Chapter Sixteen
Hercules was the warrior, not him. Expressions like showdown, faceoff, throwing it all in . . . Apollo gladly left those blood and guts to his brother. Direct approach without careful planning always turned messy. Worse, unruly.
A very small step existed between unruly and deadly.
The tiny space into which this whole scene shifted, once Lois Lance uttered those incredulous words.
At her Uncle Ito.
Yeah, that version of an Ito Oje. Perhaps the only person who could walk onto this concourse and make Irowen look ready to escape from it.
The mob boss with the manicured complexion who changed hers to a horrified pallor.
Apollo almost caved to a visible startle from just one hurried glance at her, spared as she backed away to press against the tall planter.
But he had a bigger mission now. To lurch the other direction. To calculate his best course for intercepting the yakuza procession in as few seconds as possible.
Too late.
Lois bested him to the deed, totally unknowingly, with her prominent hail.
As soon as the man responded by sweeping the little writer into an affectionate hug, Apollo threw a what-the-hell look toward his brother.
He nearly doubled the intensity when Hercules decided it was fine to react like a goddamned salt pillar, motionless except for the back off wave he brandished in return.
Apollo fumed and bared his teeth. “Herc? What the h—”
“Give her a second, for fuck’s sake,” his brother snarled. “He’s actually her uncle. Maybe we’ll all just be able to walk away with what we want.”
Sometimes the I’m-a-god thing was an advantage. Only by borrowing that preternatural strength did he restrain the urge to laugh aloud. Who was this guy, and what had he done with his brother?
Herc was the one who always negotiated with his fists first, especially with criminals known for the same tactics, before remembering the walking-away part of the deal.
As for everyone getting what they wanted .
. . well, shit. Was the guy too far-gone over Lois that he hadn’t heard Apollo’s explanation about Irowen’s prize for this risk?
Ito had kidnapped her sister, damn it. So unless Kaw’s recon team had missed the yakuza henchmen coming back to the airport with Genny, Herc’s pipe dream was still grossly clogged.
Never more than when Natasha Korra appeared.
Who, from the moment she stepped out after clearing Customs, blinked with more amazement at seeing Lois out here, instead of the oyabun and his dozen gang officers.
“Holy shit,” Apollo spat, in perfect tandem with his brother’s growl. Only after that recognition did they jerk their heads around, realizing Lois had muffled them—before turning into a lunging wildcat right at Natasha.
“Eeeeaaagh!”
That was when some invisible giant put his cosmic meaty fist on the time crank—and every second tripled its speed. Quadrupled.
To all the mortals in the room, it was just some trick of their heightened nerves and racing adrenalin.
But he and Herc knew better. The chronological crack was entirely possible because the lyre string had walked into the room along with the smug little starlet who greeted Lois as if she hadn’t just double-crossed her lover and now planned to control a huge swath of the human race.
Who picked at a hangnail as a pair of Ito’s men restrained Lois, only to be beaten back by Hercules.
Who gave Lois a doe-eyed stare while her friend frantically tried to explain about the dangers of the string. Who even kept up with the bubble machine eyes and the full-pout mouth when exposing that she knew allll about the string—because she was the one who now controlled it.
Except she didn’t.
Not how she thought she did.
Not even during the moments it took all of Apollo’s self-control to wait out the little grifter, knowing she’d swiftly expose her ignorance as well as her arrogance.
That less than sixty of those speedy seconds later, she’d draw out the strand as if it were some diamond fairy thing retrieved from the den of a dragon then borne across eight mystical kingdoms, instead of a forty-centimeter line of stretched cow gut.
If only that damn beef rope wasn’t so ready to support her fantasy.
It was helped, of course, by its sensitivity to Apollo’s new nearness, manifested by its new vibrations. But the string’s soft, mesmeric melody wouldn’t last for long. He already knew that much, just from the few times he’d invoked the power of the lyre himself.
Just one pluck at one of the seven strings was like a supernatural concerto, sending out more than notes and timing and musical dynamics.
It was sound and symmetry; magic given composition, and so much more.
Such dangerous levels of power, the mortals who’d dared to play with its potency were punished with erasure.
Wiped of their place in actual humanity.
Forever known only as two-dimensional characters in picture books or campy movies.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Phantom of the Opera, Peter Pan, and every make-believe siren with feet or fins .
. . they’d all been real flesh-and-blood creatures until they’d messed with his lyre, going insane with high ideas of subduing their own race until they stood in Olympus with the gods.
Idiots.
Just like the silly blond nymph before him now, grinning and preening as she raised the string higher.
Damn near cackling as she mamboed forward to the music, heels clacking against the shined tiles, utterly unaware of how lonely she actually sounded while turning everyone else into human obelisks.
Completely unable—or unwilling—to heed their silent screams, as the string and its song threaded hypnotic tendrils into their muscles, joints, skin, and senses.
But Apollo heard. Every note. All their agony. The terror of their silent protests. The urgent revs of their heartbeats. The shrieks of their muscles, straining at the invisible tethers which acted like physical extensions of the glowing strand.
