Chapter 14
The second that Fay sent the message to Abe that she was okay, given she knew he would’ve felt her pain in the bond, a dozen messages streamed in. Then, before she had a chance to reply, he called. Reluctantly, she answered.
“I’m fine, really,” she said before he spoke. “I’ll explain everything when I get back.”
“Where are you?”
She hesitated. The wolves, the golden blood as though from a God. It was serious stuff and not the jurisdiction of the Bureau, which meant they’d be called away from Lake Elysium. There would be orders to watch the town but, once the reports of poltergeists stopped coming in – and Fay had a nagging feeling that the poltergeists were all gone – the case would be closed. She and Abe would fight, argue viciously. In her mind she saw him using a Command on her and she’d obey. She recoiled from the vision.
“Why couldn’t you just trust me?” She asked quietly. “I was in control.”
The other end of the line was silent. Beside her, Ben glanced in the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything. She turned in her seat and stared out the window, waiting for his reply, for the answers she hungered for.
“Because you would’ve crossed a line that would’ve changed you forever, Fay. I couldn’t lose you,” he confessed, his voice low and aching.
She drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, trying to slowly release the fury and hurt inside of her. It was hard. There was so much of it, twisting inside of her, eating her alive. With him, she’d placed a level of trust in him, despite all the horrors she’d endured after being hunted by the pack. Then, there had been a year of peace, where their bond grew and everything was right. In that year, she’d fallen for him. Just as she went to his room one night to tell him he’d opened it, blurted out that they had a case. Everything fell apart after that case. All because Abe hadn’t trusted her. His fear had consumed him and he’d Commanded her to stand down. The girl Fay had been trying to save died anyway, ripped apart by a vengeful demon.
Now, with her visions drawing her back to Nebiru – which was more than likely a convoluted plan by Hades – she had to follow the mission through. Figure out what was spinning around in her mind. All of it had begun when she came back to town, growing more intense the longer she stayed. It was terrifying but, at the same time, felt like she was changing for the better, becoming something more. It was hard to explain but she couldn’t trust Abe anymore not to Command her. If he did, it’d destroy her completely.
“You lost me a year ago, Abe,” she whispered and hung up; then, with a deep breath she wound down the window and hurled the phone out.
“Hey!”
“I don’t want my partner to track me,” she said by way of explanation.
“Can’t he just use the bond?”
“Not if I crowd the bond with energy. He’ll only be able to feel if I’m alive and won’t be able to use a locator spell either,” she said tiredly. “I’ve done it before.”
Ben nodded and fell silent. Fay was grateful for his silence. She felt frayed, the edges of her mind tattered, raw from dulling the bond. Without Abe’s presence she felt at a loss, yet also free. Grieving for a bond she knew had been fractured long before they came to Lake Elysium, yet with a clear mind that sharpened on the task at hand. Her aching heart could wait.
They didn’t go to Mel’s house, as expected. Rather, Ben drove out of town, following the twisting roads up the mountain. Any traces of civilisation, save for the road itself, fell away. It felt like another world entirely. Ben slowed the car and turned down a narrow gravel road, sloping down into the thick forest below. The road curved like a snake until it widened upon a simple wooden house, crouched low amongst the forest, covered in a thick beard of ivy along one side. Sitting on the front step, wrapped in a thin grey cardigan, Mel looked almost human; that is, until she looked up and those decidedly inhuman eyes found Fay’s. Fay felt a tremble pass through her, a normal reaction for anyone who saw a Siren. They were, by their very nature, alluring.
Ben parked the car and climbed out first. Mel was on her feet in a second, striding across to him and hugged him. As Fay climbed out Mel stepped back and punched his shoulder.
“You didn’t call me! I got worried,” she snapped.
Ben laughed and flicked a hand to Fay. “She threw my phone out of the car. We’re avoiding her partner.”
Mel blinked, then glanced at Fay. “Why?”
“Those wolves bled gold, which makes them Immortals. I can’t let Abe get involved. He’ll order me away,” she said. “I can’t go. I need answers.”
Mel nodded. “Did you get a wolf to look at?”
“In the back,” said Ben, gesturing to the car. “I removed the head to be sure.”
Fay watched as Mel walked around the car and opened up the back. She peered in, then reached out and dipped two fingers into one of the wounds, drawing out a rivulet of dried golden blood. She rubbed it between her fingers before drawing it up to her nose. Her nose wrinkled.
“What junk is this?” She wiped the blood on the blanket beneath the wolf and stepped back. “They’re Immortal but not. The blood is gold and they’re bigger than normal werewolves, thicker muscles and heavier fur. Yet they don’t smell like a true Divine. You can’t mistake the smell of a God. Zeus didn’t approve these.”
Her eyes flickered grimly to Ben, betraying a secret conversation Fay wasn’t privy to. Once again, it seemed, she was on the out, trying to claw her way back in. Ben broke away first and went to the car, grabbing his weapons out of the back.
