Darkness Becomes Her (24 page)

Mapsaura bent at the muscular knees and pushed off the ground, shooting straight up, disappearing into the mist, and then torpedoing down, aiming straight for Athena as Arachne broke free and made for the goddess.

Both creatures hit her at once.

But Athena wasn’t the goddess of war for nothing. She caught each creature on a blade and used their momentum to throw them behind her. The harpy rolled herself right, finally stopping with her great talons digging a rut into the dirt. Map-saura stretched her wings wide and a bone-chilling scream ripped
from her throat, the sound almost as loud as Athena’s war cry.

As Athena turned, distracted, a bolt of power from Michel and Sebastian, their hands combined, hit her square in the chest.

I blinked, storing away for another time the fact that Sebastian had
that
kind of power.

Athena flew back from the warlock blast as the harpy took flight again. Arachne lay on the ground, unmoving. But I saw Athena’s quick realization. Her creatures were falling to the Novem. And here in New 2, her powers were diminished. She could be defeated.

“Fall back!” the goddess shouted, glancing up just in time to see the harpy barreling from the sky, her wings folded flat against her back.

Athena vanished.

Mapsaura’s eyes went wide. Her wings unfurled and caught the air for two seconds before she rolled to the side, skimming the ground. Her talons punched into the soft soil, giving her enough room to flap her wings and push her high enough to skid-land atop one of the tombs. Slate roof tiles scattered as her talons dug in for support.

One by one Athena’s creatures disappeared into the mist.

A hushed quality descended on the cemetery, the steady fall of rain becoming the dominant sound.

Bodies littered the ground. Moans and voices broke the eerie
quiet. I made my way to Sebastian and Michel near the tomb where Mapsaura perched, but a broken body lay in my path. I stumbled.
Jesus.
It was Daniel. I dropped down next to him. Blood bubbled from a throat that had been ripped away. His eyes blinked rapidly. His mouth worked, trying to speak, but no sound came out.

“Oh my God, Daniel,” I whispered, kneeling to help him but not knowing what to do. Josephine appeared next to me. “He’ll live, right? He’s a vampire. He’ll live.”

Two vampires, I think, walked forward and picked Daniel up. His head separated from his body, and the thin piece of skin holding him together ripped. My stomach rolled. I scooted back on my ass.

“He’s already dead,” Josephine said without a speck of emotion, and then walked away as the two men dumped Daniel’s body, leaving him in a broken pile. A pile that suddenly collapsed into itself and turned to ash.

I gagged. Bile stung my throat. I swallowed it down, turning and staggering away from the ash as my gaze caught briefly on Violet scrambling down from the tree.

I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Sebastian turned, seeing me approach. My eyes connected with his, and I opened my mouth just as a tingle of warning pricked my skin.

The hairs on my arms stood up.

Athena appeared at my back, instantly wrapping her arms around me. Her lips brushed the rim of my ear. “You know what they say.” Her voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “If I can’t have you … no one will.” Her lips moved away from my ear. “Oh, and before you die, I want to thank you for leaving your father behind when you set the others free from my prison.”

My insides shriveled. “What?”

She laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it? A τερας hunter falling in love with your mother, a gorgon, the very monster he was charged with killing. As your spirit leaves you, I want you to think of him, of all the things I have done to him for betraying me and not killing Eleni when he had the chance. All the things I am going to do to him now. Good-bye, little monster.”

Athena shoved me away from her.

It seemed like it happened in slow motion. I stumbled to my knees, getting just a glimpse of the horror sliding over Sebastian’s features and the blur that was Violet dropping out of the tree. Shock. I was in shock.

Athena raised a τερας blade to take my head.

Time had slowed to the point that all the images of my life flashed randomly. But one image seemed to slow more than all the others—the image of me holding Athena’s wrist at the Arnaud ball and making it turn to stone.

I had three and a half years left before maturing into a gorgon,
but there was power inside me. I’d used it before, and that was the difference. I
was
different from all those before me. Time, evolution, the genes of my father … whatever the factors, I knew. I was a god-killer.

