Rifts (20 page)

"Go away," I said quietly. "I'm not done here yet."

He sat back, obviously surprised. "You mean for me to leave you here." It wasn't a question though he was shaking his head in confusion.

"Please, just go. Send Athena down for me in a few hours if I haven't figured out how to get back on my own."

"Grace, I'm not leaving you here. The sun is going down and you
will
freeze. But you won't die. Think about that."

My gaze was steady as I responded. "Then I'll freeze or I'll learn to survive. Now go. I don't want you here. I don't want to look at your face and I certainly don't want you lording your shitty training tactics over me."

"You're being ridiculous right now."

My reply was a scowl and a toss of my head.

"You're the most stubborn, idiotic woman I've ever met in my life!" He thundered with frustration and anger.

I simply shrugged.

He let go of me and stood up, frustrated. "What you're speechless now? I can't get you to shut the bloody hell up but now that we need to have a conversation, you're silent? Real mature, Grace!"

The urge to stick out my tongue was strong, but I didn't. Instead I wondered if I could materialize warm clothes the way I did my kukris. Closing my eyes, I thought hard about warm fur boots and a long cloak to cover my shivering body.

I turned around and bent over, placing my hands on my knees, resting for a moment while I considered what the fur would feel and look like. Polar Bear fur would be best. I'd felt it at Denver's Museum of Natural History once, it had been dense, waterproof and looked oh-so-warm.

The boots shaped themselves against my legs, rising to my knees. The soles were hard and curved to my feet. It wouldn't do me any good to have soggy boots from the inside so I raised my temperature and evaporated the remaining water.

Next came the cloak. It fell heavy against my shoulders and back but the warmth was delicious so I didn't mind the weight. I wrapped it around myself and shuddered with the delight of having my skin protected from the harsh freezing wind. It would take a gallon of lotion to reverse the damage this climate had done to it.

"Are you still here?" I called over my shoulder. I didn't expect an answer but admitted to being a little disappointed when none came. Arguing with Hephaestus was exhilarating. If nothing else, we had the same suppressed anger issues in common.

Okay, now to get down to business. I rubbed my hands together and cleared my mind. Well, I
tried
to clear my mind. There is always something whirling around in there. Like the snow blowing around me, it's a blustery storm, never ceasing to calm.

The one thing that had held me back during most of my training was that I kept thinking like a human. I can't teleport - because humans can't do that. Humans can't regulate their body temp. Humans can't spout fire from their fingertips.

"Yeah, guess what, Grace? You're not a human," I said out loud. Hearing it seemed to make it more real.

Whatever strands of human DNA Diana had implanted within me had been stripped away by Zeus. I wasn't everything that I
should
be, but I sure as hell wasn’t human anymore.

I sat down, spreading the cloak under me and closed my eyes. One by one I blocked out the outside distractions and concentrated on my inner self. I delved beneath the skin, the muscle and the bones - straight into my essence of self.

The visual that I got was a spider web of tangled emotions, strength and fear. Each strand glimmered perfectly in the light of my mind's eye. I plucked at the strand of strength and it resonated within my being. It was thick and bold with only a few discolored areas where fear had tangled around.

Gently, I unwrapped the fear and let it snap back into its place. The sticky strand wavered and settled. Thinking that Fear could be demolished by a wish and a pluck of a strand was unreasonable, so I stroked my mental fingers along the line and let it know that I'd come back to address it later.

Next was the tangle of emotions. I could see love, compassion, worry, anger, neediness, greed and sense-of-self clustered together like a brightly colored rubber band ball. It looked like the ball sitting on my desk at home, tightly compacted and complicated.

Of
course
it was complicated. So much was wrapped into that orb. All of my life experiences jutted out to wrap around and around. I probed it and it bounced back and forth at my touch but remained solid. This thing wasn't getting unraveled anytime soon, but knowing what exactly was in there was a help.

"Humanity," I said aloud. A bright blue strand glowed, luring me in. It
would
be at the center of the mess. You don't spend thirty some-odd years believing you're a cat, only to find out that you're a dog and - BOOM! - just believe you're a dog. It doesn't work that way.

Tasting that strand, I could see my human-self as clear as day. She was a jumble of wit, worry, selfishness and grace. She looked a little plumper than I remembered and I smiled a bit. This was the woman who shaped my existence, full of love and laughter, tears and incongruities that seemed to flow off forever into the distance.

Admitting it to the world was difficult, but privately I liked this human Grace. She was a good mother and a good friend. Smart, droll and intelligent as well. I smiled again and ran my fingers along the thread, tucking her safely back into the ball. She wasn't who I'd become, but she didn't get thrown away just yet. Just that knowledge made the strand of Fear dim a little and that made me proud. Nothing like a little self-therapy to make it a feel-good day.

