A/N: At the very helpful piece of advice from the wonderful Kata Chthonia I have decided to continue forth with this story, editing aside until the end. There are only a handful of chapters left before this story is finished in the first place, so even though they may not be the greatest written pieces on earth– choppy, I guess will be the best word– I'm going to finish this story out before editing it. I ask you all to stick with me through the wild ride the last part of this fic will be put through, and thank you again for all your support!
(Also, I know there are now two characters in the story named "Helen" but, I figure, same names happen a lot in real life, so why not in books? If it ever gets confusing, let me know!)
This wasn't working, not at all.
Violet bit her lip, spun her body away from her attacker and tried with everything in her to do something, anything that would protect her. She felt the familiar tingle, the pull, but nothing happened. The earth was left bare of life and she fell on her back with a shriek, heavy weight upon her and a hand at her throat, squeezing softly.
"You're dead, Violet. Again."
"I know," she said. Once, she had all but growled the admission. By now she was too tired for the rancor. She just wanted to go inside and sleep.
It'd been more than a week since she had called Danny. Wyatt had gone back to school this morning. She didn't talk to anyone else. Evangeline hadn't come home yet and the idea of facing Logan after that little stunt she'd pulled with him in selfish need last Saturday night was unbearable. She didn't know what she felt for him anymore. What feelings were her own, what feelings were Persephone's, what feelings were guilt. She was still sore he'd lied to her; still sore from the hurt Danny and Albany's voices had left and from the death all around them in the house.
The funeral for the dryad nymph, Lila, had been yesterday. Logan had arranged for everything– he did own a funeral shipping business after all– though they hadn't attended the procession to pay their respects. It'd been the same for the dead satyrian man, Slater. Luckily, Myrtle was still pulling through. She griped every time Chad went to change her bandages, but other than that she was fine, knitting in her room and making Chad fix her tea three times over because it was 'too hot' or there 'wasn't enough lemon' just for source of entertainment.
Since the deaths, Thaddeus had been adamant to step up Violet's self-defense training. He no longer wished for physical strength, but flowers and vines and thorns. Nearly a week of trying to protect herself and nothing had happened for Violet so far. It felt as if that day in the forest with those cacodemons and lelaps had been a fluke. Not even leaves perked up for her anymore. If anything they wilted, browned, died in the fragile interim of summer and fall.
"You need to perk up, queeny," Thaddeus kept telling her. "Your powers are never gonna work if the only emotion you feel is mopy. They're tied to your soul, and a sad soul just doesn't get results."
Violet never made comment to how easy that all sounded, but how hard is actually was to do. How could she simply 'perk up' when she'd lied to her brother and he was still alone, when two people had been killed and she'd laid a hand in the reason their lives had ended? How could she perk up when she didn't even know who she was anymore– Violet Porter or Persephone or a girl without a name?
Seeing Logan didn't help with anything. He treated her like a glass flower, made excuses to leave whenever they were alone together in a room for too long. She reasoned that was best. Things were too complicated right now to let a thing like a crush affect them so much. But it's more than a crush, her mind tried to say, tried to reason. She ignored it; she ignored most of her thoughts these days.
It was only training she let herself think about, basic reflex of wake, eat, sleep, do it all over again. Every other moment was spent in a certain kind of addicting sadness. She didn't even really think about why she was sad except when Thaddeus told her to. That hollow feeling in her chest was just there and she tried nothing to make it go away. Sometimes it was better to feel woefully numb than full of fear, full of guilt.
With a twitch, she had Thaddeus rolled off of her and was sitting up, grass stains on her neck. "I think we should stop for the day," Thaddeus said, sensing the utter lack of hope in her. "Why don't you go and get some lunch? I think Chad is cooking papoustakia."
"Okay," Violet said, no complaint, no resistance. She was too tired for it. Refusal and stubbornness required effort, and effort she had none. Instead she ate, kept it down, let go of the control. What was the point? She didn't even have the energy to cut herself anymore. Just laid on the edge of her bed with Marea at her side, staring out the window in blank expression.
A part of her knew she had to stop this, she had to be strong because a Goddess didn't act so pettily. But she wasn't a Goddess. She had been, but not anymore.
