Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 2 Chapter 17

17

It’s dark by the time Nico returns. He limps into view, howls, and collapses.

Hepa is busy tending Greg who has gotten steadily worse. Cassie cried herself to sleep. Which leaves Jordan and me keeping watch. After Nico falls into the sand, we exchange glances.

“He’s not getting back up,” I say.

“Yep. Looks like we gotta get the grumpy bastard,” Jordan agrees.

Hepa already treated where the arrow pierced my leg and the other more superficial scrapes and bruises. I’m not in terrible pain, but I’m also in no condition to help carry a werewolf. And even though Jordan is a big guy, he doesn’t have anywhere near Nico’s mass. He ends up dragging Nico through the silt. Clumps of b****y sand are left behind in his wake.

I gently shake Cassie awake, while Hepa wafts something under Nico’s noise. His one good eye is crusted closed with blood. A wound on his head oozes. But after a few minutes, Jordan is able to help him to his feet.

Hepa throws the portal key into the fountain. Jordan and Nico stagger through the portal together. Finally, Hepa, Cassie, and I surround Greg, each ready to catch him if he falls.

He grins through lips cracked with fever. “Surrounded by all these beautiful ladies. I’m living the dream.”

We arrive back on campus nearly a whole day after we left. I half expect Themis to be waiting at the portal to bust us. But even though it’s midday here, it’s eerily quiet. Even if they didn’t notice that all of us were missing—which is unlikely, as there should at least be people in the quad. But when we make our way through it’s like a ghost town.

“Something’s not right,” Jordan says.

This isn’t him being unusually astute. There’s a giant green sphere of light shining up into the sky from the middle of campus.

“That’s a quarantine light,” Hepa says. She looks at Greg who can barely remain upright. “Jordan, run to the infirmary, tell them we need help. Now.”

Jordan immediately shifts into his sleek panther form and runs off. I turn to where Hepa is trying to make Greg comfortable on a patch of grass, but she waves me away.

“You need to stay away. Don’t touch him at all.”

I turn my attention to Cassie, who looks like she’s in shock. Her eyes dart around before finally focusing on me.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head. I don’t know if she’s saying she’s not okay, or that she’s not hurt. I go to hug her but she shies away. “So much death,” she whispers.

“Cassie!” Merilee’s voice echoes through the quad.

Cassie’s mother bounds across the space and scoops Cassie up in her arms. Both of them collapse into a heap of tears.

“I was afraid I’d never see you again,” Merilee says. “But I had a spell put on the portals to alert me if you stepped a foot on campus.”

“I saw this. You and me together at this portal, exactly like this,” Cassie tells her. “I knew I just had to be patient.”

“I missed you. I’m so glad you’re safe and sound.” Merilee rocks Cassie back and forth.

I look away, feeling like I’m imposing on a private moment. But also a little bit like Cassie stole my moment. I was the one who was supposed to be reunited with my mother. The hugging and crying and all the rest of it—I wanted that.

I still do.

Hepa steers me away from them. “Give them some space. If you want to help someone, go see how much of that werewolf’s blood is his own.”

I turn to Nico. He’s still in wolf form, barely able to keep on his feet. It’s clear that he won’t remain upright long. I hurry over and then am not sure what to do.

“Nico, lie down,” I say, once again resorting to treating him like a dog.

He gives a short bark that sounds like a laugh, and then slowly sinks to the ground. With a soft whimper he curls into himself. I put a hand on his back, his fur coarse and stiff with blood. Then suddenly that same hand is resting on warm human skin.

I am once again dealing with a n***d Nico. Quickly, I pull my pack off and yank out a blanket. Nico takes it wordlessly and wraps it around his lower half. Now that all the bruising and wounds are easily visible, it definitely looks bad…but not deadly.

Once again, Nico will survive.

He turns his head to look at me, his eyes glazed with pain. “Did everyone make it back? I didn’t…” He stops and shakes his head, ruefully. “You shouldn’t have waited on me.”

“We weren’t gonna just leave you behind.”

“Why not?”

