3.I: Words and Witches

It might become a dark and stormy night, the weather report had mentioned the possibility of storms but as of yet there was no sign of anything other than a pleasant evening; assuming pleasant involved sitting in the Darjeeling manor’s library for the fifth night in a row scanning books and reading manuscripts.

“I still don’t see why Enyo couldn’t stay to help,” Alyxa muttered darkly as she leafed through a book of genealogical records.

“She had to go,” Morpheus told her, standing with his arms crossed in front of another bookshelf – hovering several feet above the ground, but standing nonetheless.

“I know, I know,” his Dreamer replied, and deepened her voice to mimic Enyo’s, “’I have not seen Ares for many centuries.’”

Morpheus laughed softly.

“I could tell you stories, Dreamer,” he told her.

“Well, the only story I’m currently interested in is one with a clue on where the hell Maye disappeared to.”

-I may have found something.-

Dreamer and Deity turned to where Bast had been sitting quietly, more on top than in front of a book.

“What’ve you got?” Alyxa asked.

-Maye’s family were spread across the world,- the Cat-Goddess started.

“Yes, I read that part yesterday, Bast,” Morpheus remind her.

-Patience, kitten. Do you have any idea how hard it is to turn pages with these paws? Hmm?- Bast chided, -but to cut to the chase, Maye has a grand-aunt who migrated to Australia at the end of World War 2.-

Alyxa rapidly leafed through the pages of the tome she had been reading.

“Considered ‘one of the most powerful witches of her line’,” she read aloud.

-Exactly.-

“Australia is practically the end of the world,” Alyxa stated, “it’s where I’d have gone to hide, at least until I figured out my new powers.”

Interlude between Part 2 & 3

And so we come to another start of a new segment. I don’t know where we’re going from here, just as I have had no idea where it was going from the beginning; in other words, I suppose it’s as much of a journey for me as it is for all of you who have been reading the words I’ve been putting onto your screens.

 

Over the last two parts I’ve been introducing characters and concepts; now because I’ve been doing this unplanned, I realise that I’ve probably been doing it a little too fast. Too many characters in too short a time coupled with a painfully authorial presumption that most of you have a handle on the mythologies and religions I’m drawing on – some of which have been dead for thousands of years. If any of you have felt at any point throughout the course of reading Valerian Night that I’ve left you behind, I apologise.

Which brings me to Part 3. I’m going to attempt in this new part to slow things down a little, to break the characters up a little more. Heck, I might even plan a little! This oncoming part will deal primarily with our original characters, Morpheus and Alyxa, as they search for Maye Darjeeling, the witch who made the deal with Lucifer, briefly mentioned in chapter 78 (Payment). So we’re going back to the beginning, and trying to get to the heart of all that business about bridging the Rift between Reveille – where the old gods reside – and the mortal world – where the rest of us muddle through our lives.

I won’t be able to start part 3 until the end of October, I don’t know how it’s going to go, but I know it’ll go somewhere. I hope you are looking forward to it as much as I am!  

Enjoy the journey...

~V

LXXXII: Fields

“No, wai- ” Alyxa shrieked but the Underworld faded and then she was standing on edge of a lake. 

There were people all around her, people she did not know.

“Dreamer,” a woman in red said, “welcome back.”

Then Morpheus was there, and almost instantly his teeth were in her throat and he was drinking, drawing the blood that was his life-force directly from her jugular. 

-Morpheus, enough,- Bast’s voice snarled a moment later, -she’s weak.-

“Let the Angel do his healin’ thing, she’ll be fine,” a male voice. 

Alyxa blinked her eyes, trying to gain some clarity; there were three men she didn’t know, and apart from the woman in red there was a younger girl. Morpheus pulled back, licking his lips to sweep up the last of blood.

“We left Amy there...with him,” Alyxa murmured.

“You did what?” one of the men demanded.

The lady in red lit up a cigarette.

“The pieces are gathered then,” she said, “and you’ve brought back one of the things we needed.”

-You sent Amy there on purpose, didn’t you?!- Bast hissed, -you sent her there to sell her!-

“Lucifer would have kept Amy no matter what, an Unbound Dreamer! Unbound! He would not have let her go, regardless,” Medea retorted, “but now we have her!” 

A scarlet-nailed finger pointed at Enyo.

