Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Reid
Hel is screaming within me, and I don’t know what to do.
I help bring them some first aid supplies I find in a bathroom.
Izzy sets to work cleaning and tending to her sister’s wounds, all the time with tears running down her face, and Van, Wilder, and Aiden hover around her, providing silent support for her.
I want to be there for her too, but Hel is too loud. I’m afraid I’ll just make it worse.
So, I leave. I go outside and walk along the clifftop, kicking rocks over the edge and trying to regain control. Hel is usually not this aggressive. I think sometimes she likes sitting back and seeing the world through my eyes after so much time in the dark, alone.
But not now. Now she tells me to kill Thea.
My mind is overwhelmed with information about the goddess within her.
Ran is a goddess of the sea. She is cruel, taking special pleasure in drowning sailors.
She warns me that the goddess liked to walk the line between life and death.
That she liked humans to fear and respect her.
But with the goddess reborn inside someone who also had a cruel streak, she was too dangerous to keep alive.
I’m not sure if it’s because of how loud Hel is, or if it’s just a warning inside of me, but I believe her. The only reason I’m not speaking my worries aloud is because Thea is Izzy’s sister. In any other circumstance, I think I would’ve taken this opportunity to figure out how to kill a god.
Up ahead, I see a dark car approaching the castle. I stiffen, eyeing it with suspicion, but it slows as it approaches me, then stops. The window unrolls, and Mr. Time is there. I have half a second to breathe a sigh of relief when he says, “Get in.”
I feel nervous, but I do as he says.
Opening the passenger side door, I climb in and close the door, relieved to feel the heat turned up all the way. I could never get used to the cold here.
“What’s going on?”
I don’t even bother to try to hide my surprise that he already knows something is up. “Thea just arrived, badly injured, and passed out. Izzy wants to give her a chance to see if she can be good.”
Mr. Time lets out a low sigh and settles back in his chair. “The goodness inside of Izzy is what’s saved her, but it could also be her downfall.”
“You don’t trust Thea either?”
Mr. Time takes a long minute to answer. “Have you read the stories of the backgrounds of different serial killers?”
I shake my head. Who the hell researched serial killers?
“Most of them had troubled pasts. They went through horrible things, abuse and neglect that few people could relate with. Yes, there are still the people who had perfectly happy childhoods and still turned out to be psychotic, and so many people who have had horrible childhoods turn out to be good. But once someone is so steeped in darkness…. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s okay for us to sympathize with them for what they’ve gone through, but we still can’t just let them walk around on the streets. They’re too dangerous.”
His words make a twisted kind of sense. “But how do we possibly kill someone who is going, and has gone, through hell?”
Mr. Time reaches into his pocket and pulls something out, then hands it to me.
I unfold the paper and see an image of a strange golden shape. “What is that?”
“That,” he says slowly, “is something we can use to funnel the gods out of all of you, but still keep you alive. If we can do that, we won’t need to kill them. They won’t be dangerous enough to do any real damage. I can have my people keep an eye on them and just step in if needed.”
“We can…go back to the way things were?” I ask, shocked.
He nods. “The only problem is that this attaches to that little golden box Thea had. It’s a Power Siphon. The only one of its kind. As it is, it can be used to trap you and the gods together. But with this special piece, it can just trap the gods.”
“Whoa.”
He nods and I hand it back to him. “There are two problems. One, I have to get that piece. I think—I hope—it’s here in Scotland somewhere.
My people are searching for it, but they’ll need my help.
And two, we have to get that box from the gods.
If we can’t get it, they can trap all of you and become the only gods, and we can never be rid of them. ”
“So how do we get it?”
“Well,” he says slowly. “We could just attack, but then that gives them a chance to defeat us with the Taka cage. They know straight-on, you guys would win the battle, but they’re smart enough not to do that.
So, if we can get Oliver and Thea to tell us where the box is, we can try to sneak in and get it without them knowing.
That’s the smartest plan. The safest plan. ”
“If we can trust them…” I say.
“Exactly.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his nose. “Stealing the box could fix everything, but it could also lead us straight into a trap.”
“So, what do we do?”
He puts his glasses back on. “We do the only thing we can. I keep searching for the power siphon, and you guys decide if Oliver and Thea can actually be trusted. And then we get the Taka cage so we can use it against them--without hurting them.”
“I’ll talk to the others,” I say.
“Just be careful,” he tells me. “We can’t let Oliver or Thea hear our plan. And as much as we love her for it...we can’t let Izzy’s soft heart be our downfall.”
“Got it.”
He drives me to the door, then turns and takes off back in the direction of town.
I start up the steps and see the blood that mars the cement.
My stomach turns a little as I picture the kind of violence that had been inflicted on Thea.
Hel has calmed down inside of me since I accepted her warning, but I hate the way I feel.
Izzy might not be the only one with a soft heart.