Prison of Hope (6 page)

I rolled onto my front and got back to my knees without anyone trying to fight me. I was hoping that in their own small victory, they’d gained a measure of confidence that I wasn’t someone to be concerned about. One of my attackers, the larger smoker, grabbed my jacket again and pulled me upright, shoving me back against the nearest car and punching me in the stomach.

“This is fun,” the man said.

“You smell awful,” I informed him.

The man grabbed me by my hair and pulled my head back with enough force that I thought he was going to tear my hair out. “Not as big as you thought you were, are you?”

“One thing,” I said softly. “You need to know one thing.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, his tone mocking, as the stench of his breath filled my nostrils.

I drove my cupped palms onto his head, one over each ear, with enormous force, possibly bursting an eardrum. Smoker released me and yelled out in pain. I whipped my head forward with speed and ferocity, driving my forehead into his nose with everything I had. The bridge of his nose crunched under the blow, and he staggered back as blood streamed down his face. I stepped forward, smashing my forearm into his face and then pushing him roughly onto the ground.

I took a deep breath and then breathed out as one of the four remaining men rushed toward me. I deflected his punch, slamming my palm into his throat. He dropped to his knees like he’d been shot, gasping for breath. I grabbed his long dark hair and drove his face into the headlight of the nearest car. I sensed movement behind me and spun round, catching the third man in the jaw with a kick, and then whipped the same leg down
onto the
choking man, using my knee to bury his face into the remains of the headlight. His face was now a mass of tiny shards of safety glass and plastic.

If you’re going to fight a group, you go in hard and fast. The same can be true for any fight, to be honest, but when you’re outnumbered, you want to drop those against you to a manageable level as quickly as possible. Of course, a big rule is also not to get taken off your feet, but I’d managed to fail that in the first ten seconds.

After my initial weariness from Sarah’s spell, my energy had started to increase, and apart from the lack of magic, I felt okay. I was pretty sure the three injured men on the tarmac around me couldn’t say the same.

“Are we done here?” I asked no one in particular.

Their answer was immediate: the fourth man rushed forward and jabbed at my face, which I blocked, but he’d forced me to step back, directly into the path of another of Robert’s dangerous kicks. I moved to block the blow, but Robert saw it coming, and instead of catching me in the side of the head, he shifted his stance mid-kick and hit me in the chest.

The power behind the kick was immense, and I was forced to take several steps back as my chest screamed in pain.
Robert
grinned and started bouncing from foot to foot, shifting his stance with every few bounces so I couldn’t tell which leg he was going to kick with.

His friend decided my plan for me. He moved forward while my attention was on Robert and threw a vicious hook to my jaw. He knew that I would either dodge back, right into a waiting Robert’s path, or I’d block the blow, which would open me up to a second punch, this time to the gut. I stepped back, gaining Robert’s attention, his foot leaving the tarmac. I darted forward and grabbed the fourth man’s arm, immediately turning and dragging him off balance, forcing him to stagger into
Robert’s
line of fire. Robert’s leg was already moving faster than it had before—the trick of changing stances mid-kick was impossible—and his foot quickly found a home on the side of the fourth attacker’s head.

The man’s eyes rolled back up into his head, and he flopped forward toward me. I caught him and shoved him toward Robert, who darted aside and let his friend crash to the ground.

I didn’t wait around to give Robert a chance to recover, and rushed him, throwing an uppercut to his jaw, which he avoided, stepping right into the path of a punch to his gut. He stepped away, but not fast enough to avoid a swift kick to the side of his knee, which caused him to shout out in pain as he dropped to his one good leg.

Robert threw a punch, which I pushed aside and clasped my hands around the back of his neck, bringing my knee up as I pulled his face down. He managed to block the first two knee strikes, so I released my hands and kicked out, catching him on the chest and sending him sprawling to the ground.

I walked over to him, and he kicked out with both legs, but I managed to grab one ankle, and a quick kick to the side of his knee dislocated the joint. He yelled in pain as I applied more pressure to the injured limb.

“Now, what are you doing here?” I asked, managing to remain calm, despite his howls of protest.

