The room was escape-proof. Hera was trustworthy. And I had a goal to accomplish.
“Very well.” I gestured for Hera to join Athena. “I’ll allow you to talk alone. You have thirty minutes.”
I waited while Hera walked over, perched at the edge of the bed beside Athena. Then I reversed my steps to the door.
I’d made the right decision. I knew it the minute I heard Hera’s soothing voice, saw her reach out her arms to Athena.
By the time I locked the door, Athena was holding on to Hera and sobbing on her shoulder.
Once he was gone, and she heard the sound of the key turning in the lock, Eve Calhoun didn’t waste an instant. Gently, she gripped the arms of the young woman who was clinging to her, and eased her away.
“Shh,” she whispered. “We have to talk quietly. And we have to talk fast. He won’t leave us alone for long. He’s cautious to the point of paranoia. So I’ll explain as much as I can, and you can ask me whatever you want. Just watch the tone of your voice. He has to believe I’m comforting you.”
The young woman nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Cynthia. Cynthia Alexander.”
“I’m Eve Calhoun.” Eve made sure to keep her tone soft, almost crooning—a direct contradiction to her words. “Tell me the bare essentials of your background, and everything you remember since you were kidnapped.”
“He thinks I’m Athena. The Greek goddess,” Cynthia managed.
“I know. He thinks I’m Hera. Now stay calm and talk to me. Maybe together we can figure out a means of escape.”
That gave Cynthia the impetus she needed. Swiftly, she told Eve who she was, and relayed the details of her kidnapping—including how hard she’d been fighting to escape.
“Don’t,” Eve advised her. “Don’t fight. It only makes things worse. Although I’m sure he expected you to. Athena is the warrior goddess, and the goddess of wisdom. You’re intelligent, athletic, and strong-willed. The correlation made sense. Just as mine does.”
“How?”
“Hera’s the mature goddess of marriage and childbirth. I’m a matrimonial attorney. The rest of my story is just like yours. I was doing laps at the pool at NYU. I left via Washington Square Park. He grabbed me, pressed a combat knife to my throat,
and injected me with something that knocked me out. When I came to, I was here.”
“When was that?”
Eve swallowed. “June second.”
Cynthia turned sheet white, and stifled a gasp. “That’s ten months ago.”
A nod. “And I’m not the first of his victims. He kidnapped another woman last April. She’s his ‘Aphrodite.’ And there have been two more victims since then. My frame of reference is fuzzy, but I think one arrived in September, and the other at the beginning of December. I know nothing about either of them, nor have any of us met. After that, months passed. The holidays came and went. He seemed calmer, more grounded. He stopped muttering bizarre things to himself about the honor of sacrifice, the rage of the demons, and the glory of the gods. His conversations became almost normal. He seemed content, almost tranquil. No new captives arrived. I began to assume—or maybe to pray—that the December victim had been the last.”
“Clearly, you were wrong.”
Again, Eve nodded. “Everything changed the week before you arrived. It’s like he made a one-eighty, became totally unhinged. I still don’t know what caused him to snap the way he did. But whatever it was, it made him angrier, more embittered, more frenetic. His eyes were veiled in madness, and he was fueled by some new brutality that I didn’t understand, nor could I get him to open up and talk about it.
“That’s when he started raving about seizing more goddesses, bringing them here to complete the circle as soon as possible. Sometimes he mentions three, sometimes four. And there was a ‘she’ he kept talking about, and another ‘she’ he kept talking to. Whether they were among the women he planned to kidnap and turn into his goddesses, or whether they were just voices in his head, I had no idea. What I did know was that other victims were inevitable.”
“So when I was kidnapped and locked in the room next to yours, it came as no shock.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Cynthia raked both hands through her hair. “I have so many questions.”
“Ask them quickly. Just realize that I know as little as you do about what his agenda is, or how he chose us.”
“Does he hurt you?”