Prison of Hope (8 page)

“I’m not here to cause problems, Nate,” she said softly. “I offered to come because we both know that if Phobos turned up, he’d spend half the time trying to undermine or kill you. I’m not going to play stupid games. We need to find out what
Pandora
did before people get hurt.”

“Nate,” Hades called out from inside the hangar.

Selene and I put our conversation on hold and made our way round to the front of the hangar, where we found Hades
gesturing
toward Pandora. There was a man lying prone on the ground as Pandora held his arm, locking it behind his back. From the pain on his face, it was obvious that he was clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

“Pandora,” I said, “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.” The change from Pandora to Hope and vice versa took a lot out of them; usually it was at least several hours before they could swap back again. That, combined with Pandora’s sudden use of the word ‘I’ was something I found very interesting. And even more concerning.

“We thought that Hope wasn’t best placed to answer your questions, but we’re wearing these ridiculous bracelets. We do not like that.”

“Let go of him,” I said, before finishing with a smile and adding “please.”

Pandora released the man, who started furiously rubbing his injured arm.

“No shackles,” Pandora snapped.

I picked up the handcuffs and threw them to Hades, who caught them absentmindedly and dropped them to the floor beside him. “I did try to tell him that they weren’t needed,” Hades said. “Apparently the staff Avalon sent with Selene thinks they know better.”

I thought I heard sniggering from inside the aircraft nearby, and I was certain that Hades’s men had decided to watch the f
un an
d see what happened once someone tried to restrain Pandora.

The plane was a Douglas DC-3, a twin-propeller machine that I’d heard was going to help change the face of aviation. They’d only gone into general production a few months earlier, but I’d seen a similar aircraft being developed by Avalon nearly a decade before. Avalon technology tended to be ahead of anything humans might have access to, but eventually it filtered down.

“Is that your plane, Hades?” I asked.

Hades nodded. “Had it a few years, although it’s about four generations above whatever the humans are currently using.”

“If you two are done,” Selene snapped, and she strolled past us. “Pandora, we need to know where you were in Germany.”

Pandora laughed. “And you think we’re going to just tell you? You’re out of your damn mind.”

“You will tell us what we need to know.”

“The only thing we’re going to tell you is how much you can go fuck yourself. If you’d like, we could take control of you and make you do it to yourself? You might get rid of some of the tension you’ve got there.”

Selene’s hands balled into fists.

“Pandora,” I said, taking control of the rapidly escalating
situation
, “you remember I informed Hope that you weren’t going back to Tartarus.”

Pandora and Selene exchanged one last glance of anger. “Yes, we remember.”

Hades took over the conversation, saying, “You have two options. The first one is that you’re going to be taken to America. Nevada, to be exact. Once there, you’re going to be lowered into a cell in an underground complex in the middle of the desert. You will have no contact with anyone ever again. Nate will not be permitted to go.”

“What? They can’t do that.” Fear crept into her voice. The fear of being essentially alone.

“Hera has already petitioned the Avalon council. They agreed that if you don’t cooperate with us, you won’t see another living being for a thousand years. Originally, she asked if she could have you experimented on, but that was going too far, even
for them.”

“We would rather die than go there,” she almost shouted, all fight evaporating in an instant. The idea of no contact with anyone terrified her. Hera had carried out a similar punishment soon after her creation. For a year, Pandora had been alone in a dark pit, where the only people she saw were deaf mutes who brought her food. It didn’t take her long to break.

“However, if you agree to help us, you’ll be taken to the second option, a facility in London that will allow you contact with other people,” Hades told her. “Very specific people will be chosen to visit with you. They will be people you cannot enchant, but you will be able to have contact, to read and write as you wish. But only if you cooperate.”

Pandora glanced around at everyone in the hanger before talking. “You won’t be able to stop it.”

“Then there’s nothing stopping you from telling us,” Hades said.

Pandora appeared thoughtful for a second and then shrugged. “We were staying in the house of a man by the name of Jean Martin and his wife, Magali. Jean was the man on the motorbike you saw. They’re French nationals living in Dresden, working as part of an underground movement opposing the Nazis. We went to them for help, and a plan was devised. We would go to the Gestapo and tell them who we are and that we would help them win the coming war. In exchange, we wanted details of the security in Berlin for the upcoming Olympic games.”

“Why?”

“Hera and her people are going to be there. We thought it the perfect opportunity to get to them. Once the Gestapo passed us the information we required, we killed them. Then you
found us.”

“Why were you naked then?” I asked.

