Volcanoes (18 page)

It was all I could do not to break down sobbing in relief at that gravelly voice.  It wasn't my mother who would save me, after all.

Heph engaged Lyssa and pushed me back. "I recall
you being prettier," he said to her.

I don't know if it was gratitude or a solid grasp of his sense of humor but at that moment, I loved him.

"Good," Lyssa growled. "Now we match in our hideousness."

He stepped into her attack, sweeping aside her sword w
ith the pommel of his own before punching her in the face. Her head snapped back and I suppressed a cheer. "Trust me. If I'd been the one responsible for your wounds - as you were with mine - I wouldn't have left you alive."

Whaaaat?

Lyssa was the one who
scarred him?

She hissed and tried to regain control of the fight, but he was too close. She couldn't get her sword up fast enough to slash at him.  I thought that perhaps things were turning in our favor when she surprised us both by calling in a dagger.
Hephaestus escaped being eviscerated, but only barely.  He grabbed her wrist just as the blade pierced his stomach and squeezed. I could hear the bone snap. 

"Not this time," he spat furiously.  Heph twisted her wrist around, forcing it behind her back b
efore releasing her completely. I wanted to call out and ask him what he was doing but before I could utter a sound, his hands clamped over her forehead and jaw.  Without a sound he twisted her head completely around so that her eyes were staring into his.
"I'm done with you, Lyssa."

My eyes widened at the horror of what I
’
d just seen. It's one thing to see something like that in the movies
–
but up close and personal, it was hideous and gut-wrenching.

I half expected him to rip her head from her shoulder
s, but he let her drop before scooping me up and teleporting us out.

When we landed in a clearing, I twisted in his arms and said, "We left Scooter…
and Mom and the kids. We need to go back for them."

"You were the only one left in Olympus, brat. I came b
ack for you."

My body sagged with relief. "How did you know?"

"You told your kid to go to his Master. He did."

"He what?" I screeched.

"As his Master, we're linked. So he had a one way ticket to my location. He told me what was going on and I brought back
enough of the cavalry to get the kids out before coming to get you. Would have been nice if you'd stayed in the med bay."

"Uh, trying to fight for my life? Running seemed prudent?" Why couldn't we communicate without snapping? I wanted to rip his ears off
and scream into them so maybe he could just get what I was saying for once.

"Didn't you ever take wilderness survival classes? Hug a damned tree!" He grabbed the collar of my shirt and shook me like a ragdoll. My head rocked back and forth a few times un
der the force. "What if I hadn't found you in time?"

The last question was a roar and I finally grasped that he had been afraid. Big, bad Hephaestus who didn't let anyone in or near had been afraid he wouldn't get to me in time.

I wrapped my arms around
his neck and squeezed. "But you did."

He grunted, "Barely" and then squeezed me back.

"Sooo we
’
re just going to leave the enemy on our home turf?"

It was a fair question and frankly, while I had a place to go
–
most of these people did not.

He stepped ba
ck away from me with an insulted glare. "Of course not! Who do you think I am? I'm on my way back with a group of Hunters to flush them out. I just needed to save your damsel-in-distress ass first."

"You have me there. What are you standing around for? Go
run those varmints out of our town!"

Hey, it sounded funny in my head. He just gave me a raised eyebrow and a small shake of his head for my effort. Heh. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be funny.

"Do me a favor?"

"Anything," I responded.

"Don't GO anywhere."

I rolled my eyes and said, "Fine."

"Good. I'll be back soon."

He surprised me by pulling me in and kissing my forehead. "I'm glad you stayed alive long enough for me to find you.”
Then, he was gone in a puff of pheromones that left me reeling.

"Wow," I b
reathed.

"That one is trouble," my mother said without humor behind me.

"With a capital T," I replied just as seriously. "Why do you think I haven't jumped on that already? I know he's trouble but, God help me, sometimes I don't mind."

"Just
be careful. He's not some boy like Adonis. He can and will wreck you."

I shivered. I knew he could wreck me. That's why I kept skipping back and forth across the line I'd drawn. "Adonis is hardly a boy," I said, trying to divert the conversation.

