The Fire Wars Read online

  The sun was just starting to set as I approached the beach. To my surprise, although the torches had been lit, few guests were swimming. Perhaps the whole hotel had been booked out for the wedding reception, I thought. But as I walked a little further down the coast, I heard a scream coming from the water. I whirled around to see a splash in the distance – a woman was crying out for help, the waves closing repeatedly over her head.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Help! Someone needs help! Is there a lifeguard around?” But there was no answer. I sighed, placing my tote bag down on the shore. There was no help for it; I'd have to go in myself.

  I had been a strong swimmer at my old school – although from what I gathered I had nothing on Haven – but as I coursed through the water I was shocked by how rough the sea had gotten. The placid beach had become a roaring ocean in a matter of moments.

  “Hello!” I called out, paddling furiously towards the place where I had last seen the woman. But there was nowhere to be found. I kicked my legs repeatedly, trying to keep my head above water, scanning the horizon for some sign of an arm, a hand, a body...but the water was flat and dark. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sight that made my heart stop.

  An enormous tail poking out of the water.

  I gasped and tried to escape towards shore, but it was too late. Something – something – had sunk its teeth into my leg. I screamed with the pain, my mouth filling with water as the creature pulled me under. I struggled, trying to pull my leg from the creature's grasp. I opened my eyes underwater, trying to fight the creature off. What I saw astounded me. It wasn't a shark at all, as I had thought, but a large scaly creature, with what almost looked like a human torso and face, shrouded by long, matted hair. And long rows of sharp yellow teeth, like a barracudas, snapping at me.

  The creature snapped again, catching the sneakers I still wore in its teeth. Before it realized that what it had caught wasn't my flesh, I wriggled as fast as I could out of the shoe, paddling to shore. The mermaid let out a high, unearthly wail that seemed to shake the waters; I swam faster, my heart pounding with terror.

  But just as the shore seemed to be in sight, something else took hold of me. At first I thought the mermaid had returned, but as I looked down I saw not scales but tentacles – eight legs, lined with small suckers, wrapping around me, pulling me into the depths.

  “No!” I cried, but it was too late. The octopus was dragging me into the water. I kicked and fought back, but it was no use. My mind was going black from lack of oxygen; my lungs seemed to burst against my ribcage.

  The mermaid I was able to fight off – but this creature was too strong. As my mind grew hazy, my lungs screaming for air, I felt myself begin to fall unconscious. Yet as the blackness took hold of my mind, I seemed to see a man's shadow swim towards us...

  I gasped. Suddenly I was above water again; the dark night sky over us. I was in his arms – a man's arms – swimming towards shore, beating the foam with our fists. The adrenaline swept over me, and everything once more began to grow dark...

  I woke up to his lips upon mine, breathing air into my drenched lungs. The agony was gone now, replaced by an ache in my chest. I could feel a hand stroking my hair, another hand pushing down on my chest, expelling the water from my lungs. His mouth giving me strength, giving me oxygen. Giving me life.

  I sat up slowly, shaking the water out of my ears. Suddenly, the figure that had saved me took on a familiar shape. I could recognize those broad shoulders, those tight abs, that long golden hair anywhere.

  “Varun...” I whispered. “Varun, you saved my life!” I coughed as more water made its way out of my lungs.

  “You were almost a goner there, Mac.” Varun held me close. “Thank goodness I managed to come when I did – or you would have been done for.”

  “There's someone else in the water!” I cried. “There was this woman drowning, screaming for help – I went in to save her, but there was nobody...”

  “Hush,” Varun put a finger to my lips. “That was no human in the water. That was a siren. She was trying to pull you in, to lure you....”

  “A siren?” I let myself fall back onto the sand. “Now you've got to be kidding me. This is getting all too weird.”

  “Then I'm pretty sure you're not going to like what I tell you next.”

  “Shoot.” I covered my face with my hands. “Nothing can shock me next.”

  “That creature that bit you?”

  “Yep?”

  “Mermaid.”

