Sweet Shadows (17 page)

I wish that were true. I wish I didn’t know my parents and teachers expect just that. I wish I didn’t expect perfection myself. But it does make me feel a little better to hear Grace say it.

I think about what she said earlier, about living up to the sacrifice our ancestors made for us. That makes me feel better too. More focused, more driven.

“Thank you,” I say, recovering some semblance of control over my emotions. I wipe the tears from beneath my eyes. “I feel all right now.”

“Good.” She gives me an enthusiastic grin. “Now what do you say we text Gretchen and schedule a rendezvous? We’re having no luck. There must be another way to find a missing oracle than to grid search the entire city.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

As Grace and I walk to my car, I straighten my spine. I have a lot of expectations to live up to, most of all my own. My mother may not be perfect, but she has taught me to hold my head high.

W
e’ve searched half the city, Gretchen,” Nick says as we walk back toward my car. “You’re going to have to face the fact that either the oracle is gone or—”

“She doesn’t want to be found,” I finish. “I can’t believe she’d vanish willingly and leave me without a source for answers. She must know the Gorgons have been taken. She’s our only chance. My only connection to the mythological world.”

Nick grins at me over Moira’s roof. “Not your
only
connection.”

I scowl at him. “You know what I mean.”

“I know,” he says as we climb into the car. “I wish I could help more with this. Maybe it’s part of her plan. Maybe she wants you to figure the next step out on your own.”

“Then maybe she should have left better clues.”

I shift Moira into gear and head toward the bakery where Grace suggested we meet. It’s far enough from their homes that I feel comfortable getting together.

There is a double danger each time we meet. Not only might the monsters track us home again, but the girls’ friends and families might see us. That’s not a worry for me. The guy in the passenger seat is the closest thing to a friend I’ve got, and I’m not even sure I’d call him that. He’s been nothing but helpful since that night I forced him into my car. Maybe it’s time to cut him some slack. But for Grace and Greer, being spotted together by their nearest and dearest is a real danger. Their lives could be turned upside down—well,
more
upside down—if people found out the truth.

Nick points out a parking spot about two blocks from the bakery. In this neighborhood I’ll be lucky to find another spot, period. I take it.

As we start up the hill toward the bakery, side by side, I’m amazed at how comfortable I am with Nick. In just a few short days, he’s gone from a boy who confused and irritated me to one I thought had betrayed me and my sisters in the worst way to one whom I trust with the most precious of my secrets. With my sister’s lives—and mine.

“What?” he asks.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says. “You’ve got a look.”

I laugh. “A look?”

“Yeah.” He stops, and I stop to face him.

“What kind of look?”

“I don’t know,” he says, his grin growing. “But I think it might be … a smile.”

I smack him on the shoulder. Hard.

“I can’t be sure,” he continues, “because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one on your face before, but it definitely looks like—Hey!”

I start smacking him with greater frequency, my good mood growing with every hit. He’s laughing, I’m laughing. I feel completely … free. When he grabs each of my wrists in a fist, my laughter slowly dies. The look in his dark eyes says he feels the same comfortable connection as I do.

His gaze drops to my mouth and I suck in a breath.

“Gretchen …”

His head starts moving closer with aching slowness. My eyes drift shut. I can feel his breath on my lips, hot and damp.

As his mouth approaches mine, I feel a jolt of magic arc between our lips, like the spark of static electricity when you reach for a metal doorknob in winter. I shiver as the sensation skitters down my spine.

Then our lips meet, barely a touch. Lighter than a butterfly on a flower. But I feel it …
everywhere
.

Then Nick is pulling back and my eyes open. He has the same dazed look on his face that I feel. I clamp my lips together, marveling at the feeling. His smile takes over his face.

“Gretchen!” Grace’s voice echoes around me. “Here we are!”

I look up the sidewalk to where Grace and Greer are standing outside the bakery. Grace is waving like wild, trying to get my attention.

I sigh. “We’d better go.”

Nick doesn’t release my wrists. “This isn’t finished.”

No, it’s not. I shake my head, and he lets me go. I turn away from his serious expression and start up the street.

“Oh no,” Nick says.

I turn back. A black spot has appeared in the street a few feet from where I’m standing. Right next to Nick.

Not now. Can’t the beastie realm hold off for a little while? Taking down a monster isn’t exactly convenient at the moment, but it’s still part of the job description.

I face the portal, ready for whatever steps through. The creature that appears in the middle of the street is the stuff of bogeymen legends. A geryon—a hideous thing with three giant bodies joined at the shoulders, three ugly heads, and three sets of beady eyes. It’s backed by two pairs of diseased-looking wings with feathers falling off, leaving raw, gaping wounds. Technically, the thing is my cousin. A descendant of Medusa’s other offspring, the giant Chrysaor. But the gene pool definitely got corrupted along the way.

The geryon looks at me and grunts. I don’t think it can even speak.

Nick moves to my side, like he wants to protect me. He of all people should know I can take care of this myself. He’ll only get in the way.

I’m about to tell him that when the creature shifts its attention. Its three gazes focus on my companion. Looking directly at Nick, one of its faces contorts into a look of pure fury.

Everything happens in an instant.

The creature steps forward, shoves me to the side with one pair of beefy paws, and wraps its four other arms around Nick’s body. One tightens around his neck.

“No!” I shout.

With faster reflexes than I gave it credit for, the creature drags Nick back over to the portal. I run forward, reaching for Nick or the creature or both. But it’s too late. I’m not fast enough.

