Theta (40 page)

Any concern I had for him vanished. He could
handle himself in any situation.

Cecelia wasn’t pleased by the answer. She
glanced around again. “Find her body!” she shouted to the soldiers
outside the door.

Lantos stepped aside as she stormed out.
When certain she was gone, he stepped into the middle of my room.
His smile and confidence seemed to fizzle, and his features became
haggard.

“
Your body’s safe,
Alessandra. Adonis is as well. I took him far away, so neither of
us could hurt him,” he whispered. “I am trying hard to undo a great
injustice I helped create. This is my fault, and I am
sorry.”

I stood before him, beginning to understand.
By listening to Cecelia, he had thought he was helping prevent the
inevitable, while in truth, he was furthering her agenda. I had
fallen into a similar trap.

For the first time since meeting Lantos, I
pitied him.

Cleon appeared at my side, staggered, and
then darted after his body. His emotions were a frantic mess
interfering with my ability to focus.

“
She’s ordered a strike on
the Silent Queen’s compound,” Lantos continued. “It will start
soon. If you can help her, please do so.” Genuine regret was on his
features.

Operation Bloodline. Site Persus.

I didn’t have this inherent knowledge, but
Cleon did. The details of the operation were as familiar to me as
if I designed it myself.

“
Where is my body, Lantos?”
I asked, alarmed to learn it had been hidden by the master of
secrets, who could transverse a shadow world no one else on the
planet could. “How did you know to hide it?” And what was he
talking about when he seemed to be saying he wanted to right
something he’d done wrong.

He didn’t hear me.

“
Betray them all, die a
hero,” he murmured.

My breathing quickened. He had said the same
thing while waiting with Tommy in the caverns in one of my
visions.

“
What does this mean?” I
whispered.

A gunshot rang out, and Lantos
staggered.

I cried out and scrambled away, then
realized I was safe in the alternate reality.

Lantos fell to the ground in the middle of
my bedroom. His eyes darted to the shadows under the bed nearby.
Blood poured out of a wound in his neck, and he grabbed at it with
both hands, desperate to stop the gushing blood.

“
In my premonition, I was
in Alessandra’s body.” Cecelia was in the doorway. “You’ve
disrupted the sequence of events I chose. Thirty years planning,
and you did the one thing I couldn’t plan around.”

Lantos opened his mouth and tried to speak.
Nothing came out.

“
Unlike your friends, I
don’t take betrayal well.” Cecelia lowered the weapon. “I
definitely won’t trust you to lead me to her body without tricking
me. You already changed the future, Lantos. I don’t need you
anymore.”

She turned and left him to bleed out.

“
No, no, no!” I knelt
beside him and reached forward, wanting to help him, before
recalling I couldn’t physically touch him. Sitting back, I wracked
my mind for what to do. Lantos hands fell away from his neck, and
his eyes took on an empty look. “Dr. Khan!” I cried.

Seconds later, the befuddled physician
materialized in the doorway. She was in a bathrobe with wet hair,
as if I’d caught her just after a shower. Looking around in
surprise, she hesitated only a blink when she saw Lantos bleeding
in the middle of the floor. Dr. Khan hurried forward and knelt
beside him. She reached out immediately with one hand to apply
pressure to the wound.

I paced anxiously. I had wanted his name on
my wall at one point, or thought I did. Watching him die, and
knowing Adonis would be heartbroken by his death, I couldn’t help
thinking it was wrong to wish him dead. He had, in his own twisted
way, tried to help me.

Within a minute of touching him, Dr. Khan
sat back. Her white robe bloomed red from blood, and her features
were drawn.

“
No, no, no!” I repeated
and dropped beside her.

The blood created a pool around them both,
extending for two yards in every direction. Lantos’ eyes were
blank, his face blanched.

“
I’m so sorry,” Dr. Khan
whispered to him.

Tears stung my eyes, and I stared at his
lifeless form.

“
Both our bodies are lost,”
Cleon said. He was seated on my bed, slumping.

