Omega (30 page)

Cleon chuckled. “You are welcome to. It’s
your party.”

That seemed too weird to be true, but I was
thrilled by the idea of interacting with the highest levels of
society – and no one knowing it was me.

“
Who are all these
people?” I asked.

“
The most affluent men and
women in the world. Favored by the gods. The elite. Those whose
fortunes and fates rest with those of the gods.”

“
They are probably excited
to see me.”

“
They are. You are the
promise of continued good fortune and wealth for them.”

I didn’t really like the idea of an elite
when the rest of the world was in chaos because of the Holy Wars. I
started into the crowd, absolutely entranced by the amount of bling
the women wore. Did they dress like this every night and go to
soirees?

I bet none of them have
ever skinned a rabbit for dinner.
I
swallowed a giggle at the ridiculous thought, torn between admiring
the people around me and critical of the idea they couldn’t survive
in the arena or forest if the world ended tomorrow.

Checking out the fountain, I stopped to
perch for a moment and watch the world. I couldn’t tell Cleon from
the other men or Leandra from the other women. For some reason,
being anonymous helped me relax more. I was somewhat free, if only
temporarily, from being the person they thought I was.

“
Beautiful smile,
beautiful lady.” The man’s voice was the opposite of Cleon’s
carefully controlled one.

I turned and eyed the masked stranger with
two hotter than hot women hanging off him. He was grinning, and his
hair dark. I saw a gleam of green eyes through the mask, and a star
was printed in the middle of his forehead. “Right,” I said and
rolled my eyes. I started away.

He laughed.

I stopped. I’d heard that laugh somewhere.
Not recently. Not in the memories I’d always had. It was … trapped
somewhere in the new memories that hadn’t yet completely
emerged.

“
Go on, ladies. Let me
talk to our friend,” he said and shooed the girls away. I stared
after them. Leandra would give them a run for their money but I
never would. The man pushed up his mask to reveal striking green
eyes. His jaw was heavy and square, his brow low, and his face
wide. He had a widow’s peak and long hair held in place at the nape
of his neck. “Lantos.” He held out a hand.

I shook it. “Have we met before?” I asked,
the same strange sense I got around Adonis present once again.

“
Possibly.” He winked.
“I’ve spoken to many women before this night.”

No surprise there.
He was Hollywood handsome with sparkling eyes and
a quick smile. He held my hand after our shake.

“
You are?” he
waited.

I pulled my hand away. I knew Adonis because
I had brought him to life, and we’d met when I was a child. I knew
this man because … the memory was completely blank. If I hadn’t
been through the strangest week of my life, I’d be blushing that
someone who looked like this had sent away two models to talk to
me.

Instead, I was suspicious.

“
Lyssa,” I said
finally.

“
Ah. The reason we’re all
here.” He said and spread an arm out towards the crowd. “It’s my
honor and pleasure.” He rested a hand over his heart and bowed his
head in yet another show. “I saw you take out the Typhon. You won
me a small fortune.”

“
I had help,” I
replied.

“
Yes. I saw.” A flicker of
something – irritation? – crossed his eyes before vanishing. “Care
to walk with me?”

“
Not really,” I
said.

He laughed and moved closer. “If I sweeten
the deal, will you give me a couple of minutes of your time?”

Sweeten? “What’re you talking about?”

Some of the flashiness faded, and I saw a
genuine smile on his features. “Sweet girl. I’ll take the device
out of your arm placed by the Magistrate that’s caging your powers
if you’ll speak with me in private.”

I felt the soft skin of my forearm, studying
him. “I’m armed.”

He laughed again and stepped away, lowering
his mask. “I’ll keep my hands to myself. Promise. Come!”

I stared after him, dazzled by this charisma
yet aware he hadn’t accidentally stumbled upon me like he tried to
play off. I trailed him through the crowd.

He led me past the orchestra and down a
cobblestone path leading into the garden. Other couples posed in
embraces, some talking, the others quiet, throughout the fragrant
garden. When we reached a small fountain out of earshot from the
others, Lantos turned.

“
First. I always keep my
promises. Your arm.” He held out a wide, strong hand.

I placed my arm in it. Rather than pull out
a tool of some sort, he rested his other warm palm on top of the
area where Niko had shot the solution into me. While far from
intimate, heat rose to my cheeks. His touch stirred my blood. I was
grateful for the lack of lighting in this part of the gardens.

“
What’re you doing?” I
asked after a long quiet.

“
Removing it.”

I gazed up at him and waited for more.
Seconds later, he lifted his hand. A stream of red liquid ran from
his palm to my forearm. He wrapped it around two fingers. It
solidified into a cord resembling those I’d grown up around.

The last of the string left my arm, and the
world erupted into ribbons.

I gasped, a little overwhelmed by the sudden
reemergence of color. Lantos’ hand went to my hip as he steadied
me.

“
How did you do that?” I
demanded and swatted at ribbons floating between us.

“
Easy. This is mine to
command.” He held up the cord then tossed it into the air. It
disappeared. “Who do you think gave it to the priests to protect
you?”

Tearing off my mask, I stared at him.

He removed his mask as well, eyes sparkling
with humor I didn’t share.

“
You’re not … not a
Titan,” I stammered.

“
Alas, no. My father is.
I’m the son of a Titan and a human. I’m stranded here with my
mother’s kind. My father, Lelantos, is your benefactor. I am his
humble servant.”

If he hadn’t done what he just did, I’d walk
away.

He touched his forefinger to his lips. “But
that’s a secret.” His eyes glowed with amusement. “You can keep a
secret, I believe?”

I nodded, speechless.

