"Vengeance is mine, I will repay."

—Romans 12:19

Chapter One – I Get Attacked by My Mom's Workforce

I had almost gotten it. Almost.

Summoning all my willpower, the crumpled-up ball of sketchbook paper had risen to my eye level for just about one hundred twelve seconds—only a second short to become my new personal best!—before the pressure collecting in my head had become too much and I had to let go, watching the paper drop soundlessly to the ground. Temples pulsing along with the background ache in my forehead from concentrating so much, I let out a silent, frustrated scream and angrily kicked the makeshift ball away. Mistake. It only rolled a few feet in front of me before a draft of wind picked it up and lifted it to the sky, sailing away before my stinging eyes.

Great. Now I didn't have anything to practice with. Cursing silently, I searched my pockets for something—an eraser, a pebble, anything—to use instead but as my hands went to my sides, I remembered that those damned pleated skirts didn't have pockets. Discouraged, I kicked the pinecones in front of me, sending them soaring towards the trees, where they ricocheted right back at my feet.

"Mara?"

I turned, surprised that anyone had noticed my absence and was even talking to me, and saw Jaysen Carter staring right back at me. Oh God, him. A bit embarrassing to admit now, but whenever I saw him, I found myself heating up. I must have been so red then, it wasn't even funny. He's so hot, though, there was not a chance in hell that I would have gotten him. Dirty-blond hair that's slightly wind-blown, a perfect tan, brilliant emerald eyes. He smiled that crooked half-smile that was the most endearing part of him and very much against my will, I melted at the sight of it.

"Oh, uh, hey Jaysen," I stammered, "What's up?"

I looked down as usual when I see him and noticed, as always, the ground trembling a little. A fallen piece of bark at my feet shook violently as if it was having a seizure. I tried to control it, control myself, but my heart must have been racing so frantically that I just made the bark quake even more. It was always like that around him. See Jaysen Carter, self-control is—poof!—gone and bam!, random stuff around me starts to float.

He didn't even seem to notice, since he was looking at me and not at the ground. But soon he would notice, I was sure. I could sense the bark rising higher and higher. It was just above my shoe, then it was at the same height as my shin … I tensed, gritting my teeth. Control yourself! I thought, You don't want him to think you're a freak like everyone else does, don't you? The piece of bark fell back onto the grass and remained motionless. The tremors of the ground stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Nothing much," he drawled, as if the mini-earthquake and moving bark went totally unobserved to him, "Just that my basketball happens to be right behind you."

And I thought he had wanted to talk to me. Of course he doesn't. No one wanted to talk to Mara Raine Lewis, the freak ADHD dyslexic girl with no friends who had a record in the Sofremento School for most suspension all year. Oh, and did we mention that she also made things around her float when she was around her crush? Never mine, everyone already knows I was abnormal.

Thinking that he expected me to pick it up for him, I whirled around, but found now basketball, only trees with their branches rustling in the cool spring breeze that picked up. Maybe he imagined the basketball bouncing off to where I was. Confused, I turned back to him to question him on it, and that's when things went really crazy, if hot guys like Jaysen talking to someone like me wasn't already crazy enough.

Jaysen Carter was still there, but he was different. Instead of wearing the neat, geeky uniforms of Sofremento, he was dressed in full battle armor. Not in those heavy silver things that knights wore in the medieval times, but glistening Greek armor that looked way to real. My first thought was, He wants to show me his costume for Halloween in seven months? and then, Oh my God, he has a sword! I'm not lying. In his hand was a sword with a shimmering bronze blade and then all I could think after that was, No, no, no, please don't stab me.

"Jay…sen?" I squeak, backing away, hands up. Now my eyes were completely on his sword, which didn't look at all like those cheap foam ones you get at Wal-Mart. I should have said something brave, or smart, like they did in movies, but instead all I could manage was, "How did you…change so…fast?"

Jaysen raised an eyebrow and for a moment looked genuinely surprised, as if he thought I knew this was going to be his Halloween costume. "I didn't change," he said, "Didn't you see me like this before?" He raised his sword hand and I gave out a little scream, but he was only sheathing the bronze blade. Seeing my petrified expression, he must have realized he sounded insane and nodded. "This is weird." Yes it is. "You have no protector but you've been here for so long … you can't be on a quest… Do you still live with one of your parents?"

Now it was my turn to stare at him, dumbfounded. "Um, of course I do. Do you?"

His expression remained solemn. "No."

