Sweet Shadows (31 page)

Nick says, “Don’t move.”

I cut him a look. Right. I’m trapped between the army of darkness on one side and the Olympian soldiers with orders to kill us, and I’m going to … what? Try a karate chop?

“If we can get to the door,” Greer whispers, her voice quaking, “the hall leads to a side exit.”

A flying creature sweeps down, squawking at the line of golden soldiers that is starting to advance on us.

“We’ll never make it,” I say. “There are too many obstacles.”

“The good news,” Nick says, “is they’ll be just as busy fighting each other as they are worrying about us.”

“Well that’s something,” I reply. “Maybe we can—”

The door Greer wanted us to head for smashes open. A woman, dressed in a black flowing gown that waves in an unnatural wind, stands there with a dozen blank-eyed humans flanking her.

She walks forward, her eyes fixed on me. I gasp as I recognize her.

“Mrs. Knightly?”

The grin that spreads across her mouth gives me the chills.

“Are you ready for the war, Misss Sharpe?” she hisses.

Every hair on the back of my neck stands up. The screeching of the flying creatures and the clanking of the golden army’s weapons fade away as I realize my biology teacher is somehow involved in this other world. How did I not see this coming?

“Gretchen?”

Greer’s voice cracks as she says my name. I turn away from Mrs. Knightly, who is advancing across the gym toward us with her human drones, to see the Arms of Olympus approaching from the other side. We’re caught in the middle, with the flying beasts swarming above.

Trapped.

“I think I can get us out of here,” Grace whispers. “I think, if I focus, I can autoport all of us.”

“We can’t leave these creatures here,” I argue. “Once we’re gone, they’re not going to be content to fight each other. The whole city will be at risk.”

“I—I know what to do,” Greer says. “Give me your knife.”

“What are you—”

“Just give me the blasted knife, Gretchen!”

Shocked by Greer’s outburst, I lean down and retrieve one of my daggers.

“Now,” she says as she very calmly draws the blade over her palm, over another cut mark I hadn’t noticed before. A thin line of blood appears, bright red with a shimmer of silver, like drops of mercury. Then she takes each of our hands, mine and Grace’s, and slices matching marks in our palms. “When we close the circle”—she hands my blade back—“we will have to get out of here quickly.”

Grace nods. “I’m ready.”

As Greer presses her palm against Grace’s, Grace places her other hand in mine. I glance at Nick and nod. He understands and wraps his arms around my waist.

I hold out my left hand. Greer looks me in the eye a split second before she places her right palm in my offered hand. I feel the zing of magic as our blood meets, the deadly fluid of my left vein, the healing of her right.

A black hole the size of a normal portal appears above our heads. Above our circle. As I watch, the portal grows. And grows. And grows until it practically fills the entire space above us.

“Now, Grace!” Greer shouts.

Grace squeezes her eyes shut, concentrating.

“Nothing is happening,” Greer says.

Grace starts shaking. “Give me a minute.”

The portal is still growing, taking over more and more of the gym, moving lower and lower. Some of the flying creatures scream as they are sucked back into the abyss. If Grace doesn’t get us out of here, we’ll be next.

“Now, Grace, we need to go—”

The world around me disappears, I’m blinded by bright white light for a moment, and then I’m in a living room. Nick is still at my back—I can feel him. Greer’s hand is still tight in my left one, Grace’s still in my right. We’re together, whole, and out of that gym.

“Grace, you did it!” I shout.

I yank her close into a hug. Greer too.

“Ah-hem.”

Grace stiffens. “Oh no.”

Nick unwraps his arms and I release my sisters. Turning, I know I shouldn’t be surprised to see a pair of adults and a boy our age standing there. It doesn’t take Greer’s second sight to know what has happened.

When Grace was trying to desperately get us out of that battle, she zapped us to the one place she always feels safe. Home.

“Mom. Dad.” Her voice is breaking. “Um, I can explain.”

G
reer and Gretchen offer to go wait somewhere else—my room, the hall, maybe the moon even—but I think they should be here for this. I look around the dining table, my sisters on either side of me, Mom and Dad at either end, and Thane and Nick across the shiny surface. Nick seems unfazed by the situation, but Thane is unusually tense.

Everyone is looking at me.

I take a deep breath. Time to stop keeping secrets.

“It all started a few weeks ago,” I explain, “when Milo took me and Thane to a nightclub.”

Dad clears his throat.

“An all-ages club,” I hurry to explain, as if that will be the most problematic part of the conversation. “That’s where I, um,
met
Gretchen.”

Gretchen shifts uncomfortably in her chair. For a girl who’s used to being on her own, with only an open-minded guardian for company, sitting at a full family table is probably really awkward. Especially when she’s a central part of the story.

“By then I’d already started seeing monsters,” I confess. “It started almost as soon as we moved to San Francisco.”

“At the dim sum place?” Thane asks. “That was the first one?”

I nod. “And then more at the nightclub. So when Gretchen explained what we are, it was kind of a relief.”

“And just what
are
you?” Mom asks.

At least she’s being open to the craziness I’m finally sharing.

Beneath the table, I take my sisters’ hands in mine.

“We are descendants of the mortal Gorgon Medusa,” I say. “Monster hunters.”

“Huntresses, actually,” Greer adds.

“I don’t—” Mom shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

I give my family a brief rundown of the story as I know it. About how Medusa was a guardian, about how her legacy has been skewed by history, about how we’re the latest set of descendants, supposed to guard the door between our world and the abyss.

