Chapter 18
Mel and Ben listened intently as Fay relayed all she’d learnt off Nebiru, including the attack on the Underworld. When she finished she rose and went into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water. Behind her the pair were silent. As she turned around Mel had leant back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, seemingly a million miles away, like she wanted to be anywhere but that cabin. Fay didn’t blame her. The girl had run from her messed up family, only to be dragged into a bigger mess by someone she couldn’t say no to. Ben was the same, too. It seemed all three of them were trying to run from something; the past, family, demons.
“The only way a witch could harbour that much power long term is by help from a God or Goddess. There’d be a price though. You’d risk going crazy yourself,” said Mel, looking down with shadows in her eyes. “Humans shouldn’t have that much power.”
Andromeda did and it destroyed her life, thought Fay.
Ben let out a low whistle. “Maybe she already did – I mean, hell, she literally attacked hell. Why risk it all for a bunch of trinkets unless Nebiru is right and it’s for someone in Tartarus. Who, though?”
Fay downed her drink, set it aside and joined them at the table. “There’s Gods and Goddesses aplenty down there, most of which have been forgotten by people. I know Eris is down there. Hades liked to brag about it. There’s monsters and demons, of course. However, there is a human imprisoned there.”
“I heard rumours of a girl imprisoned there. What did she do?” Mel said, sharing a wary glance with Ben, leaving Fay feel like an outsider. Her lips compressed to a thin line, a myriad of thoughts dancing in those inhuman, luminescent eyes.
Fay considered her words carefully. “She was a human prophesised to kill one of the Gods, that she would bring about a new era.”
“I’m assuming she failed,” said Ben.
“Zeus killed her before she could fulfil the prophecy,” said Fay with a surprising prickle of anger, a smouldering flame in her chest. She looked down. Her hands were clenched, white-knuckled. Exhaling deeply, she released hands and saw the red marks where her nails had dug in. “We can’t be sure; however, she was the target. Eris is a likely target but wildly unpredictable.”
“So, we’re at a dead end,” finished Ben with a glower at the table.
Without warning he slammed his fist down onto the table, a crack splitting down the side. Mel reached out, boldly, and set her hand on his, smoothing it flat on the table. He glanced at her, then rose, stalking out. Both Mel and Fay stared at his retreating figure. Once he was gone, the back door having slammed shut, Mel brushed her hand over the crack with a soft song. In a blink the damage was merely a memory.
“He’s worried about Amanda. He has it in his mind that all that happened to her is his fault, that he has to save her,” said Mel, her words biting, scolding.
“You don’t approve?”
Mel’s eyes flickered to Fay, cool and calm. “His need to fix everything will only end in disaster. Don’t get me wrong, I like him and I think of him as a friend. However, I’m a Siren, one who has run from her kind. I’m a survivalist.”
“So, you don’t care about Amanda?”
“I do, I actually do. What worries me is the obsession Ben has to save her, like he still has something to prove,” said Mel tiredly. “There’s a difference between trying to save someone out of actually giving a shit and doing it out of shame. Maybe somewhere deep-down Ben is doing it because he cares but it’s being consumed by that obsession.”
Mel levelled those luminous eyes at Fay pointedly. She didn’t have to say anything further. Her feelings on the reasoning behind Ben’s obsession was clear.
“You think it’s because of me?”
Her eyes slid to the chair where Ben had been only moments before. “He’s tearing himself apart over what happened to you. You both are. Maybe it’s time to change that before we go head first into a war.”
Fay had been on her way to talk to Ben when another vision sucked in her in, right on the back step. The forest dwindled away to a rugged, rocky landscape with mangled hilltops overlooking sparsely vegetated scrub land. She stood on one of those hills, an outcrop sheltered by the lazy outstretch of a thinly leafed tree, and saw to the far horizon, a city hunkered at the water’s edge. It was hard to discern details, aside from a maze of roads and low buildings cluttered in chaotic groups, with taller buildings – warehouses, villas, guard houses – dotted about with a contrasting degree of order.
After a second, she perceived a person next to her. When she glanced down she saw Andromeda, yet without her usual finery or elegant clothes. She wore a fitting tunic, a leather breastplate fastened on her chest and high strapped sandals. A sword gleamed at her hip. Fay sucked in a silent breath. Olympian Steel, she thought, eyeing the blade curiously, but who gave it to her? As she dragged her eyes up she saw Andromeda toying with an amulet, the shiny bauble catching the sunlight, reflecting shards of light.
