“We’ll protect you,” Anderson said. I noticed he didn’t bother to say anything about who “we” were. If he were really trying to offer her any comfort, he would have elaborated, given her more of a reason to believe she’d be safe. He was still in full bludgeon mode.
“But caring for that altar will only delay the inevitable!” There was desperation in her voice, and I almost felt sorry for her despite the selfishness she had displayed.
“It sounds like you’re still under the illusion that you have a choice.”
Violet’s eyes shimmered with tears. She hugged herself and shivered. I’d had a pretty harsh and judgmental opinion of her before, but I now had a greater degree of sympathy. She was a goddess, but not a particularly powerful one, and we were going to drag her into the middle of a battle. The battle might not kill her, but she could certainly get hurt, and if we came out on the losing end, Niobe would not forgive her. She was in a difficult spot, no two ways about it. No wonder she was scared. If I allowed myself to think about what we were planning to do, I’d probably run screaming from the room. And I wasn’t being forced to do it by the man who’d killed my fourteen nieces and nephews in a jealous rage.
I took a step toward Violet, putting myself between her and Anderson. She jumped, and I realized she had literally forgotten I was there.
“Anderson’s being a bully and an all-around asshole,” I said, causing her to gape at me in shock. Maybe giving Anderson my back while insulting him wasn’t my wisest decision ever. I had visions of that hand of his landing on me, but I stood firm anyway. “But he’s also right, and we have to do this. I’m a lot easier to kill than you are, and I’m scared out of my mind, but I’m going anyway. I know you don’t want to live in a world without humans any more than I do, and I know you don’t want to go through the decades-long nightmare that would lead to human extinction. You certainly wouldn’t be able to live peacefully in this beautiful home, or—”
“You don’t have to persuade me,” Violet interrupted harshly. “Like Anderson said, I don’t have a choice if I don’t want to die.”
I wanted to slap Anderson silly for having led with a threat instead of a negotiation. “Maybe not, but you’ll have a better chance of living through it if you quit feeling like some helpless victim who’s being dragged into a fight that doesn’t concern her.
“We won’t be going in with only a handful of people this time, and we wouldn’t be going in at all if we didn’t think we had a chance of succeeding. And we will protect you. Getting to that altar would be pointless if you’re not around to perform the ritual.”
I was genuinely trying to comfort her, but I suffered a twinge of guilt anyway, because while I wasn’t lying, I wasn’t being entirely honest, either. If we succeeded in drawing Niobe out, there was a good chance Anderson was going to kill her. Oh, he’d promised to try reasoning with her first, but he’d just shown me how reliable his promises of good behavior were.
It would be an exaggeration to say Violet relaxed in the face of my reassurance, but at least she backed away from the edge of abject terror. I would be a lot happier if we didn’t have a screaming damsel in distress with us for this little adventure.
“Niobe has gained more supporters since last you faced her,” Violet said.
“I know. But so have we.” In a manner of speaking, at least. I was still having a little trouble wrapping my brain around the concept of Cyrus and his Olympians as “supporters,” but I supposed for the time being that was what they were.
Violet seemed to have latched on to me and was now completely ignoring Anderson. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t blame her. “I still don’t think taking care of that one altar is worth the risk.”
And if that were really what we planned, I’d probably agree with her. I hoped she didn’t start putting things together and realize renewing the altar wasn’t our objective after all. If she decided to call Anderson’s bluff, and he decided to show her it wasn’t a bluff, she could end up dead and we’d have to start all over with another sister.
“We desperately need to buy time,” I said. “If that’s the best we can do for now, then that’s what we have to do, even if it’s risky.”
I mentally crossed my fingers. Surely some part of her had to know we were gunning for Niobe. But maybe she just didn’t want to know and that was why she swallowed my reasoning despite the gaping holes in it.
She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I suppose you have a point,” she said grudgingly. “I still think this is a fool’s errand, but it looks like I’m coming along whether I want to or not.”