  I let out an audible groan. “I'm growing crazy,” I sighed. “Like actually, certifiably crazy. You, me, Chance – we've all collectively experienced some sort of weird audio-visual hallucinatory experience...”

  “If it makes you feel better, the octopus was just an octopus. But it was probably controlled by whomever sent the mermaid.”

  “Great, I feel so much better.”

  “Look, I know it's a lot to take in at first,” said Varun, looking at me with his enormous blue eyes. “It's hard to come to terms with the existence of this sort of thing. Magic can take a lot of getting used to.”

  “Today could not be any weirder,” I admitted to him. “Between the flying and the fighting and the gods and a stone turning into a book, I think I must be accidentally ingesting magic mushrooms in my sleep. I mean – do you really believe all this...”

  Varun looked concerned as he cut me short. “Hold on a second, Mac,” he said quickly. “A book – you saw a stone turning into a book?”

  “What – after sirens and mermaids, you think that's the weirdest thing that's happened to me all day? I didn't just see it, I touched it!”

  “You touched the Book of Vesta?” He sat up straight, evidently concerned. “Do you still have it?”

  I went over to my bag. “Of course I still have it,” I said. “I put it right here...” A few hours ago I hadn't been ready to let myself read the Book of Vesta. Reading the book would mean that I believed – and believing would make it real. But now, after the mermaids and the sirens, I knew it was real, and that the Book of Vesta was the only chance I had to figure out what was going on. Before it was too late.

  I slipped my fingers into the bag. This was it, I thought – I was officially insane. I'd gone over to the dark side. I believed.

  But there was only one problem.

  I looked up at Varun in horror.

  The book was gone.

  Chapter 16

  The next day at school was torture for me. I tried my best to look like I was concentrating, pretending to scribble notes on the lectures, and thinking up awkward excuses for why my homework was shoddily done. But I had bigger things on my mind right now. Varun had walked me home to keep me safe, but was as confused as I was about the disappearance of the book. “Somebody could have stolen it while you were at sea,” he said. “Or it could have turned into another form – a grain of sand or a pebble – sometimes books like those sense threats and transform in order to hide against potential danger.” But we were both nervous. How could anyone have stolen the book if only Vesta could touch it? Chance had mentioned that Vesta’s lineage, her handmaidens or servants can touch it at times, didn’t he? Maybe one of Vesta’s lineage was here. Or if the book vanished, did that mean I wasn't Vesta at all?

  I did badly in each of my classes today, but somehow my teachers didn't seem to mind. Odd, I thought – in such a seemingly competitive school, I expected teachers to be far stricter about things like missed assignments; even back in my old public school, I would have gotten detention for failing to turn in homework. But my teachers were surprisingly laid-back, choosing to ignore my failure to finish my homework.

  That afternoon I had to attend the tryouts for the swim team, and although I wanted nothing less than to spend another hour in school, I needed to distract myself from my worries about Chance and Varun and the whole Olympus thing. I figured that swimming pools were far less likely to be peopled by mermaids and sirens than the oceans were.

 
To my continued surprise, Haven remained as friendly as she had been since learning that I was a strong swimmer. Evidently, she was willing to put aside her natural suspicion of me as long as it looked like I could help her win her way to Nationals. As Haven explained the audition procedure to me and the other hopeful swimmers, she tossed her long blonde hair back over her shoulder and looked us up and down with effortless grace. I wasn't sure if I liked Haven yet, I decided, but I certainly admired her; she was strong and self-confident, evidently comfortable with leading her team. I wanted to impress her – to convince her that I was just as worthy of swimming in the big, Olympic-sized pool as Cassie and Leia, the two most talented members of Haven's coterie.

  I was nowhere near as good a swimmer as Haven, of course, but I managed to perform the fastest breaststroke of all the auditionees, and came second in both backstroke and butterfly.

  “Not bad,” Haven said with a smile when I came out of the water.

  “Except when compared to you and the others...” I shook the water out of my hair.

