Theta (16 page)

My heart flipped in my chest. I believed him
about Adonis knowing no restrictions on what he’d do. Everyone in
the political sphere understood how lethal the former head of SISA
was. To this day, I didn’t know what rumors were true and which
ones were embellishments on the truth, because I, like everyone
else, would never know exactly what Adonis was capable of.

“
All hope is lost?” I asked
cautiously. Allowing myself to believe in anything, especially if
led to hope by someone like Lantos, was dangerous. But I wanted to
believe in Adonis, and our potential future, with all my
heart.

“
You endanger him
otherwise,” Lantos replied. “He loves you. He will do anything you
ask, and so, you must be the one who asks him to leave.”

Love?

I looked away. I wasn’t completely surprised
to hear this word, and to accept something this intense existed
between my Mismatch and me. I was also scared of what it meant to
care for someone in a world in which I could envision no scenario
where we all survived. I was happy Herakles and Adonis were outside
the wall, far enough away not to see what was happening to me, and
outside Cleon’s reach.

“
I won’t kill him or let
anyone else try,” I said softly. “If that means I have to send him
away, I will.”

“
Be careful, Alessandra.
Believe it or not, I’m here to help you, when you need it. I’ll be
close. The shadows are my domain. If you need me, whisper my name
into the darkest corner you can find.”

Was the man who betrayed me
to Cleon, and who betrayed the Silent Queen, seriously offering
to
help
me?

Lantos shifted away, out of the moonlight,
and retreated to the darker interior of my bedroom. I watched him
until the shadows swallowed him and became still again, indicating
he was gone.

Unable to shake his claim I was going to
kill Adonis, I remained on the balcony and rested my elbows on the
railing. Moonlight dusted the flowers and plants in the garden
below, outlining everything in silver. I was somewhat comfortable
in the other dimension when it came to creating but not quite as
confident in my own world. I wanted to pursue the woman in white,
to talk to her, but I also feared leaving my body exposed for too
long.

I couldn’t possibly sleep after the
discussion with Lantos and dragged a chair onto the balcony. Rather
than return to the other dimension, I began practicing the creation
of inanimate objects in this one.

“
Shoes,” I whispered and
gazed expectantly at the place before my feet. A tingle went
through me, as if the magic were trying to work. When the sensation
faded, I thought hard about how I was able to create in the other
dimension. It seemed … easier there. Unwilling to leave my world
when Adonis’ life was in the mix, I focused on creating a picture
in my head of a pair of shoes, without closing my eyes.

Fibers from the ribbons suspended over
everything around me peeled off and coalesced in front of me. They
slowly materialized. Intrigued by the process, I lost focus at the
last second. Instead of shoes, a tiny statue appeared before
me.

“
Mismatch,” I murmured
sadly and plucked it up. My mind was clearly on Adonis. I had first
met him in his grotesque form when I was five, the day I awoke him
and named him Mismatch. He came to visit me afterwards, flying from
DC to the suburbs where my family lived, drawn to me by the
connection we shared. I never knew he was a man during daylight
until a few weeks ago. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” I
vowed.

To protect him, I had to become stronger. I
had to listen to Artemis over Cecelia. I had to make a choice to
risk everything in order to protect my Mismatch.

Determined to master my power, I held the
statue and tried again.

Menelaus wasn’t healing well or fast. With a
glance towards the horizon, and the sun dipping towards it, I
lowered the axe and gathered my last armful of wood for today. I
entered the small house belonging to my elderly host and placed the
timber in the hearth before crouching to start the fire.

“
You don’t have to care for
me like this. I am old. If it is the will of the gods that I die,
then I die,” Menelaus said from his place lying on the
couch.

“
I enjoy defying the gods’
will. Don’t you?” I replied and tucked loose newspaper around the
logs.

“
Some days. And some days,
I feel too old to commit the effort.”

“
I’ll leave when you’re
well enough to care for yourself.”

“
This is a young man’s
world. You should be out in it, not stuck here with me.”

I paused. “You’ve seen my wings. Would it
surprise you to learn I am not as young as you think I am?”

“
Only if you claim to be
older than I am.”

Smiling, I returned to my duty of lighting
the fire before I left the house to transform into my monster form.
Menelaus had turned out to be a good companion. He asked for little
and possessed a dry sense of intelligent humor I rather liked.

“
Why do you stay when you
don’t have to?”

“
You’re insistent tonight.
Do you not want my help?” I asked with a glance over my shoulder at
the man reclining on the couch. His eyes had turned whiskey hued
again within the span of a few seconds. This change occurred often
enough I’d stopped noting each time it happened.

“
I am curious. I barely
know you, and you don’t know me,” he replied.

At times, he also had an odd way of
speaking. It reminded me of how the gods spoke in riddles. For
twelve years, I had protected an animated stuffed animal belonging
to Alessandra. When Mrs. Nettles was possessed by Artemis, which
happened on occasion, I noticed the same enigmatic speech
patterns.

It was possible Menelaus and I spoke
different dialects of Greek, and this was what I heard, but I
wasn’t ruling out anything after all I’d seen of the world.

“
I came to find something
that’s not here,” I replied. “I want to ensure I don’t overlook
anything before I leave, and yes, I do want to help
you.”

With the fire trickling to life, I
stood.

“
Are you sure?” Menelaus
asked. His head rested on the back of the couch, and his eyes were
closed.

“
Am I sure about
what?”

“
That what you seek isn’t
here?”

“
I dived into the sea
several times. You were right. The sea floor has been swept clean
by storms.” I gazed out the window, watching the sun start to sink
beneath the horizon. “I was sent on a fool’s errand.” I wasn’t
surprised a goddess duped me – but I was angry. When next we met, I
would have nothing nice to say to Artemis. If I caught her
possessing a human, I was going to end this madness with a blow to
the throat.