I opened my mouth to reply but suddenly a rustle resounded through my hiding spot and Jaysen, eyes widening, whirled around, hand flying to the hilt of his sword. Though I assumed that it was probably a small animal, he remained alert, every single muscle tense. A few seconds passed like this and he finally relaxed, sighing. What great new things I was learning about my crush Jaysen Carter. He liked dressing up like a Greek warrior any time of the year and had a phobia of squirrels.

But then, as I looked past his shoulder, a tall and slender white figure darted behind him and I knew then that it wasn't a little woodland animal. The figure was a few feet behind him and was slowly, silently advancing. It was a woman, crimson eyes gleaming, fangs sprouting from her gums. Her skin was the color of flour, hair crackling flames and … and it was my science teacher. But Mrs. Weiss didn't look harmless at all, and she extended hands curled into claws toward Jaysen, eyes murderous…and hungry.

"As I was saying …" he continued, totally oblivious. Then he saw my expression. "Mara, what's—"

The evil vampire version of my science teacher sprang towards Jaysen on—a jolt of surprise coursing through me—a shaggy donkey leg and a bronze leg. Okay. A vampire with freaky animal and metal legs. I raised my eyes from the grotesque sight that was her lower half and saw that her hands were wrapped around Jaysen's throat, throttling him.

I screamed. Yeah, that's right. I became the useless bystander, screaming my head off. Jaysen's face turned white, eyes huge, one hand clawing at Mrs. Weiss, the other reaching for his blade. She must've been punishing him for destroying that beaker during yesterday's science experiment. It didn't matter. Jaysen managed to draw his sword, but his lips were turning blue and I could tell his strength was failing as he tried swinging the sword to her.

"Get off him!" I shrieked, regaining myself and surging towards Mrs. Weiss. Seeing me, she snarled, and I shoved her, pulling her off of Jaysen. He collapsed onto the grass, leaning on his sword as it speared the ground and drawing in air as fast as he could. I figured I could manage to get her back for him. Science was always far from being my favorite subject.

"Mara…" Jaysen said weakly.

"Miss Lewis, you need to learn how to respect your teachers!" the vampire hissed, but she didn't attack me. In fact, she was backing away from me. "If only I could kill you…it would be so easy." She covered her face with her hands and moaned. "I'm so thirsty! But mistress had orders not to kill her daughter, bring her instead. I could tell her she was killed by accident. It would be effortless. She has no training, none at all…"

I feel my entire being turn cold at her words. I was certain this "daughter" wasn't Jaysen. "Your mistress? My mom sent vampires after me?" I didn't know anything about my mom. She left me and my dad when I was so young I couldn't remember anything. I didn't really hate her or anything, it was just that I couldn't believe my mom would employ donkey-and-bronze-legged vampire monsters disguised as science teachers just to fetch me. I mean, I was sure I wasn't worth that much.

Jaysen was struggling to his feet, gaze flickering from me to Mrs. Weiss. He began, "Mara, she's not…"

Mrs. Weiss glared at him to shut him up. "Don't you dare bring up the vampire insult again!" she said to me venomously, "There is no such thing as vampires. We're empousai, born to serve our goddess. We were the original vampires, but the mortals always have to get everything wrong!"

Jaysen directed his sword at our science teacher and I was one hundred percent sure now that it wasn't a $2.99 fake for Halloween. His eyes were deadly serious as the tip pierced the empousa's throat, and golden liquid slithered down her neck and a dangerous growl very much like a lion's erupted from her. He didn't waver at all. Even the sword in his hand didn't shake.

"Unsuspecting half-blood," she sneered, "You think it would be so easy to kill me? It will take a lot to send me back to Tartarus, and trust me, I haven't been there for nearly five hundred years. Think of how easy it would be for me to kill you!"

"Oh my God, Jaysen. Are you actually going to…" I knew she technically wasn't a person, but how could he take another life? He turned to me but said nothing, sword hand still steady and I knew instantly by his face that he had done it many times before and this felt no different to him. I stared at him, horrified, and something softened in his eyes.

Attention back to the empousa, his free hand reached to another sheath at his thigh and all of a sudden something was spinning towards me, small and black and rectangular. My hand-eye coordination wasn't up to par and I juggled it around in my hands before Jaysen's sheath dropped to the grass. Blushing, I quickly reached for it and saw that no one had seen that. Jaysen and Mrs. Weiss were too busy circling each other, crouched and ready to attack.

I grabbed the hilt sticking out of the sheath and pulled out a knife, the blade bronze just like Jaysen's. The sheath had just been dropped to the ground when suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and jerked me backwards with astonishing strength. Instinctively, I swiveled around and began swinging my knife around, hacking at the air. Only a laugh answered me.

