by Jenna Black
Hiding these Liberi fugitives gave Anderson a huge amount of power over them. If he needed something, and they refused him, he could hand them over to the Olympians. I didn’t know if even he was ruthless enough to do such a thing, but it would make for a compelling threat.
“Nikki, you might not like how I go about things, but I am trying to keep these people safe, and I could sure use your help.”
And I needed the money, unless I dipped into the trust fund. Which was the lesser of two evils: tapping the trust fund or letting Anderson draw me ever deeper into his world?
I was already being forced to live in the mansion because of the treaty Anderson had crafted with the Olympians. The Olympians had agreed that Anderson’s Liberi and their families would be off-limits, and living in the mansion was what made someone “Anderson’s Liberi.” If I didn’t live in the mansion, the Olympians would be free to continue their efforts to recruit me—efforts that included tactics like raping my sister. The Olympians had justified the attack by saying that Steph didn’t count as family because we weren’t blood relatives. Anderson had killed the bastard who hurt Steph, and Konstantin—the self-styled “king” of the Olympians—had sent a specious apology along with a promise to leave my adoptive family alone as long as I was one of Anderson’s Liberi.
“Did you set the fire at my office to twist my arm into accepting this offer?” I asked, wondering at my ability to see Anderson as one of the good guys and yet still suspect him of something like that.
“No,” he said, completely unoffended by the accusation. “You’ll do it because you want to save lives, not because you need the money.”
Anderson hadn’t known me all that long, but he already had me pegged. If there weren’t lives at stake, I’d have chosen taking money from the trust fund as the lesser of two evils in the end. I was already forced to depend on Anderson for room and board, thanks to his stupid treaty with the Olympians. To be forced to depend on him for my salary, too, was something I’d have greatly preferred to avoid.
But seriously, money aside, how could I justify using my abilities to track down deadbeat dads and people who skipped out on their bills when people’s lives were potentially at risk? I knew I was being manipulated. But I also knew I couldn’t live with myself if people got killed because of my selfish desire not to be subsumed.
“I want my old life back,” I said sourly.
Anderson just gave me that knowing look of his.
ONE
Early January is not the best time to enjoy the outdoors in Arlington, but Anderson and his bitchy wife, Emma, were having a screaming argument in the house, and outside seemed the best place to be to avoid hearing it. I closed the front door behind me, and the shouting voices were muffled down to a low buzz. The winter air bit at my cheeks, and I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jacket to keep them warm. Definitely not my favorite kind of weather, but the silence was sweet and soothing.
Figuring that I could handle the cold for a while, I sat on the picturesque porch swing and tried to pretend my life was my own. The illusion was hard to uphold when I lived in the mansion and spent my days working for Anderson, examining the covers he had built for the Liberi he had hidden.
He’d actually done a surprisingly good job, in large part thanks to Leo, our resident descendant of Hermes, who had become a computer genius in order to better keep his finger on the pulse of the financial world. I hadn’t found too many blatant holes in the covers so far, though I’d patched many small ones and still had a long way to go before I was finished.
My feet had gone numb, and I was beginning to think it was time to go in, when I noticed an unfamiliar car navigating the long driveway. I shivered in the freezing air as I watched the car approach, wondering who it could be. We didn’t exactly get a lot of visitors at the mansion. That was sort of the point of the place. Whoever this was, someone was expecting them, since they had to be buzzed through the front gate.
I heard the door open behind me and turned to find Anderson stepping out to join me on the porch.
“Back inside, Nikki,” he said, jerking his thumb at the house. “We’re meeting in the formal living room.”
I swallowed to contain my instinctive retort. I wasn’t fond of being ordered around. A few weeks ago, when I’d thought Anderson was “just” a Liberi, I probably would have told him so. I wasn’t a timid person, but I found I couldn’t look at Anderson anymore without picturing him as the pillar of white fire he had turned into when he’d shed his disguise, and that image was more than enough to discourage my smart mouth.