“P-paid—paid to,” he eventually managed.

I released the pressure a little. “By whom?”

Robert shook his head, and I was about to say something when someone smashed into the side of me, taking me from my feet and driving me to the side. I twisted in his grip, to discover that Smoker had found his feet and wanted some payback.

I slammed my palm into his broken nose. He immediately released me and yelled in pain.

I drove my forearm into his face once more. This time there was no lack of energy on my part, and his head snapped to one side as if hit by a truck. He spun once and then fell to the ground, probably with a broken jaw in addition to his nose.

“Right,” I said with a slight cough. Smoker had managed to hurt my already bruised ribs. “Where were we, Robert?” I took a step toward him as Sarah appeared at the end of the car park.

“You are done here,” she raged.

“Girl, if you test me, you won’t find me in the mood to
play nicely.”

She brandished a dagger in one hand, which she drew across the palm of the other before dropping it to the ground. A second later, she pressed her palms together and closed her eyes as I began to run toward her, determined to stop whatever she was about to cast. Unfortunately, I was too slow, and as she exhaled, she pushed her hands out, palms toward me, and snapped one word:
“Effete.”

The effect was instantaneous. I crashed to my knees as if the weight of the world were suddenly pressing down on me. I couldn’t move, could barely breathe as my body just stopped working. Every ounce of energy I had left me in a moment, and a second later I was lying on the cold car park trying to make my brain work enough so that I could figure out what was happening to me. Unfortunately, my brain had gone the same way as the rest of my body, and a deep fog had settled in my head, clouding any rational thoughts and ideas.

I watched in silent horror as Sarah picked up the dagger and stalked toward me, a set purpose on her face. She crouched beside me. “I tried to help you, but you just couldn’t stop, c
ould you?”

I glanced up at her and saw blood trickle from her nose. She’d used a lot of magic, and her body was violently protesting.

She noticed my gaze and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and nose, noticing the blood for the first time. She stood, full of urgency and panic. “You can die here,” she said to me and then went to each of her five friends, placing a hand on their bodies and healing them slightly before helping her dazed and aching comrades into one of the trucks and speeding out of the car park.

I shook my head and tried to clear the mental cobwebs that Sarah’s magic had placed there.
Effete
—the word was
familiar
. I knew what it meant, I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t make my brain wake up enough to actually form the words.

I moved slowly toward the restaurant, forcing myself forward an inch at a time. I wasn’t going to die without a fight, I was damn sure of that. As I slowly dragged myself along the tarmac, my head began to clear; I must have been reaching the edge of the magic that Sarah had used.

The word
effete
burned into my consciousness. Sarah had used a blood magic curse on me. I pushed myself up to my knees and crawled forward until I saw rune marks that had been drawn on the ground in what appeared to be black chalk, making them almost invisible unless you were right on top of them.

My brain cleared further.
You were marked,
it told me. The knowledge slammed into the front of my thoughts; curses don’t work unless you’re marked first. The memory of Sarah placing her hand on the back of my shoulder tore into me, and I immediately ripped at my jacket, throwing it aside and then doing the same with my hoodie.

Only a fraction of my magic had actually been drained from me, but it rushed back into me like a freight train. If I hadn’t already been on my knees, I would have been knocked over, as the power crashed over me in one huge wave. Tarmac cracked and broke around me, and my white and orange glyphs burned brightly over my arms and chest, despite the fact that I wasn’t consciously using any magic at all.

It forced me onto all fours, my magic breaking the tarmac under my hands, destroying part of the runes, and releasing the contained energy.

My mind cleared in a heartbeat, bringing with it terrible news. If I’d stayed inside the affected area, I would have been weak for a few hours, maybe a day, but then my strength would have returned. The power collected by the runes would have returned to me until I’d regained my strength.

Breaking the runes had changed that. On the plus side, it meant getting my missing energy back much more quickly; on the minus side, it turned the car park into a damn bomb.