Sighing, she let Thaddeus help her off the ground and walked to the kitchen, brushing the dirt from the back of her jeans. She ate lunch with Chad, didn't say a word. During her time at the Fairgrave house she'd gotten used to the spices of Greek cuisine, the rich taste on her tongue.
Chad was as apt to silence a she these days, only being outwardly spoken when he voiced Myrtle's complaints. It was not like his usual bubbly self at all. She wanted to know what was wrong, wanted to try and help, but she didn't see the point. What could she say? Things will get better. She didn't even believe the words herself, so how could she convince Chad of them?
And besides, they were in the middle of a war older than time that involved Gods for Christ's sake. There was nowhere to go but down from here.
"It's supposed to rain later," Chad commented, scooping up the last of his Béchamel sauce with a spoon.
"Oh? It's about time…we've had this drought forever."
"Yeah," Chad said softly, staring out at the backyard where Thaddeus was cleaning up the mess he and Violet had made when she'd kicked him into some lawn chairs earlier. "Some drought. Ja."
She went up to her room to read after that. A regular book by Salinger. No more journals of the Gods; she didn't feel like thinking about all of that right now.
It was only when Wyatt came home from school that she realized she hadn't even read three pages before nodding off, dreamless sleep with a crick in her neck as the front door slammed shut, waking her. Marea roused lazily from the end of the bed, stretching with a puppy yawn as she rolled over and went back to sleep, even as Violet got up to go and greet Wyatt.
When she came to stand at the bottom of the steps in the entry foyer, it was to find Wyatt toeing off the new sneakers Evangeline had picked out for him; backpack clutched tightly in hand, car keys in the other before he threw them on one of the hooks by the door. He looked tired, bored.
"How was school?" she asked, which startled him.
He whirled on her with a feminine chirp. "Jesus, Vi! Could you make a little more noise when ya walk next time?" he asked, blush forming on his cheeks as he rubbed nervously at the back of his head.
"Sorry," she said, crossing her arms over grass stained chest. "You make any friends?"
"This gal named Christa in my Lit class was pretty nice," he shrugged. "How was your day?"
"Okay," she lied, walking up to him and taking his backpack despite protest. All she did with it was throw it next to the stairs anyways, taking Wyatt's hand and leading him through the halls, out the back doors of the kitchen and towards the garden to soak up some sun before it began to rain like Chad had warned. "Still no dice with the divinity stuff."
"I can offer you some Adderall if you think it'll lift your spirits," Wyatt said, feet squishing in the grass and turning his tube socks green. He didn't seem to mind, and Violet loved the bare tickle of life under her feet too much for shoes. "I mean, if anything it'll make your concentration spike by eighty percent."
"I'm not gonna take your pills, Wyatt," Violet said with a playful roll of her eyes as they reached the edge of the garden, sat down on a stone bench by the fountain in the middle of the area.
"The option's always open," he quipped.
Violet gave him a small smile, shook her head with a playful shove to his shoulder. Over the weeks physical contact had become more common to her. Once she hadn't been keen on affection expressed through touch, but now it was a reflex. Wyatt had gotten her used to it, as had Thaddeus with his consoling pats to the shoulder, Chad with his good-mood hugs, Evangeline with combing her hair and drawing baths, Logan with his kisses and fervent caresses, like the other night…
"What's it like?" Wyatt asked suddenly, catching her off guard.
But Violet was thankful for the sudden distraction from confusing, hazy thoughts, despite the flush to her skin being caught daydreaming had caused. "What's what like?" she asked, quirked a brow and tugged at the sleeves of her thermal. It was becoming threadbare by now, with how often she'd washed it. Soon she'd have to cave and wear all of the nice, new clothes in her wardrobe that Logan had gotten for it.
Her nose wrinkled.
"Remembering another life," Wyatt said, dark eyes curious and almost sad. "I only get one set of memories, but you have two. And Uncle F., well, he has a lot more. It just seems so…"
"Befuddling," Violet offered, because that was how it felt to her. It was like two souls in one body, clawing at each other over who'd have reign of the brain's memories that day. You were yourself and yet you strangely weren't– how many of your thoughts were your own and not just a replay of your life before? Were your feelings even real, or simply stagnant memory on a broken loop? Did you love him, did he love you?
