Caged Lightning Read online

  Zeus’s balls! I lurched upright, heart pounding. The short woman with the ponytail took down her taller opponent at last, crouching over her with her knee in the other’s back, then stepped back as her opponent conceded with a laugh.

  Ophelia shot me a concerned glance. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Not a ghost. A goddamned lightning bolt, hidden right there in plain sight.

  It was so brazen—surely it couldn’t be? But why else would Zeus have nudged me to look up? It had to be. Artemis had some balls to just bung it on a wall where anyone could see it like that. Yet here it was, safe.

  The two sparring partners bowed to each other and then to Ophelia. I barely noticed as they collected towels and headed out the door, too intent on that jagged exclamation mark. I couldn’t feel the zing of its power. But then, I hadn’t felt the power of the one Poseidon had, either, until he’d withdrawn it from the wall of ice. Maybe I needed to be closer. It was a big room.

  I strode across the floor toward the sign.

  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Ophelia protested, assuming I was following the other two out the door. “It’s our turn now.”

  “Have you got a ladder?” I asked. “A big one—tall enough to reach the sign?”

  If this was truly what I thought, our troubles were over. Poseidon would stop huddling over his like a mother hen, and we could take them both to Hestia, to be reunited with the one she had. If her theory was correct, together, they would have enough power to coax Zeus out of the wires and back into the land of the living.

  A tingle of power swept over my skin as I passed the midpoint of the room, and I clenched my fists in triumph. Yes! I had found the missing lightning bolt. We could get Zeus back and, together, we would wipe out the damned shadow shapers. I could hardly contain my excitement.

  “Are you drunk? Why do you want to climb up there? If you can’t see it well enough from here, I reckon you need your eyes checked.” Ophelia sniffed beside my face, making a show of checking for the smell of alcohol.

  In response, I threw my arms around her and laughed. “Just get me the ladder, okay? Pretty please? I promise it will be worth it.”

  She gave me the side-eye, but trudged out of the room, and soon returned with an extendable ladder over one strapping shoulder. She set it against the wall and held it while I shimmied up, still beaming with delight. Man, if every day at the gym was this good, I’d get up at sparrow fart every day with no complaints. This close, the lightning bolt was practically singing to me.

  I touched it and a surge of power blew me backwards off the ladder. My body slammed into the floor and the world went dark.

  14

  A full moon hung in the sky, huge and silver, its light painting the forest around me with magic. Werewolves howled, raising their snouts to the brilliant orb, then hunkered down on their bellies in obeisance as I walked among them. My steps were sure in the dark, as sure as theirs, my connection to the creatures of the night allowing me to see as well as they—even to see through their eyes, riding inside their heads, if I so chose. I was queen of the night, mistress of the hunt, and all animals bowed to my power, but werewolves most of all.

  They were my creations, my beloved children, my endless delight. Together, we flowed through the forest, their golden eyes on me, watching for my commands. My hands brushed their heads as I passed, their fur the only soft thing about them. They were claw and fang; they were mighty hearts and legs that could run forever; they were raw cunning and merciless death.

  They were the perfect hunting companions.

  Another place, another time: Apollo sat across from me in a tiny rustic tavern. Through the open door, a vista of wide, blue sky and a town full of white buildings cascading down a steep hill to the glorious azure ocean. It was hot, and the light was bright and unforgiving outside, but here in the blessed shade of the tavern, we hunched over our drinks while my brother poured out a tale of woe. I stared into the depths of my wine, my blood boiling with the need for revenge …

  I stared into my wine in another pub, a modern building in a big city. Outside, the roar of traffic, of horns and sirens, clamoured—but inside, slow jazz was playing, and Brianna and Claire were attempting to outdrink each other while Ophelia roared encouragement, pounding her big fists on the table.

  “Artemis! Join us! Tonight, we celebrate.”

  I looked up, grinning at the enthusiasm in her dark eyes. “What are we celebrating again?”

