Shadow Titan (3 page)

“
Glad to hear,” I said,
amused by my imagination.

“
You are hurt?”

Adonis’ ability to read people never failed
to impress me.

“
I am,” I replied. “But I’m
healing up. Took a bit of a tumble last night.” I glanced at the
High Priestess, who pursed her lips at me. “I should be fine by the
time you arrive.”

“
Should I bring your
clothes?”

I hesitated, uncertain what exactly our
situation would be once we were on the compound. After a moment of
internal debate, the opportunist in me made the call. “Yes. Bring
yours as well, anything of value you don’t want left behind, and
Mrs. Nettles.”

“
Got it. I will head there
now.”

I hung up, satisfied. No matter what it
took, who I had to sweet talk, or who I had to send Adonis after,
we weren’t leaving the one safe place in DC.

“
Mrs. Nettles?” Theodocia
lifted her eyebrows at me.

I smiled and then laughed. It wasn’t
possible to explain to outsiders about Mrs. Nettles, who was too
special for anyone to understand, until they met her. But she was a
part of our dysfunctional family. She preferred Adonis but often
trailed me around the house as well. “She’s our … pet,” I
replied.

My focus shifted forward. We were drawing
close to a main road – and it was packed with cars three deep
across the two-lane road while families carrying everything they
owned trudged through the ditches on foot. Everyone was headed
south.

“
This is nothing compared
to the Beltway,” Theodocia said. She reached over and grabbed the
cell phone from the cup holder where I’d placed it after talking to
Adonis. “I had a military escort to get this far.”

I eased the van up to the main road and
parked it, listening as she called someone and requested
assistance. My eyes followed the long lines of refugees heading
towards the only major city to survive part one of the apocalypse,
and I couldn’t help wondering how anything could be worse. Complete
annihilation – where no one survived – would at least eliminate
suffering. The Oracle’s mention of the double omega prophecy
puzzled me. How could two apocalyptic events be better than
one?

Theodocia hung up. “They want us to go two
miles back the way we just came. The military lost a high value
individual earlier when their chopper was overwhelmed by desperate
refugees.”

“
Think you can handle
another ride in a helicopter without throwing me out?” I
asked.

“
We’ll find
out.”

I turned the van around and did as
instructed, stopping once more when we were two miles away from the
road.

The audible thump of rotators soon reached
us. Theodocia and I got out of the van, and waited. My curiosity as
to how the helicopter was going to land, when there wasn’t room
enough for it, was soon answered.

Two soldiers in black rappelled down from
the helicopter and strapped us quickly into harnesses. We were
pulled up and whisked away, above the tops of trees, past a flood
of refugees blocking roads, over barricades being erected just
inside the Beltway encircling DC, and into the heart of the
city.

The city may have been spared the worst,
but, from above, it appeared as though it had been hit by a
tornado. The brilliant lights of first responder vehicles were
everywhere. Some parts of the city were jammed with people, others
completely empty. The businesses and stores had all been decimated
by looting and desperate people hoarding food and other essentials.
Trails of glass, goods and bodies littered every major intersection
throughout the center of the district.

DC wasn’t much better off than the rest of
the world. I wondered how the other two large cities in Maryland –
Annapolis and Baltimore – had fared without the presence of
military and SISA, let alone the smaller towns.

Sometime later, we landed in the middle of
the compound, not far from a towering temple dedicated to Zeus
whose pristine white walls that reflected the sunlight. The
helicopter left us and lifted off once we were clear, as if more
people were in need of rescuing.

Theodocia and I looked around, neither of us
familiar with the seat of power of the world. The massive central
field in which we stood contained a large garden area, half a dozen
temples, various sidewalks and bridges over small streams. It was
hedged by stately buildings with pillars and glowing lights
demarking the doorways.

“
My friend is going to be
at the gate soon,” I said to Theodocia.

“
I’ll call it in. What’s
his name?” she asked.

I replied, half-listening as she gave
instructions to whomever was on the other end of the call. My mind
was on the Oracle. Where exactly was she? It would take me an
eternity to search each building on the compound to find her!

“
I fulfilled my end of the
bargain,” Theodocia said, facing me.

I met her gaze. “It’s almost like you don’t
trust me,” I murmured.

“
We both know I
don’t.”

“
I never understood why.
All I’ve ever done is drop everything I was doing to advise you
when you call. We share the same central concern:
Phoibe.”

She looked away. “I know. But sometimes,
Artemis reveals things to me I wish she wouldn’t.”

“
About me?”

“
About
everything.”

“
I can’t guess what she
said about me to make you despise me.”

“
She said you’d betray
us.”

I fell quiet.

“
That’s why I resent you.”
Theodocia looked at me and drew a breath. “Because I’ve had no one
else to turn to except for the person who will betray me. Because
Phoibe adores you, even after all these years, and you’ll betray
her.”

“
Have you considered the
idea maybe it’s Artemis you shouldn’t trust?” I returned, angry for
the first time with her. “What right does she have to tell you
something like this?”

“
She thinks of nothing but
helping Phoibe. She meant to warn me.”

What bothered me the most wasn’t the idea of
betraying people, but that I had long ago fully accepted the idea I
would probably hurt people I didn’t want to on my journey to exact
Titan revenge and earn the respect of my father. But I didn’t want
Phoibe to be one of those people. Until now, our paths weren’t
likely to cross. I was never supposed to see her again, never
supposed to be involved in her life except to supply advice on
occasion to her caretaker.

As big as this compound was, I had the
sudden sense this new world was too small for me to avoid her
completely forever.

