Nearly Witches

Chapter Sixteen

Six months, it had been six months since she had heard from Iapetus or any of his brothers. Nor had she heard from Hades or Persephone in that time either, she hadn’t heard from any of them apart from Psyche and that was in her dreams where none of them had domain over. That meant that Dominic and Rosalie’s families were left alone, Iapetus was keeping up his side of the bargain and it had put her on edge.

Because she knew that it wouldn’t last, and she was waiting for the other shoe to fall.

“It’s quiet,” Rosalie said as she landed down in front of them, apart from the usual drunks and druggies in the park. Not much was happening, Dominic snorted as he handed Cupid the Squirrel pieces of nuts, making Alysanne snort before she handed him another nut and raised an eyebrow at Rosalie.

“The only thing we can do about those in the park is call an ambulance and make sure they die choke on their vomit,” Alysanne told them. “If they want to get help, they’ll have to it by themselves or else it won’t stick.”

“And you make that sound like a bad thing Cap,” Dominic added.

“I just have a bad feeling Tribe,” Rosalie told him. “Like something is going to happen and we won’t be able to do anything about it.”

“Bad feelings are Artemis’ thing.”

“I got nothing, at least for the moment,” Alysanne informed them, she didn’t have any kind of headache and not even the kind she had learnt to ignore. Her eyes still looked at the tree lines as they passed them, almost as if she was waiting for Nymeria and Ghost to come out and tell her about their haunt and what they had caught. “Tribe, danger sense and having a bad feeling are two different things. I sense things that are dangerous and bad feelings are when someone doesn’t like is going to happen.”

“Good, because I have a bad feeling,” Rosalie told Dominic, narrowing her eyes as he went to open his mouth. “And that doesn’t mean I’m getting paranoid in my old age; we all know that’s also Artemis’ title.”

“Gee, you make me feel so loved.”

“Anything for you sweetheart.”

“Be on guard, anything could pop up at any time,” Dominic told them.

“And be on your guard during fights, you almost had of glass go into your main veins,” Rosalie informed him, narrowing her eyes as he grinned at her. “I know that Artemis’ abilities are useful, but we can’t expect her to sense everything while she’s trying to keep herself alive and some things are a last second decision.”

“That’s why we train Cap,” Dominic told her.

“Someone could find a way around her ability.”

“Someone who can make five second decisions all the time.”

“They do exist.”

“Not all that often, breaking in takes planning and even then, it takes some time to get into a building.”

“The only person I see doing that is Mors,” Alysanne informed them, while she hated calling Iapetus Mors and not by his name. She didn’t know how she would explain the name change to Rosalie and Dominic, at least, not without appearing to have last the little sanity she had left. Who would believe her if she told them she was a Goddess reborn, there were times even she thought it was a crazy dream and then Psyche would turn up in her dreams.

And it would pull her back to her reality.

The best scenario with her telling them what had happened was that they’d think she was trying to get their attention with crazy stories, the Irish were known for their tall tales after all and even if she didn’t tell many, that would seem more logically than anything she would tell them.

“That might explain why we haven’t heard from him in six months,” Dominic agreed while taking out his phone, Alysanne had learnt that his was contact the CCTV around town and he could check in whenever he wished.

Not they would pick up any of Kronos or Hades armies, or any of their minions. Monsters and Gods weren’t seen as camera.

“Nor have we seen a wisp of the Shadow hounds either,” Rosalie added.

That doesn’t mean we’re not being spied on, Alysanne thought to herself. She didn’t know how many were in Kronos’ army or when he planned to attack them. Would he wait until their guard was slightly down, but she had been told that it wasn’t just the Greek and Roman Gods that she had to worry about.

Egyptian, Norse and Celt were also on that list, the ones that Alysanne had researched or could find some information. But she knew that any religion could pop up, any that she could think of and she was worried that she didn’t know enough.

Did that mean the High Lord and Lady of the Wiccan faith could be real? Or several gods and goddess that she couldn’t name or barely anyone could name? She had seen one video about a god from the French African slaves, Baron Samedi?

Ones that humanity had completely forgotten about; would they also return? And how many of them wanted to end humanity for forgetting them in the first place. How many wouldn’t do anything now that they weren’t prayed to anymore.

How many would want revenge?

“Artemis?” Rosalie asked her.

“Just lost in thought,” Alysanne told her.

“A lot has happened in the last year,” Dominic commented.

You can say that, Alysanne thought before putting her hand on her head. Cupid chirping near her ear as she looked in the direction of the high school. Iapetus was back and his hounds were all back and she was growling under her breath.

“Artemis?” Dominic asked her.

“Someone’s breaking into the school,” Alysanne told them before standing up, before blinking as she felt claws on her jaw. “Mors is trying to break into the school, and I don’t know why or what he’s after.”

“Who knows why people do what they do,” Dominic commented putting his hand on her shoulder as Rosalie standing in front of her.

