Lori Devoti - Amazon Ink

I jogged through the basement to the outside door. Once past that, I crept up the stairs. I could hear voices arguing-or at least one voice, male. I peered over the stairwell.

Peter stood at the corner of my shop, his back to the gym. In front of him were the twins, fully armed with swords, staffs, grenades…maybe not grenades, but they were loaded down with weapons and even wearing some kind of padded Kevlar type vest.

I could only imagine what Peter was thinking.

As I watched, they pointed toward the parking lot. I crouched down a little lower. They didn’t turn to look, but Peter did. He saw me. I could feel his gaze, but before I could think what to do, he turned back to the twins and began to argue louder.

“The shop is open. I just left for lunch.” He stepped to the side, to his left, forcing the twins to turn too, move so their backs were to me. “I have appointments.”

The twins seemed to broaden from behind, but didn’t say much, at least not much I could hear. Peter looked past them, at me. His eyes said run .

I didn’t stop to think why he wasn’t questioning what was going on or how he seemed to know I needed to escape without the twins’ noticing. I just vaulted up the stairs and sprinted to my truck.

I had to get to my daughter. I had to make sure she was safe.

After I pulled up at West High, I sat in my truck for a few minutes, let it idle-technically against the law in Madison, but far from my biggest worry at the moment.

I wanted-no, needed -to know Harmony was safe, but I also knew I couldn’t just drag her out of geometry or whatever and race away.

The killing had gone on too long, and it was tied to me. I had a responsibility to stop Alcippe, especially since no one else believed the killer was Alcippe.

Then there was Zery. I couldn’t traipse off and leave her in jail. I was the only Amazon equipped to talk with the police, to maybe get Reynolds to bend. I had to go back, had to face Alcippe and the Amazons.

I drove to a nearby neighborhood street, where I deserted the truck and took off on foot. I would check on my daughter, reassure myself she was safe, then I’d do whatever I had to do to stop this disaster.

I checked my watch. It was almost two-right before sixth period. Harmony should be on her way to English. Luckily the classroom was on the ground floor. I didn’t want to worry my girl by interrupting her class. I just wanted to see her. It took three tries before I found the right class.

The period had already started by this time, but the kids were still milling around. Harmony was facing the window. A slender boy stood in front of her, his back to me. Her eyes did some angle thing I’d never seen before, and she flicked her hair over her shoulder. My girl was flirting.

Seeing the obvious display of interest from my daughter shot fear of a new kind through me, but the relief at seeing her at all-happy and healthy, if focused on some boy whose face I couldn’t see-quickly knocked that aside.

My fingers gripping the concrete sills that topped the brick, I soaked up the sight.

Rachel appeared, shot the boy and then Harmony a sidelong glance. She saw the attraction too, seemed to approve of it more than I did.

I tapped my fingers against the sill. I’d wanted a normal human daughter. Guess that’s what Artemis was giving me.

At that moment a line of cars pulled up to the four-way stop near the school. I dropped to my knees in the dirt to avoid being seen. Being arrested for spying on students, or even just being outed as a crazy stalker mom, was not part of my plan.

By the time the cars had pulled off, the class had settled into their seats and I didn’t dare risk peering at my daughter again.

She was safe.

As long as I found Alcippe and stopped her, Harmony would stay that way.

Back in my truck, I realized I didn’t know where Alcippe was. Bubbe had said Zery waved her on, but had she continued to the safe camp or returned to the gym?

Zery was jailed somewhere in Wisconsin, and Alcippe thought I was locked in my basement.

I bet she didn’t go far. I drove home.

From the outside things looked pretty normal, in other words, quiet. The twins were nowhere to be seen. I stood on the sidewalk between my shop and the gym, undecided on what to do first.

Someone grabbing me from behind made the decision for me. An arm snapped across my chest, pinning my arms to my side, and my attacker began walking backward, dragging me with each step.

I reached out, gathering power without thought. The process was becoming easier, second nature. A spell was on my lips, wind building in my lungs, when a rough voice whispered in my ear. “Too damn stubborn. You were supposed to leave.”

Mother.

“I’m taking you to your truck and you’re going to get in it and drive. Head north,” she ordered.

I let out my breath and released most of the power. “Where’s Alcippe?” I asked.

She squeezed me, mumbled something under her breath that I didn’t think was exactly an endearment and kept dragging.

I relaxed against her. Fighting would have just wasted energy. Besides, she obviously didn’t intend to hog-tie me and drive me somewhere herself, so this whole exercise could only have one conclusion: her letting me go and me heading right back.

You’d think she’d have known me better by now. Ten feet from my truck, she took a hard left. “My truck’s over there,” I said, letting my impatience to end the farce show.

She kept dragging. That’s when I got suspicious. I twisted, or tried to. Her arms held-as surely as titanium bars.

Another of her long-legged paces, even moving backward she could eat up ground at twice the pace I could, and we were beside a battered van-the windowless kind serial killers use to troll parking lots. Bubbe and one of the hearth-keepers I’d seen working in the cafeteria stood beside it.

I dug in my heels. Mother didn’t even slow her pace. The ground tugged on my boots as I jammed them into the earth. I pulled in a breath, my brain spinning through spells like cards on a Rolodex, searching for something I could use that would force her to release me without killing either of us.

“Melanippe.” Bubbe held up a hand, her face calm…understanding.

Hell no. I sucked in instead of blowing out and went limp, fell. The trick worked. It caught Mother, who was prepared for my fight, off guard. I slipped through her arms. She’d moved two giant steps backward before she realized the loss. By then I was jogging to the front.

I got as far as the corner, paused, again weighing shop or gym. And again, I didn’t have to make the choice. Someone made it for me-actually, a mob made it for me.

Amazons began pouring out the front, Alcippe in their lead. She took one look at me and yelled. Twenty pairs of angry feet pounded toward me. Instinctively I spun. Mother and Bubbe were a few feet behind me, both waving for me to come toward them, to run to the van and disappear. I leaned in their direction, my body automatically moving to safety. Then I remembered why I was here, that someone needed to face Alcippe, and that someone was me.

I turned back to the crowd and began mumbling the first spell that sprang to my brain. It started to rain-hard. Drops fell from the sky like lead balls, big, too big to be natural, and hard, edged with ice. My shirt and pants clung to me. The Amazons racing toward me slipped on the instantly saturated ground. They piled one on top of the other in an almost comical display. I might have laughed if I’d known what I was doing, if I’d felt like I could stop the deluge I’d beckoned. Instead, I listened to my teeth chatter and watched, wild-eyed, wondering what to do next.