Hidden Goddess (Shadows of the Immortals Book 4) Read online

  “You’ll have to do something about your dog or you won’t have any landscaping left,” I said. I was still shaking with rage and emotion. It was time for a change of subject, before I said something I might regret.

  Cerberus eventually succeeded in ripping the tree from the ground. He trotted across the lawn toward us with it held in all three mouths, a jaunty swagger to his step.

  Hades leaned forward and put his hand on my arm. “If it’s any consolation, I’m missing some rather important memories myself. I can’t remember anything between talking to Harry about shifts at work and waking up in that cell. I’m sorry about your lost memories, sorrier than I can say. But sometimes, when the reward is great, terrible risks are necessary. At the time, you thought it was worth it—you would have paid any price to save your brother.” He smiled. “You always were more adventurous than the rest of us.”

  I turned to look at him. The fact that he’d lost a couple of days hardly compared to what I’d lost. “Was I?” I certainly didn’t feel adventurous now, though Syl might have argued that my taste for risking myself in pursuit of other people’s belongings indicated a certain recklessness. “Have I changed?”

  He regarded me, head tilted to one side. “In fundamentals, no, I don’t think so. Artemis is strong, loyal and resourceful, and I think Lexi is, too, even if she hasn’t quite as much confidence in her own abilities.” He laughed. “But goddesses rarely suffer from self-doubt.”

  “Where was my home? Who were my friends?” An awful thought occurred to me. “Did I have a partner?” That could get horribly awkward, because Lexi loved Jake, and there was no room in her heart for anyone else. I couldn’t even imagine the kind of person a goddess would love.

  “A lover, you mean?” He shrugged. “You’d have to ask Apollo; he’d know. You and he were very tight.”

  I pulled a face. “Bloody hell. My personality must have changed a lot.”

  Cerberus arrived on the other side of the balustrade that separated the terrace from the grass and dumped his tree trunk, giving me an expectant look. *THROW STICK.*

  I stared into his glowing red eyes. “Really, buddy? A few hours ago, you were ripping people’s throats out, and now you want to play fetch? You are one strange dog.”

  He sat down and thumped his tail against the grass. His head was still level with mine where I sat on the terrace above him. *THROW STICK. NOW.*

  “He likes life’s simple pleasures,” Hades said, smiling fondly at the hellhound. “Why don’t you give it a try? You might surprise yourself.”

  Considering Cerberus’s recent activities, I wasn’t sure if Hades was calling playing fetch or ripping people’s throats out a “simple pleasure”, which was a little disturbing. Sometimes, lately, I felt like the only sane one around, which was saying something, coming from an amnesiac goddess.

  I got up and hurdled lightly over the balustrade. Might as well work off some of my frustrations. Cerberus stood, tail wagging enthusiastically, and watched me bend to pick up the tree. I heaved at it so mightily it almost flew straight over my shoulder. My mouth fell open as I stared at Hades, holding the damn tree above my head in one hand as if it really were a mere stick.

  “Well, that answers the question of your strength,” he said, smiling.

  I smiled back, suddenly excited. If my strength was back, did that mean my memories would soon return, too? I turned and hurled the tree almost back to the tree line. Cerberus took off at great speed to retrieve it. I leaned against the balustrade and watched him run, feeling more hopeful.

  In no time at all, he was back, red eyes alight with joy, to drop the “stick” at my feet once more. I threw it again.

  “He can keep that up all day, you know,” Hades said.

  I turned to answer him.

  Jake stood in the open doorway, a look of shock on his face.

  “How did you do that?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  Oh, shit. I stared at his ashen face, at a loss for words. This was no way to find out he’d been sleeping with a goddess. I should have told him. My heart began to beat a little faster as I searched for the right way to explain keeping something like this to myself. Why didn’t I tell him? The moment lengthened unbearably.

  “It’s because she’s got her divine powers back,” Hades said conversationally, stepping in to fill the silence.

  I made a horrified shushing motion at him, but it was too late.

