Huntress (20 page)

"No," I responded emphatically. "And we’re not going to. This has to be a secret. I told you because I trust you."

This seemed to improve his mood. He liked feeling like a trusted grown up. He nodded and said, "Ok. Are we going to do the tree now?"

"Just like that? Ok Mom you’re kinda a super hero, let’s do the tree?"

He giggled and said, "Yeah, something like that."

I laughed too and ruffled his hair.  He tried to dodge me and I asked, "What colors should we do this year?"

"Blue and silver."

"Bleh, we did blue and silver a few years ago. How about red and pink?"

"Ew pink!"

"How about we do them all?" Drew commented, putting his two cents in.

"Oh now you’ve got something to say," I responded rolling my eyes.

He’d changed back into his normal shape and Dylan and I looked at each other and then him before nodding in agreement.

"Yeah ok, we can do all of them. It’s a good thing we have such a big tree.

We pulled the boxes into the family room and started unpacking lights, garland and ornaments.

"All we’re missing is music. Let me turn on the radio."

"Naw I’ll do it, you’ll probably turn on something Emo and I’ll have to strangle myself with the garland to escape my screaming ears."

"Har, funny Drew."

He knelt in front of the receiver and dialed through stations until he pulled up one of the five classic rock stations we had here in Colorado Springs. Van Halen was playing, I could live with that.

Dylan and I wound three strands of lights around the tree as we listened to David Lee Roth singing about how he was hot for the teacher.

"I can’t believe you guys listened to this stuff," Dylan commented scrunching his face up in disapproval.

"Whatevs, I can’t believe you listen to booty call music," I responded, sticking my tongue out.

The radio crackled and the Emergency Broadcast Signal pierced my eardrums.

"Aren’t they supposed to wait until the song is over before they run a test?" Dylan asked, confused.

"Yeah," I responded slowly. "Let’s see if there’s a message.

On cue, the deejay’s voice came over the radio. "This is not a test. Approximately twenty-two minutes ago, a 9.1 earthquake hit the West Coast, effectively leveling the city of Los Angeles. Emergency crews are mobilizing as is the National Guard. All traditional communication has gone dark. The President is calling for an emergency press conference to be held at seven p.m. local time. For more details please visit our website."

I scrambled over boxes looking for the remote control to the TV. "Shut the radio off," I called as I hit the power button and tuned into CNN.

Images of devastation filled the screen behind a shaken reporter as she breathlessly talked to the camera. "Scientists at the National Earthquake Information Center are still trying to determine what caused the earthquake that devastated one of the most populated cities in the United States. They have been seeing more recent activity but the San Andreas Fault - which seems to be at the root of this quake - has not shown signs of giving off a tremor of this magnitude. The President is calling for a state of national emergency and troops are starting to pour into the wreckage, looking for survivors."

She choked on a sob and looked behind her for an instant before continuing. "God help the people of Los Angeles."

I hit the mute button on the remote and stared at Drew, shaking my head in horror.

His fists tightened and he stared back grimly.

"Tell me what you’re thinking."

"You know what I’m thinking. LA is just the latest victim in this destructive path."

"What’s going on?" Dylan asked his voice laced with fear.

"I don’t know bubby." I walked over to Drew and put my hand on his arm. "Is there someone you can talk to and find out what is going on? Is there something we can do?"

"Yeah," He responded squeezing my hand with his own. "Let me talk to Persephone. She’ll know what is happening. Give me a few minutes and I’ll be back."

He suddenly blinked out of sight and Dylan breathed in a shocked breath. "Whoah."

"Yeah it takes some getting used to. Let’s see if there is any new information." I hit the mute button and we settled on the couch.

The same reporter was still talking into her microphone but her words weren’t making sense. "… Rescue crews are reporting mass delusion from victims. Stories of creatures attacking civilians are leading them to believe there has been a main line gas leak in the area.  They are quickly working to evacuate as many as possible before it explodes."

My brain froze on the reports of creatures.
Were
there creatures that lived underground? How could this be possible?  How did we prevent them from hurting any of the survivors?

"Mom, this looks pretty bad."

"I know bubby."

"Can’t you just fly over to LA and help save those people?"

"Oh, if only it worked that way honey. I don’t have those kinds of super powers. We’re going to wait for Drew and see if he has any information on how we can help."

"You two were looking scared. Does this have anything to do with the changes that happened to you? Did you cause this?"

"No.  Baby, no!" I grabbed him and held him tight to my chest. "I didn’t cause this. I promise. I don’t know what happened but I know it wasn’t me."

"This is scary."

"I know it is. I know it is." We were rocking back and forth now, watching images of bodies trapped beneath the rubble float over the screen.

Just as quickly as he disappeared, Drew popped back into the room. He looked haggard. "They’ve got a team of Hunters on the ground now. Athena says that LA is a loss." More quietly he said, "Grace, there’s something that I need to tell you…"

"What did Persephone say? Shouldn’t she have seen this? Drew, what’s going on?

"That’s part of what I need to tell you. I think I know what’s happened," he said with grim determination.

"What do you mean? What caused this? What are you hiding from me?" I looked at him with accusation.

"I called Rose before I came back. She’s coming over to pick up Dylan. He should stay with her tonight, maybe a few days."

"Now you’re scaring me. What aren’t you telling me?"

Before he could say anything further the doorbell rang. Shooting him an angry glance, I stalked into the entryway and pulled open the door without checking through the peep-hole. Rose had gotten here quickly.

