I already knew the part about being a danger to everyone around me, and that’s exactly why I wanted to turn myself over to the Council. Somehow, I would find a way to do so. But right now, what took precedence and worried me sick was knowing that David had disappeared.
“I’m here,” I said. “But David isn’t with me.”
Eryx and Galen turned their eyes to the backseat, where I was sitting.
“Dammit!” Galilea hissed and raised her hands. “Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?”
“Well, well,” Eryx said. “I guess your Gally does lie to you, after all, my brother.”
“Oh, Gally.” Galen sighed. “I’m very disappointed.”
“No, don’t say that. You don’t understand.” Galilea wrapped her hands around Galen’s face. “Galen, you can trust me. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I had to.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Galen said to her.
“Oh no. Here we go again.” Eryx rolled his eyes.
“No, no—don’t say it,” Galilea whimpered. “Galen, please!”
“You know how much I hate liars. It’s over.” Galen took Galilea’s hands off his cheeks. “We’re over.”
“No!” Galilea buried her face in Galen’s chest and sobbed.
“You’re breaking up with her over this?” I faced Galen. “You know what? She deserves better than you. You should be more concerned about where your brother is and not about your stupid pride.”
I heard Galilea gasp, and then silence filled the car.
“Put it down,” Galen said, at last.
For an instant, I was confused. I didn’t know what he meant, until I saw the dagger clutched in my hand inches from his neck.
“I—I forgot I was holding this,” I said. “I didn’t mean to point it at you.”
Eryx held out his hand, and I placed the weapon on his palm.
“Do you see now how serious this is, Gally?” Galen kept his eyes on me as he spoke. “She’s turning. She can’t control her actions.”
“I already knew,” Galilea said. “But I wasn’t trying to hide her from you or your family. I was protecting her.”
“From what?” Eryx asked. “You should be protecting yourself.”
“Turpis,” I said. “You should take a look at her stomach. She’s hurt.”
Galen and Eryx exchanged glances. Eryx pulled out his phone and directed the glow from the screen at Galilea’s stomach. Galen lifted her shirt. The expression on the twins’ faces while they observed Galilea’s wounds made me nervous.
“How did this happen?” Galen asked.
“And where’s David?” Eryx added.
“There was a horde waiting for her at a gasoline station. Somehow, they knew she would be there.” Galilea looked at me. “I had been following her since she left Athens.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” I said.
“When I saw the car pull into the gasoline station,” Galilea continued, “I went in the back way, modified the owners’ memories, and got rid of them. That’s how I posed as a waitress. The demons were posing as patrons. They looked human.
“I managed to persuade Isis to leave with me, and we did. Only, she insisted that we go back. That’s when we were attacked.”
“And David? What happened to my brother?” Galen’s anxious glance bounced between Galilea and me.
“I didn’t leave Athens with David.” I looked away from their stares. “I left with Eros. Galilea and I went back to the gasoline station because we had left him there with the Turpis.”
Eryx shook his head and turned away from me, toward the front windshield. Galen’s jaw was tight, his stare burning through me.
“Well, aren’t you the little hypocrite?” Galen spat. “And quite the common whore.”
His words felt like a kick to the stomach. My eyes burned from the tears I was trying to hold back.
“I—I…” As much as I wanted to explain that I was doing it all for David, the knot in my throat wouldn’t let me speak.
“Eryx, we’re done here.” Galen sized me up. “Let’s find our brother.”
“Can we do anything to help?” Galilea asked.
“I think you’ve both done enough,” Eryx said and stepped out of the car.
When I turned to look back at Galen, he had already disappeared into the shadows of the forest. Galilea twisted her neck to look at me in the backseat.
“Get out of the car,” she said.
DAVID CHIOS
“David—you know that I love you, right?”
I kissed her knuckles.
“Yes. And I love you.”
If I had to die for her, I would. There was no doubt in my mind that she was meant for me. I loved Isis more than I ever thought possible. I hated leaving her. But if I didn’t attend the meeting of the Clergy, the Council would show up at my front door. And who knows what horrible things they would do to her?
With effort, I opened the dimensional portal and prepared to step into Caelum. I let it envelop me and pull me through the shimmering wall where one dimension ends and the other begins. When I felt the ground under my feet again, I stepped forward and out of the portal, expecting to see the doors of the main conference hall. Instead, I saw the driveway. I was in front of my home in Athens. It was official. The change was taking over and faster than I thought. I wouldn’t have minded that I couldn’t travel between dimensions on any other day, but today was the worst possible day that it could’ve taken effect. So much for attending the meeting. I’d have to confront the Council, and our fates would be in their hands.
As I turned to walk toward the front door, I found myself staring at the back of two heads. I took a step back.
“May I help you?” I asked.
Startled, the men turned to look at me. One of them reached in his coat and pulled out a badge. He held it out for me to see.
“Interpol,” he said. “We’re looking for Tobias Gunn.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Sir,” the second man said, “We have evidence that proves you do know him. You’re considered an accomplice in the charges placed against him. You’ll have to come with us for further questioning.”