  Hades looked from one to the other of us. “I’m sorry,” he said, showing a rare uncertainty. “I thought you must have told him.”

  “Told me what?” Jake asked, unnaturally still, as if he was holding himself to the spot by sheer force of will. “What divine powers?”

  I did try. I opened my mouth, but I just couldn’t force the words out. Couldn’t say I’m Artemis. My heart pounded against my ribs. The look on Jake’s face was frightening, the colour washed out, the spark gone from his beautiful blue eyes. I was still me; this didn’t change anything between us.

  Hades waited for me to answer, but when it became obvious that I couldn’t, he said gently, “She’s Artemis.”

  Jake’s eyes widened fractionally, but then the shutters came down over his face, hiding his feelings behind a mask. Only the clenching of his fists betrayed any emotion.

  “Sit down and have some breakfast,” Hades said, trying to steer the situation back onto a normal footing.

  Jake cast a startled glance at the table, as if only just realising there was food laid out. “No, thank you. I’ll say goodbye now. I have to get back to Crosston.”

  Suddenly energised, I hurdled the balcony back onto the terrace, and he flinched at this display of newfound athleticism. “You’re leaving already?”

  He looked at me, hurt and fury seeping through the cracks in his new armour. “I think that’s best, don’t you?”

  “No!” I started forward, but he stepped smoothly away, leaving my outstretched hand hanging in mid-air. “No, I don’t think that’s best. Why would I?”

  “Because you’re a goddess and I’m a mortal,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “So? That makes no difference.”

  “It does to me. It changes everything. I can’t believe you tried to keep it from me.” He bowed awkwardly to Hades, then turned on his heel and went back inside.

  Hades caught my hand when I would have followed him. “Leave it. Give him some time to get used to the idea.”

  I nodded, but inside I was numb with fear. What if he never did?

  22

  A few moments later, I was in the elevator with Hades. Jake had just used it; we had to wait for it to drop back down to the underworld. There was no sign yet of Syl and Lucas. Either they were sleeping late or they were enjoying their time together, just as Jake and I had done a few short hours before. I envied them their uncomplicated relationship. Sure, it might not last forever, but no one was going to tell them that they were too different, that cats and dogs couldn’t lie down together. Neither of them would suddenly get cold feet because the other turned out to be different somehow than they’d thought.

  My thoughts were bleak as the elevator rose silently. What other bombshells were in store for me? Being Artemis had already screwed up my love life. What about the rest of it? I must have had an established life somewhere that I’d left behind to become Lexi. Where? What did I like? Who did I spend my time with? It was galling not to know. I would have to talk to Apollo about it—and that was galling, too, to be so dependent on someone I barely even liked to find out about myself.

  Although, if Hades was to be believed, Artemis had liked Apollo so much she was prepared to give up her divinity for him, at least temporarily. Maybe I’d judged him too quickly. We hadn’t exactly met under ideal circumstances. That annoyed me, too. I hated it when other people made snap judgements. It was uncomfortable to feel that I’d done it myself.

  I sneaked a quick look at Hades. He was standing facing the doors, apparently lost in thought. I was still
dirty with him—so much so that I wondered how our relationship could ever be the same.

  He felt my gaze on him and looked at me. “I’m sorry I told Jake, but I assumed you had already done so.”

  “I meant to,” I said, “but I hadn’t found the right time.”

  Was that really true? I knew how devout Jake was in his worship of the gods, particularly Apollo, the patron of fireshapers. Maybe I’d been subconsciously aware that revealing I was the sister of his god was going to be a problem. Not that I would admit that to Hades.

  “Better to have it out in the open,” Hades said. “He had to know eventually.”

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t ready to admit that Hades might be right about anything. “Or maybe not. I liked being Lexi. I could have stayed Lexi forever, and no one would have had to know any different.”