“They gave us the information we requested and then drugged us to try to experiment on us. We could have broken free, but honestly we just wanted to see what would happen. They have some very nasty stuff waiting in their labs. It’s a good thing it didn’t harm us in any real way.”

“Why were they looking in North Africa?”

“You saw that?” Pandora asked. “Yes, they wanted the realm gate where we were created. They wanted to put another poor girl into that realm and have her bonded with a demon. Just like we were. We did not wish for that to happen. Once they decided to go down that path, the humans were no longer of any use to us. We killed them and destroyed their findings.”

A thought crossed my mind. “Did you send the German soldiers to scour the hotel, looking for me?”

Pandora smiled. “No, just the soldier who died in the alley. We needed to find you, but actually we were looking for
two people.”

“Did one of them happen to be the other man who died in that alley, by chance?”

Pandora glanced at me and nodded slightly. “Most impressive, Nathan. The rapist’s last victim was someone who worked with Magali and Jean. It was coincidence that you were both in the same hotel. His punishment was a little revenge to repay those who had helped us. The SS trooper had been under our control since we went to the Gestapo in the first place. He had allies in that dreadful group; it made infiltration easier.”

“What’s your plan?” Hades asked.

“We don’t know,” she said. “It’s not our plan anymore.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“We’ve given the task over to someone else. He has orders to do whatever he wishes to ensure it’s completed. We have no say in what he does, but we’re guessing it’ll be spectacular.”

“Pandora, we need more than that.” Hades said. “Telling us that some random man in Germany is going to do something isn’t exactly cooperation.”

“He’s going to kill Hera and her friends at the opening of the Olympic Games in Berlin. Is that specific enough for you?
Anyone
in his way is an enemy and will die.”

She walked over to me. “Nate,” Pandora said softly. “We’re begging you. Leave this place. Leave Germany and get as far away as you can.”

“I can’t let innocent people die, Pandora. And they will if he attacks Hera in some way. She cares a lot less about the civilian population than most Nazis.”

“Can you tell us more about this mystery man?” Selene asked.

“Yes. He’s about six feet tall, with a constant deep tan and the yellow eyes of a reptile. He’s not human, obviously, and is probably a match for anyone in this hangar, Hades excluded.”

Hades and I shared a glance.

“We know what you’re thinking: Send Hades into
Berlin
. Well, the problem with that is, we knew Hades would come himself to pick me up. Can’t let someone as powerful as me just hang around with a bunch of security. So we left my friend with another order. If he sees Hades at any point during his time in Berlin, he’s to consider the mission a failure and attack wherever he happens to be at that time. Thousands could die.”

“You sick bitch,” Selene snapped.

“Yes, well considering who you lie with every night, we could say the same about you.”

Selene’s cheeks burned red, but she kept quiet.

“And what about me?” I asked.

She stroked the side of my face. “My dear Nate. We care about you very deeply, but you can’t beat this man. Not on your best day. If you stay and confront him, you will die. Although you’d have to find him first, which could prove difficult.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

Pandora held eye contact for a few seconds and then sighed. “If you’re so willing to die. His name is Helios.” She turned to Selene, whose eyes were wide and full of fear. “Ah, we thought you’d recognize your brother.”

CHAPTER
7

Mittenwald, Germany. Now.

I
woke up in a comfortable bed that wasn’t my own. It wasn’t even one from the hotel. I looked around the spacious bedroom and tried to sit up, but my body ached as if it were the day after I’d done the first workout of my life, and the thick quilt, in its blue and white duvet, was cozy and inviting. I decided not to bother getting out of bed, and adjusted my pillows so that I could lie down while remaining slightly propped up.

A TV sat on a chest of drawers in front of me, but the remote was several feet away on top of a bedside table, and quite frankly I wasn’t certain I could make the trip and return to the bed before the muscles in my back decided to make me yell like a little baby. I settled for looking at the expansive collection of artwork, mostly landscapes of the surrounding region, which adorned the walls.

There were three doors in the room. One was fully open, and I saw rows of clothes in the darkness beyond; a walk-in closet. The second door was closed, but as the third was clearly the exit from the bedroom to the house beyond, I figured door two was a bathroom.

Two raised voices could be heard from outside of door number three, one male and one female.

“It goes five, six, four¸” said the male voice, which was easily identifiable as Tommy’s. Any concern about where I was evaporated. If Tommy was around, then he would have made sure I was somewhere safe.