The remaining magic exploded outward like a nuclear shockwave. Windscreens and headlights shattered, tires blew from the pressure, and the lights and windows at the front of the restaurant rained down glass over the ground. The blast picked me up like I was made of paper and threw me aside. I felt a crunch as I collided, back first, with something hard. Pain rocked through me, and then, just as quickly as the magical energy had rushed outward, it stopped and all rushed back into me as if it were attached on an elastic band.

The final thing I remembered before passing out was that I cried out in pain.

CHAPTER
5

Berlin, Germany. 1936.

F
or the better part of a week, I scoured the city of Berlin, looking for any signs of Pandora or information on where she might have fled. Usually, a trail of dead bodies—like a trail of
breadcrumbs
—provided a pretty good indication of where she was, but on this occasion it led to nothing. She had simply escaped on the back of a motorbike, an image that seemed more romantic than the reality of all the murdered Nazis she’d left behind in the Gestapo building.

I decided the only course of action was to wait around until Pandora did something spectacular. She always did, but sometimes she liked to relax for a while first. In all likelihood, she was sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Berlin, drinking champagne and eating expensive food while plotting whatever scheme she wanted to carry out.

I spent a few days reading and watching the other occupants go about their business in a hotel lobby. I’d picked the place especially because of the number of foreigners who were staying there, hoping to overhear one of them slip up and discuss something inadvertently. Occasionally, Nazi officers would enter the hotel and wander around, asking people for their papers or generally being a pain. There was no overt threat, but it was clear from their tone and body language that they were begging for someone to aggravate them. They were just thugs—thugs with power, certainly, but the only difference between most Nazis and the common thugs you’d meet if you walked down the wrong street at night, was that the Nazis had shinier boots.

So, I found myself sitting in a comfortable green leather armchair in the lobby. I placed a German newspaper on a nearby table. I’d hoped it would give me a clue to something that might have sounded like business Pandora was involved in, but it was so pro Nazi, it should have come with its own flag.

Instead of reading what passed for journalism, I picked up a book from a local store and set about reacquainting myself with Lovecraft’s dark tales. I’d known a few people in my life that I could easily have described as Cthulhu-esque, and I wondered for a moment whether Lovecraft had actually met any of them or if these tales were really just a product of his imagination. I wasn’t sure which one of those two options concerned me more.

I was midway through a particularly good story, when someone sat in the chair opposite me. “Hello, Nathan.” She spoke in what was almost a Southern drawl.

I lowered the book and glanced over at Pandora, who smiled. “Interesting accent,” I said and carefully placed the book on the table beside me, as if moving quickly might spook her, and she’d run off.

“We’re trying it out,” she explained and raised a glass of champagne to her lips, taking a sip. “You weren’t looking for an American, and we’ve spent so long in Tartarus that our once Greek accent has been sort of lost in the annals of time. Much like our ability to care about the human race or their petty conflicts.”

“Have you fanned the flames of another war?” I asked. Pandora hadn’t
started
the Napoleonic Wars the last time she’d escaped, but she sure as hell had managed to keep that particular fire well and truly stoked.

She shrugged. “You like it?” she asked, motioning to her hair. Her once long, dark hair had been cut much shorter.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, Nathan, we haven’t involved ourselves in any wars. These humans don’t need our help to kill one another.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.”

She shrugged. “Yes, well, this time we’re only killing people who deserve it. Indiscriminate violence is only fun for the first few millennia. After that, we had to find a new hobby.”

“You feel like telling me where you’ve been? Petra and Kurt are searching Dresden for you at the moment.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we’re here right now, throwing ourselves on your sword. Metaphorically.” She looked me up and down before taking my fedora from the table beside me and placing it on her head. “Nice suit. Makes you look like a gangster.”

“That’s what I was going for,” I said sarcastically.

“We’re going to keep the hat.”

A young man walked past and winked at Pandora, who smiled in return. Pandora reached out and touched the back
of th
e man’s hand, and he stopped walking immediately and sat on the arm of the chair, offering Pandora a cigarette. She took it and licked her lips seductively as she placed it in her mouth, rolling her tongue over the tip as he struck a match and offered to light the cigarette.

