The Wicked Within

TWENTY-THREE

THE DOORS BEHIND ME BANGED open so hard, one split and the other flew off its hinges. I spun around. A wizened old figure appeared in the doorway, shuffling in with his staff to support him, a hood drawn over his head.

The River Witch stopped in the aisle.

What the hell?

Athena came around the altar and stopped next to me, livid. The witch lifted his wrinkled hand and pulled back his hood. My heart stopped. As the hood was dragged slowly off his head, the old face changed, like he’d peeled away a layer of deceit, leaving behind a beautiful woman with red hair, porcelain skin, and the features of an angel. A pretty witch, Crank’s voice reminded me. Had she somehow seen beyond the disguise?

And if the kids had left with her, then where the hell were they?

The cloak dropped to the floor. The witch was dressed for battle, her hair braided at the sides and pulled away from her face, her staff at the ready. A strange shimmering black breastplate was molded to her body, covering her torso, neck, and arms. Ancient designs filled the plate.

“Hello, Athena,” she said with such underlying pleasure I knew we were all going to be in a world of hurt.

Athena marched off the altar and down the aisle like vengeance reborn. As she reached out to grab the witch, the witch held up her hand, and Athena stopped. Just froze.

“How dare you interrupt!” Athena railed. “You, more than anyone, know what I have lost!”

“Aye, and I lost too. Or do you forget? You stole my child! Mine! Did you think Zeus wouldn’t notice you switched our children? You sacrificed my child to save your own, and it didn’t even work! He knew and took yours anyway. Do you know what he did to my child? He tossed her from the window of his temple, just threw her away.”

“You betrayed me first! You should have kept your mouth shut and kept the prophecy to yourself. You knew what would happen once you uttered those words, Dora! You damn well knew it would be the end of my child!”

The River Witch was Anesidora. The Pandora of legend. Athena’s first creation, and the one who’d uttered the fateful prophecy about Athena’s child.

Kieran moved to my side as Artemis and Apollo held arrows notched against the strings of their bows, but had yet to raise them. Menai, I noticed, had appeared at the broken doors, her bow drawn as well.

“These long years I have waited, satisfied in the knowledge that I took your child from you, that your attempt to save your child failed. But then when she came along”—Dora flicked a glance at me—“I knew I’d have the most glorious justice. Do you know the rest of the prophecy, gorgon?” she asked me. “That child will be sought and found by those wanting to ignite the Blood Wars. He will lead an army against the gods. He is of goddess and vampire, able to consume the blood of the gods, to draw their very essence into his body. And Zeus was the first fated to fall. Do you really want that evil walking this earth?” She turned to Athena. “I had to tell. Your son put all of us in danger.”

“My son is not evil!” Fury shook Athena’s voice. Ironic coming from a goddess who had embraced evil ever since her child was taken. But it also meant the baby’s father was not Horus. So why the hell was he here and wanting to kill Athena?

The father was a vampire. Athena had not denied it. So who was he? Then I remembered what Sebastian had learned from his mother’s things. Josephine’s grandfather had been captured by Athena. In the tenth century. The attempted murder of her child by Zeus and subsequent War of the Pantheons also occurred in the tenth century. Could Josephine’s grandfather have fathered the child? Could that be the source of Josephine’s hatred for Athena?

“Now it matters not,” Dora said. “Your son will live, but he won’t live beyond this night.”

Athena broke through Dora’s power and slammed her palm against Dora’s solar plexus, sending the witch flying backward. She slammed into the massive organ on the second-story balcony. Athena spun around, her eyes blazing at me. “You. Protect my son.”

Stunned by what was happening, I didn’t answer. Athena appeared right in front of me, her hand squeezing my throat. “I do not make bargains unless I have insurance. Melinoe is in the Underworld right now with your mother’s soul. You protect my child and we complete our bargain, or her soul is obliterated.”

Athena’s bright, angry gaze fell on Kieran. “And you, Celt. Think you, your brothers and sisters are safe in the afterlife? Get in my way and they’re all destroyed.” Done with her threats, Athena turned back to the organ. She had a witch to kill.

As she swept past Artemis she said, “Watch Ari, don’t let her leave.” To Apollo, she said, “You’re with me.”

They strode down the aisle, then leaped onto the second-story balcony and wrenched Dora from the broken organ. As the pipes knocked and fell, earsplitting tones reverberated through the church.

“What the hell happened to Horus?” Kieran asked.