-You traded her! Like an object! My Dreamer!-

“The Rift will open at this rate, three Deities this side of Reveille. Bast is right, Medea, what are you playing at?” Morpheus asked, cradling Alyxa to him.

“Lucifer will bridge the Rift anyways, he wants to battle Baldur and restart everything,” Medea countered, “but with Kali on our side, the field is even.”

-Except that Kali lives only to destroy everything.-

“I am standing right here, children, I can hear you.”

LXXXI: Accord

“Is that Amy?” Alyxa mumbled as they came in.

“Yes,” he replied simply.

“Why?”

Lucifer smiled magnanimously.

“She is here to take your place,” the Morning Star told them with an expansive gesture of his arms.

“She’s what?” Alyxa demanded, shaken out of the stupor.

Amy blinked, twisting where she knelt by Bast’s cage.

“What do you mean?” the little girl asked.

Lucifer moved to kneel at her side and he laid a calming hand on her shoulder.

-Don’t touch her!- Bast hissed; her words ignored.

“I mean, little one, that if you stay here, with me, I will let your friends go. I will let them return to the World of the Living, if you promise to stay with me forever.”

Amy hesitated.

“‘Forever’?” she echoed, a little undone by the word itself.

“It is not enough,” Morpheus said, stepping forwards and setting Alyxa down on the chair Amy had vacated not long before.

Lucifer’s brilliant eyes flashed and he met Morpheus’ eyes.

“Do not push me, sweetheart.”

“If you have an Unbound Dreamer, Morning Star, we will not walk away empty handed.” Morpheus said softly, eyes narrowing.

The Prince of Darkness took a moment to consider this.

“Your suggestion?”

Morpheus raised an elegant finger and pointed at Enyo.

“Kali comes with us.”

“If I release her it should be into Reveille,” Lucifer countered.

“We will send Amy back.”

The Morning Star hesitated.

“Take the Destroyer then,” Lucifer murmured, studying Amy, “take her and go.”

-We can’t just leave her!- Bast roared.

Morpheus looked at the little girl.

“Amy?” Morpheus asked the girl.

She glanced at Lucifer.

“If you let them go and never touch them again, I will stay.”

“Then it is done,” Lucifer replied, and waved a hand, “go. Don’t worry, Bast, I will care for her.”

LXXX: Convenience

“Can I talk with them?” Amy asked the Prince, suddenly not sure about what she was doing here.

“I will let you see them,” Lucifer replied, and clapped his hands, summoning a strange bird down from unseen rafters.

It was brown, but no kind of brown that Amy had ever seen before, it was shiny and reminded her of the hair pins the Bad Lady had worn when she had stolen Daddy.

“Bring Morpheus and his Dreamer,” Lucifer instructed the bird, who took off and vanished.

“What about Bast?” Amy demanded.

“Patience, little one, Bast is already here.”

Lucifer waved a hand and the air beside the throne shimmered, revealing to golden-barred cages, one of which held the most beautiful woman Amy had ever seen and the other held Bast, although she was no longer pick-up-able.

“Bast!” Amy exclaimed and bolted forward beneath Lucifer’s indulgent smirk.

-Amy? Kittens and fishsticks, what are you doing down here, child?-

“Medea sent me, and there’s this girl who sees things before they happen, and boy name Michael, and they told me to come here and talk to him and get you out!” Amy told her in a rush of emotion, sinking down beside the cage and reaching through the bars.

Bast licked the child’s hands gently, ignoring the amused looks she was receiving from both Enyo and Lucifer.

-They should not have sent you.-

“On the contrary, little kitty,” Lucifer countered, “she is the only thing of worth that they have.”

“Huh?”

Bast bristled and hissed at him, reaching through the bars to swipe at him in her anger.

-How dare you! She’s just a child!-

“An Unbound Dreamer, goddess, is worth more than a hundred Bound Dreamers, the Witch-Queen knows that and yet she still sends her to me? How convenient.”

LXXIX: Value

“Actually, it’s been around for a long time,” Lucifer assured her, leaning back in his chair and sipping the fruit, “and witches have dealt in souls for many, many centuries.”

Amy screwed her little nose up.

“That’s gross,” she said.

“Depends on your perspective.”

“It’s gross,” she repeated.

