Caged Lightning Read online

  “I told you it was a long story, remember?”

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Apollo asked. “This could take a while.”

  In the end, it didn’t take as long as I had feared to bring Poseidon up to date, though his frown grew truly thunderous at a few points in the tangled story. When we’d finished, he sat back in the giant green shell and pondered the ceiling for a while.

  “Trust that stupid brother of mine to stuff things up,” he said, eventually. “Why did he have to go messing with your head?”

  I stiffened a little at this criticism of Hades, who was still my favourite uncle despite everything. My initial anger with him over my situation had had a chance to cool, and I’d been forced to admit that he’d only done what I’d asked. Poseidon, on the other hand, switched too fast from smiles to frowns, as changeable as the sea.

  “I’m not exactly thrilled at the results myself, but apparently it was my idea, and if he hadn’t done it, Apollo would probably still be a captive—or worse.”

  “But that’s not why we’re here,” Apollo cut in smoothly, giving me a warning look. Okay, I could take a hint. No upsetting the sea god. “Hestia thinks—and I agree—that it’s time to do something about Zeus.”

  “We should have done something about Zeus a couple of thousand years ago,” Poseidon grumbled. “Starting with neutering him.”

  I snorted, and the sea god turned twinkling green eyes my way. At least he had a sense of humour. “You know half of you—us—wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for his wandering eye.”

  “True.” He studied me with a smile. “We wouldn’t have had you, which would have been a sad loss to Olympus, though I daresay we could have done without Athena or that drunkard, Dionysus.”

  “You don’t like Athena?”

  He lifted one green-robed shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “Nothing wrong with her, I suppose. Her insistence that she knows everything becomes wearisome very quickly.” His gaze settled on my face again. “Are you sure you can’t change your appearance back? Have you tried?”

  “Of course I have.” I ignored Apollo’s sceptical glance. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t really tried that hard, but I’d had other, more urgent tasks. “I’m sure it will come back to me eventually.”

  “I hope so.”

  Gods above, the guy had the tact of a charging rhinoceros. It clearly didn’t occur to him that he was insulting me every second time he opened his mouth. But I wasn’t supposed to upset the sea god, was I? So, I let it slide. It was kind of funny, in a way. Didn’t everyone have one of those embarrassing old relatives who insisted on speaking their mind, no matter what? Poseidon was obviously mine.

  Apollo did his best to steer the conversation back on topic. “Hestia thinks if we reunited the three parts of the lightning bolt, we could generate enough power to draw Zeus out of his hiding place.”

  Judging by the beetling of those thick white brows, that wasn’t a popular suggestion. “She does, does she? That woman’s almost as bad as Athena for thinking she knows everything.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Has it not occurred to her that their separation may be the only thing that is keeping Zeus safe from the shadow shapers?”

  “You do still have yours, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’ve got it. Safe and sound, right here, where no shadow shaper could ever find it.”

  “I shouldn’t think it needs protecting from shadow shapers,” Apollo said. “The one I saw hurled me through the air when I touched it. I doubt a mere shadow shaper would survive the experience.”

  “Hurled you through the air?” Poseidon stared at my brother in frank disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

  Apollo raised a haughty eyebrow. He didn’t like having his word questioned. “I assure you, I am. Artemis was there; she saw it.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “It was sizzling and spitting so bad that no one else even dared to try. Hestia had to build a shed around it to protect her people.”

  “Oh, well, Hestia,” he said dismissively, as if that explained everything. “It probably just doesn’t like her. Mine is as calm as a summer sea.”

  “Really?” Now it was Apollo’s turn to sound disbelieving.

  “Really.” The sea god bristled slightly; clearly, Apollo wasn’t the only one who disliked people questioning his word. “I’ll show you, if you like.”

