Of Water and Madness (27 page)

Liam stared out the window of the cab, his eyes scanning the buildings and crowded sidewalks, even as his mind drifted and his restlessness returned.

How many people had he hurt, emotionally at least, while he had been under Vivica’s control? He hadn’t had time to really stick around and apologize to everyone, or to even show them that he was himself again. But from the flashes of memory that managed to resurface from the last several days, he knew he had ruffled the feathers of more than one member of his family.

Specifically Rohan and his mother. He had this image that kept recurring in his mind of Rohan’s face, contorted in violent anger as he lunged straight toward him, intending to hurt and avenge. And then the pain and shock in Clarity’s face as he said God knows what to her…

But he would rectify everything once Rhiannon was safe. Nothing else even mattered unless he was able to get her back, unscathed.

“Let us out up here,” Blythe said to the driver, leaning toward the front seat. Liam exhaled slowly as they pulled to the curb, reaching into his pocket for cash to pay for their cab.

They got out in front of the Hilton Hotel, and immediately looked to the sky.

Blaring neon signs beamed down at them, blasting streams of advertisements while the streets before them rioted with rush hour traffic.

Liam grabbed Blythe when a frayed looking businessman nearly ran into her on his way into the Hilton, almost knocking her into the gutter.

“Watch where you’re going!” Blythe angrily shouted at the man’s back, though he either didn’t hear her or simply didn’t have time to care.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many people in my life,” Liam commented, gazing around in a relative daze. “This place is a madhouse.”

“It’s Times Square, honey,” Blythe huffed, glancing around with annoyance in her eyes. “This place is always busy.”

“Let’s go inside, get cleaned up.” Liam pulled her along toward the entrance to the Hilton, dodging pedestrians as he went. “Then I want to walk around, use the scanner and check things out.”

“Sounds good to me.” Blythe went with him into the hotel lobby. “It feels weird not having Jax here with me…”

Liam snorted out a half laugh and angled his head to look at her, eyebrows raised. “What? I’m not good enough company for you anymore?”

“No, it’s not that.” Blythe waved his words away, frowning with a heavy sigh. “It’s just that being out here like this reminds me of me and Jax hunting for Dante. Only I’m here with you instead. It’s just different, ya know?”

“I guess.” Wrapping an arm around her, he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for being here for me, though. You didn’t hesitate, not once. It means a lot.”

“God, Liam, how could I hesitate?” Blythe looked up at him, clearly hurt. “Rhiannon matters to you, so therefore she matters to me. Okay?”

“Okay.” He stopped walking and pulled her in for a hug, suddenly overtaken with emotion. “I love you, Blythe.”

“I love you too, dork.” She grinned against him even as tears sprang into her eyes, burying her face into his chest. “Okay, okay, enough sappy stuff. Let’s get the hell upstairs. I want a damn shower.”

By seven o’clock that evening, they had all gathered together at a bustling restaurant in Times Square, ready to formulate a plan of attack.

The Enforcers were already in place on the street and the snipers in strategic locations in the surrounding buildings, scanning for any suspicious activity.

Liam sat at the table in the noisy Italian restaurant, tapping his fingers restlessly against the scarred wooden table top, his eyes constantly flicking from one member of his family to another.

They were all here for one reason, and one reason alone. To save Rhiannon. And he had never been more thankful to any of them in his entire life.

Because he would have understood if some of them had not wanted to come…hell, none of them knew just what awaited them when they went out into the Square. And given Dante’s cryptic message to Burke and Rhiannon just over a month earlier, what they faced in only one hour was likely to be an all out battle.

But they had come anyway…the Muses, the Fates, Clynn and Capri, his father and Brock, Sebastian and Rian, Brogan, Jax and of course Rohan…the only ones who had stayed behind were the ones too young to fight.

As he glanced around at their concerned and worried faces as they discussed just how to approach what they were about to face, he felt a lot of his own apprehensions ease.

They were strong, capable and united. Each with unique abilities and powers, armed with weapons they were trained to use. How could such a group fail?

Well, if they couldn’t agree on a course of action then they could fail. And with the way things were going at that moment, bickering back and forth was really all they were accomplishing.

“Look, I know the bastard,” Blythe was saying, wagging her fork at Thea and the others, her eyes sharp with determination. “He likes doing things with a bang, flashy and extravagant, with lots of build up and suspense. We’ve got to expect that he’s going to make it seem small and simple, and then somehow turn the tables on us.”

“Yes, but he might be doing this to lure us away from Euphora in order to destroy our home,” Serendipity put in, glancing around at the others for support. “Sierra is there, I’m just worried for our children’s safety.”

“There are dozens of Enforcers guarding the castle, they will be more than safe,” Thea assured her, before gesturing to the group as a whole. “Dante’s main objective is to divide us, plain and simple. If we can stand united, then we shall overcome whatever he throws at us.”

“How about I shoot him in the head,” Brock said suddenly, leaning back in his chair and sipping beer from a bottle, his eyes flashing with a strange mix of anger and anticipation. “Let him really go out with a bang.”

Blythe flashed him an appreciative grin, but Liam and Rohan both glared at him.

“And what happens to Rhiannon if we just kill him like that?” Liam asked heatedly, leaning forward to meet Brock’s eyes. “We don’t know if he’s holding her somewhere or if he’s going to bring her with him.”

“Rhiannon has to be our first priority,” Rohan added, his hand clenching around his water glass until his knuckles were white. “Destroying Dante comes second only to rescuing her.”