“Elementary, middle or high school?” Rosalie asked her.

“The high school,” Alysanne replied before freezing and putting her hand back on her head as she narrowed her left eye. They were going to do something that would have high amounts of danger and she didn’t want them to walk in not prepared. “It’s going to be a bad and we need to get going in case their setting up booby traps.”

‘I’ll go ahead and see what happened,’ Cupid told her.

‘But please be safe,’ Alysanne told him.

‘As safe as I can be.’

‘Thank you.’

“What’s going on?” Rosalie asked Alysanne as she bend down and allowed Cupid to quickly run off without another word to her. “Artemis?”

“Cupid will go ahead,” Alysanne told them dusting off her shorts. “That way we’re not walking into it completely blind or without knowing how dangerous the situation. Someone is breaking into the high school; we don’t know if their stealing someone or doing something just as bad.”

“Such as trapping up a school,” Dominic commented.

“And killing innocents or getting floor plans,” Rosalie dryly added. “Or stealing information for identity thief.”

‘There are wolves walking around the fence,’ Cupid told her. ‘Two people are walking in the yard, staring at buildings.’

“We still don’t know what they’re after,” Alysanne told them.

“It’s bad?” Dominic asked.

“It’s bad, really bad and there’s shadow hounds patrolling the fence,” Alysanne told them, closing her eyes and doing something she hadn’t done in nearly six months. She called the creatures of the forest, called them for revenge of everything Iapetus had tried to do to their home, food source and lives.

Even going as far to call the creatures that made the high school home at night.

“We need to go then,” Rosalie told them.

“I’ll take the high point,” Alysanne told them, blinking as Rosalie picked her up and flew off as Alysanne put her arms around her neck, closing her eyes as she heard wind going past her ears and the sharp wind against her face.

Dominic would be following them on foot, so she didn’t know when he would turn up, but she would know he showed up.

“Try not to fall off,” Rosalie told her as she dropped her off.

“Once, you fall off a building once and no one let’s you live it down,” Alysanne shouted after her as she summoned her bow and arrows. She didn’t know how many shadow hounds were talking around, when she shoot one before they looked at her, water going around their necks and they were gone.

She didn’t know how many hellhounds she had taken down when she felt something, or someone appear behind her. Pointing her arrow at them, sighing in relief as she saw Hades and Hecate looking around.

Hecate and Hades sighed in relief as Alysanne shoot another hellhound, before two more appeared and went to attack Tribe.

“We don’t have much time to talk,” Hecate told her as Alysanne nodded her before going back to taking down shadow hounds. “We’ve come to warn you, this attack isn’t random.”

“Sephie couldn’t come, could she?” Alysanne asked her as she quickly shoot another shadow hound to keep Iapetus from suspecting anything. It would be weird if she stopped and tipping them off was the last thing she needed to do it right now.

“They’re keeping a watch on her, Persephone is running them around in circles,” Hades informed her as he looked at her with blank eyes. It looked like he was ready to kill the person who thought they could take away his wife’s privacy.

And it was there that she swore that she wouldn’t get on his bad side.

“She’s smart,” Hecate told him.

“We’ll get them, and they’ll pay, we have new tricks,” Alysanne told him. “They don’t know anything about us.”

“And new allies,” Hecate added.

“Father’s paranoia will work against him,” Hades said with a growing grin on his face.

“They won’t leave anyone else standing, even those who would have stood with them. As we speak, Set is fighting them in the middle of the desert.”

“We’re fighting paranoid idiots,” Alysanne informed her.

“Doesn’t help that Horus is tracking Set down to rebind him.”

“Family revenge, thousands of years later. Classic and a pain.”

“A pain all right,” Hecate agreed.

“Hestia never recovered from what father had done to her,” Hades informed her. “Not in this life or the last.”

“Or the next one most likely.”

“I hate this, but I want to keep them out of it,” Alysanne told them as she shoot another hound and looked at Rosalie and Dominic. They would not die because of her, not like Ghost, Nymeria and her father had done.

They had died because of her and it kept her up some nights, the only thing that could get her to sleep was Hypnos and Psyche, which was one of the reasons that Rosalie didn’t know about them or her nightmares.

“One day,” Alysanne vowed as she looked around, spotting Dominic pulling some shadow hounds into a tube of water. “I’ll stop playing to their tune and they’ll regret threatening what’s mind and they’ll regret it dearly, not even the pit will save them from my wrath.”

“Now I can see how you and Persephone get along,” Hecate informed her.

“My wife already told me that you planned to turn them into deer,” Hades told her.

“Deer can still protect themselves; I want to turn them into something much more defenceless.”

“And what would that be?”  

“Something less threatening, maybe a cute little bunny or a defenceless goldfish.”

“That’s stop them all right,” Hecate agreed.

“I’m in for the goldfish,” Hades muttered.