Artemis’s head whipped around, her eyes wide. “Horus is here?”

I didn’t answer.

“No,” she breathed, her face going pale. Artemis ran toward Menai, grabbing her daughter and pulling her to the corner, their heads bowed together.

Athena threw Dora to the aisle below. The witch smashed into the tile, leaving a small crater. Dora’s chest and stomach shook. She was laughing. Slowly she pushed to her feet, ducking supernaturally fast as Apollo’s arrow blew past her head. “Come to me, my horrors, my spites and vices. Come out and defend me.”

The strange, high-pitched sounds I’d heard outside Josephine’s house came zipping through the door and into the church, trailing lights and peals of laughter. I remembered why they’d sounded familiar. I’d heard them another time too. At the River Witch’s house in the bayou, in the clay jars.

“What are those?” Kieran asked.

“I think those are the things that escaped Dora’s jar.”

“Some,” Dora said, somehow overhearing me. “Not all . . . ”

The vices and spites transformed from tiny lights into hideous monsters, demons straight from hell with huge, muscular black bodies, light spilling from cracks in their skin. Athena cursed, attacking the horrors with Apollo. When one was shot through the forehead with an arrow, it simply pulled it out the other side and kept fighting. When Athena shot another with lightning, it burst into a million tiny sparks only to re-form.

There were six in all. Athena finally managed to obliterate one of Dora’s creatures. It burst into bits of fiery light, then condensed into one tiny spark to re-form, but she caught it in her hand and smashed it against the wall. The horrors left us alone; they did not approach the altar at all. Hurrying, I ran around the table and reached up to touch my father’s bloody boots. I wrapped my hands around the arrow’s shaft. “Do it,” he insisted. “Hurry.”

I couldn’t pull the arrow back through his feet, so I snapped the shaft, then grabbed his feet and shoved them upward to his hiss of pain. It was over quickly. His feet free, I climbed up the statue of St. Paul, which flanked the column my father was bound to. I reached for the tie around his wrist. Kieran followed my lead and was climbing the statue of St. Peter on the other side to get to the other wrist.

Just as I reached the knot, Kieran’s warning came. “Ari . . . ”

I was yanked backward, landing with a thud on the carpet below. Goddamn it! Dora dragged me up. Athena screamed her frustration. Menai notched an arrow and sent it at Dora, but the witch swatted it away, the horrors blocking the gods from reaching her.

“You will resurrect that child,” she said with a sneer. “I want Athena to suffer, to hold her child in her arms and watch him die, like I did at the bottom of that damn mountain. I want her to feel the loss of a thousand years, and then know what it’s like to see him die in front of her eyes. It’s called revenge, gorgon. An eye for an eye. Do you not want the same for those you have loved and lost?”

I opened my mouth, but no answer came out.

A lion’s roar shook the cathedral. In the doorway, Horus appeared with his black lioness. His eerie eyes were furious, and they zeroed in on Dora. It didn’t take much to figure out that the reason he’d been delayed was because of her. “Think you to hold a god?” he shouted at Dora. As he marched down the aisle, his linen clothes transformed into Egyptian war garb. The sight made my mouth drop open.

Dora shoved me away and hurried to face him. Artemis moved back into the shadows, but Horus saw her and threw out a hand. She hit the wall and was pinned there, unable to move. He never took his eyes off Dora. “Think you that powerful, witch?”

“I waylaid you, didn’t I?” Dora answered, her confidence unbelievable.

Athena smashed the last of Dora’s horrors and jumped from the balcony, landing behind Horus, putting him between Dora and herself. The shit was about to hit the fan, and I needed to get my father off that high altar.

“What do you think, brother?” Athena said to Apollo as I inched around the table and back toward my father. “Shall we take them together, or shall I make my peace with Dora once and for all while you visit with the Egyptian?”

Apollo and Horus stared at each other, neither seeming impressed by the other. “Horus and I have a few scores to settle. Have at it, sister,” Apollo said, never taking his eyes off his target.

Horus’s eyebrow lifted. “It’s your funeral.”

And then the shit hit the fan. Pews and prayer books went flying. I scrambled up the statue and sliced through the ties with Athena’s blade. As Kieran climbed the other statue and used her sword to cut my father’s other binding, I went to his feet and held him as best I could. He dropped like a stone, landing half on top of me. We ducked behind the altar table.

“As soon as we have a clear path, we run for the side door,” I said.