  “Brianna finally dumped that loser she was going out with,” Claire announced, while Brianna looked up at the sound of her name, her eyes bleary but full of a new purpose that had been missing a while. My heart filled with a fierce love for my friends.

  Friends. Lovers. A cheap hotel room, the walls paper thin, so thin I could feel the vibration as big trucks rumbled by on the highway outside. The room smelled of stale cigarettes, and the sheets were rough against my naked skin, but none of it mattered. Only his tanned arms wrapped around me, his lips roaming my sweaty skin. He smiled down at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that way I loved, and I wanted this moment to go on forever.

  “Forever is a long time,” Persephone said, eyes downcast.

  I sat with my friend beneath a flowering magnolia in a beautiful garden, each rich, rosy bloom the size of my two hands cupped together. The fake sun of the underworld shone down on Persephone’s bright head, caressing the curves of her lovely face and pooling in her hands which tore restlessly at a flower. Petals rained down into her lap as she systematically shredded the bloom, her fingers the only things moving in all this unnatural beauty.

  The underworld always put me slightly on edge. The palace and its surrounds were adorned with trees and bushes and flowerbeds bursting with blooms, so artfully arranged that they almost perfectly mimicked the real thing—but only almost. They weren’t real. They weren’t alive. No bees buzzed from flower to flower, no breeze disturbed the branches above our heads, or set the grasses to rustling. When I reached out with my power, not a single animal mind greeted me: no mice, beetles, dragonflies, crickets; no lizards, snakes, birds; none of the larger animals, like foxes, rabbits, moles, cats—nothing. Only when the hellhound Cerberus was in residence could I feel anything even approximating an animal mind in Persephone’s home.

  It was the land of the dead, and it truly was dead.

  Persephone was never meant for a place like this. If sunshine could solidify and become a person, that person would be Persephone. She was meant for grassy meadows beneath the arch of the sky, for running barefoot with flowers in her hair. Today, even her dress was sombre, a blue so dark it was almost black, buttoned right up to her neck.

  “Will you leave him?” I asked.

  She glanced at me uncertainly, a brief dart of summer-blue eyes, then back to shredding the flower. “I know you care deeply for him.”

  “I know you do, too.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I do. But forever is too long to be with the same person. And it’s way too long to spend half your life in a place like this.”

  I’d envied her once, when she and Hades had first fallen in love. She had found love with a fellow god. They could be together forever and not have to bear the pain of losing the people they loved, as the rest of us who gave our hearts to mere mortals did. They’d been together for centuries, the one great constant I could point to and say, See? It’s possible for gods to truly love.

  “He’ll be heartbroken.”

  She lifted her chin. “Yes. And so will I. But we’ll both be happier, in the end.”

  In the end, my one true love is the moon. Anticipating moonrise is like the nervous excitement before a big date, or the moment just before you kiss someone for the very first time, full of spark and promise. And then the moon rises, and my power explodes, shooting through my body like champagne fizzing through my veins. It doesn’t matter where I am—whether I can see the moon or not, inside a building or out under the stars—I feel that
same thrill as she clears the horizon. Only in the underworld do I lose that connection with the ultimate source of my power.

  “Power is everything,” Zeus said, his bushy eyebrows drawing together in a fearsome frown. “It’s the only game worth playing.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to play anymore.”

  “You can’t spend your whole life cavorting in the forest with your werewolf toys.”

  “Better than spending it running around, seducing every woman I see.”

  There was more shouting after that, but I was used to my father shouting at me. It happened nearly every time I saw him. The only one of his children Zeus was ever happy with was Athena, who could do no wrong in his eyes.

  Athena shouted sometimes, too. Mostly when I “borrowed” her owl. I don’t know, but if I’d been the goddess of wisdom, I might have made a smarter choice of avatar than something another goddess had full control over, even if that other goddess was my sister.