“Strange they didn’t shift back,” he remarked, hauling the gear up to the house.
Mel shut the back of the car and joined him, followed by Fay. She seemed to be drawing into herself, musing on something that appeared to trouble her. First impressions Fay had of Mel were that of a young girl, afraid of her own power, desperately hiding from her people, doing all she could to not be avoided. Yet there she was, with Ben, who bore Olympian weapons, talking and acting like Fay and Abe did. As though they were on a case, trying to save the world.
“Could be a side effect. If it was a poorly made elixir – and one not sanctioned by Olympus itself – and given to them in wolf form it might result in a permanent form. Only a guess, however,” said Mel, opening the door for Ben. She held it for Fay and seemed to glance at her, as if reminding herself that Fay was present.
Mel vanished inside the simply furnished cabin, so Fay followed Ben, with her own mind burning with questions. He led her into a living room, adjoined to a dining area. The dining table was already strewn with maps and books. He cleared off a section and lay the weapons down. Fay looked around the room, studying everything closely; the basic furniture, the dining table reminding her from something from a war room, how Ben moved about the room. No longer the gawky but sweet boy she’d fallen for years ago. A stranger, really, stood before her but the shock of it dulled in light of her own transformation. Timid human to wild hellhound.
Time had changed everyone.
She hadn’t realised he’d turned around and was watching her with the same cautious regard until their eyes met. With a blink, she looked away and walked over to the window, looking out across the thick forest.
“So much has happened in two years; me, becoming a hellhound, an agent…whatever I’ll be next,” she said, pausing as she turned around to look at him. “You, with whatever you are.”
Ben smiled but there was that shadow of pain that never seemed to leave his eyes when he looked at her. The shame of what happened weighed in his mind. Once, she might’ve taken pleasure in it but, of late, her anger seemed to dissolve into questions and the mysteries swirling around in her own head.
“He used a Command order on me that night. I…I tried to fight it but I couldn’t,” he blurted out and fell on the chair, looking down. “I was so weak. For a while I tried to pretend it was best, then that what happened was good for the pack. I told myself every lie imaginable. Then I heard you were alive, that you were some fancy agent and I was so happy. It became impossible to live with the pack after that, with him.”
Fay’s heart was racing, slamming violently against her ribs. Flashes of repressed memories burst through her mind like explosions, fierce and sharp. She sucked in a deep breath and sat down, exhaling so slowly in an attempt to calm herself. Though, deep down, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She knew better than anyone really what a Command could do, how if you didn’t really believe it, it’d tear you apart.
“Why didn’t you leave town?” She asked softly, not daring to meet his eyes.
“I was going to but last year I met Amanda. She came to me, saying she was afraid-“
“Ben! Can you come in here?” Mel called from the kitchen.
Ben closed his mouth and got up, leaving Fay in her own silence. Her mind passed over the admission of knowing Amanda; instead, it clung to his confession, picked apart every word with a critical eye. It sought a lie within it, some hint of a hidden agenda. Something that might rekindle her anger. Yet she found nothing; whether because it drew on her own pain of being Commanded or some buried, childish hope that he hadn’t really betrayed her.
She was restless, so she got up and paced the room, looking over items she’d inspected before. On repeat inspections she lingered, if only to pass the time. Mel and Ben had gone outside. If she tried she might overhear them but she felt drained; hungry for answers, yet too tired to fight for them. For the moment, anyway.
As she turned around she was no longer standing in the cabin. She stood in a large room with pillars running down each side and a glimmering pool sequestered in the middle. Stretched out in it, various women in little clothing. The room was crammed with people in white robes and vibrant dresses, with hair coiled high and jewelled. Gold and silver and gems of every colour gleamed from clothes and weapons and hair, even on the wall where polished paintings depicted walls. Embraced lovers hid behind pillars, talking low, their heads bent together intimately. Beside her Andromeda stood in an emerald green dress, a golden belt cinched around her waist, complementing the golden armlets and the golden pins woven into her hair, which cascaded down her back like a waterfall. She looked like a Goddess, her cold, detached eyes surveying the room with mild boredom.
“What do you see?” Asked the soft, musical voice of Antiope.
Fay craned her neck and saw Antiope, simply dressed in a pale white dress, eyeing the crowd similarly to Andromeda. The two of them looked like a formidable pair, earning envious glances from about the room; women who wanted to be them, simply wanted them, and Men who devoured them with their eyes. The Goddess and her Oracle.
“I see politicians propositioning their daughters to men three times their age; wives jealously watching their husbands; young men mustering the courage for beautiful women well beyond their station; I see a lone woman at the back of the room, watching it all with a savage smile.”
Antiope nodded appraisingly. “That would be Eris. She has a proposition for you.”
Andromeda stiffened. “Unless she can bring Abraham back from the Underworld I do not care for her games.”
“Curious, given that is exactly what she’s offering.”
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