  “You'll catch up,” said Haven. “Don't worry – I know talent when I see it. And if you're willing to commit to daily practice, I'm pretty sure that we can make an amphibian of you yet; isn't that right, Cassie?”

  “Mhm,” Cassie nodded vigorously.

  “I'll do my best,” I promised. “However good that'll be.” If I wasn't distracted by books or getting killed by mermaids, that was.

  “Listen,” said Haven. “How about we save you a seat at lunch? We've got an extra space at our table, and we'd just love it if you ate with us tomorrow. Right, Cassie?”

  Cassie's job seemed to be to nod at whatever Haven said.

  “Really?” I was shocked at Haven's sudden change in behavior. “I wouldn't be intruding!”

  “Not at all,” Haven said. “We love having new blood – we always sit in the back center table – the square one with a rickety leg. Come find us, okay?”

  Somehow I'd managed to thaw Haven's suspicions of me. But how? She'd seemed to dislike me on first meeting me, and other than revealing my penchant for swimming, I wasn't sure how I'd managed to change that impression.

  As I went back to the locker room, I overheard Cassie and Leia talking in hushed tones.

  “I know, it's scary.”

  “Especially from the back – with her hair wet. Spitting image.”

  “I thought we'd seen a ghost.”

  “And Haven! She must have been devastated when first meeting her. Imagine – this girl shows up looking just like your dead best friend. I'd have been freaked out too, if that was me.”

  I remembered what Brandon had said about me – about my similarity to Jana – and colored. Were the girls talking about me? I felt a strange, sick feeling in my stomach. Why was everyone comparing me to Jana. Even Varun and Chance – were either of them really attracted to me, or did they just see what everyone else saw: a girl who looked almost, but not quite, like the girl they had once loved?

  “Poor Haven – I don't know if I could have lived if I'd gone through something like that. She loved Jana so much...like, even when Jana started dating Varun, she didn't even bitch her out or anything. And Jana knew that Haven had liked Varun forever – and Haven wasn't even mad! She just figured she wanted Jana to be happy.”

  “I could never do that,” Cassie sighed. “Not even for you. If you date Tim Blanfield, Leia, you are dead to me. Do you hear me? Dead to me.”

  I listened with surprise. Could it be true that proud, haughty Haven was the meek one in her relationship with Jana? And if so, did that explain Haven's nasty reaction upon meeting me for the first time? Was she just upset that another girl showed up at Aeros with Jana's face, Jana's body, replacing Jana?

  This girl was getting more mysterious by the second.

  That afternoon, after practice, Varun showed up outside the locker room. “I'm sorry we didn't get to see each other more last night,” Varun said, kissing me gently. “You were so freaked out – I just wanted to give you some space. Are you okay?”

  “I'm okay.”

  “Do you maybe want to get a picnic? Talk more about what happened?” He smiled shyly. “Or just talk about something else – if you don't feel up to it.”

  “I'm distracting myself,” I laughed bitterly. “Figured if I just ignore the whole god-thing maybe it'll go away. Already I failed a pop quiz this morning because I was too worried last night to do my reading – although weirdly none of my teachers seemed to be upset at all. It's like they didn't even care.”

  Varun smiled a knowing smile. “Ah, well, that...”

  “I managed to make it onto the Varsity Swim Team, though. And Haven even invited me to have lunch with her!”

  “Lucky you,” Varun led me to a quiet patch of grass not far from the hotel, taking a picnic blanket out of his basket. “It's not every girl that gets to be asked to sit at Haven's table.”

  “Well, I'm on the swim team now,” I said. “I guess that's it.”

  “More than that,” said Varun. “She wants you there, I think. For some reason. Maybe it's just because she feels bad about how she treated you on the first day – she mentioned to me she felt pretty guilty about that. She was weirded out, you know...”

  “Because I look like Jana?”

  Varun looked down. “Yeah, that...and seeing you and me together...it was hard for her. I love Haven, really I do. As a friend. But she knows I don't feel that way about her.” He sighed. “It doesn't make it any easier, though. But her interest in you – it could be something else. Something more to do with the Book than with teenage popularity contests.”

