Volcanoes (23 page)

Well that explained why I hadn't realized this was my backyard immediately. There were little things that were different.  So, the good news was that I had any power at all.  The bad news was I
had no idea how I got here and was still able to pull my people into his dream.  The unknowns were shooting ahead of the stuff that made sense and I was having a heck of a time trying to stay focused.

I fell back into what worked and resorted to violence.
When in doubt, beat someone up.

I slammed him into the bars again, but he just continued with the smarmy smiling. It was annoying and as my temper rose, so did my temperature. Blisters started bubbling on his wrist where I held him and a high keening sou
nd emitted from the back of his throat.

"I can keep this up all night, my dear," I parroted.

He'd turned white and was shaking violently. "You will regret this. I guarantee it."

"What happens to your waking body if I kill you in a dream, I wonder?" I mus
ed. "Will it incinerate as I burn you from the inside out?"

He tried valiantly to jerk his arm away. I think he probably would have even chewed his own arm off if he'd been able.

I burned him slowly, boiling inch by inch of his flesh up his arm. The stout
est of men wouldn't have been able to take this torture. I caressed his face, burning a trail of flesh down his cheek in my finger's wake.

"I want you to know that this is your own fault, Hypnos. I would have blissfully ignored you and your kind. But you h
ave left me little choice. Was it amusing to skin my ex-husband alive and pin him to my wall?" I dug my fingers into his jaw, sinking them through tendon and fat until they touched bone, searing the flesh as I went.

He screamed.

"Was it amusing to you whe
n you brain-washed my best friend, a woman who was a paragon of all that was righteous in this world and turned her against her family?"

I brushed the sensitive skin of his neck, careful not to sear through to his vocal chords. I wanted him to talk.

"Stop
," he begged. "I
’
ll tell you everything you want to know!"

"Did my son tell you that when you kidnapped him after you convinced my sister to slit his throat?"

This man had much to account for and I wasn't letting him off lightly. In this moment I was Venge
ance personified. He wouldn't escape my brutal caresses and I wouldn't allow him to die too quickly.

"Please stop," he whispered. "We have your friend here on Earth. She's in the
–
"

Three things happened at once. One
–
I sneezed and accidently punched a
hole through his throat. Two
–
I let go of his arm and he fell away from the cage and started bucking furiously on the ground, trying to close the hole in his throat and breathe. And finally Three
–
a dark mass of shadows appeared and literally bashed him
over the head, knocking him out.

My mouth dropped open and the snot that had exploded from my nose with the sneeze went ignored.

"SON OF A WHORE!" I screamed. I was still stuck in this cage and the only person I could get the answers from was either dead
or knocked cold for who knew how long. This was my fucking life.

I collapsed to the floor and just stared at Hypnos' prone body. What the fuck had that been? I felt a little violated, to be honest. Something had invaded this dream without an invitation a
nd knocked the shit out of him. How had that even been possible?

I leaned my head against the bars of the cage and took a deep breath. It was time to get out of here. You could say I was stunned when one side of the cage swung open. My mouth popped open an
d I just gaped at the open space.

"That would have been handy earlier!" I called out to nothing in particular.

I didn't know what to do with Hypnos' prone body, so I dragged him into the cage and sealed it back up. Who knew what kind of trouble he
’
d be a
ble to cause roaming free? He'd said we were in his dream but I couldn't know that for sure and I needed to be careful here. The hole in his neck was slowly starting to heal, as was the broken arm. I'd straightened it out so it wouldn't heal backwards. Th
a
t would have just sucked and I wasn't as evil as I presented myself to be. 

For good measure, I buried the cage, leaving small shafts of air so that if he ever woke up, he could breathe.

"Okay, Gracie Girl. It's time for you to wake up."

I put my hands o
n my hips and looked up at the sky, thinking that if I directed my thoughts upwards, my waking self would take notice and pop me out of here.

My waking self was currently senseless. She didn't give a shit whether or not I wanted to get out of here.

Yep. That's right; I'd fallen into a coma. I didn't know this right away, of course. I had to find out the hard way.

