Aphrodite's Flame (29 page)

She looked up into his eyes and saw what she felt in her heart reflected right back at her: love. And trust. “I know you will.” She glanced at Jason, including him in the conversation. “But what about Zephron?”

Jason frowned, and she realized Mordi had left out those details when he’d relayed the story. She filled in the blanks with a quick explanation.

“But what could you have told him about Zephron? I mean, the guy’s basically invincible.”

“Mosquitoes,” she said, then explained what Zephron had told her about the frequency.

“It’s a long shot,” Mordi said. “But if anyone could pull it off, using that to his advantage, Hieronymous can.”

“Have you warned him?” Jason asked.

“Yes,” Izzy said. “I called him on my way here. He promised to be careful. But if Hieronymous knows his weakness—”

“He’ll never stop trying to kill him,” Mordi said. He flipped open his holo-pager and called Zephron. He couldn’t reach the high elder, but was assured by his assistant that the elder was safe and sound and in a meeting.

“So we focus on your dad,” Mordi said.

“What about the treaty negotiations? I thought Hieronymous was all set to get on the Council and bust those up.”

Izzy shook her head. “He won’t be able to. The negotiations are tomorrow at eight in the morning. It’s already nine. And I recommended that the elders
not
let him re-assimilate. Not yet, anyway. Even if he ultimately passes all the tests and they let him in, the negotiations will have already happened. And if Zephron’s watching his back, he’ll be there to push the negotiations through.”

“You entered a negative recommendation?” Mordi asked, looking shocked. “Before all this?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well, you’re the persuasive type.”

Mordi’s slow grin reflected pure satisfaction. “So, am I allowed to say I told you so?”

“Yes,” she said, also grinning, despite everything else that was happening. She turned to Jason. “You’re coming, too, right?”

“He’s coming,” Mordi said. “And bring Davy. We might need him.”

“And the others?” Jason asked, nodding toward the table.

“Stay here. We might need some help on this coast. And there’s a rehearsal dinner to finish.”

Jason went off to tell the others his plan, and to get his son, Davy, who apparently was some big inventor kid who might have some tricks to help them maneuver in the catacombs. He was back in less than ten minutes, and then the four of them were on their way, each clad in a propulsion cloak, soaring through the night toward the catacombs on Olympus.

Actually, Davy, still too young to maneuver a cloak on his own, was strapped to his dad’s chest. The boy was squealing with delight, but he was the only one who seemed happy. The others were somber, lost in their thoughts as they rode the wind. Izzy was drowning in worry, afraid that Hieronymous had lied and her father wasn’t safe at all.

“He’ll be fine,” Mordi said. He swooped closer and took her hand.

“Mind reading now?”

“Trust me. I know my father. He won’t terminate an asset until he’s through with it. Until it has no further value. You’re still around, so he’s not through with your dad yet.”

“I don’t understand why he needed my father at all! Hieronymous can invent anything he wants. Why drag Daddy into this? It doesn’t make sense.” She wanted to lash out, but they were in the air and there was nothing solid to hit.

“An Outcast can’t use his powers. There would have been a blip on the Council monitoring equipment. So he had your father make whatever gizmo he needed. Maybe he made some modifications later, but so long as he wasn’t actually inventing the thing, I bet it went blip-free.”

She just shook her head. “I should have known. I should have known your father wasn’t sincere. But I didn’t. I believed him. Even more, I believed in
me
.” She blinked, and a huge tear fell, dropping down through the clear sky below. “He made a fool out of me.”

“Worse than that,” Mordi said. He urged her closer, and she tucked herself gratefully against him. “He made you doubt yourself. Now you doubt your own worth. Your own abilities.”

She nodded, her tears flowing in earnest. “Yes. And now my father’s imprisoned somewhere, and the Council’s in danger, and
it’s all my fault
.”

“That’s what he does best, you know.”

Izzy frowned. “What?”

“Cuts you down. Makes you doubt yourself. Makes you believe that everything you do borders on incompetent, and that you’re little more than worthless.”

His words poured over her, and his anger was somehow soothing. He knew how she felt. And yet he wasn’t judging her, wasn’t blaming her. He understood and, so help her, she was grateful.

