Goddess (Starcrossed Book 3)

The streets didn’t get bad until they got to the center of town. Helen gazed out the window of Ariadne’s Mini with a lump in her throat as they drove past the vandalized storefronts. The damage done during the Halloween riots was localized around the high school and the News Store, but that included a large area of downtown.

Shop windows were broken, demolished cars were still sitting on the side of the road, and some places were even showing the signs of fire damage. Houses that belonged to Helen’s schoolmates and her neighbors—houses that were older than the country itself—had been torn up, covered with graffiti, and scorched. She wondered how many people she cared about had been hurt or even killed. How many of her friends were still dreadfully injured like her dad?

“Claire? Did anyone we know . . . besides Zach?” Helen began, unsure of how to put it. She didn’t have to spell it out. Claire knew what she meant and nodded.

“Hergie,” Claire said, her voice catching. “Smoke inhalation. He was trying to save books from the library fire at school.”

There was nothing to say. Mr. Hergesheimer wasn’t a relative or even a friend, but still Helen had loved that grouchy old man. Now that he was gone, it was like a door closing. Nantucket would never be the same again.

She swallowed and refocused on what they needed to do. Right now she knew she needed to get angry, not hysterical. Eris and Terror, the small gods who had created the riots, were still out there somewhere. Helen clenched her fists and reminded herself to be patient. She’d get her chance at them soon enough.

During the long ride on the ferry from Nantucket to the mainland port at Hyannis the three girls took the opportunity to plan which hospitals they should try. Taking up a table by the concession stand at the center of the ferry, they scrolled through Matt’s iPad, checking out maps on the internet. By the time the ferry docked, Helen felt like they had a pretty solid list of possibilities.

The first two hospitals, although closest to Wellesley College, proved to be dead ends. By the time they got to the third, most of the day was spent. As they pulled into the parking structure, Claire pointed at a police car parked near the entrance.

“She’s here,” Claire said with a firm nod. “They’re watching her to see if the stalker comes back.”

Ariadne parked and they went in, splitting up to save time. Helen went right to the trauma ward. She saw a uniformed police officer guarding a door at the very end of the hallway, and texted Ariadne and Claire to meet her.

The officer was a man, and Helen needed him to let her into the room. She walked right up to him and smiled.

“Hi,” she said warmly, and watched the officer’s face get hazy.

Helen had seen a lot of men look at her like that—like they were staring at a shiny brass ring that was too bright for them to look at directly and too high up for them to ever reach. She had always hated this look, even though she knew that it gave her a manipulative kind of power. She’d sworn that she would never use it, but now the game had changed. Helen needed all the power she could get her hands on to protect her family. She had to stop being squeamish, or the Scions didn’t stand a chance against the gods.

“A boy attacked a friend of mine last night,” Helen said. “I think she needs me. May I go in?”

“We’re not supposed to let anyone in, young lady,” the officer said, shifting from foot to foot like he was really sorry to say no to her.

Helen could see he wanted to help as clearly as she could see the police badge on his chest. She could see his anger and compassion like a ball of vivid colors swirling around inside his ribs. Helen noticed he wore a wedding ring, sunk deep into the skin of his finger by time, and she just knew.

“It’s okay, you know,” Helen crooned. She heard and felt Claire and Ariadne join her. They both hesitated, but Helen waved them forward until they were standing on either side of her. “You can let all three of us in. We’re going to take care of her. You have a daughter about our age, right?”

The policeman looked at Helen sharply, wondering how she could have guessed that, and then nodded slowly as he sank deeper into her gaze.

“Then you know that she really needs us. In your heart, you know it’s the right thing to do.” Helen smiled her dazzling smile. The officer smiled back, nodding in a hazy way.

“It is the right thing to do,” he said with a definite nod of his head, and immediately opened the door for them.

“Thank you,” Helen said gently, pulling Claire and Ariadne in with her.

“How did you . . . ?” Claire began, but Helen cut her off with an impatient gesture and turned to the girl in the bed.

She was awake and staring at them. Her pretty face was cut up in a few places, her left arm was in a cast, and her lip was swollen and purple. Helen read the chart on the end of her bed quickly and found her name. Andy Faiakes.

“Oh, crap,” Andy groaned, staring at Helen with a fed up look on her battered face. “So which goddess are you?”

