The Wicked Within

Page 16

“And this new god,” I said, glancing up at Zoe’s apartment, “just adds more fuel to the fire. It’s easy to put two and two together. A god wants to rise. He has his sights set on Athena. . . . ” I paused. “He could be the father of her child.”
“She’d anticipate the father coming into play, though,” Bran said. “She’d know about the chatter, about what filters in to the gods who sleep. And I can tell you, she wouldn’t mind one bit letting another god rise and destroy this city to get what he’s after. Athena will pick up the pieces in the end and have exactly what she’s wanted.”
“If I wake this god and my curse is lifted, Athena loses. I won’t be able to resurrect her child.”
“Maybe. But this god might want you to resurrect the child as well. He might want exactly the same thing as Athena once he’s awake.”
They both come. The River Witch’s words echoed in my head. Great. If this kid’s mother and father were coming, Bran was right. We were screwed.
“How does one wake up a god?” Sebastian asked. “Why can’t they wake themselves up?”
Bran shrugged. “Sleep means two different things to the gods. There’s sleep as in rest, and then there’s Sleep as in retiring from the mortal and godly planes. It’s a choice made by very old gods, those who are tired and done with life. It is a decision that, once made, they cannot reverse themselves. They can only be revived from Sleep if they are woken, and the means to do so are a mystery to all but a few. Waking a god requires great power and comes with some serious consequences.”
“Well,” I said, thinking out loud, “maybe this god can help us. . . . ”
Bran shot me a dark look. “Are you on meds, Selkirk? We’re not waking a god. Did you hear what I said? We’re talking old gods here. Primal gods. Supreme deities. The big dogs.” He parked his hands on his hips and let out a heavy breath. “If this god wakes and has it out for Athena, it’s gonna get messy. Trust me on that. The gods don’t care who they hurt to get what they want.”
“Speaking from experience?” I asked, thinking of Bran’s descent from an old Celtic war god.
“My grandfather would slice open my belly and wear my entrails as a necklace if it got him what he wanted. And that’s why I thank the heavens every night that he chose to Sleep. There’s no way you’re waking a god like that, Selkirk.”
“A god like what? Who is it?”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Look, gods can only speak like that through their descendants. Otherwise the god would have spoken to you directly. Zoe and her family are just a handful of those left related to the Egyptian pantheon.”
Sebastian let out a low whistle.
“Yeah,” Bran agreed. “Waking an old Egyptian god equals huge fucking mistake. You need to find another way to end your curse,” he said to me. “Because this way will mean the end for a lot of innocent people. We have enough problems with Athena. Her offer is going to make every power-hungry member of the council insane. And the news will leak, if it hasn’t already, and then we’ll have even more idiots to worry about.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Sebastian said, “but all the guards and the lockdown thing kind of waved a flag that something’s up.”
“I wasn’t allowed on the third floor of Presby,” I added. “The offices are off-limits—talk will start going around. Eventually someone will spill.”
“Yeah, well, the exterior guards weren’t my idea, but the majority vote won out on that one,” Bran said.
“What about the library?”
“It’s on lockdown until the council agrees what to do with the Hands. Until then, no one goes inside.”
“So there was no break-in,” I said, relieved. “A lockdown only helps if the Hands are actually in the library.”
I exchanged a glance with Sebastian. We were the only ones, besides the kids, who knew the Hands might be misplaced. Quickly, I filled Bran in on the fact that the Hands were either missing or hidden within the library. I told him that the Keeper was doing inventory to find them, and that we suspected Josephine of hiding them within the library or taking them.
“You might have told me this sooner,” he said flatly. “Getting someone inside to see if the Keeper is done with inventory is going to be impossible now.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said. “Already tried that last night. In the time it took me to leave the meeting, talk to Hunter, and get to the third floor, there were already guards posted.”
“That’s my job, Lamarliere,” Bran said. “As soon as Athena’s message was delivered, I texted my crew. They were inside the study, guarding the library before you and the other heirs left the meeting.” He paused, shaking his head and looking disgusted by the events unfolding. “We should have sent Zaria’s head back to Athena on a platter,” he said gruffly, before waving us off and heading back into the apartment.
Cold slid into me. Zaria had been Athena’s messenger.
I’d watched her drink Sebastian to the brink of death night after night in Athena’s temple. I’d watched her tempt him with the blood of one servant after another. And I’d watched Sebastian, changed and blood drunk, hanging with Zaria and Athena like they were old friends. Or more.
