I quickly wrapped the sandwiches in paper towels and pulled out a six pack of Dasani, then we were headed outside the door.

  She tossed me the keys after taking the six pack, “You drive, I’ll need my wits and magic free if it’s a trick, and we’re ambushed on the road there.”

  I got into her car. I’d have been a lot more excited about driving her car if I wasn’t so worried about Ginny in that moment. It was nothing like Ginny’s sacrilege of painting an Audi convertible hot pink. Janice’s car was a bright metallic blue Mustang GT Cobra, and it started up with a purring roar. I was fairly sure that the Cobra had over six hundred horses. Damn, maybe I already loved her too after all.

  “Magic?” I asked as I pulled back and spun the wheel to turn around and face forward, slapped it in drive and the thing took off for the road.

  Janice shrugged, “The gods had their powers and mantels, and of course magic. Circe and Hecate are most famous for it, but they can all do it to one extent or another. It’s how they create creatures out of humans for punishment in the older days, transformation magic. Regardless, my powers are borderline because magic while weaker in a way is more diverse, where powers are very focused. I can mainly heal, detect, and protect with my mystical energy, but it will power a spell if I go through the bother of one.

  “Most demigods are weaker than us and our enemy’s. Our goddesses are extremely powerful and that translates. We’re bonfires next to their suns of course, but most others would be campfires in that simile. Demigods, gods, and monsters aren’t all that’s in this world. Lycanthropes exist, as do witches who wield lesser magics. They tend to avoid us, and they’re no match and don’t like to risk the gods’ notice.”

  “So, Lycans aren’t monsters? Half animal?”

  She shook her head, “Cursed human lines. They’re human and animal. Monsters are more like us, they’re half animal and half god. Demigods are when the gods lay with humans, monsters are when the gods lie with animals and are usually made for some purpose or to serve.”

  Oh, well that was kind of obvious in hindsight given what I knew about Greek mythology, but I’d never thought it through before.

  She leaned forward and quickly typed in an address into the GPS, then turned on a rock XM station on low volume before sitting back.

  Then she took our sandwiches and started to tear off bite sized pieces and feed them to me. I actually got a little turned on by it, that she would take care of me fiercely and support me in that way. I kind of knew that already, but at the same time nothing drove that kind of thing home more than the simple and small things in life. In a lot of ways, it was even more telling than the fact she was going to risk her life for mine and Ginny’s, and fight and kill if she had to.

  I nodded, “I see the difference now. Anything else? Vampires, fae, elves?”

  She giggled, “No, though vampires did exist at one time. They were one of the cursed human lines, but they were wiped out in the dark ages. The stories persist and catch human imagination though, and there are a few monster types who gorge on human blood and flesh. Lycans and monsters of course, keep up the shifter stories. In a lot of ways monsters are those fictional shifters, they retain control when in their animal or partial form and can shift at will, but most have only partial and human forms. It’s a rare monster that fully shifts to animal, and often when they do it’s an amalgam of several. It’s the Lycans that are screwed and have absolutely no control after the shift. They also must shift on the full moon, and they can’t shift any other time.

  “I’m not sure about fae or elves, or where those legends came from. It’s likely the gods were behind it, whether experiments on humans transformed some, or what have you. Or maybe it’s just made up from whole cloth. Regardless, there are none now, or for thousands of years of our recorded history.”

  We were silent after that for a while, as Janice both ate hers and fed me the rest of my sandwich, then we guzzled down a couple of waters. It was amazing just how much more alert I felt, although that could’ve been the worry too. The closer we got as the miles to destination went down on the GPS navigation system screen, the more I worried about my midnight-haired beauty.

  My Ginny was far more precious to me than I’d imagined, after just a day of knowing her. In the space of twenty-four hours I’d claimed two mates, and my mind and emotions were scrambling to catch up, despite how natural it felt when I wasn’t thinking about it logically.

