The Wicked Within (Gods & Monsters #3)

The Wicked Within (Gods & Monsters #3) Page 32

“Don’t,” he said to her in that powerful voice, the kind that could stop armies. She hesitated, his power working to slow her, but with Violet’s protection, it had very little effect otherwise.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the lioness slinking down the far side of the nave, her steady gaze on Dora. Hunting. Dora laughed at Sebastian’s attempt to reach for the baby. I pulled free. Sebastian shoved us behind him. There was a reason the Aegis had made Zeus and Athena invincible. It seemed to not only protect, but to diminish another’s power.

Dora sent Sebastian flying. He slammed into one of the columns, shearing it in half. One side of the balcony groaned and dropped a few feet, threatening to collapse.

“Ari, duck!” I shielded the baby and ducked at Menai’s warning.

Two of her arrows zipped mere inches from my head. Dora spun just in time, and they glanced off the back of her head. She hauled me up.

Damn if I was handing over the child. With every cry it made, my protective instincts increased. I wasn’t letting him go. Her hand snaked around my throat, the other grabbing on to the child.

“Violet,” I pleaded.

“She can’t betray me.”

The lioness leaped onto Dora’s back, her massive paws clutching Dora’s shoulder and her giant mouth latching onto her skull. The force sent us sprawling. My hold over the baby loosened as I stumbled over a pew, grappling to maintain my grip on the child.

Damn it. No!

As I fell, I flailed for the baby. Falcon wings swooped blazing fast over us, claws latched on to the baby as I hit the ground, the breath knocked out of me and pain shooting through my side, the place where Athena had stabbed me only two weeks earlier. I glanced down. A large wooden splinter had pierced my side.

The lioness’s brutal snarls grabbed my attention as Horus transformed from falcon to god, the baby in his arms. Relieved, I focused on Dora. She was on her back but reached for her staff and shoved it against the lioness, sending the beast sailing across the room.

Quickly I searched the ground, knowing I had to move now, before she got up. There. One of the arrows Menai had shot. I swiped it and bolted, tackling Dora to the floor just as she started to rise. Before she could react, I shoved the arrow into her eye and drove it deep into her brain.

Her body shook, her legs flailing. But I held the arrow still, her words whispering out of a bloody mouth with a chuckle, “I die . . . and she dies with me.”

Horror slashed through me.

Denial built in my throat. Oh God. Hot tears rose, blurring my vision as I shook Dora’s armor-clad shoulders. “Violet!” Sebastian knelt beside me. “Somebody help her!” I cried.

The cathedral had gone silent as Artemis and Apollo dispatched the last of the horrors.

Everyone stared at us like it was a done deal. Dora was dying and Violet with her.

Horus handed the baby to Artemis and slid down beside me, bloodied and breathing hard, to take stock of the situation. A small tool appeared in his hand, and he shoved it up Dora’s nose. My stomach rolled. I grabbed his forearm. “Stop. What are you doing?”

“Making sure she stays dead.”

“No!”

Before I could stop him, he pulled chunks of brain matter out of her nostril and tossed them in the aisle as bile rose to my throat and my gut rolled. To Dub he commanded, “Burn it.”

Pale and obviously shaken, Dub set fire to Anesidora’s brains. “Try coming back from that,” he muttered.

The baby was safe in Artemis’s arms. Everyone was okay. Except Violet. I’d killed Violet. Dear God, I killed Violet. I bent over Dora’s body, my forehead falling on her shoulder, and cried. “Please come back. Violet, just come back.”

“Come on, Vi, you’re a Titan,” Sebastian joined in. “You’re stronger than Dora. Come back to us.”

“And what about Pascal?” Dub dropped down beside me, placing his hand on the armor covering Dora’s skull. “Who’s going to take care of him?”

“We’ll need help picking out a new house. A bigger, grander mansion with gold fittings and safes filled with jewels,” Henri added, standing over us, his eyes bright with tears. Menai put her hand on his shoulder.

Nothing happened. No matter what we said, nothing happened.

My heart shrank to a hard, painful knot. God, it hurt. My fists clenched, a scream building, pushing against my chest. I sobbed, unable to hold it in. Goddamn it, Violet was gone. Gone!

Dub was crying. Tears filled Sebastian’s eyes, and I heard Henri sniffling behind me. My father’s hands fell on my shoulders. He spoke to me, but I didn’t hear him—inside was so loud and chaotic, filled with crushing guilt and raging grief.

“You’re gods,” I accused. “Why can’t you do something?”

Horus pointed at me. “Do not turn those eyes on us, gorgon,” he warned.

