Triumph of Chaos (Red Magic) (21 page)

Frustrated, I shook my head. I didn’t understand anything from the first dream, and dwelling on it was making me feel like I had a fever. I shifted my memory to the second dream. That seemed more straightforward. Somehow, I’d found my dad, wherever he was. He’d said something about Purgatory, and the word sounded vaguely religious, but it wasn’t something I was familiar with. The creepy part of that dream was the fact that he’d assumed I was dead too.

I held my knees, rocking back and forth gently. Would that be my fate one day? To die and find nothing but darkness? I hated the fact that my parents were dead, but at least I’d seen Mom. She seemed happy enough hanging out in Hades’s realm. But my father was just a disembodied voice. He’d sounded different, too, I realized. As if he had no emotions anymore.

I shuddered. Whatever had happened to him, I still had the power to bring him back. I could reverse the last two awful years, and everything would be okay again. As the sun rose over Athens, I tried to convince myself that I was doing the right thing. Pushing the memories of my nightmares aside, I splashed water on my face from the basin in the corner of the room.

I left the key on the desk downstairs and headed out into the street in search of Hecate. She shouldn’t be too hard to find; I was in Greece, after all. People had worshiped her there alongside the Olympians for centuries.

Even though the sun was barely up, people were already on the street, going about their mornings. They climbed over the rubble from the earthquake, walking along ruined streets as if nothing had ever happened. I envied them their ability to keep going when the world around them was falling apart.

A swarthy man with curly hair was standing on a corner, smoking a cigarette. He took one look at me as I approached and nodded. “Maps? Tourist? Good price!”

I fished a few coins out of my pocket, silently cursing the innkeeper who had cleaned out my cash. At first, the man shook his head, but he must have read desperation in my face because he finally handed me a battered map.

“No charge.”

I tried to smile at him, but it felt more like a snarl. He took a step back, waving his hands at me.

“Go on, go on. No charge.”

I veered around him and walked another block before taking a seat in front of a trattoria. The windows were dark, but I had no doubt that someone would come along and chase me off soon. My stomach grumbled in protest, but I unfolded the map and tried to ignore the hunger that was gnawing at me.

I was glad I hadn’t paid for the map. It looked like it had been left out in the rain and then crumpled up carelessly. Words smudged together, but after staring at it for a few minutes, I was able to orient myself. According to the map, there was a museum up on the Acropolis. Dr. Farren had once told me that you could contact just about any god in a large enough museum, so I figured that would be as good a place as any to begin my search for Hecate.

And then
, I thought grimly,
all this will end
.

The doors to the museum were just opening as I approached, and I hurried to join the long line that already snaked around the front of the building. Despite last night’s earthquake, there were plenty of tourists waiting to see the collection. I folded my rumpled map and listened to the hum of conversation around me.

If I closed my eyes, all the languages and accents sounded like the hostel I’d stayed at in Scotland, and I fought back a shiver. Marcus wasn’t the only one I’d killed on that trip, and when I heard something that might have been an Australian accent behind me, I suddenly remembered the faces of those two girls. They’d been from New Zealand, not Australia, but their voices had sounded sort of the same to me. They died in a cave-in underneath Edinburgh: we’d been exploring the vaults because the girls were looking for ghosts, and I’d released a burst of Red energy that had left them dead and the vaults destroyed.

Someone jabbed my shoulder. “The line’s moving.”

I barely looked at the woman standing behind me, but I mumbled an apology and shuffled forward. I’d caused so much chaos. I only hoped I would find Hecate soon and undo all the damage of the past two years.
Everybody’s lives will be so much better, not just mine,
I told myself firmly.

Finally, the line filed into the museum, and I paid the admission fee with my credit card. It wasn’t really expensive enough to do that, but since I was out of cash, I was out of options. The man behind the ticket counter handed me a map and an audio guide, and I set off toward the first exhibit hall.

White marble lined the room, and I felt the distinct tingle of magic. I glanced around nervously, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to me. As I walked along, staring into the carved faces of the Greek gods, I realized that the magic I was feeling came from the sculptures themselves.

I’d never really given much thought to the ancient peoples who worshiped the gods I knew, but now I wondered about them. What must it have been like for Nons and Witches alike to see the presence of magic in their lives because of the gods? I remembered the farmers who came to Demeter each fall to have their harvest blessed: they were Nons, but they were still aware of the magical world.

That thought brought me up short. Everything I’d ever learned in school said that Nons and Witches had to live separately. It had been drummed into our heads as much as the Rede, the cardinal rule of Witchcraft that demanded we do no harm.
But magic can harm
, I thought,
and some Nons can still experience it. Look at Ben and Brad.

If Izzy hadn’t seen magical potential in the twins, we never would have talked to them. I wondered for a moment if they were still working with Izzy to learn magic, or if they’d given that up when I abandoned them. I really had abandoned everyone: I didn’t even leave a note about my plans, and clearly Izzy was worried. Her patron wouldn’t have popped over to Greece just to chat. I pushed back a wave of guilt.
It’s better this way.

