Omega Series: Omega Part 4

I glanced at him, not liking the sound of that.

"I will take you whether they pay me or not. There's an underground market for someone like you."

"Niko, do not scare her," Father Ellis said. "You will be paid above and beyond what we promised."

"What do you mean, someone like me?" I asked in confusion. "If I am what they think I am, there's only one of someone like me ... of me ... of whatever you think I am."

"You're an initiate, aren't you?" Niko asked.

"Do I look like an initiate?" I retorted.

"Lyssa, hus.h.!.+" Father Ellis shot me a look. "Let us deal with him." He stepped from the forest onto the greens. "Father Cristopolos!" he cried. The head priest and Father Renoir stood with a pile of items that had been salvaged from the building.

I started to follow, but all four turned to yell, "Stay in the forest!"

"Oh, my G.o.ds!" I groaned and jerked back to make sure I remained where they told me.

Niko appeared amused then hardened as he stepped past the red rope onto the greens. He paused several steps away and turned to face me.

"Who or what do they think you are?" he asked, leveling dark eyes on me.

I fell speechless, uncertain what to do. It kind of felt like everyone was lying to everyone else. Niko claimed to be a gladiator but was really a mercenary, and the priests told him I was an initiate.

"Hmmm." Niko studied me. He seemed to find answers where I didn't mean to give them. "I'm guessing you're worth much more than they offered. Better hope they're willing to pay to keep me from kidnapping and selling you."

I almost laughed but realized he was serious.

He winked and walked away.

I began to regret not sending him off in some random direction when we met. The fact he was doing this for money made me feel a little dirty. Or tainted. Or at least, capable of understanding why the priests looked down upon shady men like him.

Watching them speak, I waited for someone to yell or give some sign it wasn't going well. The distant sound of thunder reached me. The sky was clear, aside from puffs of smoke left over from the school burning.

Weird. Thunder and no clouds. The earth trembled. I waited for it to pa.s.s like it might in an earthquake, but it didn't. The tremor remained constant and the thunder loudened.

With the four of them busy talking, I dropped my pack and scaled a tree quickly. I reached the top and poked my head up above the canopy, expecting to see what I normally did: kilometers of woods followed by a break where the road was and more forestry on the other side of the break.

Trees were being knocked to the ground and flattened by machines I wasn't able to see from this vantage point. It had started near the road and was moving towards us, downing whole swaths of trees for a kilometer stretch.

What could do this to a dense forest of mature trees? Was it the work of the ground forces the priests spoke of? I was embarra.s.sed to admit I had no idea whose ground forces they were referring to or even what ground forces really were.. Did the military intend to run over the forest to grab me? Or was it the SISA, the international secret police force tasked with internal security of the human race by the G.o.ds?

Was it even legal for someone to mow down an entire forest?

I s.h.i.+mmied down the tree and replaced my pack. The four priests were huddled together a short distance from Niko, whose gaze was on the forest in the direction of the thunder. He alone seemed aware of something being wrong.

Catching my gaze, he lifted his chin back towards the direction we had come and mouthed two words. Run. Now.

Fear lit in my blood, followed by concern for the priests. I stood frozen for a moment, debating what Herakles would have me do.

Survive. And if I was what the priests said I was, I was probably putting them in danger by being with them.

I took one step back then another. Not at all certain I was about to do the right thing, I turned and began to make my way quickly through the forest, to the east. The cras.h.i.+ng of trees soon became more audible, and I did as Niko said and sprinted.

I ran until I no longer heard the sounds of something crunching and grinding the trees of my forest beneath it and slowed only when the peaceful sounds of nature were present around me. Without stopping, I snacked on a protein bar and continued walking for another hour and a half, covering the distance between the school and the lake in record time.

And then I stopped at the boundary, as I had been trained.

Gazing at it, I couldn't help the guilt that floated through me. I was afraid to leave the forest this time, because I knew what would happen if I did. A part of me remained in denial about all that had happened in so short a time, that the destruction of everything I had ever known was connected to the simple act of me going one step too far.

I sat on my tree stump, staring at the lake. It was midafternoon, and I hadn't forgotten the creature I saw either. No, I wasn't going to cause more trouble.

My determination lasted until I heard the birds begin to vacate the forest around me. The sound of machines wasn't present, but the animals were fleeing something. I had no idea where to go once I left the forest and remained where I was, on the verge of panicking yet knowing that was the worst thing to do in a crisis.

I miss Herakles. He would know what to do and where to go.

Twenty minutes later, the unmistakable sound of someone running through the forest reached me. I rose and hurried to a hiding spot close by, anxious to see who followed.

"Lyssa!" Niko's quiet cry reached me before he did. "Or ... Alice. Whatever your name is. We need to go. Now."

I peeked at him through the brush. He reached the tree stump, his gaze sweeping expertly around the area. He was sweating and b.l.o.o.d.y. One hand was caked in it and there was also blood on his s.h.i.+rt.

"C'mon, you little s.h.i.+t!"

With some hesitation, I stood. "Are you hurt?"

He whirled to face me. "No."

"Is someone else hurt?" I asked.

"You could say that." He strode over the cord towards the lake, oblivious to the importance of the red boundary marking the edge of my world.

I walked until my toes reached the rope, torn about leaving. "Shouldn't we wait for Father Ellis?"

Niko didn't stop. "No."

"He can't move as fast as us."

"What is your name?"

"Alessandra."

He spun to face me, backpedaling as he spoke. "They're gone, Alessandra. They took a different route out of here."

My jaw dropped open. "They left me?"

