Abby was quiet and I reached over to grab her hand and she turned to look at me. "I"m worried about Leon," she said quietly. It had been a long week since Abby told Leon about Darin. He still hadn"t come home and Abby had been distant from everyone, including me. I worked all morning trying to talk her into taking a walk with me. We"d walked out of the back door and she helped me down the cliff, landing on her feet."I know so am I," I agreed.
"Never thought I"d hear myself say that," she laughed.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I don"t know, for so long I…I hated him. But I still cared. I mean, when Casimir and I found him years ago, he was broken, an empty sh.e.l.l begging for death and I could"ve granted that. But when I looked into his eyes, I couldn"t do it. I couldn"t kill him." She paused. "Casimir had been talking for years about peaceful resolutions with vampire and I refused him the opportunity. Until Leon, I thought, if there was a chance, a truth in what Casimir believed then maybe he could do it with Leon. Maybe I could have Leon back." A tear came to her eyes.
"Abby," I began but she just closed her eyes and shook her head.
"I walked away. I told Casimir, "If you truly think that there is peaceful possibilities with vampire, here"s your chance. Show me." And I walked away. Casimir helped Leon in every way possible. He taught him to hunt animal instead of humans. Helped him cope with what he thought he had become. Of course, neither of them knew exactly what he had become. Only I knew that." She fidgeted with her fingers. "It took a while to get Leon to the point that he could function without falling every few steps to sob. He had nightmares, bad ones at first. After a while he learned how to cope with his demons. I remember him calling my name in his sleep. He always seemed to be trying to save me from something.
"After about a decade of therapy and rehabilitation, Lothair caught up with us. When he saw Leon and realized who he was he looked at me in disbelief. He asked me about the pact that we had made. I told him that I hadn"t forgiven Leon for what he had done to me but I couldn"t kill him either. I explained to Lothair that I would still honor our pact and help him find Rurik. I think it took about five years and Lothair became one of us. We became one big happy very dysfunctional family. A Vampire hunting Kethra; a Krznik that feeds on vampire; a Lycan; a vegan vampire and Lena the Kethra princess of us all. We really were a messed up family."
We started laughing and I saw Abby again for the first time in a week, the happy, jovial, carefree Abby. It was nice to see her smiling.
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"So tell me a story," I requested.
"A story?" she asked.
"Yeah, a story, any story."
"But there are so many, I wouldn"t know where to begin," she laughed.
I thought about it a moment then said, "How about when you met the G.o.ds and got all of your gifts?" I remembered from the last diary entry the vague explanation of her encounter with Ares.
"Would you like to hear about Mt. Olympus?" she asked.
"Yeah, why not?" I chimed.
"Okay, well, I had finally made it back from Asia when I met Ares for the first time." She started. "I was at one of the temples of Ares, looking out over a cliff when he appeared behind me. I turned and looked at him and froze with uncertainty. Of course, I had never actually seen a G.o.d before so I didn"t realize at first who he was. Then as if a light came on in my mind, I knew who it was in front of me. He told me he had been watching me develop into a force to be reckoned with and offered me a set of enchanted daggers."
I watched as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and mumbled something under her breath. Suddenly, she threw her arms down and two daggers sprung up from the ground. I could hear a sizzle come from her hands. They were silver with intricate carvings in the blades. They were beautiful and sharp. She stepped away and showed me a demonstration of the agility of her weapons. I watched as she moved gracefully, swinging the blades around. Abby looked like a ballerina dancing, of course a very deadly ballerina but a graceful dance nonetheless. She shot out her arm toward a tree and the blade stuck into it from about twenty foot. She yanked her hand back and the dagger came back to her hand. She walked back toward me as she flipped the blades in her hands. As she neared me, she held out her hand to show me the blade.
"It"s beautiful," I remarked and she smiled in response. She lowered her hands toward the ground and released the blades. They sunk back into the earth, disappearing. "Does it hurt?" I asked stupidly.
"A little, it"s been a long time since I have called on them so it did hurt a bit this time." She answered frankly, "A few days after I had met Ares, a pack of Windigo caught me in the plains. I called on my daggers for the first time, just to see how they did against them. And they worked great, not that I doubted it but it was nice to know. After the fight was over, Ares showed up and told me that the G.o.ds wished to meet me. I remember asking where and he stepped closer to me, "At Olympus", he whispered. I remember the shock and I dropped my daggers. He laid his hands on my shoulders and told me to close my eyes. Like two seconds later, he told me to open them and I was in a pearl white castle of sorts. I looked around at the grand pillars around me and was in awe. Ares extended his arm to me and I took it. This grand room that I thought I was in turned out to be a corridor. He led me into a ma.s.sively huge room where the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses all sat in gold thrones. Ares dropped my hand and took his throne, leaving me standing dead center of the room as the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses gazed at me. I dropped to one knee honoring their majesty. "Rise," Zeus said and I stood looking up at him. "You have proven yourself worthy to be a champion to us". His voice was booming and echoed off of the pearl walls of the grand hall. But G.o.ds don"t have like regular voices. There is an underlining ring to their voice." Abby stopped for a minute then continued as we walked.