I stifled my urge to protest and ducked back inside the mansion as Anderson waited on the porch for our mysterious visitors. The warm air flushed my cheeks, and they were probably red enough to look sunburned. Guess I’d been outside longer than I’d realized.
I made my way to the formal living room. I think the last time I’d set foot in there had been when Maggie gave me the grand tour of the house the night I’d moved in. It really was a formal living room, and Anderson’s Liberi were a decidedly informal bunch.
The sofa and many of the chairs were already filled with other members of Anderson’s household, with the notable exception of Emma. I guessed that meant her fight with Anderson was over—or at least on temporary hiatus. It was well nigh impossible to win a fight with Anderson, and Emma didn’t take well to losing. Often, she flounced off in a huff afterward; other times, she’d go completely nonresponsive, staring off into space. She’d been Konstantin’s prisoner for about a decade, until I’d found her and rescued her (with Anderson’s help). When we’d first brought her back to the mansion, she’d been the next best thing to catatonic, and sometimes I harbored the guilty thought that I’d liked her better that way.
The woman was disturbed, no doubt about it, and there was only so much slack I was willing to cut her for the trauma she’d been through. I couldn’t help wondering if some—if not all—of her “episodes” were faked, meant to guilt Anderson into being more agreeable. Sometimes it seemed to work. Other times, not so much.
I sat on a chair that, judging by the hardness of its seat and the carved knobs that dug into my back, was meant to be more ornamental than functional and leaned over toward Maggie. She was the closest thing I had to a friend among the Liberi.
“Any idea what’s up?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “We have visitors, and I’m guessing it’s Olympians, because Anderson gave us his ‘my house, my rules’ speech.”
I made what I was sure was an ugly face. Anderson trotted out that phrase whenever he made an unpopular decision—like, for instance, when he invited me to live in the mansion. I was pretty sure that if it came down to a vote, I would be out on my ear. They were a close-knit bunch, Anderson’s Liberi, and I was very much on the outside looking in.
“Sorry I missed it,” I muttered, and Maggie laughed. She was a descendant of Zeus through Heracles, and she had the super strength to prove it. She was also by far the nicest of any of the Liberi I’d met. “Why would an Olympian be coming here?” I asked. I wouldn’t quite say we were at war with the Olympians, but it was close. I suspected I knew what Anderson and Emma had been fighting about—her hatred for Konstantin and the Olympians was truly epic.
“I’m guessing we’re about to find out,” she said, jerking her chin toward the front, where Anderson was leading three people—two men flanking one woman—into the living room.
The woman was petite and fine-boned, like me, but that was where the resemblance ended. Her ash-blond hair was cut in a stylish bob, and though she wasn’t classically beautiful, she was striking. I’d guess her age at around thirty—if she weren’t Liberi, which meant she could be a thousand years old for all I knew. Her posture was regally straight, with an aristocratic tilt to her chin that said she thought she was better than everyone around her. But then, she was an Olympian, and feeling superior to all non-Olympians was one of the membership requirements. The navy-blue skirt suit she wore looked like i
t cost about as much as your average compact car.
Beside the woman was a guy, maybe early twenties, with coarse-looking black curls and olive skin. He wasn’t movie-star handsome, but he was roguishly cute, with a hint of dimples. He didn’t have the woman’s haughty demeanor, and he was dressed casually in jeans, a button-down shirt, and a slightly weathered sportcoat.
The other man had the look of hired muscle. Broad-shouldered, with buzz-cut hair and a square face, he was obviously wary of everyone in the room. The iridescent glyph on the side of his neck proclaimed him to be more than strictly human, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was a mortal Descendant, not a Liberi himself. At least, not yet.
