by Sandy James
The goddess frowned. “You know the other Ancients are angered at the patron goddesses. Their voices are raised in legion, their anger aimed at our hearts. I cannot come to your aid again.”
“I’m sorry to have called.” Not a lie. Not really. She was sorry to inconvenience Ganga because she was so reticent to help most of the time. But Ganga had personally sent Sarita on that first mission to capture Marbas, which told her this request wouldn’t have gone unheeded. “I couldn’t let Helen kill Megan,” Sarita added, hoping the words didn’t sound like a flimsy excuse.
The frown that had been fixed on Ganga’s beautiful face faded. “I should have known you did not ask for my help for yourself.” Her hand rose to brush Sarita’s left cheek, tracing the familiar line of the scar, which meant the glamour had ended. “You are so pure of heart, so willing to help others.”
She couldn’t let Ganga believe she was being altruistic. “I needed to be saved too.”
“Ah, but you would never have asked for help for you alone.” The goddess’s hand fell away to smooth her yellow sari.
Since she didn’t see Ganga often, Sarita couldn’t help but wonder why the patron goddess who always seemed loathe to interfere with anything the Amazons did was suddenly willing to entangle herself in this problem. “Why did you send me to capture Marbas?”
“It was necessary.”
Sarita wasn’t going to get any more answers without prodding. “Why? Why was it necessary that I go after a demon Earth should have captured?”
“I cannot explain more. Nor can I help you again.” Rebecca and Gina were jogging out to meet Sarita and Megan, and Ganga addressed them as well. “Hear me now. Your goddesses will not be able to aid you further in this battle.”
“Battle?” Megan echoed. “So there’s going to be a battle?”
Ganga could throw one hell of a fierce glare when she chose to. “Heed me. The Ancients are angered to the point your patron goddesses would suffer should they interfere further.”
“What makes this time any different?” Rebecca asked. “They never want you to help us.”
The patron goddesses were such a contradiction. Creating and endowing the Amazons with one hand, and then washing the other of ever giving assistance in their fights against evil.
“They blame the four of us for creating the Amazons,” Ganga replied. “We made it possible for Helen to join the ranks of the Ancients where she is unwelcome and unwanted.”
Gina set her hands against her hips. “Only took them how many hundreds of years to get pissed?”
“You must remember that hundreds of years are but the blink of an eye to an Ancient,” Ganga said.
Gina nodded but frowned. “Why don’t they just...kick her out?”
“It is not our way. After millennia of conflict—of Ancient battling Ancient, destroying one culture after the other—we have finally learned to live in peace. Should any Ancient upset that balance by attacking another, the wrath of the legion would be unleashed. All of heaven and Earth would suffer. You shall have no help in this task.”
“Bringing Helen down won’t be easy without some help,” Gina said. “She’s using Seior. How can we stop her without divine tricks?”
“We can do it,” Sarita insisted. She sensed the restlessness of her sisters and was fairly overwhelmed with the need to ease it. “We can. Helen’s no different than any of the other rogue goddesses we’ve faced.”
“I don’t know,” Gina said. “I don’t think we could’ve brought Sekhmet down without Helen. And you know it kills me to admit that.”
“Yeah,” Sarita conceded, “but...when it was all said and done, it was you and Zach who kicked her ass.”
At least Gina smiled at the comment. “Well, you were the one who locked Helen in the block of ice to get us out of there.”
“Sarita’s right,” Megan said. “We can do this on our own.”
Ganga put her hand on Sarita’s shoulder. “I must go now. Trust your heart, Sarita. It will not lie to you. Trust your heart, follow its lead and all might turn out well in the end.” On that peculiar pronouncement, the goddess disappeared in a dazzling light.
Sarita had bigger problems at that moment than contemplating the strangeness of the Ancients. “Megan? You okay?”
“Yeah. Wish you would’ve let me retaliate. A couple of good fireballs and Darian wouldn’t be a problem now.”
Although Megan was joking, Sarita let her temper flare. She clenched her hands into fists to keep from taking a swing at her sister.
Why couldn’t they see that Ian was Helen’s victim, not one of her mindless followers?
“No one’s hurting Ian,” she ordered. “No one!” A couple of deep breaths helped cool her anger. “Is that understood?”
Megan held up her hands. “Calm down.”
“Sorry. I just—” With a shake of her head, she changed the topic. “We need to get those files to Johann and Zach.”
“Explain something to me,” Megan said. “This guy set Marbas loose on the world. Then he snatches you up and holds you hostage so Helen can get to us. Then he says he wants to kill Artair. Why would it matter to you if I fried him?”
While she’d always been open and honest with her sisters before, since she’d been at dorcha àite, she’d guarded her thoughts and her words. The time was coming when she’d have to explain everything to them, especially if keeping things to herself meant putting Ian in danger. “It just does.”
“Sarita...” Rebecca laid a hand on her arm. “What happened when you were gone?”
“I can’t talk about it. Not—not yet.”