I paused and looked up at a statue of Aphrodite. The sculptor had captured her hard eyes, a dramatic contrast to her sensuous mouth.
Because of me, this goddess is now working toward the end of the world.
I shivered, remembering her threat back in North Carolina.
That’s another thing I’d fix if I gave up Red magic.

Feeling more depressed than I had since my nightmares, I continued into the next gallery. At the end of the room stood a massive sculpture of a woman with a veil. At first, I wondered if it might be Hera, but the closer I got, the easier it was to recognize the face that loomed above me.

I’d found Hecate at last.

The sculptor had envisioned a very different goddess than the one I knew, but the figure was unmistakably the Queen of Witches. A dog crouched at her feet, and the goddess herself seemed to have three heads. The center head looked straight at me, and the artist had made her expression almost kind and thoughtful. The other two heads, joined on either side of the center head, looked left and right. Their expressions were calm, as if the goddess was shielding her thoughts from all viewers.

“Here I am,” I whispered, looking up into the familiar faces. “I’m ready to give up.”

Nothing happened, and as the minutes ticked by, I began to feel self-conscious. No one else was lingering in front of the sculpture, and I felt the prickle on the back of my neck that told me someone was watching me. Slowly, I turned around and scanned the room.

My eyes landed on a tall man, standing near the door, and I took an involuntary step back in surprise. His hawk-like nose and willowy frame were impossible to mistake, even though I hadn’t seen him since I’d been in Scotland. It was Izzy’s uncle, Samuel. He made eye contact with me and smiled a thin, threatening smile. Then he whirled and left the room.

Forgetting about Hecate, I hurried after him, anger boiling through my veins. It was because of him that Izzy had lost her grandparents, and that Dr. Farren and Lorna had lost their entire Coven.
This Witch has a lot to answer for
. I clenched my fists, willing myself to contain my rage until I reached him.

Before I got to the door, however, the floor of the museum shuddered. The people around me murmured nervously, and then the floor shook in earnest. Everyone rushed for the door, and I found myself caught up in the crowd. As we surged toward the exit, I lost sight of Samuel.

The floor shook again, and this time somebody screamed. A sound like a million motorcycles filled my ears, and I struggled to stay upright against the panicked flood of tourists trying to get out of the museum. I’d heard of people being trampled to death, and I didn’t want to become another cautionary tale. Using my elbows, I braced myself against the people around me, letting them push me along with them. We were almost out of the museum when the earth shifted violently.

Statues toppled, ancient marble crashing to the floor like cheap pottery. A harried-looking museum guard was trying to control the panicked flow of people, but he wasn’t having much luck. I heard the word “aftershock” ripple through the crowd, and somebody screamed again.

Samuel appeared ahead of me, facing me instead of moving with the stream of people. This time when our eyes met, he smiled a broad smile, showing his teeth. He lifted one hand in a triumphant gesture, and I lost it.

Pushing my arms forward, I threw all the magic I could grab at Samuel. The force of it knocked me over, and I suddenly found myself dodging feet and knees. A wave of energy rippled through the crowd, and I felt a large space open up around me. When I struggled to my feet, Samuel was nowhere to be seen. Despite the ongoing quake, the crowd was standing still, staring at me. At least, the people who were left were staring at me.

The front of the museum was gone, ripped away like a bomb had gone off. I could see more people milling around outside, but between me and them was a terrible sight: bodies littered the floor under a thin coating of dust.

Shocked, I stood frozen for a minute. That was long enough for the people around me to begin pointing at me and screaming.

“She’s a terrorist!”

“She used a flame thrower, I saw it!”

“Hold her! Don’t let her get away.”

Hands surged forward, and I did the only thing I could think of.

I ran across the corpses, dodging the people who tried to stop me. I tried not to look down, but I saw hands and bodies flash beneath my feet before I finally made it to the cracked sidewalk outside the museum.

The people outside hadn’t caught the same fervor as the people inside, so nobody stopped me as I raced down the hill. I ran to the center of the city, dodging cars and pedestrians as I went. My lungs were screaming, but I didn’t care. I turned corners and veered around signs, trying to lose myself in the maze of buildings that surrounded the Acropolis. When it felt like my chest was going to explode, I finally stumbled to a stop on a quiet street.

I held my breath, listening for the sound of pursuit, but all I heard was a dog barking faintly somewhere. Clutching my side, I started to walk, and I noticed a sharp pain in my left foot. Lifting up my sandal, I saw a jagged piece of glass sticking out of the thin sole. When I yanked it out, it was longer than my finger. Gods, how deep had it gone into my foot? I didn’t stop to find out. Somewhere in the chaos, I realized that I’d lost my purse, but I didn’t turn around to look for it.

Woozy, I kept walking, trying to step lightly on my left foot. I knew I should stop and clean the wound, but I didn’t want to stop yet. Stopping meant facing the destruction that I had caused and remembering all the bodies I had run over, so I kept going.

Dizzy and disoriented, I passed a building with an American flag flying out front. I thought I was hallucinating, but when I turned around, the stars and stripes were still there. My brain processed the gilt sign, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Thinking fast, I limped into the American embassy and prepared to lie my way to safety.