The Wicked Within (23 page)

“You have Zeus’s Aegis, his shield,” Artemis said, disbelieving.

Horus cursed.

“What?” Dora glanced down at her armor. “Did you think this was just a pretty piece to wear into a battle? It is more than that. I found it. I made it better. I gave it
life
. I am a witch of great power, trained by Hecate and Athena alike. I took Zeus’s Aegis and stripped its Titan god skin; it is the skin that gives the shield
its power, and I nurtured it, grew a tiny egg into something new in the womb of the Titan skin and the bayou. A living shield.” She laughed. “My very own shield maiden. A living, breathing Titan.”

The hell?

“Violet. Show yourself, my dear.”

The breath whooshed out of me.

I watched, horrified, as the strange breastplate withdrew from Dora like a shroud, pooling in front of the altar, growing higher and more substantial until it became Violet. Our Violet.

Dear God. Violet was a Titan?

“Now,” Dora said, “I want that child. I want it dead like mine.”

My gaze went to Violet. She’d been raised in the bayou by Dora. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but I knew one thing: I would never let Dora lay a hand on the child in my arms. “Bring me the child,” Dora demanded, her wicked eyes locked with mine.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to suck it. My anger was rising. I swallowed, holding the baby a little tighter, my hand going to the back of its soft head as it looked over my shoulder at whatever was behind me. “You’ve had your revenge, Dora,” I said, my attention flicking between her and Violet, who waited so quietly beside the altar. “It’s over. Athena’s separated from her child forever, just as you are from yours.”

Dora’s expression went shrewd. “Unless you change her back.
And we can’t have that now, can we?” Her hand shot out, power surging straight for me. I covered the baby and spun as Dora’s power hit the statue of Athena square in the chest. It toppled to the sounds of her siblings’ shouts. It happened so fast. Athena crashed to the floor and shattered even as Apollo slid down to catch her. He was too late.

In disbelief, I swung around to Dora. The patient man that my father was, he’d waited for the perfect opportunity to strike. Dora was without her shield. In a flash, he grabbed Dora’s hand that held her knife, spun off the table, and was around her back, holding the knife to her throat before I could blink.

But Dora was just a fraction quicker, tracing to the front of the altar as my father went to slide the blade across her throat.

“Violet, to me,” Dora commanded.

With a solemn look my way, Violet dispersed and her darkness latched onto Dora, clutching her, this time covering her from ankle to neck and coming over her head to protect her skull and face, leaving only her eyes, nostrils, and mouth visible.

Damn it.

We couldn’t hurt Dora without hurting Violet.

High-pitched laugher filtered through the cathedral again, zipping and zinging and gathering behind Dora. More spites and vices.
Great.
My father shoved Kieran behind him.

“Get me that child and the gorgon,” Dora barked.

The horrors flew at me, and it was then that the full force of my predicament hit me. I had a
baby
in my arms. A tiny being to protect. Cradling him against my chest, I bolted down the aisle, leaping over debris, heading for the door, panic spurring me on.
Almost there.

The next thing I knew Henri and Dub were there, running through the vestibule toward me, both angry and itching for a fight. “That stupid witch locked us—”

“Fight the horrors!” I yelled. “Violet is on Dora, don’t hurt her!”

They gave me incredulous, confused looks, but there wasn’t time to explain. A horror landed in front of the exit, blocking my path. I veered right. And I learned very quickly that one way to destroy Dora’s horrors was by fire. Dub came in very handy. He and Henri ran to my father and Kieran, my father using her sword against one of the spites.

Dora appeared in front of me. I slid to a stop.

“Violet,” I said, backing away, trying to get through to her as Athena’s baby sensed my panic and started to cry. “Don’t let her do this.” But Dora had raised Violet. Dora was the only mother she’d ever known. But still, I tried. “Don’t let her take this baby. Please, Violet.”

I was powerless, unable to risk turning Violet to stone along with Dora.

“Goddamn it, Vi!” Dub yelled. “Get the hell off that witch!”

Henri shouted Violet’s name too. So did Sebastian.

Dora snatched my arm in her cold grip. I knew the horrors were keeping the others busy. I was on my own. No sooner did I have that thought than Sebastian wrapped an arm around my waist. He pulled against Dora’s hold. She pulled back.

