Huntress (27 page)

Crap, I had to watch where I was firing. My son was in that car.

My hesitation gave the creature an advantage. Diving for me, it sliced back at Drew, leaving a line of red across his chest. Poor guy was getting beat to hell today.

I was flung to the ground and though I struggled - trying to buck it off of me - we were going nowhere, fast. Drew went for a side tackle and the thing twisted at an unbelievable angle.  He missed, hurtling through the air and landing a few feet away. Dirt and mud closed over the top of him, filling his mouth, ears and eyes.

I looked toward the car with fear. Dylan’s face was pressed against the glass, watching. I never in my life want to see that look on his face again. He was terrified and the window was icing over in his panic.

"Run!" I screamed at him. "Run Now!"

He shook his head, frozen in terror. "You promised!" I screamed.

Man this felt familiar. Now I knew how Drew had felt. I called on my power and felt the gentle presence of the Earth respond. I had seconds to figure out what to do.

The creature on top of me seemed to be holding me in position, concentrating on something unknown. I focused on Drew and the debris that was burying him alive cleared away. He gasped for air and rolled over to stand.

"Get Dylan to safety!" I cried.

Our eyes met and I opened my mind to him. "
Please
save my son," I begged.

He looked like he was going to try to take the creature out again for an instant and then I could see his grim decision. He would leave.  Leave me, so that he could save Dylan.

My connection to the ground was cut off abruptly, leaving me feeling disoriented and bereft. I hadn’t realized how in-tune I was until it had been taken away.

Frozen mud flowed over my trapped body and the creature lying prostrate on top of me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, knowing that if this was it for me, at least Drew would take care of Dylan.

So...when did I become the girl that kept getting kidnapped?  Seriously, what the fuck?  At this point, I felt like Lois Lane on a bender.  Twice in the last month was a little much, don'tcha think?  My lungs started burning.  I needed to take a breath.

I could feel a small pocket of air develop as the earth retracted from my face, and I took a deep gulp - relishing it even though it tasted stale.  My arms were still pinned to my sides, so I couldn't wipe the goop out of my eyes to see and mud clogged my ears, but I was able to catch snatches of sounds - nothing definite.

The body on top of me shifted as the mud flowed off but I still couldn’t move. An oppressive force of power kept me immobile. It felt like the Earth’s gravity had rocketed up a hundred times. My brain hurt and I was pretty sure it was going to come squishing out of my ears at any moment.

Actually, I felt something sliding out of my ears and thought, "Welp, that’s it for me and my witty banter."

Gentle fingertips wiped the mud away from my eyes and I could hear the faint sounds of a woman’s voice. She smelled nice and I wanted to huddle closer to her radiating heat for warmth.

"Grace, honey I need you to listen to me."

That voice sounded familiar. "Diana?"

"Yes. He’s got you pinned down but I know you can break out of it if you concentrate. Can you do that?" she was whispering frantically while she wiped the caked
-
on mud from my face.

"This gives a whole new meaning to mud masks." I am pretty sure that I’m an idiot. I don’t even know where that statement came from. Everything was so damned weird right now. Retreating into sarcasm was definitely my M.O. but that statement made
me
internally roll my eyes.

She smacked me for my trouble. "Grace, focus damnit. You need to reconnect to your power or he is going to kill you. Baby, I don’t want you to die. I want to get to know you. So concentrate."

"Right, concentrating."

My focus was interrupted by a sneering voice. "So this is Zeus’ brat?"

"What?" I asked confused.

"This is what you left me for Diana? You could have had it all but you couldn’t see past your foolish desire to hold his power. You should have known that having his child wouldn’t change him."

I opened my mouth to set whomever this was straight but I caught the small shake of Diana’s head and shut my mouth.

"Geb, you know this isn’t true. I have responsibilities to our people. Responsibilities that you used to share. I cannot just walk away from them to pander to your crush."

"Is that what you think this is Diana? You believe that I have destroyed civilizations because of a crush?" His voice was incredulous.

Since he wasn’t focused on me, I took the time to study him. His posture was rigid and I could see the waves of power manifest visually from his body. They covered him in a reddish haze. I was going to attribute that to the rage and the madness.

He must be blind if he thought that I was Zeus’ daughter. I realized where my natural coloring came from. I may have gotten my Mother’s sea foam green eyes, but
everything
else came from my father.

His blue black hair swept back from his forehead in a widow’s peak and flowed gently down his back in a waterfall of waves. Dark eyebrows slashed above his purple hued eyes and a perpetual five o’ clock shadow caressed his jaw line into a full Van Dyke.

"It’s true," I thought ironically. "The bad guy always has a goatee."

"You wouldn’t know love if it shot out of the Earth and bit you in your idiot ass," my mother retorted, standing and stalking toward him with her hands planted on her hips.

"No," he countered. "Tis you who knows nothing of love. You’ve left me buried here for decades! How could you not realize that
everything
was done for you?" His scorn could have skinned a person alive it was so razor-sharp.

"For me? You mean for the power you would gain with me by your side. You’d finally be able to over-throw Zachary and then what? Would you destroy this world as you tried to destroy your own?"

My eyes widened at this discovery. They had completely forgotten that I was here and I was more than happy to listen to them argue.

"Why don’t you just admit that you love that blundering idiot more than me!" he shouted, furious.

