Hera knelt beside Nim. The goddess cradled her head in her lap, straightening the angle of Nim’s neck as Aphrodite dipped a shell into the river and sprinkled its contents over Nim’s limp form. Nim’s chest began to rise. She blinked once, twice, sat up in shock, water streaming from her hair, looking around frantically, but the goddesses were gone.
Over Theo’s wound, Hestia’s fingers dripped fire, and as the flames touched the cleft the sword had made in his side, the flesh knit together, smooth and unscarred. Artemis drew an arrow from her quiver, ghostly and glowing as if forged of moonlight. She drove it into Theo’s chest, and he twitched, gasping as his heart began to beat once more. His eyes flew open, and he scrambled backward on his hands, reaching for a weapon, seeking his attackers.
“Diana? What the hell just happened?” said Nim. “Where’s Alia? Where’s that—that thing?”
There was no sign of the goddesses or the Oracle, but Diana heard Athena’s words ringing in her ears: Speak not our names to plead for mercy.
There were men headed down the hillside; they had cans of gasoline in their hands.
Theo touched the place where his wound had been. “Did I die? Oh shit, am I a zombie?”
“There’s no time to explain,” said Diana. “Jason has Alia.”
Theo’s face went grim. “Then let’s go get her.”
Diana glanced at the horizon. “And we have less than thirty minutes until the sun sets.”
Nim nodded. “Then let’s get her quickly.”
She’d chosen her soldiers. It was time to go to war.
They crept into the bushes, skirting the men with the gasoline cans who had made it down to the banks of the river and were discovering there were no bodies to be found.
“What the hell?” one of them said. “I saw Pinon finish the Amazon, and Rutkoski took care of the skinny guy.”
“I broke that Indian kid’s neck myself,” said another.
“Asshole,” muttered Nim.
“So where are they?”
“Maybe the river carried them downstream?”
They set off, boots splashing through the shallows.
“Come on,” said Diana. “We won’t have long until they report back to Jason.”
At the edge of the blacktop, they paused. Jason’s vehicles had blocked off the road, and she wondered if his forces had set up a perimeter to stop ordinary traffic. She could see men milling around two Humvees at the head of the caravan. Three armored trucks clustered closer to their hiding place, along with a third Humvee. This was the one that carried Pinon. Diana could tell from the heavy bolts that had been added to the rear doors, but she was relieved to see no sign of the creature. Hopefully, she was securely locked up and sleeping off her feast inside the vehicle. The helicopter had taken to the air and was making a wide circle over the valley.
A group of soldiers was piling into one of the armored trucks. Through the open doors of another, she could see a mini armory of weapons and what looked like a mobile laboratory. Jason was speaking to a man seated in front of a computer, test tubes full of blood—her blood—parceled out for him to play with. The sick shame of betrayal pooled in her gut. He’d lied to her, taken her trust, and stolen the very life from her body.
“How can he look so damn calm?” Theo said. Beneath his anger, Diana heard all the hurt and bewilderment of the moment Jason had turned on them.
“It’s worse than that,” said Nim, nothing but disgust in her voice. “He looks satisfied.”
She was right. The rigid tension had gone from Jason. He’d changed into a clean shirt and a combat jacket, and he wore them like cloth of gold. He looked like a king at the moment of his ascension.
Diana curled her hand into a fist. He wasn’t a king; he was a thief. And he’d taken enough from all of them.
“Theo,” she said, “if you had access to one of those computers, could you find a way to, I don’t know—”
“Infiltrate Jason’s network and decimate his data stores, corrupting every bit of information he’s gathered and rendering his research worthless?”
“Um, yes, that.”
“Sure.”
“That easy?” said Nim.
Theo shrugged. “I helped build Jason’s networks and firewalls.”
Nim whistled. “No wonder he wanted you dead.”
Jason jumped down from the truck and headed for the front of the caravan, pausing beside the second Humvee.
“Alia will be in there,” Diana said. “They’ll take second position on the drive in case of ambush. I can get to her.”
“You sure?” said Theo. “Those are a lot of soldiers all juiced up on hero blood.”
“I can get to her,” Diana repeated, hoping that was true. She would have only one chance at this. “But we need to get you to the lab truck. Jason said he had snipers in place, and I doubt he’ll have them stand down until the caravan is in motion.”
Nim pointed to a spot near the crest of the Menelaion, then left and right at the lower ridges. “They’ll be there,” she said.
“What do you know about snipers?” asked Theo.
“Nothing, but I know plenty about sight lines. Those are the three spots that will give them direct views of the caravan and anyone approaching from either side of the road.”
“That’s remarkable,” said Diana. “Can you pick out a path to follow that will get us to the lab truck without drawing their fire?”
Nim cocked her head. “I can get us there, but not without the guys in Pinon’s Humvee seeing us.”
“Then that’s our first stop,” said Diana. “Nim, take the lead. Let’s move.”
They dropped into a crouch and crept along the side of the road, following Nim’s directions, using the brush and trees as cover. Nim’s zigs and zags as they approached the vehicles seemed counterintuitive to Diana, but she could admit she didn’t have Nim’s particular gift for the visual. They emerged from the brush, wriggled directly under one of the armored trucks, and then crawled along its opposite flank. From there, they slid into a wide pocket of shadow by the driver’s side of the Humvee.
“Stay close,” she said, and yanked open the driver’s door.
Before the stunned soldier could say a word, she’d pulled him from the vehicle and slammed him against the Humvee’s side. He dropped to the pavement.
“Hey!” said the soldier in the passenger’s seat, his hand on his radio. She slid into the car, seized the scruff of his shirt, and cracked his head against the dashboard. He slumped forward.
Diana looked behind her. The rear of the Humvee held two large cages. Pinon lay in one, curled on her side and snoring.
She picked up the handheld radio and slipped back out of the Humvee. Nim and Theo were rolling the driver’s unconscious body beneath the vehicle.
“Nim,” said Diana. “Get us to the lab truck.”
In a few quick steps, they were there. Diana threw the back doors open and leapt inside.
The man at the computer station scrambled away, fumbling for the gun at his hip.
Diana yanked it from its holster and held it easily out of his reach.
He raised his hands. “Please. I’m a scientist.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.” She saw his hand creeping toward a yellow panic switch and brought the butt of the pistol down on his head. “Much.”
She waved Theo and Nim inside and shut the doors behind them.
“Keep an eye on him,” she said. “If anyone realizes you’re here—”
Nim snatched a semiautomatic rifle from the wall. “We’ll be ready.”
Theo was already bent over the computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
A machine was whirring at the workstation, row after row of glass test tubes filling with dark red blood, then shifting left so another row could be filled.
“Oh hell,” said Nim. “Is that your blood?”
Diana narrowed her eyes. She scanned the mini armory in the truck and pointed to a row of incendiary grenades. “When Theo is done, I want you to get clear, then blow this truck and the vehicle with Pinon in it. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” said Nim.
Her answer was a little too quick and a little too confident for Diana’s liking. “Without blowing yourselves up?”
“Possibly,” said Theo.
The radio crackled. “We are ready to move out. Collins, remain in position until the site has been cleared, over.” They stared at the black box. The voice sounded again. “Collins, do you copy?”
Theo snatched up the radio, fumbling it clumsily, then pressed a button and said, “Copy that…pal.”