Chapter Eighteen #3
The white-hot links of nearly unmeltable metal led to a lightning rod that was jammed into the ground like a stake. Not only was she immobile, but any attempt she made to throw a bolt at an enemy would only end up dissipating in the sand.
“I wouldn’t have thought you had any bolts left,” a woman’s voice called from down by the waterline. The crouching shape rose and walked over to Daphne. “I took a lot of your blood to dehydrate you, or at least I thought I did.”
“Why are you doing this?” Daphne asked softly. “You’re not a killer, Pandora.”
“I know I’m not,” Pandora admitted with a humiliated nod. “I tried to kill you while you were unconscious, but I couldn’t do it.”
“Then let me go,” Daphne said with a sad smile. “I know why you’re doing this. Denial is a powerful thing, and grief can make a good person evil.” Daphne hauled herself up onto her knees. “But why don’t you believe me? Or if not me, why not Lucas, your own nephew? He’s a Falsefinder.”
“Lucas has every reason in the world to want your version of the story to be true,” Pandora hissed, kicking at the sand as she began to pace. “He is blinded by his love for Helen, and he would do anything to keep her. Maybe even lie to his own family.”
“First of all, Lucas can only have half of Helen,” Daphne said darkly. “And second, you know there are easier ways to see if I’m telling the truth about who killed Ajax than kidnapping me. Have you ever asked Tantalus why he’s still in hiding?”
“Probably because he knows you can look or sound like anyone!” Pandora shouted back, furious. “The only thing you can’t do is fake someone’s handwriting. That’s why he’s only communicated through letters—to protect himself because he knows you want him dead!”
“And why would I want him dead?” Daphne’s own temper rose. “If it’s a Triumph I wanted, why wouldn’t I have killed any one of you Theban rats as soon as I saw you? Why would I want Tantalus, and Tantalus alone, unless he stole something precious from me?” she asked, her voice breaking at last.
Pandora watched Daphne as she settled back into the sand, turning her back on the ocean she dreaded, to stare slack-jawed at her own feet.
Pandora moved away from her and crossed her arms, tilting her face into the wind.
She was breathing hard and her eyes darted from left to right as if she was reading the dark horizon.
Suddenly, she snapped back to attention.
“You snake,” she said, turning to stare at Daphne with awed rage.
“Creon said you were cunning, but this is something else entirely. You actually believe what you’re saying!
That’s why Lucas couldn’t find anything false in what you said.
All those years of hiding behind other people’s faces and now all you are is one big lie.
This is why I have to keep you away from Castor and Pallas—from everyone I love.
I know in my heart that you used the cestus to trick my brother.
You never loved him, and he could never have loved you.
” Her words were harsh, but doubt was beginning to creep into her tone.
“Ajax was too good, he was too pure. . . .”
“And too noble, and tender, and generous, and brave,” Daphne said, raising her voice to talk over Pandora.
She was blinking repeatedly as her eyes squeezed at dry tear ducts and came up with nothing.
Her body was crying, but the moisture was missing, and somehow that made it hurt more than it usually did.
“Since Ajax left the world nineteen years ago, there has been no good in it for me,” Daphne whispered.
“What about Helen? She’s good. And she’s at least a part of Ajax. . .” Pandora trailed off when Daphne’s eyes began to drill into hers.
“Helen’s birthday was yesterday—her seventeenth birthday,” Pandora whispered in shock. “But why? Why would you want to make her think that Lucas is her cousin. . .”
Pandora looked away, shaking her head with grief.
She couldn’t understand how Daphne, how any mother, could hurt her own daughter like that.
But they had run out of time. Creon was coming up the beach, behind Pandora’s back.
Daphne had tried to win her over, had honestly hoped to spare her, but there had never been a real chance for that.
Daphne could only pray that Ajax would forgive her in the Underworld.
“That’s right, Pandora, Helen isn’t his child.
I have nothing of Ajax, and so I have nothing in this world that’s of any value to me.
Even you, the baby sister he loved so much, the one he made me promise to protect, even you have been polluted beyond hope.
You know, it would kill Ajax to see you like this. ”
“Don’t you dare tell me what my brother would feel!
