Rifts (11 page)

Zeus leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and threw me a nonplussed look. "How did that work for you?"

"Not well," I groused.

"I don't know if it was a specific word. I don't recall her using one in particular. Maybe she was naming places she wanted to go and just threw her will into it."

"Okay, sure. What did she say before she disappeared through the Rift with Geb?"

"What am I - a voice recorder?"

I raised my eyebrows at the annoyance in his voice. "I dunno… Are you?"

"I should have drowned you at birth."

"Probably less heartache for everyone," I muttered.

"Um," he paused to think about the last conversation she had with us. "Okay, she said that you were a warrior," he snorted at this. "And that you were hers as much as you were his." He paused, stunned. "Could it be that easy?"

"I don't hear anything in there that sounds easy. What's caught your fancy?"

"It makes perfect sense! Of course she'd take him to the one place he couldn't escape!"

"Still in the room here…"

He grabbed my arms and shook me a few times before wrapping me in his embrace in his excitement.

"She's taken him to Alancea. Because of the devastation that he wreaked on the second continent, all Rift travel was suspended. It means that while she could get him in, he can't get back out because the machine he used to come here was destroyed. His power in Alancea is virtually non-existent."

"I'm sorry, I'm still lost here. So she took him back to the home planet. I thought he'd destroyed it."

"No, he destroyed an entire continent and killed millions of people. However, there are two other continents on our world. She's probably at her father's."

"So why hasn't she come home?" My question was quiet. We both knew that there was only one reason she wouldn't have come back.

"There could be any number of reasons." His voice cracked at the end and I put my hand on his shoulder to give him my support.

"You're right of course. I thought that Geb was from another world. I don't understand. I'm so confused right now."

"He was exiled to the second continent but he was still Alancean."

"I see. One day I'll get this whole incestuous mess sorted out. In the meantime, I know the name of the world. I still don't have the means to get a door open. Annnnnd," I continued. "Hope is still out and about getting her crazy on. I'm kind of tired of people trying to kill me and mine for past sins. It's getting old."

"Oh no, dear. I imagine that she
was
trying to kill you because you look like Geb. Now, she's out for blood because you took her husband."

"What is this,
Desperate Housewives
?" My voice had become shrill. I couldn't write this shit in my wildest dreams because nobody would fall for it. "How exactly did I
take
her husband?"

"Well, not to be indelicate, but you did have his child. That was something she'd been unable to do in three-hundred years."

"I'm so annoyed by this entire situation. She can have his sorry, worthless ass. I just want to live peacefully with my son and be a good person."

I began to pace. Pacing was something to do when you were anxious or mad - or in my case – both. Seriously! I'd taken her husband? Could this get any more melodramatic? I was exhausted by the entire thing and could only imagine what was going on her mind.

"Crazy fucking cow," I muttered.

"You have the mouth of a dockside whore."

"That's what the boys down at the wharf tell me, anyway," I parried back. Verbal sparring generally helped but right now, I just wanted to take a nap.

"This life is what you make of it. You can take a nap or you can stand up and settle your account."

My head snapped around and I glanced at him sharply.

"Where do you think Adonis got it from?"

"Uh, a curse cause he was so pretty?"

"I'm sure that's what he tells all the girls. I bestow the Gifts upon my Children and they pass those gifts down. The telepathy power that Adonis has is because he was such a whiney little girl when he was younger. Always so concerned about whether or not someone would love him for who he was. It was nauseating. So I 'blessed' him with this gift." He grinned suddenly. "He stopped whining and worrying."

"Please tell me Dylan won't have that."

"Mmm, I don't imagine that he will. He may be quite empathic though. Keep an eye on mood swings."

My eyebrows rose upwards and my eyes widened. "Puberty? He's ALWAYS in a mood swing."

"Oh, right."

"I don't feel like she's dead. I don't think she's in Alancea." It was said with determination and small tingles of electricity zapped throughout my body. It felt right.

"Yeah," he sighed. "That would have been entirely too easy."

"What say we shelve this for now and come back to it?"

"Fair enough. How goes your control?"

"I can't shape the box," I groused.

"Neither could your mother."

"That doesn't make me… Oh wait, yes it does." It
did
make me feel better.

He stood, stretching his limbs before walking over to pat me on the back. "You have potential, Grace. You just need to figure out where your strengths lie and put some of that stubborn streak to use."

"Yeah, yeah."