  He got up and walked over to one of the walls, laying his hand almost lovingly on the frozen surface. We joined him as the ice beneath his palm began to flow and reform. Not melt—no water dripped. It just became fluid, and moved where Poseidon directed it, then solidified again. The palms of my hands tingled, as if they itched to try the pretty magic for themselves, but water was Poseidon’s element, not mine. All that would happen if I laid my hand on that frozen wall would be that my skin would get stuck to it. Not going to happen.

  Anyway, the wall rippled apart, forming a deep shelf the length of my outstretched arms, fingertip to fingertip. Light burst forth from the recesses of the shelf, startlingly bright. I squinted as Poseidon reached in and pulled out what had been hidden in the depths of the ice.

  It was, of course, the lightning bolt that had come lancing out of the sky to embed itself into the deck of his yacht that day Hades and I had been visiting. I could still see it there, quivering, and smell the ozone in the air. I recalled the shock on the faces of my companions, which was no doubt mirrored on my own—

  Holy shit, I was remembering.

  I latched onto that scrap of memory, my heart hammering in excitement. There had been scorch marks on the deck all around the lightning bolt, which sizzled and hummed as if it were as shocked to find itself there as we were. Poseidon had thought we were under attack—he’d leapt up, his trident appearing from nowhere in his hand, his brows drawn together in fury, and he’d said … he’d said …

  Zeus’s balls, it was gone again. No matter how hard I strained after it, it slipped through my fingers like a handful of sand, until I was no longer sure of anything. Was I really remembering, or just imagining?

  The lightning bolt was no longer sizzling or spitting energy the way the one in Hestia’s care had done. It lay quiescent in Poseidon’s grip as he held it out to us. I shook my head, trying to focus on the present moment.

  “Touch it,” he said. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Looking at the bolt too long still made my eyes water, but it wasn’t as bright as that other one, either, and it was possible to make out more of its shape beneath the glare. About the length of my arm, its surface was smooth, with no joins or marks anywhere. Sundering it from its other two parts had left no trace on the gleaming surface. It had to be one of the side pieces, judging by its length. The piece Hestia had was the height of a man. I reached out and stroked it hesitantly but, as Poseidon had promised, nothing happened. It was warm to the touch, but not uncomfortably so.

  Apollo paused in the act of reaching out to the bolt and looked up, like a hunting dog that had caught a scent. “Are you expecting someone?” he asked Poseidon.

  The sea god nodded. “A friend of mine. Though I believe Arti has met him, too.”

  He looked at me expectantly, but I had no idea what they were talking about. What had Apollo sensed? Should I have sensed it, too? Trying not to be obvious about it, I sniffed the air, but the hint of ozone from the bolt was the only odd scent in the room. I sent my senses out, searching for animal life but, though there was a great deal of it in the seas outside the iceberg, there was nothing inside it to help me.

  A few moments later, the great golden doors opened again, and the same seaweed-haired woman poked her head in, putting me out of my misery.

  “Manannan mac Lir to see you, my lord.”

  “Send him in,” Poseidon said, his bearded face breaking into a smile, and someone I did indeed recognise strolled in.

  8

  Poseidon strode forward, one beefy hand outstretched. “Manannan! Good to see you again. I believe you know my niece already?”
/>   Manannan mac Lir. The Celtic god of the sea. Well, that would explain a few things. He was wearing shorts and a brightly coloured shirt every bit as loud and tasteless as the one he’d been wearing the night I’d met him on the canals of Brenvale. Syl, Lucas, and I had been checking out the shadow shapers’ mansion where Hades had been held when the Merrow had capsized our little boat. If not for this guy appearing out of the night in his massive cruiser, we would have been toast. At the time, I’d thought him an extraordinarily powerful watershaper. Since Brenvale was the capital city of the watershapers, and dedicated to the worship of Poseidon, that had been a reasonable assumption. What reason would a sea god from a different pantheon have to be there?

  Once he’d shaken hands with Poseidon, Manannan grinned at me. He had the appearance of a young, fit guy, with streaks of blond in his shoulder-length brown hair that suggested a life lived mainly outdoors, and a tan to match. Tattooed Celtic knots stretched up his left arm all the way from the back of his hand until they disappeared under his shirt sleeve.