“No, you ignorant werewolf,” said the female voice, the
German
accent giving it away as Petra’s. “It goes five, four, and six. No one puts six over four—that’s insane.”

“I guess you’re feeling better,” a second man said as he stepped through the open door, a cup and plate in his hands.

“Thanks, Kurt,” I said, my voice a little raspy. I coughed and cleared my throat. “This is your house, I assume?”

He nodded and placed the cup and plate, some tea and toast, on the table beside me. “How are you feeling? Other than
better
, I mean?” Kurt was well over six feet tall and weighed close to three hundred pounds of pure muscle. His long light-brown hair was tied back, and his bushy beard had flecks of gray in it. His arms were covered in dark tattoos of swirling marks and pagan symbols. He’d had them done when he was human, which was roughly when the Roman Empire first invaded what is now Germany.

Kurt was one of the most respected members of the werebear community, and probably the only one of his kind in the south of Germany. I’d seen him fight twice, both times very long ago, and both times I was very grateful that he was on my side.

“I ache everywhere,” I admitted.

“We found you embedded in the car of a staff member. She wasn’t best pleased to find you there. You also did extensive damage to every other car in the lot as well as the windows on the restaurant. I’m not really sure how you managed it.” His voice was calm and measured. Werebears, for the most part, are incredibly calm and let very little bother them. Due to the fact that the beast of a werebear is very close to the surface—much closer than the beast of a werewolf or werelion—they’re forced to watch their emotions carefully to ensure that the beast doesn’t override the person.

“I’ll pay for the damage,” I promised and then explained what had happened.

I’d just finished when Tommy entered the room. “Excellent—you’re awake. Can you please tell this
philistine
”—he pointed to Petra who was standing beside him—“that episode six is better than episode four?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Star Wars,”
I explained. “They’re arguing over whether film six or four is better.”

“What about five?” he asked.

“Everyone knows five is the best one,” Petra said in the same tone you’d tell a small child that fire is hot. “So, what is it? Six or four?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

Tommy stared at me for a few seconds. “Liar. Which one?”

“Tommy, Ewoks suck. They’ve always sucked and they always will suck. Four has Peter Cushing in it. If in doubt, always go with a film that has Peter Cushing in it.”

Petra appeared to be very smug in her victory.

Tommy looked mortified. “But six has Jedi Luke and that awesome bit with the Emperor at the end.”

“And Ewoks,” I said. “Who, I’m pretty sure I pointed o
ut, suck.”

“And to think I was going to get you your own lightsaber,” Tommy said in mock outrage.

Petra’s face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning. “You have your own lightsaber?”

Tommy nodded. “Two of them.”

“Why?” Kurt asked. “Why do you need a lightsaber? What can you possibly use it for?”

“I think the question is,” Tommy said, “why
wouldn’t
I need a lightsaber? And as for what I can use it for, I use it to look
awesome
. Really, really awesome.”

“You just don’t understand, my dear,” Petra told Kurt.

Kurt didn’t appear to want or need to understand a
nytime soon.

“So, you got beat up by some humans and a witch,” Tommy said, barely containing his laughter. “Do you have CCTV?” he asked Petra, who chuckled.

“Are you both done?” I asked.

They nodded in unison.

“This witch used a huge amount of magic on me,” I informed them both. “To use runes to drain my magic is one thing, but an
effete
curse is a whole other league of power. That’s a decade of her life, right there.”

“I don’t understand why anyone would ever use a blood magic curse,” Tommy said. “It’s not like it’s fun for the person casting it either.”

“What do you mean?” Petra asked.

“There are several different blood magic curses you can cast on another person, and a few you can cast on yourself,” I explained. “All of the curses do various things to the person they’re cast upon, but the caster has to take some of the curse back onto him- or herself. So, in this case, Sarah cast the
effete
spell, making me exhausted and utterly useless, but a small portion of that will bounce back onto her. How long was I out?”

“Six hours,” Kurt said.

“If I’d cast that spell, I could have expected maybe three or four hours of exhaustion. Witches are basically human, so she’s going to be about as much use as a chocolate teapot, for the best part of a day. It was a huge decision for her to make.”

“The local police searched the house that Robert Ellis was staying in,” Kurt told me. “It’s been abandoned for a few days.”

“They’re planning something,” I advised. “I don’t know what it is, but me being here certainly concerned someone enough to get Sarah to try to get rid of me. She originally told me that she’d been told to give me one chance to leave. There’s someone else giving the orders; someone told her not to kill me.”

“Okay, who?” Petra asked.