I flinched, my hands going to my face. My eyes burned. They were hot and angry from crying, and maybe from something else. “Then help her,” I begged.

Artemis hiked the baby on her hip. “We cannot remove her. She’s a Titan. A shield. A living one, with a mind of her own, and a will of her own. We have no power over her.”

The black shield covering Dora was warm to the touch. I kept my hands on Dora’s shoulders, wishing with everything I had that Violet would hear us. We stayed, gathered around her, not knowing what else to do.

I had no idea how much time had passed when my father’s voice finally reached me. “Come, Ari.” Spent and numb, I let him help me to my feet. My friends rose with me, looking as lost and sad as I felt.

“We have matters to discuss,” Horus started. “My bargain with you,” he told Sebastian. “The child. Your city.” Then he looked at Artemis, challenging her to oppose him. “Us.”

She kept quiet, but her look said she definitely had something to say about that. Artemis ignored Horus and smiled gently at me. “You wish your curse removed.”

I nodded woodenly, unable to speak, unable to care.

Tears shone through Artemis’s smile. “She was my sister. I know what she knew. I know the words spoken and I can untangle them.”

“Why would you?” Henri asked. “You’ve been in league with Athena all this time.”

The question was hard for the gods to answer. “We loved her,” Apollo finally said with a shrug.

“She was good once, kind,” Artemis tried to explain. “My sister had moments of her old self. But she was wounded inside. Broken. We stood by her because we loved her. Because she needed us. Her son is named in our honor. We are both”—she held up her bow and gestured to Apollo’s—“archers. We couldn’t bring ourselves to be among the many who’d turned their backs and betrayed her.”

In some ways, I guess I understood their decision. In others, not so much. But they were gods. Their viewpoints, decisions, and ideas on humanity, family, love, were bound to not be fully understandable by the rest of us mere mortals. I let out a heavy sigh, my gaze falling on the baby, sorry for his losses. His parents were gone, his grandfather tried to murder him, and the future held portents of blood and war. Poor thing was starting out life with a lot of baggage.

“I want that big Victorian,” a small voice said behind me, “the one with all the towers, the one on the corner of Coliseum and Fourth.”

A zing of hope rocketed through my veins. God, please don’t let me be imagining . . . I turned slowly, holding my breath, heart leaping, to see Violet standing next to Dora’s body. The lioness came over and stood next to Violet, their shoulders even in height. It sniffed her cheek, its nostrils puffing in and out. Violet smiled, dipping her head like it tickled.

My legs went weak. She was okay. We went to her en masse, Henri saying, “It’s yours, chère. We’ll fill it with gowns and masks and all things shiny.”

Dub hugged Violet. “And we’ll get a new pool for Pascal.” Sebastian and I exchanged teary smiles over Dub’s head.

Violet stared at us all, a small smile on her face, before her look became thoughtful. “What’s a Titan?”

Before we could react, quick footsteps near the main doors had us all shooting to our feet. Michel, Bran, and Rowen entered with a small contingent of bloodied fighters behind them. They took stock of the situation, confusion and surprise lighting their war-weary eyes at the sight of the church and the gathering of gods. Kieran hurried around us to Bran. Relief filled his weary eyes, and he enveloped her in a huge hug, lifting her off her feet.

“I must call off Athena’s army,” Apollo said, marching down the debris-littered aisle.

“Ari,” Artemis prompted. “Are you ready?”

I turned to her. “Yes. I’m ready.”

“And you, Mistborn?” Horus asked. Sebastian nodded and walked away from the group with the Egyptian god.

Artemis handed the baby to Menai, and then faced me. “Thank you. For the kindness you showed my sister.”

Untangling my curse was a quiet affair, full of words and power that hung and built and danced in the air, swirling through the church and around me, finally through me—pulling and tugging at my core, my veins, my cells, at everything I was. It was uncomfortable. Not painful, though it might have been. Yet the untangling was significant enough to send me to my knees. I didn’t know if Artemis was making it less painful or not, but if she did, I was grateful.

The curse came out of me slowly and grudgingly, words separating themselves from my being, swirling, old and ancient, and finally untangling themselves and dispersing, leaving me empty for a blink before a great energy rushed in, filling every corner of me with heat. My chest expanded; it felt like my heart would explode. Electricity zipped beneath my skin, traveling to the tips of my fingers and toes.

I bent forward, my hands hitting the floor. Dear God. What is she doing to me? The sensations finally faded, leaving me weak, sweaty, and panting.

When I was finally able to lift my head, I was met with Artemis’s gentle smile. “A kindness repaid with a kindness.”