Stephanie Draven - Poisoned Kisses

“I don’t need ambrosia. I’m getting better on my own.” Kyra’s words were belied by the fact that she could barely hold her own cup. A little tea slopped over the rim and Hecate had to wipe it away with a napkin. Then the old woman settled into an antique rocking chair with a threadbare cushion and Kyra’s weak flicker of inner torchlight revealed that the goddess was decidedly cross. “I didn’t know Marco Kaisaris’s blood could kill me.”

“Of course you knew! You just didn’t want to admit it to yourself because now that angels are popular, you have a death wish.”

Kyra hung her head. “No, I just wanted to do something good again—something important.”

Hecate swirled a golden spoon in the ancient teacup—one of a thousand treasures she’d hoarded in her cluttered shop over the years. “Did you really think that killing Marco Kaisaris would make the world a better place?”

“A little, yeah,” Kyra cracked.

Hecate took a sip from her cup. “Killing is your father’s way.”

Kyra hated to be compared to Ares. She might be his daughter, she might have tried to serve him once, but that was only because she’d wanted to forge a relationship with her only living parent; she’d never been one of his bloodthirsty gang. Unlike her other war-born siblings, she’d never ridden with Daddy into battle; she’d only been there to guide the souls of the dead afterward. How dare Hecate pretend otherwise?

But then, it wasn’t Hecate’s role to guide the dead anymore, was it? She’d given up her divine responsibilities long ago. She’d never comforted the shades of today’s murdered children, their skulls fractured by Marco Kaisaris’s bullets. Kyra had. She was only trying to rid the world of a monster.

As if reading her thoughts, Hecate’s lips tightened. “Kyra, why can’t you settle into your life? I’ve released you—you’re no longer my minion. Yes, you’re a lampade, but you don’t have to guide the dead anymore. You don’t belong in the world the same way you once did. None of us do. I hoped you’d use your freedom to find some happiness, but instead you’re off chasing monsters! Do you do these things to get attention?”

Maybe. A little. “I went after Marco Kaisaris because you once told me I was destined to destroy a hydra, remember?”

Hecate sputtered, as if some old memory were taking shape. “I said you’d conquer one, not kill him! When Hercules vanquished the hydra of his age, he used a torch to do it. You’re a torchbearer, Kyra. You have a gift. You can illuminate the truth of a human heart, find the wounds and sear them closed—”

“No,” Kyra said bitterly. “I’ll never do that again and you know why.”

It’d been a long time since they’d spoken of Kyra’s mother and Hecate’s sad eyes showed understanding. “Kyra, that was so long ago. You were such a young nymph and unsure of your powers. You didn’t mean to—”

“Condemn my own mother to a life of madness?” Kyra finished, furling her lip at the familiar but bitter taste of the dandelion tea. “I wanted to heal her, but she only saw Ares in me. It doesn’t matter what I meant to do. It only matters that she was a mortal with only a few years of life to enjoy and I robbed her of them.”

“You’ve seen her shade since then…you know she forgives you.”

But Kyra had never forgiven herself. She’d wielded her torch in her mother’s soul, trying to cauterize the wounds her father had left—and instead burned new ones there. Even after all these years, whenever she visited her mother in the underworld, there was an awkwardness between them. Perhaps it would’ve been awkward, anyway. After all, Kyra’s mother had been born in a world of togas, grand temples and state worship; she couldn’t understand the realities of the modern world in which Kyra would live forever. She’d become, for Kyra, a shade in truth. A beautiful stranger.

“I won’t use my torch that way again,” Kyra insisted. “Marco Kaisaris sides with the war gods every time he sells a gun so he deserves to be destroyed, but he doesn’t deserve to live as a raving lunatic. It’s kinder to kill him.”

“That’s the bloodlust in you. Perhaps you really are your father’s daughter.”

It wasn’t fair that Hecate knew exactly how to shame her. Fine, Kyra thought. Maybe she could just chain Marco Kaisaris in some dungeon, hide him away, so that none of the war gods could harness his powers. Maybe keeping the man at her mercy was the humane thing to do. Still, the thought of shackles on those strong wrists brought an unexpectedly uncomfortable sensation to Kyra’s stomach. “Hecate, if I promise not to kill him, will you help me find Marco Kaisaris again?”

“Beware the obsessive nature of nymphs,” Hecate warned. “I don’t want you anywhere near this man. He’s a danger to you!”

In more ways than one. Most nymphs just had to worry about broken hearts, but just touching Marco’s blood had felled her. What if the poison got into her bloodstream? Into an open wound? If Kyra were wise, she’d never come into contact with this mortal man again. But then he might fall into her father’s hands and if Kyra had to live forever, there had to be some meaning to it. Otherwise, she was a power without purpose. She had to find some point to her long life other than the bloodlust Ares said she was born to.

Besides, she and the hydra had unfinished business between them. More than just his poison had gotten under her skin. His kiss, his touch, his voice…oh, that voice. “I’ll be more careful this time,” Kyra promised. “Help me find him. I know you can still work some magic and you don’t need a crystal ball to do it.”

As one of Hecate’s black hounds settled at her feet, the older woman took on the more imperious stare of her gloried past. “I don’t want to risk your father’s wrath. Think of Ares, won’t you?”

“I am. If I don’t find the hydra before Daddy does, imagine the damage he’ll do. He could use hydra blood to poison whole armies. Whole countries!”

The ancient goddess had always been a benefactress of mankind. She didn’t relish human suffering. Kyra knew she’d relent, and she did. “You’d have to get on a plane—I know how much you dislike flying.”

Kyra hated flying. Nonetheless, she was determined. “I’ll manage.”

“Very well.” Hecate sighed. “You’ll find the hydra in the New World. He’s on his way home, because he’s about to lose someone very dear to him indeed.”

Niagara Falls in winter, with its thundering gray river, was gloomy as the Styx. Kyra watched the netherworld entrance of mist below the tumbling water of the falls, and waved to the receding shade that had been Marco’s father. Kyra hadn’t killed him, but she’d guided the stubborn old man a little ways when he died. Giving him some light between the threshold of this life and the next had seemed like the least Kyra could do. She even let him see her as a sweet angel, because it seemed to comfort him.

He spoke of his estranged son, how heartbroken he’d been to lose Marco to a world of weapons and war. Kyra didn’t add to his burden by telling him that Marco had become a monster in truth and that she planned to cage him for the greater good. She’d built a dungeon to contain him. Now she just had to find a way to lure him there.

Of course, Kyra couldn’t just put on a sexy outfit and pick up the hydra in a random nightclub again. He’d be wary of strangers now, and twice as dangerous.

Fading so that none of the mortals could see her, Kyra made her way to the funeral home. That’s where inspiration struck. Marco’s ex-girlfriend made only a brief appearance—just long enough to express her condolences to the family. Long enough for Kyra to study her face and memorize its shape.