The Wicked Within

SEVEN

MY PULSE THUMPED WITH ANXIETY as I hurried down the stairs and across the old, polished hardwoods. My father waited just inside the arched double door of Presby. Soft light filtered through the glass panes, highlighting him. When I imagined an ancient Greek warrior, it was my father’s image that came to mind. He was handsome. Golden. Strong. Lethal. An old warrior in the body of a thirtysomething man who didn’t look old on the outside, but old in the eyes.

We were taking it slow. No pressure. No rush to form an instant bond.

I liked that about him. He was patient. Guess he had to be after a couple hundred years in Athena’s service. My father had done some terrible things in the goddess’s name, things I never wanted to know about. He’d also been through hell and paid his dues. And he had the horrendous scars to prove it.

My palms were clammy. I rubbed them together as I caught his gaze. His expression remained neutral, but the slight, assessing survey, the quick study . . . The hunter in him couldn’t help but take note. Designed to sense his prey, he could tell every tiny thing going on with me. Of course, I wasn’t prey, but I was in his sights, and there was no doubt, even though he broke into a smile, that he’d detected my nervousness with ease.

Consoling myself with the idea that he was just as nervous as me, I stopped in front of him. My father had a good five inches on me. I wondered if I got my height solely from him or if my mother had been tall too. “Hey.”

“Ari.” His sharp blue gaze zeroed in on my bruise. A blond eyebrow rose. “I hope you gave the Celt a few of his own.”

“Bran will be nursing a couple aches and pains tonight.”

His lips quirked as he gestured for the door. “Shall we?”

We left Presby, keeping the conversation casual—the weather, school, training—as we headed through the square. The tall streetlamps had come on as dusk turned to night. Jazz musicians played. A group of tourists posed for pictures in front of the cathedral. It was a typical evening in the square.

We crossed Decatur and went up the steps overlooking the river. It was cooler there, the breeze brisker off the water, bringing with it the smells of river mud and sea life. My father paused at the railing and stared out over the choppy, dark water. Lights from boats and Algiers Point bobbed and blinked in the distance. “Your mother loved the river.”

I went still beside him. She loved the river. The significance of having someone else in my life who knew her, loved her, hit me with a force that stole my breath. He’d spent time with her, time that he remembered, whereas my four-year-old little girl memories were few and far between. I had so many questions about her, about them; I wasn’t sure where to begin.

My father glanced at me and smiled in understanding, then turned back to the river. “Our time was brief compared to the life I have lived, but those days with her, with you—they outshine all the others. They are always in the forefront of my mind, the things I remember the most.” A long silence followed. And I didn’t press him. He loved her too. That much was clear. He’d betrayed his goddess to love my mother.

As though he couldn’t bear to look upon the river another second, he motioned for us to start walking. I fell into step beside him. “You look like her,” he said. “You have her smile. And her frown.” My throat went tight. Grief and regret and anger all jumbled into an angry knot in my chest. “She loved you, Ari. The first time she held you, she stared at you, amazed, and said, ‘We did this. We made this perfect being.’ ”

I blinked. “You were there, when I was born?” His name wasn’t on my birth certificate, and now that I knew who he was, it was understandable. But the fact that he’d been there with her, with me, came as a shock.

“Aye, I was there.” He held out his hands, remembering. “I was the first to hold you. You were born at Charity Hospital. Eleni wanted to settle here, but we were always on the move, always one step ahead of Athena. Your mother thought the Novem and Josephine Arnaud could offer us protection, a home. . . . ”

Athena had rained destruction on the city looking for my mother and father, the only Son of Perseus ever to betray the goddess. She’d wanted to make an example out of him. And instead of giving my father a safe haven, Josephine Arnaud had turned him over to Athena to stop the destruction.

“I sent your mother away,” he told me. “When I knew we’d been betrayed.”

“Have you seen her—Josephine, I mean?” The Quarter was small. My father was now sharing a neighborhood with the very being who had taken him away from his family.

“No. I haven’t had the pleasure,” he answered in a low, chilling tone.

Patient. My father was patient. And Josephine would one day be in a world of hurt—of that I had no doubt.

He held the door open to Maspero’s, and we were seated at a table by the window. Our waitress took our drink order and left. “After I was taken,” my father said, trailing off, unable to finish his sentence. He tried again, and I knew this must be hard for him; he didn’t strike me as a man who talked about his pain. But he seemed to want to clear the air between us. “I struggle . . . knowing what happened to her. What happened to you.”

“She gave me up. She let me go,” I blurted out. There. I said it. And it still hurt, whether I said it out loud or in my head.

“She was young, Ari, and scared of being found, scared of what she’d become. Giving you up was the only way she knew to protect you. From Athena. And from herself.” He tried to smile, but it was twisted with grief.

I reached across the table and slipped my hand into his and squeezed. I wasn’t good at comforting others either, but his despair . . . I felt it too.

“She’d be happy,” I told him, holding back tears, “to know we’re together now.”

A small laugh escaped him, and he shook his head as though the idea was still unbelievable. “She would at that.”