” Pandora screeched as something snapped inside of her, just as Daphne knew it would.
She dove for Daphne, her fingers hooked into claws, trying to scratch her eyes out.
Daphne rolled under Pandora, protecting herself as well as she could while shackled.
She knew she only needed to defend herself for a moment.
“Don’t touch her, she could have more bolts!” Creon yelled as he caught Pandora from behind and hauled her off of Daphne.
Daphne turned away from Creon and Pandora as they struggled. Covering her face with her arms, she adopted short, dark hair and pretended to cower.
“He would never have fallen in love with her!” Pandora screamed, lost in her grief as she struggled with Creon. “He would have despised her just like I do, I know it!”
Pandora strained against Creon’s strong arms, but Creon followed every motion of her desperate attempt to break free. Daphne couldn’t have asked for a better distraction.
“Don’t let her confuse you, cousin! She is one of Aphrodite’s chosen, and you don’t have to be a man to feel her influence. She can twist anyone’s heart with a look,” he said as he finally managed to drag Pandora away.
He led her down the beach and away from the valuable capture, talking to her the entire time.
They moved just far enough away that Daphne could be sure they didn’t see her make the full transformation, as she adopted Pandora’s shape.
Then she hit herself in the eye and the mouth and started groaning.
“Creon!” Daphne-as-Pandora yelled out hoarsely. “What are you doing? Get away from her. That’s Daphne! She tricked us! Don’t listen to her!”
Daphne screamed and howled until she saw Creon waver and then grab Pandora harshly by the arm and haul her back to where Daphne was staked to the ground.
“When we were rolling around on the ground!” Daphne sobbed, pointing a finger at Pandora and using the influence of the cestus. “She got out of the shackles and put me in them. She’s so strong—I had no idea!”
“She’s lying,” Pandora stammered. She tried to pull her wrist out of Creon’s grasp, but he didn’t let go. She glanced from Creon to Daphne, so shocked she didn’t know what to do.
“Don’t believe a word she says!” Daphne said, her eyes locking with Creon’s as she folded up his will like a piece of tissue paper and tucked it into one of the back pockets of his mind.
“She wants to be taken to your father, but she wants to be taken to him as Pandora so she can get close enough to kill him! She’s been planning this from the start and I played right into her hands!
I’m so sorry, cousin. I had no idea how cunning she was! ”
Creon stared at Pandora with perfect hate.
He wrenched her arm in its socket and she fell to her knees, screaming.
With blank eyes he drew a small bronze blade from his belt and slit Pandora’s neck so deeply he nearly cut off her head.
She was dead before her blood had a chance to soak into the sand.
Helen flew about fifty feet over Hector as he ran out the front door of the Delos compound and began a circuit around the edge of the island.
It was dark, unbelievably dark, especially since most of the island didn’t have power back yet.
It was also cold. Everyone on the island would be inside, huddling around fires, or turning on their emergency generators.
The rest of the Delos family was certain that Creon would take advantage of the fact that the streets were deserted to move her mother off island.
Cassandra was exhausted and drawing a blank, so they were forced to guess as to how that would be done.
After a long discussion, the family was convinced that Creon would leave by helicopter or private plane.
Lucas was to fly over Castor and Pallas while they covered the airport on the west side of the island, and Ariadne was to watch the ferry landing in the northwest, just in case Creon tried to sneak Daphne off by boat.
Hector did something unexpected. He chose to run around the dark, deserted east-northeast shoreline, apparently on a fool’s errand.
Of course, Helen immediately volunteered to fly over him.
If there was one thing she had learned in her few short weeks of training, it was that Hector could get inside his opponent’s head and figure out exactly what he or she would do next.
No matter how logical the Delos family’s strategy was, Helen would bank on Hector’s gut instincts about Creon over any carefully laid plan.
There had been a heated argument about whether or not Helen should be allowed outside the compound at all, but in the end, no one from the House of Thebes could deny the Heir the right to look for her mother, the Head of the House of Atreus.
It also helped that everyone thought Helen would just end up flying around in the pitch-black over Hector, safe and useless and on the wrong side of the island.