“It raises a big problem for you though, little one, because essentially what I’ve been paid is in gods and the soul of a Bound Dreamer. The only way you can get them back is replace them with something of equal worth.”

Amy was trying very hard to listen to everything he was saying, but it was all very confusing. Daddy had always told her to ask questions if she did not understand something, but she wasn’t sure that Lucifer would understand that philosophy. She had to try something though.

“What’s the difference between a normal Dreamer and a...bound Dreamer?”

“A Bound Dreamer,” he said slowly, “is a Dreamer whose life is all tangled up with a Deity’s, in other words, your sister and Morpheus now share one lifeline. They are ‘bound’ together. He drinks her blood, she is strengthened by his energies.”

“Oh,” she replied and chewed on her lip for a moment, “does that mean I’m a not bound Dreamer? Since Bast doesn’t drink my...blood?”

Something flashed in Lucifer’s eyes; Amy wondered if they had a name for that kind of blue.

“If you have not shared your blood with a Deity or supernatural force then you are Unbound, and thus far more powerful than Alyxa.”

“Why?”

“Because Bound Dreamers are restrained Dreamers, Unbound Dreamers are not limited by the powers of their Deity. As a result, they are also much more valuable.”

“How valuable?” Amy asked softly.

“Valuable enough to trade for two gods and a Bound Dreamer.”

“Oh.”

LXXVIII: Payment

There was every kind of food she could think of, and it all drifted in on clouds of red and blue lights. It was very pretty. Lucifer sat in a shiny chair next to her, it was a really long table, but they occupied only one little corner of it while the food drifted by them. Lucifer himself put bits and pieces of food on her plate, suggesting that she try something. 

“This is delicious,” she told him politely.

“You should have some of this fruit juice, it’s made in the Elysium Fields.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s here.”

Amy looked around, trying to see what he was talking about.

“Where? I don’t see it.”

“You can only see it if you live here, and only then if you’re allowed to.”

“Who says you’re allowed to?” Amy asked him.

Lucifer leaned in closer to her to tell her a secret.

“I’m the boss,” he told her.

Amy nodded, she knew that. 

“You’re trying to distract me,” she said to him, putting on what she called Daddy’s Business Look, “it’s not going to work.” 

Lucifer leaned back again.

“It isn’t?”

“No, it isn’t,” she replied, “I want you to give my friends back now please.”

“Are you sure you don’t want some of the fruit juice?”

“I’m sure,” Amy told him.

“Then we shall begin the negotiations,” he replied.

He clapped his hands and everything except the cups and jug of juice disappeared. 

“You want your friends back, but they are mine,” Lucifer said, “so what will you give me in return?”

“They shouldn’t be yours, they were free!” Amy countered, “you took them away.”

“Actually,” Lucifer said, “they were given to me in payment by a witch who was looking for more power.”

“How can you give people in payment? That’s wrong!”

LXXVII: Audience

Lucifer lounged in the over-sized chair that made up the Plutonic Throne, one leg dangling over an arm and the other curled up underneath him. His wings drooped over the other arm, just for show.

“I didn’t realise you were still here, Chiron, I should’ve given you a redundancy package and sent you on a leave,” the Morning Star mused, “my apologies.”

“No need, y’r Excellency,” Chiron assured him, his skeletal hand wrapped gently about Amy’s, “I’m quite happy fishin’ for lost them lost souls in the river as it were.”

“Good good, but still, if there’s anything...”

“I’ll be s’re to mention it, y’r Excellency.”

“Good,” Lucifer said and turned his gaze on Amy, who stared up at him with large eyes.

He was so tall and impressive, and reminded her of Daddy, but scarier.

“What can I do for you, little one?”

“I’m from the Living World,” Amy blurted out, “my name’s Amy. I’m here for my friends.”

Lucifer’s gaze turned curious.

“And which friends are those, my dear?”

“Alyxa ‘n Mister Morpheus ‘n Bast!” Amy stated, a little rattled by the pure colour in his eyes.

“Ah. Then you are here to negotiate their return?”

Amy didn’t really know what ‘negotiate’ meant so she nodded.

“Then, as the Witch Queen’s ambassador, you are my guest, are you thirsty or hungry? I will see refreshments brought.”

Before Amy could reply the shining creature waved a hand and a small chair and table appeared just beside his throne, on the table sat a plate of cookies and a large mug of something steaming.

