Crossfire (Book 1) (The Omega Group) (10 page)

Mirissa found herself standing in the same clearing she
remembered from her first visit to Tritonia a year ago. Nothing had changed.
When she looked down, she saw that she was wearing the warrior costume that
she’d found so funny last time. It was the ancient leather version of a
halter-top and skort. The green top wrapped around her neck and crossed over
her breasts until it wrapped once more around her waist. The skort, a
combination of shorts and skirt, hung only a few inches past her hips and was a
rich brown color.

My dad would really hate this outfit
, Mirissa thought
with a smile.

A moment later, Mirissa’s jaw dropped as she took in the
sight of Greco standing next to her. He was almost naked, wearing nothing but
the male version of the brown leather skort, and he looked amazing. His
shoulders were broad and his torso ripped with muscles that flexed with his
every move. His abs were a taut eight pack and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on
him from head to toe. She’d seen him training at the Baxter’s farm but he’d
always worn sweats and a T-shirt so she’d had no idea how good he looked. When
women said they wanted their man to look like a Greek god, this was what they
meant.

“Close your mouth, Mirissa.”

Clamping her jaw shut, she got her mind out of the gutter.
“Nice skort, Greco.”

The look of annoyance that crossed his face told her that
this wasn’t the first time he’d heard that.

“Let’s find Myrine and get to work.” With that, Greco led
her down the same path she’d traveled before. When they reached the statue of
Artemis, Mirissa had the strangest feeling that she was being watched.

“I’m so glad that the two of you are here.” Myrine, the
Amazon queen from two thousand years ago that was the namesake for all the
queens that followed her, was standing behind them with the same comforting
smile Mirissa remembered from her visit here a year ago. She must have been on
the other side of the statue, which explained Mirissa’s weird feeling of being
watched. “We have much work to do so let us not delay.” Myrine briefly put her
left hand on the leg of the statue and then walked them over to the edge of the
clearing. “You are coming into your powers, young warrior, and now you must
learn to properly use and control them. Tell me, what have you accomplished
thus far?”

Mirissa didn’t know how to answer that question. She hadn’t
actually accomplished anything yet, unless you counted shaking dishes and
messing with a werewolf an accomplishment.

Greco answered for her. “Her first experience was earlier
today. She lost her temper and affected the room and the people around her.”

“Well then,” Myrine continued in her soothing tone, “we will
start at the beginning.” Grabbing Mirissa’s right hand, she said, “Focus your
mind on the power of the ring. Call it forth.”

Almost immediately, Mirissa’s ring began to grow. The snake
wrapped itself around her arm until its head was at her shoulder.

“Very good. Now ask it to produce its blade.”

“What do I say?” Mirissa asked.

“Words are not necessary. You are connected to your ring, so
your thoughts are all you require for communication.”

Mirissa silently asked the snake to produce the blade, and
it did just that before she finished the thought. She then asked it to put the
blade away, and just as quickly the knife was pulled back.
Very cool
.

“Your ring will respond to your thoughts, but that is not
all. It also has—how do you young people say it?—a mind of its own. When you
activate your ring it becomes fully aware. It will always obey your requests,
but it will also take action when it deems it necessary, even if you do not ask
it to do so. It will use its body to protect yours and its magic to help you.”

That explained her lack of a bullet wound that morning even
though she had been sure she was shot. The snake must have blocked it.

“That is the extent of the power that Amazons have with
their rings, but you are different,” Greco added. “You have more power within
yourself than any Amazon ever. Your ring, therefore, is also much more powerful
as it is connected to you.”

“So,” Mirissa asked, “what are my other powers?”

“To be honest,” Myrine answered, “we don’t know the extent
of your powers. They’ll grow and change as you get stronger.”

“You said that your senses were magnified earlier, so let’s
start with that.” After nodding at Myrine, Greco ran across the clearing and
disappeared into the surrounding woods.

“I want you to focus your mind on increasing your senses,
Mirissa. Your eyesight, your hearing, your sense of touch and smell.” Myrine
held her hand as she breathed slowly in, silently willing her senses to
increase. In an instant, the world around her changed. Every detail was crisp
and magnified. Mirissa looked up and could see a caterpillar crawling across a
leaf at the top of a tree. She could hear the sound the wind made when it blew
through the spider web that was nestled up in the branches.

“Can you hear me, Mirissa?”

“Greco?” Mirissa spun around to find that, other than
Myrine, she was still alone. She knew that she’d just heard Greco’s voice, but
he wasn’t anywhere near her. “Where are you?” she asked.

“He can’t hear you, but it is wonderful that you can hear
him whisper from that distance.” Myrine smiled.

