CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SIX

No Marlakey, Part 1

A second elevator dinged, and when its doors opened a second later, a tall, middle-aged man in a crisp gray suit and short-cropped salt and pepper hair peeking out of his gray fedora stepped into Marcus Flint’s living room.

Even in the dark lighting, Sam recognized the villain’s mustache underneath the large hooked nose. He was also quite familiar with that skeptical steely-eyed gaze.

“Nobody move,” Warden Malarkey said.

A team of wardens fanned out of the elevator in lockstep with their captain. All of them carried elemental cannons, which they quickly trained on everyone in the room who wasn’t a warden.

Warden Malarkey flashed Sam a grim smile, one that sent a shiver up the hero’s spine. “You’re all under arrest on suspicion to commit treason against the city.”

The surprise on everyone’s faces hardened quickly after they heard Warden Captain Malarkey’s declaration.

“Treason?” Thunder’s voice was as icy as Sam had ever heard of it. “You do know whom you’re talking to, right?”

“I’m talking to the collaborators who kidnapped one of the most distinguished bachelors of New York,” Malarkey answered coolly. “It is quite disappointing, Thunder… I thought better of you.”

He flashed Thunder a regretful gaze, one that didn’t seem genuine to Sam at all. That gaze landed on Sam next.

“I suppose throwing your lot in with a vigilante was bound to corrupt you eventually,” Warden Malarkey stated.

It looked to Sam like the senior warden was trying very hard not to smile.

“Do you have any proof?” Thunder challenged.

To everyone’s surprise, Malarkey nodded. He glanced over his shoulder and directed one of his wardens to come forward.

Sam had never seen this scrawny, pale-skinned man before, but despite the apologetic smile he offered Sam and his friends, the slanted eyes veiled behind his square-rimmed glasses were anything but apologetic. In that regard, this new arrival exuded the same hostility as his captain.

“Hello, I’m Warden Hajime,” he said in a friendly tone.

Warden Hajime showed us the front side of the tablet that had been tucked between his arm and chest.

“As you can see, we do have proof,” he said.

Warden Hajime still spoke with that friendly tone, although his face resembled that of a tiger about to pounce.

As for this so-called proof, it was a grainy photo. Something quite rare in this era of high-end smartphone cameras. Still, it was clear to everyone looking at the photo that the person carrying an unconscious Marcus Flint out into the balcony was dressed in armor quite similar to Sam’s old Spartan Survival Suit. The most damning thing about this photo, however, was the mask this culprit wore. It was a replica of Sam’s Mask of the Argonaut.

Sam was so surprised that his jaw dropped. “Th-that’s not me…”

“I suppose it was the Tooth Fairy then. I hear she likes to cross-dress in her advanced age,” Warden Hajime smirked.

That was a low remark, Sam thought, and very disrespectful of a heroine who’d saved New York time and time again back in the eighties.

“Did you believe that changing your suit and going back to the crime scene to erase any evidence of your dastardly deed would work?” Warden Malarkey scoffed.

The warden captain urged his subordinate to continue, and Warden Hajime was happy to oblige. He swiped left and introduced the second piece of evidence which was a more close-up, but still grainy, photo of a man about Herculean’s shape, size, and face standing by the edge of the balcony with Marcus Flint’s body over his shoulder.

They all noticed that this person was smiling the kind of creepy smile that reached the corners of one’s face, driving Thunder to comment, “Wow, that’s disturbing…”

“It’s not me,” Sam protested.

“I know”—she frowned—“but it’s still creepy to see on someone who looks like you.”

She emphasized that last bit.

“I’m glad you’re so entertained, Thunder,” Warden Hajime also placed emphasis on her name, but Sam couldn’t help hearing a bit of derision spill from this man’s mouth, “because this next photo’s quite the eye-turner.”

The next piece of evidence was another grainy photo, one that revealed to the team that their deductions were right. Medea had indeed sent her solar dragon to pick the Trickster and his prey up. However, the dragon also had a rider on its back—someone dressed in a copy of Thunder’s previous suit. Although they wore a hood, a flash of gold could be seen peeking out of it.

Thunder grimaced. “Are you kidding me?”

In his mind, Sam heard a familiar chuckle.