Anderson invited the woman to sit in an armchair. When she crossed her legs, she made sure to flash the red soles of her Louboutins. Apparently, she wanted everyone to know that she was rich, because acting superior wasn’t obnoxious enough. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, so our other two guests stood, the Liberi beside the woman’s chair, the Descendant behind, looking menacing. As a Descendant, he could do what no one else could: kill a Liberi, thereby stealing his or her immortality and becoming Liberi himself. Well, no one else but Anderson, but that was far from common knowledge. His eyes suggested he was sizing us all up.
Across from me, Blake leaned forward and glared at the woman. He was a descendant of Eros and had once been a reluctant Olympian himself, until Anderson had offered him an alternative.
“You wouldn’t be here if Anderson hadn’t given you safe passage,” he said. “Bringing your goon with you is an insult.”
There was a glimmer of amusement in the woman’s eyes. I doubted the insult had been unintentional, and Blake was giving her exactly the reaction she wanted. The goon didn’t seem to mind being talked about that way, and the other guy deepened his dimples by smiling.
“How do you know the goon isn’t mine?” he asked. His voice was pleasantly deep and mellow. “You could be taking Phoebe to task for something that is entirely my fault.”
Blake looked back and forth between the two men and shook his head. “He’s not your type, Cyrus.” There was noticeably less hostility in his voice when he addressed Cyrus.
Cyrus laughed, looking over his shoulder and giving the goon a visual once-over. “Too true,” he said, turning back to Blake. He leaned a hip against Phoebe’s chair and propped his elbow on the top of it, his casual demeanor a striking contrast to the goon’s menace and Phoebe’s stiffness.
“This is supposed to be a peaceful meeting, Blake,” Anderson chided. “Don’t start a fight.” He gave Blake a quelling look. Blake crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat.
Anderson turned his attention back to the two Liberi. “I believe you know everyone here except Nikki,” he said, gesturing to me. “Nikki, this is Cyrus, Konstantin’s son.”
I might have blinked a bit in surprise, though now that I knew he was Konstantin’s son, I could see the faint resemblance. Cyrus was much better-looking and didn’t immediately set my nerves on edge as Konstantin had the one time I’d met him. His smile looked genuinely friendly, but looks can be deceiving.
“And this is Phoebe,” Anderson continued.
“Also known as the Oracle,” Blake said, and my eyes widened.
Blake had told me about the Oracle once before. She was a descendant of Apollo, and she had visions of the future. According to Blake, her visions were usually impossible to interpret until after the fact. It was thanks to some vision of hers that the Olympians had found out about me in the first place, and that automatically made her not one of my favorite people.
Phoebe looked me up and down, her lip faintly curled with disdain. Apparently, she wasn’t impressed by what she saw. I can be sensitive about my looks sometimes, but I’d been looked down on by better snobs than Phoebe, and her disdain didn’t bother me.
Phoebe dismissed me with a little sniff, turning her attention back to Anderson. “Let’s not pretend a courtesy we don’t feel,” she said. “You don’t like us, we don’t like you, but at the moment, that’s beside the point.”
“Speak for yourself!” Cyrus said. “I like everybody.” His visual once-over had been just as assessing as Phoebe’s had been, but far less unpleasant. I was certain he wasn’t a nice guy—otherwise, he wouldn’t be an Olympian—but he put up a better front than any other Olympian I had met.
Phoebe gave him an annoyed glance. “We’re here on business, remember?”
“I see no reason that should prevent us from being civil.”
Either they were doing a good cop/bad cop routine, or Phoebe and Cyrus didn’t much like each other. I put my money on the latter. The animosity between them seemed genuine.
“Why don’t you tell us why you’re here?” Anderson asked. I was sure he already knew, or he wouldn’t have let the Olympians set foot in his territory.
Phoebe uncrossed her legs—I wondered if she’d crossed them in the first place just so she’d have the excuse to flash her Louboutins—and got down to business. “I had a vision.”
“I’m shocked, shocked to hear that,” Blake stage-whispered.
Phoebe spared him a curl of her lip, then pretended to ignore him. Cyrus sucked in his cheeks as if he was trying not to laugh.