After a bit, I realized that I wasn't getting out of here anytime soon, so I went into the house to settle in
for some dream TV. Who knew, maybe I'd get the 'pay channels' for free.

I don't know who was more surprised to find me there when I walked into the living room. Me or uh
–
me. The image of me that I'd seen before I'd gone to sleep was lying on the couch,
huddled under a blanket.

"You look like shit," I said, sitting down next to myself.

"I know," she replied with a cough.

"Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see my home before I finally died."

"What?" I exclaimed shooting to my feet. "No! God damn it, NO!
I just kicked Hypnos' ass so we could get better and save the fricken day! We don't get to die today. YOU don't get to give in today."

She smiled at me. "Sometimes I forget how fiery I am." She coughed and flecks of blood spattered against her hand.

"Our
organs are failing." My voice was flat. I felt so defeated. How hard did I have to work? How much did I have to do before Fate would give me a stupid break?

She nodded. "Yeah. You knew when you went to sleep tonight that you probably wouldn't wake back up.
I don't know why you're so surprised by this."

"I'm kinda wigged out that there are two of us here. I'm not sure what this is all about."

"Mmm," she closed her eyes in thought. "Maybe it's the two incarnations of us - one strong and invincible, the other
human-like and weak. You know this is how we see us." She coughed again. "Crap this we, us and our is confusing me."

"Me too," I agreed. "I don't think we're supposed to be separated like this." I frowned. "Do you think this is why I'm sick? We've separat
ed?"

"What do I look like? A doctor?"

God, I was such a smart ass sometimes.
I
even wanted to strangle me right now. "Hey, stop being a douche and help me come up with a way to get us both up and back to healthy. We've gotta rescue Rose and get the cure f
rom Adriana. I haven't forgotten about her."

That seemed to perk her up. "So did you find out where Rose is?"

I shook my head. "Nope. But Hypnos said that she was here on Earth. Wait
–
how do you not know about this? You're me and I
’
m you. You should know
everything I know."

I frowned again and stepped closer to my couch-self. I smelled sickly sweet mingled with rotting flesh. I gagged and stepped back a few feet. My eyes narrowed and I said, "It's too bad Zeus' golden shower didn't work on us right?"

She n
odded pitifully and said, "Yeah. That would have been nice."

I stormed over to the couch and grabbed the edges of the blanket, trapping her frail body inside and pulled the impersonator toward me. "Wrong answer. Zeus played the golden shower trick on Perse
us' mom. Not me. Who are you?"

Thin lips pulled back against blackening teeth in a sickening excuse for a smile. "You're smarter than Hypnos led us to believe. I think that is where he went wrong. He tends to believe women are the weaker sex. He doesn't re
alize we're the more vicious. I guess he's paying for that now, isn't he?"

I cocked my head to the side and repeated. "Which brat of Nyx's are you?"

"I don't think I'm going to tell you. I think I'm going to let you find out for yourself. Perhaps if I leav
e little clues you'll figure it out before it's too late. I do like posing a challenge."

"What if I don't play?" She couldn't make me play if I didn't want to. And right now
–
I was really tired of all of this. I could almost convince myself that Rose was
probably irretrievably broken and she'd never be able to integrate back into her family much less polite society.

But then I remembered the woman who held an intervention because she thought I was on drugs - the woman who had tased Adonis, and I couldn't
give up on her.

She smiled at me knowingly. "I thought so. Part of me wants to just give you the cure and see what you'll do with this second chance. Oh my curiosity is going to get me into trouble one day I suppose, but you haven't caught onto me yet."

"
Listen, I'm not going to demand that you give me answers. I'm not even going to ask you to show me your true form. But you are going to get the Hell out of my head so I can wake up. I've got things to do and promises to keep and I do so hate being late."

"
Well we wouldn't want you to be late," she replied sardonically.

Have you ever had that feeling that you've met your match? I couldn't claim to be the smartest or the prettiest girl on the block. But I was the most stubborn and I haven't turned down a dar
e yet. This woman was daring me to find her and take her out.

