Rifts (34 page)

I rolled back over and peered into his face. "Do you know what would be awesome?"

"What?"

"If you would leave. But first, what did he do when I left?"

He fought a smile but failed. "Say the words and I'll tell you."

I sighed. "Tell me and I'll say the words. Why are you pushing this?"

"I'm pushing this because you need it. Frankly, at this point, I just want you to fucking admit it."

"What I need is a bottle of Jack and a do-over on this year. Tell me what he said."

"You don't like Jack. Say it."

"I don't like Jack." I parroted in monotone. He sighed at me. "Don't be a dick. Just tell me," I continued.

"Say it."

"Fuck! Fine! I love him!" I yelled it. I probably could have just muttered it. It wouldn't have been as dramatic though and God knew that so far I'd been completely dramatic about this. Why stop now?

"He stood there shocked for about five minutes. I didn't know he could do such a good fish face impression." Okay, that image made me giggle out loud. "There's my girl."

"Then what," I asked. My stomach clenched with what I thought would come next.

"He said, 'I can't believe she just fantasized about killing me' and kind of collapsed onto a chair."

"I also can't believe that I broadcasted that. He just doesn't see reason, so I got ragey and wanted to force him to see it. She needs to die." I paused and really thought about what I wanted to say next. "Heph, I'd kill him if it was the only way to end that miserable bitch's life."

"You got jealous and in a ragey fit, you fantasized about stabbing him." His tone was very no nonsense and it made me sigh.

"I got jealous and ragey." I admitted.

"And finally we have breakthrough!" His exclamation echoed through my empty house.

"I
can
be completely logical," his snort interrupted my train of thought. I scowled and continued. "Okay,
mostly
logical, but when it comes to that man my brain just deflates and I act in a very illogical way. I think that I know where we stand…then it all blows to shit."

"You're not an easy woman to love, Grace. You're impulsive, head strong, contrary and a general pain in the ass."

My mouth made a small o of surprise. When it rained, it poured. "If you tell me that you love me, I'm going to stab you right in the dick. I swear to God I will," I grumbled.

His hands unconsciously moved to cover that part of his anatomy. "Consider it not said," he replied cautiously.

"Good. If I'm going to admit to the other thing then I certainly cannot fucking deal with you getting all moony over me."

He chuckled at me and pushed my hair away from my eyes. "I promise not to get all moony over you."

"Good. Because I'd hate to get all violent and junk on you." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We've got some pretty heavy stuff to deal with. Maybe killing Hope can wait. She's secure in the Forge right?"

He scrutinized my expression carefully before answering. "Yes. She's secure."

"Okay then. Let's figure out how to stop the Gothy crew from raising Atlantis." I grabbed his hand and ported into the Lab.

As soon as we landed, I was assaulted by a three hundred pound mercury golem. Scooter leapt up on my chest and knocked me over. I laughed and admonished him. "Hey, you don't weigh the same as a regular dog. You're going to kill me." I rubbed his skin and smiled up as his tongue swiped at my cheek.

"You're not a damned dog!" Zeus thundered.

Scooter's face fell and I rubbed behind his ear to counter the admonishment before whispering, "You're my favorite dog ever."

"Don't encourage it," Zeus complained.

"I will encourage," I said in a pseudo-baby talk voice as I rubbed Scooter's ears harder. "So we need to lay out a plan. It's time to shut these guys down so I can write my next book, make my agent happy and pay my mortgage."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," he said off-handedly.

"What does that mean?" I asked, confused.

"I paid off your house last month," he replied casually.

My jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me?"

"Nope. It was a distraction that you didn't need so I took care of it. There's a trust set up to pay for the taxes in perpetuity. It's no longer a concern."

"You do realize that was something you should have talked to me about first," I could feel my temper rising. I'd worked really hard to keep my independence and I felt like he'd just taken it away from me. Even though my voice was quiet, I could feel Hephaestus backing away from me slowly.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm practically your father," he waved my comment off like it was nothing. Prideful Grace would have gone off on that. But his words stopped my anger in its tracks.

"Do you really think of yourself as my father?"

He looked at me with a slightly confused expression. "Of course I do. Now, if you could extricate yourself from my golem, I want to show you this mapping program I created. It pinpoints the disturbances." He turned abruptly and walked to the wall of monitors on the far side of the room.

I could only sit there and smile goofily at his back. He thought of me as his daughter. There were worse things than having Zeus as your dad. 

Heph patted me on the shoulder and helped me up off the floor. "Of course he adores you," he murmured. "You're quite adorable."

