“It’s a powerful magical object, and there are plenty of people who could sense it,” I reminded him. “Bury it and it could be dug up. Put it in a safe-deposit box, and it could be stolen. Place it in a wall, and said wall might be knocked down. But Tony loves his trophies, and is well equipped to protect them. And with him, there wasn’t any risk of the holder dying and the talisman passing to someone who might want to disenchant it. Vampires are the closest things the world has to immortals anymore. Especially paranoid ones like Tony.”
We sat in silence for a moment. I don’t know what Jonas was thinking, but I wasn’t thinking much of anything. The successive shocks of the last few days had left me almost numb. Which was better than the alternative, better than going over all the might-have-beens, all the ways in which everything could have gone so differently. If the gods hadn’t fought back quite so hard, if Tony had just stayed put, if Apollo had returned, full of rage and vengeance, and been met, not by a bunch of demons, but by one very hungry, very determined, goddess . . .
But he hadn’t.
My parents had had a good plan, but it had failed. And now we were left picking up the pieces. Which would have been a lot easier if they would listen to me. But Roger had made it clear that that wasn’t happening, just like Mother had the last time I was here.
They’d seen me now; they knew that part of their plan had worked.
They just didn’t understand—it wasn’t the right part.
I realized that Jonas was looking at me. “We’re not going to get any help, are we?”
“Not from my parents. What help they could give us, they already have. This is our fight, Jonas.”
We listened to sparks ping off the inside of the Dumpster for a while. “I wanted to thank you,” he finally said.
“For what?”
“Your warning. About the Black Circle. Caleb arrived with it just before they hit. If we hadn’t been prepared . . .”
“I didn’t send him with a warning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I took a breath. “I sent him to steal from you. The potion, if he could get it, or the recipe if he couldn’t. I guess he decided to talk to you instead.”
He bowed his head. “How did we get here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were right. I haven’t been treating you as a Pythia. It’s difficult to see anyone in that role . . . besides her.”
“I know.”
“But you are Pythia.” He shot me a glance. “And you’re going back.”
I nodded. “To find a weapon of the gods, and a man who knows how to wield it.”
“And the potion . . . the bottle I found, is it enough?”
“No. But a full one wouldn’t be, either. I’m too tired. I barely got us here.”
“Then how?”
I looked at the house. “There’s another way.”
Chapter Forty-six
The woods were lovely, dark and deep.
And then we shifted in.
I hit the ground with Hildegarde on top of me, and then Abigail slammed into her. And finally Rosier appeared out of nowhere and collapsed on top of us, and I started seeing stars. Only no: the silvery trails through the trees were something else.
“Grab her!” I wheezed, and another ghostly presence shot off through the branches, but it wasn’t Billy Joe.
He was too busy bitching at me.
“I told you . . . this was a bad . . . idea!”
“Why are you . . . breathless?” I gasped, because I was the one with six hundred pounds on top of me.
“Because that . . . was the most insane thing . . . I’ve ever done!” he screeched, spectral hat tipped back on his head, hazel eyes huge. “What the hell?”
He was talking about our trip through the Badlands, which we’d reentered in order to take a shortcut to the past. Dad had lent me his two ghosts, and with Billy Joe hopped up on Rosier’s power, we’d been able to carry four: me, Rosier, and my two new acolytes, who were looking like they very much regretted the trip.
But we’d managed it, although we’d had to exit a few years early in self-defense. And then immediately shift away from the tide of hungry spirits that had poured out after us. It had been like somebody rang a dinner bell—thanks to Daisy, who had wandered too far out and brought something back with her.
Something huge.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at it before we were enveloped by a horde of panicked ghosts, all trying to get away from whatever it was and to snack on us in the bargain.
Which was probably what had Daisy so spooked, I thought, as she was dragged back through the trees, protesting.
“I was just stretching my legs,” she said haughtily.
“Damn it, woman! You don’t have any legs!” the colonel said, his muttonchops vibrating in indignation.
“Do, too,” she said, and then peered down worriedly as I struggled to get up.
“And this is no time for a stroll!”
I couldn’t agree more.
The idea had been to arrive incognito, because phasing didn’t use the Pythian power. Or any magic at all, at least none that a normal magic worker was likely to detect. I assumed that was how Johanna had been evading me: my power could only find her if she used it, or messed up the time stream, and so far, she’d done neither. We, on the other hand, had just made a big damn entrance.
“Think they noticed?” I asked Hildegarde, who was lying on her side, panting.
“If they didn’t, they’re blind,” she wheezed, and sat up.
“You okay?” I asked Abigail, who was still flat on the ground and not looking okay. Her once-nice updo was everywhere, and her brown eyes were like saucers.
“Fail-safe is usually more of an . . . honorary position,” she whispered.
“Well, it’s been upgraded,” Hilde said. “Help me up!”
They struggled back to their feet while the colonel stepped in front of me. Dad’s second ghost was an old gentleman wearing a blue uniform with massive epaulets whom I’d briefly met once before. He’d seemed pretty unfriendly then, but Roger vouching for me had worked wonders.
“There appear to be a number of hostiles in the area,” he reported.
“Hostiles?” I repeated, and immediately, a series of images started cascading in front of my eyes, courtesy of the power’s viewfinder to the future. I hadn’t asked for them, but I guess it thought I should know that a forest full of Pythias were converging on our location.
Hilde was right: they knew we were here.
Like, all of them.
For a moment, I just stared as what looked like every Pythia in the last fifteen hundred years flipped in front of my eyes.
“They’re not supposed to be doing this,” Abigail said, apparently seeing the same shit I was. “They’re not even supposed to meet!”
“Gertie has been breaking the rules,” I told her as my power roamed outward, trying to find a path through the insanity.
And kept on looking.
“She always did,” Hilde murmured while Abigail continued to stare into space, caught somewhere between horror and fascination. It didn’t look like the Pythian power usually put on this kind of show for the acolytes. At least, I really hoped not, because some of them were out there, too.
Make that all of them. My power’s field of vision suddenly widened, leaving me staring at what looked like an army in white. The forest was crawling; no way were we getting through all that.
“Change of plan,” I told everyone hoarsely.
A moment later, Abigail took off, the colonel on her heels, and I looked at Hilde. “Are you sure you want to try this?”
She nodded. “If I can find Gertie alone, I can phase in and surprise her.”
“Yeah, but will she listen?” It wasn’t exactly her strong suit.