“Pandora,” I said, my voice stern.

The man glanced over at me and appeared to notice me for the first time. Even if Pandora hadn’t been able to bewitch and enslave people, her beauty would have still stopped those who passed her by. Thankfully, due to an encounter long ago, I was immune to both Pandora’s charms and her powers; it was why I always got sent to track her down after she escaped.

“The lady and I are talking,” he said, his accent placing him from England, probably around the Manchester area. He had a thin moustache and slicked back hair. His smart suit probably cost a pretty penny, and he wore it with confidence. All in all, he looked every inch the respectable banker or lawyer, but there was something behind his green eyes. Something I didn’t like.

“Actually, you haven’t said anything to her,” I mentioned.

He appeared to be confused for a moment, as if only just realizing that what I’d said was true. “Well, be that as it may, you can leave now.”

“Pandora, knock it off,” I snapped.

She glanced toward me and removed the cigarette from her lips, blowing the noxious smoke above her. “You don’t want to fight for us, Nathan?”

I stood and sighed; I really didn’t want to have trouble inside the hotel. And I knew that Pandora was thoroughly enjoying herself, but she’d hopefully get bored if I walked away. She always did like an audience. “Don’t go anywhere.”

I left the couple to talk and asked the smartly dressed, pretty, young receptionist at the hotel front desk for a phone to use for a private conversation. She retrieved one from under the desk and then walked away in order to at least appear as if she weren’t going to listen in.

I connected myself with an operator and got her to put me through to a number in Mittenwald. To the rest of the world, it was a simple hotel, but I knew that it was the only way anyone could get through to Hades, who refused to have a direct number while he was at Tartarus. He said it was safer that way; I just thought he didn’t like the idea of having a telephone that anyone could use to contact him.

It took a few minutes, but eventually I tracked him down.
“Ja, Nathan?”
he asked.

“I have Pandora,” I reported, and waited for a few seconds for the information to sink in.

“That’s excellent news. Was she . . . awkward to capture?”

I told him about the time I’d spent searching for Pandora, ending my account with the time a few minutes earlier, when she’d just walked into the hotel.

“Well now, that is unusual. Where are you at the moment?”

I gave him the address of the hotel and could hear the scribbling of pen on paper at his end.

“There’s a private airfield about sixty miles outside of the city.” He gave me more accurate directions, which I wrote down after the receptionist passed me a sheet of paper and pen. “Be there in six hours.”

“Will do,” I said, and nodded thanks to the receptionist as she retrieved her pen. “Something isn’t right here.”

“Something is never right with that woman,” Hades said with a slight chuckle.

“More so than usual. I’ve never known her to just hand herself in without the preceding fire and brimstone she’s always managed to create.”

Hades paused for a second. “You think she’s planning
something
?”

“Always. But this time, I think whatever she’s got planned is already set in motion. Otherwise, why appear out of nowhere?”

“Okay, I’ll think on it and talk to you when I get to the airfield.” Hades hung up, and I passed the phone back to the young lady, who nodded her thanks before walking away to deal with a new couple who had arrived.

I heard Pandora before I saw her; or rather, I heard the commotion she’d clearly created. Two men, one of whom had given Pandora the cigarette, and a second dressed in an SS uniform, were arguing over who was going to talk to the woman seated between them. No one wanted to get involved in a row that a member of the Schutzstaffel was engaged in, but everyone appeared to be very confused as to why the officer wasn’t just dragging the other man outside.

“I saw her first,” the British man bellowed.

“She is mine to treat like a lady as she deserves,” the German officer shouted back in English, following it up by shoving the other man in the shoulder slightly.

“You sir, are a cad and a bounder,” the British man said and shoved the German back, with a little more force.

Everyone in the lobby took a deep breath. No SS officer was going to let someone shove him without meting out some serious punishment. I walked toward the two men, but didn’t reach them in time to stop the German from removing one of his brown gloves and slapping the British man across the face with it. The crack of leather against skin brought winces from those nearby.