“
Then I’d like to show you
one more thing.” He drew too close once again, entering my personal
space. He was wide and athletic, and his body heat made a chill run
through me. I craned my head back to see his face. “But I need you
to promise you won’t reveal what I show you.”

Even when attempting to be serious, light
and laughter glowed in his gaze. I didn’t think I could turn down
such a request if I wanted to, not with his light cologne and
presence so near me. It was easy to believe he was the son of a
Titan. Like Adonis, he had five ribbons and an air of something not
quite normal.

I nodded.

He slid his arm through mine. “We move
through shadows.”

I had no idea what that meant. We walked
through the garden to a small building sandwiched between the
Congress and another official government building. At first, I
thought we were headed to a toolshed and started to worry. Until I
saw the guards. Herakles had taught me that guards didn’t stand in
front of a place or person of no importance.

I slowed as we approached, but Lantos urged
me on, upbeat and unconcerned that we were about to run into two
heavily armed men.

But we didn’t. We walked right past them.
Neither so much as flinched as we strolled into the building, past
another one, through a metal detector and down a hallway. He led me
to an elevator, and we stepped in.

“
Simple,” Lantos said.
“Right?”

Puzzled, I met his gaze again. He was
smiling. “How is that possible?”

“
My father is the Titan of
the Unseen. I inherited some of his skills, like the ability to
move as a shadow, to hide what’s in plain sight from being
seen.”

“
That’s
amazing.”

“
Not as amazing as your
skill.”

“
I can’t figure out how to
use it.”

He smiled and motioned me out of the
elevator.

The first thing I noticed in the dark room:
the scent. I breathed it in – and felt like I was melting again
like I had in the shower. Amber incense, tinged with exotic smells
I couldn’t quite name, ignited a fever inside me and made me nearly
giddy. I stepped deeper into the room, wanting to experience more
of the scent.

“
The fumes are like catnip
for an Oracle,” Lantos said, amused.

“
What is it?”

“
You know the origins of
your kind? How the Oracle of Delphi used to sit over a cavern, one
whose fumes helped put her in a trance?”

“
Yes. They said she …” I
breathed in and felt like floating away. “… could use it to help
her communicate with gods.” I had never felt so good.

“
Exactly. They moved those
caverns here. What they learned after some time was that the bridge
that let her speak to the gods could be enlarged into a portal that
let
them
walk
across it into our world. But the portal must remain open or the
gods cannot access the magic whose source is on their
world.”

I didn’t care. I wanted to lose myself in
the smell. It was warm and comfortable, as if I was being hugged
all over. “Oh, my gods! I want to live here!” I all but sang and
began to twirl. Ribbons encircled and swirled around me, and I
laughed.

“
Be careful what you wish
for,” Lantos warned with a low chuckle. He caught me and wrapped an
arm around me to steady my body.

Pressed to him, I grinned, enjoying the
sensation of his strong form and the giddiness of the aroma. “Can
you feel it?” I asked.

“
Not like you do.” He
grinned down at me. “Do you like it?”

“
I love it.”

“
Good. Now I must show you
something you will definitely not love.” Lantos scooped me up in
his arms and walked with me across the room to a railing
overlooking an empty space. He set me down. I gripped the railing
to keep from dancing off into oblivion and waited eagerly, praying
it was something as amazing as the Oracle catnip.

Lights flipped on into the empty space, and
I froze.

“
Let the catnip calm you,”
he said quietly. This time, his humor was missing. He leaned into
me, keeping me in place against the railing, his hands on either
side of mine. “I’d like to introduce you to the current Oracle,
Cecilia.”

I couldn’t breathe for a moment. “No. This
can’t be real!”

There will be killing till
the score is paid.

–
Homer

The body – if it could be called that –
before me was straight out of a horror movie. A naked woman was
suspended in what looked like an oversized petri dish with wires
and tubes running out of her. Each limb had been severed and
connected by a tube to the rest of her body, and her head the same.
She was in pieces – yet alive, glowing with the green ribbons I had
witnessed over little-me’s head. She was awake, her eyes the only
sign she was still alive as she occasionally blinked.

“
To keep her alive, they
use computers and drugs. She must be kept on the verge of horrific
pain, for that is when the mind is sharpest. Her body is torn apart
over the course of thirty years, and she remains in the level of
pain one experiences when having limbs torn off. Drugs keep her
immobilized and her body functioning. Meanwhile, her magic is used
by gods and men to do whatever they wish. The gods simply need the
portal behind her open at all times. Men … it’s never that easy
with men.”

Behind her were the glowing edges of a
portal.

I blinked, wanting to believe I’d been
thrust into a dream, that this tortured woman wasn’t the fate
everyone wanted me to accept. The Oracle’s eyes were on me, and I
tried to back away, to run, to return to the surface where I wasn’t
struggling to control the effects of the drugged air.

“
Stay, Oracle.” Lantos
took my wrists and pinned each to my chest, his strong arms defying
resistance. “You need to see this. You need to
understand.”

“
Understand what?” I
gasped, unable to look away from the woman before me.

That you cannot follow in
my steps,
came a soft, strained female
voice.

“
Cecelia is different.
Stronger. She was never displaced from her own mind, so to speak.
She wrested a piece of her mind and power from the machines the day
they did this to her, gathered her strength over the course of
thirty years despite the anguish of her existence and five years
ago began to act. She started to level the playing field between
men and gods. The portal to the gods is open, but they cannot move
through it. It’s made them desperate. It’s the source of their
fighting. In case they’re trapped here permanently, each wants his
or her own kingdom to rule over. Ostensibly, my job is to help
them, at least until it’s my turn to act.”

That I could end up here, torn apart slowly,
in agony … I was almost panting and on the verge of panicking.

“
Talk to her. She is you,
Alessandra. She is your destiny, if you trust Cleon.”