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Helen knew she should have been worried about her mother, but she heard the word mur-ma-don and had to stop Hector to ask what that was.
“Did you even read the Iliad? You didn’t, did you?” Hector admonished, his voice rising again. Helen could picture Hector’s face turning purple with frustration.
“Of course I read it!” she insisted.
Hector cussed loudly and then explained as calmly as he could that the Myrmidons were the elite warriors that fought with Achilles during the Trojan War, and Helen put it together. She was familiar with Achilles’ special squad of nightmare soldiers; she had just never heard the word pronounced properly before. Myrmidons weren’t human, but ants transformed into men by Zeus.
“The creepy guy that attacked us at my track meet!” Helen exclaimed, covering her mouth with a hand. She finally understood why the leader of the group, the captain Helen suddenly realized, had bothered her so much—because he was really an it. “I thought soldier ants were all female,” Helen added, confused.
“Yeah, and I thought ants looked like ants and humans looked like humans,” Hector said drily. “Don’t be fooled, Helen. That thing isn’t a man, and it definitely doesn’t have the same feelings we do. Not to mention the fact that it’s enormously strong and it has thousands of year
s of battle experience.”
Helen thought about a program she’d seen on TV about ants. They could march for days, lift loads hundreds of times their weight, and some of them were unbelievably aggressive.
Looking up and down the dark, cold road, Helen suddenly wished that Hector was with her, even if he was a grouchy pain in the ass 90 percent of the time. She also wished she had paid better attention to him when he was punching her in the face. At least then she’d know how to fight.
“So what do I do?” Helen asked as she tried to look everywhere at once.
“Get airborne. It can’t fly. You’re usually safer in the air, Helen. Try to remember that from now on, okay?” he coached. “Go back to the family and tell them what I told you. Then stay there with Ariadne. She’ll keep you safe. Lucas and Jason will find the nest, and my father and uncle will probably have to go to New York to bring this issue before the Hundred. After that, Cassandra will make the decisions. You should be fine.”
Like the great general he was always meant to be, Hector could plan every moment of a confrontation. Still, Helen didn’t think he sounded very convincing when he promised her safety.
“You’re really afraid of this Myrmidon, aren’t you?” Helen asked as she got airborne.
The thought that Hector was afraid of anything frightened Helen more than the empty road in front of her. She heard him sigh heavily.
“Myrmidons have been used as contract killers for Scions for thousands of years. Apart from the House of Rome, which has its own loophole for kin-killing, if a Scion wants to kill a relative without becoming Outcast, he or she goes to a Myrmidon. Of course, this isn’t something we like to talk about. Myrmidons are a part of our world, and not all of them are dishonorable killers. But some are. They’re physically stronger than we are, and they don’t have the Furies to worry about. Using one to spy on your own family is a red flag that someone is about to get assassinated, and it gives my father and uncle the right to call for a formal, closed meeting of the Hundred. Something called a Conclave.”
“But that’s good, right?” Helen asked nervously. “Castor and Pallas can call for this Conclave thingy and get rid of it, right?”
“If they can prove you’re Ajax’s daughter and part of the family, the Hundred would make Tantalus get rid of the Myrmidon. If they can’t, well, then you’re just a member of the House of Atreus to the Hundred, and in their minds you’re a target. But I don’t know what they’ll do. I’m not there, am I?” He sounded more sorry than bitter, like he felt he needed to apologize to Helen for leaving her alone when she was in danger, which was totally insane. He was in exile. Before she could argue, Hector continued in a hassled voice. “Just do exactly what I tell you, and then I’ll be less afraid. All right?”
“All right,” she promised, already feeling guilty because she knew she wasn’t going to keep that promise.
She and Hector spoke briefly about Daphne, although he wouldn’t tell her where they were. He assured Helen that her mother was going to make a full recovery and then promised to get in touch again when he could.
After disconnecting the call, Helen flew to her side of the island to look for the “nest” on her own. She wanted to at least locate it and make sure that her dad was okay. Then she wanted to be the one to decide if it was dangerous or not. Helen wasn’t five. She was competent enough to scout out the situation and decide for herself if it was worth raising the alarm. Besides, she wasn’t exactly helpless. She had the cestus to keep her from harm and her lightning to knock it out if it got feisty. If that Ant-man came anywhere near her or Jerry, she’d toast it first and think up an excuse to tell her dad later.
Scouring the neighborhood, Helen pictured the nest as a big, webby structure, and assumed it would stick out easily. Nothing caught her eye. She was just about to give up when she noticed that halfway up the side of her neighbor’s house and partly obscured behind a gigantic rhododendron bush, there seemed to be a tiny bulge, like the wall was ever so slightly ballooning out.
It was so subtle Helen knew that her mortal neighbors wouldn’t be able to see the difference. The nest was perfectly camouflaged to look exactly like a large patch of shingle siding on the house, right down to the texture and color. The Myrmidon had even masked the bulge it made by spacing the fake shingling to create an optical illusion.
Helen stared at the nest for a few moments, her pulse pounding in her ears, waiting to see if it moved. When she didn’t hear even the slight sound of an occupant breathing inside the slim pocket, she decided it was safe to check it out. She blew on her sweaty palms to dry them, told herself to stop being a baby, and soared close, until she was right alongside it. The nest was made out of some kind of cement-like material that was designed with lots of little peepholes. As she suspected, most of those holes faced her house directly. From that angle, she could even see part of the way inside her bedroom.
The hairs on the back of her neck were starting to prickle with the thought of some giant bug watching her undress, when she heard a chittering noise below her.
Helen soared feetfirst to a safer height. Like an arrow flying backward, she gained altitude while keeping her eyes glued to ground, to see where the noise had come from. Staring up at her from her neighbor’s lawn was the same skeletal face and red, bulging eyes she had seen in the battle in the woods. Its head twitched blindingly fast, like it swiveled atop a stalk instead of on a neck, and that slight but startling motion was enough to break Helen’s nerve. She flew across the island and landed at the Delos compound a moment later.
Walking quickly to the dark front door, Helen realized how late it was. Everyone had gone to sleep. She looked in the silent windows and shifted from foot to foot, feeling strange about ringing the bell and waking up the whole house at two o’clock in the morning. After all, she wasn’t in any immediate danger. From what Hector had said, the Myrmidon had been watching her for weeks and it hadn’t attacked yet. Helen wondered if she shouldn’t just go home, deal with the nest on her own, and tell her cousins about it in the morning.
She heard a thud behind her and spun around, her heart in her throat.
“What are you doing out here?” Lucas asked in a harsh whisper, adjusting the pull of gravity on his body as he transitioned states. He immediately began walking toward her forcefully. His face changed into a frozen mask of surprise as he registered Helen’s anxious state. From the way she was glancing around, wringing her hands, he could tell it had nothing to do with him. “What happened?” he demanded.
“I . . .” she began breathlessly, then broke off when a disturbing thought distracted her. “Are you just getting home now? Where were you?”
“I was out,” he said tersely. Lucas took a few more steps toward her until he was close enough that she had to tilt her head up to look at him, but she refused to give him any ground. She was done with being afraid of him. “Now answer my question. What happened to you?”
