Innovation's Muse (Truth's Harem) Page 2

She focused on him for a second, before curling her head into her hands again. “I need it to go away. I can’t think. It won’t shut up.”

  Apollo stepped toward her. “I can make it stop.”

  “How?” Cerberus asked.

  “I can make her sleep.”

  That hardly sounded like a solution.

  Lexi shook her head. “And what happens when I wake up?”

  “You hope the voices have stopped.” Apollo made it sound like the only obvious answer.

  She scooted away from him, sliding her butt on the tile. “I’ll cope.”

  Actaeon moved in front of her, and locked his gaze on Apollo. He might feel responsible for a Cassandra who didn’t remember her past, but he’d never forgive himself if something happened to Lexi.

  The scream that ripped from her throat next sent chills down his spine. If this was coping, he didn’t want to see her losing it.

  LEXI FOUGHT TO THINK through the shouting in her skull. She heard one distinct voice, but swore there were others underneath. It didn’t cause her physical pain, and the words weren’t scary or maddening on their own. Things like we miss you and join us were simple thoughts.

  But shouted by dozens—hundreds? Thousands?—in her head, where no one else could hear, made them terrifying.

  She felt like something in her mind had cracked, and she was struggling to keep the contents from spilling out. Fear nudged her toward an edge she swore might be insanity. So many sounds. Voices. Begging her to listen. Hammering against her skull.

  “What can I do?” Cerberus’ question was another voice in a sea of strain.

  She looked at him. “Don’t add to the chaos.” The words came out more harshly than she intended, and the frown that flashed across his face matched what bounced in her head.

  Great. Because she needed to deal with his pouting, on top of this.

  “You need to get it under control,” he said aloud.

  Not helpful. “Because I’m not trying?”

  “Lexi.” The voice was Actaeon’s. He rested a hand on her cheek and forced her gaze to his.

  The touch chased away the chaos. No. That wasn’t right. It blanketed it.

  She stumbled in a suddenly empty mind. For several seconds, she didn’t dare speak. What if words triggered another avalanche? A switch had been flipped in her head and the looming madness had been amputated.

  “I think it stopped.” She tested the syllables, not wanting to taunt whatever just happened. For all she knew, it was some god’s servant who she’d never learned about in school, fucking with her because of... reasons.

  She looked at Cerberus. “I’m sorry for snapping.”

  “What was that?” He leaned closer, edging Actaeon aside, and studying her with concern. Understanding flowed through their bond.

  She tested out a smile. “I was hoping one of you could tell me. It was like someone played hundreds of sound files all at the same time in my head. All of them slightly out of sync with each other.”

  They all shook their heads.

  “It could have been...” Apollo trailed off when she whipped her head in his direction. She’d forgotten he was there. “No. Never mind,” he said.

  Lexi glared. She climbed to her feet, so she could face him on equal ground. The less time she spent looking up to gods—literally or otherwise, the better she felt. “Uh... wrong. Could have been what?”

  Apollo held his hand out to Cassandra. “Are you ready, my dear?”

  Cassandra looked between him and everyone else, then grasped his fingers.

  “Wait.” Lexi’s shout greeted empty air, as the two vanished. Frustration surged inside. She summoned the illusion of an arrow, and let it fly through the spot where Apollo had just stood. It vanished before it hit the far wall.

  Completely ineffective, just like him. Go figure.

  She scrubbed her face, still wary of her own thoughts. The noise might be gone, but it left her mentally exhausted.

  The gods were supposed to be the answers to humanity’s problems. It was propaganda—one of the many ways they gathered the faith that gave them their power—but until recently, she’d never realized how just useless they were.

  “Any clue what he was going to say?” she asked Cerberus and Actaeon.

  Actaeon shook his head.

  “I don’t know, but I can tell you what I do.” Cerberus’ still radiated concern. “What you and I share? The connection? A god with multiple servants experiences that with all of them.”

  Actaeon gave a strained laugh. She wanted to feel something from him, too. A flicker of desperation needed to know he was worried. They didn’t have that kind of connection though. “Minus the intense sex,” he said. “There might be fucking, but none of them actually love those they claim.”

  Claim. The word tasted odd to Lexi. “But I’m not connected to anyone else.”

  Cerberus pulled her close. “That’s why I don’t have an answer for you.”

  “So do I sit and wait to see if it happens again?” She wasn’t fond of that plan.

  Actaeon crossed his arms. Though he only stood a few feet away, it felt like miles. “Unless you have any idea at all what triggered it, and want to make it come back.”

  No. Definitely not. For all she knew, it was Cassandra’s fault, and she’d be pleased as could be if she never saw that bitch again. “I guess I wait.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Icarus crossed his fingers and held his breath, as he hooked power to his latest creation. If this were some classic movie and he were the scientist or the magician, he’d end up with a soot-covered face and his dark hair sticking up on end.

  Funny how the two characters were always portrayed in similar ways, both when they failed and when they succeeded.

  He didn’t even have the satisfaction of a spectacular, movie-magic explosion. The box sat there, mocking him with its lack of doing anything.