Brock rolled his eyes resentfully. “I didn’t say we wouldn’t get your girl back, Rohan. But out of all of us, I think I got the most beef with the asshole and I want dibs on taking him out.”

“We don’t know how the situation is going to play out, Brock,” Sebastian reminded him, hoping to smooth out the tension between the Dryads before it sparked any further. “And we won’t know until it happens.”

“We have to have a solid course of action for each possibility,” Rian suggested, folding his hands in front of him as he stared around the table. “One possibility is that we walk out there, and are ambushed by this ‘army’ he’s claiming he has. If that is the case, then it will be imperative for Liam and Rohan to corner Dante and get Rhiannon’s whereabouts out of him, while the rest of us fight.”

“I can get on board with that,” Liam agreed, looking to Rohan, who nodded curtly, determination in his eyes.

“Now, the second possibility is that we go out there and Dante approaches us directly, with Rhiannon and possibly the Muse. If this is the case, we are going to have to be very cautious, because he will likely have something more planned.”

“If that’s the case, then I say we grab Rhiannon and take him and Vivica out before he can so much as blink,” Blythe told him directly, earning an approving cheer from her father.

Rian looked unsure though, and met her eyes warily. “It may not be so simple, Blythe.”

“I don’t see why not,” she refuted, eyebrows raised. “If we take them out, then whatever else they had planned means nothing.”

“Yes but the plan may already be in motion as we speak,” Rian said darkly, earning a fearful stare from Capri and a few others. “He’s asked us to meet him at an exact time for a reason and it’s probably because he has something planned for all of us. It would be foolish of us to assume otherwise, therefore we must take caution and find out what he wants from us when we see him.”

Blythe pouted, acknowledging his point as Jax rubbed her back and nodded to his old friend. “There’s one thing missing from this whole discussion, something that’s likely to change all our plans if we don’t give it some thought.”

At Rian’s questioning stare, Jax continued, eyeing those surrounding him. “We haven’t considered just what kind of army he’s likely to have, if he even does.”

“Demons, I’d think,” Blythe suggested, meeting his eyes.

“If all he’s got are demons, then why the wait? Why the build up and the suspense?” Jax asked her, shaking his head. “He’s used demons against y’all before, and he knows it’s not enough. We know how to defeat demons, and frankly, we’re pretty damn good at it. I’m willing to bet he’s got something else up his sleeve this time.”

“Like Vivica.” Liam’s eyes narrowed bitterly, and he earned a sympathetic glance from Capri from across the table. “He was able to release her from the Underworld. What’s to stop him from releasing other monsters?”

“Even Dante doesn’t have the power and resources it takes to do such a thing. I’m surprised he was even able to get Vivica out,” Thea told him, her eyes darkening with concern and fear. “But evil does not only lie in the Underworld.”

“Didn’t Burke mention something about that when you spoke with him, my love?” Sebastian asked, his hand finding hers beneath the table and squeezing gently.

Thea sighed. The memory of that particular conversation had been weighing on her mind a lot lately...“Burke said that Dante told him that he had found the evil beings I had locked up throughout the world these last several centuries and that he had freed them.”

When no one around the table spoke, but merely sat in anxious silence, Thea continued. “I didn’t take it seriously at first, I’ll admit. I thought to myself, how could a demon, even one with Dryad blood, possibly unlock the binds that I put in place, meant to last for all eternity? It just didn’t seem possible.”

“But that was before we knew about Vivica’s involvement,” Sebastian put in.

Thea nodded, her eyes troubled. “We don’t know what she’s capable of, but we do know that she has been altered. Her powers have been enhanced, and it’s quite possible that she can do even more than the typical Muse can.”

“Like break your enchantments?” Capri asked, her brows furrowed worriedly. “How can that be, Thea?”

Thea turned to her, a sad smile playing over her lips. “Despite what you may think of me, Capri, I am not all-powerful. When something that is not of this world, of a much darker, much more sinister evil, is coupled with an ample amount of force and skill…even I can be undone.”

“That is why we must not let Dante break us apart,” Sebastian asserted, eyeing them all sternly, his wise gray eyes filled with violent storms. “If he has used Vivica to release the monsters we have locked away, then only together will we be strong enough to defeat them.”

For a moment everyone was quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Around them, the restaurant buzzed with conversation and laughter as the humans enjoyed their evening, completely unaware of what was coming. How could they know that evil was lurking nearby, and that they would soon be unwittingly in the throes of an all out war of fantastical proportions?

But maybe they wouldn’t, Liam thought to himself, his eyes staring unseeingly at the table. If he and his family could somehow prevent it, then the world would be spared the misery and the destruction…

Jax suddenly glanced down at his watch. “It’s nearly eight o’clock,” he said, his eyes flashing with anticipation as he stared around the table. “Time to find out what goes bump in the night.”

Liam watched his family get to their feet and shuffle out of the restaurant, everyone careful to conceal the weapons they carried. He followed them, meeting Rohan’s eyes as they emerged out onto the busy street. While the others waited to cross over to the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, Rohan pulled Liam aside.

“I wanted to apologize to you, Liam,” Rohan said, his eyes filled with regret. “I placed blame on you that wasn’t deserved.”

Liam nodded, feeling regretful himself. “You couldn’t have known. If I had been in your place, I would have reacted the same.” He shot a glance over toward their family, fighting to keep his emotions in check. “We both love her, Rohan, and we have both lost her before. This time, we’ll get her back for good.”