"These people pursuing you pursuing us aren't the kind of people I'm used to dealing with. This is SISA. They have the G.o.ds' blessings to kill fast and without mercy. Running was the smartest thing for them to do." He wiped his bloodied hand on his pants. "You can come with me now, and we'll make it out of here by the skin of our teeth, or you can stay right there and wait for SISA to get you."

Gone. In all my preparations for the apocalypse, or perhaps this incident, I understood being alone to be a part of the scenario but wasn't quite able to wrap my head around it any more than I could the fact I was allegedly important. How could I go from being constantly surrounded by forty people to ... alone?

Why didn't they take me with them? This hurt more than anything.

"Fine. Good luck." He turned away.

"Wait!" I cried and started forward.

Realizing what I had done, I twisted to look at the red cord boundary I had spent most of my life avoiding. I was leaving it, the safety of the forest, my past, my home ... basically everything behind me.

It was scary and exhilarating all at once.

Niko wasn't waiting.

Unable to stop and contemplate the world behind me, I charged ahead and ran to his side. My eyes went to the sky automatically, and I sought whatever creature had tracked me last night. Reminded of the rope around my wrist, I wished I'd thought to ask more questions about its power, about what I supposedly was, about what in the name of Holy Olympus was going on.

And ... how could the priests just leave me with a mercenary they didn't trust? How was I so important yet not worthy of a farewell?

The idea they were watching over me out of obligation and had never wanted anything to do with me stung hard. I kind of considered them to be my extended family, however dysfunctional that was. I never suspected they didn't feel the same.

"Where are we going?" I asked Niko to take my mind off the pain.

"You tell me. Where did your priests want you to go?"

I was quiet.

Niko glanced at me. "They didn't tell you, either, huh? Great. Well, you're not coming home with me. I don't even think I can go home if you're important enough for teams of SISA special forces to smash through the forest."

"I don't know where to go, Niko."

"Just ... pick a place. It won't matter so long as it's away from here."

"Was.h.i.+ngton DC."

"Worst place to be when the government is after you. Although ..." He drifted off, gaze going to the west, as if he could see DC from here. "It might also be the best place to be. SISA won't expect us to go there."

I didn't care what reasoning he found in it. I was going to find Herakles, the only man in the universe who wouldn't abandon me at the first sign of trouble like the priests did. The cracking of tree trunks sounded behind us, followed by the faint tremble of the earth.

"Won't matter if we don't get out of here. I hope you can run as far as you can fast. We need to move." Niko took off running towards another thatch of forest lining the opposite side of the lake.

I followed, unable to shake the sense of guilt, unease and fear churning in my belly. The destruction of our home was all my fault. Maybe that was the real reason why the priests abandoned me because I destroyed everything they loved.

Chapter Four: The Grotesque.

Not even the G.o.ds fight against necessity.

Simonides "What have your prisoners revealed?"

I glanced up at my master and friend as he entered the isolated apartment where I lived on a compound in central DC. The compound housed little else than my quarters; there were too many secrets for me to live among normal humans.

"Nothing." Was.h.i.+ng my bloodied fists in the sink at the bar, I dried them and poured him his favorite drink. Unlike most men, the Supreme Priest preferred fruity drinks with umbrellas to shots of hard liquor. "They won't say what's in the forest."

"But you felt something."

"I did." Something ... familiar.

"It bothers you."

My hands paused as I finished his drink.

Lantos sat on a stool at the bar. He removed the mask he wore in public to reveal the face of a man in his thirties with sparkling green eyes and a smile that seemed out of place for someone with such a stately position as the G.o.ds' advocate to humanity.

"I know you, Adonis," Lantos chided gently. "Better than you know yourself. What did you sense?"

It was unlike me to hesitate to share any thought with the man who saved my life, yet something about what I'd experienced made me balk at the idea. I closed my eyes and tilted my head, bringing up the memory from the night before, of the calm lake reflecting starlight, the scent of pine and other trees in the air, and the peace that always came with leaving the confines of the city to hunt.

Beyond the pleasures of nature, I'd sensed ... a flicker of awareness, an instinct buried so deeply, it shocked me to feel it. What I'd experienced had nothing to do with the lake or what might've been present. Something inside me was awakening, and I wasn't accustomed to such mysteries or surprises about myself.

"I don't know," I said. "Whatever they hide there, it's familiar to me on a level I should know."

"Your memories have begun to return?"

Opening my eyes, I shook my head. "Not at all. There is nothing before the night you saved my life."

"Your beast instincts?"

"Baffled."

Rustling from below me drew a smile. The tiny creature at my feet an animated stuffed koala bear was pawing my leg like she did every time I returned to the apartment. I had no memory of obtaining the toy, no idea how she'd come to life. I only recalled waking twelve years ago to find her and Lantos hovering over me in worry and the life-threatening wound in my side healed by the magic of Lantos' t.i.tan father.

"h.e.l.lo Mrs. Nettles," I greeted the toy and picked her up. I didn't remember how she came by that name either, but she insisted I call her this.

Pink. She said and shuffled over to the Supreme Priest. At times uncannily wise beyond her years, she was at other times nothing more than a moth drawn to sparkly or bright things. She was currently fascinated by the umbrella in his drink.

"For you, Mrs. Nettles." Lantos handed her the umbrella. "How are you today?"

I shook my head at his look. She was too bedazzled to respond. No one heard her but me.

"Any luck on figuring out if the Silent Queen or Magistrate are involved?" Lantos asked.

"They're keeping things tightly held." I mentally went over the reports and activities of the day. "We destroyed the forest and found these everywhere." I lifted a gym bag onto the counter and withdrew a red cord.

Lantos' eyes lit up. He picked up one and held it over his forearm then lowered it. The rope cord turned to something resembling smoke. His body absorbed it.