Theta (6 page)

My skin always crawled at these things,
because so many people were watching me. Most appeared curious,
some leery, and still others troubled, as if they weren’t pleased
to see me there.

One man in particular was staring at me from
across the room. He clutched a flute of champagne too tightly to be
natural, and his suit was baggy and untailored, which didn’t happen
with this crowd. If not for the high level of security at the
event, I would’ve been suspicious. But everyone in attendance
passed through a body scanner that took x-rays to ensure no weapons
were hidden anywhere. Still, I’d been trained by Herakles to pay
attention to my instincts. They were warning me about this strange
man with his glare.

“
Are you prepared for our
demonstration?” Cleon asked, stepping down from the dais to speak
to me.

“
Sure,” I replied,
uninterested.

“
I want to wait until
everyone is present.”

I glanced up at him. On the surface, he wore
a smile, and his eyes held genuine warmth. I never understood how
he could look at me as if we were friends, when I was his prisoner.
Of everyone I’d met since leaving the safety of my forest, Cleon
was the one man I couldn’t figure out. That he loved power of any
kind was clear, but that was all I knew with certainty. His true
agenda was hidden beneath many layers and an unhealthy obsession
with world domination.

Niko appeared at the entrance briefly and
scanned the partygoers before ducking out again.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed when he
left.

The strange man shifted away from the side
of the room and headed towards the dais.

I reached for the knife at my thigh.

A crowd of partygoers came between us, and I
lost track of the man. When the people cleared, he had vanished. I
searched the faces around us then lowered my hand.

“
It’s time.” Cleon ascended
the dais with the confidence of a member of royalty.

I turned to face him, morbidly curious about
what he planned for his demonstration. I needed to gauge just how
much of my power he could tap into, and tonight would answer that
question.

“
First, I would like to
give my heartfelt gratitude to those of you in attendance today.
This is a very special occasion, one I chose to share with my
closest friends and colleagues.”

I rolled my eyes and tuned out, fed up with
his speeches after hearing them several times a week. I didn’t
believe one word he said, but the people around me were smiling.
Cleon could be charismatic when he wanted to be.

“ …
especially, the
Ambassador to Greece, who is rumored to manage the accounts of Her
Majesty, the Silent Queen, who has inexplicably disappeared …”
Cleon was saying.

The man he addressed was tall with thick,
dark hair and eyes. He smiled when Cleon motioned to him, and the
crowd clapped politely. Cleon stepped down from the dais, speaking
of the Ambassador’s many wonderful traits and deeds, none of which
were of interest to me.

Instead, I kept an eye out for the stranger
who tripped the warning bells of my instincts. I thought I glimpsed
him once through the crowd and lifted up on my tiptoes to see
better. Disappointed not to spot him again, and unable to leave my
assigned place without drawing Cleon’s ire, I continued searching
the audience visually. I had once heard Cleon talk about someone
for thirty minutes, non-stop, pouring compliments all over this
person without pausing for breath. If this was another of those
nights, I was going to explode from the wired energy zinging
through me, leftover from my vision and fear.

Turning to peer at the area behind me, I
scoured the audience in the hopes of spotting the man who gave me
the creeps. Twice more I thought I glimpsed him and made an attempt
to discreetly reposition where I stood.

Ignoring Cleon, I didn’t notice he had
stopped talking, but I did see the looks of surprise crossing the
faces of the crowd. What random inanimate object had he decided to
bring to life then crush?

To my surprise, Cleon stood over the
Ambassador, twisting the ribbons only we could see above the man’s
head. The Ambassador’s features were contorting, his face red to
the point of purple, as if the life were being squeezed out of
him.

I reacted fast, or tried to. Cleon could use
my power, but his handle on it appeared clumsy. He kept shifting
and repositioning his hands. I started to shove his hand aside by
manipulating my magic, so I could fix the ribbons he was slowly
tearing.

Someone grabbed my arm from behind. At the
sensation of cold metal of a weapon at the center of my back, I
froze.

“
I lost my entire family
when you smashed my apartment building,” someone
whispered.

Guilt settled into my stomach.

“
I will put this knife
through your spine, if you breathe wrong.”

“
And I will take off your
head, if you try it,” Niko responded.

A stir of alarm went up from those around
us, and people hurried away. I was temporarily caught by the memory
in my head of the night when I’d become a mass murderer. How many
other people hated me enough to track me down and try to kill
me?

Could I blame them?

“
Don’t take all day,
Lyssa,” Niko growled.

Unable to see what was going on behind me, I
gauged the situation. The point of a knife pricked my back, giving
me the man’s placement behind me and the angle at which he was
holding the weapon.

I ducked and whirled, whipping out one leg
to knock the man’s feet from beneath him and tearing the silk of my
dress in the process. He dropped hard, and I straightened, knife in
hand, but didn’t pounce. He had every right to be angry, and to try
to attack me. I only hoped he wouldn’t end up thrown in the dungeon
beneath the House for his actions. He’d suffered enough.

Niko stood, gun in hand, behind where the
man was. He smashed the man’s wrist holding the knife then reached
down to flip the attacker onto his stomach. He cuffed and hauled
the man up.

Troubled by the sneak attack, I waited for
the mercenary leader of the army to say something. He didn’t, and
Niko shoved the attacker towards the two guards behind him.

“
Don’t hurt him,” I said
quickly for Niko’s ears only. “Please.”

The army commander glanced at me without
responding.

More murmuring erupted around me, while
strange silence came from behind me. I turned to stop Cleon from
murdering a man.

Knocking his hand out of the way, I snatched
the ribbons and quickly began to repair them.

Cleon didn’t even look at me before he hit
the pain button.