  Power or not, whatever it was, I also still had a long way to go. I needed to learn how to fight, or at least learn how to avoid my enemy’s strikes long enough to hit them with… whatever it was. I knew Janice would tailor a training regimen for me, as soon as she knew what my power was and the extent of it. But that wouldn’t help us with what was coming. We had to rescue Ginny, and somehow get out of there alive.

  Protective anger and determination rose in my chest to erase that frustrated anxiety, and I felt that same weird buzzing in my head and all around me on the road. It was somewhat of a relief knowing I wasn’t damaging my brain, but it still felt really odd. I tried to focus my mind on solutions and channel that anger into alert resolve. I’d read something about that once, anger could be a positive or negative in a fight. But of course, I had no true experience in it at all, and for all I knew that was literary conceit and I should be trying to clear my mind of all anger to avoid letting my emotions lead my fighting decisions. I’d never been a rabble-rouser growing up, and I could count the number of fights I’d been in as a kid on one hand.

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  Janice said, “The basic plan is I’ll protect you and stop physical dangers, while you figure out how to hit people with whatever you can do. It’ll take you time to master it. The worst thing you can do is get frustrated with it, because it obeys your thoughts and emotions. That shouldn’t be a problem, from what Ginny said you were too brave last night, just try not to let the danger Ginny is bound to be in to overwhelm you with turmoil, nor my danger, or you won’t be any help at all. Still, if it takes you some time to activate it don’t panic, that will just make it take even longer to figure out.

  “The rest will depend on circumstances which we can’t predict or plan for. Just, follow my lead in this and do your best. I can take Hazel on most days. We’ll have to see how many monsters she brought and if Lillian is there too. She probably isn’t. Your enemy keeps her on the highest priority jobs, and you haven’t been shown to be dangerous at all yet.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Janice broke into a smile, “Of that I have no doubt.”

  “Maybe they’ll get distracted by my swanky leather shoes and sweats outfit,” I joked. It really did look ridiculous, black leather dress shoes and workout clothes.

  She said warmly, “You look great.”

  I turned off the road and into the business park. It was only about a quarter mile down when we saw the warehouse, and Ginny’s hot pink Audi convertible in the parking lot. I pulled up next to it, and when we got out, I noticed the back was stuffed full of packages.

  “She must’ve been detected by an enemy while shopping, and they snagged her on her way out.”

  Even in that crazy situation, it was with reluctance when I handed Janice her keys back. The Cobra really was a drool worthy vehicle. Her lips twitched slightly in a shadow of a knowing smile, and I wondered what my face had looked like in that moment.

  Janice nodded, “You’re probably right, that scenario fits,” and she looked around carefully. She was in bitch mode and I could practically see the intellectual measuring of our surroundings in her cold and intelligent vigilant awareness. I still didn’t see the bitch part of it though, but Janice and Ginny seemed to think she was a bitch in that mode.

  In fact, Ginny hadn’t seen the real Janice yet, which was sobering in a way I didn’t entirely understand. The difference in her voice was also a bit startling. Her voice was warm and felt like it wrapped around me to give succor and comfort, but in bitch mode it was distant yet still dulcet enough.

  She pulled the Escrima sticks out of her boot and motioned as she moved forward right for the front door. That was when I finally looked around, for humans who would surely see her in leather and wielding weapons as odd. But of course, there weren’t any humans around in that moment, that’s probably part of what she’d been checking for.

  The buzzing fog in my mind reached a fever pitch, but now that I wasn’t worried about bursting brain vessels it wasn’t nearly as distracting to my focus. I frowned, I could also feel the buzzing close ahead, far to the right and left, and even farther behind us near the street. Like my power was detecting something, and it matched what was in my head, like a symbiosis of some kind.

  The only thing I was sure it wasn’t, was that it wasn’t other demigods or monsters. I’d felt no symbiosis with the power with Janice, nor had I felt it with Ginny, Hazel, or the Taura last night.

  It was strange, and I had no idea what it could be, and more than that it was still surreal. There was a little bit of disbelief involved that day, at least in my gut if not in my brain which had seen plenty of proof.