The question floors me. “Because…I know what it’s like to be left behind.”

I know Nico thinks I’m talking about my last mission and my team going through the portal without me, but that was nothing compared to the way I felt after dad and grandma died. Then when I couldn’t find my mom or Mavis and they didn’t contact me—I felt abandoned. Lost.

It was devastating. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Nico’s one eye is fixed on me, steadily glowing, until finally he blinks. “I guess that’s now two that I owe you, Edie.”

“That’s not why I helped you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Nico pauses as if weighing his next words. “You almost make me think that being soft is a good thing.”

“Soft?” I jerk away from him. “Just because I didn’t go after those monsters like a-a-a—”

“Animal?”

“No,” I spit the word at him. I glance at Cassie and echo her words. “So much death. Like you were the real monster there.”

Nico’s eye widens and then his face goes hard as he turns away. Maybe I should be happy with getting the last word in, but now that we’re talking about it—I want answers.

“Did you kill everyone? Did you kill your prison guard and her baby?”

Nico’s shoulders stiffen. “You didn’t even know them.”

“Are they dead now?”

He spins around, teeth bared. “No. Okay? She was always nice to me, so—” With a sigh he puts his face into his hands, like the effort of holding his head up is too much. “No mercy. No regrets. That’s how my mother raised me. If she knew I’d spared anyone…”

“Your mother sounds like—”

Before I can finish that thought, Jordan arrives back with a trio of healers running fast behind him. As they get closer to Greg, one of the healers grabs the back of Jordan’s shirt.

“Into one of the isolation rooms. Now.” Nico and I earn a quick glance. “Both of you too.” Then their focus turns to Greg.

“How long has he been sick?” asks the older woman in charge. I’ve seen her around the infirmary. She’s Metis, the Titan who teaches healing to the witches and warlocks.

“Since yesterday afternoon,” Hepa replies, her tone crisp and professional. “He was seemingly fine, although later he reported that he’d been suffering from loose bowels.”

Greg groans, whether from pain or from having his BM habits reported in front of everyone—it’s hard to say.

“He realized he couldn’t shift,” Hepa continues, “and then almost immediately the symptoms began.”

“When?” the healer asks, her voice sharp.

“Uh…” Well, I guess with Cassie back, our mission yesterday isn’t exactly a secret anymore. “It would’ve been yesterday afternoon.”

“Dear gods,” the head healer says, looking stricken as she studies Greg. “Campus cases didn’t break out until very early this morning.” She looks up at the two healers standing over Greg.

“I think we just found patient zero.”

We finally rescued Cassie and now I can’t even speak with her. Her mom led her to the records’ building and before I could follow, I was also whisked away.

All of the shifters are quarantined. Whatever this disease is ripping through campus, it appears only to affect the shifters. Greg was taken away to the infirmary for tests. Since Jordan, Nico, and I aren’t showing symptoms, we’re asked to wait in the amphitheater until everyone can be tested. With Nico injured, Hepa volunteered to keep an eye on him. I’m sure her wanting to be next to Jordan has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Within the amphitheater area we are sectioned into shifters that have been in contact with the infected, and those that haven’t. Fern is talking to the students in the very small ‘no contact’ group. I wave to get her attention and she walks over.

She is clearly exhausted. She probably hasn’t slept since she took one for the team and distracted Hermes with talk of s*x. She looks around, then casts a sound shield.

“What is happening?” I ask. “What’s wrong with Greg? Is it really a shifter disease? Do we all have it?”

“Whoa, one question at a time,” she tells me. “And I go first. Tell me about your mission—did you get Cassie?”

She must have really been busy if she didn’t hear the news. I relay everything. When we get to the fight, I falter, but I tell it like it happened. By the end I’m choked up while tears roll silently down Fern’s face.

“All that death…” I say. “I know it’s war, but I wasn’t prepared for it.”

Fern wipes her face. “You killed Ocypete,” she says quietly. “I thought you hated the monsters. I thought you were just like everyone else here.”

“I do hate the monsters!”