Conflicting emotions immobilized me. I
didn’t know what to feel about losing the one person who seemed to
know what was going on, even if he used that knowledge to further
his agenda. Now that he was gone, would the bond between Adonis and
me be restored? Would I need my spirit back in body first?

I looked from him to Lantos. Where exactly
had he taken my body? And Adonis?

Movement across the room caught my
attention, and I stood, startled to see Lantos in the
black-gray-mirror leading to Hades. He stood beside Cerberus in
much better condition than how he’d left the world.

He lifted a hand and waved to me. I waved
back. With one of his characteristic smiles that made me wonder if
he knew this would happen, he turned away and walked into the
gateway leading into the underworld. Cerberus trailed him, and the
gateway closed behind him.

Numbed, I didn’t know what to do.

“
I do. We murder her,”
Cleon said.

Pythia was present, emerging from a wall.
“Come with me. Quickly.”

I wiped my face. Was it wrong for me to want
to be as far from there as possible? Did this emotion somehow
cheapen Lantos’ death or disrespect him? I had seen his spirit
enter Hades, which I took to be a good sign.

Disturbed, I followed Pythia through the
villa and back to her forest. This time, a third form was present,
and my heart melted.

“
Mrs. Nettles?” I asked,
grateful to see her.

“
Not quite,” Pythia said
with a smile. “Artemis has been hidden in her body, spying on the
titan’s son who is now dead.”

I frowned.

“
Mrs. Nettles is fine,”
Pythia assured me.

Distressed by the murder I’d just witnessed,
and struggling with what emotion I should feel, after Lantos’
betrayal, I sat on the boulder.

“
I have limited power,”
Artemis said through Mrs. Nettle’s tiny body. “What is left, I
promise to use to help you.”

“
You have always helped
me,” I said. I fell quiet. My mind was wrestling with what I’d
learned about the Holy Wars and the person who manipulated me the
most. “Is all this my fault? Because I’m not strong
enough?”

“
It is one path of many,”
Pythia answered.

“
Cecelia put all this in
motion long before you were born,” Artemis said. “She manipulated
Lantos into betraying you all, in her favor, and would have
continued to ruin your chances of making everything right, if the
first Oracle hadn’t interfered when she did.”

It wasn’t easy for me to accept I needed the
help of gods when I’d been raised to believe they were a blight on
humanity.

“
I have to stop her,” I
said, mind on Cecelia. A different emotion was settling into my
breast: fury. Lantos was a politician. His betrayal had stung, but
Cecelia’s? She’d been trying to weaken me from the start under the
guise of helping me. And if she succeeded, she brought about the
apocalypse.

“
Only you can,” Artemis
said. “On our world, there are many gods and goddesses with many
different powers. We balance each other out. On this world, there’s
only one with absolute power, and only her equal can face
her.”

Everything I’d learned about who I was and
what I was supposed to do was wrong. This was not a battle against
the gods, but between two Oracles.

“
Not wrong. Just not as
straight forward as you thought,” Pythia said, reading my mind. “To
send the gods home, you have to deal with the immediate threat
first.”

“
Cleon was
right.”

Artemis laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.
Selling life and survival to those elite able to pay for it?” She
shook her head. “He wants to rule over select chosen individuals
and cares nothing for the rest of the world.”

“
You will need the help of
the Silent Queen,” Pythia said.

I blinked out of my heavy thoughts. “Lantos
said Cecelia’s launching an attack this evening on her base of
operations. How do I warn her?”

Pythia and Artemis exchanged a look.

Artemis fidgeted in her bear form. “I have
warned my brother. He will tell her.” Her voice sounded fainter, as
if she were under some kind of strain I was unable to see. “We need
to focus on you and finding your body.”

“
Lantos hid it,” I
said.

“
Did he say
where?”

I shook my head. Adonis was gone, too. For a
few minutes today, I hadn’t felt like I was overwhelmed and sinking
beneath the weight of my world.