"Ooh, a feisty one," a high-pitched girly voice seemed to come from the trees, "I like her!"

I only had time to raise my knife arm in defense when a dark shape flew out of the trees and crashed into me, sending me stumbling backwards. My head hit the trunk of a tree with bruising force and a heavy sort of pain washed over me. Dark spots floated in and out of my vision and I gasped as I found another empousa staring back at me, only a foot away from my face. Icy hands were wrapped around my throat, but her grip wasn't suffocating.

"Mistress warned us about you," the empousa scowled. Great. How many insanely violent she-demons were in the employment of my mother? "She has been watching you for so many years and she knows everything about you. She knows you'll be a good addition to our…organization."

I struggled to free myself, raising my knife, but her grip around my neck only tightened to a vice like steel and I had to stop fighting. I assumed she wouldn't hurt me. Wasn't that against orders? I tried to say that, but her eyes were so fierce that only a tiny mouse-worthy squeak passed my lips. Organization? What sort of organization? The kind that involves attacking innocent people to recruit them, clearly, I thought dryly.

"Let me go!"

"Not unless you let us take you with us," the empousa says cruelly, baring her fangs in a caricature of a smile.

"Where?"

"To see your mother."

Fear shot through me. I understood. These people were crazy kidnappers dressed up realistically as vampire wannabees who used lies about taking me to my mom so I would allow myself to be led away. Yeah, riiiiight. But then … the mention of my mother again stirred up even more nostalgia and I found myself wanting to believe that she was out there, that she wanted me to be taken to her.

That was impossible, but I thought I might as well pull the daddy card. "Look, if you want money, I'll give you my dad's number. He's a successful lawyer. You know Maxwell Lewis? He's loaded with cash. He'll give you as much as you want as long as you let me—"

The empousa laughed. "You think I'm a kidnapper! You think your science teacher and I are here to take you and hold you ransom so your papa can make us rich. You don't believe that we're actual empousai, that we're only disguised as them. Though your stubbornness to remain ignorant is admirable, I must…how do you humans say it these days? Burst your bubble? Well, I must burst your bubble then."

I blinked. What was she talking about? This couldn't be real. It must all be a dream. I mean, Jaysen Carter—or anyone—talking to me, then bringing out the Greek armor and bronze sword, then the demon science teachers and their friends blathering about my mom hiring them to get me. Yes. It must be a nightmare and dream mixed together—a dream-mare?

"Mara, honey, do you believe in Greek mythology? Gods and Titans and the like?"

"I'm Christian," I said, but she only looked puzzled, "You know, church on Sunday? Jesus is Savior?"

"Pfft! You humans and your silly religions. That is a completely different matter. As much as I hate to say this, the gods are real and very much alive. The tales of old are not mere stories, the mortals just can't tell between fiction and non-fiction. Hmph! As for your mother, she is one of the gods and my mistress. Hecate, the goddess of magic."

Haha. Nice try, I thought, My mom is the goddess of magic. But then I thought of the first time I discovered my strange talents. When I was in kindergarten, Augustine Smith had taken the dolls I intended to play with, but as soon as she began role-playing tea party with them, they completely fell apart by themselves. In grade three, I had received my first detention but I was dismissed minutes into the session after my teacher, while organizing her shelves, had a stack of dictionaries and thesauruses fall onto her head. Then only two years ago, in grade six, I got kicked out of the Watson-Smith Academy after getting ticked off at a bully at a trip to the museum and having a stone statue of a Native American landing on his legs and breaking them. Yeah, I know those were pretty evil things, but they were accidents (okay, even though I don't regret landing a bunch of dictionaries on Mrs. Bourne). It couldn't have been ordinary. It must have been…

"Magic." I echoed the empousa.

"Yes, foolish half-blood. You're half-god, half-mortal. That is why you possess abilities that are not…normal to the human world. Your godly side makes you a target for monsters—"

"Like you?"

The empousa hissed like an annoyed cat, coming closer to me. My blood pressure increased sevenfold at the sight of those fangs getting closer and closer to me. "Yes, it's true. We're monsters, but us empousai are smarter, and we are high-ranked servants of your mother." Then she released me and stepped backwards, now six feet away from me. "So, will you come willingly or by force?"

