Starcrossed (52 page)

“Then the whole thing goes away before it gets started,” Daphne

finished for him. “Are you really willing to lie to your own kind for

us?” she asked coldly.

“I don’t see it as your kind or my kind. All I see are my friends

and they need my help,” Matt said with narrowed eyes. He glanced

over at Helen uncertainly, as if to ask if she was sure about this

new mother she had acquired.

“I’ll take you wherever you need to go,” Helen said as she stood.

“I’ve got to go talk to my dad, anyway. I’ll drop you off on the way.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Daphne said, surprised that Helen

would even suggest it. “It’s far too dangerous.”

“I can’t just leave him,” Helen said. “That’s what you did, and I’ve

spent my whole life cleaning up the mess you left behind. If I’ve

learned one thing, it’s that I don’t want to repeat your mistakes.

Not now, not ever.”

“Well, I can’t tie you down every time we disagree, but I can tell

you to be careful, Helen, especially when you use words like

‘never,’” Daphne replied, her eyes soft with understanding. “The

gods know what it is to be eternal, and they love to toy with mortals

who use absolutes.”

Helen turned and half stumbled for the door, so shaken to hear

an echo of Lucas in her mother that she lost all sensation for a

moment.

“I got you,” Matt whispered into her ear as he took Helen’s elbow

and steered her through the door so she didn’t clip her shoulder on

the frame.

“Your mom’s a real trip,” he said with a touch of fear when they

were outside and the door was shut safely behind them.

“I haven’t decided if she’s right about everything that ever

mattered to me, or if she’s just evil,” Helen said honestly.

“That’s what everyone wonders about their mother,” Matt said

with a smile as he rolled his eyes. “The thing is, nobody’s mom is

entirely one or the other.”

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Helen smiled at Matt, hoping he was right, and led him downstairs.

They went into the kitchen, looking for someone to lend

them a car, but the only person they saw was Pandora, who was

just coming back into the house from the garage.

“Helen,” Pandora said, surprised. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“Matt needs to go home and I need to . . .” Helen started to say,

but Pandora shook her head.

“I can’t let you leave this house. You know that,” she said

forcefully.

“Then maybe you can take him?” Helen asked.

“I’m sorry, I can’t right now,” Pandora said, looking down at her

unadorned hands. “Why don’t you ask Ariadne? She’s in the library.”

She smiled briefly at Helen and Matt, and silently hurried off

toward the fight cage. It took Helen a moment to realize what was

missing. For the first time Helen could remember, Pandora wasn’t

wearing any jewelry.

Helen led Matt to the library, where Castor, Pallas, Hector, Ariadne,

Cassandra, and Lucas were all talking in a tight circle around

Cassandra’s chair. The conversation ended as soon as they saw

Helen.

“Matt needs a ride home,” Helen announced nervously. She tried

to keep her gaze away from Lucas, but her eyes kept jumping back

to him.

“I’ll take him,” Ariadne offered, immediately coming forward and

motioning for Helen and Matt to leave the room.

“What’s going on?” Helen mouthed to Ariadne, who took her

hand and led her away. When they were a few paces from the library,

Ariadne answered.

“We’re trying to figure out what Creon’s up to,” she said.

“Why was I excluded?” Helen asked, offended.

“Come on, Helen,” Ariadne replied with a chiding look on her

face. “Lucas can’t bear to be in the same room with you right now,

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and no offense, but he’s a much better soldier than you are. We

need him at the table and we need him focused.”

Matt shot her a confused look, but thankfully, he didn’t ask any

questions. It wouldn’t matter in a few hours, anyway. Helen would

be gone and she would never see him or any of them again. Later,

she’d crawl into some strange bed in some strange state and then

she didn’t care if she ever got out of it or not. But she couldn’t let

herself think about that yet. First, she needed to make sure that the

people she loved were taken care of.

When they reached the kitchen, Ariadne grabbed her bag off the

back of one of the chairs and fished her keys out, looking around

like she had misplaced something. She looked out in the garage,

counted the cars, and then glanced back into the house, whispering,

“She’s back?” to herself. Before Helen could ask what was

wrong, Ariadne said good-bye and hurried Matt out to her car.

Helen waited a few moments for Ariadne’s little car to disappear

down the drive before she crept out onto the lawn. It wasn’t dark

out yet, but Helen still felt like even the shadows under the bushes

were reaching out to grab at her. As soon as she was clear of the

house she jumped up into the air, frantic to get into the sky, the

one place she knew Creon couldn’t catch her. Calmer once she was

safely airborne, Helen flew home, circling high for a few moments

to watch for random neighbors before coming in steep and fast to

avoid being seen. Touching down in her backyard, Helen listened

for the usual sounds of her father and heard that he wasn’t alone.

Kate was with him.

They were talking softly, and here and there they would laugh or

lapse into silence as one or the other gathered their thoughts to

make sure the words came out right. Helen looked in the window

and saw them sitting on the couch together, TV off, having what

looked like an important conversation. If she concentrated she

could probably make out what they were saying, but Helen didn’t

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want to intrude on such a private moment between two people who

were obviously falling in love.

She touched her heart-shaped necklace and wished them perfect

happiness together. She wasn’t sure if the cestus worked like that,

but all that mattered was that Jerry would have someone to care

for him when she was gone. Helen realized that if she left now,

without confronting him, he would never have to know about

Daphne returning to the island, and if that wound was left unopened,

then this fragile understanding between him and Kate

might stand a chance.