“I’m not a . . . wait.” Helen stared at Andy through narrowed eyes. “What are you?”

“You first,” Andy said in the most melodious voice Helen had ever heard. Helen opened her mouth to reply and had to forcibly stop herself from spilling her guts.

“That’s some voice you got there,” Helen said, gritting her teeth against the temptation to answer the question.

“That’s some face you got there,” Andy said back, her voice ringing inside Helen’s head. “What are you?” she repeated, amping up the seductive quality of her voice.

“Scion,” Claire blurted out, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes got wide, and she mumbled from behind her fingers. “I’m so sorry, you guys. I don’t know why I just said that.”

“Because you’re completely human,” Andy said to Claire with a small smile. Then she looked at Helen and Ariadne in turn. “But they’re not.”

“And what are you?” Ariadne asked guardedly.

“Human,” Andy said. Even though she used her beautiful hypno-voice, the word jangled out of tune inside Helen’s head.

“Liar,” Helen declared, shaking her head once. Andy stared at her for a moment before continuing.

“And half siren. Unfortunately,” she admitted reluctantly. It was obvious that Andy didn’t like to think that half of her was a creature who sang people to their doom.

“So what are you three doing here?” Andy asked cautiously.

“You know who, or rather what, attacked you last night, right?” Ariadne asked bluntly. Andy’s shoulders tensed with fear. She nodded. Ariadne softened her tone and went to stand by the side of Andy’s bed, her big, hazel eyes filling with compassion. “Then you know he’ll be back for you. We came to take you home with us, to our family, so we can protect you.”

“You can’t protect me,” Andy said, her lovely voice faltering as tears threatened to break through her tough-girl act. “Not from a god. No Scion is strong enough to stop them.”

Helen could feel Andy’s desperation, her absolute faith that eventually she was going to suffer and die at the hands of some supernatural brute. Just like Helen had been sure that Ares was going to kill her when he had her tied up in the cave. She remembered how Ares had abused her. How he’d reveled in her helplessness. Helen knew just by looking in her eyes that Andy had suffered something similar.

Furious, Helen got hot all over, and the tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. The room filled with the icy-blue glare of lightning as it coursed over her skin in a flowing web of sparks.

“Tell that to Ares. Oh, that’s right, you can’t. Because I beat the crap out of him and sent him to Tartarus,” Helen said. The sparks fell from her fingertips, bounced, and broke apart like glitter balls shattering silently as they skipped across the floor. She was aware that her voice had boomed a little bit when she spoke, but she couldn’t seem to contain herself. All she could think about was Hergie dying in a fire to save his beloved books. And it was all the gods’ fault.

“Um . . . Len?” Claire interjected in a tiny voice.

Helen noticed all three girls staring at her with open mouths, and snapped out of it. She shook the last of the sparks off her hands with a sheepish look on her face, cleared her throat, and tried to speak again.

“Look, I’m going to be honest. We can’t promise you’ll be completely safe,” she said. “But we can promise that if Apollo comes for you, he’s going to have to fight all of us to take you. Now. Isn’t that better than lying here, waiting for him to bust in and carry you off like some helpless damsel in a Greek myth?”

“Uh. Yeah,” Andy said, her eyes wide.

Helen realized she was scaring the girl and forced a laugh. Glancing over at Claire, Helen caught a hint of fear in her best friend’s expression before she looked away.

Once they managed to get Andy out of the hospital and through the parking garage, she was so wiped out that she fell asleep during the drive to Hyannis. Helen drove. Ariadne had worn herself out healing Andy’s broken leg before they had left the hospital, and then had done a little more healing during the drive while they cruised down Route 495. Her effort left her as pale and sickly looking as Andy by the time they boarded the ferry.

Helen couldn’t help but think it was a good thing that neither Andy nor Ariadne had the strength to get out of the car. Even though it was nighttime and the darkness would have offered some cover, Andy’s injuries were still far too obvious for her to be roaming around. Helen and Claire left the two of them sacked out in the backseat and went to scrounge up some food for them all.

“He really worked her over, didn’t he?” Claire said in a crackly voice as they made their way to the concession stand. Helen could only nod, her lips pinched together. She looked at Claire’s worried face and wished she could say something to comfort her, but came up with nothing.

She could feel Claire stealing little glances at her while they put coins in the vending machine, searching Helen’s face for some kind of explanation. But Helen didn’t have the words to explain what was going on.