There was no question in my mind that without Anderson’s threat hanging over her head, she would have refused. I guessed that meant Anderson had been right all along, but I still felt like a bully and wished we could have found a more benevolent way to win her cooperation.
On the day before we planned to storm Jasmine’s altar, our “advance forces” flew to Bermuda, giving Niobe ample time to realize the attempt was coming. Unless she was a total idiot—which Anderson assured us all she wasn’t—she’d find it suspicious in the extreme if we didn’t have significantly more people with us than we had for our last attempt, which ended so badly, so all of Anderson’s Liberi, including Leo, who would not join us for the fight, made the trip with us. We traveled by private jet, but anyone on the lookout for us would know we’d arrived. Anderson, Cyrus, and Cyrus’s trusted Olympians would arrive the next day via the Underworld—and hopefully take Niobe by surprise.
As soon as we were all checked in to our cottages, it was time to do some recon. Jack turned himself into a mouse and made his way over to Jasmine’s house to scout. He was gone for hours, which wasn’t completely unexpected if he was being thorough, but we were all on tenterhooks waiting for him. He’d been very convincing in his argument for why it wouldn’t really be that dangerous, but I kept thinking about all the worst-case scenarios. Jack was annoying as hell and not exactly what I’d call a nice guy, but that didn’t mean I wanted anything to happen to him.
When he finally arrived back at the cottages, we let out a collective sigh of relief. Until he turned back into his human form and told us what he’d found.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on over there,” he said, “but I wasn’t able to get a good close look at the house. Every time I got near a door or window, some plant would suddenly have a ridiculous growth spurt and block my way. I thought maybe I could push past, but when I tried, a vine pulled a boa constrictor on me. I barely got away with my life.”
Ordinarily, I would have thought that was one of his exaggerations, but not this time. He looked genuinely freaked out, and that was not something I’d expect from him. He’d never met a situation, no matter how grim, that he didn’t treat as a joking matter. I was not happy we’d found the exception to that rule.
“It’s Niobe’s doing,” Violet said. “We all have a way with plants, but Niobe’s the one who really excels. I guess it’s because she likes plants more than she likes people.”
“Can you try with something even smaller?” Jamaal asked. “A cockroach maybe?”
“Is that a suggestion, or are you editorializing?” Jack inquired, his sense of humor never quelled for long.
“Both,” Jamaal deadpanned.
I swallowed a laugh. Not that long ago, Jamaal would have bristled at Jack’s use of humor at inappropriate times, and now he was giving it back. Whatever else might be going wrong with the world, Jamaal was getting better, finding some modicum of peace and control. I kind of wanted to hug him for it, though now clearly was not the time.
“Remember, it’s an illusion,” Jack said. “Just because I looked small as a mouse didn’t mean I was small as a mouse. Making myself look even smaller wouldn’t help.”
Of course, Jack’s “recon” was an illusion all on its own. We had no intention of fighting our way into that house. All we had to do was trigger a battle on a large enough scale that Niobe felt inclined to join in. It was good n
ews that the plant life was giving us reason to believe Niobe was nearby, maybe even inside the house itself. Though if she could use plants as weapons, Bermuda was not the optimal place to fight her.
Violet gave me a penetrating look, and I wondered if we were all taking Jack’s failure a little too easily. Maybe we were tipping our hand, giving her reason to think the altar wasn’t our objective after all.
“Well, maybe there’s no way to sneak in and get an early look at the lay of the land,” I said, “but if all goes well, it shouldn’t matter much. They won’t be counting on Anderson opening a portal to the Underworld in the middle of their living room.”
Violet let it go, but I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. Maybe I’d laid it on a little too thick. If she figured out Anderson was planning to kill her sister, things could get ugly fast. We were going to have to keep a careful eye on her lest she stab us in the back. It’s always great to go into battle with a bunch of people who might turn on you at any moment. If the stakes were any less overwhelming, I might have been running for the hills myself.