  I was a demigod of a philandering god, though that description was probably redundant given what all the male gods got up to. With a powerful goddess that wanted me dead out of spite for her cheating husband, heading into a fight with no clue what I was doing, all to save my mate that I’d only just met yesterday mid-morning. Right around twenty-four hours ago. With my other mate, that I’d only met eight hours ago, and we’d been asleep for at least three of those hours, if that? It was a mind screw.

  I tried to push it all out of my head and pay attention to my surroundings, and the hair on the back of my neck stuck out as adrenaline was dumped into my veins and my heart started to pound steadily and strongly in my chest. I followed closely behind Janice as we entered the door and walked into a mostly empty warehouse.

  There were about twenty pallets of electronics stacked up against the far wall, but other than that the place was empty. In the middle of the room stood our enemy, and I felt like throwing up as I looked at Ginny who was tied up and secured to a metal folding chair. Hazel stood about three feet to Ginny’s right with the long thin sword lazily held in her right hand, and she looked as hot as I remembered. Ginny’s beauty however, hit me in the gut like a Ford F-350.

  What made me sick was the monster standing behind Ginny. She had a sharp hawk-like face with a silver beak instead of a mouth, with white blonde hair and green eyes flecked with gold. There were wings curved around from her back that were long enough to go around Ginny’s sides. The wings themselves had white feathers that looked to have steel tipped barbs at the end of them, which I assumed would tear apart Ginny in a second. Worse, the monster had talon claws, and one of those claws was tightly wrapped around and gripping Ginny’s throat.

  She was dressed in black leather vest and obviously only that, showing off her midriff while firmly containing her rounded B cups. At five foot one she had a petitely curvaceous body that was a generous hourglass in proportion.

  The monster was strangely attractive to me, even in her shifted form, and my mind skipped a track when I felt drawn to her. Just like I had with Ginny and Janice. Of course, she was the enemy, and I’d kill the monster if I had to without hesitating, but it still weirded me out. At the same time there was a part of me that wanted to claim her, and would, as long as it didn’t risk any lives.

  That urgent desire to claim monster made me doubt my sanity, but I knew the source of that desire flowed from my goddess’s blessing.

  Janice whispered loud enough so only I’d hear, “Air Nymph, very dangerous. Besides the wings, beak, and claws she’s probably aerokinetic, so watch for that. She can also shoot those steel tipped feathers like a throwing dagger, or small arrow. Hit her with your power if you can, I’ll deal with Hazel. Focus on doing that, while I talk to the bitch.”

  Aerokinetic, I assumed that meant she could move the air with her mind, maybe even use the air as a weapon. At the very least, I assumed she could use the power to suffocate someone.

  Hazel said when we were about thirty feet away, “That’s far enough. I’m sorry it came to this, but my demands are simple. Send him to me to fight, and when I kill him, I’ll have Nicole release Ginny and we’ll go our separate ways. I have no enmity with you two, but if you test me in this or try any tricks, I will.”

  I focused on my power, and I was working on it. Trying to blast the monster Nicole, with my power. So far it wasn’t working though, and I wasn’t sure why. I’d focused on the stream idea, and I felt my power reach out to her and form a conduit of sorts between us, but that’s all. Absolutely nothing happened as my power flowed her way. I didn’t know what to do, except to keep trying and not panic, which was easier said than done.

  The worst part was I didn’t know what my power was. I tried to freeze her with my mind, toss her away, set her on fire, and I even tried to make her orgasm. I mean, I was just throwing it out there, something had to work, right? I just had to figure out the right focus to get my power to do something outside of just connecting us.

  Janice tilted her head, “Not good enough.”

  Hazel raised an eyebrow.

  Janice asked, “What if he kills you? Then Nicole slits Ginny’s throat, or she uses her wings to tear my ally in half. Not good enough.”

  Hazel laughed, “You can’t be serious.”

