a memory.
Lotun set him straight. “No, Atlas, your children are safe whether you care or not. The sacrifice is you. You have to die for the ritual to work.”
Atlas paused for a few moments before he spoke. He grew angrier and angrier the longer he stared at Lotun. “You want me to die?” he asked incredulously.
“To bring order back to the world, yes,” Lotun spoke confidently.
“But I do that perfectly well alive.” Atlas could not see how under any circumstances Lotun would ever imagine he’d agree to her idea.
“It’s not about your job. It’s about Zeus tearing balance from the universe itself and turning it into a curse. It’s not natural. It needs to stop.” Lotun wasn’t leaving room for argument. “I’m going to do this, with or without your permission,” she added.
Atlas teleported away before Lotun could grab him. Kala could feel his terror. It dawned on her that this memory took place right after the Titans had betrayed the Olympians and then Zeus had refused to free Atlas from the curse. Penny had kept Atlas in hiding, showing him how to trick humans into doing his job. Lotun’s plan couldn’t happen because she never found Atlas. Tricking humans really was his witness protection program.
Before Kala could read anymore of Atlas’s thoughts, she was back in the present with Talan and Lotun.
She was on guard. “Look, before you try and perform that ritual on me, I’m trying to break this curse as well.”
Lotun eyed her carefully. “You came to me. I can break this curse. And now you know how.”
Talan’s face showed his confusion, so Kala filled him in. “She has to kill me to do it.”
Talan was all fury and fire. The Grigori equivalent of puffing up.
Even Kala was a little scared. He didn’t look any different, but he radiated power like he was a nuclear warhead.
“If you touch her…” he began to threaten.
“Relax. I don’t even know if it would work. She’s part human and that may throw the whole thing off. I’ll have to research it.” Lotun didn’t like Talan’s puffing at all. It made her view Kala like competition.
Then something occurred to Kala. “Could you kill Atlas inside of me? I’d gladly sacrifice him to break the curse.” If she could get rid of both at the same time… her heart surged with hope. She’d lose her superpowers, but that didn’t concern her. She just wanted out of this struggle between gods, angels and Demons.
Lotun sighed. “Possibly. I’ll see what I can find.”
If this was possible, it was bittersweet. Only Atlas had known about Lotun’s ritual, and he didn’t tell Kala when she had begged him to get out of killing Jack. If Kala had known, she felt like she could have forced Atlas to do the ritual rather than swallowing him. Jack could have lived if Atlas hadn’t been such a coward.
Kala didn’t want to die either, but she would if it meant saving the planet.
She just wasn’t there yet. Doing the job herself kept the world safe. If the ritual meant they had to kill her, the universe would take over her job. So, it didn’t make the situation better, it simply shifted the responsibility back to the fabric of space as opposed to Atlas.
“You do that and get back to…” Kala’s vision went wonky.
Everything blurred and she stumbled to catch her balance.
She felt Talan’s hand propping her up, his voice etched with concern, “Kala, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” Kala answered.
She could see it now.
Lotun was inside her head.
Reaching, searching, reading her thoughts.
Kala lost her motor functions. She tried to warn Talan, but he obviously thought she was having another memory.
Trying to push Lotun out of her mind was impossible. She felt helpless as she heard Lotun’s voice inside her body. “The cure for cancer, huh? Interesting. It could save so many lives, why would destroying it keep the balance?”
Lotun sounded like a scientist trying to figure out a formula that had been giving her trouble.
“What’s this?” Lotun was like a kid in a candy store picking through Kala’s brain. “Oh, how tragic. Killing the love of your life.” Then her voice turned frightened. “The prophecy...”
It was too much.
It didn’t bother Kala that Lotun found out about her mission, or even that she was the Fated One. It was the way she dismissed Jack, as if it were nothing.
But it was everything.
This time it was easy. Kala tapped into her hidden power and grabbed the very essence of Lotun crawling around inside her.
Lotun screamed. Not just in Kala’s head, but outside as well.
Talan held onto Kala tighter and she could hear him asking Lotun, “What’s happening?”
But Lotun kept screaming.
Kala squeezed the part of Lotun that was inside of her with all of her might until she heard a pop.
In an instant, Kala’s motor functions were back in working order.
She was on her knees with Talan beside her.
Lying in front of her was Lotun, eyes wide in terror, staring at Kala like she was some kind of monster.
Lotun’s voice cracked as she uttered, “You’re the Fated One.”
“Duh.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“We know this already.” Kala quickly rose to her feet with a little help from Talan.
Lotun carefully stood up as well, her eyes never leaving Kala’s.
“What happened?” Talan was completely at a loss.
“Such power,” was all Lotun could say.
Kala had felt it too, but she had no idea where it came from. She exp
lained to Talan, “I bumped her out of my head. Maybe it was something that I picked up from Roberta?” Maybe it was, Kala rationalized. Or at least, that was what she wanted to believe. Having an untapped power source wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. It was like having an atom bomb stuck inside you without any idea when it would go off.
With a withering expression, Lotun asked, “Roberta Turner? Are you still teaching her your tricks, Grigori?”
Grigori. So impersonal. Guess she was mad at Talan now.
Talan ignored her, his attention never leaving Kala. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Kala nodded. “I’m fine.”
A desperation filled Lotun’s eyes. “I have to see more. I’m sorry I have to!”
SLAM!
Kala wasn’t prepared for Lotun to smash into her brain a second time. She tried to tap into her wellspring of power again, but was too off balance.
Lotun’s voice echoed in her head. “It is you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Kala had no idea what she was talking about. She only wanted Lotun to leave.
She heard Talan’s voice. “I come in an act of peace and this is how you treat me? Invading Kala’s head like she was yours to play with?”
SWOOSH!
Kala gasped for breath as Lotun left her mind.
When she looked up, she saw why.
Lotun was engulfed in green fire, sent from Talan’s outstretched hands.
She screamed in anguish. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t stop myself! I had to see! I had to!”
He twisted his hands and the green flames roared louder and touched the trees with their height, though the pine needles didn’t ignite.
Lotun’s skin wasn’t burning, but her face was wracked in terrible agony. Her screams turned silent.
It was horrifying.
“STOP!” Kala yelled at Talan.
He glanced at Kala. Whatever he saw there made him extinguish the fire.
Grigori Returned (The Atlas Series Book 2) Page 15