“What?” Helen asked defensively when she couldn’t take Claire’s stares anymore.

“Nothing,” Claire said, pursing her lips. A tense moment passed between them, and Helen’s frustration grew.

“Just say it, Claire.”

“You’re different.” Claire gathered their makeshift meal out of the bottom of the machine and turned, but Helen reached out and stopped her.

“I’m different because I have to be,” Helen said, her voice harsh. “The way I used to be wasn’t enough. Not for this.”

“And how much more are you going to change?”

“As much as I have to in order to win.”

“Does that include manipulating cops?” Claire said hotly. “What did you do to him, anyway?”

Helen felt guilty about the police officer, even though she didn’t fully understand what she’d done. There was something wrong about being able to take away someone’s will like that. Helen knew as much, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Claire.

“I did what I had to do. Or do you think I should have killed him to get in the room?”

Claire opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it again, edging away from her as they walked back to the car. Helen realized that Claire was genuinely afraid of her, not just afraid of a few sparks and a booming voice. Helen knew she should have said something to make her feel better. But she didn’t. A big part of Helen was angry with Claire for not being more understanding. Even though it didn’t make any sense, Helen resented her best friend for fearing her.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but this isn’t just about our friends and family anymore,” Helen said bitterly. “And I don’t need to explain my actions to you. Or ask your permission to use my powers.”

“You’re right,” Claire replied. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. Just make sure you can explain your actions to your conscience.”

They didn’t talk much after that. Helen and Claire woke Ariadne up and made her eat a granola bar from the vending machine and drink a bottle of water before Helen drove them all back home. She dropped Claire at her parents’ house with a few mumbled plans about meeting up first thing tomorrow, and then went on to the Delos place.

It was late when they pulled in, and Helen was so exhausted that she barely had the energy to carry the other two girls up to Ariadne’s bed before she collapsed on the couch.

Helen sat opposite herself inside a covered, horse-drawn carriage. It was dark in the enclosed compartment. The only light came from between the slats of a tiny, shuttered window. Helen wondered how she would get in and out of the carriage, because she couldn’t see a door. She guessed that the window might be large enough to let her squeeze through . . . if there weren’t bars over it.

The other Helen who sat across from her was not the Spartan one from before. This one was wearing a gown made out of some kind of rough, homespun material. There were blue-dyed strings woven into her long, blonde hair and she sat on a pile of tanned skins and furs. The backs of her hands were painted with more blue dye in intricate curlicues that Helen vaguely recognized as Irish. The word Celtic bubbled up in her mind and she knew that description, while maybe not completely accurate, was closer to the true one.

At the other Helen’s waist was a dagger. Her hand clutched it desperately at every sound she heard from outside the shuttered and barred window of her prison-like carriage. This other Helen looked like a savage and was being treated like a caged animal. Helen wondered if this “other her” was dangerous.

“My lady Guinevere!” shouted a familiar voice outside the window.

Lucas’s voice.

Guinevere opened the shutter over the window, and Helen immediately saw why this version of herself was so terrified. The Furies started weeping in the corner of the carriage as soon as Guinevere and the other Lucas made eye contact.

He was sitting on the huge, black horse that was trotting alongside the coach. He was wearing dark leather, a thick, black woolen cloak, and belted at his waist was a long broadsword. He looked big and fierce and beautiful.

“Do you need to relieve yourself?” he asked in a strange, lilting language that Helen understood although she’d never heard it before.

“My mother taught me to speak perfect Latin, as you well know,” Guinevere snarled back at him in a different language that Helen also understood without ever having heard it before. She assumed it was Latin. “She wasn’t a filthy Roman like you, but she was from the east.”

“I’m no Roman. Don’t call me that,” the other Lucas said with a dangerous glint in his eye. “Sir Lancelot will do just fine.”

Their baleful gazes met and held. The Furies wailed, causing both Guinevere and Lancelot to cringe as they tried to control themselves. Helen knew that if the bars in the window did not separate them they would have attacked each other.

Lancelot looked up and down the long line of warriors that accompanied them, as if reminding himself that there were witnesses who would keep him from doing anything stupid.

“Why don’t you just kill me now?” Guinevere hissed at him quietly. Her low tone told Helen that Guinevere was also aware that there were other people watching—people who would not understand her irrational hatred for Lancelot or his hatred for her.