Fern’s expression shifts to one of disappointment. I’m surprised by how much that hurts me.

“War is death,” she tells me. “I have to get back to my patients. You’ll get an update soon.” She pauses, her lips tight. “And for the record. I don’t hate them.”

There it is. She admitted it out loud.

“Wait!” I grab hold of her arm. I know this isn’t a good time to ask, but there may never be a good time. “Ocypete told me you were one of hers.”

I’d thought it was a lie—a tactic to get me on her side.

Fern’s eyes widen and her lips go white.

“So, it’s true?” I ask.

“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I didn’t understand what following orders from Ocypete would mean.” Her shining brown eyes stare into mine. “I just wanted this war to end. I’m a healer! I thought I was helping when I snuck the portal key to her...”

It takes a minute for me to fully understand what she’s saying to me.

“You gave Ocypete the key to bring the monsters here the night of the Spring Fling?”

“Yes,” Fern nods, tears falling. “And people died because of it.”

“Why did you mess with the rest of the keys?”

“That was an accident. I was so nervous that I would get caught, I dropped all the keys and put them back randomly.” After a long moment, she asks, “Are you going to turn me in?”

I don’t know what to say. Fern just confessed to being a traitor. Sweet, sincere, helpful Fern. She’s working for the monsters. And I know well enough what the gods do to traitors—you have the choice of death by fire or flood. Burn or drown. I shudder, not wanting to send my friend to that fate, no matter what she did.

“Can you stop now? Pity’s dead. Can you just be on our side and pretend you always were?”

“Edie,” Fern lets my name out on a sigh. “It’s so much more complicated than that.”

Before I can ask anything else she pops the sound bubble and walks away.

I let her go. There’s really nothing else to say anyway.

I turn to Hepa and Jordan, who are whispering over Nico’s sleeping form. It looks intense so I keep my distance and study the room.

Waiting is the worst. Especially when you have a bunch of shifters who are basically wild animals. Everyone is on edge, and accusations are flying, cat-shifters blaming werewolves for the plague, bird-shifters blaming cat-shifters, and those who dare to defend anyone outside of the animal group is getting attacked by both sides. But underneath it all is pure panic; suddenly, shifters can’t shift. They want to know why—and who to blame.

I lean closer to Hepa, and whisper, “Where is Greg being kept?”

“Isolation,” she tells me, scanning the crowd. “For his own safety. When Marguerite tasted his blood—”

“What?!” I shriek, and she shushes me quickly. “That’s how we’re testing. The vamps can taste the infection. Losing the ability to shift is one of the last symptoms; we can’t have infected shifters wandering around campus spreading the plague, just because they haven’t reached that point yet. So the vamps are helping out and that’s not—”

But Hepa doesn’t have to tell me that’s not going well. There’s a panicked scream from the front of the room. The crowd shifts, giving me a clear view of the shifter who just had her blood tested by a vamp. She tries to shift into her cat form, but gets stuck halfway. Still, her claws are vicious as she swipes at the vamp, spit flying from her jaws.

Two other vamps jump in at the same time that several shifters pile on. Behind me I hear, “Oh hell no.”

I turn to find Nico awake and staggering to his feet. He staggers forward and I’m pretty certain it’s going to get all Hunger Games-y in here, but with a bolt of lightning, Zee and Themis appear.

Themis steps forward to speak first. “Students, as you all know, a sickness has infected several shifters. Please be assured they are getting the best care possible and we have confidence they will fully recover.”

“Yeah, but will they shift again?” someone calls out to my left.

Interrupting Themis is almost unheard of; that someone would do it shows how high tensions are right now.

She glances toward the interrupter as if making note of it for later retribution, and then continues.

“Thanks to the discovery of patient zero, we now believe the sickness can be traced to a bug bite. However, we are still uncertain whether or not the disease can be passed from one shifter to another, so the quarantine will remain in effect until every student has been tested. Furthermore, a magical fumigation will take place shortly. I have been warned that it will be a bit pungent, however it is the most effective way of safeguarding our native insect species while ensuring that all foreign invaders are swiftly exterminated. Now, if you will all be patient, you will each be tested one by one—”

“One moment!” Zee steps forward, nearly elbowing Themis aside, although she neatly sidesteps him before he can make contact. “You forgot the most important thing, Themis.”