“
I can’t see the future. To
the best of my knowledge about deities, neither can Artemis,” I
replied pointedly. “If I’m meant to betray you, it won’t be anytime
soon. I, too, am concerned about Phoibe. I can’t possibly ever see
myself betraying her, even if, by some far stretch of the
imagination, I manage to betray you.”

“
I don’t care what you do
to me. She’s my Phoibe. If you betray her, you will answer to me. I
will unleash whatever in Hades Thanatos did to me,” Theodocia said
firmly.

“
I understand. I have no
intention of betraying anyone, no matter what Artemis thinks. You
know I would never do anything to hurt Phoibe. When I found out she
was in danger, I left as fast as I could.”

Theodocia’s features softened. “I want to
believe you,” she said. “How did you know about her danger
anyway?”

“
We’ll discuss it. I have
to go talk to someone first, though,” I said. “I give you my word
I’ll find you when it’s over and fulfill my end of our
deal.”

Theodocia studied me briefly. “I can find
your friend,” she said reluctantly.

“
I’d appreciate it.” I
forced a smile, unable to dismiss her claim as I wanted to. “Want
to meet me back here in two hours?”

She nodded.

With confidence I didn’t exactly have at the
moment, I smiled and turned away, heading off in a random
direction. Only when I was far enough away for Theodocia not to
hear me did I whisper to the Oracle.

“
Are you there?”

“
I am,” she replied. Her
voice was stronger his time, as if our proximity made it easier for
her to talk to me.

“
I’m on the compound. Where
am I going?”

She gave me instructions to an underground
chamber that left me scratching my head. But I followed them and
approached what appeared to be a small, heavily guarded shed
complete with its own security system and steel doors. At that
point, I had to use my power, which flowed more easily, as if the
Oracle had freed more of it. I hid in the shade of a nearby tree
and visually scouted my path to the building. In order not to be
seen, I had to travel from shadow to shadow and stay in an unbroken
line of darkness.

Once ready, I melted into the shade of the
tree. Seconds later, I stood in the corner of the guardroom in the
interior. I slid past the metal detector and full body scanner,
clinging to the edges of the room and their shadows, before
reaching the elevator. The interior was dim enough for me to remain
a shadow. Red orbs in the ceilings left me thinking the lights were
body heat sensors rather than true lights, another odd precaution I
wasn’t certain why it existed.

When the doors opened, I stepped into a room
that felt like a sauna. I materialized, according to the Oracle’s
instructions. Sweat popped onto my forehead and the back of my
neck. It smelled odd, of overpowering incense and sulfur. Most of
the area was shrouded in darkness. At one with the shadows, I was
able to see through the darkness and determine the size of the
basement. There were three rooms in total, this main chamber and
two smaller ones. No furniture existed here, no piping or air ducts
leading to the outside world. It was completely isolated, a
mini-dungeon.

“
Why would you want to meet
in such a place?” I asked.

“
Because this is where I
am.”

I turned towards the voice and went to the
far end of the room, searching the darkness with my eyes. I saw no
one and paused a few feet from railing lining a wall brightened by
blue-white light.

“
Is this some kind of
trick?” I asked, puzzled.

“
Look up.”

I did so, and my whole
world seemed to stop. My heart felt as if it tumbled to my feet,
and my skin crawled with what was before me. Unable to look away,
neither was I able to register what exactly my eyes were seeing. It
…
she
… wasn’t
human. At least, not anymore.

“
I need to tell you
something no one else, save for the Oracles preceding me, has ever
known,” the Oracle of Delphi said. “And then, I need to tell you
something even my predecessors did not know.”

“
You have my attention,” I
whispered in a combination of awe and horror.

“
The prophecy of the double
omega isn’t the tale of the end of days. It’s a person, an Oracle.
The
last
Oracle,
whose power will be far greater than that of the first Oracle, who
opened the bridge between worlds that left us vulnerable to the
gods,” she began. “A door that can be opened can also be closed,
cutting off those visitors to our world from their source of power
and rendering the being who can open and close the door the most
powerful person in our world. This source of power is where your
magic comes from as well.”

“
You closed the door,” I
guessed.

“
Temporarily. I can’t hold
it closed for long, and I can’t hold it closed completely. But I
can determine where the power slipping through goes. I was able to
channel part of yours back to you.”

“
For what purpose is it
closed at all?” I asked. “If you say vengeance, I will fully
support you. This,” I motioned to her dismembered body, “isn’t my
idea of an ideal job.”

“
You were not brought here
to know this.”

“
Then tell me why I’m
here.”

“
In every scenario and
every variation of the future I have tested, the survival of our
world comes down to the sacrifice of one life. My predecessors
believed the destruction of Earth to be a foregone conclusion, once
the double omega was born. I have had two decades to decipher the
prophetic end of days, and I posit that it’s not just the double
omega who will determine the ultimate fate of Earth, but the life
of another as well. The double omega will become corrupted, will
turn on her own kind. It will take a second person to right her
course.”

I shifted my weight between my feet, not
liking where this conversation was going. “Has the double omega
been born?”

“
She has.”

“
Why not stop this
corruption before it happens?”

“
In every scenario where
I’ve tested this possibility, I’ve failed to stop the end of
days.”

“
What do you mean by
test
?” I asked, frowning.
“Have you gone forward and backward in time?”

“
I am a human with a
computer mind that knows no restrictions, the only quantum computer
in the universe. Unlike my predecessors, I have the capability to
run thousands of possibilities and probabilities in the time it
takes you to blink,” she replied. “I’ve been testing possibilities
for twenty years in an effort to identify what my predecessors
could not. In every scenario, in every probability, I fail to find
a solution, except for one scenario. There’s only one way for the
end of days not to happen as prophesized by the first
Oracle.”