“Why did you stay?” she asked. It was a bold question, invasive, even. But she wanted to know how he’d managed to stay centered, to keep his confidence. Above all, she simply wanted to know everything she could about Mordichai Black.

She felt him shrug, then heard the low rumble in his chest as he cleared his throat. “Desperation, I think. Necessity later.”

“Desperation,” she repeated. “For his approval?”

“And his praise. I guess I just wanted him—once— to say that something I did was right. For him to look at
me
, and not just at the way I could fit into some scheme he had going at the moment.”

“Did he ever?” She wanted to move, to see Mordi’s face. But she was too comfortable as she was, and so she simply leaned in closer, enjoying his masculine scent and the strong promise of his arms around her as they flew.

“No. He came close once. Even intimated that the fact that I was a Halfling didn’t bother him. But by then it was too late. And frankly, I didn’t believe him anyway.”

“I can’t imagine growing up like that,” Izzy said. Her own father had loved her with an intensity that was almost palpable. He’d played silly games with her, told her she could be anything she wanted to be, and never once made her feel like she was anything less than fully and completely loved.

She closed her eyes, once again fighting back tears.

“It will be okay,” Mordi said. He stroked her hair. “We’ll get him out. And he’ll be fine.”

She nodded, sniffled, and tried to pull herself together.

“I want to know, Izzy. Why did you come to me? I mean, I was in L.A., and we’d said all those things....” His words were soft, his voice husky.

“I...” She swallowed. “Because you knew from the beginning. He’s your father, and you saw him for what he really is. I needed help, and you—well, it made sense to come to you. It didn’t make sense to go to anyone else.”

“That’s it?” he asked. He sounded vaguely disappointed.

She shook her head. “No. There’s more.” She licked her lips, knowing how the truth would sound, and was ashamed in advance.

“Tell me.”

She met his eyes. “Because you love me.”

Something hard and almost sad flashed in his eyes. “Yes, I forgot. You can see my emotions.”

She shook her head. “No. I can’t. Not anymore.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There are some folks that I can’t read because that’s part of their Protector skills. And then there are others, like my dad, that I can’t read for other reasons.”

“What reasons?”

She licked her lips. “Well, I didn’t actually know why I couldn’t read my dad. And then, today, I realized.”

“Izzy.” His voice was firm, no-nonsense. “We’re almost there. What are you trying to say?”

“I can’t read my dad because I love him. I realized that had to be the reason when I stopped being able to read you.”

She couldn’t look at him, but he didn’t let her get away with that. He took her chin in his hands and tilted her face until she had no choice but to either look into his eyes or to close her own. “What are you telling me,
Izzy
?” he asked, his voice soft.

“I’m telling you I love you.” Surprisingly, it felt good to say it out loud. “I love you, Mordi!”

His mouth curved into a smile and he pressed his fingers to her lips. “I love you, too.”

“I know,” she said. She bit her lip and grinned. “I
did
read you a while back.”

“Yeah? Well, in that case, you may have said it first, but just remember who felt it first.”

“Always,” she said, then squeezed his hand.

“I’m going to get your father back for you.”

“I know.”

She looked down then and saw the mountains rising up. Jason and Davy were in the sky below, and she and Mordi swooped, following. Mordi pointed to a pile of collapsed stones. “That’s the entrance,” he said. “The stones are a Protector-generated illusion.”

“Where are we?” she asked. The air was thin and cold.

“Someplace mortals never come.”

They landed easily enough, and even though these were the very catacombs that housed the Henchmen and many other things that go bump in the night, gaining access was relatively easy.

“Walking through the catacombs isn’t forbidden,” Jason explained. “In fact, in some situations it’s encouraged. Deterrent, you know.

“Anything that can come out and get you is locked up.”

Indeed, as they moved through the dank, moss-covered tunnel, Izzy heard cries in the darkened corners. She couldn’t see the cells, though, and Mordi explained that all walls were of solid stone.

“How do they eat?” Sweet Hera, her father hadn’t starved to death, had he?

“I don’t know. But I know the catacombs provide sustenance. How, though ...” He probably shrugged then, but it was too dark for her to see.

“We’ll never find him this way,” Jason said. “We have hundreds of levels here.”