“I want to try something,” Greco said as he came running
through the clearing toward them. He stopped a few feet away from Mirissa and
looked at her. “Try to push me away with your mind. I know you can do it based
on what happened at the house earlier. Just focus your mind and push me.”

Mirissa looked warily at him, as though she was afraid she
might hurt him. He gave her a reassuring nod to encourage her to try. She
closed her eyes and took a slow deep breath to center herself, then trained her
mind on pushing Greco back.

When Mirissa opened her eyes, Greco was lying on the ground
in the center of the clearing, surrounded by a dozen Amazons. At first she
thought they were trying to help him, but she soon realized that they were just
using the opportunity to fawn all over him. One particularly leggy brunette had
her hands on him, rubbing his arms and chest and cooing in his ear. Mirissa
could feel her anger rising as this “Trampazon” leaned in and put her arms
around his waist.

In the blink of an eye the brunette was flying backwards,
landing hard on her rear about ten feet away from Greco. Although she knew it
was bad, Mirissa had to admit that she kind of felt better after that. Then she
saw the look on Myrine and Greco’s faces.

“Mirissa,” Myrine said, “you must learn to control your
emotions. These powers that you have can do much good, but they can also do
much harm. You must understand that.”

After helping the brunette get back on her feet, Greco came
over to where they stood, raising one eyebrow at Mirissa in a “what the hell?”
look.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to do that.”

“I know you didn’t, but now you know that you can, so be
more careful. I’d like to try something a little more controlled. This time,
instead of pushing me, lift me into the air and hold me there.”

Again, Mirissa focused her mind, keeping her eyes open this
time, and Greco floated up. She held him in position five feet off the ground.

“Don’t look up my skirt!”

Mirissa started to giggle and immediately Greco dropped back
to earth.

He wiped the leaves and dirt off himself and said, “You did
well, but you need to learn how to keep your focus even when there are
distractions.”

“Got it. Walk and chew gum at the same time. What else can I
do?”

Over the next few hours, Greco and Myrine worked to help
Mirissa gain more control over her telekinesis. Her learning curve was short so
they were able to see quite an improvement in very little time. They also
experimented with other power possibilities. She definitely couldn’t shape
shift like Carter or walk through solid objects like Han (that was a painful
lesson to learn), but she was able to start a fire, create a small whirlwind
funnel cloud, and levitate herself long enough to cross the island, with only
her mind. Not a bad day’s work, she thought proudly.

********

When it was time to leave, Myrine asked Greco to walk with her
for a moment. “Why have you not told her?” Myrine asked as soon as they were
out of hearing range.

“I meant to tell her after I left here earlier today, but so
much had happened in Jacksonville and she had so much going on, I just couldn’t
do it. I will tell her everything when the time is right. I promise.”

“I hope so,” Myrine said. “Secrets can be very dangerous,
Greco. You should know that better than most.”

“I do.”

Mirissa was waiting patiently by the statue where they left
her. She gave Myrine a hug goodbye, and a moment later she and Greco faded away
until they were gone from Tritonia once more.

“She is evolving too quickly, Artemis. I fear she won’t be
able to hold on to her control.”

“You underestimate her, Myrine. She learned how to use and
control three of her powers in the short time she was here. Three powers that
she didn’t even know she possessed until today. That was quite impressive. I
have faith that she will fulfill her destiny.”

Myrine thought for a moment. “If she doesn’t, then all is
lost.”

Back on the couch in the safe house’s den, Mirissa sat up
and stretched. Even though her consciousness had spent the last few hours
active, her body hadn’t, and it needed a little stretching. Looking over at
Greco, who was also mid-stretch, she realized that she was more than a little
disappointed that he was fully clothed again.

“I think you’ve had enough for one day. Let’s ask your
mother where you will be sleeping and then you can turn in.” Greco turned and
left the room.

Hmm
, Mirissa thought.
His mood certainly soured
quickly.

The house was buzzing with activity when Greco and Mirissa
emerged from the den. Ken and Jackie sat at a small table beside the fireplace
in front of their laptop computers, furiously typing away. Myrine and Steve
were in the midst of a heated discussion with Myrick and Carter. Han stood to
the side with a cell phone to his ear, speaking Mandarin to whoever was on the
other end of the line.

Myrine looked over her shoulder as they entered the room and
greeted them with a forced smile. “I’m glad you’re back. How did it go?”

Before Mirissa could answer, Greco said, “She did well.
We’ve uncovered a few of her powers—telekinesis, sensory expansion, and the
ability to control the elements—but she still has much to learn.”

“Excellent,” Myrine said. “I need you to stay close to her
while she’s evolving. Help her stay on top of everything.”