“An accomplice? I don’t even know who...” There was something familiar about the second man. Where had I seen him before? “Wait a minute. Have we met?”
“I told you he’d recognize you,” the first man said, glancing at the second.
“Well,” the second man said, “I guess we’re doing this the hard way, buddy.”
The image of the man’s face came to me in flashes. He was one of Gio Carboné’s men. Before I could react, I felt a sharp pain in my neck. The world around me spun, and I fell to my knees.
“Dammit! Where’s the Taser?” the man I had recognized said.
I saw the other man’s blurred silhouette moving toward me. “I told you that tranquilizer wasn’t going to be enough.”
I reached for my neck to pull out the object that I had been stabbed with. Just as I found it, an intense shock of electricity surged through me like lighting. Explosions of white filled my head, and then nothing.
***
In a far corner of the outstretched room, a tiffany lamp illuminated the small table it was sitting on. There were three chairs set around the table, two of them occupied.
“At last, sleeping beauty awakens from his slumber,” a man’s voice said. His face was hidden behind a shadow.
I tried to stand, but I toppled over and hit the ground, taking the IV attached to my arm down with me. Whatever they were drugging me with was strong—stronger than my own sedative. Or maybe I had lost all of my abilities already.
“The ankle shackles seem to be working,” the man said as he walked toward me. He pulled the string on a lamp beside the chair I had been sitting on. Gio Carboné looked down at me with a smug smile. “Carlo!” Carboné yelled, and one of his thugs appeared at the door.
“Yes, Mr. Carboné?”
“Get him off the floor. And be careful. I don’t want more damage on him.”
“Yes, sir,” Carlo said, reaching for my arms. That’s when I noticed the cuffs on my wrists. “Up ya go, pretty boy.”
“What do you want from me?” I tried to focus my gaze as Carlo lifted me to the chair. “If it’s money you’re looking for…”
Carboné laughed as he clipped off the end of a cigar.
“Take a good look around this room, Mr. Chios,” Carboné said. “Do you think this is about money?”
I glanced at my surroundings. Paintings, ancient vases, statues, large and small animals—some alive and some stuffed—and other objects I couldn’t identify were spread around the quarters.
“What’s this about then? Why am I here?”
“You’re very special, Mr. Chios. And I like special things.” He walked to a table and picked up a box. “I’ve read your file, courtesy of Dr. Tobias Gunn, our mutual acquaintance. In it, I found astounding facts about you: superhuman strength, above average intelligence—and your age. Well, approximate age. I bet you didn’t know Dr. Gunn did a carbon dating test on your dead skin cells. That genius is one sneaky little bastard.”
“Those tests were inaccurate,” I told him. “I’m as human as you.”
“Are you, now?” He opened the box and showed me a small blade. “Then explain to me why I had to have some instruments, including those shackles and handcuffs you’re in, made out of the same material as this razor I found in your file.”
If I survived this, Gunn was as good as fired… and dead. That idiot!
“So you’re planning to keep me here, like those caged animals.” I glanced at an odd looking bird.
“Not forever,” he said, and then sucked at the end of his cigar. “I’ll explain it over tea. My mother will be joining us. I hope you don’t mind. She’s always wanted to meet a Greek god.”
“Greek gods don’t exist.”
“Oh, yes they do. I’m looking at one now.” He put out his cigar on a spotless ashtray. “I never rule out myths and legends. They make for great treasure hunts. And getting tips from other sources—loyal sources, unlike Gunn—certainly helps my hobby. Pays well, too.”
Well, this was a surprise. Carboné wasn’t working alone. Someone was giving him information.
“I thought you said it wasn’t about the money.”
“I didn’t say how I was getting paid, Mr. Chios. You’re jumping to conclusions.” Carboné motioned to Carlo. “We’re ready for tea.”
“Right away, boss.”
Carboné took an object from a table and pressed a button. The chair I was sitting in started to roll forward.
“Mamma, we have a special guest today,” he said to the person sitting at the table.
Slowly, the chair rolled to the other end of the long room. As I came closer to the table, I noticed black and white curls of hair peeking through from under the lavender hat the woman wore. Carboné maneuvered my chair until it stopped across the table from his mother. A thin black veil covered the woman’s eyes and nose.
“Mamma, meet David Chios, a Greek god.” He motioned to me. “The real deal.”
I stared at the woman, expecting her to reply to her son.
“What’s that?” Carboné lowered his ear to his mother’s face. “Oh yes. I’ll tell him. She says she’s happy to meet you, but she can’t see you very well.” Carboné kissed his mother’s cheek and lifted her veil. “There you go, Mamma. Is that better?”
The old woman looked at me, unblinking. Her face had a slight smile on it. Then I noticed how stiff she seemed. A bit too stiff.
“You’re a sick man,” I said, looking at the stuffed casing of his deceased mother.
“What you consider sick, I consider art,” Carboné said. “I’m a collector of rare and special things—rare and special, like you, Mr. Chios.”