  Sisters. Friends. A thousand faces rushed past my inner eye: women I’d known and loved over the centuries, some even dearer to me than my own sister. Men, too. Friends, lovers, even enemies. I lay there, peripherally aware that my body was stretched out on the padded rubber matting of the training hall, stunned by the flow of images. Of memories.

  They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die—was this it? But it went on so long, image after image, a parade of people and places stretching right back through time, encompassing the rise and fall of cities, of whole civilisations, even.

  Through it all, I remained.

  I, Artemis, as constant as the moon.

  At last, it stopped, and I opened my eyes. Ophelia, my drinking buddy and companion of many hunts, had just let go of the ladder, her mouth open in a shout. She hadn’t had time to do more; the whole thing had taken less than a second. My whole life, my self, returned to me in the blink of an eye.

  I sat up and held out my hand. She grasped it in hers and hauled me to my feet.

  “Don’t panic, O.” I grinned as her mouth fell open at the familiar nickname. “I’m back.”

  15

  Ophelia came with me back to the cottage, too excited to let me out of her sight now that I was back for real, though I still wore Lexi’s face. I’d grown used to it over these last months. It felt comfortable. And the gods knew I’d worn plenty of different faces in my long life.

  As we walked the short distance through the trees, my mind brushed against those of the animals hidden in the greenery—such a familiar feeling, and yet so different now that I had my memories back. Richer, somehow. I was aware of them in a way I’d never been before. I felt more alive, more awake. The memories of a thousand hunts filled my mind.

  At least now I knew that I did play fair—I’d never used this connection to hunt them. For hunting, I relied on my physical skills alone. I was aware as never before of the connections between all living things, and why hunting was sometimes necessary. There was a balance to life that must be preserved. As the apex predator in the system, the goddess of the hunt, that was my role.

  I was grateful that Ophelia didn’t speak. I was still coming to terms with the door that had opened in my mind, and all the information that had been hidden on its other side. It was a lot to take in, and I moved in something of a daze, Ophelia at my side, just as we had done so many times before. She had made sure to pick the opposite side from the lightning bolt I carried, though.

  She’d tried to talk me out of climbing that ladder again, after what had happened the first time, but there was no way I was leaving it on that wall now that I’d found it.

  “I’ll be fine,” I had said. “That little zap was just what I needed to clear the cobwebs away. I’ll be ready for it this time.”

  But there’d been no need; the lightning bolt was as quiet as a sleeping baby, as if Zeus had known that I needed something—a sudden jolt of power—to shake my recalcitrant memories free, and now the bolt’s work was done. It only took a moment to detach it from its place on the wall. I carried it down the ladder cradled against my heart as if it were the most precious thing in the world—and, right then, it probably was. I held in my hands the key to the ultimate defeat of the shadow shapers.

  It had lost its poisonous green colour now it had been separated from the sign, and glowed with a soft white radiance. Like moonlight. It hummed quietly against my skin, a pleasant tingle of power. It was about the same size as the one Poseidon had, so I figured it was the other side piece of Zeus’s three-pronged lightning bolt.

  We followed the sound of Lucas’s voice down the short hallway to the kitchen. For once, he wasn’t cooking, but lounging at the table, his chin propped on one fist. He sat up straighter as we entered and nodded stiffly to Ophelia. She nodded back, and I grinned at their careful werewolf acknowledgements.

  “How’s your morning been?” I asked, laying the lightning bolt down on the table.

  Lucas’s eyes widened as he stared at it.

  Syl had her back to me. She was standing in front of the open fridge, inspecting its contents. “It would be better if we had anything decent to drink here.”

  “It’s a bit early in the day for beer, isn’t it?” I asked, wrapping my arms around her from behind and giving her an almighty squeeze.

  “I meant milk, doofus,” she said, squirming. “Get off! What are you doing?” Like most cats, Syl only accepted displays of affection under her own terms.

  “Giving you a hug. Doofus.”

  “What for?”