It’s not a doctored photo, kid. It’s not an illusion either, Chiron reported. Whomever the Trickster got to wear Thunder’s suit was present during the kidnapping.

His master had been unusually quiet since Sam woke up from his vision that the hero had to ask if the centaur had gone AFK on him this whole time.

I can’t babysit you twenty-four-seven right now, kid… I’ve got other stuff in need of my attention too.

What stuff?

Never you mind, lame-brain, Chiron chided. Anyways, I’m caught up on the situation, and I gotta say, the Trickster’s getting smarter. He’s using the Wardens’ distrust of your vigilante persona to implicate you in his crime.

And he used my partnership with Thunder to amplify the possibility that he’s really me in these photos…

Exactly.

Could it be… is it Serena?

Sam wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that his sister may have impersonated his girlfriend, or that it wasn’t Serena and Sam still didn’t know where she was. Chiron thought it was the latter though.

Build’s too different… this new girl’s taller, the centaur explained.

Sam sighed. Great… now there’s a new villain to watch out for.

“Herculean?” Thunder called.

He glanced sideways at her. “Sorry, what?”

“Warden Malarkey was demanding to know where you were an hour ago,” Thunder said.

She was gazing at him pointedly as if to say now was not the time to be talking to his invisible friend and look like he was just spacing out.

“Um…” Sam didn’t know what to say as he couldn’t exactly admit to the fact that he was asleep in Thunder’s bed during that time. Exposing their relationship to these untrustworthy people would open him and Thunder up to a whole new can of worms that they weren’t ready for. At least that’s what Sam believed.

His brief bout of hesitation was enough to damn Sam in the two wardens’ eyes though, and they were quick to pounce on him, claiming Sam had no alibi because he was indeed the very same person who’d kidnapped Marcus Flint.

“And here I was hoping that you’d go legitimate…” Warden Malarkey shook his head. “What a fool I was not to see your duplicity during the assessment, which, now that I think about it, you must have bamboozled as well.”

Warden Hajime nodded in agreement. “A phoenix feather’s an unusual and highly unlikely result to receive during a second assessment, sir… We should have known that a vigilante would cheat his way to fame and status.”

“Do you truly believe that a Priestess of Fortuna could be hoodwinked in an assessment?” Farsight asked in an annoyed tone.

The teenage seer had been quiet throughout the on-the-spot interrogation, but everyone turned her way now that she stepped out of the shadows and into the beams of the wardens’ flashlights.

Warden Hajime looked uncomfortable as it was considered blasphemy to disparage a priestess of a god without proof. Especially in the presence of another priestess, which Farsight was, technically.

As Apollo’s chosen oracle, Farsight officially had the rank of a high priestess, one who could command the sun god’s Apollonian Guard—a highly-trained paramilitary organization composed of Apollo’s acolytes—to do her bidding if she was so inclined. If she wanted to, Ashley Day could even assume the position of Apollo’s Head Priestess and claim the seat of the Oracle of Delphi. Its current owner was a lesser seer than Farsight, after all.

“I mean no disrespect, priestess,” Warden Hajime bowed apologetically.

“It’s not unheard of that a priestess of the gods was tricked by an evildoer…” Warden Malarkey cut in. “Precedents exist throughout our known history… Or don’t you remember the tale of Joan of Arc?”

Everyone knew the tale of the young woman who’d been blessed, not by one but several gods of the Olympian pantheon, turning Joan into a high priestess of many major temples. Whoever, after she’d helped save France, the Maid of Olympus was tricked by an advisor who sold Joan to the English. They burned her at the stake soon after, with the Olympians mourning Joan’s death so much that they helped the French ultimately win the Hundred-Year War.

Sam knew something else about Joan of Arc that only Thunder knew of. It was the fact that Joan had been an Argonaut like them, and was one of Chiron’s most accomplished trainees whose death the centaur lamented greatly. It’s probably why the centaur was neighing angrily into Sam’s brain right now.

It was lucky that Warden Malarkey didn’t hear the centaur’s curses or he would have blamed Sam for it as well.

“There’s no point in this debate,” Thunder cut in. She strode forward, got right into Warden Hajime’s face, and admitted, “Herculean couldn’t have kidnapped Mr. Flint because he was in bed with me this whole night.”