She took Orion’s hand and felt better. He smiled tenderly at her, and her heart tingled. She did love Orion, she thought as she swelled with pleasant warmth. So what if it wasn’t the dizzy rush that she felt around Lucas? Maybe “dizzy” wasn’t the best way to go through life, anyway.
“What are you all talking about?” Helen asked lightly, trying to tell herself that it would get easier someday to see Lucas wearing the blank look he adopted as he watched her hold Orion’s hand. For a moment, Helen thought she saw a toxic, acid-green color flashing underneath Lucas’s skin. She blinked and looked away, hoping her eyesight wasn’t totally messed up because of her damaged eye.
“We were talking strategy. The Scions need a plan, fast,” Hector replied, his face hardening. “We’re weak. Divided. This is the time to strike against us.”
Helen breathed a mirthless laugh. “I was just thinking the same thing.” Hector looked at her approvingly, and Helen considered the possibility that he might have made a soldier out of her after all.
“But we haven’t heard anything. As far as we know, the gods are still on Olympus,” Claire said, frowning with worry. Jason pulled her closer to him.
“Matt found some things. He’s coming now to explain,” he told her. Jason looked at his brother. “Where is he, anyway?”
“With Ariadne,” Hector replied, testily at first, and then his tone changed. “He checks on her about a dozen times a day.”
“It’s not a dozen times,” Matt protested as he came through the door, propping up Ariadne with one hand and carrying his iPad in the other. “Ten. Tops.”
Helen nearly did a double take when she saw Matt. She’d watched her friend get stronger over the past few months. She’d even noticed that he was turning into quite the piece of man-candy, though the thought of Matt as a love interest was icky to her. But this was different. He looked electric.
“How’re you feeling, little sis?” Hector asked Ariadne, but his eyes ticked up and down Matt, sizing him up. Whatever had changed, Hector saw it, too, Helen was sure of that.
“Ugh,” she groaned comically as she plopped down next her big brother. “Like cud.”
“Cud?” Orion asked like he must have heard her wrong.
“Chewed, swallowed, barfed, and rechewed,” she told him with a grin.
“How are you?” Matt asked Helen while everyone laughed at Ariadne’s gross analogy. And suddenly he was just Matt again, her old pal, and there was nothing strange about him at all.
“I’m all right,” she said, patting the hand that he laid on her arm.
“You sure?” he pressed, looking deeper into her damaged eye. Helen remembered that her confrontation with Ares had left a blue scar running down the iris of her right eye. She was told it looked like lightning, but she hadn’t seen it yet. There had been more important things for her to do than look in a mirror.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, and then she grinned. “I’d be better if I could get Ari to stop kicking in her sleep.”
“Hey, at least I don’t snore,” Ariadne joked back with Helen.
“You both snore,” Claire chimed in, grinning. “It’s like rooming with a couple of dudes.”
They all got a laugh in at Helen’s and Ariadne’s expense. Helen was struck by how happy they all were just to be together—safe and comfortable in each other’s company as if they’d hung out like this a thousand times. But none of them could ignore why they were there for very long, and the easy feeling quickly dissipated.
“So what’ve you found out about the gods, Matt?” Orion asked, sensitive as always to the subtle shift in mood. “Have you heard anything?”
“Yeah. There have been some . . . attacks,” Matt said reluctantly.
“What does that mean?” Claire asked.
Matt tapped his iPad and started flicking through newspaper headlines, and everyone crowded together.
“Two days ago, a woman in New York City was found on top of the Empire State Building gored to death by what looked like giant talons. And this morning, a girl’s body was found trampled to death by a horse on a Cape Cod beach. Both women had been raped before they were killed.”
Hector took the iPad and looked at it. “This is a tabloid headline,” he said dubiously. “It says that the witnesses in New York claimed to have seen a woman getting carried off by a giant bird.”
“Eagle. It was an eagle,” Helen said softly, repressing a shiver. Everyone stared at her for a moment, expecting an explanation. “It’s just a hunch, but I’ve been having strange dreams and weird flashes, I guess you’d call them,” she admitted with a shrug, trying to downplay the full-blown memories she’d been experiencing until she understood them a bit better.
“When did they start?” Lucas asked, concerned. Helen scrunched up her face, trying to think back to the first time she saw him and the other guys in armor.
“Halloween,” she said, realizing it as she spoke. She looked at Orion. “Remember how I forgot everything for a second there after touching the water from that river?” she asked. She avoided saying the name of the River Lethe almost superstitiously, just in case it made her forget everything all over again.
“Uh-huh,” Orion replied with a small smile. Helen smiled nervously back at him, remembering how they had jumped on each other as soon as they forgot who they were. By the warm look he was giving her, Helen was sure he was remembering that as well. Then his face darkened. “You couldn’t even remember your own name for a bit. That was bad.”
“Well, when I did remember again, it was like there was too much in my head or something.” Helen sighed with frustration. “I can’t explain it yet, but now I’m getting all these weird images when I dream.”
“And one of them was of an eagle?” Matt asked.
“Yeah. Why? What are you thinking, Matt?” Helen asked, gesturing to his iPad and the articles about the murdered girls.
“I know this looks like tabloid nonsense, but Greek myths talk about women being carried off by gods disguised as animals all the time. I think the eagle is Zeus and the horse is Poseidon,” Matt said.
“Matt, I can turn into a horse,” Orion said with an apologetic look. “Everyone in the House of Athens can.”
“Get the hell out,” Helen said, whirling on Orion with wide eyes.
“What? I can turn into a dolphin,” Jason said like he was telling them the time.
“Shut up!” Claire and Helen shrieked in unison. Jason laughed.
“Some Scions can shape-shift into their god’s animal avatars,” Hector said, giving Helen a weird look. “How can you not know this?”
“Nobody told me, and I’ve never been able to do it!” Helen shouted back. She rounded on Orion again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not like it’s useful or anything,” he said with a shrug. “Think about it. How many horses do you see trotting around town these days?”
“Yeah.” Jason chuckled. “And then when you change back, you’re buck naked. Try explaining that one. It’s crazy fun to be an animal, don’t get me wrong, but it’s rarely practical.”