"He is
compared to Hephaestus, so please
–
be careful."

"Yes Ma'am. Where are the kids?"

She nodded her head in the direction of the tree-line. "They're staying out of sight just in case any of us had trackers on us."

"Trackers?"

"You know, those li
ttle devices that give away your position?"

"How would they have gotten trackers on any of you?"

She looked at me pointedly and I flushed. Oh right
–
she meant me but was trying to be nice.

"Hey, not to change the subject
–
but uh
–
to change the subject,
" I began with a frown. "Lyssa said something when we were in Olympus that makes me curious."

"What was that, dear? Would you like to practice sparring while we're here doing nothing?"

Did I want to spar against my mother? Really? Was she on crack? "No, bu
t I will anyway. I don't have a weapon."

"Then we'll work on hand to hand and, if you remind me, I'll ask Hephaestus to make you a pair of weapons to wear."

That reminded me of Athena. She hadn
’
t been able to materialize weapons, either. I'm not sure why s
he couldn't do that, but had been able to teleport. She didn't have any other powers to speak of beyond that, besides strength and agility. 

Oddly enough, that gave me a burst of hope. Athena didn't have superpowers and she was still badass. I had a stab
of sadness fill my heart and immediately stuffed any emotions associated with her down into a deep pit where they wouldn't see the light of day. I wasn't ready to deal with anything Athena related right now.

"I think that sounds like a good idea. Go easy
on me, though. Lyssa beat the shit out of me."

"I can see that. I'm surprised you stayed alive, to be honest." Her eyes began to tear up. "I was ready to write you off, kid."

"I shan't be written off so easily," I responded tartly, hoping to pull her out o
f her mood.

It worked. She smiled and then raised her hand, gesturing me to come at her.

"You must think I'm stupid. I'm not going to rush you."

She beamed even brighter. "Good girl. Now tell me what Lyssa said." She sped forward and knocked me to the gr
ound before I could open my mouth.

"Oomph!"

"Pay attention. Get up and watch for me."

I pushed myself to my feet and braced for the next impact. "She told me that their surprise caught up with me."

"Hmm, that's odd."

"That's what I thought," I nodded and
feinted to the right when she charged me. "She seemed to know that I wouldn't have any powers, but said I'd burned out too soon."

"Good job," my mother patted me on the arm for the correct feint before grabbing the arm and pulling me forward into a punch.
My eyes widened.  Thankfully my body reacted without thought and she only clipped me.

"What do you think?" I spun and swept my leg toward hers hoping I'd take her down or trip her enough to slow her momentum.

"I think whatever has happened to you is of the
ir doing and that means there's a solution or a cure. Because they would have had to engineer whatever it was that attacked your DNA."

She stiffened her leg, blocking my sweep and jabbed me in the stomach. I knew that she wasn't using her full strength, b
ut the punch knocked the breath out of me anyway.

I held my hand up and leaned over, trying to keep the contents of my stomach down.

"The enemy isn't going to stop so you can puke, Grace."

She chopped down toward my neck and I dropped to the ground in t
he nick of time. Since I'd cut off all of my hair
–
something that everyone had either failed to notice or were too polite to mention
–
she couldn't use that as leverage.

I rabbit punched the side of her knee and was rewarded with a sickening crunch. "Shi
t," she muttered, hobbling back. "I think you just dislocated my knee."

"That's me. I'm a badass kneecap buster!"

I stood up and took a few deep breaths trying to gain some equilibrium. "So you think that this condition is fixable? Adriana seemed to believ
e so. I am pretty sure she knows what they did to me and that's why we were attacked."

She nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. When we
’
re able to get back to Olympus, I'll do a more thorough examination of your DNA strain. If I can find the root of the
problem, we may be able to reverse engineer whatever it was they did to you."

That made me smile big. "Mom, if those mythology people knew half of what you really were it would have blown their minds. Diana
–
Bio-chemist, badass asskicker."

"Mmm yes, I'll
put that on my business cards."

"Nice comeback. If I stiff-arm you, would it break my arm?"