TWENTY
Those of us who were already in Bermuda had the dubious pleasure of getting to Jasmine’s house first. The idea was that we would head over, get the party started, and maybe find out where all the bad guys were and what kind of weaponry we would be facing. There were enough of us to make it look like a halfway legitimate attempt to get into the house, and hopefully it would never occur to them that there were more of us than they saw.
In theory, once we’d gotten the enemy’s attention, we would text Anderson, who would be ready and waiting to lead Cyrus and his band of Olympians into the Underworld and emerge out of nowhere to save the day. It seemed like a pretty good plan to me, especially when Anderson could open that portal inside the house. The last time we’d tried to get to the altar, the house had been empty, but the fact that the plants had interfered with Jack’s attempts at recon suggested that was not the case this time. Hell, if we were lucky, Niobe would be hunkered down in that house, sitting out the battle feeling safe, and Anderson would come out of the Underworld right in front of her.
I wasn’t sure I entirely bought into that theory, but since I lacked better ideas, and since every day we waited increased the danger that the fertility crisis in the islands would be noticed, I went along with it.
We started preparing at sunset, after a tense meal that I couldn’t help thinking of as the Last Supper. Everyone except for Violet loaded up with weapons provided by Logan, and he decked us all out in body armor as well. It wouldn’t protect us if we got hit by the kind of sniper fire that had taken Rose out, but it should at least help us survive lesser wounds. The stuff was heavy and hot and awkward, and there was a little grumbling, but everyone saw the sense in it.
Logan offered to give Violet a gun and teach her how to shoot it, but like Rose before her, she refused. Although she had half accepted the necessity of her presence, she made no pretense that she was a willing participant, and she was so terrified I worried she might freeze up under fire. We had promised to protect her, but I had a feeling I was the only one who really meant it. Not that the others would hang her out to dry or anything, but let’s just say that keeping her safe wasn’t a high priority. As usual, my bleeding heart was showing, and I planned to stick to her like glue.
We went on foot this time, because it was stealthier, and because it allowed us to periodically send Jack ahead in mouse form to see if we were about to stumble on an early ambush. Most of Niobe’s forces would be focused on protecting the house itself, but we assumed she had people keeping an eye on the surroundings, too.
Because the road was too obvious a route—and because it was so narrow we were likely to be run over as we crept along its nonexistent shoulders—we fought our way through the dense foliage that grew up wherever it wasn’t aggressively cut back. If we’d had to hack our way through with machetes, I’m not sure we’d ever have gotten to the house, but Violet finally found a way to make herself useful, using her powers to coax the plants out of our way.
Seeing branches pulling themselves to the side and vines slithering like snakes to make room for us creeped me out, but if that was the worst thing I was going to see tonight, I’d have one hell of a party tomorrow. The body armor made me feel like some kind of cyborg, and a klutzy one at that. Even with foliage clearing out of my path, I still managed to trip and nearly face-planted more than once. I wasn’t the only one struggling, and we were probably about as sneaky as a herd of elephants.
This isn’t a stealth mission, I reminded myself for the twenty-fifth time. We were a scouting party of sorts, but we were also the bait in the trap, and what good is bait if no one knows it’s there?
Even so, I winced every time someone tripped, or their weapon clanked, or they couldn’t hold back a mumbled curse. It was probably a lovely, temperate night, but thanks to the body armor and nerves, I was soaked with sweat, my hair and clothes sticking to me. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in forever, and I was scared enough to practically pee myself. And if I was that scared, I couldn’t imagine how Violet felt. It was her choice to go in there unarmed, but then I don’t think having a weapon in hand would have made her feel much better.
How does someone who was born immortal cope with the fear of imminent death?
Not very well, if the chattering of Violet’s teeth was any indication. I reached out to give her a silent pat of encouragement, and she practically jumped out of her skin. At least she didn’t scream.
When we judged we were about fifty feet away from breaking through the foliage and getting our first look at the house, we sent Jack ahead to take yet another look at our path and make sure we weren’t about to stumble onto any surprises. He returned with grim news.