"Of course I love that blundering idiot! I’ve loved him for all of my life, Geb. I didn’t ask for you to kidnap me. Had you asked me, I would have told you that I didn’t have feelings for you! You are a
monster
! You
deserve
to be trapped here beneath the Earth’s surface for your crimes. You’ve killed nearly a billion people. Do you realize that?" Her voice was cold but near the end, it cracked. "You’ve killed my other children, Geb. If you loved me so, how could you have done that to me?"

"I’m not sure how you’ve kept this one alive, she should have been dead too. It’s taken me thirty years, but I finally found her. The surprise I left in her shack of a home should have taken care of the problem. Imagine my shock when I had to send yet
another
golem after her. It’s just as well. I want you to feel the pain of your betrayal, Diana. I am going to kill her in front of you so that you always remember who holds the power of life and death over you."

I gasped and his attention swung back toward me. "You must have run right back to him and thrown yourself at him, legs spread wide. You whore!"

The crack of sound was deafening as she slapped his face. His head rocked back with her rage. "You. Do. Not. Call. Me. Whore," she ground out, each word punctuated with building fury.

It occurred to me with sudden clarity that everything my mother had said to me when we met was a lie. Facts slipped into place like bullet points.

Geb didn’t know that I was his child.

She had sent Drew to protect me because somehow she knew that Geb was going to come for me.

If Geb had killed all of her children, she must have been terrified that he’d come after me next. The fight in the house, this kidnapping - it all made perfect sense.

I stared at her with confusion. Why didn’t she just tell him that I was his child? It certainly would have saved me a lot of trouble. Not to mention my house, I thought wryly. Better than that, was he so blind as to not recognize me? Sure, I was covered in mud, but the more I stared at him, the more I recognized features. Our facial bone structure was completely similar. I had his cheekbones and chin. I was Geb in female form.

I no longer blamed Diana for shuffling me off. A constant reminder of her captivity and rape must have been so difficult to bear.

The only sounds in the room were the ragged breathing from these two gods as they stared each other down. I shouldn’t have chosen this time to open my mouth.

But I did.

"You’re a fool if you cannot recognize your own blood when it’s right in front of your face."

"Grace, No!" my mother gasped. I wasn’t sure why she wanted my parentage hidden, but if it would keep me alive, I wasn’t going to minimize the knowledge.

"Oh look, the monkey speaks." He turned his angry violet eyes on me and I took a minute to think that he’d be so pretty if he weren’t so crazy.

"Oh, c’mon. I am really tired of being insulted by idiot men." I chirped with derision and rolled my eyes. While they’d been arguing, I had re-established my connection to the ground surrounding me and was finally able to move.

I pushed up off the floor, gaining my feet unsteadily.  "Yup.  That's me - a monkey.  It's really unfortunate that I didn't develop a tail.  That would have been
super
cool," I quipped, brushing caked mud from my face and pushing the heavy hanks of mud-soaked hair behind my shoulder.

"So who do I have to kill to get a shower around here? Maybe you’d recognize your own daughter if she were clean." Glancing around, I noticed that there were no doors or windows. So escape just became more difficult. Great.

Balls of light floated lazily in the air, casting a soft glow against the brown tones of the cavern. I wondered how we got air and where we were within this cave system.

"Who gave you permission to speak?"

"In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not back in the middle ages anymore, buddy. I exercise my right to free speech often." I inched closer to my mother and touched her briefly on the wrist. I’m not sure why. We didn’t have signals. I guess I just wanted her to know that I was okay. I wanted her to know that WE would be okay.

"If you’re so smart, why haven’t you figured out that I’m your kid?" I continued, circling around him warily as I talked. "Do I look like Zachary? Gosh, I’d hate to think that those naked bits with Drew were a no no."

"Diana, what is she talking about?" He sounded confused. This was good. If I could throw him off his game, maybe we had a chance of overcoming him together.

I looked at Diana. She looked even more ethereal than she had when we first met - thinner and even a little fragile. He’d had her captive for at least two months and I didn’t know where she gained her power from. To say that I was worried was an understatement. He was so much more powerful than I. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get out of here if she weren’t at full strength.

She sighed sadly and I wished that I could read her mind. I needed to know why she had kept this a secret from him.

"Tell me the truth!" He was thundering at her and with every word, she shrank into herself. He reached out and grabbed her arm, yanking her closer, with his face inches from hers. I could see the spittle flying against her face as he raged and my own anger started to rise. "You will tell me the truth by all that is holy or I will kill her where she stands, you lying, sneaking bitch!"

"Enough Geb," she yelled, but her heart wasn’t in it. "Yes, she is your daughter."

His hand dropped from her arm and I flinched at the red marks that were already leaving a bruise. I took a step forward, prepared to knock him into tomorrow, but her quick look and small head shake stopped me in my tracks.

"How?" He was clearly flabbergasted and oh how I wanted to take advantage of his stupidity. For once, I kept my mouth shut and let this play out.

"What do you mean how? Do you not remember the constant rape? The humiliation you piled upon my head for months? How could I not get pregnant, you imbecile? What did you think would happen? I thought that was your wish – to leave me with a piece of you that I couldn’t rid myself of. Well, congratulations!  You did it, Geb. You gave me a miracle
and
a constant worry all in one."

I watched them, astounded at what was happening, the words that were being said. I felt shame for my mother and for the words I’d spat at her regarding my abandonment. I don’t know if I’d have been able to look at a face that so reminded me of my tormentor.

She must have seen my thoughts flit across my face because she limped toward me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I hadn’t realized the limp before and I frowned with concern.

"You can threaten her life if it is truly what you wish, you pustule on the backside of humanity, but you will know that you have to kill me first. You will not harm my daughter ever again."