She stopped moving to think about it. "Most likely, yes. The velocity at which I move versus the tensile strength of your arm
–
I think I'd shatter the bone with i
mpact. It would still break your arm if you clotheslined me, but the break wouldn't be as bad."

"Okay good. Also," I stopped, not knowing quite how to ask without sounding so vain.

"Yes dear?"

"Will my hair grow back?"

The look she gave me was one I'd giv
en to my son so many times; I didn't even have to hear the words to grasp what she was thinking. She said them anyway.

"Yes dear. Your hair will grow back. If you'd like, we can get it cut so it's a bit more stylish in the meantime."

I nodded miserably. "
That would be good. Next time I see that bitch, I'm obliterating her
–
powers or not."

"Excellent! That's my girl!"

It was several hours before Hephaestus returned. In the time he was gone, the kids played a pretty mean game of tag in the trees and I had a
pretty gorgeous sunburn starting. By gorgeous I really meant hideous and painful.

Diana looked me up and down and said, "I'll take care of that for you when I do my examination. I can't remember the last time one of us got a sunburn."

In my head I starte
d chanting "One of Us. One of us." However, what I said was
–
"Thank you."

See? I was growing up.

Diana waited until all of the children were accounted for and then teleported us into her private suite, where she had a small lab set up. "Wow, I didn't kno
w you had this here." I looked around at the sterile equipment and never would have thought to look for a lab amidst my mother's colorful, sumptuous rooms.

"Mmm, yes." She said, fiddling with an instrument on the table near the door. "Sometimes I find the
Med Bay to be a bit too busy and I do things here. It's more soothing. Get up on the table."

"Are you going to knock me out again? I want to make sure I'm at least in a decent position."

A ghost of a smile crossed her mouth and she answered, "Yes, Grace.
I'm going to knock you out. Are you wearing clean underwear?"

"Not funny," I muttered and hopped up on the examination table. "When I wake up I want to know what happened with the search. I don't want to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bath
room, only to find Lyssa hanging out in my shower."

"You have the oddest imagination, Grace." Then she touched my forehead and I was out like a light.

Like the last time she
’
d done this, I went into a dream state. This time I was in the mou
ntains of Colorado, surrounded by what looked like my camping gear. Man, I missed camping. Nothing made me feel more at peace with the world than when I was out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and innocuous wild-life. 

I hadn't been camping i
n years. I could smell the wood smoke from the fire and I inhaled deeply savoring the hint of aspen at the back of my tongue. When I was no longer afraid for my life, I was going to take Dylan up into the Flat Tops near Meeker. It didn't get much more iso
l
ated or beautiful than that.

I wandered down a path to a stream I could hear bubbling - brushing my hands through branches, releasing all manner of small animals and bugs
–
creating a cacophony of sounds. I had no idea where this was, which was odd. You w
ould think since it was
my
dream I would have a memory of having been here before. But I didn't.

"You're in my reality," Hypnos said from beyond the trees.

"I thought I put you on the do not call list," I said, angry that this was happening again.

"You
can't keep me out when I'm near."

"I don't believe that you're near. I think you're just saying that to make me afraid. Guess what? I'm not falling for it."

"Am I?"

Seeds of doubt began to trickle into my consciousness and I wondered
–
was he near? Could h
e hurt me in here and since it was a dream
–
could I use my powers?

"It doesn't matter either way, Hypnos. You don't have power over me in my mind anymore. I'm onto your game."

A small blue flame encompassed my hand and danced between my fingertips. Thank
God for small miracles.

"I don't think you are. I think you're just as clueless as you've ever been. I think you're brash and full of false bravado to hide the scared little human you've become."

"How would you know that?" I asked, looking around for his
physical manifestation.

"Because I made you that way, dear. It's much easier to kill you if I don't have to worry about those pesky powers Zeus somehow gave you."

"And how is it that you
‘
made me
’
when I didn
’
t meet you until recently?" No reason to hide
the fact that I was powerless anymore, especially since he already knew.

"Do you think I'm without allies? How ignorant can you possibly be?"

"So what is it? Some kind of virus?"