The blade sliced through the air. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a shout and a child’s scream. But it didn’t matter. It was happening too fast, too fast for any of them to help me. My blood hummed. My eyes locked onto the blade as it arced toward my neck.

I bowed my head and lifted my tingling hand, opening my palm, releasing all my anger, all the pain of my own life, my mother’s life, and all of the pain I had felt as Medusa, my ancestor.

The blade met my hand.

And broke against stone.

The sound rang out in a deep, echoing pop, an exploding circle of power, the force of it flattening everyone to the ground. I raised my head as the broken part of the blade flew through the air, and I met Athena’s astonished eyes.

My heart sounded slow and loud in my ears.

I shouldn’t have been able to do that; I could see the same thought in Athena’s stunned expression. Yet I had. My hand, I saw, was white like marble, white that was beginning to return to its fleshy color. I could control this power, and I didn’t have to turn into some monster to use it.

Then Athena blinked. Time returned to normal at the same instant that Violet hit Athena’s back from behind, her arms coming around the goddess’s neck and her little fangs sinking into the skin as one of her hands lifted a small dagger and plunged it into Athena’s heart.

A scream bubbled in Athena’s throat.

Shock and dread sent me falling back on my ass as the shout of Violet’s name, by many voices, echoed over the wet grounds.

And then they were gone.

Vanished, leaving behind the swirling mist. The hilt of Athena’s broken blade dropped against a slab of marble as Violet’s bloodied dagger thudded against the soft ground.

“Violet!” I screamed.

T
HREE DAYS HAD PASSED
. T
HREE DAYS OF NO SLEEP AND NIGHT
mares and worry. Violet was gone. No one knew how to get her back. And no one had seen or heard from Athena.

Three days of going to the cemetery, calling for Pascal, searching every tomb, every crevice to find him. Violet would want that, and I owed her. I’d go every day until I found him.

Sebastian had spent the last two days in his room, banging on his drums, filling the house with such intense fury that it was difficult to stay there when he played.

Michel had sent a small force to the River Road plantation to rescue my father, but as expected, the prison was gone, like it had never existed. It’d been hard for Michel to do even that much. My father had killed innocent τ?ραζ and humans of
power in the name of Athena. But his love for my mother had changed him, had given him the power to go against the goddess. And he’d been paying the price for all these years. Now, because of me, he’d pay even longer.

I replayed that moment in the prison over and over in my mind. I’d been right there, ready to release him. I should’ve done what I knew was right when I’d had the chance. I could’ve demanded the keys back from Michel. I should have put up a fight, refused to go until
all
the prisoners were released.

The regret and guilt stuck like poison thorns in my side. I had to find him.

It was almost a relief to leave New 2, to get away from the memories, to jump into the mail truck with Crank and drive over Lake Pontchartrain to Covington, the border town, where Bruce and Casey were waiting to meet us.

“You sure you want to do this?” Casey asked me, her arms tight around my neck. She set me back, and I took the moment to memorize her face. Round. Kind. Bright blue eyes that showed every single emotion she had. Eyes that were now brimming with tears.

They knew only that I’d found a strong lead on my father, and I needed to jump on it now before I lost the trail. “I have to do this. I have to find my father.”

Bruce was next. He pulled me into a bear hug, into a cloud
of aftershave, a spicy clean mix that made me breathe in deep. I squeezed the soft flannel-clad shoulder. “Take care,” he murmured. “Remember your training. We’ll expect regular check-ins.”

I stepped back and nodded.

“The paperwork won’t be final for sixty days, but I guess the Novem has strings, because they sure as hell pulled some to get permission to transfer guardianship,” Casey said. “We’ll let you know when everything is final.”

“Thanks.”

Michel Lamarliere would soon be listed as my legal guardian. At least for the next six months, until I turned eighteen.

The Sandersons helped me transfer my belongings from their SUV to the mail truck. I didn’t have much—two trash bags full of clothes and shoes, and a couple of boxes with some books and other things I’d collected over the years.

“I put a picture album in one of the boxes,” Casey said, fighting back tears.