That made me blush, but I ignored the comment and joined Zeus at the station. "Okay, what am I looking at?"

"Atlantis," He said simply.

My breath caught. This was the legend. Okay, so it wasn't the
legend
, it was a dot on a map. But the fact that something that stemmed from imagination was a reality was huge. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to see it for myself, or stay the Hell away.

"Is it entirely submerged?" I looked at Zeus, waiting for an answer.

"Most of it is, yes."

Heph stepped into the conversation. "Over the years, we've put in systems that circulate air and pump out the water. It's fairly rudimentary, but we needed to be able to get down there if something like this happened."

A really horrible thought occurred to me. "Would you say that the corridors are filled with blue glowy things?"

Zeus shot me a startled look. "Yes." He frowned. "We created a lighting system based on bio-luminescence. Grace, why would you ask that? Have you had a premonition?"

"Oh,
fuck
," I felt like I was going to start hyperventilating. "No. I've been there."

He grabbed me arms and peered into my eyes. "Let me in so I can see."

I opened my mind and let him see what I had seen when I followed Hope through the Rift. "How did you not see this when you probed Hope's mind?"

"She was missing large chunks of memory. I just assumed that it was from when Lyssa was directly controlling her."

"No," I ground out. "She's missing chunks of memory because they were removed. Damn it. They've been playing us. Is Nyx in a submerged area or in one of the airways?"

Both of them exhaled sighs of relief at the same time. It would have been amusing if I weren't so wound up with fear. "She's submerged," Heph answered. "It was an extra precaution we took." He shrugged. "I like to plan for the ‘just in case’ moments."

My legs carried me forward and I started pacing while I talked it out. "Okay if I were writing this out, I'd ask myself a few very pointed questions. First, that is a
very
random spot. Mythology buffs have always assumed that Atlantis was either on the Eastern Seaboard of the States near the Bermuda Triangle or near Greece. How did they find it?"

"Well," began Zeus. "We can't assume that they don't have the same level of technology that we do."

"Yes we can," I retorted. "From what I saw, they're flying on magic and intuition down there." I stopped and frowned. "Someone else knows. We have to find out who that is. Taking these kids has been too easy for them. They've been picking off the Hunters with an ease that makes me nervous. I've thought for a while that it was Persephone feeding them information, but she's been gone for months. She couldn't know what we've been doing here."

"Well, she does have Sight, Grace. She could be foreseeing what is going to happen."

I turned back to Hephaestus and raised an eyebrow. "Really, Heph? Unless she sees tactics down to a pinpoint second then, no. It's someone else."

"Damn this situation!" When Zeus roared, he
really
roared. Scooter rubbed up against my leg, looking for comfort. I absent-mindedly began stroking the crown of his head.

"Getting upset isn't going to get us anywhere. We need to sort through this." When had I become the voice of reason and logic? My thoughts were mirrored on Heph's face. "Shut up," I said irritably.

"What? I never said anything," he replied with a grin.

"You didn't have to. Okay. It's not going to be one of the original eight. They wouldn't put their own children in danger and they all knew Nyx, right?"

"Yes." Zeus ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "They were aware of the danger that she presented to our community. She was entirely too powerful. She compelled a level of fear in others that we haven't seen in thousands of years." He shook his head and looked nervous. "Honestly, it was a stroke of luck that we were able to trap her in the first place. I don't know if we'd be able to do it again."

"If everyone was so afraid of her, why did you keep it a secret? I mean, why not ask for their help?"

"Because," Heph replied. "We weren't sure who was supporting her. Things were a little tricky back then. As it turned out, there was a collective sigh of relief when she disappeared."

"So maybe it's time to tell them? Because you can bet your ass if she's raised, they're going to be pissed that you kept this a secret." That was me, bringing brutal truth to the table. Sometimes it was hard to hear and equally hard to swallow, but it needed to be said.

"Zachary, she's right. We need to tell the others."

"I know she's right, damn it. I just don't like the timing of this. It feels like it's being forced," Zeus retorted.

"Wait," I interrupted. "We need to find out who has been helping them first. Because if you go for the big reveal and we don't know who we can trust, we may as well just shoot ourselves in the foot."

"I cannot think of anyone old enough to even remember the sinking beyond the original members," Zeus started.

"I can." Heph said quietly.

We both turned to him with questioning gazes. "Who?" I asked.

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his waist. It was a very defensive and emotional gesture. Frankly, it was something that I didn't ever think I'd see from this giant of a man. "Give me a moment," he said.