  His father, Daedalus, was known as one of the greatest inventors in immortal history. And sure, the old man came up with some decent concepts, but he wasn’t so much an innovator as he was acceptable at breathing life into other people’s ideas.

  Icarus had more failures to his name than Daedalus did. Centuries of trying had that impact. Some were intentional—faking his own death as a young man, was the first of those. He’d built glorious wings, and flown too high... Too far... Plummeted into the ocean. All to escape the shadow of being born just another hero in a line of half-mortals, half-gods.

  But his successes... Those were incredible.

  He scrubbed his face as he dragged out a long groan. This experiment was landing itself squarely in the failure column. Was the break-down in a broken solder point? A miscalculation on which parts needed how much electricity?

  Icarus snapped his fingers, and showers of sparks exploded through every crease and crack in the black plastic box. Flame caught on the wires and roared up from the useless device. The sinus-tingling scent of burning synthetics filled the air.

  It made him smile. With a wave of his fingers over the smoldering pile, he extinguished the flames. He was going to get this. It didn’t matter how many years it took; he’d figure out how to imbue this router with his magic so that he didn’t need code to access the data running through it.

  He whirled in his work room, looking past the open shelves of appliances in different states of disrepair, and grabbed another router from the stack two rows back and one aisle over.

  His phone rang. Whoever it was could go to voicemail. With his current luck, it would be that asshole Zeus again. Last time he did the guy a favor, Icarus had built him a fucking maze. Better than Daedalus ever fathomed. Hades’ prison was one of Icarus’ finest accomplishments.

  Until some uppity brat came along and destroyed it all, by sticking her nose into things she didn’t understand.

  He’d never met the girl, but Aphrodite had built a trap into the maze for her, and he’d seen the hero’s face plastered all over TV when Hades broke free. That was enough
information for Icarus.

  He tore into the router packaging, shoved everything else aside in his workspace—to make room—and dove back into the task at hand.

  Everything faded into the background. The acres of workshop that stretched around him... The endless tables and shelves, with a variety of inventions and experiments... Thoughts of post-enlightenment heroes who couldn’t leave well enough alone...

  Four hours and two more destroyed devices later, and his eyes burned from the strain. Or from the smoke produced each time he burned another box in frustration. Immortality didn’t grant him a reprieve from pain and physical irritation, it just meant he recovered more quickly than mortals.

  He needed to clear his head and the air in the room. He opened the windows lining the wall at the far end of his basement workshop. The temperate night drifted in, car exhaust mingling with ozone.

  That wasn’t a whole lot better, but it was different, and he needed a new perspective.

  The tiny blinking light on his phone caught his attention, and he grabbed it and swiped. When he saw the name George and both a missed call and a voicemail, he frowned. Concern nudged him. He pulled up the message.

  “Hey. It’s George. This is going to sound odd, but I’ve been talking to Ralph, and— On second thought, it does sound nuts. I’m calling to say hi.”

  A disconcerting sliver of fear grew inside. Icarus had known George since the other man was a teenager. Had been his confidant through The Enlightenment, through his finding love, building a family, and most recently losing the man he'd been with more than half his life.

  George and Ralph were together for more than three decades, when Ralph was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He’d passed away several years ago.

  Icarus dialed George, and drummed his fingers on the workbench while he listened to the ringing. There was no answer, and he hung up before he was asked to leave a message.

  It might be a fluke. A bad dream. Early signs of dementia—though George was only sixty-five. No assurance calmed Icarus. He climbed the steps to the main floor of his second-hand shop and looked out the far picture window at the street. It was after ten at night. Too late for a house call, but he didn’t care. Instinct told him to look into this, and he didn’t like to ignore his gut.

  He grabbed a hat from the hook by the back entrance, raked his fingers through his hair, and tugged the cap into place. He was halfway down the alley leading to the main road, when he remembered his shoes and keys.

  Missing items fetched, he jogged the couple of blocks to George’s. In this town, most places were only a couple of blocks away. In one direction, that distance led to Main Street. Century-old, single story buildings mixed with newer commercial properties that reached up five or ten floors, falling short of touching the sky.

  In another direction, brick apartments dotted the street. Shops like Icarus’ junk and electronics store broke up the landscape.

  And in George’s part of town, narrow two-story townhouses were pressed side-by-side. The street had been part of a developer’s effort fifty years ago to make this place look more like the bigger cities.

  The Enlightenment changed those plans. The place had tried a few times since to grow, but never managed.

  Georgie’s townhouse was like the others that lined the street, narrow facings climbing to stop far short of reaching the sky.

  Icarus pounded on the door and tried to quell his rising worry. Seconds ticked away too slowly for his liking. George was most likely sleeping, but that vague message—

  The door swung open, and George stood on the other side. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and gray stubble covered his chin. He focused on Icarus and smiled. “Hey. Come on in. I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “This late?” Icarus followed him into the kitchen and sat at the round table near the window.

  George had always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy. “It sounded good.” Was he slurring his words?

  “It does. I’ll take a cup of that.”

  George didn’t speak as he grabbed mugs, filled them, and poured a generous helping of milk and sugar into Icarus’.