If I could see the makeup of my emotions, I felt like the Powers should be visible too, so I went searching for them. They weren't too far away, but they were disconnected from the rest of the web, holding on by a strand so thin that a breath would have destroyed it.

The web was made of seven different colored strands. Silver, Brown and Red made sense, but the remaining four were opaque and cloudy. They looked fragile but pulsed with something akin to hope as I inspected them.

Little fingers connected the powers. I assumed that they were the common side gifts that each Hunter shared - speed, strength, teleportation, immortality.

Okay, I rubbed my metaphorical hands together and got to work on the delicate strand connecting my powers to the rest of my makeup. I felt like Wendy out of Peter Pan. If you believed in it, anything could happen. So, I poured my will and belief into that strand, letting it know with each breath that I believed I could fly.

Was this enough to work? It seemed impossible that messing with metaphorical strands of power was enough to fix everything. Cynical Grace was not impressed. Hopeful Grace told her to shut the hell up.

A cold nudging against my face brought me out of my meditation. It prodded incessantly, demanding my attention. I turned my head and saw Scooter standing next to me, anxiety plastered over his doggie face. "Scooter! What in the world are you doing here?"

His face lit up like a Christmas tree and he leaned in for a happy lick. I screeched, "Noooooo! Don't Lick Me!" but it was too late. His metallic tongue laved halfway up my cheek…and then stuck. His confused whines as he jerked echoed through the drifts and dunes of ice.

"Stop! Stop jerking! You're going to rip my face off." I was hard pressed not to laugh. How in the hell did a metallic dog get slobber? "Stay still. I'll see if I can warm it up, you goofy dog."

I brought my hands to my face and thought 'heat.’ His tongue slipped from my cheek leaving a trail of quickly freezing drool behind. "Do you know how gross that is?" I admonished him gently. "I'm supposed to be meditating on my powers. What are you doing here?" I looked around for anyone else, but Scooter appeared to be alone.

"You know what would have been awesome? If Zeus had thought to stick a voice box in you. So what's up?"

It would have knocked me flat if he'd sat down and started speaking to me in an English Butler accented voice. He didn't, he just curled up against me and rubbed his nose into my neck.

"You're starting to act like a dog more and more every day. Okay, so you can't answer me but you're here for something. I'll start asking questions and you can yes or no me. Sound good?"

His head dipped in response. I rattled off a handful of inane questions in which he continued to shake his head no at me. "Is Dylan alright?" His head bobbed up and down and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Is he still with Drew?" He shook his head at me.

Dread pitted in my stomach. "Is Drew okay?" Again, his head shook back and forth. "Do you know where he is?" An affirmative was my response. "Will you take me to him?"

He didn't respond, just blinked us off the island of ice.

I was surprised to find myself in my own front yard. Drew was at the border of the property, kneeling in front of Hope. An agonized grimace slashed across his face. She couldn't cross the wards yet – I hoped.

"The house isn't for sale," I called out.

Her attention diverted from Drew to me and his face relaxed a little. "What are you doing here?" she asked coldly.

"I uh, live here? What are
you
doing here?"

"None of your business." She threw a glance at Drew and scowled. "We're
not
done. Don't forget what I told you." She gasped in pain as she reached through the ward and drew her fingertips down Drew's bloodied face before staring me down. "The frontier look is dowdy on you, dear. You should see someone about your fashion sense." She threw a Rift and was gone before I could think of a smart-assed comeback.

"Bitch," I grumbled. Looking down at Scooter, I raised an eyebrow. "Where were you in all of this? I thought we had an agreement that you'd bite her ass the next time you saw her."

His lip curled at me and I could have sworn that he shrugged. "Yeah," I muttered, "You're a huge help here. I'm trading you in for a Basset Hound."

I took a deep breath and trudged over to Drew. "So…that looked like fun." I sat down next to him and spared a cautious glance to make sure he wasn't hurt too badly.

"If, by fun, you mean pretty horrible then yeah, it was a blast."

"It's good to stay friends with your exes. I mean, if nothing else - do it for the sake of the kids."

He choked on a laugh and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I’ve missed you."

"Yeah, I'm like a barrel of monkeys - only sassier."

He laughed, “That you are.”

“So, wanna tell me what happened here? Did she reject your efforts to kiss and make up? She’s really not much for family.”

“Yeah, I guess asking for my letterman jacket back wasn’t the best idea.”

I threw a dubious glare at him. “Seriously. When the dog braves Greenland to bring me to you, something big happened.”

“Greenland?”

“Heph thought it would be a good idea to give me hands on training,” I replied drolly.

"How did that work for you?"

"Not so great. I am pretty sure my spleen is frozen."

"You can’t have a frozen spleen, Grace."

"Yeah. So, now your turn. How did she get the drop on you?" I nudged him with my shoulder.