"He told me that in honor of my stature, each G.o.d and G.o.ddess would give me a gift that would help me. He motioned to a man who stood and floated to me. "I am Hermes, messenger to the G.o.ds and I grant you the same ability. If you ever need reinforcements or to send a ma.s.sage you may, with your mind". He touched my temples and I felt a warm energy enter my mind and his hands left my head. He turned and returned to his throne. The next woman stood and said, "I am Hestia, G.o.ddess of the hearth, I grant you the ability to control fire." She ran her hand across mine and I felt the heat enter."
She stopped and I could hear in my mind her sweet voice as she made a circle with her hands, fingertip to palm. I watched as the s.p.a.ce filled with light and a raging ball of fire sparked into life. She turned and moved her hands to her side as she threw the fire down to the ground about ten feet in front of us. Before I knew it a large sphere of water fell on top of it.
"I got the power to control water from Poseidon. Aphrodite granted me the power and magick of seduction." My eyebrows rose at that and she giggled. "I can cast a spell of l.u.s.t on anyone. If you fall under this spell, you would simply kill yourself if I asked. It is a very powerful spell." She finished.
"So what other gifts and powers did you get?" I asked.
"Well, most were favors, like eternal happiness. Dionysus and Hades told me that I would know their gifts when the time came. Dionysus" gift was rebirth into this body. I"m still not sure what Hades" is." She paused and shuddered. "Hera granted me the golden apple of eternal beauty when I needed it, after I was burned at the stake. Zeus granted me wings."
"Wings?" I"d heard of this but I hadn"t seen it before.
"Yeah, wanna see?" she asked.
"h.e.l.l yeah!" I exclaimed.
She stepped back, closed her eyes as she lowered her head. She relaxed her shoulders forward and after a second shot straight up as wings; big, beautiful, white, feathered wings; sprouted from between her shoulder blades. She spread them wide and her wingspread was large and she looked up at me and a smile came across her face. "So?" she asked.
"Wow," was all I could say. It was awesome; she looked like some kind of angel standing in front of me.
"Wanna ride?" she asked.
"What?"
"Come on," she turned around and backed up to me. "Put your arms around my shoulders."
She looked over her shoulder at me and I wrapped my arms around her. We lifted off of the ground and we were flying. I could see the house disappearing out of sight. The clouds were cool on my face as we glided through the sky. Suddenly, the clouds cleared and the bright blue of the sky was brilliant. The air was fresh and cleaner than I had ever felt. Something dawned on me, "What if someone sees us? It is daylight."
"Don"t worry, no one can. Another power," she smiled. We began gliding down out of the clouds reach, toward the ground. The country side was beautiful, plush and green. We soared even faster toward the ground and glided to an open field and landed softly.
"Where are we?"
"Look," she pointed behind me and I turned to see temple ruins. "The temple of Ares, come." She grabbed my hand and led me toward them. Her wings swayed as she walked. "Oh, I wanted to show you my other gifts." She stopped and clapped her hands together in front of her. As she did a huge square shaped carved sword appeared. She turned it in her hands and smiled up at me. She reminded me of a child on Christmas morning with new toys from Santa, except she had weapons instead of toys and her Santa had been the G.o.ds of Mt. Olympus. "This is the Sword of Destruction, a gift from Hephaestus, G.o.d of Fire and Metalwork."
"It"s amazing," I said and it was. Detailed carvings of tribal like patterns lined the edges of the sword. Abby"s face lit up and she pulled her hands apart abruptly and the sword was gone. She closed her eyes, lowered her face and stepped back.
Suddenly, her hair shifted from dark brown to fire red and her hands that were together again in front of her began to glow a light between them. I stepped back not knowing exactly what she was doing. The light between her hands grew brighter, and then I realized that the light was actually flames but this time it wasn"t a ball of fire. Instead, it was actually coming from her hands. I watched as she pulled her hands apart and the fire that was burning in her hands spread up her arms and all over her body. It caught her wings and the brilliant white feathers fluttered to the ground like embers from a bonfire. Her wings became pure fire burning as she opened her eyes where the flames burned in her pupils, making them red as the fire. Her lips parted in a smile and she spoke, "The phoenix arises within me a gift from Demeter, the G.o.ddess of the Harvest. She was the mother to Persephone, Queen of the underworld and wife to Hades, she shares her daughter with Hades and Persephone returns to the earth every six months. This is a symbol of rejuvenation, such as spring is in agriculture, therefore the Phoenix is a symbol of hers, the symbol of rejuvenation."