***
How many days had passed, I didn’t know. But I knew it had to have been several. I tried to open the dimensional portal to escape, but it only made me weaker.
One of Carboné’s men delivered a plate of food to me. He got close enough that I caught him in a headlock and demanded I be let free. That earned me several blows on the side of the head and stomach with a metal glove. At some point, while I was unconscious, I was transferred to a room that had no windows. It may have been the strong effects of the drugs, but I could have sworn that I was in a dungeon.
After I awoke, I saw Isis at my side. She knelt before me.
“I found you,” she said. “I’ve been so worried.”
“Isis… Isis, we have to get out of here.”
“There’s only one way out.”
“Which way?”
She leaned into my ear and whispered, “Kill. Me.”
“No!”
“You might regret that decision.” The tips of her fingers touched my neck. “Would you really die for me, David?”
“Yes.”
Her pupils transformed to reveal the Creatura within her. It was just a matter of time before the transformation was complete. As I saw her pupils dilate, the beat of my pulse quickened. In one swift move, she leapt forward. Her teeth dug into the side of my face, ripping off a piece of flesh. I screamed in pain and horror.
“I’ll give you something to scream about, if ya don’t shut up,” said one of Carboné’s minions.
I shook against the stone floor. The hallucinations were getting worse. Taking in ragged breaths, I turned my head to view him.
“You want some more of this?” He showed me a steel whip.
I raised my index finger and moved it back and forth, daring him to come closer. He flipped me off instead.
At times, the drugs they were injecting into me made it almost impossible to decipher between what was real and what wasn’t. Having no food in my system made the substances all the more potent.
Footsteps echoed off the stone walls. Carboné’s fuzzy silhouette rounded the corner, and then came to a stop next to his minion.
“Is he eating?” Carboné asked the man.
“No, sir. Every time we go near him, he tries to take us out.”
“You better not use that whip again unless it’s necessary, you hear me? Look at him. How am I supposed to exhibit an immortal Greek god that looks like that?”
“He doesn’t look all that immortal to me, boss.”
“No, not anymore. Lucky for you. It’s made your job a whole lot easier.” From his coat pocket, he fished out a syringe.
“Another round of cocktails for me?” I asked.
“Not quite,” Carboné said. “This one is a little more like—well, like poison. It’ll start to immobilize your muscles—prepare you for the next phase.”
He reached for the IV bag and began to inject the substance in it. I jerked my arms back, and the needle connected to the bag burrowed itself deeper into my vein. The bag flew out of Carboné’s hand, landing next to my face. I ignored the pain in my arm and grabbed it. I secured it against my chest with both hands.
“That wasn’t very nice, Mr. Chios. Now, toss that bag back to me.”
“Come and get it.”
“Hand over the bag, or you’re going to see a side of me that you won’t like.”
“Who says I like you now?”
His jaw grew tight. “Toss me the bag, young man.”
“Or. What?”
“Bruno,” he called for his thug.
“Sir?”
“Let me have that whip.”
ISIS MARTIN
Galilea was ditching me. I slid out of the back seat and shut the car door. I expected her to start the car and leave, but instead, Galilea remained immobile in her seat and stared out the front window. Then suddenly, I heard her scream at the top of her lungs, and saw her fist crash into the driver’s side window sending shards of glass flying into the forest. Then the rearview mirror crashed through what was left of the windshield and flew into the nearby tree branches. The steering wheel had the same fate; o
nly, it broke through the passenger side window. At last, her fit ended and Galilea grew silent. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to comfort her and tell her it would be okay. But I knew that it wasn’t what she’d want to hear, and frankly, I didn’t believe anything would be okay anymore.
Galilea didn’t move for a long time. I sat on the dew-moistened ground and leaned my back against a tree, watching her. I couldn’t believe she had sacrificed her relationship with Galen for me. I felt horrible. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut like she had asked me to do. Why was I always screwing things up?
It seemed like hours before I saw the trunk pop open. Galilea stepped out of the car, her eyes red and watery.
“Get your stuff,” she said. “We’re hitching a ride.”
***
It had been six days since we’d arrived at Galilea’s house in Bucharest. Six days since we had last heard from the Chioses, Samuel, or Eros. Three more days, and I’d be a rabid, carnivorous beast.
On the same night we arrived in Bucharest, Galilea’s cousin, Olympia, showed up at Galilea’s front door. Unlike her cousin, Olympia wasn’t very talkative. She kept to herself and spent a lot of time in her bedroom. I found that strange. Why would anyone visit family, and then spend days locked up in a guest room?
Both Galilea and I had tried contacting the Chioses, but our calls were ignored. We had missed the meeting with the person—or people—that I was supposed to receive my answers from. According to Galilea, the meeting had been rescheduled, and all we could do was wait. My concern was that the monster inside of me had no patience. I could feel it trying to take over me, pushing me to taste what it yearned for the most—raw flesh. The hunger grew worse with every day that passed, but I kept it under control by eating greens. They agreed with my stomach most of the time. But my body didn’t crave vegetables, and I ended up spewing more and more often.