“I’m not suppose to drink or eat anything,” she said dubiously, but Lucifer waved a hand, swinging his feet off the throne to make his way towards her.

“It is freely given, little one, I promise.”

LXXVI: Guide

It was deliciously warm, and dry, and she was so hungry. Thirsty too. Amy sat up. She was lying on moss that was growing on rock. She was in a cave, everywhere she looked there were those things that grew from the roof and grew from the floor, here and there they had formed gigantic pillars, holding up the cavern roof. She blinked, suddenly realising that she could see quite clearly. There was no light source, unless you counted the fact that the ground and walls gave off a pale white glow. It was really pretty.

“Are you awake then, girl?” a voice asked her, making her start.

She looked around and felt her eyes nearly drop out of her head when she saw what she could only assume was a skeleton.

“’s not nice to stare.”

“Sorry. I’ve...just never seen a talking skeleton before.”

“Name’s Chiron,” the skeleton told her, adjusting the black cloth he had wrapped around his bony shoulders.

“I’m Amy, I’m looking for my friends,” Amy replied, and then remembered she was suppose to say something, “and I’m of the Living World.”

Chiron chuckled.

“I’m not gonna be keepin’ you here, girl, I just ferry people across the river when it’s time, they’s that pay. Used to anyhow, but those days ‘r long past now that there’s a new Prince on the Plutonic Throne.”

“I’d like to go to him, he knows where my friends are,” Amy said.

“Best to leave the Morning Star be, girl, he’s not to be trifl’d with.”

“I promised.”

If a skeleton could ever be described as thoughtful, now would be the right moment.

“Well, seein’ as you’re not dead ‘n I haven’t got a job to do no more, guess I’ll be y’r escort.”

Amy’s face brightened.

“Thank you, Chiron.”

LXXV: Temperment

-How long do you think she can hold out?- Bast asked her fellow captive goddess when Morpheus had left them.

“As long as a dream, less than a nightmare,” Enyo told her in a voice that only Bast and Lucifer were apparently capable of hearing.

-How long would your little spell take?-

“No longer than a breath, as long as the fall of a drop of blood.”

-I like a good blood sacrifice as the next goddess, Kali, but seriously, don’t you take it a little far?-

“Your kind eat your kittens,” Enyo pointed out.

-Only when they’re dead,- Bast snarled, her long tail fluffing up slightly.

“Or when they don’t belong to you,” Enyo reminded her.

The two deities looked at each other in silence for a minute or two, and then Enyo affected a small, shrug.

“Would you have let me drain Morpheus’Dreamer, if it meant freedom?”

-Of course,- Bast said, -she is not my Dreamer, I feel nothing but minor amity for her-

“It can still be done, Cat-Queen, if I were to drain the Dreamer and her Morpheus I could – ”

-Absolutely not!- Bast hissed, -You’re disgusting for even thinking it!-

Enyo’s eyes flashed into a brilliant gold, her hair flared from its dark curls into brilliant reds and oranges.

“I am what I am, little kitten, and I was here before you. Yama and Thanatos pay tribute to me, Di Yu grovels at my feet, Osiris came before me for new life when Isis sewed his pieces together. Every single entity of death, destruction, and rebirth answers to me. Do not presume to teach me of morality. ”

-And yet you are here, bound by a minor deity,- Bast countered slyly.

“He has the Chains of Lilith.”

-He does?- Bast asked, startled.

“Yes, he does.”

LXXIV: Deeper

The water was cold. Amy’s little brow curled into a frown as she took her first steps into it, listening to the Red Lady saying strange things behind her. The water was very cold. This was not what she had imagined when the others had told her she would be swimming in a beautiful lake; in her mind, beautiful and warm were pretty much mutually inclusive.

The Red Lady made a gesture and Amy assumed that this meant it was time for her to start swimming so that is exactly what she did. Amy prided herself in being the best swimmer in her grade; she always beat everyone at the races and could swim to the bottom of the pool and sit there for long enough to count to sixty. Her teachers and Daddy had always been very impressed. Of course, Daddy was gone now... there was no way she was going to let anything happen to Alyxa and Mr. Morpheus.