“Don’t,”
he said to her in that powerful voice, the kind that could stop armies. She hesitated, his power working to slow her, but with Violet’s protection, it had very little effect otherwise.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the lioness slinking down the far side of the nave, her steady gaze on Dora. Hunting. Dora laughed at Sebastian’s attempt to reach for the baby. I pulled free. Sebastian shoved us behind him. There was a reason the Aegis had made Zeus and Athena invincible. It seemed to not only protect, but to diminish another’s power.

Dora sent Sebastian flying. He slammed into one of the columns, shearing it in half. One side of the balcony groaned and dropped a few feet, threatening to collapse.

“Ari, duck!” I shielded the baby and ducked at Menai’s warning.

Two of her arrows zipped mere inches from my head. Dora spun just in time, and they glanced off the back of her head. She hauled me up.

Damn if I was handing over the child. With every cry it made, my protective instincts increased. I wasn’t letting him go.
Her hand snaked around my throat, the other grabbing on to the child.

“Violet,” I pleaded.

“She can’t betray me.”

The lioness leaped onto Dora’s back, her massive paws clutching Dora’s shoulder and her giant mouth latching onto her skull. The force sent us sprawling. My hold over the baby loosened as I stumbled over a pew, grappling to maintain my grip on the child.

Damn it. No!

As I fell, I flailed for the baby. Falcon wings swooped blazing fast over us, claws latched on to the baby as I hit the ground, the breath knocked out of me and pain shooting through my side, the place where Athena had stabbed me only two weeks earlier. I glanced down. A large wooden splinter had pierced my side.

The lioness’s brutal snarls grabbed my attention as Horus transformed from falcon to god, the baby in his arms. Relieved, I focused on Dora. She was on her back but reached for her staff and shoved it against the lioness, sending the beast sailing across the room.

Quickly I searched the ground, knowing I had to move now, before she got up.
There.
One of the arrows Menai had shot. I swiped it and bolted, tackling Dora to the floor just as she started to rise. Before she could react, I shoved the arrow into her eye and drove it deep into her brain.

Her body shook, her legs flailing. But I held the arrow still, her words whispering out of a bloody mouth with a chuckle, “I die . . . and she dies with me.”

Horror slashed through me.

Denial built in my throat.
Oh God.
Hot tears rose, blurring my vision as I shook Dora’s armor-clad shoulders. “Violet!” Sebastian knelt beside me. “Somebody help her!” I cried.

The cathedral had gone silent as Artemis and Apollo dispatched the last of the horrors.

Everyone stared at us like it was a done deal. Dora was dying and Violet with her.

Horus handed the baby to Artemis and slid down beside me, bloodied and breathing hard, to take stock of the situation. A small tool appeared in his hand, and he shoved it up Dora’s nose. My stomach rolled. I grabbed his forearm. “Stop. What are you doing?”

“Making sure she stays dead.”

“No!”

Before I could stop him, he pulled chunks of brain matter out of her nostril and tossed them in the aisle as bile rose to my throat and my gut rolled. To Dub he commanded, “Burn it.”

Pale and obviously shaken, Dub set fire to Anesidora’s brains. “Try coming back from that,” he muttered.

The baby was safe in Artemis’s arms. Everyone was okay.
Except Violet. I’d killed Violet. Dear God, I killed Violet. I bent over Dora’s body, my forehead falling on her shoulder, and cried. “Please come back. Violet, just come back.”

“Come on, Vi, you’re a Titan,” Sebastian joined in. “You’re stronger than Dora. Come back to us.”

“And what about Pascal?” Dub dropped down beside me, placing his hand on the armor covering Dora’s skull. “Who’s going to take care of him?”

“We’ll need help picking out a new house. A bigger, grander mansion with gold fittings and safes filled with jewels,” Henri added, standing over us, his eyes bright with tears. Menai put her hand on his shoulder.

Nothing happened. No matter what we said, nothing happened.

My heart shrank to a hard, painful knot. God, it hurt. My fists clenched, a scream building, pushing against my chest. I sobbed, unable to hold it in. Goddamn it, Violet was gone.
Gone!

Dub was crying. Tears filled Sebastian’s eyes, and I heard Henri sniffling behind me. My father’s hands fell on my shoulders. He spoke to me, but I didn’t hear him—inside was so loud and chaotic, filled with crushing guilt and raging grief.

“You’re gods,” I accused. “Why can’t you do something?”

Horus pointed at me. “Do
not
turn those eyes on us, gorgon,” he warned.