  “Nothing. I just love you.” I was lying. It wasn’t nothing—it was sheer relief at finding that I still cared for her just as much now as I had before I got my memories back. I hadn’t suddenly turned into a cold, hard goddess. I was still essentially me. A hardier, superpowered version of me, but me all the same.

  She succeeded in wriggling out of my arms, and her eyes widened as she caught sight of what was lying on the table. “What the—? That’s not …”

  “It most certainly is.” I knew I was nodding and grinning like a lunatic, but I couldn’t stop. It was pretty funny when you thought about it: all this time, we’d been searching for the damn third piece of Zeus’s lightning bolt, and it turned out it had been right here the whole time. No need to scour the world or take on any giant bloody metal warriors after all. All that effort wasted.

  My sudden urge to giggle died once I followed that line of thought to its logical end. No need for Athena to die, if only I’d realised what it was the first time I’d seen the stupid girl power sign with its zigzag of an exclamation mark. I’d been staring right at it while we chatted in Ophelia’s office. Right at it, only I never truly saw it. And I might have gone on not seeing it forever, while the shadow shapers picked us off one by one, if Zeus hadn’t managed to find a way to get me a message. Again. Zeus had had to give me so much help, he must have despaired of my mental capacity.

  But I had been operating under a handicap, robbed of all my memories. That surely had to be a good excuse. And now I was back.

  The shadow shapers were in for a reckoning like they’d never imagined.

  Syl put her hands on her hips. “Where in the name of all that’s holy did you get that? I thought you said you were going to the gym to work out with Ophelia? Where the hell have you been?”

  I grinned. “To the gym to work out with Ophelia. Only I got distracted when I got there.” Quickly, I explained the events of the morning.

  She shook her head. “That’s one hell of a cheeky hiding place. That was a pretty ballsy move.”

  My grin widened. “That’s exactly what I thought when I realised what it was.”

  We shared a smile, perfectly in tune. It was weird, but in a wonderful way, to have Syl and Ophelia together now. My friends. I had a history with Ophelia as long as my arm, and I remembered every last bar fight, every hunt, every night spent chatting with her and the crew until the wee hours. I’d known Syl for a much shorter time, but we’d been through so much togethe
r that she was every bit as dear to me as my old hunting companion.

  Even Lucas felt more like an old friend than a guy I’d only met a couple of weeks ago. He cleared his throat, giving the lightning bolt a look as if he expected it to leap off the table and grab him around the throat. “So, what now?”

  I pulled out my phone. “Now I call Winston.”

  Thank goodness I could use him to contact Apollo now. It was the most reliable system I’d ever had for locating my brother. On one memorable occasion, I’d spent seven months looking for him before I’d finally run him to earth in a tiny settlement on the edge of the desert.

  When Winston answered, I told him to send Apollo to me immediately. I didn’t tell him why—I might not share my brother’s complete paranoia about phones, but I wasn’t about to trust such crucial information to an open line. He must have known something was up by the tone of my voice. At any rate, it was only twenty minutes or so until I felt Apollo’s divine presence approaching the door to our little cottage.

  He flung the front door open and hurried inside. “What’s wrong, Arti? Is everyone all right?”

  Syl grinned at me in a meaningful way. For a moment, I blanked, then recalled how we’d teased him about coming in without knocking, as if he owned a place. It used to drive me mad when I’d thought myself fully human. Yet now I hadn’t even noticed, because it seemed such a natural thing to do. I’d done it all the time, myself. All the gods did. Who would deny us entrance?

  Admittedly, Ophelia had had a few words to say on the subject, and I’d stopped doing it to her. Even gods could be taught.

  “Better than all right,” I said, trying to put thoughts of humans and gods behind me. So maybe I had changed a little—that was only to be expected. It would be more of a surprise if I hadn’t. Syl would keep me grounded, just as Ophelia had. Now that I had them both, I’d be the most downtrodden god in existence. That thought was oddly cheering. “I’ve got something you might like to see.”