The further down she dove the darker it got, so Amy shut her eyes and just swam deeper and deeper. She could feel the air building up in her lungs, and a little further down she had to exhale and inhale. To her surprised there was no water that rushed into her lungs; it felt sticky, like candy that had been left in the sunlight, but it was exactly like air. The Red Lady was good at her job too!

Amy opened her eyes, to see if she could see the cave that she had been told about. There was no cave; she could see was a faint glimmer somewhere below her, as though she was swimming back to the surface. That’s probably it. Her little legs were tiring. And then the light engulfed her and she couldn’t see.

LXXIII: Preparations

They stood on the edge of the water and Michael shifted uneasily. It was so deep. Too deep. He could feel just how deep it ran, so deep that it made him want to wear his wings, just in case it seemed like he would trip and tumble in. He glanced over to where Medea was talking to Amy; the little girl looked quite nonplussed about the entire deal. Swim to the non-existing bottom of this lake? She could do that, or so she had quite readily told them. She had sworn herself blue and black that she was a great swimmer – apparently her father had taught her how to swim behind their house, making Michael wonder just where this child had come from and how she had ended up entangled with Alyxa and her Deity.

“So you understand, child, you are not to stop for anything, nothing. I will cast this spell on you, but it will not last indefinitely,” Medea was saying.

“What does ‘indefinitely’ mean?” Amy asked and Medea clicked her tongue impatiently.

“‘Forever’,” she explained, her voice short.

“Oh. How long will it last then?”

“About an hour, possibly two. It depends. So do not get distracted, swim to the bottom, and you will find a cave, you will go through the cave, and you will find yourself in Tartarus.”

“Once you’re in,” Achilles said, stepping in, “you will probably be approached by someone or something. Don’t be scared, tell them you wish to see Lucifer.”

“Tell them you are a Dreamer,” Medea told her, wrestling the conversation back into her own control, “now this is very important: tell them you are of the Living World. Do not eat or drink anything while you are there. Nothing. Not a seed, not a sip. Do you understand?”

LXXII: Pacing

Pacing. That was about all there was to it. Back and forth continuously. The wide open spaces were oppressive in ways that Morpheus had never thought possible; the mortal world at least had its innovations and novelties, nothing compared to the incomprehensible beauties of Reveille. He was suffocating here.
“Where is she?” he demanded of the air in front of him.

-Chances are she is looking into the River,- Bast told him, and he glanced back at the cage that contained her, -Enyo says that its where she would be if she were mortal. The Styx is apparently the border between everything, the Dreamer would be most comfortable there.-

Enyo nodded and made a gesture.

-It’ll stop her from going insane, or at least slow it down.-

“I should be with her,” Morpheus murmured absently as though the thought had just occurred to him.

-It’s not like she’s going anywhere,- Bast snarled, -she can’t get out, Lucifer will keep her here at all costs.-

“What does Lucifer want with her anyways? How many Dreamers has he taken prisoner, I have seen none.”

Bast glanced at Enyo who made a noncommittal gesture with her elegant hands.

-We don’t know.-

“He obviously wishes Baldur to be kept away, but what other purpose apart from bridging the Rift does capturing Dreamers have?”

-Unfortunately, kitten, your guess is as good as mine,- Bast replied, sitting down on her haunches.

“The Older should know this, when we get out of here...”

-If, kitten, ‘if’,- the Cat-Goddess corrected.

Enyo tapped her scarlet and black nails against the bars of her golden cage.

- I have faith in your abilities, Kali, I don’t have faith in mortals.-

“Mortals are predictable,” Morpheus countered.

-Not that predictable. Do you honestly think a mortal is going to come down here?-

LXXI: Pornography

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Alyxa looked up from the running waters of the river Styx. Lucifer was kneeling at her shoulder, staring into the waters just as she had been doing.

“It is,” she agreed.

“I come here a lot, when I want to think,” the Morning Star said, giving her a brilliant smile that made her knees go weaker than Morpheus ever managed. Alyxa looked deep into the waters again, she could see colours flashing through the darkness, a myriad of strange images like those she sometimes saw in her dreams.

“What do you think about?” she asked suddenly.

“What it would be like if I hadn’t fallen,” Lucifer replied without missing a beat, “what it would be like if my Father hadn’t handed the reins to Michael and the rest of my siblings. I also think about what it would be like if I felt more female than male.”

Alyxa blinked.

“Um...”

