But like most modern Scions, she was oblivious to her true potential. None of these gifted infants knew that power was meant to be wielded. The strong should rule. That was what nature intended, from smallest microbe to the great leviathan. The weak die, and the strongest becomes queen of the nest.
Automedon willed the chitin in his skin to harden and hold fast until he realized that the Heir’s focus was not on him, and that he could relax his rigid outer camouflage.
The Heir was taking her time to land so she could look at the fenced-in platform on her roof. Strange, he thought, it was almost as if she expected someone to be up there, and yet he had never seen anyone use that platform in the three weeks he had been watching her. He made a mental note of her interest in the widow’s walk, trusting in his instinct that there was more to that place than met the eye.
She landed in the yard and looked over her shoulder, the moonlight catching her smooth cheek. Many years ago in a faraway country, Automedon had seen that same exquisite face, kissed by the same adoring moon, as it looked back over the ocean of blood that had been spilled to possess it.
The Heir went inside her house but turned on no lights. Automedon heard her pause and stand very still just inside the kitchen at the front. Her strange behavior made him wonder if one of the Hundred Cousins had been incited by their failure to seize the Outcast that afternoon to disobey Tantalus’s orders. Was one in the house? Automedon rose out of the bushes. The Heir was not to be touched, not yet. He took a step forward and heard her go upstairs. She went into the bathroom, turned on a light, and started washing up as if nothing was wrong. Automedon retreated back into his nest and listened.
He could hear the Heir lay down in her bed. Her breathing was elevated, almost as if she were frightened. Automedon extended the proboscis that lay under his human-looking tongue, sliding it out to taste her pheromones on the air. She was afraid, but there was more than just fear in her chemical signature. There were many conflicted emotions bubbling to the surface, changing her chemistry too quickly for Automedon to identify them clearly. The burden of her task was weighing heavily on her. He heard her sniff a few times, then finally she relaxed, and he heard her breathing turn into the slow rhythm of sleep. As she unlocked the portal, the unearthly cold of the Void sucked the last vestiges of warmth out of her room.
For a millisecond, her body vanished from this world altogether, but Automedon knew that it would reappear, like all the other Descenders’ had, alive and functioning and covered with the sterile dust of another world. She would lie unnaturally still then, and open her eyes hours later, only remembering that she had been in the Underworld for what, from her perspective, could have been ages.
The Heir might lie in the posture of sleep for hours, but after weeks of study, Automedon had learned that this Descender never truly rested. He had crept in, hung from her ceiling, and waited for the telltale movement of the eyes under the lids that signaled the deep, healing sleep that mortals need. But it never came.
Without true rest, each night she would grow weaker and weaker until the time came for his master to strike.
CHAPTER FOUR
Helen felt the stale air of the Underworld envelop her. She flinched and looked around, half worried that her attempt to think positively had failed, and that she was going to find herself in the pit.
“Do you always wander around hell in your pajamas?” asked a sardonic voice. Helen whirled around and saw Haircut, standing just a few feet away.
“What?” Helen stammered, looking down at herself. She was wearing a nightshirt and shorts with gap-toothed pumpkins and hissing black cats all over them.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the short shorts, and the Halloween motif is hilarious, but I’m getting cold just looking at you.”
Haircut took off his jacket and started stuffing Helen into it without even asking if she was cold. She thought for a moment that she should refuse, but as soon as she felt how cozy his jacket was, she realized that she was freezing her butt off, and decided she’d better not complain.
“I’m wearing what I wore to bed,” Helen explained defensively as she tugged her hair out from under the coat’s collar. She hadn’t given any thought to what she wore when she descended. “So . . . do you always fall asleep with that stupid gold shrubbery on your arm?”
He looked down at his arm and chuckled to himself. Helen couldn’t remember ever hearing laughter in the Underworld, and she almost didn’t believe she was hearing it now.
“A bit too much bling, huh? How ’bout this?” The tree branch that snaked around his forearm shrank until it was no more than a thick gold bracelet. Embossed with a leaf design, it circled his wrist like a cuff. Helen had only seen one other object magically transform like that: the cestus of Aphrodite, which she wore around her neck in the guise of a heart necklace.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Orion Evander. Head of the House of Rome, Heir to the House of Athens, Third Leader of the Rogue Scions, and bearer of the Golden Bough of Aeneas,” he said in a deep and impressive voice.
“Ooh,” Helen hooted sarcastically. “Am I supposed to bow or something?”
To her surprise Orion laughed again. For all his high-and-mighty titles, this guy was definitely not stuck-up.
“Daphne said you were powerful, but she never mentioned you were such a wiseass,” Orion said. Helen’s amused face dropped immediately.
“How do you know my . . . Daphne?” she demanded, awkwardly avoiding the use of the word mother.
“I’ve known her my whole life,” Orion replied, concerned. He took a step closer to Helen and looked her in the eyes, like he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t joking around anymore. “Daphne took a big risk to help me get here so I could help you. Didn’t she tell you I was coming?”
Helen shook her head and looked down, thinking of all the unreturned messages she had left on Daphne’s voice mail.
“We don’t talk much,” Helen mumbled. She was embarrassed to admit it to a stranger, but Orion didn’t look at her like he thought she was horrible daughter or anything. In fact, he smiled sadly to himself and nodded, as though he knew exactly what Helen was feeling. He looked back at her with kind eyes.
“Well, even though you two aren’t close, Daphne wanted you to . . . DUCK!” He suddenly screamed as he grabbed Helen’s head and pushed it down.
A snarling black dog sailed over Helen and hit Orion directly on the chest. Orion absorbed the blow and fell back, his long dagger already in one hand as the other hand held the dog back by its throat. Unsure what she should do, Helen scrambled up to her knees and saw Orion slashing at the snapping head of the creature. He was on his back and he couldn’t get the momentum required to deliver a killing stab. Helen hauled herself up to her feet, but had no idea how to jump into the fight. The beast’s claws raked at Orion’s chest, leaving jagged, bloody scratches.
“This is not a spectator sport!” Orion shouted from the ground. “Kick it in the ribs!”