Fay glanced around but Andromeda appeared alone, thoughtful, brooding. She seemed a fraction older, too, and Fay wondered how much time had passed since the last vision. Years, maybe?
Andromeda rose and stretched out her long, tanned limbs, more muscled than they’d been before. A shadow suddenly fell across her, a flash of movement from behind. She spun, drawing her sword in one deft movement, swinging it up with one hand, a bolt of energy with another. The figure darted to the left, evading the blade – it did not evade the bolt. It screamed as it fell, reduced to a dull, whimpering gurgle as it rolled onto its back. A boy, barely a man, etched with tattoos across him, with bright, golden eyes. He stared up at Andromeda, his jaw set, like he was trying not to look afraid. She loomed over him, unflinching.
“The Gods are becoming lazy to send a demi-god after me,” she said, tiredly.
His eyes flashed defiantly, literally. Andromeda stepped back, mildly surprised at the show of magic but made no comment. Her own hands still crackled and glowed with her own dark powers.
“I was made to destroy you,” he spat.
She cocked her head to the side, calmly. “Oh? You didn’t do a very good job. I feel very much alive.”
He made no reply. Andromeda inched closer, unafraid and knelt before him. She held one hand over him, tendrils of darkness stretching down, trapping him; the other hand lifted his own and she eyed the markings on his arm.
“They thought enhancing a witch’s abilities would be enough?” She dropped his hand with a snort. “That is insulting, to say the least.”
“They blessed me-“
“Perhaps but I suspect you lost their favour? Not strong enough, so you’ve lashed out at me, anyway. For what, to prove yourself worthy for Immortality?” Andromeda stepped back and sat back down, as if bored again by his presence. “Don’t take it personally but I’m meant for bigger things than dying here on this hillside.”
He touched his chest, his hands glowing briefly, then sat up and stared at her, frowning. His mouth was slightly ajar, bewildered, and perhaps, slightly annoyed, at how he’d already been dismissed. Andromeda was, once more, staring out across the land, as if she was waiting but for what? Her hawkish eyes didn’t even flicker to him. Something else had her mind.
“You’re not going to kill me?”
For a moment it appeared as though she hadn’t heard him; then, she blinked and looked at him as he stood, his broad, well-muscled frame poised before her. He reminded Fay of a peacock, in a silly, endearing kind of way.
Andromeda frowned and looked down at her hands. “I haven’t killed anyone. Why would I start with you?”
“Because I tried to kill you.”
Her eyes flickered up, measuring. “I noticed that.”
“So, you don’t wish to punish me?”
“Is that what you seek? Your own demise? An end to the course the Gods have set you on?” She asked mockingly, her eyes looking more tired than Fay had seen before.
He stared at her, hard, unsure. After a moment he sighed and slumped down next to her. “You’re nothing like what I have been told.”
“And you’re still here,” she noted dryly.
“I’m Amon.”
“Andromeda.”
He laughed. Andromeda glanced over at him, her dark eyes studying him, closely. Her face, for a moment, betrayed nothing, then the corner of her lips twitched.
“You’re the worst assassin they’ve sent, yet.”
He sobered and followed her gaze to the distant horizon. “What are you searching for?”
“Not searching, waiting. It’s almost time.”
The vision ended abruptly as a hand, firm on Fay’s shoulder, shook her, hard. Colours smeared as two worlds collided recklessly into each other, crumbling, remaking until one encircled her completely. Ben stood in front of her, too close, looking right into her eyes – which, once they focused, blinked and noticed, rather idly, that his dark complexion hid a feint scar under his left eye. She stepped back quickly.
“What?”
“I was calling your name. You didn’t answer. You just stood there, out of it.”
There was piercing, uncomfortable questions in his words. Fay unclenched the hands she just realised had been closed fists, wincing as her nails released from her flesh. She had the sudden urge to shove him away. He was too close, too everything. Old memories flashed through her head; of them, arm in arm, those intimate, dizzying looks.
She shoved away the myriad of ugly urges and lifted her gaze to his, found it as intense but kind as always. There was no question if he’d hurt her like Abe had, for Ben and she were the same, both forced to act and both bore the wounds to prove it. Only, with him, there was a possibility of healing those ugly wounds.
