New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl by C.J. Carella

authorities. While I traveled from the East Village to the
Bronx and back, she might well have woken up and demanded to be let go. Father
Alex wouldn’t keep her against her will, and neither would I, for that matter.
My only hope would be to convince her it was in her best interests to stay
under wraps while we figured who had ordered the kidnapping and why. Which was
something that Cassandra would usually know by now, but with the astral plane
or whatever being fucked up, we were flying blind. I was not happy.
    I got off the subway and headed for Saint
Theodosius. If the girl was awake, I’d offer to buy her lunch and see if I
could persuade her to hang around. Talking to somebody I hadn’t beaten up or otherwise
put the fear of God into wasn’t my specialty, except when I had a fake face and
identity on. Maybe that was the way to go. Pretend to be an undercover cop or
something like that. I lie to people all the time, but the idea of deceiving an
abduction victim didn’t sit well with me. I’d play it by ear and see what
happened.
    I went to the back entrance of the
Church. The door was open, as usual. I could hear Father Aleksander’s voice
from the kitchen, so I headed there. He was talking to a woman. The damsel in
distress must have woken up, then, and at least it didn’t sound like she was
going to run right away. I walked into the kitchen, still undecided about what
to say. I was leaning toward just laying my cards on the table and telling her
everything.
    Father Aleksander and the girl were
sitting by the kitchen table while an inane morning show played on the flat
screen TV hanging on the wall. The girl, wearing silly striped pajamas and a
bathrobe a few sizes too large for her, was spooning up the last remains of a
bowl of soup – borscht by the smell of it. A wrist-comm lay on the table next
to her; hopefully she hadn’t used it to call the police.
    “Hello,” I said; not much of an entrance
line, but my normal entrance line is ‘Freeze, motherfuckers!’ and that really
didn’t fit the setting.
    “Ah, there you are,” Father Aleksander
said amiably. He always knew it was me, no matter what face I had on.
“Christine, this is your rescuer, the Faceless Vigilante.” Okay, we were going
for all the truth and nothing but.
    The girl looked at me, and I remembered I
was still wearing Mr. Grover’s face, which made me look about fifteen years
older than I really was, and not a sight for sore eyes at any age. But when her
eyes met mine, I forgot about my face. I felt like she was looking through my
fake face – through all the faces I could wear. It was like the first time I
met Cassandra. This girl – Christine, her name was Christine – could see me .
    Before I could start to process that
first impression, Christine all but leaped from her seat. Next thing I knew she
was hugging me like I was her long-lost brother or something.
    I usually don’t react well when people
make sudden moves. I react even worse when people invade my personal space and
touch me uninvited. And I most definitely react very badly when someone hugs me
without warning. Typical reactions to any of the above range from shoves to
harsh language. If I’m in a pissy mood, gunfire isn’t out of the question.
    Instead, I let her hug me. Nobody had
hugged me like that since my childhood days with my mother, not even Aleksander
when he got sentimentally drunk. It felt pretty good. Not that I would admit it
to save my life. I’m fucking Face-Off. I don’t do affectionate.
    “Thank you for saving me,” Christine
said, still clutching me tightly.
    “Yeah, sure, no problem,” I said
awkwardly and lightly patted her back. I wanted to hug her in return, but I
couldn’t muster the courage to do it, tough guy that I was. Especially not in
front of Father Aleksander, whose face seemed to be struggling between
expressions of amazement and delight. A second later he looked concerned, but
he couldn’t say anything because Christine was