With one backward step, the creature disappears into the void. Nick disappears with him.

“No!” I shout again.

I turn and see my sisters running down the street toward me. They saw what just happened and are coming to help. But they’re too far away.

I have only seconds to make my decision. Let Nick go, and with him our only connection to the mythological world. Or …

I face my sisters, still half a block away. I make sure they’re watching as I reach down and pull the oracle’s note and the pendant of Apollo out of my cargo pocket and drop them on the ground. I only hope they can figure out how to use them.

Then, with the clock ticking, I turn back to the portal.

“Gretchen, no!” Grace shouts.

There’s no time. Already the edges of the portal are shrinking.

Without another thought I dive headfirst into the black.

G
race and I rush down the hill, even though we can both clearly see that Gretchen, Nick, and the portal are all gone. When we reach the empty space, we stand there in shock. Our sister, the girl who is ultimately responsible for bringing us together, for introducing us to this world … is gone.

It stings. The thought that she has abandoned us, when we’re already so very alone in this, leaves me at a loss. But then I picture the look on her face—both when Grace and I caught her getting so close to Nick and in the instant before she dived in after him—and I understand.

“Why?” Grace cries. “Why would she do that?”

“To go after Nick, obviously,” I say. “Did you see the way they were looking at each other?”

“You think they—” Grace blinks. “Oh. Well, then.”

Still, feelings or not, I can’t imagine diving into that world, putting my life at risk, willingly. Not for a boy, not for anyone. Who knows what she’ll find—what she’s finding—on the other side?

“What are we going to do?” Grace asks. “We have to do something. We have to … I don’t know what.”

Yeah, I don’t know what either.

Kneeling down, I reach for the objects Gretchen left on the ground. Before I can wrap my fingers around them, Grace drops down and snatches them up.

“No you don’t,” she says, quickly stuffing the oracle’s note and pendant into her pocket. “That thing is too dangerous for you.”

I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t going for the pendant,” I insist, although I’m not entirely certain I wouldn’t have. The object has a strange pull on me, and I might have grabbed it without thinking. “I was checking to see if there was anything else here.”

Grace scowls at me, like she knows I’m lying.

I turn away, studying the space where Gretchen disappeared. Moments ago, it was a mystical portal to another realm. Now it looks just like any other piece of air in the city. No magical sparkles or lingering shadows.

“Greer,” Grace says, sounding a little lost, “what are we going to do? We can’t just let her go. Who knows what might happen to her in there? What if she can’t get back out? We have to do something.”

“And how do you expect us to get her back?” I ask. When did I become the one with the answers, anyway? I’m newer to this world than even Grace. “Last time I checked, we have no idea how to find a portal, no idea how to open one, and no idea how to find out how to do either of those things.”

“I know that,” she says, with more hostility in her voice than I expect. “But she is our sister. We don’t just let her vanish into the abyss. We can’t. I can’t.”

I sigh. She’s scared and she’s right. But that doesn’t change the circumstances.

“I don’t know what to do,” I answer honestly. “We’re facing the same situation as Sthenno being taken—”

“Only this is Gretchen,” she exclaims. “This is so much more important!”

“I know,” I say, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “But the problem is the same. And if the problem is the same, then the solution is the same.”

“What solution?” she asks. Then, apparently getting my meaning, “You mean what we’ve already been doing. Searching for the oracle.”

“We have no one left to ask for help.” I shrug, adjusting my purse on my shoulder. I tick the names off on my fingers. “Euryale, gone. Sthenno, gone. Gretchen and Nick, gone. The oracle is our only hope. Can you think of another idea?”

Grace is silent for several long moments. “No, no yet,” she says. “But I’ll keep thinking. I’ll dig deeper into my online hunt for resources. Maybe there’s a library somewhere in the world with something that can help.”

“Maybe there is.” I can tell that feeling useful and productive makes Grace feel better. “Why don’t we go home for tonight, like we were already planning to do? We can get a good night’s sleep, you can start your research, and we’ll resume in the morning.”

She looks up at the sky. “But there are still a couple of hours of daylight left,” she says. “Maybe we should keep looking.”

“We’ll only exhaust ourselves,” I insist. “We won’t do any good if we’re too drained to concentrate. A fresh perspective will make a big difference.”

Her silver eyes scan the street, like she’ll find an answer there. Or maybe someone who can help. But the people of San Francisco are ignorant of that world, and it’s our job to keep it that way. I have to believe the best thing we can do is continue our search in the morning, refreshed.

“I guess you’re right,” she finally says. “I’ll get started on my research. Maybe I can design a program to explore all the special archives in the world libraries. It can search online while we search for the oracle.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan.” A fresh start, a fresh chance to solve this puzzle. “Can I give you a ride home? Last chance before my car goes into the shop tomorrow.”

“No thanks,” she says. “I’m not far. I feel like walking.”

“Okay, then I’ll see you in the morning.”

She starts down the sidewalk, heading toward her neighborhood. I have to go in the opposite direction to get to my car, but I stand there and watch her walk away.

“Hey, Grace,” I call out before she gets too far. She turns around, a question on her face. “Be careful.”

She gives me a small smile. “You too.”

I smile back and we both turn and head our separate ways. I’m more worried than I let Grace see. Not specifically about Gretchen—if anyone can take care of herself in the monster abyss, it’s her—but about us. About our chances.