“That pleasure I leave to Arthur, my cousin and king,” Lancelot replied stiffly, almost reluctantly, like something about that bothered him. “After you marry him and ensure your clan’s allegiance, of course. Then I’m sure he’ll kill you with joy.”

“And you call us barbarians,” Guinevere snapped at him.

She slammed the window shut and threw herself back on the pile of furs. Helen knew—she remembered—that the furs were part of the large dowry from Guinevere’s father. He was the head of her clan, and he had sent along many gifts with his daughter in this wedding train. All of the rich goods were a peace offering to the undefeatable invaders from the east, and Guinevere was the ultimate spoil of war. The most beautiful girl on the island offered up as a gift to the big, golden-haired invader from a faraway land. And they desperately hoped he liked the gift—because if he didn’t, this King Arthur just might slaughter them all.

Guinevere knew her father loved her in his gruff way. He couldn’t know that he was sending his favorite child to her death. He wasn’t like these men from the east or like her late mother had been. Clan leader or not, her father was just a normal mortal, and he believed he was honoring his daughter above all others by giving her to the new, young, and, by all accounts, handsome High King. Guinevere had no defensible reason to object. Her father had every right to marry her off to whomever he chose, and unless she was ready to reveal her secret, and her late mother’s secret, she had to go along with it.

Tears of rage and frustration brimmed in Guinevere’s eyes. Helen remembered Guinevere’s feeling of desperation in this impossible situation distinctly, because once it had been her own.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Lancelot yelled stubbornly at the closed window. “You’ve been shut up in there for over a day now. Do you need to relieve yourself, Princess?”

Guinevere proudly dashed the tears from her eyes, smoothed her mussed hair, and pulled open the window. “No!” she howled, and slammed the window shut again.

Lancelot barked once with surprised laughter. A few moments of tense indecision passed. His black charger pranced anxiously outside Guinevere’s barred window as if he were reluctant to leave her. Finally, he clucked his tongue at his Goliath of a mount and thundered away.

Guinevere dropped her head onto her folded arms and tried not to think of how much she needed to relieve herself.

Moments later, she lifted her head in alarm. Shouts were coming from the back of the wedding train—shouts and strange yelps. Someone screamed in agony. Guinevere leapt to her feet and pulled out her dagger, snarling like the heathen she was.

Her carriage lurched to a stop, and Helen could hear men shouting all around. Something jolted the side of the halted carriage, sending Guinevere sprawling against the wall of her cage. She steadied herself on her knees as another great shove knocked the carriage over onto its side—the window side facing down. The inside of the carriage went completely dark as the only escape was pushed into the earth.

“To the princess!” commanded Lancelot’s voice from a distance. “Surround the carriage!”

There was a great rustling of leaves, and the sound of many men moving into position around her. Guinevere listened to the clanging of metal on metal, and the pounding of feet running over her carriage. There were men grunting, shouting, screaming, and dying in every direction. The dull thud of bodies hitting the carriage and the ground was coupled with the last rattling breaths of dying men.

Guinevere repeatedly slammed her shoulder into the side of the carriage, trying to tip it over and expose the window, but she did little more than rock the massive iron-and-oak enclosure back and forth. She let out a moan of frustration.

“Lady Guinevere! Are you injured?” Lancelot said in a strident voice from outside the wall of her knocked-over prison.

“No,” Guinevere said back firmly. “Let me out so I can fight.”

Lancelot made a frustrated sound. “They’ve taken to the trees.”

“Picts?” Guinevere guessed. There was no sound from Lancelot, probably because he didn’t know who their attackers were and couldn’t answer her. “They’ll be back with more warriors after dusk,” she promised him. “Please believe me—you may have pushed them back for now, but they are not gone.”

“I know. I can’t see them in the trees, but I can still smell them.”

“You must let me out of here!” Guinevere pleaded. “They want me, not the riches we carry in this party.”

“How do you know that?” Lancelot asked, like he suspected she was telling the truth.

“The Picts are one of the oldest clans. They’ve handed down ancient stories about our kind—yours and mine, Sir Lancelot. They know better than to fight me, or you, head-on. Instead, they will try to lure you away, and they will leave me in this prison to starve. They’ll wait until I’m too weak with hunger and thirst to stop them. They don’t want to kill me. They want to . . .” She stopped here and struggled for a moment. “They want children from me. To strengthen their clan.”