His property.
For which she’d pay fucking dearly for stealing—and abusing.
Especially now. From the moment their torment was thickened by Irowen’s silent scream.
He abandoned any consideration about granting a shred of mercy for Korra. The realization, hot and terrible, that his power had been wielded against Irowen like this . . . the treacherous starlet would pay.
It didn’t matter that the choice hadn’t been his. The helpless rage about the fact only worsened the fire in his gut, the protective purpose in his blood. A fury like few things he’d felt before.
When had he felt this before?
That answer had to wait. He had bigger things to fear right now. Most notably, another huge question.
What, exactly, Korra planned on doing with her newfound dominance courtesy of the string.
Or was it such a new thing?
How long had the little twit really had her hands on the treasure?
Had she been experimenting with it in secret, testing it out before now?
Was that why she so easily took control of Ito’s entire squad, plus Lois and Irowen and a crowd of innocent bystanders, as well?
If so, how far did she plan on going with this stunt?
Was the Natasha Korra World Domination Tour kicking off right now?
Worse: had she already started it elsewhere?
Negating the last demand was easy enough, since logic dictated they would’ve been joined by a thunderous Zeus if it came close to the truth.
But the rest of the questions barraged him like a pissed-off swarm of Aristaeus’s bees.
Hercules already looked ready to swat at the metaphorical nuisances, as well.
No, his brother was clearly ready to deliver more than a few swats, an idea he supported with every aching nerve in his body.
Shit.
That jetlagged, unstable snip of a girl . . .
If Korra had really logged in some training hours with the string, her control over the others could easily spiral beyond the parlor trick of locking them in place. After the physical locks, she’d try reaching into other realms. Places like their minds and hearts . . .
“Nat!”
Lois’s fresh burst, though only a thready gasp, freed a relieved whoosh from his chest. The woman was still capable of expressing her own agency through speech, so Korra hadn’t bonded that tightly with her pet string yet.
His string.
He seized the thought and used it to open his psyche a little wider, checking if the strand responded.
It did at once, twanging extra hard, to the point that it nearly jumped from the starlet’s grip.
But damn it, Korra was alarmingly alert.
While reinforcing her hold with manic speed, she added a hysterical giggle—right before the string’s new song wound its way tighter around the helpless mortals.
Still, Lois managed to snarl, “I don’t want to do this, Natasha. No. Please!”
But it was no surprise when Korra flicked her free hand, the motion like a spoiled girl tossing a faded doll.
As Herc’s woman pivoted, clearly forced to follow the same plastic steps of one, Apollo’s temper ticked.
This bitter little princess, focused on ruling her narrow world, had no idea she’d look out from her throne on a kingdom of nothing.
Hollow souls who’d have nothing to offer past their vacant stares.
Left with nothing to dream about anymore.
With nobody to offer her new vistas, she’d soon become an equally vapid shell.
Humans. When would they realize that fighting solely for themselves meant ascending empty pinnacles? Yet trying to tell them otherwise was an exercise in exasperation. They were fascinating but frustrating. The ultimate lesson in why bother.
The conclusion received his resounding commitment—for all of the next ten seconds.
The time it took for a soft but distinct whine to penetrate his synapses.
He wheeled around, fully facing the back of the concourse.
Yeah, away from the existential insanity that Natasha had unleashed.
Away from the unearthly symphony his lyre string still played across the air.
Even away from the silent but scared whimpers from the mortals trapped by it, led by Lois’s new entreaties to Hercules and him.
Apollo. Where are you? The string is right here! In her hand! Can’t you see—
Hercules. Oh my God. Herc? What’s happening?
Her answers would have to come from Herc.
He ensured as much by leaning over and clamping a hand to his brother’s shoulder, pushing enough god-level force into the big guy to protect him from the string’s spell for a few minutes.
It wasn’t much, but if Herc was still as good at tactical maneuvering as he remembered, it’d suffice.
After that, he couldn’t spare the situation any more stress.
Nor could he succumb to the rage about why Lois could still form her silent pleas and Irowen couldn’t.
The dispute was dumber than complaining about weekend traffic in LA.
In this moment, he had better things to do. Higher goals to get to.
Getting to the one mortal who was worth his bother.
The woman who’d turned her life upside-down to be here right now. Life being a relative term . . .
Was that what she could call her existence anymore, after Ito ordered her to halt it all and track Reks Byrd instead?
And she had, though not for a promise of big money or a sliver of power from the lyre string.
She’d endured so much, persevering over three weeks—had nearly died by his arrow—for someone other than herself.
So hell yes, she could bother him. All she fucking wanted. More than he wanted or imagined he wanted from a human, ever again. All the frailties and the strengths, the dramas and the dreams, and the moments just like this one.
The times in which he decided that sometimes, for the reasons that really mattered, even a god of Olympus had to risk it all.
When he realized that in order save the woman he loved from the lunatic he abhorred, he’d have to make the sun shine from the inside of the Haneda Airport Arrivals Concourse.