He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves Persephone.
"No," Wyatt said, seeming shocked by Violet's statement. "I was gonna say it seems so…nice. What I wouldn't give to have happier memories, feel like I could be someone else if I tried."
"You can't be someone else though, Wyatt," Violet said, no hesitation because she knew the words to be true. "You can feel like you're them, but you aren't. I mean, you have their thoughts, their memories, but you're still you, whoever you is… I just, I really don't feel like Persephone."
I'm not strong enough to be a Goddess, not anymore.
"Then why are you so worried that what you feel for Logan and what he feels for you isn't real?"
Her body gave a literal jolt, Wyatt's words slamming into her nerves like a white-hot dagger. (Blood all over, momma's gone they're all gone keep the children out hurts it hurts, hurts, hurts blood everywhere.) Blinking, Violet looked off to the side, where a bush of once dead roses had suddenly bloomed back to life, their scent heady in the air.
"It's like you're trying to talk yourself out of it, Vi. Are you afraid of getting hurt or something?"
"Why are you asking me this?" she whispered, voice soft though she wanted malice. It wouldn't come though, her head still swimming in cotton candy thought. "I thought that you didn't want Logan and me to be together?"
"I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not jealous," Wyatt shrugged. "But I also care too much about ya' to watch you stay in this rut. I mean, I know it's about more than just romantic stuff, but that's one problem you're fooling yourself on, Vi. You keep acting like he only loves you because you were Persephone and he was Hades, but Logan denies more than anything he's the same person he was then.
"What was it you told me– like ya've grown up, yea? Childhood sweethearts that learned a lot of new tricks even though they remember the old. But you're still sweethearts in the end, because even though you've changes, that doesn't mean you don't still love each other. Once you love someone, I don't think you can stop. If anything, I think ya fall in love all over again." Wyatt shrugged at his own words after a moment, wiped a hand over his nose in embarrassed habit. "I mean, that's what Aunt Ang says, at least."
"But then I do just feel for Logan because Persephone did?" Violet said, yet it was more a question than a statement. Setting her head in her hands, she groaned. "Gods, this is just so confusing, Wyatt."
"Listen, Vi, you like Logan because of Logan, right? Not because of what you remember of Hades, but because of Logan?"
"Yes…"
"Then, you like Logan. Maybe Persephone loves Hades, but Violet likes Logan. Did done said answered."
Is it really that simple? Biting her lip, Violet glanced up at Wyatt and sighed. "When did you get so smart?"
He chuckled. "I told you I'm a genius."
At that Violet couldn't help but laugh, letting the sound tamper off into the oncoming fall breeze as she noticed Wyatt smiling back at her sadly, little flash of crooked teeth. "Oh, Wyatt, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Because you, and I, and we… You shouldn't have to help me on all of this bullshit with Logan. That's not fair of me to expect it out of you." The guilt in her chest stung anew, though this time it was not for Danny but the boy sitting next to her, so trusting and caring and sweet. And she'd been using him since the start. At first to get away and now to find a reason to stay.
When did I become so selfish? she couldn't help but wonder, breath sticking like thorns in her chest. Where they had once breathed back to life, the roses began to wilt. When did I lose myself so completely?
Had she ever really known herself at all?
Wyatt glanced away to the storm clouds forming on the horizon at her words, folded his hands together and leaned forwards onto his knees. "I kinda expected it never to work out anyway. Thaddeus has been sayin' since the start you and Logan were gonna get together. I guess I just hoped…" He sniffed, wiped his hand across his nose again. "But hey, no biggie, right?"
"I wish I felt like that about you," Violet said, and she meant it. "You're such a good kid, but that's just it. You're a kid, Wyatt. I'm not…I mean I don't think I'm really some all-knowing adult or anything, but I don't look at life like you do. You see the good in things, and I don't."
"At least tell me I'm pretty, then," Wyatt said, shooting her a humored look, there to ease her as always though this time it only made the hurt worse. "Gotta keep my ego from cracking somehow."
Violet smiled painfully, wishing she could make him happy but knowing that she couldn't. "You're very pretty, Wyatt. I bet you by the end of the week Crista won't be the only girl mooning over you."