“Hello?” Mirissa whined. “I’m standing right here.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Myrine gave her daughter’s hand a
quick, reassuring squeeze. “We’ve just got a lot going on right now. Are you
feeling all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to be doing.
Did something happen here while we were gone?”

“Kind of.” Myrine looked over to where Ken and Jackie were
still plugging away at their keyboards. “Julian, our computer expert, thinks he
may have uncovered something. Daedric has always been heavily invested in oil:
that’s how he accumulated most of his wealth. But Julian now thinks that there
might be more to it than just money. He’s been tracking patterns that Daedric
has formed over the last twenty years and he found a few anomalies, as he put
it.”

Mirissa tried to look interested, but business and
investments were probably the least interesting things she could think of.
I
thought we were supposed to save the world
,
not critique Daedric’s
investment strategies
.

Unaware of Mirissa’s thoughts, Myrine continued. “Daedric’s
investments have always been unusually profitable, incredibly so, in fact which
is why we’ve not paid much attention to them. Him using his powers to become
rich was expected. But Julian has found several large investments that Daedric
made through shell companies that weren’t profitable at all. Most of them lost
him millions of dollars each.”

Mirissa couldn’t help but let her frustration show. “So, he
made some bad investments. Haven’t you been watching the news lately? People
everywhere are losing their shirts these days.”

“You’re forgetting who Daedric is, Mirissa.” Myrine
continued as though in schoolteacher mode. “He’s a demi-god with powerful
abilities. Judging by the strength of ninety percent of his investments, he’s
used those abilities to ensure his success, making him one of the wealthiest
men in the world. Add that to the fact that most of his losing investments
happened in the nineties, a time when the economy was booming, there is only
one conclusion to be made. If Daedric lost huge sums of money, it was because
he
wanted
to.”

Mirissa couldn’t argue with that logic. If she had Daedric’s
powers, she wouldn’t have accidentally lost millions of dollars. “So, what are
Ken and Barbie doing?”

Myrine raised her eyebrows at Mirissa’s use of her nickname
for Jackie. “They are sifting through the data on the companies that Daedric
took large losses on and trying to determine how it benefited him.”

Han joined them as he hung up his phone. “My people are
saying the same thing as everyone else. Preternatural activity is almost
nonexistent right now. Patrols are turning up nothing unusual and no one has
any idea why.”

Daedric allowed a smile to raise the corners of his mouth as
he hung up the telephone. It never ceased to amaze him how easily manipulated
and controlled the humans were. This phone call, like all of the others he’d
made that evening, ended with the phrase “We’re ready, sir.”

It was almost time. After nearly twenty years of moves and
counter moves, all of the chess pieces on Daedric’s board were in place. It had
been more difficult and time consuming than he’d imagined, but with the need to
involve lesser beings came the need to accept slower progress.

He was on the cusp of realizing a dream—a dream that began
almost twenty-five years ago. To Daedric, it felt like a lifetime.

He’d been seventeen years old when his true lineage began to
show. Until that point, his life had been as uninspiring as the millions of
people rushing to and fro on the streets below. He was a mediocre student with
no real athletic talent, living in a small two-bedroom house with his single
mother. His college prospects were almost nonexistent so his mother suggested
he get a job selling cars. His good looks would benefit him there, she had
said. Daedric’s future was most definitely not something he looked forward to
in those days.

And then everything changed. It wasn’t an immediate, drastic
change, but more of a gradual evolution. At first, he didn’t even notice the
differences. His muscles became stronger and better defined. His eyesight,
which had been dismal since he was a toddler, became clearer every day. It
wasn’t until his intellect also began to increase that he realized something
amazing was happening. In a matter of a few months, Daedric went from being an
average teenager with no hope of impacting the world, to an exceptional young
man with nothing but opportunity ahead of him. His mother was happy for him, of
course, but Daedric saw the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t
paying attention. Her eyes would be filled with fear and uncertainty instead of
the love and pride he felt he deserved.

Then the real transformation started. Powers that he’d never
even thought possible began to manifest themselves. He could think of
something—almost anything—and make it happen. He had thought it was
telekinesis, but it was so much more than that. The captain of the cheerleading
team, a girl that hadn’t known he existed even though she’d been in his classes
since the seventh grade, called and asked him on a date, immediately after he
had daydreamed about that exact scenario. He watched as a raffle ticket he
purchased in hopes of winning a new car was drawn from a barrel holding
thousands of others, just as he had wanted. Then, his high school nemesis, Burt
Wagner, was paralyzed in a freak accident that was eerily reminiscent of a
sketch he’d drawn of Burt falling off a ladder and landing badly on a fence.

Daedric didn’t know what was happening to him, or why, but
he was determined to find out. He spent hours at the library scouring the
books, looking for anything that would explain his new abilities, but there was
nothing. He wrote letters to the authors of some of the more magical stories,
but no one ever responded. Eventually, he decided to try a little closer to
home—his mother.