“Yes, I know, I’m rather feminine,” the Dark Prince said, “I’m a perfect being, all balanced.”

“‘Balanced’?” Alyxa murmured, feeling the world twisting around her; it was getting harder to hang on.

“Being sane is a matter of point of view,” Lucifer said.

“You know what you are?” Alyxa blurted out, “you’re...pornography.”

That seemed to catch him off guard.

“I’m...pornography?”

“Yes,” she said, staggering through her words, “you’re too flexible to be real, which means you’re staged, pulling off all sorts of things that a normal person couldn’t possibly do, or taking all sorts of punishment that no normal person could. You’re also too pretty. Like snowflakes and butterflies.”

“Snowflakes and butterflies are like pornography?”

“No...” Alyxa said, suddenly looking very confused.

“So I’m like butterflies and snowflakes?”

“No...”

“So I’m as pretty as a butterfly and snowflakes and crazy as pornography?”

“Yes.”

“Now we’re making sense.

LXX: Healing

“Well, that was fun,” Hector stated dryly, hauling himself to his feet.

“Want me to have a look at that shoulder?” Medea asked him, looking now completely like her normal, bitchy self, her outfit restored as was.

“If I let you look at my shoulder I won’t have a shoulder,” the patient told her, his tone unchanging.

“It does need seeing to,” Medea told him, and shot a sideways glance at Michael, “ask the Arc to lay on hands or something.”

“Can he do that?” Achilles asked, blinking as he glanced at the angel.

“He’s God’s almighty sword of Heaven, what do you think?” Medea said, her tone less than sincere.

She turned away and focused on Amy, leaning down to say something to the little girl that neither of the others heard before lifting the girl up onto a hip. The movement struck Hector as so maternal that it almost scared him.

“You want me to take a look at that?” Michael asked him, coming forward.

Jessica was sitting on the tarmac, shaking but what had looked like a broken arm was completely healed and normal.

“So you really can heal?”

“We can,” Michael told him, and shot a glance at Medea, “but we don’t call it laying of hands. We call them Miracles.”

“Parting the Red Sea isn’t that hard,” Medea scoffed, but the others ignored her.

Michael sat Hector down and touched a hand to Hector’s shoulder.

He spoke Aramaic words that Hector couldn’t understand and there was a flash of icy cold searing through his arm, focusing like needle-points on his shoulder. It burned into his joints and then vanished, leaving him breathless and trembling. Where there had been a vicious claw-mark, there was now nothing.

“Not even a scar,” Achilles muttered.

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

LXIX: Maybes

If someone were to ask Amy – or any of the others - to describe what they saw after Medea’s creepily-cheerful ominous declaration, they would focus primarily on the fact that there was heat, as though the very air around them was filled with static. Lightning might have flashed overhead, or perhaps it shot out from the ground at their feet, it might have been blue, or red, or green. It hit nothing, but swirled, or maybe danced, around Medea’s body. Medea may or may not have looked young, or unchanged, she may have flickered or warped or stayed still. She raised her hands and spoke words that none of her companions could recall afterwards, but the heat intensified to the point where Amy could do nothing but cling to Medea’s leg and coat; she didn’t realise she was crying until she noticed that her tears were evaporating from her face.


The demon hurtling towards them incinerated, or maybe he evaporated too, it was hard to tell. Ashes were born upwards on a wind that seemed to sweep out of nowhere. One after the other the demons were crisped and singed to their end and the evidence lifted skywards.


There were more enemies, of course, demons rarely came in small numbers – they gave ‘horde’ its meaning afterall. The newcomers hesitated when they glimpsed the now one-sided battlefield. It was obvious that they had not expected much resistance, let alone resistance of the Witch-Queen’s calibre. She turned to face them, drawing Amy with her. Her hair whipped around her youthful face, the red business dress she had been wearing earlier now resembled something like a red toga; red like swirling blood.


“Tell your Prince he will have to do better than this,” Achilles shouted across at the paused demons, “much, much better.”

LXIII: Playtime

Amy, in all her childish innocence, did not fully understand the danger that she was on – or perhaps in her child’s wisdom she knew that Medea could destroy the creatures that sprung out of those humans that a moment ago had seemed threatening but otherwise normal. She could burn them where they raised themselves into the air. Gunfire from Achilles forced them to stay low as Hector sprinted forward. Amy quite liked the strange weapon he suddenly held; a long sword with a gun built into the long hilt. At least, she thought it was the part called the hilt. Daddy had called bits of the sword the blade and the hilt in his story; the hilt was where you held it.

