Page 20 of The Cursed Chalice

My legs carry me to the bed sitting in the middle of the room. No…she’s not Talia.

“Who is she, Ares?”

“I don’t know.”

I drop to my knees beside the bed, brushing away the hair out of the woman’s face.

“She is beautiful, Ares.” Aric’s image watches me from the windowpane; the faintest ripple moves across the glass.

“Yes, she is,” I whisper. I trace her cheek with the back of my finger. She feels soft, warm…real. Too real.

“Where is the chalice?”

I look around the bed, then a hint of gold catches my eye.

My hands tremble as I reach out for it. Sadness engulfs me as I remember the last time I held it. I close my eyes, and the cup heats in my hand, reminding me that there is a soul trapped in there.

I look back at the woman sleeping on the bed. “You drank from it.”

My fingers rub softly against her lips.

“She doesn’t even know what she has done, does she?”

I sigh. “You are doomed.”

Laughter seeps through the hallway…Mortal laughter, high-pitched and annoying. The doorknob rattles.

“Someone is trying to get in.”

I open the door. Four boys in green shirts blink at me, lit by the flashing neon light ofGina’s Dineracross the street.

The shortest one, a Latino kid with a backward cap, burst out laughing. “Dude, your face.”

The taller Chinese boy elbows him. “He likes the fucking….a opera guy in the mask. Pirates of the Caribbean. No. Um.”

“The Phantom of the Opera,” another one supplies, he is dark-skinned, wiry, eyes full of challenge.

The fourth, the heavyset white boy with freckles, said, “More like an ass with pimples.”

I grunt, “Why are you here?”

The one in the cap grins. “We came to give sweet cheeks a goodnight kiss.”

“Or a fuck,” says the dark one, and the others laugh like it’s the funniest thing in the world.

“She kicked Troy’s ass,” the tall one adds. “We’re just evening the score.”

My scar throbs.Kill them Ares.

“By the gods,” I mutter, rolling my neck from side to side. “Normally, I’m the one who chooses violence.”

The freckles one squints. “Why the fuck are you naked?”

He steps closer. “I mean, with equipment like that, I’d be naked too.”

He lifts his fist like we’re about to pound one out. I grab it and twist it. The snap is sharp and clean. Of course he screams. “Fuck, it hurts.”

“Shut up and kneel.”