“I…I need to tell you something,” she said slowly, the words heavy on her tongue, reluctant, forced.
“I heard Mel what said, what she thinks,” he said, as they walked down to the river.
“Is she right?” Fay found herself asking.
“Yes and no. She’s not as perceptive as she’d like to think,” he replied with a wry smile, which flickered like a candle, betraying the very thing Mel spoke of; that shame, it lurked just below the surface, despite Ben’s apparent effort to bury it – or ignore its very existence at all.
At the river Ben sat down by the water’s edge, a safe distance away from Fay. In the bright, crisp sunlight he seemed achingly real, mortal even. There was something beautiful about it. Gone was the young, naïve boy; before her was a young man of secrets and demons, yet still kind and selfless, perhaps to a fault. Then he lifted those eyes of his to her and she felt herself slide dangerously close to a place she’d thought gone forever.
“I’ve been having visions,” she blurted out before he spoke. “At first, they were little more than spectres in the corner of my eye, snatches of conversation. Before I knew it I was somewhere else, seeing this girl’s life; the prophecy that defined her life, the power, the tragedies and hardships she faced. I even found out who she loved – Abe.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes. He leaned a fraction closer. “As in your Abe?”
“Abe isn’t mine, never was apparently,” she said a little bitterly, then found herself ashamed that she’d felt so petty and jealous. “Anyway, they weren’t in order in the beginning; now, they follow her a little more chronologically, from what I can tell. I know she’s eventually murdered by Zeus, her soul cast to Tartarus but these visions are filling in the gaps. I don’t know why though, nor even why I’m seeing her at all.”
“Reincarnation?” Ben asked jokingly.
She shook her head fiercely, the joke missed. “Impossible, especially with her soul firmly in Tartarus.”
Then, it must’ve clicked who Fay was talking about. Ben’s face suddenly became thoughtful, pensive. He looked away.
“You think the visions and the attack in the Underworld are linked? That you’re somehow linked to all of this?”
Fay released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “There’s a connection, however small.”
“So, this is why you’re here, isn’t it? Why you’ve run from Abe because he’ll order you to heel?” Ben said, disappointed.
She felt a flash of defiance, the sting of his words. Whether it was true or not, she felt defensive, angry.
“Yes and no,” she said, surprised at how calm she sounded. “I need answers, yes, but I’ve gone past the point where I can walk away from this. Now I know there’s someone out there like me, someone whose been abused by the bond. Who knows, maybe it’s like if I can save her, then there’s a chance for me.” She fell silent for a moment, as if mourning the person that she once was. “Guess I’m no longer the girl you remember, am I?”
He didn’t seem disheartened by the confession. Perhaps he’d come to accept that she had changed, and maybe, at least in her own mind, it was fine. He studied the water closely, as if in its shimmering expanse he might find an answer – to what, she didn’t know but she found herself looking, too.
“I’m not the same anymore, either,” he said quietly. “I can’t be him, not anymore.”
Before she knew it, her feet had carried her over and she sat down beside him. Closer than she thought she might. Before, she’d hungered for him to feel the same grief and agony that she had, that he’d suffered to. Now, she realised, he had suffered but those responsible, hadn’t. In a cruel twist of fate, they’d both become victims and both had let that grief, that fear, control them. He’d become the obsessive hero, desperate to do good, whereas she’d become cold, hard, dismissive.
“In my mind it is Ryan who should be consumed by this grief, not you. You were as much a victim in this as me and…and I’m sorry I didn’t consider that possibility before. To be honest, I’ve wronged you more than you’ve wronged me,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, a soul laid bare.
“We’ve both made mistakes,” he argued. “Not just you.”
Fay found herself smiling as she looked at him. “Agree to disagree?”
“Agreed.”
In the silence of that forest, where it was only just them, Fay felt that old tug she’d felt years ago. How Ben felt like gravity, drawing her to him. Now, he wasn’t the monster, it seemed easy, though her own demon side wrestled with it. It scorned this warmth, this gentleness. She drew a deep breath, held for a second or two, then released with control. As she did she felt something brush her hand. She glanced down. The edge of his hand nudged hers, shyly at first but as she turned her own hand over, opening it, their fingers intertwined.
In that lonely place they said nothing more, for the silence said it all.
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