“
We must find it soon. None
of us survive long in spirit form only,” Pythia said, concerned
gaze on Artemis.

“
You’re dying,” I said,
recalling what Adonis had told me.

“
I am. We all are. Zeus is
the strongest, and his energy is directed solely at protecting
those humans and members of the pantheon he can,” Artemis said. “I
cannot stay long. I must be careful where I exert
myself.”

“
Thank you,” I said with
difficulty.

“
Thank
you.
You will be the one to send us
all home.”

I didn’t share her faith in my abilities. I
blinked – and Artemis disappeared. “Are you leaving me, too?” I
asked Pythia.

“
I can’t stay with you for
long, but I’m not leaving quite yet.”

I sank into silence, thinking hard. Cleon
was calming, assured his body wasn’t being abused, though he was
weak. I didn’t know Lantos well enough to guess where he’d hid my
body. I couldn’t search everywhere on the planet. I didn’t have
that much time. I needed someone I could trust to help me navigate
the physical world. Adonis was out of the question.

Leandra. Could she talk to me? Sense me with
her nymph abilities? She and the other nymphs were groomed to help
me bring back the Old Ways. Thirty women with supernatural
abilities, loyal only to me. What better way to find my body, so I
could face Cecelia?

“
Take me to Leandra,” I
said to my power.

“
It works differently here.
You can travel quickly, but not teleport, as you can with your
physical form,” Pythia said.

“
I’ll be back.” I turned
away from her and raced across the compound and to my
villa.

Dr. Khan had covered Lantos’ body with a
sheet. I looked away quickly and went to the jewelry box in my
closet. Leandra said she’d left a clue how to find her beneath the
city streets. I used my magic to lift the lid and saw a leaf
resting on top of several priceless pendants. I picked it up with
magic and rotated it in the air.

“
What is this, Leandra?” I
whispered.

The sound of soldiers entering my bedroom
disrupted my focus. Releasing my hold on the leaf, I expected it to
sink to the ground. Instead, it remained in the air. A second
later, it floated upward, towards the ceiling and lazily whirled
its way out of the closet, out of my bedroom, and into the early
evening sky. Intrigued, I trailed it across the compound and to the
southeastern, staff exit. The leaf diverged from the road and
floated through the forest. It came to rest on the grass at the
center of the woods. As if feeling its weight, the grass rolled
away to reveal a door.

“
Perfect,” I whispered. I
lifted the leaf with my power, and the grass rolled back into
place.

Standing in the quiet forest, I tried not to
think about the possibility something horrific happened to m
physical body or that it was lost in the shadow world. I didn’t let
myself dwell on how I’d been misled by everyone or how my visions
foretold the end of the world, and I had no way of protecting
Adonis when I didn’t know where he was. Already, the future was
changing, because Lantos was gone. If Cecelia knew Adonis was the
key – which I had to assume she did – I needed to find him first.
Or I had to disable and kill Cecelia to unleash my powers. With
Leandra’s help, maybe I could do both, and if the Silent Queen
wasn’t derailed by the attack, I could go to her and Herakles, too.
We would hit Cecelia from inside and outside the walls in a way she
didn’t expect, thanks to my power.

Sending the leaf to rest in
the brush nearby, I left the spot. I was starting to form a plan or
…
we
were. My mind
struggled to differentiate between my thoughts and Cleon’s. Cleon’s
knowledge of the military and operations was going to come in
handy, and I would use every ounce of power available to me to
disrupt Cecelia’s plans.

At long last, we turned down a tunnel with a
light glowing at the other end. Leandra’s pace quickened, and we
reached a door flanked by two bright lights and four guards.

Their weapons went up when they spotted
me.

“
No!” Leandra cried. “He’s
with me.”

No one spoke. I was pretty certain by now
everyone in Mama’s insurgency knew who I was. If my picture weren’t
plastered all over the walls after how many of their troops I’d
arrested or flat out murdered …

“
He has DC Mama,” she
added.