I leave out the part about us being the Key Generation because, really, that’s not critical information right now. They’re having to process enough already. I don’t want them any more worried about me than they have to be, than I know they will be when I tell them the rest.

“So, what you’re saying,” Dad says, “is that when you’ve been telling your mother and me that you are studying at a friend’s, you’ve actually been roaming the streets hunting monsters.”

“No, not always,” I say. “Most of the time I was at Gretchen’s loft, studying. Training.”

“Gretchen’s loft?” Mom echoes. “That’s where you were last night?”

My cheeks burn. “No, I was in Greer’s basement.”

“Gretchen’s loft blew up,” Greer offers.

I kick her under the table.

“What?” Mom gasps.

“It’s nothing,” I insist.

Thane glares at me across the table, and I swear his eyes burn like gray flames.

“I mean, we’re fine.”

Dad rubs his eyes. “Gracie, this is all very … inventive, but—”

“Don’t be obtuse, Sam,” Mom says. “We both saw her and her … friends appear in the living room.”

“Did we?” He sounds tired. “Maybe we just—”

I knew he would take more convincing. He’s an engineer, after all. You can’t calculate for monsters and mythology with even the most complicated equations.

“Dad,” I say. When he looks up, I open my mouth and let my fangs drop into place.

He blinks. Several times. “I don’t …”

“It’s real,” Thane says.

I can’t tell if he’s just as much in a state of disbelief or if he’s trying to convince Dad or if he actually knows more than he’s letting on. He’s taking this in pretty easily, without many questions. He and I can have a conversation later. Right now, I have more to tell Mom and Dad. I nod and smile, letting my fangs retract into my mouth.

“The thing is,” I say, more nervous about this part than the rest, “everything is getting worse.”

“What do you mean worse?” Mom asks.

“Because Gretchen and Greer and I have been reunited, things are starting to change.” I take a deep breath. “And, um, a war is coming.”

Mom gasps again.

“War?” Dad’s eyes get wide. “What do you mean?”

“It’s complicated, Dad, but basically some people—some gods—want us to guard the door. Others want us to seal it forever.”

“Others want us—”

I kick Greer before she can tell my already freaked parents that there are gods and monsters out there trying to kill us.

She glares at me. “To open it and leave it unprotected.”

“Yes,” I say, relieved by her tact. I focus on my mom for this part of the reveal, because I think she’ll be the most understanding. “In the meantime, while things get worked out, it’s going to be kind of dangerous around here.”

“Sounds like it already is.”

I nod. “It’s going to get worse.”

As quickly as possible, I explain about the immortal Gorgons and the abyss and how we need to rescue them because they’re the only ones with answers. Then I get to the hard part.

“Mom, Dad,” I say, trying to sound as mature and responsible as possible. “Gretchen, Greer, and I need to go into the abyss. It’s the only way to get to Olympus, to get Euryale and Sthenno back.”

For five whole seconds, they stare at me, mouths agog. I know how this must sound to them—the fact that they’re even taking me seriously is extraordinary—but I have to make them understand.

“Certainly not,” Dad finally says. “If I believe anything you’re saying, you are not going into that—”

“Please, Dad. Don’t make this any harder. Things are just as dangerous at home.” I turn back to Mom. “One monster already showed up here. In the alley. Monday last week.”

I watch her eyes as realization dawns, as she puts the pieces together and figures out that, when I disappeared for hours the other night, I had a good reason. “Oh, Grace,” she says. “I had no idea.”

“I know, Mom.” I smile, letting her know that I don’t blame her for her reaction at all. She feels guilty, but I’m the one to blame. I’m the one who kept it a secret.

“I—” Her eyes fill with tears. “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t have a choice,” I say. “It’s my destiny.”

She nods and then looks at Dad.

“Please,” I say to him. “Trust me.”

His face softens. “Of course I trust you, Gracie.”

“Then you have to let me do this.” I glance at my sisters. “You have to let
us
do this.”

He frowns, but I can tell the exact moment he relents. It’s barely noticeable, a tiny shift in his eyes. I don’t need their permission—this is something I have to do—but I’d rather have their support all the same.

I mouth, “Thank you.”

“I’m going with you,” Thane says.

I give him a pleading look. “Thane …”

“No,” he says. “You’re my sister too. I’m going with you.”

Something passes between us, something he’s trying to tell me. His stormy gray eyes are intent on mine, and I get the feeling this is about more than just being a protective big brother. Greer squeezes my hand, and when I look at her she nods. I don’t know why that reassures me, makes me feel better. It just does.

I look back at Thane. “Okay.”

Five of us will make this journey, then. Me, my sisters, Nick, and Thane. We’ll have fractionally better odds, and that’s something.

Twenty minutes later, Mom and Dad have packed our backpacks full of food and water. They’ve asked me if I’m sure about what we have to do about a million times. And I think they are finally accepting that this is something I can’t—won’t—walk away from.

They’ve also promised to be extracautious—to watch their backs when they leave or enter the apartment, to take off if things seem to be getting worse, to take care of themselves so I have two fewer things to worry about—until this is all over. Or, at least, settled.

At the door, Mom hugs me tighter than ever before. Dad pats Thane on the back.

“You take care of her, son,” he says.

Thane nods. Considering the fights they usually get into, I don’t think Dad has ever been prouder of him.

Mom turns and hugs Thane. “You take care of
you
too.”

Then we’re gone. They’re staying home, staying safe. I’m the one walking into danger. But not alone. I turn to face Nick, my brother, and my sisters, struggling to keep the tears from my eyes. I was being so strong for Mom and Dad, and now I feel it crumbling away.