I flinched, my hands going to my face. My eyes burned. They were hot and angry from crying, and maybe from something else. “Then help her,” I begged.

Artemis hiked the baby on her hip. “We cannot remove her. She’s a Titan. A shield. A living one, with a mind of her own, and a will of her own. We have no power over her.”

The black shield covering Dora was warm to the touch. I kept my hands on Dora’s shoulders, wishing with everything I had that Violet would hear us. We stayed, gathered around her, not knowing what else to do.

I had no idea how much time had passed when my father’s voice finally reached me. “Come, Ari.” Spent and numb, I let him help me to my feet. My friends rose with me, looking as lost and sad as I felt.

“We have matters to discuss,” Horus started. “My bargain with you,” he told Sebastian. “The child. Your city.” Then he looked at Artemis, challenging her to oppose him. “Us.”

She kept quiet, but her look said she definitely had something to say about that. Artemis ignored Horus and smiled gently at me. “You wish your curse removed.”

I nodded woodenly, unable to speak, unable to care.

Tears shone through Artemis’s smile. “She was my sister. I know what she knew. I know the words spoken and I can untangle them.”

“Why would you?” Henri asked. “You’ve been in league with Athena all this time.”

The question was hard for the gods to answer. “We loved her,” Apollo finally said with a shrug.

“She was good once, kind,” Artemis tried to explain. “My sister had moments of her old self. But she was wounded inside. Broken. We stood by her because we loved her. Because she needed us. Her son is named in our honor. We are both”—she held up her bow and gestured to Apollo’s—“archers. We couldn’t bring ourselves to be among the many who’d turned their backs and betrayed her.”

In some ways, I guess I understood their decision. In others, not so much. But they were gods. Their viewpoints, decisions, and ideas on humanity, family, love, were bound to not be fully understandable by the rest of us mere mortals. I let out a heavy sigh, my gaze falling on the baby, sorry for his losses. His parents were gone, his grandfather tried to murder him, and the future held portents of blood and war. Poor thing was starting out life with a lot of baggage.

“I want that big Victorian,” a small voice said behind me, “the one with all the towers, the one on the corner of Coliseum and Fourth.”

A zing of hope rocketed through my veins.
God, please don’t let me be imagining . . .
I turned slowly, holding my breath, heart
leaping, to see Violet standing next to Dora’s body. The lioness came over and stood next to Violet, their shoulders even in height. It sniffed her cheek, its nostrils puffing in and out. Violet smiled, dipping her head like it tickled.

My legs went weak. She was okay. We went to her en masse, Henri saying, “It’s yours,
chère
. We’ll fill it with gowns and masks and all things shiny.”

Dub hugged Violet. “And we’ll get a new pool for Pascal.” Sebastian and I exchanged teary smiles over Dub’s head.

Violet stared at us all, a small smile on her face, before her look became thoughtful. “What’s a Titan?”

Before we could react, quick footsteps near the main doors had us all shooting to our feet. Michel, Bran, and Rowen entered with a small contingent of bloodied fighters behind them. They took stock of the situation, confusion and surprise lighting their war-weary eyes at the sight of the church and the gathering of gods. Kieran hurried around us to Bran. Relief filled his weary eyes, and he enveloped her in a huge hug, lifting her off her feet.

“I must call off Athena’s army,” Apollo said, marching down the debris-littered aisle.

“Ari,” Artemis prompted. “Are you ready?”

I turned to her. “Yes. I’m ready.”

“And you, Mistborn?” Horus asked. Sebastian nodded and walked away from the group with the Egyptian god.

Artemis handed the baby to Menai, and then faced me. “Thank you. For the kindness you showed my sister.”

Untangling my curse was a quiet affair, full of words and power that hung and built and danced in the air, swirling through the church and around me, finally through me—pulling and tugging at my core, my veins, my cells, at everything I was. It was uncomfortable. Not painful, though it might have been. Yet the untangling was significant enough to send me to my knees. I didn’t know if Artemis was making it less painful or not, but if she did, I was grateful.

The curse came out of me slowly and grudgingly, words separating themselves from my being, swirling, old and ancient, and finally untangling themselves and dispersing, leaving me empty for a blink before a great energy rushed in, filling every corner of me with heat. My chest expanded; it felt like my heart would explode. Electricity zipped beneath my skin, traveling to the tips of my fingers and toes.