The room blurred and stretched, and then I stood at the base of the largest creature, its mouth forever fused open in a silent scream. I covered its longest toe with my hand, reached into the well of my power, and reduced the creature to ash with a sigh drawn up from my soul.
And in the silence that followed, I could have sworn the ruckus in my head grew quieter.
Unearthly roars split my head when I placed my hand on the vertebrae of another massive skeleton. As I focused on freeing the magic from the bones, this time I knew with bone-deep certainty that one of the voices had fallen silent.
Then a third whooshed out of existence.
A fourth.
A fifth.
Kierce warned me the spirits would heckle me every time my control slipped until I learned what they wanted from me. As it turned out, the answer was release, and I was happy to give it to them.
“Your father is not going to be happy,” Ankou singsonged beside me, but he couldn’t tame his smile at the whirlwind of chaos I had unleashed in the otherwise pristine room, and his gaze kept dropping to my hand. No. My finger. “Something tells me we’re about to find out whether he believes in corporal punishment for his children.”
“Bring it on,” I slurred at the ceiling while heaving from my efforts. “Ready when you are, old man.”
Or I would have been, if exhaustion from expending so much power in my already weakened condition hadn’t reached into my head and switched off the lights.
As I cracked open my eyes on a black room with a glitzy chandelier, its frenzy of crystals each as ruby red as a drop of blood, I took comfort in the warm fur rising and falling under my cheek. “Anunit?”
A faint glow from the flickering black flames lighting the obscene fixture allowed us to make out our surroundings, but without our keen night vision, we would have been blind.
“I am here, Frankie Talbot.” Her sandpaper tongue raked across my hair, yanking on strands, treating me like I was a kit in need of a bath. “I am proud of you.” Her warm breath fanned my cheek as she lowered her head. “You laid our kin to rest.” She bumped me with her cold nose. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I clutched my head as my temples thumped out my heartbeat. I must not have slept long for the magic burnout to still linger, but the nap had given me time to heal the nub where my toe had been. That was something. Even better, Ankou was missing. “Where are we?”
“You are a visitor in my home,” a familiar smokey voice informed me. “Hello…daughter.”
The subtle rumble through Anunit’s chest revved to a deafening crescendo as it morphed into a growl.
Searching for the origin of the voice hurt too much, so I stared ahead. “You’re my father?”
Based on the conversation I overheard at Dis Pater’s house, he was in league with the enemy.
No wonder the omen knew my father wanted to meet me. She had the inside track via Dis Pater.
“You have many fathers,” he mused, “and many mothers too.”
Gods and their pointless riddles. “Who are you?”
“I am Ithas. Prometheus, if you like. The Forethinker. God of Fire.”
Prometheus.
Now that name I knew. Prometheus was a Titan, not a god. Lore claimed he created mankind, with help from Athena, from clay in the image of the gods. He was also cunning. A trickster. And he stole fire from Olympus to give to humans, resulting in a punishment more famous than any of his accomplishments.
“How’s your liver?” I sank my fingers into Anunit’s fur. “Been pecked by any eagles today?”
According to mythology, for the aforementioned crime of giving humans fire, Prometheus was chained in the Caucasus Mountains. An eagle—a symbol of Zeus—ate his liver each morning after the organ regenerated during the night.
“Ah. Yes. That.” His chuckle rasped out, rich and low. “Hercules slayed Aethon, did he not?”
With gods, I could never tell if they were acknowledging mythology or mocking history.
“That’s what the books say,” I said noncommittally. “So, you’re the one who wanted me dead.”
Feathers tickled my thigh as Anunit whipped her long tail against me.