“One that concerns both the Olympians and you people.” There was a wealth of derision in the way she said that last part, and more than one of Anderson’s Liberi stiffened at the insult. A quelling look from Anderson forestalled any interruption, and Phoebe continued.
“If you’ve been reading the papers, you may have noticed that there have been a string of rather bizarre deaths in the area over the past three weeks.”
Once upon a time, I’d been pretty good at keeping up with the news. Being up-to-date on current events struck me as a job requirement for a private investigator, but I’d been so distracted by my new life that I’d been slack about it lately.
“You’re talking about the wild dog attacks, right?” asked Jack. He was a descendant of Loki, and making trouble was his religion. I wouldn’t have expected him to be up on current affairs—that smacked almost of responsibility, a concept he usually disdained.
Phoebe inclined her head without speaking. Perhaps she didn’t want to answer questions from “us people.”
Jack let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes heavenward. “You’ve found me out!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “My evil plan is foiled!”
The air around him shimmered, and moments later, he disappeared, replaced by a massive black dog that looked like a cross between an Irish wolfhound and a pit bull. It barked loudly enough to rattle my teeth, then let out a fierce growl and bit the air.
It seemed I was the only one taken aback by Jack’s little stunt. I’d had no idea he could do that. I made a mental note to look up Loki on the Internet when this meeting was over. Honestly, I should have spent some time researching everyone’s divine ancestors by now, but I was still trying to adjust to my new reality. I had enough trouble worrying about my own ancestor and abilities without looking into others’, at least for now. Maybe that was self-centered of me, but it helped protect my sanity.
Anderson shook his head in long-suffering patience. “Jack, sit. Stay. And shut up, while you’re at it.”
Jack gave him a doggie grin, complete with lolling tongue, then jumped back onto his chair, changing back into his human form in midair. I must have been staring at him in open amazement, because he turned to me and winked. I looked away quickly.
Phoebe was sneering again, and Cyrus’s eyes twinkled with humor. He seemed to think pretty much everything was funny—rather like Jack, come to think of it. It made him seem less dangerous, and I realized that was the point. With his dimpled cheeks, Cyrus wouldn’t be that good at overt menace, so camouflaging it to lull everyone into a false sense of security was probably a calculated strategy.
I put my speculation aside for the moment and looked at Phoebe. “What do wild dog attacks have to do with the Liberi
?”
“They’re not really wild dog attacks,” she said, her every word dripping with condescension. Evidently, she didn’t have a very high opinion of my intelligence.
“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t be here talking to us if they were,” I said. “I was just trying to move this conversation along.”
Phoebe glanced sidelong at Anderson, as if expecting him to chastise me for speaking out of turn. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then Phoebe continued.
“In my vision, I saw a man with a jackal’s head being dragged through an institutional-looking hallway under armed military escort. I believe that means there’s a Liberi behind these attacks and that he’s descended from Anubis.”
The sum total of my knowledge about Anubis was that he was an Egyptian god with a jackal’s head. Despite everything I’d seen and been through already, I always felt a little shock of incredulity when hearing about someone being descended from a god. A mental Yeah, right was still my natural reaction, although I’d feel stupid about it two seconds later.
“If I’m right,” Phoebe continued, “we have to stop him before the mortals track him down. If the government gets its hands on a Liberi … Well, it would be bad. For all of us.”
Blake snorted. “Notice how the fact that there’s a Liberi out there killing people is completely irrelevant to this discussion. If the Olympians weren’t worried about their own hides, they’d just sit back and enjoy the show.”
“I don’t see any sign that you’re out there hunting the killer already,” she retorted.
“Oh, we were supposed to know already that these wild dog attacks are actually the work of a Liberi?” He raised his eyebrows at her in a mockery of polite inquiry.
“You know now,” Cyrus interjected, surprising me by taking the heat off of Phoebe. Not that I thought she appreciated it. “We don’t have to have great and noble intentions, do we?”