I had been shooting blanks, trying to keep him talking. His pointed silence
made me perk up. Okay. We were getting somewhere. It was a virus. If that was the case, we could probably find an antigen or something to combat the attack on my DNA. Granted, what the hell did I know? I wasn't a doctor, but it sounded intelligent to me.

As a matter of fact, that was probably what had been in the food Adriana had tried to feed me.

I wished fervently that I could contact Diana. We needed to work out a system if she was going to keep putting me under. Some kind of codeword that I could thin
k and she'd come running to my mental rescue.

I reached the stream and still couldn't see Hypnos. The flame started crawling up my arm and I thought to myself
–
what would happen if I burned the forest down around me? Could he escape without damage? Would
he free my mind?

It wasn't like I was burning down a real place. No permanent damage would be done to the eco-system. What the heck. Why not?

It would be a controlled burn to start. Then I'd let loose. I bent over and set fire to a pile of dead leaves and
branches. They crackled and sputtered smoke before settling into a nice little blaze.

"So where are you?" I called. It couldn't hurt and maybe he'd finally show himself. "I feel like it's pretty cowardly of you to continue hiding like you are. At least y
our sister had the stones to face me."

"I think it's time to take care of you after all, Grace Murphy. I'm tired of your mouth."

"Really?" I asked with mock surprise. "Most guys say my mouth is my best feature."

Hah! God, I was such a dirty girl. I just co
uldn't help myself.

"You realize that you're not that funny," he snarled.

"No. No I don't." I fanned the flames of the fire so it surrounded me on all sides. "But you're welcome to come and show me how unfunny I am."

He appeared on the other side of the
wall of flames. I watched, studying him intently as he tried to figure out a way to get through to me. I would have thought that in a dream state, he wouldn't have to fear death, fire, drowning
–
any of that. But he seemed hesitant. I inched the fire out
c
loser to him and he took a step back in response.

"I'm waiting," I mocked.

His face twisted with suppressed fury, but he didn't come any closer. What if he couldn't? What if he was just as vulnerable in this state as I was awake?

This was all so crazy.
Who knew what reality was, anymore? "So you have a geneticist on staff who just happened to come up with a virus just for little ol
’
me? I find that hard to believe, Hypnos." I pushed the flames out a little further.  He stepped back.

"You have no idea w
hat I can do," he said.

"Now you sound like my kid. Could you be any more petulant? I think you don't know what's wrong with me anymore than I do."

He wasn't going to fall for the reverse psychology trick. There's no way he was that stupid.

Was he?

"Have
you started getting brittle bones, Grace? That's the next stage. Would you like to tell me your symptoms? I want to ensure that the product I paid for is working, after all."

"Now you're sounding like my gynecologist.  I promise there is no burning or itch
ing going on. I just happen to be a little irregular in my monthly." I grinned at my humor and waited for his comeback.

"I'm going to enjoy watching every step of this miserable process, Grace. As a matter of fact, I am going to make your pain last as lon
g as your broken body can hold out."

"You know, in the second grade Chris Summers stabbed me in the leg with a pair of scissors. I was pretty sure that it was because he hated me. Come to find out
–
he had the biggest crush and was trying to get my attenti
on.  Is that what this is? Do you have the hots for me, Hypnos?" I pushed the flames a little further, so that they were nearly touching his booted feet. If I hadn't been scrutinizing his every move, I would have missed him taking a step back. It was only
inches
–
but he was definitely avoiding the fire.

My heart started pounding with excitement. I couldn't touch him in the waking world, but here
–
I was going to make that bastard hurt.

"Why don't you come out from behind your wall, Grace, and face me like
a man?"

Was that humor? Naww.

"Why don't you come in, Mr. All Powerful and Mighty? In other words, fuck you. I'm staying right where I am. It's perfectly cozy. Doesn
’
t it feel a little chilly? Here. Let me warm it up for you."

I closed my eyes and conce
ntrated. The fire flowed outward from me and circled him, surrounding him in flames.

"Isn't that better?"

"You think you're smart, but you're not," his menacing smile should have scared me but I was full of bravado and tired of being scared of this man.