“There are men with automatic weapons stationed on the roof,” he told us. “They’ve got at least one guy facing each direction, and several of the windows are cracked open. I couldn’t see in, but I don’t think they’re open for the sake of the refreshing ocean breezes. They’re definitely waiting for us.”
If that was our greatest threat, we might not have been too worried. The Olympians were not trained soldiers, and as long as we didn’t present them with clear shots, they were liable to miss way more often than they hit when it was dark and we had such thick cover. But as soon as that first shot went off, all hell would break loose, and that meant the magical attacks would begin.
Jack looked at me. “I bet with your aim you could pick some of them off even when they supposedly have the more advantageous position.”
“Probably,” I agreed. My supernatural aim was so good I didn’t think the dark would do much to hinder it. “But unless they’re all clustered together like morons, I’ll be lucky to get more than one or two of them before the rest get under cover and lightning bolts and other fun stuff starts raining down on us.”
“Well, we are here to get things started,” Logan said. “We want them to engage with us so that Anderson and Cyrus and the rest can come at them from behind.”
Yeah, that was the plan, and the plan had always involved a certain amount of sitting duckness. It would be nice if we could even the odds just a little bit before we started drawing fire, though. Something that would distract the gunmen—who were likely mortal Descendants and therefore didn’t have magical powers they could bring to bear—so that I’d have a chance to take at least some of them out before they knew what hit them.
“We need Blake,” I said, realizing that he would be perfect for the job. As a descendant of Eros, Blake could create a lust so overpowering that no one, not even the most powerful Liberi, could resist it. The guys on the roof might even drop their weapons in their haste to get to each other and have some action.
Too bad Blake was with Cyrus and the rest, waiting for our signal to step into the Underworld.
“Sounds more like a job for Sita to me,” Jamaal commented. “She can make one hell of a big distraction, and she can take a couple of those guy
s out with one swipe of her paw.”
Instantly, a vision of Sita playing with Oscar like a house cat with a mouse entered my mind, and I tried to think of a tactful way to tell Jamaal that I didn’t exactly trust her after that. But one rarely gets a chance to come up with something tactful when Jack is around.
“Are you sure letting Hell Kitty loose in the middle of all this is a good idea?” he asked. “No offense, but if she’s gotten a taste for killing people . . .”
“She hasn’t ‘gotten a taste’ for it,” Jamaal said in a fierce whisper. “The Underworld had a bad influence on her, but we’re not in the Underworld now. You don’t seriously think I’m going to go into a fight without her, do you?”
His voice had risen to something above a whisper, and I put my hand on his arm and squeezed a silent warning. I had some of the same worries as Jack, but I wasn’t about to ask Jamaal to go into a battle without Sita, and if Sita was coming out, she might as well get in there early and start causing some chaos. You’d have to be in a freaking coma not to be terrified when she came after you, and there was that extra bonus of being invulnerable to bullets.
“And what if something happens to Jamaal?” Jack persisted. “Or if things go on too long and he passes out from exhaustion?”
“Fine,” Jamaal snapped. “You go in and create a diversion.”
That stopped the argument. Hopefully before it got loud enough to be overheard. The two of them weren’t doing much for the stealth factor.
We started moving forward again, more slowly now as we tried to be quiet. The night was alive with sounds, with insects and frogs and the crash of the waves down below, but I still felt like every footstep made too much noise, and I half expected the gunfire and lightning to start before we were ready.
Despite my worries, we made it to the edge of Jasmine’s property without being attacked. It was oppressively dark within the shade of the jungle, but the moon was nearing full and it was a clear night. There were no lights on, either inside or outside the house, and the guys on the roof were wearing black or dark gray to blend into the background, but that full moon meant I could see them if I looked hard enough. I counted five, although there was no way of knowing who else might be lurking behind the ominously open windows. I thought I saw a flash of movement from inside, but that might have been my imagination.