Big mistake. Lesson one million and forty-two: Never, ever answer the door before looking through the peep-hole.

A meaty hand shot out and clipped me in the jaw.   My head rocked back with an audible snap.

"Mom!" I heard the scream behind me and my reflexes went into overdrive. I threw myself forward into the massive chest without thinking, knocking us both out of my doorway and into the front yard.

"Get Dylan to safety," I called before pulling in my weapon and dodging another blow.

Pulling in a sword and being able to actually use it are two entirely different skills. Guess which one I didn’t have? I hacked and slashed, not caring what I hit as long as I kept my assailant occupied while Drew got my son safely away.

My head was slammed into the ground.  I took a moment to be grateful that we’d had a warm spell and the earth wasn’t still frozen solid.

The blow stunned me only for a fraction of a second and I rolled away with another swing of my kukri. A warm spray hit my face and the creature grunted. It was too dark to get a clear look at my attacker but oddly shaped limbs flashed in front of my face as it scrambled away.

Something that sounded like a bull snorting came from a few feet away and I called in a flashlight, turning its beam of light toward the noise.

"You’ve got to be kidding me."

A Minotaur was crouching five feet from me, tightly holding together sliced flesh. Drew chose that moment to come barreling out of the house. The startled monster flashed me with an angry gaze and slipped over the bushes and out of sight.

"Was that what I think it was?"

"Yeah."

"
What is a fucking Minotaur doing at my house, Drew
?"

"He’s found you."

"Who has found me?"

"That, I don’t know."

"Where’s Dylan?"

"I popped him over to Rose’s house."

"I’m going to call him to let him know that I’m okay and then you’re going to start talking." My voice was deadly calm but my insides were turning to jelly.

He nodded at me and I went back into the house to make the call.

When Diana had come to me, she hadn’t bothered to tell me much before she’d disappeared. Knowing about Zeus would have been nice. Hell, it may have saved me some torture but knowing what I know now, I’m not sure I’d have been honest with me either.

However, in the here and now, things were getting sketchy and more information other than "Your life is in danger" would have been nice.

Drew had returned to Olympus to find chaos. The Hunters were scrambling without a leader and Persephone had gone missing.  She’d fled when Athena had caught her in a secret meeting with the beings the Hunters were tasked with destroying.

"Why would Persephone play for the other side?"

Drew ran his fingers through his hair. It was a nervous tell and I knew that the answer would piss me off.

"Jealousy."

"Who in the hell would she be jealous of?"

"You. Uh."

Cocking my head, I raised an eyebrow and invited him to continue.

"Persephone was my wife. It ended a thousand years ago, but she Saw some things that sent her over the edge. I guess she never got over the separation."

"Wait – what?" I wracked my brain for the mythology on Persephone.  It didn’t jive with what I’d seen and been told since this whole thing started. "Persephone couldn’t have been your wife, she’s Zeus’ daughter. And mister, that’s illegal in at least forty-eight states."

He shook his head at me. "No, she’s not the natural daughter of Zeus. She came over in an accidental Rift and Zeus adopted her since she was so young."

"How young?"

"I think she was only around twenty when she landed here. But, that’s not the point."

"So get to the point."

"Athena found letters in her rooms. She’s been receiving messages for years from an unknown source. She writes
all
of her visions down. She Saw that LA would be destroyed and gave her contact details on when and where it would happen. I guess there were other things, but Athena didn’t share. The biggest concern is that whoever she’s working with has all of our information on you. You said that Diana told you that your life was in danger. We believe that whoever is jockeying for power is after you to shore up his or her powerbase."

"That doesn’t make any sense, I don’t even know what I’m capable of - much less what all of my powers are." I paused, trying to make sense of all of this. "This all seems crazy. Where is Zeus?"

Drew let out a pent up breath and sat me down. "He’s at Olympus directing the damage control. I haven’t seen my father this organized and sane in hundreds of years."

"Well that’s super. How do you know it’s not him doing this?"

He took my hand and said quietly, "I just know. We’re going to have to ramp up your training.  I think maybe Dylan should stay with Rose until we have more information."

"I agree about the training, but Drew, we can’t let this person wreck my life any more than they already have. Dylan is safer with us, right? What if this person finds him and he’s with Rose, unprotected? Hell - if Persephone sold
me
out, she may have done so with Dylan too."

His grip on my hand tightened painfully and I winced. Ok, it looked like he hadn’t thought of that. Whatever he’d found out that he wasn’t telling me was affecting his reasoning. The Adonis I knew thought ten steps ahead of everything.

"Alright, I’ll go fetch him and bring him home. But he’s not leaving our sight until Athena can tell me that she’s found out who is behind this. I’m half tempted to bring the both of you to Olympus."

"We can’t go.   I can’t take Dylan out of the state without telling Brandon.  I can’t even begin to imagine how to tell him about this."

He looked at me astonished and shook his head. "Why you don’t let me just take care of him boggles my mind." Then he disappeared.

"Intense" doesn't begin to describe the hell that Drew put me through over the following days.  We trained relentlessly, and now that Dylan was in on the secret, we didn't have to limit our sessions to when he was away.  Often, he'd come sit on the basement steps and watch.

The look on his face when he met Scooter for the first time was priceless.

"We have a metal DOG?" he’d exclaimed.

After the initial shock - and the stern lecture he gave Scooter about not messing around in his room at night - the two became inseparable. As far as I was concerned, this was a good thing. Scooter was damned near indestructible and the extra protection for Dylan helped me sleep at night.