"I don't have to be smart to take care of you." I replied nonchalantly.

I fisted my hand and the flames drew in with lightning speed.  His shrieks filled the air, disturbing the wildlife. Birds echoed the hideous sound as they took to the skies.

His skin
was blackening when my mother brought me out of the sleep. I sat up with an exclamation. "Damnit. I nearly had him!"

"Nearly had who?" Diana asked with a frown of confusion knitting her brow.

"Hypnos. He decided to pay me a visit while I was out. But I hu
rt him. I set him on fire and he was taking damage."

"Whoa, slow down. Start from the beginning."

I took a deep breath and explained what had happened in my dream. Her face lit up with surprise as I got to the part about him being afraid of my fire.

"Mayb
e he's vulnerable in the dream state," she said, confirming my own suspicions. "We never tested it because we just assumed that he was in control of that realm - and invincible."

I raised an eyebrow and responded with, "You know what they say about assumin
g."

She rolled her eyes in return. "Yes. Yes. I know. But he's been gone so long that we haven't had the opportunity to explore his powers."

"Well, I think that if we can get him there, we can take him down. God knows, we can't seem to get a hold of him wh
ile we're all hunting him down awake."

"That's a pretty bold statement, Grace. Consider that you've only had one encounter with him. What if he was toying with you?"

"That's a strong possibility, but what else do we have? We need to stop this. I wake up ev
ery morning fearing for my life. I'm afraid that they'll take Dylan or kill my family and friends. I can't live like this. It
’
s a bloody miracle I haven
’
t decided to deal with everything by becoming an alcoholic."

She rubbed my arm briskly. "I know it's ha
rd. But you have to stay strong. This will all be resolved and Dylan will be safe."

I changed the subject. I didn't want to think of what had happened to my son already, much less the possibility of him being captured again. "What did you find while you we
re digging around in there?"

She took a deep breath. "Well, I would say that Hypnos wasn't lying to you. It looks like you have a genetic virus. I have no idea how they keyed it to your DNA - or even how they engineered it. This is pretty complex and the o
nly person I know remotely skilled enough to make something like this would be Zachary."

I frowned. "Well that doesn't help much. We know he didn't make this thing to take me down
–
"

"Actually, I did." Zeus interrupted.

As one, Diana and I looked at him
in shock. "Zachary," my mother breathed. "How could you do something like this?"

He flushed. "It's not what you think. I didn't give it to them on purpose. When I created the injection for Grace, I also created a virus that would take the powers away if sh
e chose to remain human. I wanted to give her a choice."

He sat down heavily in a chair and covered his face with his hands. "Athena must have taken it from the lab. I never would have suspected her, so she had free access."

"Which means Athena did this t
o me.  She could have infected me with it any number of times. She cut me often enough during training sessions. Hell, she could have slipped it in my food. We spent so much time together."

An ache filled my chest. My trusted best friend had betrayed me o
nce again and she wasn't even alive for some payback. "Nobody would have ever guessed, Zeus. It's not your fault, but how do we fix this?"

Diana walked over to where he sat to rub his neck and shoulders. "I don't blame you, darling. I know that you didn't
mean to hurt my daughter again."

He flinched at hearing the 'again' but didn't take the bait. He only said, "I'm sorry Grace. I had no idea that this would happen.  You have to trust that I didn't want to hurt you."

I walked over to his chair, wrapped my a
rms around his shoulders and squeezed. "I believe you. Now we just have to figure out how to reverse it."

He chewed nervously on the inside of his cheek and I asked, "What?"

“
I had a cure, but it was stolen as well. If I still had it, I could fix this no
problem. Unfortunately, I would have to analyze your cell structure and re-engineer something now. It's not something that I took notes on."

"Zachary!" My mother was yelling. "Why in all Hells would you not take notes? You're a fastidious note taker!" Her
hair was floating on an invisible wind and I took a step back. I hadn't known my mother to have levitation powers but I wasn't taking any chances with her anger.

"Di, I didn't want anyone to get a hold of the notes and be able to wipe out our race!" He thu
ndered back.