"Cud?" Orion asked like he must have heard her wrong.
"Chewed, swallowed, barfed, and rechewed," she told him with a grin.
"How are you?" Matt asked Helen while everyone laughed at Ariadne"s gross a.n.a.logy. And suddenly he was just Matt again, her old pal, and there was nothing strange about him at all.
"I"m all right," she said, patting the hand that he laid on her arm.
"You sure?" he pressed, looking deeper into her damaged eye. Helen remembered that her confrontation with Ares had left a blue scar running down the iris of her right eye. She was told it looked like lightning, but she hadn"t seen it yet. There had been more important things for her to do than look in a mirror.
"Yeah, I"m fine," she said, and then she grinned. "I"d be better if I could get Ari to stop kicking in her sleep."
"Hey, at least I don"t snore," Ariadne joked back with Helen.
"You both snore," Claire chimed in, grinning. "It"s like rooming with a couple of dudes."
They all got a laugh in at Helen"s and Ariadne"s expense. Helen was struck by how happy they all were just to be together-safe and comfortable in each other"s company as if they"d hung out like this a thousand times. But none of them could ignore why they were there for very long, and the easy feeling quickly dissipated.
"So what"ve you found out about the G.o.ds, Matt?" Orion asked, sensitive as always to the subtle shift in mood. "Have you heard anything?"
"Yeah. There have been some . . . attacks," Matt said reluctantly.
"What does that mean?" Claire asked.
Matt tapped his iPad and started flicking through newspaper headlines, and everyone crowded together.
"Two days ago, a woman in New York City was found on top of the Empire State Building gored to death by what looked like giant talons. And this morning, a girl"s body was found trampled to death by a horse on a Cape Cod beach. Both women had been raped before they were killed."
Hector took the iPad and looked at it. "This is a tabloid headline," he said dubiously. "It says that the witnesses in New York claimed to have seen a woman getting carried off by a giant bird."
"Eagle. It was an eagle," Helen said softly, repressing a shiver. Everyone stared at her for a moment, expecting an explanation. "It"s just a hunch, but I"ve been having strange dreams and weird flashes, I guess you"d call them," she admitted with a shrug, trying to downplay the full-blown memories she"d been experiencing until she understood them a bit better.
"When did they start?" Lucas asked, concerned. Helen scrunched up her face, trying to think back to the first time she saw him and the other guys in armor.
"Halloween," she said, realizing it as she spoke. She looked at Orion. "Remember how I forgot everything for a second there after touching the water from that river?" she asked. She avoided saying the name of the River Lethe almost superst.i.tiously, just in case it made her forget everything all over again.
"Uh-huh," Orion replied with a small smile. Helen smiled nervously back at him, remembering how they had jumped on each other as soon as they forgot who they were. By the warm look he was giving her, Helen was sure he was remembering that as well. Then his face darkened. "You couldn"t even remember your own name for a bit. That was bad."
"Well, when I did remember again, it was like there was too much in my head or something." Helen sighed with frustration. "I can"t explain it yet, but now I"m getting all these weird images when I dream."
"And one of them was of an eagle?" Matt asked.
"Yeah. Why? What are you thinking, Matt?" Helen asked, gesturing to his iPad and the articles about the murdered girls.
"I know this looks like tabloid nonsense, but Greek myths talk about women being carried off by G.o.ds disguised as animals all the time. I think the eagle is Zeus and the horse is Poseidon," Matt said.
"Matt, I can turn into a horse," Orion said with an apologetic look. "Everyone in the House of Athens can."
"Get the h.e.l.l out," Helen said, whirling on Orion with wide eyes.
"What? I can turn into a dolphin," Jason said like he was telling them the time.
"Shut up!" Claire and Helen shrieked in unison. Jason laughed.
"Some Scions can shape-shift into their G.o.d"s animal avatars," Hector said, giving Helen a weird look. "How can you not know this?"
"n.o.body told me, and I"ve never been able to do it!" Helen shouted back. She rounded on Orion again. "Why didn"t you tell me?"
"It"s not like it"s useful or anything," he said with a shrug. "Think about it. How many horses do you see trotting around town these days?"
"Yeah." Jason chuckled. "And then when you change back, you"re buck naked. Try explaining that one. It"s crazy fun to be an animal, don"t get me wrong, but it"s rarely practical."
"Yeah, but . . . ," Claire sputtered. "Oh my G.o.d!"
"This is so unfair. I get all the miserable talents like descending and having freaky dreams, and you get to turn into a dolphin." Helen pouted, throwing a pillow at Jason.
"Okay, okay," Matt interjected, holding up his hands to get everyone back on target. "But how many Scions can turn into an eagle large enough to carry off a woman?"
"None." Hector c.o.c.ked his head to the side. "Okay, Matt. What do you think is going on?"