  He gave me a sharp look as the elevator doors opened on the red room with the shiny black coffin in the centre. “He would have guessed eventually if you had stayed together. Loving a mortal is hard; they live such short lives, and the pain of moving on through the years without them is great. It’s why most of us choose to be alone, or rub along somehow with each other. Only another immortal can truly understand us.” We stepped out of the lift and he led the way across the room to the stairs up to the pub. “I spent many happy years with your friend Persephone, and we still get on even though we’re no longer married.”

  Persephone was my friend? I shook my head at the surreal circus my life had become and followed him up the stairs. He paused at the top, with his hand on the door handle, and turned to me. With a shock, I realised that he now wore the face of Alberto, longer and narrower than the face of the older man I associated with “Hades”. His grey hair was gone, replaced by the dark, swept-back style of the vampire.

  “I envy you in a way,” he said. “You have lost so much, yes, but what freedom you have gained. You’re free to start again, learn it all again, live it all again for the first time. You have, in effect, been reborn. Such an opportunity is given to few people, and is a great gift for us jaded immortals. Make the most of it.”

  With that, he opened the door and we stepped through into the pub. Not all the lights were on, making the vast room shadowy. The pub didn’t open until midday, since Alberto had always said no one had any business drinking before then, so it must be earlier. Someone was whistling in the kitchen and making a lot of banging sounds with plates, so I gathered it must be nearly opening time. Alberto headed towards the kitchen.

  And just like that, seeing him back in his familiar surroundings, I was thinking of him as Alberto again. He made such a convincing vampire—must be all the practice he’d had over the years. A shriek of delight came from the kitchen. That sounded like Lisa. Guess she was pretty pleased to see her boss back.

  I turned toward the double doors of the pub. There was nothing for me in here. I had things to do, people to see. Plans to make. If I was fast enough, maybe I could even catch a certain stubborn fireshaper before he left town. My footsteps quickened at the thought.

  As I opened the inner door, I heard a squeal of brakes, followed by a metallic crunch. Ouch. That sounded expensive. Out of habit, I made sure the inner door was properly closed before opening the outer one.

  Sunshine dazzled me. Had I thought the false sun of the underworld was bright? It had nothing on the real thing. I shaded my eyes and took in the scene before me.

  A shiny black four-wheel drive had mounted the kerb in front of the pub and slammed into the bus shelter there. Fortunately, it appeared no one had been waiting for the bus. The bus shelter was warped, its Perspex side wall shattered into pieces that lay all over the monster truck’s bonnet. The front of the four-wheel drive wasn’t looking too hot either. An ominous hissing from under the crumpled bonnet suggested a damaged radiator. I doubted the car would be drivable, which was a shame, as its shininess suggested it was pretty new.

  The driver forced his door open with some effort, and got out. Uh-oh. His ashen face with its neat white beard was all too familiar.

  I hurried closer. “Winston! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I think so,” he said, but I was no longer paying attention. Now that the car door was open, I could hear a baby crying. I tugged at the back-door handle, but the door wouldn’t open. Mireille was in there, strapped into a baby capsule, her little face screwed up in a wail.

  Holly kicked the front passenger door open and struggled out past the airbag. Both of them had deployed. That settled it—this car would have to be towed. I pulled again at the back door, but it was wedged shut by the crash.

  “Let me,” said Jake, pushing me gently aside.

  His fingers sank into the door as if it were made of putty rather than metal, and in a moment, he had it open. Holly quickly unbuckled the crying baby and lifted her out, crooning sweet nonsense to her.

  “Is she all right?” Winston asked anxiously.

  Holly jiggled her soothingly, and the baby’s cries began to subside. “She’s fine. Just scared by the noise, I think.” She walked around to the front of the car to join Winston, and they both inspected the damage gloomily.

  “Shit, Joe’s going to be devastated,” Holly said. Joe’s new car! Oh, no.

  “I am so sorry,” Winston said. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have taken you on the main road so soon. It’s only your second lesson.”

  It was only then that I noticed the L plates on the car. Holly was teaching Winston to drive?

  Jake bent down to look at the side of the car. The tyre that had slammed into the kerb and then the bus shelter was flat. A trickle of greenish fluid from the radiator was running into the gutter beneath it.