A heated blush rose to Wyatt's cheeks then and he batted a Violet's side, making her squeal because it tickled. "She was not 'mooning' over me. She was just bein' nice."
"And my hair's made of dandelions," Violet scoffed, shoving him back.
"With you," Wyatt said, "that very well may be possible."
Why had she signed up for this, again?
It's for the right reasons, said the voice of the crone.
And it completely sucks, answered the maiden.
Hecate sighed, tired willow limbs where she sat on the sofa in John Storms' living room, Janet next to her and sipping languidly at her wine. Besides Charlotte, Janet had been Hecate's only form of solace in the past week she had spent inside of John's home with the others of their kind. The man demanded far too much and was careless with magic– it infuriated Hecate to no end and the only thing that kept her from enacting a curse upon him were the calming words of Janet and Charlotte reminding her it would do no good to be without an ally.
Ally, Hecate derided, not for the first time. What were allies in a war like this? Everyone was out for their split of power, thirsty for blood and revenge. The moment those against the Olympians were destroyed, the siblings would turn upon each other. Maybe not Charlotte and Logan, but the others, Hecate had no doubts about. The years had not learned them anything; they still bickered like children and would jump at the chance to have more divinity than one another so as to take command the way they so wanted.
It was a pity though, she had to admit. Such legacy gone to waste on stupid whims. She could see it in old Tamara's eyes that the Fate felt the same. "They haven't learned a thing, old Hecate," Tamara had said to her the first night Hecate had stayed in John's home with the others, everyone else drunk and laughing on false ambrosia. "Human they be, and yet human they deny."
Hecate knew Tamara meant the words in a prophetic vision, but she could not figure them out at their core. Yet that didn't mean they weren't true. The Gods had always thought themselves superior to the creatures they had created, and yet they were pettier, vainer, and more corrupt than any mortal she'd ever known. It was almost pathetic how highly they thought themselves, towering over their worshipers' heads and demanding the world and more.
She had never been like that. So dearly she loved and appreciated her priestesses and had given them everything she could. Even now, she always made merry with the covens named in her honor and tried her best to help them. Mortals were so pivotal to the Gods– they meant everything to them and it was unnatural to treat them any other way.
It served the Gods right to fall when the mortals had left them behind. Millennia of torture upon the creatures had sentenced the Gods to a torment of their own, and Hecate knew to pay for their sins was only just. But to see that the others had learned nothing and were only worried for their own sake if the Titans were to be released was heart-breaking.
The notion served to make Hecate feel more alienated in this place. She longed to go back to Fairgrave Manor, to see her Wyatt and Violet and Logan and Thaddeus and Myrtle and Chad who all understood that they were not fighting this war just for themselves, but for humanity as well. While Logan's drive had in fact started as something personal, he had slowly come to now be determined in keeping as many innocents safe from the wrath of his father as possible. Violet had served to change him in such a way, instilled a good in him that had made him realize just how important a single life can be.
It was exactly what Hecate had foreseen would happen the moment Zeus spoke of Persephone's life reincarnated. Logan could deny as much as he wanted that he loved the girl, that she made him better, but it would do no use against the seeing eyes of the crone, of the maiden too. Even Hecate left somewhere in the middle could see his ever growing affections for the girl, his ever growing humanity that she brought forth, a flower to the sun.
Eventually, Hecate was roused from her thoughts when John finally decided to grace the room with his presence. It was to be her turn to search for the others today, Janet having gone the day before and Rosy three days ago. The former had found Ganymede, the cup-bearer to Olympus. The latter had located Hebe, the Goddess of youth and Hera's adored child. To say Helen Storms had been thrilled was an understatement, and she had left nearly immediately to find the girl lost somewhere in the Philippines herself.
"I wish to look for the Erinyes," Hecate said as John called her fourth to the altar.
The man's brows drew together, staring at her with skepticism she did not like. The streak of pride in her that flared when anyone questioned her powers had only burned brighter throughout her many lives, and she felt the need to smite John just to give him a taste. "Three Goddesses, dear Hecate? We all know that once bonded, Gods cannot be found."
"Aye, but old Hecate is afta all the keeper of magic, Zeus," said Tamara from where she sat cross-stitching in the corner of the room. "If anyone shall be able ta break the loop, it is she. And ya forget that the Erinyes are all but one soul split to three parts– if they be with no other Gods then their bond be as eternal as before. With a little power boost findin' them should be easy for old Hecate."