"So, game on?" I asked with a small smile.

She shifted out of the blanket. I nearly stumbled but caught myself and turned just in time to see her walking out my front door. "Yes, Grace. Game o
n."

All I got was hip length black hair that curled slightly at the ends and a strong, proud stature that told me that she was going to be a challenge. She didn't scare me the way Hypnos did. That, in and of itself, should have been a warning. I should hav
e been more scared of her than a cornfield in Iowa during a blood red moon.  I admit, I hadn't stepped foot into a cornfield since I saw
Children of the Corn
when I was a kid.  That movie was fricken scary.

Not long after, I woke in my bed in Olympus, pant
ing. It was just turning light outside and the pink of dawn painted the sky with scarlets and oranges.

I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands over my face. Dream world was easier. I wasn't in a fragile body. My movement pulled something in my arm and I
peered closely to find an IV stuck in my arm. Guh! I hated IVs. Okay, I just hated needles in general.

I looked around and saw various machines with readouts, knobs and dials. On the other side of the glass (which wasn
’
t opaque so anyone walking by could
see my hideous visage) Drew sat. His cheek was pressed into the glass and a smudge of drool gathered around his mouth.

I smiled. I
’
d never seen him in any level of dishevel. He was always nearly perfect
–
even when gravely wounded. Who knew he was a drool
er?

I yanked a pad off of my skin and set off an alarm. His body jerked upright and he looked around in a panic. "Yeah, that's right," I croaked. "I'm up and I need some water. My throat is dry as the Sahara."

He breathed a sigh of relief and passed his h
and over some sensor on the other side of the glass. "I'll be in there in a moment, Grace. I just need to put a suit on, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. I can wait." And I could. Normally I had to hit the bathroom as soon as I woke up. I didn't have to which meant tha
t someone had stuck a catheter in me. Gross. And uncomfortable. Nothing like having a tube shoved up my
–
never mind. Needless to say I was a little horrified and I definitely did not want to know who had put it in.

A few moments later, he walked through
the door and I could feel and hear the vacuum suction of it opening and closing. They weren't taking any chances with this virus and I couldn't blame them.

"Hey you," he said through his helmet. The entire suit seemed to be hermetically sealed. It looked
more like a space-suit than a biohazard suit. The ones I'd seen on TV were bulky and looked hot and uncomfortable.

What Drew was wearing was more like a one piece Kevlar jumpsuit with a helmet. He had full range of motion and walked fairly easily. I was i
mpressed.

"Hey," I replied with a weak smile. "What's a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?"

"I got just what you need right here baby."

That brought a grin to my face. This was the kind of bantering that we used to have. It was nice.

I took a sip o
f the water. "So what happened here?" I gestured to the wires and tubes coming out of my arms.

"After you kicked your mother out of your dream last night, she came to check on you and couldn't wake you up. Before I knew it, she had the entire med team in
here hooking you up to monitors and machines. You were breathing on your own but you wouldn't respond to any stimulus at all. You'd fallen into a coma."

"Suck," I said and took another drink.

"Tell me about it," he agreed.

"How long have I been out this
time?"

"Just about twelve hours."

"Does my kid know?"

"Yes," he said pointedly. "
Our
kid knows."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, our kid. Where is he?"

"He's in the next room over. He didn't want to be too far away in case you woke up."

"So it's just tomorrow mor
ning?" I asked confused.

"Yeah. Grace, you went to sleep really early last night. The rest of us conked out not long after. I don't know how you did it or what happened but your mother was having a conversation with me and suddenly she was just asleep."

M
y eyes widened in astonishment. "Really?"

"Yeah. Heph said you did the same thing to him. He came out of it in a huge snit. What did you do to him?"

I avoided his gaze and muttered, "Yeah I'm going to have to apologize to him."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"S
hut up. Go get my kid will you? I promised him he'd see me today and I aim to keep that promise."

He grinned and backed out of the room. "You're like the Energizer Bunny Grace. If I was Hypnos I would be scared to death of you."

"You have no idea," I respo
nded with wide eyes.