Guardian of Atlantis (The Children of Atlantis) (11 page)

“Quit stalling and hand it over. Now!” roared the woman. She held out her free hand.

“Hand what over? I don’t have a clue about what you want. If it’s about
the
paper I was supposed to write, I give it to you tomorrow.”

“I’m not talking about the
stupid paper.”

“If it’s so stupid, why did you assign it to me?”

“Give me the key codes.”

“Oh, so we’re back to that now.  Do you have a hearing problem or something? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you think I’m blind? Give me the necklace.
Now!”

Raven wrapped her fingers around the pendant. It sent odd warmth through her.
“This necklace?
I just got this necklace. It was a birthday present. Go buy your own necklace. Or better yet, get your daddy to buy you one.”

“It contains the key codes.” Meritus’s eyes glittered with anticipation and anger. “Give it to me, now!”

Raven figured she had to keep up the act until she could come up with a plan to get away. “This isn’t a key. It’s a necklace.
A solid necklace.
Nothing hiding inside.
No secret compartments.” Her arms dropped to her sides.

“And someone thought it was wise to make you responsible for guarding Atlantis? What were they thinking?”

Raven angrily stomped her foot. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from crying out in pain. “Note to self—don’t stomp injured leg. That really, really hurts,” she mumbled to herself through clenched teet
h. She took several deep breath
s to help control the tremendous pain ripping through her leg while also trying to hide it from Meritus.

“This game you’re playing is old. It bores me. You’re only stalling. What will happen, will happen, whether it’s now or it’s later. You’re only making me angrier, and that’s the last thing you w
ant to do,” threatened the
woman.

“Do you think you scare me? Not! I make teachers mad all the time. It’s a daily requirement for me. You know—a normal daily function. What makes you think you’re special enough for me to treat you any different from any other teacher? So what if you’re Zeus’ daughter.
Big deal!”
Raven shrugged her shoulders. “So what if you’re the daughter of a god. You’re still just a teacher.”

“There’s one fact you haven’t taken into consideration. Unlike other teachers, I have no problem killing you.” Meritus’s voice vibrated with excitement.

“I bet you say that to all the kids. You know, as a way to control them.
Probably your only way of controlling the kids in your classes.
Unfortunately it’s lost the scare factor it had earlier.” Raven gave Meritus a smug smile.

“The necklace.
Now!”
She stepped toward Raven, forcing her to retreat several steps. “The necklace,” Meritus repeated.
“Or your life.”

Raven glanced around. “Never a police officer around when you needed one,” she said as she searched for anything she could use in defense against a sword. “If you kill me
, you definitely won’t get the
key codes you think I’ve got.”

“Oh, I’ll kill you, but I’ll do it really slow. It’ll be so painful you’ll beg me for death.”

Raven gulped. “I’ve got a really severe allergy to pain. Break out in hives and all that. So I’ll just have to take a rain check,” she said through gritted teeth. She was already in enough pain. She didn’t need anymore.

“Sorry, no rain checks.
Why put off the inevitable? There’s no time better than right now.” Meritus lunged at her.

Raven didn’t move or scream. She knew she couldn’t out run the woman, not with her injured leg.

“She’s mine!” growled Jay from the back door.

Meritus jerked to a halt a few feet from Raven. She looked up about the same time Jay leaped over the porch rail. The sound of bones popping and cracking filled the evening air. A gigantic, dark brown Hellhound with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth landed on the gro
und then leaped at Meritus
, knocking her to the ground. Her sword flew from her hand landing at Raven’s feet.

Raven looked at the sword for a long time. Finally she turned to the two rolling around in a deadly dance just feet from her. Th
e Hellhound penned Meritus
on her back. It ferociously bit and snapped its powerful jaws desperate to wrap its long and sharp teeth around her throat.

Meritus held the animal’s head away with one hand. With her other hand, she blindly groped all around her for the sword. She glanced over at Raven. “Give me my sword,” she demanded her face red from her struggles.

Raven picked u
p the weapon and looked at the woman
.

“Yes.
My sword.
Help me.” Meritus
panted.

Raven glanced back at the sword.

“Give me my sword!” Meritus’s face went from red to an ugly purple, obviously the fight was beginning to take its toll on her. Meritus, being the daughter of a powerful god, was strong, but the three hundred plus pound Hellhou
nd obviously had the upper hand, or rather
paw.

Raven’s lip flickered into a smile. “Funny, how things change. Just a few minutes ago you were pointing this sword at me, willing to kill me, now you want me to give it to you as if you never threatened me with it. Ironic, isn’t it? Me, giving you the very weapon you were going to kill me with.” Raven tossed the sword across the yard, far out of Meritus’s reach. “I don’t think so.”

“Wha
t are you doing?” screamed the woman
.

Growls filled the air. The bone crunching snaps of the Hellhounds teeth sent chills down Raven’s spine.

Raven shrugged her shoulders, winci
ng as pain shot through her injured
shoulder. She swallowed. She hurt everywhere.

“I’ll rip your arms off myself,” threatened Meritus.

“Something like a cute little Hellhound can’t stop you. Take control. You’re a teacher. You’re the daughter of Zeus.” Raven turned and limped to the woods.

Growls and screams filled the air.

Raven kept going.

Not once looking back.

Not caring who won.

Deep down she knew the winner would come after her soon enough. So why stand there and
wait? What fun was that? She figured
she might as well be surprised.