Our drinks arrived and we placed our order, though I had to wonder if my father had an appetite after all this; I knew mine was lagging. After the waitress was gone, I asked him if it bothered him that I was going out with Josephine’s grandson.

“It’s your life, Ari. Your decisions. I have not been a father to you.”

“You haven’t been a father to me because you couldn’t. Not because you didn’t want to. You do have input here. It matters to me, what you think.”

He took a drink of his sweet tea and then cleared his throat.

“Sebastian’s her grandson,” I stressed. “It doesn’t bother you that her blood runs through his veins?”

He studied me for a long moment in that calm way of his. “No. It doesn’t. I watched him suffer at the hands of Athena for nights on end, watched him annihilate her minions and carry you to safety. It’s actions that matter. Not the blood that runs through one’s veins. Or the curse. Your mother taught me that. She was young, but she had the wisdom of an old soul. I only saw the danger she posed to the gods until she set me straight.”

When he put it like that . . . I liked knowing my mother had changed him and made him a better person.

Our appetizer arrived. I picked up a fried calamari, my appetite returning. “I’m glad we did this.”

“So am I. Once a week, dinner here, sound good to you?”

I chewed through my grin and nodded.

He tried to suppress a smile of his own, but it came anyway. He chuckled. My father was really good-looking, but when he smiled and that smile went all the way to his eyes, he was striking. That realization made me feel a little proprietary. I glanced around the restaurant and noticed not one, but two women casting glances his way. Yeah, good luck with that, ladies. He’s not interested. Not now, anyway. I wanted him to be happy and not alone. But this was our time; our time to make up for the lost years and get to know each other.

“What makes you frown?” he asked.

I shook my head, “Nothing.” I popped another calamari into my mouth.

My nervousness had disappeared, wiped away by what we shared, by a bond that was Eleni Selkirk, and the betrayals we’d both faced at the hands of the same two people. It always came back to Athena and Josephine.

“I met a witch. Out in the bayou.” I proceeded to tell him the entire story, including everything I knew about the Hands of Zeus, and that the handless statue in Athena’s temple was really the god himself frozen in stone. My father didn’t seem surprised by any of it.

“Were you there when it all went down, when Athena went to war with Zeus?” I asked.

“No. It was before my time. My grandfather, however, was. I heard stories, tales of how Athena was in the old days. She cared about mankind, if you can believe it. All those myths they teach to humans about her were true. But like many old gods, she’s changed since then. Slowly. Over millennia, she became jaded by mankind’s greed and wars and vices. But she was still fundamentally good. Athena did have a child. Only her inner circle knew of this. My grandfather was her hunter at the time, so he was part of that circle. This was in the tenth century, right before the War of the Pantheons.”

Our food arrived. I added a little hot sauce over my oyster plate as my father grabbed his burger and took a bite. I gestured for him to continue the story.

“Anesidora—Pandora, as legend calls her—prophesied that the child would one day bring down the king of the gods and start something called the Blood Wars. Word reached Zeus, and he did what he’s always done: He protected his position. He took the child from Athena. That’s what started the War of the Pantheons, which might be the same as the Blood Wars that Dora prophesied. Athena sent the gorgon after Zeus. Only it didn’t go as expected, and her child was caught in the middle. They were both turned to stone.”

“What happened after that? Do you know how the Hands got into the jar?”

“Dora. She disappeared with the Hands. It was the only thing she could do. She’d uttered the prophecy that damned Athena’s child, making her enemy number one. Then she stole those Hands, which only added to Athena’s grief.”

“And the father? Do you know who he is?”

My father shook his head. “There aren’t many who do.”

“Melinoe said—”

His burger froze on the way to his mouth. “Mel was here? When?”

“Last night. After we got back from seeing the witch. She and Menai came to the house with a message. They confirmed that Athena lives, and she offered to lift my curse if I resurrect her child.”

He set his burger on his plate, his expression going tight. It was clear he didn’t like the goddess messing with me in any way. “Athena tested you, Ari. Before. Everything that has happened has been for this one purpose. She won’t stop until she has her child. And she’ll come for you to resurrect it whether you want to or not.”

“Not if I’m curse free. Not if I can find a way to undo what Athena’s done. Then I no longer fit into her plan. Game over.”

“No. She won’t let that happen. Remember, she will cover all the angles. She’ll make sure your curse stays put until you’ve done what she needs you to do.”

Every time I felt like I had an option, I hit a brick wall. My father was right. Athena would make damn sure I kept my power long enough to bring her child back to life. “So what do I do, then?”

“First, you need to possess the Hands.” His eyes went hard and his tone even harder. “Then we strike our own kind of bargain.”

I was struck by the “we” in his statement, by the fact that I had a father. One that was here, talking with me, eating a burger and fries. He was a part of my life and he loved me. A lump rose in my throat. I took a drink to wash down the emotions.

“Ready for dessert?” The waitress smiled at my father.

His gaze was on me, one eyebrow lifted as if to say he was up for it if I was.

“Sure,” I said, “why not?”