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.