The concerned stare Gina threw her way meant Air knew she was being blocked from entering Sarita’s mind. “Don’t forget what he’s done to us all. Right now—thanks to him and Helen—every COE on the face of this planet wants us dead.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” With a weary sigh, Sarita glanced to the mess hall. “Can we drop this for now? I need to get out of these clothes, and we need to get these files to Johann and Zach.”
* * *
Sarita was getting tired for waiting for the men to finish analyzing the information.
“That was just too damned easy,” Johann said as he fiddled with his laptop.
The Amazons and Sentinels had gathered in the lodge to formulate plans as they went through the information they’d captured in Helen’s office. While Johann and Zach worked on the files, Artair paced the length of the aisle. The women all stood together and waited. Would they face a full-out attack or something more covert?
Helen was such an enigma, always surprising them. None of the Amazons would have expected to find themselves the most hunted women in the country. No one should have known they existed.
“I thought so too,” Zach said. He had his own laptop open. He and Johann had networked their computers so they could work on projects simultaneously. Both techno-geeks, they’d formed a fast friendship when Gina had brought Zach to Avalon.
Zach had blended in with the Amazons as though he’d always belonged to their motley crew. He’d accepted a supernatural power—the ability to “bind” and hold any magical creature—to help them fight Sekhmet. Then he’d fallen in love with Gina and decided to stay and marry her.
The man had been one of the leading names in technology before he left the everyday world, and he often enjoyed pulling up stories about his own disappearance so they could all laugh at the conspiracy theories on where he’d gone.
Sarita couldn’t help but compare Zach’s easing into Avalon to what would happen if she succeeded in bringing Ian back. Would he fit in with everyone here? Could he ever reconcile his estrangement from Artair? Would her sisters accept him?
What an idiot I am.
There could be no happy ending here.
Whatever relationship she
’d shared with Ian back at the castle didn’t exist anymore—if it had truly existed anywhere but in her mind. Helen had cast some kind of spell on him that had washed his memory. She’d somehow made him fit into this modern world as well. Even if Sarita had the chance to talk to Ian and explain everything that Helen had blotted out of his thoughts, there was no guarantee he’d felt the same way about her she’d felt about him—the way she still felt about him. She might discover he’d done nothing but use her. A warm body to take advantage of in those boring days of captivity.
“This has to be a ruse.” Zach slapped his palms on the table on either side of his laptop. “There’s no way we should be able to get into any really important files that easily.”
“Agreed,” Johann said. “She wanted us to follow this trail.”
Megan came over to put her hands on her husband’s shoulders. “What trail did she want us to follow? Just because she made it obvious doesn’t mean it lacks value.”
“According to this, she’s planning on setting this list of demons loose. She’ll use them as her muscle and to force us out in hopes her COEs will catch us. Not much of a master plan. There’s got to be more.”
Normally, Sarita would have laughed to let everyone know she wasn’t the least bit worried about the threat. But her mind was so full of Ian—her fears for what would happen to him as well as her dread that he’d never remember her—she couldn’t muster any bravado.
She had to get to him before he could do anything stupid—like kill one of her sisters or his own brother. She had to straighten out all his misconceptions about Artair being the cause of the horrible things that had happened to him. Somehow, she’d have to find a way to heal his spirit.
What she needed was time alone with him—a luxury none of them could afford. Not while Helen was driving forward whatever plan she’d hatched this time.
“So she’s coming after us? Like that’s anything new,” Rebecca said. “From the moment I became an Amazon, she’s been a pain in my ass. The woman used the military to destroy Avalon. She rescued one of her worst enemies and plotted with him to kill all of us. And she cozied up to Sekhmet to get what she wanted while pretending to be our ally. All she’s doing different this time is using demons and gullible people instead of revenants as her minions. We can handle them. If any of her people come after us and we have to take out a few, well then maybe—” She took a deep breath before continuing. “Then maybe we should.”
Her husband finally stopped pacing and came to stand by the women. “There is one big difference, Becca mine. These targets wouldnae already be dead. These aren’t revenants. They’re living, breathing human beings.”
Their eyes met, and Sarita saw how easily the couple communicated without words. She had to swallow a flare of jealousy, hoping Rebecca—and Gina and Megan—wouldn’t know how much she envied what they shared with their husbands.
Why had her own stupid heart set itself on the one man she could never have?
“You’re right. We’d be killing people,” Rebecca said. “Live people. Not exactly an Amazon’s job.”
“Even if they’re trying to kill us?” Megan shook her head.
Gina leaned back against the table, resting her bottom on the surface. “I’d do what I had to if it meant bringing Helen down.”
Appalled by what she was hearing, Sarita jumped into the discussion. “Listen to yourselves! Since when do we get to make the choice over who lives and who dies? That’s not what Amazons are supposed to do. We save lives, we don’t take them.”
She’d finally conquered her fear of revenants. How could she raise a sword to a living, breathing person?
The frown Megan shot her was downright mean. “The good of the many is a helluva lot more important than the good of one damned person who would kill any one of us in a heartbeat.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Sarita said. “Look, we can’t just start killing people, even if they’re helping Helen.”
With a shrug, Gina said, “We take ’em out first, they can’t help her. They can’t hurt anyone else, either. Innocents are more important than COEs.”