I stood in complete awe. Her skin was lined with the flames of the phoenix and as terrifying as it was to see, it was also the most amazingly beautiful thing I had ever seen. The sheer power of this woman nearly overwhelmed me. She stayed like that for a moment more when I heard him.
"Drusilla, showing off?" He was a tall, thin man with long, wavy, dark brown hair and white eyes with black rings around the edges of his irises. He was dressed in black leather pants with an open black leather vest. I stood staring at him trying to place who he could be.
"Ares," Abby chimed and instantly the phoenix flames vanished with her wings.
"Ares?" I asked in a whisper and motioned toward him.
She turned back to me with wide eyes. "Do you see him?" she asked and motioned to him, too.
"Yeah," I muttered as I nodded. "Is that Ares? As in the G.o.d of War?"
"Oh my G.o.ds, you can see him," she exclaimed and looked back at Ares. "Why? You"ve never shown yourself to anyone but me."
Ares smiled and looked at Abby lovingly. "Adam Michael Garret, the man who makes my love happy." He approached me and extended his hand to me. "It"s a pleasure to meet you, lucky man. I had always hoped that I could win her and have her by my side but destiny had a different plan for her." He finished with a laugh and glanced at Abby out of the corner of his eye.
I took his hand and squeezed as I shook it.
"It is a pleasure, truly." I said confidently.
"Yes," he said then turned back toward Abby. "And you, my love, I must deliver a message to you, from Hades."
"Yes," she said and stood straight. "He said to tell you that Lena is safe in the Elysian Fields, his gift to you." Her eyes filled with tears as the realization of what he said registered. "She is?"
"Yes, he had said that you would receive your gift when the time was right. When you two died that day Dionysus and Hades both granted you their gifts." Ares finished as he came to stand directly in front of her. He raised his hand to her face and caressed her cheek; I felt a sudden pang of jealousy that he was doing my job, my duty of making everything better for her.
Then her eyes caught mine and her face lit up as she ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck. "Did you hear that? Lena is safe in the Elysian Fields!" she exclaimed nearly squealing with excitement. Ares smiled and bowed his face to me then vanished before my eyes.
"Where?" I asked as I looked around trying to spot him. Abby turned and looked where Ares had been standing. "Oh," she chuckled, "he never stays very long."
We spent the day at the ruins then as night fell over us we decided to head home.
Abby summoned her wings again but now they were black, jet black. I gave her a questioning look and she smiled. "I guess you could say, I"m an angel of two sides, just as the earth. White for day flying, black for night, or whichever I feel having," she laughed.
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders again and we flew home under the cover of night. The night sky was clear and the stars were amazing. Millions and millions of stars twinkled at us as we soared home. "You"re good at this flying thing." I said loudly through the cool air.
"Yeah, I"ve had some practice. Zeus gave them to me like four hundred years ago." She smirked as we glided down. I watched as the house came into view and we softly landed down in the ravine. "Did you have fun?" she asked as she took my hand.
"Yeah, I did," I answered and pulled her into my arms.
"Where have you two been?" Casimir asked as he approached us.
"We flew to Greece and Adam met Ares," Abby chimed.
"Ares? Adam met him?" Casimir asked astonished.
"Yeah, he wanted to meet the man in Dru"s life," I laughed.
"Yup, that and he had to deliver a message from Hades," Abby said smiling brightly.
"What was the message?" Casimir asked.
"Wait till Lothair gets here," she said and I think she sent a message to him because he joined us a minute later.
"What"s going on?" Lothair asked.
"Ares delivered a message that I think we all would be happy to hear. Hades told Ares to tell me that Lena is safe in the Elysian Fields," Abby exclaimed.
Casimir and Lothair, both, smiled wide and hugged Abby. I didn"t quite understand what that meant but obviously it was a good thing. Their reactions suggested that it was a great thing. They all chattered amongst each other about Lena, the Elysian Fields and Tartarus. I just stood there watching everyone as they celebrated.
"Have you heard anything from Leon?" Abby asked.
"No, he"s still gone," Casimir answered and Lothair nodded in agreement.
Dread washed over Abby"s face as this dawned on her. She closed her eyes and had a look of concentration on her face. I a.s.sumed that she was trying to reach him. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and looked at us all.
"Anything?" Lothair asked.
"No," Abby answered solemnly, "Nothing."