Athena shot a bolt of lightning at Dora. It ricocheted off her breastplate and slammed into one of the columns supporting the balcony above. The entire left gallery groaned and sagged.

Horus sent Apollo flying into the pews, his body blasting through them like a plow eating up dirt. Pews were shoved so far forward that they blocked the side door. “Do you know another way out of here?” I asked Kieran.

“Around the corner, I think. There might be a door that leads behind the altar and into the garden.”

Horus focused his attention on Athena, grabbing her from behind and flinging her backward. She crashed through one of the columns on the second floor. Wasting no time, Horus jumped up after her.

“Okay, now’s our chance,” I said. “Ready?”

We went to go, but Horus and Athena fell to the floor, barring our path. He got up first.

“Horus, no,” Artemis begged from her imprisonment on the wall. That he was able to keep her there and hold his own in a fight spoke to his power. Frustration radiated from him. He growled, hauled back, and punched Athena so hard she tumbled back over the pews, heels over head. Artemis screamed and cursed at him.

An arrow struck him in the shoulder. Horus swung around. Menai stood near the exit. He seemed incredulous that she’d shot him, like her doing so meant something significant, a kind of betrayal of sorts. “Leave her alone!” Artemis shouted, fear in her voice.

“Like I would hurt my child,” Horus growled at her as he yanked the arrow from his shoulder. Holy shit. Horus was Menai’s father. Now it made sense. The child he was coming for wasn’t the baby, but Menai. And apparently, he held Athena and Artemis accountable for some wrongdoing. Horus reached down and grabbed Athena by the throat as she struggled to her feet. Blood poured from her nose.

Horus’s lion leaped over the broken pews and lunged at Menai. Menai shot another arrow. In midair, the lioness transformed into a cat, the arrow missing, and then it was back to the lioness, slamming into Menai. Artemis screamed, struggling against Horus’s hold even as the god fought against Athena, while Dora and more of her horrors dealt with Apollo.

Horus commanded the lioness, and instead of ripping out Menai’s throat, the large beast lay on Menai’s chest, pinning her to the floor. Menai’s curses and struggles didn’t seem to bother the lioness.

“Go, go, go,” I whispered, and we crouched down, hurrying away from the altar.

Dora disappeared, then reappeared in front of us. Athena shot another bolt, and it hit the statue of Jesus perched on the peak of the high altar. It cracked, chunks smashing into the ground next to the altar, and way too close to the Hands. Dora dragged me to the altar, sending Kieran airborne with a wave of her hand.

But Kieran stopped, hovering in the air for a second before slowly being set down. Sebastian, his face and clothes covered in blood, stood in the doorway. He looked like some ancient god of death, his gray eyes burning like molten silver. I knew Zaria must’ve died a gruesome death.

On her feet, Kieran ran to my father, as Sebastian strode down the aisle, ignoring the fighting around him, his gaze locked on mine. But a horror jumped in his path as Dora shoved me at the table.

Athena screamed her fury. She ran for Dora, tackling her to the ground and knocking the table hard as Apollo slammed into it after a punch from Horus. The Hands were hit and went flying high into the air.

Athena was pinned beneath Dora, but her sharp gaze found me immediately. “Do it! Do it now!”

“Yes! Do it!” Dora sneered, throwing Athena off, grabbing my father with an invisible hand. In a blink he was flat on his back on the altar table with a dagger raised at his heart. “Do it!”

The Hands crested in the air and began to fall. In those two seconds, a hundred thoughts went through my mind. I had to be touching the statue. I couldn’t do it from this distance. My father was going to die.

And then Mel’s incorporeal form solidified, holding a soul over her palm. My heart gave a grief-stricken thud at the sight of my mother’s soul. My father saw it, his face breaking in despair, the struggle going out of him.

“Eleni,” I heard him say, the barest of whispers.

My gaze flew back to the Hands. No time. I staggered up and ran, the pounding of my heart the only thing I could hear as my power tore through me, ripping me open. My eyes burned. In my peripheral vision, I saw some shield their eyes. But that was just a blink in time as the gorgon surged up and out of me with a force that snapped my head back and made my body arch.

I screamed through the burn of energy searing through my veins, lashing cruel and complete, finally set free. Through a cloudy haze, I slid beneath the basket, colliding with Athena as she did the same.

The basket landed in my arms.

Sebastian was suddenly beside me, his hand on my arm, concern in his eyes. Mine were dry and hot. I blinked them hard, trying to erase the blurriness. And then I felt the basket change from stone to reeds.