It was all easier said than done. It was incredibly annoying when you were told that you had all of this untapped potential - you just had to figure it out. Why couldn't someone just give me a roadmap with all of the twists and turns laid out so it was a clear path? Oh right, that would be too easy.

"Are you training with Dylan today?"

"I am certainly looking forward to doing so," he replied with a smile.

"He's an incredible kid."

"He also has the makings of great abilities. He's right on the cusp of figuring out who he's going to be. There are days when he bemoans his lot in life - not unlike his mother. Other days, I see the steel and strength within him that leads me to believe that one day he'll gently pat me on the head and tell me that it's time to retire."

"That is a scary proposition." It was. The thought of my little bubby having the kind of power to oust Zeus from his so-called throne was frightening.

"And that brings us back to you."

I sighed. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"So, you have made fine progress on your earth-based powers. What else has come up?"

"Well, I burst into flame when I was facing off Hope and Drew." My nails were looking ragged. Weren't they looking ragged? Dry cuticles were the bane of my existence. Anything but thinking about flames licking across my skin seemed like a good idea.

"Grace, look at me."

I did, albeit reluctantly.

"That's a pretty hefty power to have. I want to ensure we don't overlook that training. Do you know how the Chicago fire started?"

"Well, I know it wasn't you," I responded wryly.

"No, but it was a Hunter who incinerated himself because he didn't have the control he needed."

My mouth made a small o.

"Has my point been received?"

"Yes, sir."

He tapped his fingertips against his lips in thought. "Heph is going to be the best person to bring that out in the correct manner. It would have been much easier if you'd been Earth and Water based. Troublesome girl."

Hephaestus or 'Heph' for short was of course renowned for his incredible metal work. In Mythology he was a gigantic, lame, beast of a man who crafted miraculous gadgets in metal. It's said that he's Zeus and Hera's son and is married to Aphrodite.

The truth is that Heph is indeed a beast of a man – huge in fact. He came over from Alancea with the original expedition and had never married and - as far as I knew - had never had a child. It was hard to have a married life when you never left your compound. I hadn't thought to ask the adults about him, so I only had the information of a bunch of teenagers to go on.

The rumor was that he was hideously disfigured and never left his house for fear that he would turn anyone who looked directly upon him to stone. Hearing that, I'd cuffed Scott in the ear and told him to stop spreading rumors. It was an ugly habit.

I'd assumed that he and Athena were a thing since they spent so much time together. They weren't. She'd told me once that she'd considered it, but there was someone else she had her eye on - and if she were going to give it up, she wanted it to be right.

My jaw had dropped. Seriously, a four thousand year old virgin? She'd punched me in the arm, screwed up her face and asked, "Are you daft? Of course I'm not a virgin. Idiot."

Needless to say, they weren't an item and I was being sent directly into the Dragon's Lair. Sighing with a pained expression, I asked – "Will you at least teach me to teleport first so I don't have to walk all the way there?"

"Whiner. Off with you." He shooed me out the door.

Damn, it was a really long walk to Heph's – way over on the other side of the city. I briefly considered begging Athena for a ride, but she was busy and I didn't want to be a burden.

On the other hand, a long walk would do me good. A lot had happened today and I had so much to process. What was I punishing Drew for? Lying to me? Sure, that was a good reason but I'd forgiven Zeus for torturing me. There was something else going on there.

Okay, I had trust issues. It's incredibly difficult to trust somebody with that which is most valuable to you, especially when you're afraid that they won't treat it as the precious gift that it is.

Jealousy warred with anger for the top spot on my reasons list. I didn’t want to feel like I was a replacement for my crazy sister. Paragon of Virtue or Wonder Woman? Really?

I don't believe in soul mates. I think that it's a ridiculous concept made up by romance writers. Yes, I'm guilty of throwing the phrase around in my books. In real life it just didn't exist. But there was something in the core of my being that believed that Drew was it for me.

All I had to do was think about our ridiculous conversations on music, movies or life to understand that somewhere along the line, that initial lust had turned into something deeper.

Fear. It was fear that kept me angry. I was so afraid that he didn't feel the same way about me and I didn't want to hear those words from his lips. It was easier to stay mad at him and ignore the underlying problem.

The longer I walked, the further apart the buildings were spaced. Heph had set up his forge on the very outskirts of Olympus in the beginning, which had been miles away from what they'd called their own civilization.