Alysanne blinked and they were gone, it made her wonder when they would find Hermes or Iris, wonder when they would be born. It would make being in a war zone easier, since they would be able to talk to each other without the risk of being caught and tortured for information that they may or may not have.

Even make it easier to give warnings to allies.

Turning around, she spotted Iapetus and one of his brothers, before pulling back her bow and shooting at them. The hounds were gone, and her arrows were back in her quiver and she had a bad feeling that they had gotten what they wanted.

Her headache was gone and now she was worried about traps laid out for other students, she still had a slight headache, but they would look around for any traps or freshly dug up dirt. The panic in her stomach was growing and she felt like throwing up.

“I’ll review the footage, but we’ve removed all the traps from inside and outside the building, there weren’t many,” Dominic told them as Rosalie put him onto the building, landing on her two feet as Dominic looked at the phone in his hands. “I’ll have to hack into the school system to see what they were looking for or what their end goal was. Do some scans to see if anything was added to the system or if anything is missing.”

“And if they copied a file?” Alysanne asked him.

“I’ll have to scan for that as well, I have systems that can do that. I won’t see any private information.”

“Unless it was what they were after,” Rosalie said.

“Then I can send that information to the FBI and they can deal with it from there.”

He won’t find anything, neither of them will, Alysanne thought to herself. Not appearing on camera was a double-edged sword now, Rosalie and Dominic wouldn’t know about Hades and Hecate, but they also wouldn’t be able to track Iapetus or his brothers either.

She also doubted that they would be stupid enough to do something that would make their presence known or something to make it obvious that something more was at play and she couldn’t tell them. Alysanne couldn’t tell them that they wouldn’t find anything, the same reason she couldn’t tell them the reason that Iapetus killed her partners and Katniss six months ago.

Even if her hand to hand had improved during her training with Rosalie and Dominic, her upper body strength improving with the addition of other dance styles. She still wasn’t good enough to take anyone on, she was still too much of a long-distance fighter and the dagger hidden under her shirt felt wasted in her hands. If push came to shove, she could hold her own until back-up arrived and allowed her to put some distance between her and the target.

Still, something left a bad taste in her mouth and it wasn’t the fact that she and Rosalie would sneaking back into her bedroom at one in the morning. Nor was it the fact that Alysanne hadn’t told them anything about her bracelet or how it worked. Not that she could answer that one even if she wanted to answer it, the only one who knew how it worked was Hephaestus and he still hadn’t been born.

What he would think of the new century, Alysanne didn’t know. But she would keep him away from Hera as much as she could, it wouldn’t do if she tried throwing him off another mountain in a fit of rage.

Once was enough in her books.

“Anything else?” Rosalie asked her.

“Not yet,” Alysanne replied.

“I’ll have something scan the grounds again,” Dominic told them as he showed her a tracking feature on his phone. “Just in case they placed something that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.”

“We should stay around then. Just in case.”

“Just in case.”

“I don’t like this,” Rosalie told them.

Alysanne just looked at them, before biting her lip before looking at the sky. No one liked this, and she was the only one who knew what was going and she could only hope that they could find anything that they would leave behind.

“No one does,” Alysanne told them. “No one likes it when a school is being targeted, brings up horrid memories for some.”

“School shootings,” Dominic muttered. “I’m glad that I’m done with school.”

“That only happens in major cities,” Rosalie told them, Alysanne just looked at them and raised her eyebrow. It was hard to fear something like that happen, when you could break through a wall with a single punch. But Alysanne would only be warned that something would happen, and a bullet travelled a lot faster than her arrows did.

She would be able to take them down, if she was behind them and they didn’t turn around until her arrow was buried in their body. But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about, even if their small town had never had to deal with such a horrid event.

“How long will the scan take?” Alysanne asked Dominic.

“They shouldn’t take that long,” Dominic told her. “Twenty minutes tops, if they don’t find anything and if they do. I’ll have the location.”

“Depending on what it is, depends on what will happen,” Rosalie muttered, Alysanne looking at the animals that were running around and she blinked before pinching herself.

“I’ll talk to a few rats, see what they saw,” Alysanne told them. “Maybe a few birds, the army that was fighting on the other side of the school has gone home.”

“I’ll take you down,” Rosalie told her. “Report on anything they tell you, many won’t be watching out for rats of all things.”

“Rats?” Dominic asked them.

“They’re everywhere,” Alysanne told him. “And really good at chewing through wires, or so they tell me.”

“You sure?” Rosalie asked her.

“Why would I lie?”

“Because having a rat chew through something is a misuse of your abilities,” Dominic told her.

“And funny,” Alysanne told him without thinking. “Not that I would know, I’ve seen videos of rats chewing through cords.”

Alysanne smiled at them, before bolting off before Dominic or Rosalie could say anything about what she had told them. She wasn’t holding her breath, they might have seen something, but she doubted it.