Volcanoes (14 page)

"That, my dear girl, is the million dollar question." He frowned and resumed his
pacing. "In all the time that they've been here on Earth, they've been a peaceful race."

"How long has it been since you met with Colin?"

"Honestly, I haven't seen Colin himself in over a year." He stopped with a frown of puzzlement. "I've been meeting wi
th delegates, which should have tipped me off. Colin always met me personally and had since he became the king."

"Okay then. Next question
–
why weren't you suspicious?"

Putting his hands on his hips, he let his head fall back and closed his eyes. "I guess
because we've been incredibly busy trying to stem the flow of chaos that has encompassed this world in the last year."

Ding ding ding!

We already knew that the fires, the earthquakes and various and sundry disasters had been used as decoys to hide what H
ypnos and his band of merry murderers had been doing. 

Hmm - Band of Merry Murderers. I'd have to remember that one.

"Poe?"

"That is not my name," he growled. "What is it with the women in your family and the stupid nicknames?"

"Could the Mermend race del
ve down to the depths of Atlantis if they knew where it was?"

"Shit," he hissed, forgetting about the nickname rant he
’
d been getting ready to launch into.

"So that's a yes?"

"No," he answered, distracted. I could virtually see his mind racing behind his
eyeballs. "Colin could, though. The strongest of the race becomes king each generation. When the successor passes the current king in power, they take the throne. There are perhaps a handful of them that could handle the pressure of those depths."

"Want to
bet where Colin has been?"

"God damn it all to HELL!" He yelled. "Follow me!"

He yanked me into standing position and I would have fallen had he not kept hold of me, dragging me out the door and down the corridors of Olympus.

"Where are
we going?" It was all I could do to keep up with him without stumbling. He was moving so quickly I had to trot.

"Zeus," was his short reply.

Well that explained everything. Not.

"What can he do?"  It was a stupid question. Zeus could do anything. He wa
s freakin' Zeus.

"I need to tell him that Colin is missing and what the potential plot is. Then
–
we're going to talk to your mother about mounting a rescue mission for Adriana."

"Now we're talkin'!" I sped up to keep better pace and then abruptly halted.
Unfortunately he didn't and nearly ripped my arm out of its socket in the process.

"Why are we running?" I asked with an incredulous look. "We can teleport to his lab. It will be faster."

"Oh." He blushed and nodded. "Right. Let's go."

Within seconds, we
were standing in front of Zeus, and Poseidon was explaining the situation.

From the thunderous expression on my stepfather's face, he was pissed. "Someone needs to take care of that bastard once and for all," he bellowed. "Grace, do you have your mojo ba
ck yet?"

What was I
–
Austin Powers?

"No?"

Yes, it was a question. I didn't want to be the one to tell him that the chances of me regaining my powers any time soon were fairly nil. Zip. Nada. Not going to happen. 

Listen, when he got pissed, he did thin
gs. He did terrible ugly things that I didn't want happening to me. So I shrank back behind Poseidon after my abrupt answer and stayed there.

"Chicken."

The whisper was a hairs breadth away from my ear and I whipped my head around to scowl at Drew.

"Don
't you have some place better to be?" I hissed.

"Drew, what in the seven hells are you doing here? I thought I sent you to check on the situation in Los Angeles!" Zeus' boom echoed through the room and I couldn't help but shoot Drew a smug smile.

"I'm ba
ck from that task, sir and I have news to report."

Zeus waved his hand distractedly and muttered, "Get on with it then."

"The efforts to rebuild the city have progressed further than we anticipated and the vermin that were plaguing the sewers have been hu
nted down by the humans. There are rarely any sightings now."

Deep in thought, Zeus nodded and then said, "Do we have a final death toll for that entire incident?"

Drew frowned and shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry sir, we do not. I believe that over one m
illion humans were killed."

The room was silent as everyone absorbed that number. One million lives. A million men, women and children snuffed out because Evil with a capital E was winning.

"Damn," I breathed. I felt guilty because I didn't know anyone th
ere. It didn't hit quite so close to home for me. I should have felt the devastation more deeply instead of being so detached.

How many times have I listened to the newscasters tell me about some devastation or another and thought to myself, 'man that is
horrible' but didn
’
t feel it as a devastating emotion? It was a line of defense. With so many atrocities happening in our world, there would be a lot of depressed people walking around if we let everything affect us to that extent. Still, I could and woul
d
be more conscientious of my reactions to what Hypnos and his siblings were doing on my home turf.

The enormity of this entire situation exhausted me. No, wait. It wasn't just
this
situation. How long had I been awake? I'd travelled countless time zones t
oday and been in the middle of a fight - the stress levels just kept ratcheting up faster than I could keep track.

I blinked a few times and swayed on my feet. Zeus' attention zoomed in on me and he frowned. "How long have you been awake?"

"I have no idea
. I'm sure I'll be fine. We've got things to do."

"No," he replied. "
We've
got things to do. You go to bed."

"Just because I-" I stopped mid-sentence. What was I doing? I really needed to sleep. There wasn't a damned thing I could do right now. Could I be
any more stubborn? Shaking my head I continued, "Never mind. I'll hit the rack. Just catch me up on whatever you decide when I wake up."