“Did I?” she answers wryly.

Zee, as usual, doesn’t seem to hear her. “Sickness. Disease. Death.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “No one wants that at their school. And certainly not at Mount Olympus Academy. We can’t settle for simply being the strongest. And the smartest. We also need to be the healthiest. And that starts at birth. No, before birth. It starts in the bedroom. With whomever you choose to bring into the bedroom. Or the gardens. Or in the library hidden between the stacks.” Zee shakes his head, looking a little confused, but then his eyes light up and he’s off again.

“What I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter where you perform the act, it matters how well you perform the act.” He stops and frowns. “No! It matters with whom you perform the act. Well, how well is important too. So, to recap, first choose the right person. Second, make sure you do it well. Third, be willing to accept helpful feedback. We can all learn and grow and improve. Why just in the last half century, thanks to a lover’s advice, I learned—”

“Zee,” Themis interrupts. “You’re getting a little off track here and I’m not sure the students fully understand what you’re telling them.”

It’s true. I’m completely lost. And a little amused. Also a lot mortified. Although no one dares to actually laugh aloud. Mr. Zee is too mercurial. He might laugh along, or he might throw a lightning bolt to teach you a lesson.

“What I’m saying,” Mr. Zee booms, “is there will be no more interspecies relations. Vampires will stick with vampires. Witches and warlocks with witches and warlocks. Shifters with shifters—of their same type.”

A rumble goes through the crowd at this last part. It’s one thing to cut the dating pool into thirds, but for rarer shifters—like me—this will eliminate the dating pool entirely.

“ENOUGH!” Thunder shakes the room and everyone’s hair stands on end as an electrical currents zip over our heads. “These types of sicknesses are born of bad blood—”

“Zee, I already told them we believe it was a bug bite—”

Zee puts a finger in Themis’ face. “Yes, the free love bug! But no more. As I am god, I declare it so, any students caught cross-canoodling will be sterilized.”

There are gasps around me. Themis blinks hard. For her that’s the equivalent of having her mouth drop open. But after a moment she says in a soft voice, “It was declared and it will be so.”

And that’s it. They leave as quickly as they arrived.

The moment they’re gone everyone starts talking at once. Some clearly see it as an opportunity. Two of Greg’s close friends high five.

“No more competing with vamps for chicks!”

Others are more concerned with their lower extremities. Like Jordan for instance. He has both hands over his crotch. “Nobody’s neutering me. No way. No how.”

Hepa rolls her eyes. “Jordan, it would be magical sterilization, not castration.”

“Uh-uh.” He shakes his head. “No one messes with my junk. Except in a sexy way.”

“And what about me, Jordan?” Hepa puts her hands on her hips. “Remember my soft gentle hands? And how they belong to a witch and not a shifter?”

Jordan’s face goes soft as Hepa waves her hands in his face. “You have great hands. I’ll miss them.”

I shake my head. Did they have “we might all die” s*x while waiting for us to return with Cassie? On second thought, I really don’t want to know.

“You’ll miss them?!” If Hepa was a dragon shifter, fire would definitely have come out of her mouth with that one.

“Babe!” Jordan says. “I’m not getting neutered for you. I mean, that would kind of undermine the point, right?”

“You’re a coward.” Hepa tells Jordan and then stalks over to where Nico has returned to his makeshift sickbed. I expect Nico to be happier than anyone about this announcement. Clearly, Mr. Zee is seizing the reins of power once more.

But he looks concerned more than anything else. Our eyes meet and he gives a one-shouldered shrug, as if to say, “what can you do?”

I turn away and nearly collide with Jordan. His hands haven’t moved from their protective positioning around his crotch.

“Edie, I’m afraid.”

I reach out and pat his back. “I know, buddy. We all are.”