  “The book? She's in on this whole magic thing too?”

  “Haven't you guessed, Mac?” Varun took my hand. “We all are. Most everyone on Aeros is employed, either directly or indirectly, by my uncle. Families have been brought here – sometimes my uncle even pays directly for the kids' schooling. Like he did for yours. Even people who don't think they're working for the hotel are working for subsidiary companies Cutter Industries owns. My uncle brings these families out here – families with children. Special children. That's what Aeros is designed for. To prepare those children for their destinies.”

  “And Haven? She's a goddess too?”

  “Not quite,” said Varun. “Nobody knows what Haven is – and she's not about to start talking. These are dark days for Olympians – since the rivalry between Fire and Water gods began, nobody trusts anybody else enough to reveal their true identities. Even the teachers won't get explicit about what's going on. I know Cassie and Leia are probably sirens – but that's about it.”

  “So that's why the teachers didn't mind that I didn't do my homework,” I said. “They're in on it, too.”

  “Most teachers. Aeros Academy had started employing mortal teachers, too when spouses of demigods and such began applying. They didn’t want to discriminate. So now Aeros Academy have quite a bit of mortals too in the faculty, staff, and student body.”

  “So not all the kids at Aeros are ‘special’ then? Just most…like Haven, Cassie, Leia…you and Chance?”

  “Some of the mortal kids know about us immortals, and they think they may be from an immortal line, an Embodiment even, thinking they will eventually come into their powers; but it never happens. They are truly mortals. While some of us come into it early on or throughout. Some of it trickles in. Haven, for instance. It could be that Haven doesn't know what she is,” said Varun. “Few of us really understand our identities. Chance and I know – because of Antonio's role in the community, in bringing all the Olympians together. Until the goddess Vesta is revealed and she reads from her book, the other Olympians or their Embodiments won't Awaken yet.”

  “Awaken? Embodiments?”

  “To their abilities – their pasts. They won't remember. Only Vesta can reawaken them. And set into motion the Calypticon.” Varun paused slightly before saying, “But Vesta hasn’t Awakened either. Whoever is Vesta’s Embodiment would have to be Awakened first
before all of this happens. She will cause the Calypticon.”

  “And Embodiments are like avatars – the energy and power of the god in human form. Because gods aren't human, really. They're pure energy. They have to harness that power in a human body if they want to be able to act in the world. They have to assume human form to interact with humans. If not, their whole presence is too much for a human to bear.”

  “I've heard a little of that mentioned before,” I said. “Aeros History 101.”

  “Now you see why the teachers are so keen to teach it – along with myths and legends. It's not just academic here. For all we know, any one of us could be a god or goddess. My uncle's been tracing divine bloodlines for years, trying to track down anyone that shows any sign of being a descendant of Zeus. That's why he bought the property here in Aeros. It's supposed to be a place of great magic – a place where all the different legends and myths and gods of Greece and Rome and Scandinavia and Asia and Polynesia all meet. A training-ground for gods to train their Embodiments.”

  “But if I am a goddess,” I said. “Why wouldn't I know it?”

  “Nobody knows why we're here,” said Varun, “Instead of Olympus. It's rumored that Zeus got so tired of the infighting, the politicking among the gods that he decided to teach us a lesson. We'd all have to live as humans and learn our lessons as human beings before coming into the knowledge of our abilities.”

  “And are you a god, too?” I turned to Varun.

  He didn't answer. “Let's worry about you, now,” said Varun. “You need to be safe. We don't know who knows about their abilities yet and who doesn't. Anyone could be a potential friend – or a potential enemy. Especially among the water gods – if you are Vesta, you're one of the fire Olympians. And, as you can imagine, water and fire don't mix.” He grimaced. “The Erosion shows that.”

  “The Erosion?” I was flabbergasted. “You don't mean...”

  “It wasn't ice caps at all,” said Varun. “It was never ice caps. It was the water gods, trying to seize power – submerge the world...”