Richelle Mead - Gameboard of the Gods

Justin’s head jerked up. “Accosted?”

“Bad word choice,” said Tessa. No one was nearby, but she still looked around nervously. “I think we should go upstairs. I’ve got something kind of important to show you.”

“Something important” was kind of an understatement.

Justin never would’ve believed Mae’s genetic past and subsequent fight with a shape-shifting woman could be trumped by anything. Apparently, it was one of the rare times he was wrong. Equally incredible was listening to Tessa put together facts in the interview with the old man. Justin had known she was smart, but even he was amazed at her ability to ask the right questions. She’d had no idea how it all worked together, but her gut had told her to just keep gathering information.

Even prodigies needed sleep, however, and in the middle of her video’s third viewing, he saw that Tessa was exhausted. He sent her off to bed while he and Mae held a war council in his room, both of them pointedly not sitting on the bed. Exerzol had given Justin a second wind, though he was so wired by the flood of data tonight that he couldn’t have slept anyway. Mae, although not technically tired, had a weary look on her face, the expression of someone who was mentally drained.

Justin paced the room. “It’s here, Mae. There’s always a pattern, and we’ve almost got it.”

“I feel like we just kind of have a mess.”

“That too. But look. There are genetically superior patricians being engineered—magically or otherwise—with the assistance of some religious group. Said group sacrifices a plebeian to do it and demands a hefty price tag, as well as devotion from the designer baby.” He thought back to his conversation with Callista and how she’d mused that a god might like “perfect” followers, though she hadn’t understood why that god would kill said creations off. Now he knew. “But if they aren’t loyal, they’re sacrificed too and ‘returned’ to their goddess. Ilias Sandberg openly refused. None of the other victims mentioned being approached, but they were all antireligion, which suggests they weren’t on board with some war or death goddess—hence they had to be dealt with.”

“The video is real, then,” she said. He could tell it took her a lot of effort to admit that. “We were seeing some supernatural assassin.”

“It would appear so. Mae…” For a few moments, he couldn’t go forward. Studying her and all those lovely features, he desperately wished he didn’t have to bring up a subject that would only worsen their troubled relationship. But too much was on the line. “Please hear me out. Let me finish what I’m about to say.”

The wary look on her face said she knew what was coming. “Okay.”

“We know now that you were engineered too. You’re the right age and have the right score. You have some ‘dark’ goddess following and possessing you, one that usually shows up when you’re fighting. I’m not exactly saying that’s a direct link to war and death, but it’s pretty close. You have to see that.”

To his relief, she didn’t blow up at him. She simply clung to her safety blanket. “I’m not a match.”

“I know, but is there anything else you can tell me about this goddess that seizes you? The ravens only get impressions off her. They aren’t all-knowing, no matter how much they like to put on airs. You’re the most direct connection we have. Please. Is there any other attribute you can think of to help us find these people before the next murder?”

Part of him wanted to go back and interrogate Astrid Koskinen. She had to know more about this cult than she’d let on. And yet…she’d been so convincing when she denied any knowledge.

She could just be better than you, Horatio said.

I know. I could easily bring her in as a person of interest, but that’d unearth a lot about Mae, not to mention implicate her mother in illegal activity.

They didn’t really seem to get along, the raven reminded him.

It was true, but if there was some other way he could get what he needed to know, he’d try that first—if there was enough time. An internal struggle obviously raged through Mae. She was probably starting to accept that there were too many coincidences surrounding her life, but getting on board with this still had to be a shock to her system. She swallowed.

“There might be. There’s this man who—”

Justin’s ego rang. Irritated at the interruption, he started to silence the call when he saw the display showing a blocked number in Mexico. “Send call to the screen,” he told it. He answered and found Callista Xie glaring at Mae and him.

“Where,” she demanded, “did you get it?”

“Get what?” asked Mae. Seeing Callista snapped her out of her malaise and put her back in tough prætorian mode.

Justin already knew what Callista was referring to. Before his ill-fated trip to the casino, he’d sent the picture of Mae’s necklace off to the authorities in the respective castes. On impulse, he’d also sent a copy to Callista.

“A couple of my genetically perfect castals had it,” he said, leaving Mae’s name out of this for now. “Does it mean anything to you?”

“It’s the symbol of the servants of the Morrigan.”

Immediately, Justin sifted through his mental files of gods and mythology. “Celtic,” he said. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. “She fights with warriors in battle and appears to people before death….”

Mae gave him an incredulous look. “You knew there was a goddess like that and didn’t make the connection?”

“That applies to a hundred gods around the world,” he shot back. “I didn’t know which one it was. Death and battle are pervasive themes in the human experience.” He turned back to a scowling Callista. “She’s tied to other things too.”

“Silver and moonlight?” suggested Mae wryly. “And crows?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “And cows too, weirdly. Some also theorized she was a triple goddess and would’ve possessed other attributes through her different aspects.”

“Not in the beliefs of her recent followers,” said Callista. “They were—are—focused on her darker parts. They prefer power over enlightenment.”

“How do you know so much?” asked Mae suspiciously.

“Because Amarantha is a warrior goddess, and I make it my business to know about rivals.”

“I thought Amarantha was a goddess of magic.”

“She’s both.” Impatient, Callista fixed her dark gaze on Justin. “You have to stop the Morrigan. Her people will kill again.”

“I know they will! What do you think I’m trying to do here?” he asked. “If you know so much, where are they?”

Callista looked sheepish. “I don’t know. On a Celtic grant probably.”

“Very helpful,” he grumbled.

One thing that made plebeians scornful of patricians was that at times it was really hard to define a genetic profile for an ethnic group. Sometimes the genes were telling. Often, castes went by phenotype, which could make things messy when a nationality could have any number of features. The Celtic castes were all over the place on their true ancestral appearances. Some argued for a light-haired, fair-skinned presence while others insisted the Celtic people had migrated from Iberia and had darker looks. The competing Irish castes—the Erinians and Hibernians—were particularly dysfunctional. Half the time, the traits a caste selected for seemed arbitrary. The Welsh caste had split the difference in accepted Celtic traits, and most citizens had pale skin, black hair, and dark blue or brown eyes. There were also two “meta” Celtic castes, which embraced multiple nationalities, much as the Nordics allowed all the Scandinavian regions and Finland.