Zeus nodded approvingly and turned that hawk-like attention back on Drew. "Adonis I want you to-" I tuned out and turne
d for the door.

Poseidon stopped me and murmured. "Let me bring you back to your quarters. You look dead on your feet."

I nodded. "I
feel
dead on my feet. You still owe me an explanation on the Adriana sitch. I'm not letting that go until I get one."

"You
're like a damn dog with a bone, Grace. What if I were to tell you that it's none of your business?"

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter if you don't think it's my business." I turned to give him a high beam smile. "I
’
m going to be curious and naggy about it an
yway."

"Of course you are," He pushed me toward the door so we could escape before Zeus could realize we were leaving.

"You do realize that he didn't dismiss you," I smirked.

"Yep. That's why we're moving so fast. I have things to do once I tuck you safe
ly into bed."

"Super, now I feel like I'm three."

He shrugged. "Sometimes you act like you're three so that shouldn't feel so alien to you."

"Wow, that one is new." I rolled my eyes and continued down the hallway. I looked back to stick my tongue out at Po
seidon and ran smack into a brick wall.

The force of the impact sent me staggering backward with my arms pinwheeling to keep upright. I failed.

My tailbone hit the ground with the force of a nuclear bomb and I yelped in pain. The bruises were racking up a
nd so far, this non-super body was starting to suck.

I rolled onto my knees and took a minute to rub my ass. "Well, that's not going to get old," I muttered.

I looked up at the brick wall that was currently standing over me, holding out a helping hand. "C
an I give you a lift?"

"You can stop injuring me in the first place and I'd be happy," I replied tartly.

"Let's not start asking for the impossible, Grace. Lowered expectations. Keep those and you'll be good."

I couldn't help smiling up at him. He made me
want to both punch and hug him at the same time so often that at this point, I should just stick with the laughing. It was easier.  I grasped his hand and held on for dear life as he yanked me into standing position.

"Not so hard," I griped. "I'm not inv
incible anymore."

"That's what she said," Poseidon inserted so softly that I almost didn't catch him.

I whipped my head around, mouth dropped open. "Have you been hanging out with my son?"

He blushed and quickly looked down. "That's quite possible."

"Wel
l, stop. I don't need him to pick up any more bad habits. He already has enough from me."

I turned back to see Hephaestus grinning like an idiot at me. "What?" Sleep deprivation was making me grouchy and none of this seemed as funny with the pain in my ass
growing sharper the longer I stood.

He shook his head and dimmed his grin. "Nothing. What are you doing?"

"I was
trying
to go to bed, but now I think I have to ask my mom to check out my ass to make sure you didn't break my tailbone, you damned obstacle.
"

That sounded so bad. Did that really come out of my mouth?

He threw his head back and guffawed.

Yep. It sure did.

I rolled my eyes and pushed past him, walking gingerly. It was probably just bruised. I could sleep now and have the med clinic people tak
e a look at it tomorrow.

"I'm sorry you knocked yourself down, Grace."

I turned to the men with a look of pure astonishment on my face. Did he just put the blame on me?

"Yes, I did." He answered mildly. "If you'd been watching where you were going, you wo
uldn't have run into me."

My eyes narrowed and I was just about to tell Hephaestus what I thought of him not only reading my mind, but his lack of responsibility when Poseidon grabbed my arm and quickly said, "Well it's time to tuck you in, dear. I'll just
teleport us into your room."

"Actually, I needed to talk to her, Poseidon. I'll take her back to her rooms."

If I hadn't been so annoyed, the look on Poseidon's face would have been comical. He looked torn between horror and curiosity to see where I'd tak
e this. 

This was my life - an unfolding drama for the unwitting audience to gape at. I yanked my arm out of his grip and muttered, "I can take myself. Hephaestus, you can wait until tomorrow. I need sleep."

He merely shook his head and said, "No."

"What
do you mean no? Wait…
no…
fuck it. I don't care. I just want to go to bed. I don't care how I get there."

Sometimes it was easier to just give in. Maybe I was growing up by realizing that. I held out my hand and shrugged at Poseidon. "I'll see you when I
wake up. Don't forget. You owe me a story."

Hephaestus teleported us into my suite of rooms and led me to the bedroom. "Do you have sleepwear here?"

His polite demeanor threw me off and my brain went on alert. "Why are you being nice?"

That stopped him in
his tracks. "Can't I be nice to you?"

"You usually aren't." I replied, crossing my arms.

"I'm considered a very genial man. I'm not sure what it is about you that brings out the piss and vinegar in me." He crossed the room to the wardrobe and dug around be
fore coming out with something that resembled a nightgown.  It wasn
’
t something I would have ever worn much less chosen for myself.

"I can't wear that to bed," I took a step back.

He stopped, confused. "Why not? It's a perfectly good nightgown."

"It's ind
ecent. It's not even going to cover my ass." I took another step back. "I can sleep in what I'm wearing."

This garnered a raised eyebrow. "Really? You're going to sleep in your bloody, torn jeans and t-shirt?"

I looked down and realized that he was right.
At the very least, I needed a shower to wash the blood off. My shoulders slumped in defeat. All I wanted to do was close my eyes. Why did everything always have to be a fucking battle around here?