Chapter 21
Back at the cabin Mel and Ben awaited Fay on the back step. She took one step out of the darkness towards them, only to turn sharply to the side and throw up in the bushes. Doubled over she wretched until her stomach ached and her throat stung. Mel was at her back, rubbing small circles.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked as Fay slowly got to her feet, wiping her mouth.
“Nausea. The visions are getting more intense. I need to end this, end this now,” she said shakily and went inside, aware of eyes on her. At the door she paused. “I found Andromeda.”
She barely made it back inside before Mel and Ben rushed in, asking a million questions at once. For a moment she ignored them all, poured herself a glass of water, sat down and stared at the floor. Amanda’s words pulsed through her mind. She wanted to be furious with Amanda wanting to protecting the witch but she understood the girl’s fear of losing herself to Hades. Perhaps with the witch she at least knew what to expect; that, in her eyes, she was the lesser of two evils.
Ben and Mel voices grew louder and louder until Fay stood up, snarling: “Shut up!” They fell silent, staring at her expectantly. “Look, she won’t help us – she can’t help us. In her eyes the witch is better than Hades. Honestly, I don’t blame her for doing everything she can to avoid that hell – literally. However, it means she’ll fight us to her dying breath. Not just because she’s been Commanded to but because she wants to.”
They fell silent, shared a long look. Had they hoped that Amanda would come willingly to them, happy to be free? In their minds she’d been an unwilling hostage, a victim. Now, they had to contend with someone they wanted to save who would resist them until their dying breath. Ben’s heroic campaign had gone down in flames and Mel’s orders seemed unclear.
“We have to rescue her,” murmured Ben but his voice was vague, as though the words were more from some inner mantra.
Mel’s eyes flickered up slowly, her conviction in her mission wavering. With the illusion of some hapless girl to be saved dismissed, the possibility of finding an escape from the mission occurred. If she was free of Amanda, of the mission, then she might avoid getting dragged back to her people – Fay knew that if Mel returned whatever humanity remained would be shredded. That was just the nature of Sirens.
Without warning she strode out the back step, the door closing softly behind her.
“Ryan’s pack isn’t big enough to fight them and after the attack he won’t risk it,” said Fay softly. “The council won’t send in the bureau either. Now that this has fallen within the territory of the Gods they’ll expect for Zeus to respond.”
Ben slowly lifted his gaze to hers. “Will he?”
“He will once he perceives the threat.”
“But he’ll kill Amanda, won’t he?” Ben asked quietly.
“Chances are he’ll kill her master and she’ll be sent to the Underworld. If he kills her she’ll go to Tartarus,” said Fay reluctantly; she fell silent as her mind drifted, drawn to an idea. “However, there is another way.”
A plan stirred in Fay’s mind, one so stupidly reckless that it had far-reaching and devastating consequences. Had Fay thought there might be a chance of a life she might’ve hesitated. Yet once the case was over her choices were limited. She felt like Andromeda, her back against the wall, staring down the Gods.
Hope kindled in Ben’s eyes. “What?”
“Hold that thought,” she said and strode out to the back where Mel was on the phone.
“I’ll come home soon, I promise…Yeah, I’m okay. Look, I miss you, okay? Yes, I promise. Okay, bye. I love you, too,” said Mel as she hung up. She glanced over her shoulder to Fay, whom was staring – Mel had been crying. “Yeah?”
“If I let you into my head to see a face could you make me look like someone?” Fay asked, her heart pounding in her chest.
If Mel could do what she asked then they might have a chance, a slim one anyway, of sorting out the mess. It meant that Amanda might have a chance. The plan would be a two-pronged movement, one that had to be carefully arranged.
Mel frowned at her. “I think so. Why?”
Fay stared down at Mel. “I need you make me look like Andromeda.”