"I think the G.o.ds are doing exactly what they used to do before they were locked up on Olympus-running around and raping mortal women. But this time, they aren"t leaving their victims alive."
"Huh." Hector chuffed. "They aren"t taking any chances."
"No. Not this time," Matt replied.
"What do you mean?" Ariadne asked.
"In every single one of the stories about a G.o.d appearing to a woman as a bull or a swan or a shower of gold, nine months later a Scion was born," Hector said, spreading his hands to indicate all of them. "It"s like they never miss."
Lucas tactfully ignored Hector"s off-color comment and looked at Helen. "What else have you seen in these flashes?"
"What other animals, you mean?" Helen said haltingly. She"d very nearly blurted out, "I keep seeing us, and we"re married!" but stopped herself just in time.
Lucas narrowed his eyes at her, sensing Helen"s odd fumble, and opened his mouth to begin what she was sure would be an embarra.s.sing interrogation.
"I"ve seen an eagle, a dolphin, and a stallion," she continued before he could start. Knowing Lucas the way she did, Helen was certain that she had only delayed his questions. He wouldn"t forget, and since he was a Falsefinder she had the choice of either telling the truth or staying silent. Lying to Lucas was not an option-which was a giant pain in the b.u.t.t.
"And the dolphin is Apollo, right?" Claire asked sharply, looking up from the iPad.
"The dolphin, the wolf, the mouse, and the crow were all Apollo"s animal avatars," Ariadne answered.
Claire showed them the article she"d been reading about a strange attack at Wellesley College. They all leaned their heads together to read. A girl, whose name was left out of the paper, had been terribly injured by a young blond man the previous night. She fought off his savage attack long enough for campus security to respond to the silent alarm she managed to activate. The young man got away under "suspicious" circ.u.mstances. The Wellesley police were looking for leads from the public. They considered her attacker extremely dangerous.
Apparently, more than one eyewitness on the responding security team reported seeing the young man fly away when he realized he was surrounded. The girl was recovering from her injuries at a local hospital.
"And now for the real kicker." Claire scrolled down to show a pencil drawing of someone who looked almost exactly like Hector.
"Oh. That"s just great," Hector deadpanned.
"What does this mean?" Ariadne asked, fear widening her eyes as she looked around at everyone. "They"re not going to come looking for Hector, are they?"
No one had an answer.
"I know a few places where you can lay low for a while," Orion offered quietly. "They"re not exactly nice, but the people in them have a hard time remembering faces."
Momentarily stunned, Helen studied Orion, wondering what kind of place he was talking about. All kinds of squalid images flashed through her head. For the life of her, Helen couldn"t picture Orion in some seedy flophouse or den of thieves. But she had to admit to herself that he was much more familiar with that world than anyone she"d come in contact with before. Again, she wondered about Orion"s awful childhood and whether he would ever tell her about it-and about how he got those scars.
"Thanks, bro. But I"m not leaving my family again," Hector said, giving Orion a grateful look.
Orion nodded, but Ariadne started shaking her head vehemently. "No, Hector. No," she said, her voice getting panicky. "We just got you back. I don"t want someone coming here and dragging you off to jail."
"It"s all right," he said, pulling his sister close and patting her shoulder with one of his thick hands. "No one knows I"m on the island. They all think I"m still studying in Europe. I"ll hide here in the house. It"ll be fine."
Believing him, Ariadne calmed down and squeezed her brother"s chest in a fierce hug. Over her head Matt and Hector exchanged a look, Matt silently promising to look after Ariadne if anything happened to Hector. Somehow, Helen could see these emotions pa.s.s between the two young men as clearly as she could see colors painted on a canva.s.s. She blinked her eyes furiously, hoping like crazy it stopped.
"What the . . . ," Orion exclaimed suddenly, jerking up and breaking Helen"s train of thought. He twisted around to reveal Ca.s.sandra, who had crept up behind him on the bed. He relaxed as soon as he recognized her.
"Were you here the whole time?" Claire asked, incredulous.
Ca.s.sandra shrugged in a noncommittal way, but she didn"t say anything.
"She startles the h.e.l.l out of me, like, five times a day. I swear, she makes no noise when she moves," Orion said to Claire. He turned to Ca.s.sandra. "Keep it up and I"ll put a bell on you. Like a bad kitty," he threatened with a stern look on his face, but he didn"t push her away. Instead he scooped her up and placed her on top of his pillows, bringing her inside the circle of conversation.
"So, we all know that someone needs to find that girl and bring her back here as soon as possible," Orion said, pointing to the article. All the guys nodded.
"Wait. Why?" Helen asked, surprised.
"She"s not safe in the mortal world anymore. Apollo didn"t get her yet," Jason answered, his voice trailing off at the end. Helen looked at Claire for an answer but Claire shrugged, stumped.