6

Mom and dad rarely argued about anything. In fact, they seemed in agreement about everything. Well, almost everything. There was one thing that made mom really angry.

The woods behind the house.

I don’t think it was actually the woods that made her mad, but rather the fact dad encouraged me to explore them, even though I was just a little kid, which was the basis of mom’s argument.

Dad would tell her I nee
ded to explore the woods so
I could learn and grow. Mom argued it was too dangerous for a child to be alone in the woods, even if the
child was different than other children
.

The worst part was that I cut my leg really bad. By the time I got home, I was covered in blood and I was crying.

After that, mom refused to even let me go into the backyard without her.

And the woods?

It was completely off limits.

Not even dad could change her mind.

             
--Raven Weir’s journal

Raven drew in a ragged breath as she leaned against a tree, taking the weight off of her injured leg. Cold
sweat prickled her skin, and mixed
with the cold rain. Resting her forehead against the rough, wet bark, Raven closed her eyes. When she first li
mped into the woods,
h
er leg throbbed
, but now h
er whole body screamed in agony
.

Mud and blood coated the shredded remains of her denim jeans, plastering the fragments of cloth to the oozing wound. She didn’t dare look at it. T
he very
thought of blood, especially her own, pushed her already queasy stomach into the spin cycle. Sooner or later she would have to look at the wound when she cleaned and bandaged it, but there was nothing she could do right now, not in the middle of the woods with no supplies.

Peroxide.

Bandages.

Antibacterial ointment.

Towels.

Clean, hot water.

The growing list of supplies she needed to clean and bandage the wound took her mind away from the problem. Raven’s stomach even stopped spinning.

For all of two minutes!

Her stomach contents crept up into her throat. Raven swallowed several times. Her stomach dropped like the cars going down the first humongous hill of a gigantic rollercoaster and then it
went up again. In the matter of seconds, her face turned several shades of green. Her hand flew up to her mouth. She swallowed over and over, praying her stomach would end its wild ride
before she hurled
.

A twig snapped.

Raven’s eyes popped open.

She held her breath.

She listened.

The pat, pat, pat of raindrops hitting leaves reverberated through the trees. There were no other sounds. No birds fussing or singing. No insects chirping.

Raven tried listening beyond the rain—beyond the dead silence surrounding her.

Creak!

Crack!

Snap!

Her stomach forgotten for the moment, Raven moved into a defensive posture, eve
n though physically she couldn’t
defend herself. A sickening wave of fiery pain ripped through her injured leg.

Dizziness rippled through her entire body.

Raven bit down hard on her bottom lip and covered her mouth with her right hand stifling the scream spewing out of it. Raven
’s
eyes darted from tree to tree. The shadows created by the
fast
fading evening light played tricks on her eyes making her think monsters loomed behind every tree and bush. She didn’t have to think.
She knew monsters were there, a
nd it was just a matter of time before they came after her. Fear tied her stomach muscles into knots. She swallowed several more ti
mes, hoping the acid in her stomach would quit pushing its
way up her esophagus.

R
aven had no clue where she going to
go. Without gasoline, the jeep was as useful to her as a pile of scrap metal. Sam Westing’s house was off the list
too, e
ven though
it was
where Ethan told her to wait for him. She was
n’t sure she could trust him. Ethan
was, after all, a Hellhound. Besides, the house scared her, and Raven doubted any of the other neighbors would help, even if she begged them. They didn’t know her and she didn’t know them, so why would they help her?

SNAP!

CRACK!

Raven’s heart pounded against her ribs. She was sure whoever or whatever was out there could hear it. Raven took a step, putting her full weight on her injured leg. The leg trembled, but sheer
determination kept her
standing. She clenched her teeth together, but it didn’t quite muffle the agony filled scream. Tears rolled down her cold cheeks.

Raven took one painful step after the other, putting distance between her and whatever was stalking her. She sucked in deep gulps of air
, but breathing through the pain
didn’t lessen it. Raven wanted to collapse where she was and just wait for whatever was coming, but something deep inside her pushed her onward—refusing all thoughts of giving up.

After what felt like a painful eternity of limping, Raven hobbled into a small clearing. Her
injured leg
finally
buckled underneath her and Raven collapsed to the soggy ground. The rain washed away the fresh blood seeping through the shreds of denim material covering the deep gashes in her leg.
The pain was so bad; she could have sworn someone had stuck red-hot irons into her leg. She half expected to smell burnt flesh. She
pulled her left knee up to her chest and gingerly let her head rest on it.

Raven shut her eyes tight against the flood
of tears building behind her eyelids
. A few teardrops found a small crack i
n the corners of her eyes. She
rubbed at the tears rolling down the sides of her face, even though it was a useless gesture. Rain drops covered her face, mixing with the tears before washing them away almost as fast as they appeared.

Somewhere in the distance an owl gave a low, lonely hoot; the first bird she heard since entering the woods.

Raven opened her eyes. H
olding her breath
,
she raised her head off of her knee. The owl didn’t make a repeat performance. Raven looked around, but in the inky darkness
now surrounding her, s
he couldn’t see anything.

“Probably just my imagination,” she whispered. Her voice vibra
ted with pain and self-pity
.

Raven shivered. Wrapping her arms around her knee, she pulled the uninju
red leg closer to her chest. Her body shook as she let out a deep breath of despair
. The dam inside her broke free. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, quickly mixing with the cold rain. Raven put her head back down on her knee, and cried until exhaustion overtook her. She drif
ted into a pain-free blackness.