I stopped walking and glanced at Pandora, who had an expression of glee on her face. “It’s like theater,” she said with a slight giddy laugh, the Southern drawl was replaced with her
normal
tone, a neutral accent that contained traces of her Greek heritage.

“Stop them,” I urged. “Before this goes any further.”

Pandora tore her gaze away from the two men, who were now slapping each other across the face with reckless abandon, and glanced at me. “We aim to have some amusement before being taken back to Tartarus. Besides, if we weren’t here, then this SS gentleman would have taken the other man outside and had him executed.”

“If you weren’t here, they never would have started doing this.
You’re
making them fight like this. You made him say ‘cad and bounder,’ Pandora.”

“We can’t help it if men want to fight over us.”

“Yes,” I said softly, “you can.”

Pandora’s expression hardened, and she pointed to the
German
officer. “Nathan, this man here is a member of the SS. He has murdered and tortured people, and he likes it. A few weeks ago, while he was drunk, he beat an elderly Jewish man to death. He still had blood on his boots the next morning when he went to see his commanding officer. He believes totally in
Hitler’s propaganda.”

Both men continued to slap each other, ignoring everything else around them. The British man had found a glove of his own, but the event was now escalating, as their faces became pink and painful. People in the lobby were clearly uncomfortable at what was happening, although no one moved to intervene or call for the police.

“This man,” Pandora continued, her voice full of anger and disgust, “has raped four women just on his journey from England to here over the past few weeks. Two in Germany. He beat the second woman so badly she’s currently in a hospital under sedation. He went to visit her and whispered things in her ears that would make your skin crawl. He believes himself to be above the law. He wanted to rape us, Nathan, do you know that? This piece of shit wanted to take us in the alley behind this hotel and hurt us, to make me scream.”

I was sure she’d said “me” and not “us,” but I couldn’t be certain. “Are you making everyone in this place watch them?” I asked.

“We’re ensuring no one calls the authorities, that’s all.”

“Are you going to check all of these people for evil deeds and punish them too?”

Pandora closed her eyes. “Jealousy, anger, rage, hatred, bitterness. All normal emotions, but no one here has killed for fun or hurt people for pleasure. They do not deserve our wrath.”

“Did you know that these two would both be here?” I asked as the sounds of slapping had slowed down, and the men’s faces were both raw and had been cut open several times.

Pandora ignored my question. “We can feel it, Nathan. We can feel the wants and desires, the anger and rage of every person we walk past. It’s like a chorus of malevolence. And in the middle of all that is always that glimmer of hope and love. But these two, these two diseased pieces of shit, deserve to be punished for their actions.”

Pandora couldn’t lie to me; it was one of the benefits of the bond we shared. From my point of view, anyway. “Make them go outside,” I whispered. “To the alley behind the hotel.”

Pandora glanced up at me, her eyes ice cold and full of rage. “Someone here might remember us.”

“Just leave with me; we’ll go to the alley with them. Then you can release them.”

“Will you stop me?”

I paused for a second. I was certain that Pandora hadn’t said “we,” or “us”—that she’d used the singular, not the plural.

“So, are you going to stop us?” Pandora asked.

I looked at the two men who had unwittingly set themselves into the gaze of someone as dangerous as Pandora. They were the flies to her hunting spider. And once she’d caught them and learned their true natures, they’d never stood a chance. “No, they’re yours to use as you see fit. But after, you come with me, no arguments.”

She nodded once, curtly. “Deal.”

She stood and walked off toward the hotel’s front doors, the two men trailing behind her silently. I glanced around as everyone went back to whatever they’d been doing before Pandora started affecting them; no one appeared to even know that anything had happened.

I caught up to Pandora and her followers as she walked down the steps outside the hotel and began strolling along the street outside. As it was mid-morning, it was fairly busy, and a few people gave noticeable glances to the two men who looked as if they’d been in a fight, although I doubted anyone would have come close to guessing what had actually transpired.

We all turned into a nearby alley and continued down the snaking path until we were behind the hotel. The alley was empty, and from the place where Pandora and the men stopped, it was impossible to be spotted by anyone, unless someone was looking out one of the windows of the hotel that towered above us.