Bruce shut the back of the truck, and they both wrapped me in another hug. Bruce’s voice whispered in my ear. “There’s a little something in there from me, too.” From the tone of his voice, I’d say it was something of the personal protection variety. “We love you, kiddo.”

My throat closed, but I managed to say, “Same here.”

As far as good-byes went, this was the hardest. I forced down
the rise of tears and kept my composure as we drove away. It was only after Crank had dropped off the mail and retrieved the new bags, and we were headed back down the neglected highway, that I swiped a few tears from the corners of my eyes.

The last rays of the sun spread over the surface of the lake, turning it into a shimmering mirror of deep blues, purples, and oranges. The skyline of New 2 blinked on the horizon, sending me back to the first time Crank and I had driven over the bridge and into the Crescent City. Only this time we didn’t head toward the GD. This time we made for the French Quarter.

The truck slowly, and illegally, navigated Royal Street, mindful of the pedestrians and the carriages. Almost dark. Almost time for another Mardi Gras parade and another ball. Things that meant very little to me.

Crank parked outside of the Cabildo. “I’ll wait for you here.”

I nodded, took a deep breath, put on my game face, and jumped from the truck.

My black boots slapped onto the pavement. The τ?ραζ blade swung against my jeans, secured in a brand-new sheath, with a smaller concealed sheath around my boot that contained Violet’s very sharp, very wicked-looking dagger. I was making a statement. I had the blade, and I wasn’t keeping it secret. The sides of my hair had been braided and were gathered, with the rest of my hair, into a tight bun at the nape of my neck.

I popped a small bubble with my chewing gum as I opened the thick wooden door and went inside.

The Novem’s Council of Nine had gathered.

On the second floor, I ignored the receptionist, one hand resting on the hilt of the τ?ραζ blade, marched down the corridor that held so much history, and crashed the meeting.

Nine faces turned in my direction. Seven of those I’d yet to meet, but from what I’d gleaned from Henri, Sebastian, and the others, I wouldn’t have trouble putting the names to the faces.

No one, however, seemed surprised to see me.

Deep breath.

All I had to do was think of Violet, of us laughing and running down First Street in our masks and gowns, of her voice telling me that I was beautiful, of the image of her jumping Athena and stabbing The Bitch in the heart, and I found my strength.

I grabbed a spare chair from the corner and dragged it over the hardwood floor, letting it screech, hoping it’d send chills down the spines of the council members. At the large oval table, I spun the chair around and sat down.

Slowly I met each pair of eyes.

The heads of the three witch families: Lamarliere, Hawthorne, and Cromley. The three vampire families: Arnaud, Mandeville,
and Baptiste. And the three demigod/shape-shifter families: Deschanel, Ramsey, and Sinclair.

Another deep breath. Another small bubble popped.

“I’d like to enroll in the Presbytère,” I said.

Josephine, in her expensive cream-colored suit, barked a laugh. But no one laughed with her.

After a long moment, Michel spoke up. “I don’t see why that should be a problem.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, Michel. Tell us, Ari, what interest could you possibly have in attending the Novem’s school?”

“Well, I’m here to stay. And the way I see it, you need me. All of you need my help. War is coming to New 2.”

“We have power,” Soren Mandeville said. “And we have enough to protect the city and the people in it.”

“In the past, maybe. But this time you have nothing”— my harsh gaze pierced Josephine, promising retribution for the betrayal of my father, for turning him over to Athena when he sought protection within the Novem—“or
no one
to trade for peace.”

“We have you,” Josephine said quietly.

“Please, Josephine,” Rowen Hawthorne said. “We have already agreed to provide sanctuary to Miss Selkirk. We have already fought with Athena and sealed our role in this war. Threatening this young woman is … redundant.”

“You offer to fight, to be part of this battle. And all you want in return is sanctuary and schooling?” Bran Ramsey asked suspiciously.

“I want knowledge.” I sat forward, elbows on the table and heart hammering. “I want to learn everything about Athena, the gods, the past, everything there is to know about my curse. I know the Presbytère contains a secret library, one that the students don’t even know about. I want access to that, too.”