“Daddy!” Izzy cried out. They didn’t have time to search hundreds of levels. “Hieronymous would keep him near the surface,” she said to Jason and Mordi. “Easily accessible in case he needs my father.”

“She’s probably right,” Mordi said. Then: “Harold! Harold Frost!”

Jason and Davy added to the cries, and they all called out in turn as they started down the main hallway, feeling their way so they didn’t accidentally pass any branches or turns or alcoves.

On the third level, they got lucky.

“Izzy?” Harold Frost’s hoarse voice drifted toward her, barely a whisper.

“Daddy!” She raced to the cell and began pounding on the stone, looking for a pull, a latch—anything. “I’m going to get you out of there, Daddy!”

“I knew ... you’d ... come for me.” Exhaustion tinged his voice, and Izzy shot a worried look at Mordi. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and the lichen on the walls down here gave off a phosphorescent light that gave him a slight green tinge. From his expression, she could tell he was worried, too.

“Here!” Her fingers found a metal box embedded in the stone. She tugged and yanked, but couldn’t manage to get it open. “Damn it!”

“Let Davy try,” Jason said.

Izzy wasn’t entirely certain what the eight-year-old could accomplish, but she wasn’t about to argue.

The boy had brought a backpack full of gizmos, and now he pulled out something that looked like a Gameboy, but when he pulled two wires from it and slipped them into a thin slot on the box, she knew the toy must have been modified. There was a
pop
, some sparks, and then the box cover flew off.

“Thank goodness!” Izzy cried.

“It’s not open yet,” Davy said, his eyes wide and serious behind Harry Potter-style glasses. “That just got the lock box open.” He squatted down, then squinted at the inside of the box. “Oh, wow. This is super neato.”

“Davy,” Jason said, a hint of reprimand in his voice. “Work fast.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

While the boy got down to business, Izzy leaned closer to the cell and shouted encouraging things to her father. “Any time now, Daddy, and you’ll be out of there. We’ll go home, have brownies and ice cream, and watch
Flubber
as many times as you want!”

His voice was too weak for her to hear his answer, and she turned to Mordi for moral support. He, however, was watching Jason, who was holding his holo-pager up to his ear, all the functions except sound apparently turned off.

“What? I can’t hear you.” He twisted, cocking his head so that the holo-pager was closer to the ceiling. “The reception is terrible. Say again?”

Izzy watched as Jason’s brow crinkled. Finally, he hung up. “What?”

Jason turned, and even in the dim light she could see the fear in his eyes. “Zephron is gone. And Hieronymous has been admitted to the Council. Which means that, come morning, he’s going to rejoin the Inner Circle ... and he’ll therefore be the elder in charge of the treaty negotiations.”

“How?” Izzy asked, and Mordi’s head spun. “I recommended
against
letting him back on the Council.”

“That’s what Zoë said. Apparently, the elders decided to ignore your recommendation.”

Izzy slammed her hand into the wall, and Mordi moved to take her in his arms. “It’ll be okay. We’ll stop this. Nothing bad will happen. We’ve stopped our dad before. We’ll do it again.”

“But he’s got Zephron,” she sniffled. “And he’s in the Inner Circle.” She pulled back, then, as if she’d just realized what she’d said. “
Why
is he in the Inner Circle?”

“Heritage,” Jason explained. “Neither Mordi nor I are old enough, but our family always holds a seat in the Inner Circle. Our grandfather’s seat was vacated when he retired. Our uncle, Zoë‘s dad, would have sat there, but he retired before he reached the Age of Elder and declined the place. Now that Hieronymous is back in the fold, the seat automatically goes to him.”

“Automatically?” Izzy asked. “Even after everything he’s done?”

Jason met Mordi’s eyes. “Apparently, no one’s filed a formal complaint.”

“The fountain pens!” Izzy said, her voice nearly a whisper. “I just realized. That’s how Hieronymous did it. He altered my father’s fountain pens.”

“What are you talking about?” Mordi asked, though something tickling the back of his mind made him think he already knew.

“The elders all have had these purple fountain pens. And they said that Patel was distributing them. My dad said the pens were special, designed to perfectly get all your thoughts out. What if Hieronymous altered them to put thoughts
in
?”