Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(90)

Then why are you here? asked Magnus.

By the time they reached Callista, Justin could tell Mae had fully returned to herself—which meant she was still lethal and watchful, especially as she looked Callista over. Nonetheless, Mae handed over the knives and struck a protective stance near Justin.

“Now then,” began Callista. “If you’ve got a moment, we should—”

“Bastard!”

A cry behind Justin interrupted her. He turned to see what it was, but Mae was faster, of course. She spun around, reaching for her boot, and Justin was just in time to see her throw her own knife at a charging, gun-wielding Raoul. The man gasped as the knife plunged into his chest, near his collarbone, sparing him from a killing blow. He yelped and staggered back, dropping the gun. At a nod from Callista, one of her cronies dragged him away. She narrowed her eyes at Justin.

“We need to talk.”

“I would love that,” he said.

As a sign of goodwill, Callista made sure their egos and Mae’s guns were returned. She invited them back to her home, but not without first asking, “Can I expect a military raid?”

He smiled sweetly. “Depends if I make my flight tomorrow.”

“Understood.” Callista was smart. As soon as he’d received his ego back, he’d activated its GPS signal and sent a message to local authorities to track him if he didn’t check in by a certain time tomorrow.

Callista’s house was in that old, run-down region, but it in no way resembled its neighbors. It was new and expansive, with grounds extending in all directions. Guards stood outside its fence, though they didn’t display any guns. Borderlands might have been able to sneak weapons behind closed doors, but security guards in the open could hardly flaunt guns when regular Gemman patrols continually passed by.

Mae remained silent for the journey and said nothing until they were escorted into a luxurious sitting room decorated in an Old World Spanish style. Left alone, Justin reached for a pitcher of water and a cup sitting out on an ornate wooden table.

“You think that’s safe to drink?” asked Mae.

“We’re fine. I’ve got Internal Security tracking us now.” He poured the water.

“You should’ve done that the instant we stepped off the plane.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think we’d traveled back in time to some barbarian civilization. This place has been Gemman for five years.”

“It takes a long time for people to give up on their old ways. I still see it in the Nordics, and it’s been almost a century.”

The door opened, and Mae jumped up, readying herself for a threat. What actually came through, however, was a young girl, probably only a year or so shy of hitting puberty. Extremely pretty, she possessed Callista’s exquisite features and carried a tray containing bandages and a dark glass bottle.

“My mother wanted you to have this,” the girl said shyly, setting the tray on a small table. “She’s finishing up some business but will be ready to talk soon.”

Justin vaguely remembered a name. “Persia?”

She flushed with pleasure. “Yes.” To Mae, Persia said, “Do you need help?”

Mae glanced at the tray, face cold. “No. I’ll do it myself.”

Persia gave a small nod of compliance and moved toward the door. “Thank you,” said Justin, not entirely sure how to interact with this serious-eyed woman-child. She nodded again and disappeared.

Mae picked up the bottle Persia had left, uncapped it, and sniffed. Seeming satisfied with what she found, she began cleaning and wrapping the cuts on her arms with military efficiency. When she finished the ones she could reach, she turned around and peeled off her tank top, glancing at Justin over her shoulder. “Will you help me?”

Not even he could find that sexy, though he was charmed at her modesty, considering everything she’d done. His efforts were clumsier than hers, and he cringed when he applied the antiseptic to the cuts caused by the barbed wire. For her part, she didn’t even flinch.

“Are you going to finally tell me about Callista?” Mae asked.

“She’s the one who used to work with Golden Arrow.” He paused to tape down some gauze. “She’s apparently traded employers, though. Or, well…just morphed her goddess a little. Amarantha’s kind of a combined goddess, drawing mostly from Artemis and Hecate, the last I knew. It’s not that out there, since the goddesses have some overlap. In the ancient world, they got blurred together a lot, and some viewed them as faces of a triple goddess: virgin, mother, crone. I guess the virgin thing—Artemis—wasn’t working for her.” That must have been what Raoul meant about Nadia’s changing allegiances. She’d left her Celtic moon goddess for this Greek one and pooled resources with Callista.

He finished his first aid handiwork. Mae donned her tank top and overshirt again before turning to face him. “How can a goddess be all those things? Or a merging of multiple ones?”

“It’s a common thing in religions. Deities are all-encompassing.”

He didn’t quite know how else to articulate it, and she obviously didn’t follow. Gemmans who didn’t make careers of religious history had very two-dimensional views of gods and goddesses.

“You seemed surprised by all of this,” said Mae.

“The knife fight? Yeah, that was definitely a surprise.” Bringing it up made him think of the elephant in the room, the topic Mae was pointedly avoiding: the part where she’d gone on a superhuman rampage. Ignoring it for now was fine with him, because he didn’t really know what to say either.