"Apollo never let a girl get away," Lucas said, like he hated admitting that he was the descendant of someone so loathsome. "When he wanted a mortal he chased her, even if she didn"t want him back. Anywhere she ran, he followed. He wouldn"t give up."
"Unless she begged a G.o.ddess to turn her into a tree or a body of water or something that he couldn"t violate," Matt said testily. "Haven"t you ever wondered why the House of Thebes, the descendants of Apollo, have so many members?"
"All the G.o.ds were miserable, raping, warmongering b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Not just Apollo," Hector said with a grimace. "That"s why we have to find a way to get rid of them. Again."
Orion, Lucas, and Helen shared a pained look, each of them keenly aware that this was their fault. The three of them had accidentally become blood brothers when they fought Ares, and that had joined the four Houses and unleashed the G.o.ds on the world again.
"Hang on. I wasn"t blaming you three," Hector began apologetically, but Orion smiled and put a hand on his friend"s shoulder.
"We know you didn"t mean it like that," Orion said.
"But it was still our fault," Helen reminded them all. "The G.o.ds have always backed Scions into a corner and forced us to make a choice between bad and worse, but we"re the ones who have always fallen for their traps. I won"t let it happen again."
Lucas gave Helen a worried look, but before he could lecture her on the dangers of hubris for the tenth time, she changed the subject. "So who wants to come with me to get this girl?"
"You"re not going," Lucas and Orion said in unison.
"Yes I am," Helen replied to both of them. "You two are a mess, and Hector can"t show his face in public. Who else is going to go?"
"I"ll come with you, Len," Claire said, cutting off Lucas and Orion before they could argue any further. "Don"t worry guys, I"ll watch her. If she keels over, she can land on me, okay?"
"And me," Ariadne said.
"You"re still way too drained," Jason said, shaking his head at his twin.
"And that poor girl just got attacked by a G.o.d last night. She"s probably too injured to be moved without a Healer. I"m also guessing that right now the last thing she wants is for a man to put his hands on her, so that counts you out," Ariadne replied firmly to Jason.
"So, it"s Larry, Moe, and Curly to the rescue?" Hector said, rubbing his forehead like his brain hurt.
"Very funny," Helen said, insulted.
He looked up at Helen, his eyes serious. "How are your bolts?"
She held up a humming globe of power, cupped in the palm of her hand. It sizzled with compressed energy and threw heat out into the room in waves. "Better than ever," she replied with a c.o.c.ked eyebrow. "It feels almost effortless now. Like it isn"t draining me at all."
"Good," Hector said, visibly relaxing now that he knew Helen could defend the three of them. "Apollo is probably lurking around somewhere near the hospital, so keep your eyes open."
"I will. But he"s not likely to get too close to me after what I did to his half brother," she said darkly.
Helen looked down at the ball of energy in her hand, remembering how she"d electrocuted Ares and imprisoned him in Tartarus after he"d tortured her. It felt good to know she"d defeated a G.o.d. When she looked up, everyone was staring at her.
She closed her hand and extinguished the bolt.
THREE.
The streets didn"t get bad until they got to the center of town. Helen gazed out the window of Ariadne"s Mini with a lump in her throat as they drove past the vandalized storefronts. The damage done during the Halloween riots was localized around the high school and the News Store, but that included a large area of downtown.
Shop windows were broken, demolished cars were still sitting on the side of the road, and some places were even showing the signs of fire damage. Houses that belonged to Helen"s schoolmates and her neighbors-houses that were older than the country itself-had been torn up, covered with graffiti, and scorched. She wondered how many people she cared about had been hurt or even killed. How many of her friends were still dreadfully injured like her dad?
"Claire? Did anyone we know . . . besides Zach?" Helen began, unsure of how to put it. She didn"t have to spell it out. Claire knew what she meant and nodded.
"Hergie," Claire said, her voice catching. "Smoke inhalation. He was trying to save books from the library fire at school."
There was nothing to say. Mr. Hergesheimer wasn"t a relative or even a friend, but still Helen had loved that grouchy old man. Now that he was gone, it was like a door closing. Nantucket would never be the same again.
She swallowed and refocused on what they needed to do. Right now she knew she needed to get angry, not hysterical. Eris and Terror, the small G.o.ds who had created the riots, were still out there somewhere. Helen clenched her fists and reminded herself to be patient. She"d get her chance at them soon enough.
During the long ride on the ferry from Nantucket to the mainland port at Hyannis the three girls took the opportunity to plan which hospitals they should try. Taking up a table by the concession stand at the center of the ferry, they scrolled through Matt"s iPad, checking out maps on the internet. By the time the ferry docked, Helen felt like they had a pretty solid list of possibilities.
The first two hospitals, although closest to Wellesley College, proved to be dead ends. By the time they got to the third, most of the day was spent. As they pulled into the parking structure, Claire pointed at a police car parked near the entrance.