  Icarus didn’t press for more information. He wanted his friend to open up naturally, not be led to a part of the conversation that wasn’t relevant. Once Icarus had a better grasp on the situation, he could steer the discussion.

  George turned from the counter, mugs in hand, and stumbled. One drink slipped, and he lunged for it, dropping the other. Twin crashes echoed through the room, as coffee and ceramic spilled everywhere.

  “Damn it,” George muttered and knelt in the middle of the mess, reaching for broken pieces of mug.

  Icarus pulled him to his feet. “I’ll take care of this.” He frowned at the tiny shards in his friend’s knees, and brushed them away. A series of red dots appeared in the fresh wounds. They were tiny cuts, but there were several. Icarus had a lot of friends in this neighborhood, and George was one of his closest. He didn’t like to see the man suffer, even from something like cuts. “Go clean up. Take care of your legs. I’ve got this.”

  George looked at him blankly, then nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be right back.” He hobbled from the room.

  Icarus had spent a lot of time here over the years and had a good idea where everything was kept. He threw away the larger pieces of broken mug, mopped, swept, and mopped again.

  The floor shone when he was done. But George hadn’t returned.

  Icarus wandered from the room. Where to look? A glow emanating from the living room gave him a direction. He found George on the couch, watching an infomercial for a signal blocker.

  The boast was that it would keep the gods from watching over a buyer’s every activity.

  “You think something like that works?” George asked.

  Icarus sat next to him. “I think it wouldn’t be advertised on cable TV if it did.” That was the barrier Icarus couldn’t breach, and he doubted anyone else had either. The electronics could be blocked. The gods could be hidden from. But hiding from both godly and electronic surveillance at the same time was impossible.

  “I’ve been talking to Ralph,” George said. There it was again. The same thing he’d said in his message.

  Concern clenched in Icarus’ chest. “In your sleep?”

  George gave a bitter laugh. “I haven’t slept in days. I needed to know it was real. That it wasn’t Morpheus.”

  Probably not. Morpheus didn’t care about a random guy in suburbia. He might care about George’s adopted daughter—

  “It’s Ralph.” Sadness and surrender filled George’s voice.

  Icarus wished he could heal that pain. That anyone could. “How is he?” It wasn’t Ralph—the dead didn’t talk to the living—but this didn’t seem like the best time to argue.

  “He wants me to join him.”

  Icarus’ heart stalled at the thought of losing this friend. Death wasn’t the end for most people, but it did put a damper on potential. He hated to see wasted potential, especially from someone as good as George. The man had made huge innovations in medicine. Discovered chemical compounds that surpassed anything the gods could do.

  “You’ll find him when your time here is done,” Icarus said.

  George nodded. “I think that time is now.”

  “I know how desperately you miss him.” Icarus measured his words. He wasn’t great at this kind of comfort. Being a more than three-thousand-year-old immortal, and having seen the afterlife, meant death didn’t impact him the way it had George. He still cared, though. “Your time here is limited as it is. Once you move on, you’ll have eternity with Ralph.”

  “You don’t have any idea how much I miss him. I didn’t realize myself until I saw him again.” Sorrow bled into George’s voice.

  Icarus grasped for anything. “You want to see Esper finish college, don’t you? You only get one shot at that. She wants you there when she accepts her diploma.”

  “That’s true. Maybe I should call her. Make sure she�
��s all right.”

  Maybe not at one in the morning. Then again, anything that kept George alive sounded reasonable. “She always loves hearing from you,” Icarus said.

  “I don’t want to wake her.” George stood. “And I shouldn’t have kept you.”

  “I was awake anyway. I’ll stay as long as you need. Do you want to watch movies? The Black Swan?” That had been a favorite of Ralph’s. Not the best suggestion Icarus could have made. “Toy Story 5? Esper’s favorite.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it, but I’m doing better now.” The sleep and wistfulness cleared from George’s voice.

  Icarus didn’t buy the one-eighty. “It’s not a problem. If you’re not sleeping anyway...”

  George yawned, opening his mouth so wide, Icarus was surprised his jaw didn’t split. “I think sleep is a good idea.”

  “I’ll stick around and keep you company regardless.” Doubt clawed inside Icarus. This wasn’t right. None of this situation was. And he didn’t want to leave George alone.

  George smiled, shuffled to the front door, and held it open. “I’m fine.” His tone was firm. “Get back to your work. I’ll give you a call in the morning.”

  Icarus stayed seated.

  “Please, leave. I don’t want to get rude.”

  “All right.” Icarus joined his friend at the door. “But I want you to call me the moment you wake up. I’ll drop everything to answer. I’m worried about you.”

  George squeezed his arm. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Icarus was reluctant to return home, but he respected George’s request. His focus was shot for the night, though.

  He sat behind the counter in his repair shop, poking at another router and waiting for his phone to ring.

  The black sky shifted to gray, and then paled further as the sun crept over the horizon.

  When the sirens screamed through the neighborhood, sorrow surged inside Icarus, stealing his breath and sending tears to prick his eyelids. He’d failed.

  What was he supposed to do? Call George. That was a good idea. The emergency vehicles could be for someone else.