Free New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet by C.J. Carella Page A

businesslike as a stripper at a bachelor party, which come to think of it was businesslike in its own way. For the second time since Christine had met her, Kestrel wasn’t wearing her trademark painted-on latex outfit, having changed into a slightly less slutty pair of shorts and a t-shirt, sort of a Sporty Skank casual wear thingy. Kestrel’s vibes had changed, too. She’d gone from her usual twisted nympho ways to a mixture of fear and concern. It wasn’t fear for her own safety; Kestrel did not care if she lived or died, something that made Christine feel slightly nauseated when she picked it up with her empathic senses. Kestrel was afraid Condor was going to die on her. It was shocking that she actually felt something, other than wanting to stage crossover productions of the Kama Sutra and Fifty Shades of Gray .
    Christine caught that burst of emotion despite the fact she kept her empathy senses turned all the way down when looking at Condor and Kestrel. Even the surface stuff coming off them was disturbing enough, a toxic stew of lust, guilt, shame and pain, marinated in assorted bodily fluids. It wasn’t quite as bad as looking at her father’s tainted aura had been, but it was nothing she really wanted in her head, either. A deeper look into their psyches might just drive her over the edge. Mark had been worried about Condor hooking up with Kestrel. He’d been so right it wasn’t funny.
    “Where is the new boyfriend?” Kestrel asked Christine as she came in. Kestrel and Christine weren’t going to start a Sisterhood of the Travelling Tights anytime soon. The super-skank didn’t care for Christine, or maybe she was one of those women who didn’t like other women. A female misogynist. Lovely.
    “If you mean John, he’s gone off to talk to Janus.”
    “Janus?” Condor said, looking up from the computer. “Whatever for?”
    Christine gave them all a quick rundown of her conversation with John. Her empathy-thingy picked up that Condor was dubious and worried about John’s actions, Kestrel didn’t give a crap, and Mark was just glad that John was out of his figurative hair for a while. “Anyways,” she concluded. “Are we doing anything else tonight or can I go get some sleep?”
    “We’ll stay put,” Condor said. “We are thinking about going back to New York to find some Russian mobsters to interrogate, but not until tomorrow or the day after, at the earliest. It might be a good idea to rest up for a day or so.”
    “Or until the Legion beats Ultimate into telling them where we are,” Mark said, being his usual downer self.
    “I’ll keep monitoring all multimedia traffic,” Condor said. “If Ultimate is captured, there’s going to be some chatter about it. We should have some warning, so I think we’ll be safe here for now.”
    “I’m off to bed, then,” Christine said and headed up to her designated bedroom. Someone had left a pair of sweatpants and a shirt for her on the bed, both of them a couple sizes too big but better than nothing. Probably Mark’s doing; he was kind of a sweet guy when he wasn’t being a sour-no-puss or a psycho-killer. She changed, brushed her teeth and got under the covers.
    Almost an hour later, she was still tossing and turning. She was tired but too wired to sleep: her brain kept insisting on running laps around a gazillion fun questions, ranging from ‘Is Daddy really dead?’ to ‘What happens next?’ That wasn’t the worst part, though. Now that she was alone in the dark, she couldn’t help thinking about the magical cube. Nothing will keep you up like finding out about a multi-billion year old cosmic struggle and that you’ve been born – not just born, effing bred – to play a part in it. No pressure or anything.
    She’d asked Mark to hold on to the cube for now. No sense risking it getting activated by her being in close proximity to it, or worse, it deciding to crawl towards her while she slept. Now that was a nice and creepy thought. Doing