"Thank you, Tamara," Hecate said, inclining her head humbly. The old Fate smiled, yellow knowing teeth as she began to stitch again with knarled fingers.
Hecate took her place at altar then, suppressed a sneer to John as the others all joined hands around her. "Blood of our blood," she mumbled, picking the dagger up from where it sat on the stone slab. The Olympic sand around her began to whirl with threat. "I call upon thee…" A slash of the palm was so common to her anymore she felt not a thing.
Deep red spilled into the bowl below her palm, more than usual because what better way to summon Furies than with extra blood? She said the words, closed her eyes, brimstone filling her lungs when it shouldn't have. She was too lost in the spell the feel the heat on her skin, hear the screams of Tartarus. The divinity of the others seeped into her, a spark of power, a flare of warmth and tempting promise. She could taste it on her tongue, threatening to drive her mad with greed. If she just gave in…
Hellfire was something her skin had not encountered in a long time. It was so hot it made her feel cold. She did not scream as the flames licked at her, seductive caress. "Daughter…" crooned a voice from within the fiery depths, sulfur and ash engulfing her senses. "Daughter…"
This is not right, thought the Goddess fuzzily. She was not looking for her mother, her father. This is not right at all…
"Daughter…" Warm hands caressed her skin, promise of no more pain, no more confusion, no more no more. "Come to us…"
She was not in control of her own tongue when she said, "Yes."
And before she could make sense of the stabbing pain in her chest, the proud leers, she was thrust forth into another realm, stumbling into an apartment covered in old pizza boxes and take-out cartons. Three women lay out across the space in separate beds, sleeping with wicked dreams of blood. They had not killed before, but Gods how they wanted to.
Hecate grit her teeth, the hellfire completely forgotten in dreamy whisps of smoke as she moved around the apartment, stepping over dirty clothes and piled Cosmo magazines. There was a phonebook open on the kitchen counter, magnets on the fridge. Spain. They were in Spain, a small town on the coast with the sea just an open window away.
They had not been born as sisters, not biologically. Years in a foster system had thrown them together, leaving them all in their late twenties with office jobs and a secret thirst for death. They often fantasized about it when in throws of passion with each other, biting and scratching floor pain. Hecate tried not to linger on those barrowed memories, her stomach turning at the brutality of it. Instead she remembered every detail of this place down to the color of the front door.
One last look at the sleeping women's faces, and she let the spell go.
With a deep breath she was brought back to herself, feeling light headed and burned. But why did she feel as if her skin had been touched by fire? Spain certainly was hot in the summer, but not enough to make her feel cooked raw…
She glanced down at the bowl of blood in front of her, only to realize it had spilled over and stained the front of her mint colored maxi-dress. The Olympians were looking at her with wide eyes, the Fates with sudden fright. "You flailed," admitted Janet eventually. "We thought you were having a seizure."
"I assure you I am okay," Hecate said, feeling the blood slick on her mentally charred skin. "Just…woozy."
"We should get you to bed then, and clean you up," said John, eager to placate the woman's hate for him so he could use her as much as possible without her protest. "Did you have any luck with the Erinyes, my dear?"
"Spain," she said, glancing to old Tamara in the corner. The woman had stopped with her cross stitching, Molly and Alice still and paler than usual at her sides. Hecate blinked confusedly and looked back to John, a dull pounding in her temples. "They reside in a small village on the coast. Salobrena. I shall write down the address for you after I have taken a bath and gotten this…mess off of me."
"Of course, my dear. Oh, but this is simply marvelous, is it not?" clapped the God King, pearl teeth sparkling in the afternoon sun. "Allies we shall have plenty of!"
"Yes," said Hecate as a sprited servant was brought in to escort her back to her rooms and help clean her up of the coagulating heat drying to her flesh. The feeling of warm, comforting hands lingered on her, the lick of flames a pounding in her skull as she walked away in forgotten chaos. "Yes, we shall."
In the aftermath of the spell, it had only been old Tamara and her goddaughters that had seen the foul yellow in Hecate's eyes, felt the burn of the hellfire upon their skin.