  Janice shrugged coldly, “Might as well cover all the bases, no matter how unlikely. You need to order Nicole to leave without doing harm to me or Ginny, if you fall.”

  I got what she was doing, she was buying time for me to blast Nicole. But time was running out, at some point the delay would end and Ginny would die. Not panicking was all good in theory, but I was under a tremendous amount of pressure, and just like last time I felt an impotent rage growing in me, at my failure to protect what was mine.

  Hazel snorted, “Very well, I’ll allow you the false hope if it moves this along,” she turned her head partway toward Nicole but not enough to remove us from her vision, “If I fall, you will do no harm to any, and return home. Understood?”

  Nicole’s voice was hard and shrieking, like a bird’s shriek or caw. I could only imagine it was more normal when in her human form, and I was a little surprised she could talk at all with a silver beak. But then, there were a few species of birds that did talk, like a parrot or macaw, so maybe I was just an idiot.

  “Yes, Mistress. I obey.”

  Hazel smirked as she turned back to us, “Satisfied? Because if you try me further then I may just have her throat slit and we’ll kill both of you.”

  “Petty threats? That’s unlike you Hazel. You’re usually more polite than that. Did your keeper give you a hard time for failing so badly last night when you had all the advantages?”

  Hazel’s eyes narrowed in anger, “Last chance, bitch. Send the son of Zeus to me now, or Ginny dies.”

  Zeus. Seriously? Which probably made my enemy the damned queen of the gods, Hera. My eyes widened and I looked around in sudden understanding. My power was nothing on its own, that’s why it’d failed to do anything to Nicole no matter how hard I tried. That symbiotic buzzing wasn’t similar to my power, it was what my power could control.

  What I’d inherited from my father, if at a much smaller degree. I wouldn’t be throwing around lightning bolts that could destroy cities, or controlling vast storms, but that had to be the answer, I was an electro-kinetic. Maybe one day I’d even knock a building down with it, even a pale version of Zeus’s power would be potent.

  In hindsight it was obvious, the buzzing felt like electricity, like the moment of heavy ozone before a lightning strike when all the hairs stood up on your arms. Obvious enough once my father’s identity had been revealed, and obvious enough that I was angry at myself for not figuring it out sooner. All the clues had been there, after all. The buzzing I felt outside of me came from the buildings themselves, the electrical systems and wires.

  I couldn’t make lightning myself, but I could control electricity.

  I laughed, and it sounded a little unhinged, but at the same time I created more channels to where I felt the buzzing around me in several directions at once. Except, those channels were uphill from me in my thoughts and focus, so the electricity would flow to me. As my power connected electricity coruscated across the room from several directions at once, giving off extremely bright light and thunderous sound as it cut through the air. It surrounded my body in a lightning storm. More than that, I absorbed some of it into my body, which energized me.

  It made me feel stronger, faster, and invincible. But I was guessing that last one was just an illusion brought on by my powers, no one was invincible. It also gave me heightened awareness, everything around me seemed to be moving slower, and was much easier to track. So it seemed my electro-kinetic power didn’t just let me control electricity, but electricity would also fuel my muscles, awareness, and speed when I was holding it in my body. I ignored that for now, I had no idea how to fight yet, and the plan was to blast Nicole, not punch her.

  Hazel ordered in a panicked voice, “Kill her!” even as my focused thoughts sent electricity blasting down the empty conduit of power connecting me to Nicole.

  The lightning struck before Nicole could follow that order, and she was tossed back with a scream of pain. As she flew toward the back of the room, the electricity jumped between her steel tipped feathers and burned her body. Nicole hit the back wall, and for a long moment she didn’t move at all.

  At the same time, my Janice moved faster than I’d ever seen her move before, and she arrived in time to block Hazel’s spiteful sword strike that whistled toward Ginny’s neck. Then they exploded into wicked fight of weapons, as Janice masterfully parried or blocked Hazel’s sword, and hit Hazel far harder with the Escrima sticks than she’d ever hit me.