Daedric sat his mother down at their dining table, told her
what he was experiencing, and waited for her to give him some logical
explanation. Instead, she started to cry, repeating over and over again that
she didn’t know. Some months ago, he might have believed her, but now he simply
willed her to stop crying and tell him the truth about whatever it was she was
hiding. To stop the blubbering that he knew would take place next, he simply
willed her to be succinct.

“Your father’s name is Ares. He’s the God of War,” she said.
“I didn’t know what he was at first. I thought he was a travelling salesman. We
would get together every time he came through town. When I got pregnant I
thought he’d be upset, but he just laughed when I told him, saying that it had
taken longer than he’d expected. He told me who he was and I, of course,
thought he was crazy. He proved it to me by taking me to Paris—In the blink of
an eye—then to an island somewhere in the South Pacific, and then back home. He
said he would come for you one day. That he had big plans for you. But after so
many years passed, I thought maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. I guess not.”

As unbelievable as that should have sounded, Daedric knew it
to be true as soon as the words were out of his mother’s mouth. He was the son
of a god.

His first order of business, he decided after discovering
his parentage, was to get rich. Daedric walked into a convenience store,
purchased a lottery ticket, and strolled home, whistling a tune. By the time
the drawing took place that weekend, he’d already decided exactly what he was
going to do with his winnings, then, unlike the million others that purchased
tickets that week, Daedric was truly shocked when his numbers didn’t come up.

He tried several more times with the same results before he
realized that he could only shape events when they occurred close to him.
Initially disappointed, his new-and-improved intellect soon imagined many more
ways that he could manipulate the world around him and create wealth almost as
easily as winning it.

Daedric took a job at the largest car dealership in the
city, exactly where his mother had suggested he work months prior, and quickly
became the top salesperson in company history. It wasn’t difficult to do when
he could simply will every customer he spoke with into buying whatever car he
wanted them to buy. Within six weeks he set his sights on taking over the
entire business. One simple meeting with his boss, and Daedric became the new
owner—for the bargain basement price of one dollar.

From that point forward, Daedric’s business career
snowballed until he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. His ability
to convince previously inconvincible CEOs to sell him majority shares in their
companies was reported by
The Washington Post
as “some of the most
spectacular moves ever made in American business.” His attention to detail, as
the media put it, was legendary as he insisted on being present at every
meeting with every executive of every company he wanted to purchase, politely
declining to simply videoconference.

Daedric had everything, but it wasn’t enough.

His confidence and his ego had grown to epic proportions.
Just being respected by the business world was no longer satisfactory. Daedric
wanted to be revered—by everyone. Then, in the back of his mind, a real plan
began to form. It wasn’t a plan to attain more wealth, although that would most
certainly come, it was a plan to attain the entire world. He was a demi-god
after all.

Although there were too many differences between countries
to count—religions, languages, and cultural beliefs—there was one thing that
every nation in the world had in common. Their need for energy was all
consuming. If he could control that basic necessity, he could control
everything.

So, he started buying up shares in energy companies; oil,
natural gas, hydroelectric, even green energy. Within two years, his portfolio
included pieces of every company that produced, manufactured, refined,
distributed or developed energy sources of all kinds. He watched as commodities
traders drove up the price of gasoline at will, and how environmental groups
pushed for alternative energy, and he watched as governments worldwide tried,
and failed, to find long-term sustainable solutions.

Once he had a grip on the supply of energy, he shifted his
focus to controlling the demand. Daedric spent vast amounts of money finding,
and stopping, every viable alternative to conventional energy production.
Whenever some new tree-hugging genius came up with a plan to save the world,
Daedric would shut it down. Usually he would buy the company, or the patent,
and destroy the research, but sometimes more drastic measures needed to be
taken. There were many
accidents
in the research and development
community. Some developments slipped through his fingers, like electric cars,
but those things were of no concern to him. A few electric cars on the road
didn’t even put a dent in the overall oil consumption, like taking a bucket
full of water out of the ocean. The major breakthroughs—dozens of companies had
actually perfected the collection, storage, and use of solar energy to the
point where entire cities could be powered using nothing but the sun—had been
terminated in such a way that no one left alive even knew the technology ever
existed.

With alternatives either hidden or destroyed, Daedric was
able to increase the demand for oil by astronomical amounts. America, already
using about a quarter of the world’s supply of oil, increased its consumption
from fifteen million barrels per day to almost twenty-one million. China, Japan
and India followed suit.

Daedric had successfully maneuvered himself into a position
where he could destroy every nation on earth with the proverbial push of a
button—and he was almost ready to do just that.