  “You told me your name was Mac,” I said reproachfully.

  “And so it is,” he replied, flashing white teeth as his smile widened. “Partly, anyway.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me who you really were?”

  He shrugged. “Why didn’t you? You said your name was Lexi. I sensed no godhood about you then, though there was certainly something odd there.”

  “Long story.” I sighed. How many times would I have to tell it?

  “Wonderful!” He threw himself onto the nearest lounge and put his feet up. They were bare, and a few grains of sand brushed off onto the cushions. “I love a good story.”

  “It’s very simple,” Poseidon said, sinking back into his shell lounge and laying the lightning bolt across his knees, where its soft glow lit his face from below. “Hades made her human so she could hunt shadow shapers without being targeted herself, but in the process, she’s lost her memory and really believes she’s a human. Called Lexi.” He snorted. “What sort of a name is ‘Lexi’? It sounds like a dog’s name. Here, Lexi! Good dog, Lexi.”

  I shot him a glance even colder than his stupid iceberg. Screw him. Lexi was a great name. Apollo was smirking, too, though he wiped that off his face quick smart when I turned the glare on him.

  “It’s short for Alexia, and there’s nothing wrong with it, thank you very much.”

  “Well, that’s not a very entertaining story, Poseidon,” Manannan said. “You’ve spoiled the ending and left out all the good bits.”

  “Allow me,” Apollo said, and proceeded to provide enough embellishment to please even the fussiest of audiences. Even I, who’d lived through the whole thing, found myself leaning forward, enthralled, as Apollo wove the tale of the last few weeks of my life. I guess there was a reason he was the god of minstrels. He had a way with words, my brother. I even came out of it sounding all heroic, so I forgave him for smirking at Poseidon’s dog comments.

  When he’d finished, Manannan sighed like a man who’s just finished a satisfying meal, and gave Poseidon a reproving glance. “Now that’s how you tell a story.”

  “How about you tell one, now?” I asked. “I’d like to know how you managed to be there on the canal that night, at exactly the right time to rescue us from the Merrow.”

  He laughed, flashing those white teeth of his. “You were so suspicious, weren’t you?”

  “You must admit, it looked bad. I couldn’t believe it was a coincidence. I thought you’d set them on us yourself.”

  “But now, of course, you realise that I was truly your knight in shining armour.”

  “Of course.” His smile really was infectious. “But I still want to know how you did it.”

  He pouted a little. “You won’t accept that it was my sheer magnificence and leave it at that?”

  “Stop flirting with my niece,” Poseidon said. “You’re old enough to be her great-grandfather.”

  “But better preserved than you, my friend,” Manannan pointed out.

  Poseidon didn’t move from his lounge, but a different person was sitting there. Young, dark-haired, impossibly handsome and dressed in a sharp suit and tie—only the green eyes were the same. In this form, he looked a lot like Jake, and I sighed and looked away.

  Not to be outdone, Manannan had changed form, too—only now he looked just as Poseidon had before, complete with a long white beard and formal robe. I could just see the beginnings of his tattoo peeking out the bottom of the long sleeve. That was interesting. Everything but that had changed. Did he really like that tattoo, or was it an integral part of him?

  “Gentlemen, could we stick to the point, please?”

  Both of them flashed back to their normal appearance, and Manannan continued as if nothing had happened. “To tell the story properly, I must go back before that. A couple of weeks ago, I received an unexpected visit from Hades. He was more agitated than I’d ever seen him. He told me of the trouble your pantheon has been having with these shadow shapers. I knew, of course, that Hephaistos had died, but I had never heard how it happened. I was shocked to learn of such a coordinated effort against a whole pantheon.”

  “So it’s not happening to yours? Or any of the others?” I’d suspected that, but it was still a shock to have it confirmed. Someone had it in for us, specifically. Yay, us. The Greek gods: collecting enemies since prehistoric times.

  “No. How could it? Yours is the only one I know of with this strange system of using avatars.”