Numbness settled into my psyche. The wind blew in from the Mississippi, making the low oak branches that stretched over us creak.
“It was Zaria,” I echoed with a sharp laugh. That’s who Gabriel was talking about. During our entire conversation back at the house, Sebastian had neglected to mention her.
My throat stung. Did she have some hold over him? “Were you even going to tell me you saw her again?”
He didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure if he knew the answer himself. He’d had several opportunities to confide in me, and he’d chosen not to. As though it was a secret. As though I wasn’t part of his life. Well, to hell with that. To hell with him.
“I’m done,” I muttered, shoving past him.
I felt his eyes on me as I marched away, part of me angry, part of me hurting like hell and wishing he’d say something, call me back, give me some kind of explanation. . . . But he never did.
ELEVEN
HE WATCHED HER WALK AWAY, her long stride eating up ground, widening the space between them. She hadn’t gotten far, but it seemed like a canyon had opened up between them. His fists clenched at his sides, so tight his short fingernails cut into his palms. Every part of him screamed to go after her. But his body wouldn’t move.
How could he make amends, open up, and explain?
Earlier in the day, he’d gone through his mother’s things. And all he’d wanted to do afterward was drown out the memories, the hurt. . . . So he’d gone to his grandmother’s to feed. For the first time since Athena’s temple, he’d fed on a person and not a bag of blood. Had he been attracted to his donor? No. Had he wanted more from her than her blood? No. Well, maybe not before or after. But during, who could say? He wasn’t sure. He’d been lost in a world of euphoria.
Afterward, it had felt so damn wrong. Anger and confusion sent him home to pound out his frustrations on the drums. He was losing his mind, losing his perspective, his understanding of right and wrong. . . .
Ari had gone pale at Zaria’s name. Asshole that he was, he didn’t elaborate on Zaria’s appearance at the council meeting or how he felt about seeing her again. Maybe he wanted Ari to see that he was different now. He wasn’t the kind of guy she should be interested in at all. She was right before. She deserved better. Someone who embraced others, who needed others. It wasn’t right to hold her, kiss her, or care about her—not when he was like this.
How could she accept what he was, what he had to do to appear normal, and not like some goddamn animal? And yet a small voice told him he hadn’t given her a choice. He was making it for her.
With a curse, he grabbed the iron bars behind him, wanting to rip them apart. When they groaned, he reared back. The iron bars were bent. He was so much stronger than he used to be. It was easy to forget that.
Shoving away from the bars, he decided to head over to Café Du Monde. Maybe a coffee would settle him.
The apartment building’s main door opened.
Zoe stood there, holding on to the door, as though afraid to step outside. She glanced behind her nervously, and Sebastian knew she’d snuck down the stairs.
He waited.
“There’s a message for you, too.”
Goose bumps pricked his skin.
He crossed the street, every nerve leaping to life. She leaned in close, then glanced left and right before whispering, “Wake me up. Wake me up, and I’ll set you free.”
Zoe’s words made the hairs on the back of his neck electric. A shudder went through him as she gave him one last look before darting back upstairs.
TWELVE
I AVOIDED EVERYONE IN THE house when I got home. I threw my pack on my mattress and paced the room, wanting to take the vial of Athena’s blood from my dresser and smash it against the wall. Instead I dropped to the floor, trying to work through my emotions with push-ups, then sit-ups and crunches, followed by lunges. For an hour, I worked my body. But I couldn’t seem to turn off my brain no matter how hard I pushed myself. I was drenched with sweat and it still wasn’t enough.
Aggravated, I changed into shorts, pulled on my sneakers, strapped on my blade and firearm, and headed out for a run. I’d run until I was too damn exhausted to think or care anymore.
I burned through several blocks before slowing to a steady pace. Soon the constant strike of my feet on pavement and the rhythmic sound of my breathing were the only things I heard in my head. By the time I made it back to the house, my muscles were limp and shaky. After a long drink in the kitchen, I went upstairs, using the railing to pull myself up the steps, and into the shower.
After, I stared at the cracked mirror over the dresser, regarding my reflection in the aged glass. A solemn face peered back at me of a girl who didn’t know what the hell she was doing. I tried to put Sebastian from my mind, pulled on my pajamas, and climbed into bed.