The plan was insane and Ben and Mel only knew half of it. If she told them they’d never agree. As far as they were concerned she was only talking to Nebiru, not Athena. If they knew she was stirring up that hornet’s nest they’d try to force her out of it, or Mel would say no. They were too closely woven in with the Gods, with who manipulated them to act. If they had an ounce of loyalty, if they were somehow convinced to act with them, she couldn’t be sure of their help.
So, Mel agreed, based on a thin truth. They sat down in the living room, several glasses of water on the coffee table next to them. Mel reached out her polished hands and set them on either side of Fay’s face. Her touch was cold, inhumanly so, and it made Fay want to pull away. It felt like the touch of death, of something drawing her into an oblivion she didn’t want to. She let it anyway, the cold soaking into her skin. As her eyes closed she felt her face change, the skin tighten and stretch, her nose stretch, shape. It wasn’t painful like a full-blown shift, just uncomfortable. When her eyes flickered open Mel had moved away. She stood, her eyes flickering away, uncomfortably.
Fay got up wordlessly and walked to the mirror. Andromeda stared back. Silently, she touched her cheek and realised it really was her, at least beneath it all.
“Good work,” said Fay. “I should go. I assume this doesn’t last?”
“It’ll last. The problem is if you wear it too long it’ll become impossible to remove it. You’ll wear that face, permanently.”
Getting a message to Nebiru wasn’t hard, nor was masking it so it looked like it came from Andromeda. It got his attention quickly. She arranged a meeting in the park where Fay had spoken to Tash. It was empty, the clouds low and ominous as Fay stood there, clad in plain jeans and a sweater. She left her hair, which was long and thick like Andromeda’s, as it hung loose around her face. A bitter breeze cut through the park, whipping up her hair. She pushed it from her face, tucking as much behind her ear as she could. When she looked up Nebiru was there, staring at her, white-faced, like he was staring at a ghost. He didn’t move towards her, didn’t speak. Somehow, she’d broken him.
She tried her tongue first, then her mouth, reminding herself that Mel had changed her voice, too.
“Hello brother,” she said, startled how accurate she sounded.
It was a vision.
He blinked. “You’re here…You’re not in Tartarus. I thought…”
She summoned all the mannerisms she’d seen in Andromeda; the way her eyes flickered, measured things; how she tilted her head in amusement; the subtle shift of her shoulders; the hard set of her mouth.
“Clearly not,” she said. “Look, brother, I don’t have time to catch up. Time is short. Is there a way to sever a bond between a hellhound and a human master?”
The question snapped his bewilderment. He frowned. “For the Fay girl?”
“Is there a way?” She asked dismissively, impatiently.
“If the hellhound initiated the bond then they could do it themselves. Otherwise, all you have to do is kill the master but that’s the obvious way,” he said carefully. “Andromeda, what is this about? How are you here?”
She stared at him, hard. “Time, brother. One more thing. I need you to get a message to Athena, arrange a meeting and before you ask, no, I’m not going to kill her. Don’t tell her it’s me. Lie, say whatever you need to. Here, and today would be best.”
He stared at her, as if she’d grown three heads. Then, he laughed but, as he sobered in her silence, he frowned, confused. Unease flickered in those dark depths and she thought he might outright refuse. In her mind, however, she didn’t just see him as he was in front of her but as he had been back then with Andromeda. There had been love in his eyes, a protectiveness but it had led to tension. She had a hunch and leapt with it as he spoke.
“That’s a lot to ask.”
“You can do it,” she replied calmly. “You will.”
“I will?”
She glanced to the sky, as Andromeda so often did. “You owe me, brother.”
Because Fay suspected he’d struck deals – or tried to. Maybe to save Andromeda, though she’d ended up in Tartarus anyway, and he’d become a hellhound. It felt like she was grasping at straws, yet somehow guided, as if unconsciously nudged in the right direction.
“Consider it done, sister,” he said as she looked down; he dissolved into darkness and she was alone with the howling wind.
In her mind she heard another voice, a soft whisper caressing the edge of her mind.
Oh, Nebiru.