  “We are?” I looked at Apollo, expecting a nod of confirmation, but he looked as surprised as I did. I was used to not having access to crucial information, but it seemed this particular tidbit was news to him, too. “So, you guys walk around with all your power in you, all the time? How do you manage to pass yourself off as human?”

  “I can’t speak for the other pantheons, but all of us have these tattoos.” He held up his left arm, with its intricate inking. “You might have noticed mine. I’m not going to give away any trade secrets, so I’ll say no more, but it was about this, and related matters, that Hades sought me out.”

  “Two weeks ago, you said?” That put it about the time Hades had disappeared. I’d thought he’d been chasing Becky, the local spy for the shadow shapers, but it seemed he’d had other things on his mind.

  Manannan nodded. “He said he’d been visiting the gods of all the different underworlds, to see if any other gods had died, or whether the shadow shapers were only targeting your pantheon. You may know me only as the god of the sea, but I do have other duties, one of which is to escort our dead to the underworld. I couldn’t give him the answer he hoped for, however. None of ours have died. He was very thoughtful when he left.”

  “Then that proves that this whole thing is an attack on us by another pantheon,” Poseidon said. “Probably by that bastard Loki.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said, earning a scowl for disagreeing with him. “Whoever’s leading the shadow shapers has got to be someone we all trust—how else are they getting to us so easily? Would Apollo have let Loki get near him without taking every precaution, if he even agreed to meet with him at all?”

  “You and Manannan may be friends,” Apollo said, “but most of us steer well clear of the other pantheons. No offence, Manannan.”

  “None taken. Call it professional jealousy or a keen instinct for self-preservation, but most of our lot keep to themselves, too.”

  “That’s shark shit,” Poseidon said. “Why would one of our own turn on us like that?”

  “It’s not as though it’s never happened before,” I reminded him. “The Olympians turned on the Titans.”

  “That’s not the same thing!”

  “Maybe not,” Apollo said, “but I agree with Lexi. I think this is an inside job.”

  Poseidon folded his arms, his scowl growing blacker, as if he could see the logic but didn’t want to admit that we might be right.

  “Do you know where Hades went after that?” I asked Manannan,
wanting to move on. Somewhere, the shadow shapers had caught up with Hades and dragged him off to Brenvale. That part was still unclear to me.

  “He didn’t say. But our conversation made me uneasy, so a few days later, I paid a visit to my old friend here.” He indicated Poseidon with a wave of his hand.

  “I’m surprised you two aren’t rivals,” I said. Particularly since Poseidon didn’t seem the type to share his toys.

  “We aren’t competing in the same market, as the humans would say. We sea gods have the world pretty well divided among us all, and there is very little cross-over. The good thing about being a sea god is there can be clearly delineated territories. It’s not like being a god of love, or wisdom, which is an airy concept. You won’t find any temples to Poseidon on my turf, and I have no worshippers on his either.”

  “That seems very civilised.” There were a few individuals who wanted to kick the status quo—I thought of the mayor of Berkley’s Bay, and his altarpiece of Manannan that I’d stolen. It seemed so long ago, now, though it had only been a few weeks. He’d been a secret worshipper of Manannan’s, despite the region’s official adherence to Poseidon. Still, a few oddballs did no harm, I supposed.

  “Even the most bloodthirsty god gets tired of war after a couple of centuries,” Manannan said. “Unless you actually are a war god, of course—then it’s your bread and butter. But I was sick of it, and I thought the other sea gods might be amenable to a different arrangement.”

  I glanced at Poseidon, who was nodding sagely, and wondered how long it had taken Manannan to talk Poseidon into this arrangement of his.

  “It’s been working for millennia now,” Manannan said, with justifiable pride. Anyone who could talk gods into being reasonable was allowed a little self-congratulation. “Make love, not war, right?”

  Poseidon rolled his eyes. “Now you sound like Zeus.”

  “No, he likes to do both,” Apollo said. “Preferably at the same time.”