Let a monster—that smelled like Eau de Barnyard Animal, no less—take me to my mother, some magical Greek goddess? It was only a few days to March Break, though, and Dad would notice I was missing. But to see Mom? She wanted to see me, after fourteen years and honestly, I wanted to see her too even when I knew she abandoned us. But then, if she was an all-powerful goddess, why couldn't she come and pick me up herself? Leave a note for the school giving me an early holiday, drop in to say hello to Dad. Why did she have to send two bloodthirsty, donkey-ish vampires—excuse me, empousai—after me?

I raised my knife and pointed it at her, and at once knew how weak and insignificant I was against the might of an empousa. Too late. She exposed her fangs again with her attempt at a broad smile. Those were the only weapons she needed, since anyone could tell those teeth could rip through any flesh like it was butter.

"Force? It doesn't matter to me!" she screeches, and pounces on me, clawed hands outstretched like Mrs. Weiss' had been. I barely managed to step to the side of her attack, and she barreled into the tree like a maddened bull, shrieking as she slammed into the trunk, blinded momentarily and tearing with her nails at the bark right beside me. My mind seemed to be on autopilot, and the next thing I knew Jaysen's knife was hilt-deep in the empousa's back, golden oil-like liquid making a glove on my hand. I heard her sputtering, cursing and then—all I remembered was something light and powdery raining on me, like sugar frosting, dusting my hair. But when some got in my mouth, bitterness exploded in my tongue and I spat it out.

All was still. I opened my eyes a crack, scared of what hideous mess would await me. I imagined a bloody empousa corpse, her strange golden blood splattered all over her donkey leg, back torn apart by my knife, her insides open for all the world to see. The police would find me, track me down some way or another and I'll be in huge trouble, even if my dad was a lawyer. But when my vision refocused, all I saw was the remains of the empousa. Nothing remained except for a small harmless-looking pile of yellow powder and a single tooth, one of her fangs.

Gingerly, I bent down, hesitating a little. I half-expected the yellow powder to explode, revealing the empousa, who would laugh, "You stupid demigod! You fell for my distraction powder!" before finishing me off. With my knife, I poked the tooth, shudders running through me. No movement. Heart pounding in my ears, I picked up the fang with my thumb and forefinger, trying not to think about where that tooth had been previously.

I stood alone in the small clearing, holding a knife and a vampire's tooth. I actually felt a little good about myself about that, like I had achieved something great. Mara Raine Lewis's life checklist. Get a hot guy to talk to me—check! He even paid attention for nearly two minutes. Find out who your mother is—check! Some Greek goddess that controls all magic. Awesome. And finally, destroy Mom's employees and turn them into dust particles—well…that's half-done.

Jaysen! I spun around, ready to dash in there to help him, but that was when I also realized how silent it was. Shouldn't I have heard anything? The clang of his sword on her bronze leg or Mrs. Weiss's maniacal laugh? Maybe Jaysen killed her and went back to his basketball game without telling me. Or maybe Mrs. Weiss defeated him and was just lying in wait for—

CRACK! I jumped a foot in the air and nearly fell on my butt at the sound, and saw the ground was shaking again. Searching the ground with my eyes, I saw that nothing was floating. I didn't cause it. The ground continued to shake violently, so violently that it almost knocked me off my feet. I placed a hand on the tree to steady myself, my fingers running across a triangular mark indented into the bark. Memories shot through me. Something about a Greek who lived long ago…

There was no time to ponder over such trivial things. An earsplitting shriek rang out and the next thing I knew, there was a familiar bronze sword stuck solidly into the wood, only a few inches above my head. His sword.

"Jaysen!" I screamed, terrified, and daring to look over my shoulder, I saw him, barely able to stand up, struggling to get to me. Behind him, Mrs. Weiss walked at a leisurely pace, smiling from ear to ear. Red blood—definitely not hers—dribbled down the corner of her mouth. Oh, God. Oh my God. "Jaysen!" Trying to ignore the earthquake, I surged towards him. There was another CRACK! behind me but I ignored it this time. I took Jaysen's hand, holding it tightly and pulled him behind me, as if I could protect him from the wrath of Mrs. Weiss.

She only laughed in my face. "Strange things are happening, half-blood," she hissed, continuing to advance. "Mighty things. A new Golden Age is coming upon us, and you are destined to be part of it." Her eyes flickered over my shoulder and her smile grew even wider, if that were possible. "The door has opened. We have no other business here, daughter of Hecate."

Then, even faster than the other empousa, she lunged towards us with the swiftness of a speeding bullet. Before I could even blink, firm, cold hands grasped me tightly and sent me shooting backwards. Nothing broke my fall and I fell into an endless pit with Jaysen Carter and my science teacher.