“No one good, I imagine,” I said.

“So, what’s their job?” Tommy asked. “It can’t be a coincidence that a witch attacks you just as a bunch of other witches turn up.”

“Well, Sarah certainly knew of Mara,” I said. “In fact it seems like Sarah likes Mara only slightly less than I do.”

“Even so, it’ll probably be wise to keep an eye on those witches,” Tommy suggested. “There’s something off with them, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Witches are always weird,” Petra said dismissively.

“Do you think Emily might know something?” Tommy inquired.

“I’ll talk to her,” I said. “She didn’t exactly seem to be thrilled to be here. I don’t know what it is, but I have this notion that something big is going to happen.”

“Surely not in Mittenwald,” Kurt said. “Hades’s compound is ten minutes away. The last time anyone did anything wrong in this town, Hades’s men found those responsible and dragged them back here in chains. You would have to be insane to actively want to piss that man off.”

“Insane or very sure of yourself,” I said.

“The trip is in a few hours,” Tommy said. “We’ll talk to Hades and see if he’s heard anything. And if Mara and her coven are involved, they’ve got their own children with them. What kind of parent
purposely
puts her own child in danger?”

Tommy was probably right. Security would be stepped up in preparation for the school’s arrival. I couldn’t foresee how anyone would want to target the compound—not until security was back to its normal level, which wouldn’t be until a few days after the trip ended.

“Maybe a bank job?” Tommy suggested.

Kurt shrugged. “It’s possible. There are also many wealthy people in town. Maybe Robert stays in town for a few weeks, scopes out the targets and then, when his people arrive, one of them who’s a witch realizes that there’s a sorcerer running around the place. They call their boss, who tells them to get rid of you quietly. It all goes to shit because they’re human, and they run off to try to figure out their next move.”

“It’s plausible,” Petra agreed.

“No, they knew that I was here,” I objected. “Sarah came looking for me in particular; I wasn’t a random sorcerer to them.” A witch willing to give up her own life just to defeat me screamed of desperation. Maybe she’s sick, maybe she needs the money for bills—I don’t know. The only thing I know for sure is that if she was willing to sacrifice so much of her own life just to take me out, she must really want me gone from this town.

“So what’s your plan?” Kurt asked.

“I’m going with the school to see Hades. After that, I’ll see if I can figure out what these people are here for.”

“In the meantime, get a shower and something to eat,”
Kurt suggested.

“I’ll go back to the hotel and grab you some clothes,” Tommy offered. “I’ve been away for a few hours, I should probably check on Kase.”

“Just in case the second you left they had some huge rave,” I said with a smile.

Tommy’s face dropped. “That’s not funny, man. That’s cruel.” He eyed the door.

“You have met Kasey before, yes?” Kurt asked. “She doesn’t seem like the rave type.”

Tommy relaxed slightly. “I know. But I also remember the sorts of things I was doing when I was her age. Boys are bad, Kurt. Bad, nasty little evil fuckers, who need to be stopped at all costs.”

I laughed and it hurt my ribs.

“And that’s what happens to those who mock me.”

“Tommy, your daughter is smarter than you,” Kurt said and paused, presumably to think about his statement. “Very much smarter. I think she’s a bit more savvy about boys than maybe you’re giving her credit for.”

Tommy nodded slowly, as if this was new information he needed to assimilate. “You’re saying I should just trust in
her judgment.”

“Which is what we’ve all been telling you for weeks,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but Kurt’s older and wiser than you.”

Kurt winked at Petra, who laughed.

“Look, Tommy,” Kurt said, “let Kasey learn how to deal with what she’s going through. Let her make her own mistakes. You can hate boys from afar, and when she brings one home, you just explain that if he hurts her, you’ll make him vanish. That’s how I did it for our daughter.”

“And now she lives in Canada,” Petra said.

“Okay, maybe don’t tell him that you’ll make him vanish,” Kurt conceded. “Turns out daughters don’t like their dates being threatened.”

I laughed again. “This is the oddest conversation I’ve ever woken up to. Tommy, just let Kasey figure it out. You’re there for when she can’t. And if anyone ever does hurt her . . . well, you’re a werewolf—you’ll figure something out.”

Tommy smiled. “I love my devious-minded friends.”

“ ‘Never has there been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,’ ” Kurt said.

Petra practically launched herself on her husband, kissing him on the cheek. “You quoted
Star Wars
. I love you.”

Kurt looked down at his wife and, without smiling, said, “I know.”

Petra’s smile lit up her face like a firework.