At once, agony shot through my head,
blinding me and dropping me to my knees. Unable to see or help the
Ambassador further, I gripped my head and waited for it to
pass.

The pain stopped. I remained on my knees,
shaking, weakened by the torture.

“
Ladies and gentlemen. I am
thrilled to have given you two demonstrations tonight!” Cleon
announced.

The crowd was silent.

I lifted my head. He was messing with the
Ambassador’s ribbons again.

I reached out to undo what he was doing. If
anyone died because of my power, even if Cleon committed the
murder, it was my fault.

Feeling me yank the power away from him,
Cleon glanced at Niko. I braced myself, aware of what was
coming.

“
It’s not your day, kid,”
Niko said and then shot me with the tranq gun.

Pain smashed into my shoulder. The effects
of the tranquilizers were instant. My body became heavy and slipped
out of my control. I groaned, slumping. Before I was completely
unconscious, I felt Niko pick me up and walk through the crowd.

“
I’ll make sure that guy is
sent to the north side of the protected zone and not downstairs,”
Niko said quietly.

I was too numb to respond. By the time we
were at the front door of the House, I was sliding into
unconsciousness.

And that’s when the second vision erupted
into my mind.

My hands trembled, and I lowered the
bloodied knife. I stood over the corpse of a man I hadn’t wanted to
kill. Eventually, the logical side of my mind would accept that,
not only did my survival depend upon me killing anyone standing in
the path of my goals – with my own two hands, if necessary – but it
likewise meant I was going to commit other acts I’d regret,
probably forever.

Death is a political
necessity
. I had learned this before my
seventh birthday, when the curse of the Bloodline was revealed to
me. Whether one called it murder, assassination, or collateral
damage was irrelevant. Death was a tool to be wielded discreetly
with the same dispassionate state of mind as trade treaties or any
other resolution needed to settle a diplomatic matter between two
entities in disagreement about an outcome.

My position as a member of the Sacred
Triumvirate was complemented by an indisputably royal title, wealth
built up by my family over the course of ten thousand years, and
the favor of the gods. When I needed someone dead for any reason,
my principal High Priestess, Theodocia, had coordinated it using
whatever elements of my power she needed. Or, she chose to execute
someone herself. Blessed by Artemis and Thanatos – the God of Death
– Theodocia held rare, special favor from two deities. My will was
always done.

My entire life, death had
also been
easy.

A month after leaving the pampered safety of
my former life, I understood death with clarity I did not before.
The first time I took a life, I spent ten days trying to scrub the
feeling of his warm blood off my hands.

The man at my feet was my tenth kill since
then. He was destined to die at my hands this evening, no matter
how difficult it was for me to kill him or what I might one day
feel regarding my actions. Out here, in the chaos of the world
abandoned by the gods, there was no room for guilt or remorse or
hesitation. Beyond the walls of DC, where all of humanity had been
stripped of its dignity and civility, these emotions were a death
sentence. Whoever flinched first, or showed mercy, died.

You should not have been
there the night a god took your body,
I
told the corpse silently.
But you were, and
this is how it must end for everyone in your position. I can
promise you, I will murder those responsible for your suffering,
your lost soul and your death.

I wiped my palms on the cloak I wore and
replaced my weapons. The scent of rotting flesh was in the air, and
my nose wrinkled.

My new protector, a scarred, massive ginger
named Herakles, rounded the corner into the narrow passage between
two buildings. He was sweating, and his weapons were covered with
blood. He hadn’t touched the handgun at his hip; neither of us did,
not when ammunition was scarce and valuable. He killed with his
hands. I used knives.

“
You okay?” Herakles asked,
eyes searching my face.

Some of my revulsion at killing melted.
Herakles always asked about me first, always tended to my wounds
before addressing the matter at hand. His approach to doing
business was the opposite of mine. I preferred to deal decisively
with what was before me and then handle the fallout and
consequences – physical and emotional – after the loose ends were
tied.

On days like this, when some distant part of
me that I refused to acknowledge felt the full impact of murdering
a man, I appreciated Herakles’ more humanitarian approach.

I nodded.

“
Are you hurt?” he
pressed.

I shook my head.

“
I told you that was a
lucky knife,” he said with a faint smile, eyes on the bloodied hilt
of the weapon I’d sheathed.

Lucky was not the word I would use to
describe the weapon I’d used to kill four men this week.

But … in truth, the men I slayed were
already dead.

Herakles knelt beside the dead man. “This
one is maybe three days old.” He flipped open the man’s vest,
searching for weapons. “Did you get his name?”

I wrote the answer in the dirt beside the
body.

Herakles gazed at it then shrugged. “This is
your domain, not mine. His name means nothing to me.”

My protector was very different than me in
this respect, too. He could barely read and hardly knew any of the
deities. If he ever had a formal education, it stopped too early
for him to understand many of the complex religious, scientific,
cultural and mathematical concepts with which I was familiar.

At first, our differences had left me
feeling alone in a crowd. It was not until I began to appreciate
and admire the talents where Herakles was superior to every other
person on the planet – even the gods – that I understood how two
puzzles pieces like us could work together.

I wrote three more words in the dirt.

“
God of Roads. Hmm.” By his
expression, Herakles was not impressed. “Any lead on Zeus or the
others?”

I shook my head.

“
Well, let’s keep going.”
Herakles stood and walked away from the dead man.

It was harder for me. Not because I didn’t
think my choice was the right one – it always was – but because I
didn’t like the idea of leaving behind a person who had been
abandoned first by the gods. I wasn’t like them, and I wouldn’t
behave like them.

When I didn’t move, Herakles sighed and
stopped walking. “All right. We’ll burn him, so no one else can use
the body. Let me grab the others.”