Page 93 of Edge of Stars

“Hmmm. Word to the wise, Kell dear?” Hecate sing-songs. “If you’re flinging fireballs, make sure you’re not going to miss.”

I don’t give the witch the satisfaction of a return sally. Hecate hardly looks expectant of one anyway, as she shrugs and turns toward the diamonds with a minor twirl of one finger. Clearly she’s over the fetish to blow apart this beach and everyone on it.

I wish I didn’t understand that fact so completely.

As far as Hecate’s concerned, her mission has been accomplished. The game has been officially and irrevocably changed.

Kell did miss her.

And blew Zeus apart instead.

* * *

For the next eight hours, even after we’re all secured by the police into our villa at the hotel, I reject the actuality of it. The reality of what I witnessed, second by astounding second, no matter how many times my mind forces me through a loopback of the whole awful scene. Every blood-drenched detail of the results.

I’m not the only one.

“It was like Rouketopolemos, only worse,” someone stammers out to the police officers, who seem determined to gather a statement from every one of our pool deck guests. It’s a local female referencing the famous Chios fireworks fest, though I recognize the voice of our friend from Radio France as her quiet comforter. But the charity doesn’t detract la femme from ensuring she’s on record, as well.

“My friend describes it well. The chaos and fire from the beach had us screaming, running. As if a war had been declared, beyond our knowledge.”

There’s a short grunt, likely from the patrolman whom Jesse has unironically nicknamed The Brooder. “And you say it lasted for several minutes?”

“Ressenti comme une éternité.” The woman succumbs to a shudder that could be considered melodramatic—in any moment but this one. “It felt like forever.”

“Understood.” It’s the closest thing to empathy Brooder will likely get. “These kinds of incidents can be most jarring.”

Incidents?

The poor woman on the patio won’t ever know how much empathy I treasure from her responding huff. “Officer, respectfully”—her obvious code for the exact opposite—“an incident is someone deciding to take a naked midnight dip or a waiter dropping a tray. Do you hear me on this? Are you listening?” She barely waits for Brooder’s respectful platitude before pitching the polemic by three octaves. “We were attacked. Things were exploding.”

“And a woman is dead.”

Madame Radio France is abnormally subdued about the insertion. But some things, like a truth that feels like a boot in the gut on its own, don’t need dramatic help.

I sag onto a hassock, wishing the boot would stop expanding. Spreading my ribs, rearranging my organs, stopping my breath—not even stopping when it gets to my sweet Niki, who fights back with instinctual fervor.

When I’m positive she’s going to send me to the facilities for a nauseous visit with the toualéta, another policeman ensures I’m driven back to my backside again. His form moves in front of the drawn curtains, his captain’s stars winking atop his uniform’s epaulets. He focuses his attention on our French reporter friend.

“You are grieving,” he says. “So, you knew the deceased?”

There’s a long pause. I imagine the Frenchwoman inhaling deeply to compose herself. “In passing. I interviewed her once, a few years ago, and we always complimented each other at Paris Fashion week. Veronica was always flawlessly arrayed. Every hair in place, every accessory en pointe. Mon dieu…” Another pause, half of the first. “I cannot believe she is…that she was…”

Now I am on my feet, though not to dash for the bathroom. To pace clear across the room, wondering if the hands I smash to my face will be enough to clamp my agonized scream.

My mother, with her fierce spirit, unstoppable fire, and determined dreams, is being remembered for well-lacquered hair and picking out the right earrings.

I cross the threshold between the villa’s living room and bedroom. I may be needing the thick bolsters against the headboard, after all. But after digging a fist into the largest one and then clutching it to my chest, I’m torn between sobbing into it or ripping it apart.

Before I make the call, Maximus appears in the doorframe. With the intensities of the night slammed on a one-to-ten scale, I still remember him down on the beach, at his incensed eleven. To look at him now, that level is barely a six—but it’s also a lie. It has to be. I search his aura, seeking for where he has to be hiding his shock and grief, but every new path has me hitting a wall. Deliberate ones.

To him, necessary ones.

My teeth grind hard as I turn my probe inward. My fury has to be here somewhere—this isn’t the way to start a marriage; even the man’s most stoic inner Rambo has to know that—but when I finally find the emotion, I discover why it took a while.

I’m not mad at my husband. I’ve skipped ahead to the monster who’s really responsible here. The bitch who took my mother and his father from this realm. Though she flipped the fuse only once, both the detonations are on her. I don’t care what court of law or powers that be go and declare it otherwise. For now and for always, Hecate of Olympus is the harridan who murdered our parents.

“Hey. Are you okay?”