“
Maybe you weren’t looking
for the right thing,” Menelaus suggested. “Maybe it’s not a stone
plaque you seek.”

“
Or maybe it doesn’t exist,
and a certain goddess will have much to atone for when we meet
again.”

“
In all my years, I’ve
never trusted a god,” he agreed. “You are too quick to surrender,
if you want to defy this goddess.”

My eyebrows lifted. In SISA, most men
wouldn’t risk looking at me, let alone dare rebuke me. My
reputation was well earned, if exaggerated, as were most urban
legends.

As soon as my ire rose, it deflated when I
observed Menelaus’ old, crippled form. He spoke his thoughts with
blunt candidness. Only two other people in four thousand years had
done this with me. One was Lantos, and the other Alessandra, whose
face I saw often enough in my thoughts, I believed something was
very wrong, or would be soon.

“
Maybe you should look
harder,” Menelaus added. His eyes were chocolate colored again. His
voice drifted off at the end as he fell into the kind of blissful
sleep only the old and weary enjoyed.

“
Maybe I should,” I
replied. I checked the fire and draped a blanket over him before
leaving the cottage.

The fire of transformation flowed through
me. I removed my clothing and folded it neatly, then closed my eyes
as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon. Before the last rays
of Hesperides had died out, I was in my grotesque form, circling
the house as I did every night to ensure no thieves or other
threats were close to the sleeping Menelaus.

When I was satisfied he was safe, I soared
into the air, did a quick flip to warm up my body, and then tucked
my wings and dived downward, into the waters off shore.

I had explored every inch of the sandy sea
floor for a hundred yards in each direction without finding one
trace of any artifact. The sand was swept clear of debris. Using my
wings and legs to propel me forward, I went over a familiar
stretch, where I was able to identify the old shoreline by the
depth changes.

Nothing here. Nothing there. Nothing
anywhere. When I came up for air a short time later, I flung out my
wings and floated on my back, eyes on the stars and half moon
above. The water was cool, and the sound of the tide rocking back
and forth soothed nerves that were starting to feel frayed.

In the long days I’d been here, caring for
Menelaus, I’d had too much time to think.

I had been trying unsuccessfully to
understand the mind of Artemis since discovering the purpose behind
my journey didn’t exist. Did she want me away from DC? Did she have
a secondary plan in mind for me that required me to be here?

If so, why tell me I needed to learn who I
had been? What would a name matter? Albeit curious, I wouldn’t
waste my time or endanger Alessandra or others with a fanciful,
selfish journey across the world to learn my name.

Except I did. One word.
That was all it really was. Yet this word held immense power over
me, as much as the name
Alessandra
did, as much as the curse that turned me into a
monster each night. I struggled to understand how I had changed so
quickly, from the butcher Lantos needed me to be to someone who
traveled so far for
one word.

My mind was my own for the
first time since I was seventeen, and it was an unfamiliar place.
What bothered me the most was not that I didn’t know my name, but
that I
wanted
to.

The image of Alessandra was
in my mind again, never fully gone. She was beautiful, but it was
her spirit that had captured my attention long before I understood
our connection. She was
alive
in a world where I had become numb to everyone and
everything.

When I thought of her, I was torn by
conflicting instincts from my two sides. The first was that of the
butcher Adonis, who saw her, wanted her and would have done
whatever he had to in order to break her and control her, as he did
everyone else, so she would become a fixture in his life for as
long as he wanted her to be there. Adonis would not have been kind,
had Lantos not ordered him to treat her differently from the
beginning, when we lured her to my compound in DC.

The second was Mismatch, the primal
instincts of a beast parading as a man, who remembered her kindness
and was fascinated by her strength and heart. Mismatch recalled the
first breath he took after four thousand years frozen as a statue
and knew he had her to be grateful for his release from eternity in
stone. He would never hurt her and certainly never break her. He
would watch over her as he had the temple of Artemis. He would
stand by her side, if she asked it, or keep his distance, if that
was her preference.

I was stuck somewhere between the two parts
of my psyche, neither fully one nor the other, no matter what form
I was in, and not trusting myself around Alessandra, because of the
discord within me. Adonis wanted to possess. Mismatch wanted to
protect. Adonis would hurt her to satisfy his interest and need.
Mismatch would rather die than harm her.

Did I come across the world
for my purpose, or to protect Alessandra from what I was, because I
didn’t know what I would do to her? Was I a conqueror and butcher,
or a protector and guardian? How was it possible to be
both
?

In the dark night, floating in the sea I
used to rule, I had never felt more disconnected from who I was. It
was unlike either of my sides not to know. I had learned nothing
this journey, except that I was confused, and I doubted I needed to
travel six thousand kilometers to figure that out.

An unfamiliar scent reached me across the
waters, and I shifted off my back, head tilted and senses alert.
Without waiting to find it with my eyes, I launched into the air.
Droplets of the sea rained down from my wings as I climbed upward
to reach a height where I could see the bay and cottage
clearly.

The scent came from the direction of the
cottage. Seconds later, a flurry of wings, and a dark body far too
large to be that of a bird, shot into the air. It disappeared
behind one of the few clouds visible.

Intrigued, I soared upward, chasing the
elusive scent and creature. Reaching the cloud, I paused. The scent
was gone, and so was the form. I circled and dived through the
cloud then twisted in midair and began flying in large circles
around the bay area, seeking the strange creature while keeping an
eye on the cottage to ensure no one attacked Menelaus in his
sleep.

Twice more, I glimpsed the creature playing
in the clouds and pursued it. Twice more, it vanished before I was
close enough to identify what it was.