Megan joined Gina against the table. “Better to hunt them down than to have them hunt us down. Sure Helen wanted us to find that list. Good for her. If going after these demons and eliminating them means we get closer to finding that bitch, I’m all for it. Any Child of Earth who gets in the way, then...we deal with him.”
While she’d always known Megan and Gina were the first to want to tangle it up in a fight, she’d never dreamed they’d be considering hurting humans—even those who probably deserved to spend the rest of their lives dressed in stripes and staring at life through a set of iron bars. “Rebecca, help me out here.”
“Sarita’s right,” Rebecca said. It was unusual for her to take Sarita’s side, especially against Megan. “We’re not superheroes. It’s not our job to chase down minions, even if they’re furthering Helen’s cause. What did they do to deserve death? Destroy some art? Pass a few horrible laws? People make their own misery. That much has been true throughout history. Amazons are supposed to preserve the balance between good and evil, not—”
“COEs are evil,” Megan interrupted.
“Once we turn ourselves into some kind of—of—” Rebecca struggled for the right word.
“Vigilantes?” Sarita offered.
Rebecca gave her a weak smile. “Yeah. Vigilantes. If we do that, there may be no going back.”
A bright burst of yellow light announced the arrival of an Ancient. With the patron goddesses keeping their distance that could only mean it was the one god who had the guts and the ability to venture into Avalon.
“What are you doing here?” Megan asked through gritted teeth.
The god Freyjr—twin to patron goddess Freya and king of the troublemakers—smiled. “My dearest niece. An Amazon called?”
“I didn’t call an Ancient,” she replied, flipping her red ponytail over her shoulder. “And if I’d ever been weak enough to ask for help, you would be the last Ancient I’d look to.”
He flicked at some imaginary dust on the sleeve of his dark Italian silk suit. While the other Ancients preferred to dress fitting their historical cultures, Freyjr loved modern clothing. He looked ready for a GQ photo shoot. His white-blond hair was slicked back, and he sported a large diamond earring in his right ear.
“The cut by family is always the deepest.” He shifted his gaze to Sarita. “Hello, little one. You were the one who called to me in your time of need. You know how quickly I would come if you so much as crooked your elegant finger my way.”
From the time she’d become an Amazon, Sarita had been some kind of forbidden fruit to Freyjr. He’d cajoled, flirted, propositioned—all but promised to take her to the moon. Not once had she been tempted to take him up on whatever sensual promise he was making. Only a fool got involved with deities, especially sexually. His decadent lifestyle only served to disgust her.
“I didn’t call you, either.”
She hated his far too sage smile. “Ah, but you did. I know you, little one. I know what is truly in your heart. That heart begged for me to come here, to be your hero.”
Since everyone was now gaping at her, Sarita shook her head hard enough to set her braid to bouncing. “I didn’t call you!”
When Freyjr tried to touch her scarred cheek, she jerked away. “You are searching for something only I can give you. You want a way to end this fight, to be able to face Helen on her own terms and defeat her. You want a way to bring Darian MacKay back to your side.”
How could he possibly know so much about her thoughts? She hadn’t even shared them with her sisters. “But I—I—didn’t call you.”
“I can give you what you want. I can give you all of it.” He addressed the other Amazons. “Helen will destroy you. Without me, the fight will
be the end of the Amazons. All of you will die at her hand. Unless, that is, you take from me what you need to destroy her. I must teach one of you how to use Seior.”
“Doesn’t matter if I face death by fighting her,” Megan said. “Nothing you can say would make me learn Seior. I saw what it did to Sparks. I won’t let it turn me bad.”
“Ah,” he purred, “that is what you fear? Losing yourself to the black magicks? Dearest niece, you have been misinformed if you think all Seior is used for is evil.”
“It is evil,” Rebecca said. “It’s nothing but black magicks that bring misery to anyone who practices it.”
Freyjr clucked his tongue as though scolding a naughty child. “I assure you, beautiful lady, that I have felt no misery from practicing the art.”
“You’re an Ancient,” Megan said. “You can control it. A human can’t. None of us want anything to do with something that dangerous, Freyjr. You can just go away now.”
“Ah, but you are wrong. Each of you has already been touched by Seior.” Freyjr nodded at Megan. “Seior is why you are here. It is what allowed your mother to go to Beltane undetected and mate with your father.” A nod to Gina. “Seior is what gave your man the power he needed to bind Sekhmet.” And finally he inclined his head at Rebecca. “And it gave you your son.”
“My son was a gift from Rhiannon!” Rebecca’s shout echoed through the mess hall as the men came to stand behind their wives.
“A gift given through magicks, just as you channeled the dark magicks when you were a goddess and restored the fertility of your sisters.” A chuckle slipped through his lips. “You felt it, didn’t you, Rebecca. The power. The strength.”
Artair was the first to speak. “’Tis time for you to go.”
The god gave Artair a disgusted scoff. “And you—the most hypocritical of them all. You would be dead, Sentinel, had Earth not channeled the power Seior gave her to bring you back to this world.”
“That wasn’t black magicks,” Rebecca insisted. “I was able to harness the power from Gaia, from my mother. That’s how I brought him back.”