It seemed an eternity of a wait in that empty park. The warm breeze stirred lazily through the park, idly whipping up flurries of dirt and leaves, tumbling them amongst the kids playground. Fay watched it through Andromeda’s eyes from the trees, hidden in shadow until a burst of light exploded at the centre of the park. It sucked inwards, softened around the soft, ethereal glow of a woman cloaked in white. Her long raven hair tumbled down her back, threaded with ribbons of gold and jewels. She turned, as if sensing a gaze on her but, in shrouded in shadow, was unseen. Fay walked forward, invisible, crossing the space between them.
“I know you’re there. I can sense you,” said Athena calmly.
Fay dissolved the darkness around her. “Hello.”
Athena, to her credit, held her ground. Her eyes, however, flashed – a fleeting look of fear, buried ruthlessly and efficiently behind a calm expression. If she was angry at being manipulated to come, to be forced into a confrontation with who she believed was the Andromeda, she gave little show. It wasn’t surprising for the Goddess of Wisdom.
“So, the demon lives,” said Athena with a smile.
Fay tilted her head to the side. “That’s all you have to say?” Athena went to speak but Fay turned dismissively to the side, raising a hand. “I don’t have time for games – or for pretty words. You’ve been busy and they say I was naughty. You’ve beaten me but I wonder, does Zeus know of your little games?”
“I act in the interest of all my fellow Gods, to honour Zeus. Whatever you think you know you are misinformed, as always Andromeda,” said Athena dismissively and a second Fay felt she was right.
What facts did she really have? Yet, deep inside, the demon within her roared that Fay was right. Another voice stirred from within her. Somewhere out in that forest it called to her, filled her.
“Your witch has been busy; amassing an army, imbuing them with her version of the Immortal Elixir, even attacking the Underworld. Very bold, too bold, if you ask me but, then again, she’s doing her own thing after you cast her aside? I wonder, did you have any intention to clean this up?”
Athena stared Fay down. “You think to know the mind of a Goddess? It seems two thousand years has not wizened you.”
“I’d like to think I’ve learnt something. Time is a great teacher.”
Athena’s quietly intense eyes, burning right through Fay, spoke volumes. Oh, there was fear of Andromeda, yet there was something else, too. A fear of being exposed. She’d gambled big and lost. So why hadn’t she simply tried to kill the girl? Unless she couldn’t. Fay doubted it was a matter of power, so something else stayed Athena’s hand, despite her fear of exposure. Another player at work? Or maybe the girl had something on Athena, some way to keep her quiet?
Fay may not have gotten the words out of Athena – that was an impossible thing to ask – but she saw what she needed. The looks, the subtle shift in her stance. The Goddess was proud, resolute but she was not infallible. She’d calculated carefully but her pawn had bitten back, boldly and unafraid.
Athena looked away, her gaze thoughtful, careful and when she looked back at Fay there was the gleam of an idea in her eyes. “Your presence has stirred all sorts of dangerous thoughts; for you, Andromeda, are the unknown force that has repeatedly defied all that we know.” She stiffened suddenly, her eyes glassed over, just for a moment and, as her eyes cleared, she seemed annoyed. “I have to go. I will not tell Hades of his hellhounds betrayal; after all, Eris chose her side long ago, perhaps Hades has done the same.”
Fay’s head felt light and swam with a thousand thoughts. It was Andromeda. Athena had rallied an army, gone behind the back of Zeus, because they felt threatened by Andromeda. How they were afraid given she was in Tartarus was baffling…The possibilities were unsettling. She tried to organise her thoughts, figure out her next move, as she walked up to the back of the cabin. She tried to focus on the sounds coming from it; Ben, on the back step, still bandaged, sharpening his sword and spear; Mel, in the cabin, singing softly – an eerie, almost inhuman sound that held no words at all and drew Fay forward, enchanted for a moment.
A cold feeling rushed through her head and darkness burst across her vision; in a blur, the world fell away and another took shape around her. Andromeda’s voice filled her mind.
“Abe?”
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