She stood in the window for a moment, deciding which course to

take, until finally the sharp drop in temperature and the tangerine

color staining the clouds told her she had run out of time. She flew

up to her window, sat down at her desk, and wrote a note to her

father. She told him that she loved him, that she was safe, and that

she was never coming back, making the note brief so she wouldn’t

have to fill it up with lies. He had been a good father, and if she

couldn’t be completely honest with him, the least she could do was

lie as little as possible.

She flew out of her window and back to the Delos compound as

soon as she was done writing. It was a comfort to Helen to know

that while she was sneaking away later that night her father would

still be oblivious. Hopefully, for all of their sakes, Kate would be

there for Jerry in the morning when he found the note. Thinking of

that, she flew east across the darkening island with a feeling that

approached peace.

Before she even touched down, Castor was running out of the

house to meet her on the lawn, waving his arms over his head as if

to signal her to hurry. He was shouting something about her

mother.

Daphne had to wait until the little strategy session broke up before

she could sneak into the library and look around. All she needed

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was the return address on the last few bits of mail from Tantalus to

the Nantucket faction of the House of Thebes. Then, after so many

years, she might finally be able to figure out Tantalus’s pattern of

motion.

She was only missing a few bits of information—a city name and

she would know where to go from there. Then she would find Tantalus

and kill him exactly the same way he had killed her sweet

Ajax. Daphne had imagined it a million times. As soon as he came

to the door she was going to chop off his head off while his wife

watched. If she avenged him, then maybe when Atropos cut her

string, Ajax would be waiting for her on the other side of the river.

She still had a ways to go and a lot of work to do before she could

allow that to happen. First, she needed a city.

Daphne started reading the postmarks on the topmost letters on

Castor’s desk, but a quick glance told her that what she was looking

for wasn’t there. She knew Tantalus’s handwriting like she knew

her own, and she didn’t see it anywhere. Then she realized that although

Castor was the smartest and the bravest of the Delos clan,

he would be the last person Tantalus would contact. She went over

to the other side of the library and began another search in another

desk.

She saw a safe under the other desk, put her hand on the spin

dial and hoped that it wasn’t designed by a Scion. After a few moments

on her knees listening for the click inside the tumbler, her

search was abruptly ended. She felt the hot, thick jab of a needle

invading the vein in her neck. She gasped, recognizing the drug

cocktail she used on other Scions. She dimly remembered that

when she had subdued Helen, she had left a spare syringe in her

bag, loaded and ready, just in case. In seconds, her field of vision

shrank to nothing.

When she woke, Daphne could feel that her hands had been

shackled with something metallic. As she blearily tried to focus her

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eyes she saw that she was on a dark beach. She heard the jingling

of chains as she moved her hands closer to her face, and saw that

her wrists had been cuffed. There were deep vertical slashes on

both her forearms that were still leaking fast-pumping blood even

as they healed. She was thirsty from the blood loss, but she ignored

that and summoned a bolt.

The cuffs heated up until they glowed so bright Daphne had to

turn her closed eyes away or be blinded by the light. The brightness

was nearly unendurable, but the cuffs didn’t melt, not even as she

drained the last of her volts. There were few substances that could

withstand so much heat at normal atmospheric pressure without

turning into a liquid or a gas.

“Tungsten,” she whispered through her dry, cracked lips, angry

with herself for acting without thinking first.

The white-hot links of nearly un-meltable metal led to a lightning

rod that was jammed into the ground like a stake. Not only was she

immobile, but any attempt she made to throw a bolt at an enemy

would only end up dissipating in the sand.

“I wouldn’t have thought you had any bolts left,” a woman’s voice

called from down by the waterline. The crouching shape rose and

walked over to Daphne. “I took a lot of your blood to dehydrate

you, or at least I thought I did.”

“Why are you doing this?” Daphne asked softly. “You’re not a

killer, Pandora.”

“I know I’m not,” Pandora admitted with a humiliated nod. “I

tried to kill you while you were unconscious, but I couldn’t do it.”

“Then let me go,” Daphne said with a sad smile. “I know why

you’re doing this. Denial is a powerful thing, and grief can make a

good person evil.” Daphne hauled herself up onto her knees. “But

why don’t you believe me? Or if not me, why not Lucas, your own

nephew? He’s a Falsefinder.”

“Lucas has every reason in the world to want your version of the

story to be true,” Pandora hissed, kicking at the sand as she began

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to pace. “He is blinded by his love for Helen, and he would do anything

to keep her. Maybe even lie to his own family.”

“First of all, Lucas can never have Helen,” Daphne said darkly.

“And second, you know there are easier ways to see if I’m telling

the truth about who killed Ajax than kidnapping me. Have you ever

asked Tantalus why he’s still in hiding?”

“Probably because he knows you can look or sound like anyone!”

Pandora shouted back, furious. “The only thing you can’t do is fake

someone’s handwriting. That’s why he’s only communicated

through letters—to protect himself because he knows you want him

dead!”

“And why would I want him dead?” Daphne’s own temper rose.

“If it’s a Triumph I wanted, why wouldn’t I have killed any one of

you Theban rats as soon as I saw you? Why would I want Tantalus,

and Tantalus alone, unless he stole something precious from me?”

she asked, her voice breaking at last.

Pandora watched Daphne as she settled back into the sand, turning

her back on the ocean she dreaded, to stare slack-jawed at her

own feet. Pandora moved away from her and crossed her arms, tilting

her face into the wind. She was breathing hard and her eyes

darted from left to right as if she was reading the dark horizon.

Suddenly, she snapped back to attention.

“You snake,” she said, turning to stare at Daphne with awed rage.