  I crouched beside him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I only just found out myself—I’m still trying to process it.”

  He stared stonily down at the radiator fluid.

  “Please don’t go. I haven’t changed, not in the ways that matter.”

  He shook his head, and a pleading note entered my voice.

  “I still feel the same way about you. We can make this work.”

  “You are Artemis,” he said. “The virgin goddess. Men have been killed just for looking at you. I can’t—”

  “I’m sorry,” I butted in, “did I have sex with someone else last night?” I shook his arm. Why wouldn’t he look at me? “You were there—it must have been pretty obvious that I’m no virgin.”

  “Keep your voice down.” He stood up, trying to shake me off, but I stood with him. Winston was still gazing unhappily at the car, oblivious, but Holly was now staring at us intently. Shifter hearing for the win. “That’s not the point,” he continued. “People like me worship people like you. They don’t—they don’t shack up with them.”

  He was already thinking about living together? I didn’t know whether to be thrilled or even more frustrated that he was being so difficult about this. “I thought we had something special.”

  “We did!” He met my eyes at last, and there was nothing but pain in his gaze. “But we can’t. We’re too different. Don’t you see? I can never be more than a fling to you. You’ve been alive for millennia. I’ll be lucky if I live another sixty years. There’s no future for us.”

  “I’ll take your sixty years, Jake, I don’t care.” And I didn’t care who knew it. Even Winston was staring at us now.

  He stared down at me, stubborn to the last. “You say that now, but what about when I’m old and bald and all my joints are giving out, and you’re still as beautiful as you are now? There’s a reason gods and mortals aren’t meant to be together, Lexi.”

  He spoke my name like a caress, and tears started in my eyes. “I don’t care, I love you.”

  There was a long pause. I held my breath, staring into his sad blue eyes. The rest of the world had disappeared; there was only him.

  “It’s just not right, my lady.” He turned and walked away, leaving me to stare at
his rigid back.

  How come I’d won but I felt like I’d lost? I’d saved Jake from Styx, but still I’d lost him. I’d uncovered the truth about my past, but all it had done was cause me grief. A tear spilled down my cheek, hot against my skin, and I scrubbed it angrily away. If I started to cry now, I might never stop.

  Behind me, someone cleared their throat. “Is everything okay?” Holly asked.

  I turned back to her, refusing to watch Jake until he was out of sight like some lovelorn teenager. This was not going to end here. I refused to give up so easily. “No, but I’ll live.”

  Holly’s gaze was full of sympathy. “Oh, honey, he’ll come round, whatever it is.” In three quick strides, she crossed to me and gave me a hug, baby and all. “The best bit about fighting is making up.”

  I sniffed, and wiped away another tear that had managed to sneak out. “Thanks. I hope you’re right.”

  “You know I am. Here, hold Miri for a minute. Babies make everything better.”

  She handed me the baby, who gazed up at me wonderingly from huge, slate-blue eyes. She smelled like apple shampoo and love, and I laid a kiss on her sweet downy head.

  Holly peered into the depths of the hissing radiator, side by side with Winston. They wore identical frowns. “Joe is going to be so mad.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, jiggling the warm bundle in my arms much as her mother had done. It seemed an automatic response to holding a baby. “Apollo will pay.”

  Winston gave me a panicked look. “Oh, I couldn’t ask my lord to pay for my mistake. I will pay for the repairs out of my wages.” He scratched his head, looking sadly at the car. “The only thing is, it might take a while to pay off. I hope we can come to some arrangement.”

  “Apollo will pay,” I repeated. He owed me this, at least. I’d saved his life.

  In fact, a few people would end up paying before I was done. Some with their lives, but none as much as whoever had caused this whole mess in the first place. Artemis had been convinced there was a traitor among the gods, Hades had said. She’d given up her divine existence to hunt them down. Slumming it as me. But I could continue her work. This shit was personal now. The traitor had screwed with my life, and cost me a future with a man I was starting to think I really couldn’t live without.