Lancelot uttered a foul curse. She could hear his elevated breathing as he fought with himself. “But if I let you out . . . I don’t know what I’ll do to you. Are you sure that isn’t worse?”

“I’d rather die in an honorable fight with you than be used as a brood mare. At least let me fight,” she said in a strangled voice. “Don’t leave me to face that.”

“If I set you free, you might try to kill me.”

“Please,” Guinevere choked out, desperately trying not to cry. “Please don’t leave me locked up in here. I know you hate me, but don’t abandon me to such a terrible fate.”

Lancelot exhaled sharply. “Stand back,” he ordered.

The walls of the carriage shuddered with massive blows as Lancelot hacked his way through the bottom of the metal-reinforced floor with a sword. When the first blade was ruined, he collected another from a fallen man and started hacking away again.

Three, four, five swords were broken to bits, but finally a large enough gash was opened for Guinevere to squeeze out. When she was freed, they stared at each other, both of them breathless with fear and anger and some other feeling they had no name for yet.

“You saved my life,” Guinevere whispered, overwhelmed by the chance he took by setting her free. “Now I’ll save yours.”

She looked around at the scores of bodies that littered the ground. Armored men from the east were piled on top of the small, blue-painted Pictish people who wore only basic animal skins and carried stone weapons.

So many dead, or run off. Lancelot was the only man to stay behind to defend her, Helen noticed.

Guinevere took Lancelot’s hand and led him away from the senseless waste of life and into the trees.

“A trap,” Lancelot growled, pulling away from her. “You’ll lead me right to them!”

“No. They won’t come near you as long as you are with me,” she explained, trying to stay calm. “Look.”

Guinevere held up her other hand. A globe of lightning spasmed inside her cupped palm. Lancelot jumped back momentarily and then moved closer, enchanted by the naked power he saw dancing on her fingertips.

“Why didn’t you use that to get out of the carriage?” he asked, always inquisitive, just like Lucas.

“The metal soldered to the wood of the carriage surrounded me in arcs. My power would have died in the ground,” she said, and then shook her head. “I’ll explain someday, I promise. For now, I need to deal with them.”

Guinevere held her hand aloft and shouted up into the thick branches.

“Do you see this?” she said in a third strange language that Helen also seemed to understand, if only barely. “If I see even one arrow loosed on my companion or me, I will burn your sacred forest to the ground. Do you hear? I will burn your mother goddess like dry tinder, and the sky gods will rule this island forever!”

The sounds of scraping bark and rustling branches added their whispery voices to the wind as the Picts dissolved into the misty distance. Lancelot cocked his head and held very still for a long time, listening and smelling and looking as carefully as he could.

“They’re gone,” he said finally, exhaling with relief.

“Yes,” Guinevere breathed. “They’ve all gone.”

“You saved my life.”

Lancelot and Guinevere stared at each other in amazement, both the Picts and Furies finally out of their way. In that instant, all the burning anger they felt toward each other was replaced by another kind of fire—a tender one that smoldered more than it consumed.

Leaves fell in the forest. The sun moved in the sky and tilted itself perfectly to light up Lancelot’s sapphire eyes. The wind picked up pieces of Guinevere’s long, golden hair and sent it wafting toward Lancelot like strands of sweetly scented silk. They took a step toward each other, both open and ready for the huge gift they saw offered in the other.

They stopped abruptly.

“Oh no,” Lancelot whispered, more afraid now than he had been in the heat of battle.

“Your king . . . ,” Guinevere said, her amber eyes darting around frantically as if looking for a way out. “Hector . . . Arthur,” she said fumblingly, as her multilingual mouth tried to say both the traditional Latin name for the new High King from the east, and the Briton’s approximation of that name.

“The clans will never accept his rule unless he takes a wife from among them. They need to know that his sons will be at least part Briton,” Lancelot said, shaking his head. “They will never stop fighting unless you marry him. Many will die.”

They stared at each other. Guinevere was still wide-eyed with disbelief.

“I have a little sister—a half sister of my father’s. She’s only ten now, but in a few years . . .”

“In a few years, thousands will already be dead,” Lancelot said quietly. He turned his head away, forcing himself not to look at her. “You must marry Arthur, or there will be war.”