Jessica screamed behind her, and Amy twisted under Medea’s coat, lined prettily with mink fur and red leather, to look. The other girl was kicking madly, one of the demons had grabbed her by the ankle and was trying to fly up into the air with her. Amy wondered where it had come from. It had big leathery wings. Michael was in the air next to them, and he had a big sword in his hand, just like Hector, only Michael’s sword was on fire.

“I’ve got the Cassandrian!” the demon who had Jazzy shouted.

Michael raised his sword and cut a demon down. Jessica fell awkwardly, hitting the tarmac with a whimper.

“I will take the child!” Achilles half turned in reply to that call and Hector took a blow to his shoulder, falling. Now Amy was scared. One of the demon creatures rushed towards her and she cringed against Medea’s leg.

“Come, little one, play with me,” Medea laughed, and lifted a perfectly-manicured, child-like hand to beckon them closer, “play with me, children, come and play.”

LXII: Weaponry

Michael felt the air snap around him as though a thousand whips rushed by his face. The power crackled into his hand, took shape, he could feel it there: Purpose given to him by his Father. Power that came only when it was needed.

“They come,” he told the others, “I can feel them.”

“Let them come,” Medea whispered, and Michael glanced at her.

The power he felt was nothing compared the power that surrounded her now, the crackling he had felt had been her doing. She looked so young now, like the young girl who had commanded Jason to cut her brother into pieces and throw him into the sea. He could see it in her now. Her hair moved of its own accord, twining around her and upwards like some living cloud of darkened magic.

“There!” Achilles exclaimed, pointing.

Michael had often wondered how Zeus’ agents fought, three of them as they were, and today that question was answered. Even as Achilles lifted his hands there was a crackle of energy and then his hands were filled, handguns, but somehow with blades as well. The air was thick when they came into sight, to the naked eye human men and women, armed to the teeth.

“Stay with me!” Jessica hissed, clutching at his arm.

“I will keep you safe,” he swore and let the Sword of God form in his hand, “stay low.”

Jessica crouched, on hands and knees.

“Give over the Sighted and the Dreamer and we will let you be!” the leader of the Horde called.

“How about...‘no’?” Hector retaliated, “return to your master, demon.”

“Or what?”

“Or I will render you back into the dust,” Michael shouted.

“We will not bargain. Give us the girls or you die.”

“Give it your best shot,” Achilles suggested.

LXI: Unease

“I’m still not sure about this,” Hector said as they stepped out onto the icy tarmac of the landing strip, glancing at his lover.

“Eh, the girl said she Saw it this way? Why argue with the Fates?” Achilles told him, squeezing his shoulder as he looked around him.

“Because the last time we did not argue with the Fates we ended up knee-deep in blood. D’you remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget the ten-year-long war that made us who we are today, love,” Achilles murmured.

“Keep your wits,” Hector put in, motioning as Medea made her way out of the jet, “I do not trust this.”

“You were ever wary of open spaces.”

“I’m more wary of the Prince’s minions, he’s more resourceful than I’d like,” Hector muttered.

Achilles nodded and looked up into the sky.

“You’re right.”

“He’s very right,” Medea said as she came down the steps, “the air is heavy with magic.”

Amy stepped out of the jet then, holding Bast’s silent form. Jessica followed her, Michael at her side.

“Come here, child,” Medea instructed and gathered Amy to her almost absently. Long-lost maternal instinct perhaps? Or long suppressed?

When Amy was sheltered in the scarlet curve of the length of Medea’s fur coat, they started to cross the tarmac to where the cars were waiting. They had gone two steps, maybe three when Hector raised a fist and they stopped.

“What?” Medea asked.

“Miss Medea...I’m scared,” Amy whispered.

“It’ll be alright, child,” Medea murmured, her eyes were scanning.

“Do you see anything?” Jessica asked, her voice nervous.

“Quiet,” Achilles hissed and Jessica pressed herself again Michael.

Medea glanced at the couple, and sneered at the energy that was taking shape around the young man. Ah, Arcs. Pitifully chained and thus, limited. Luckily, she was neither.