Okay, what the hell was it with this day finding new ways to shock me into open-mouthed silence? It was starting to become a thing. And this time was a bit worse than my mother having something surprising to say. This was the wife, wife–correction, widow of one of my worst enemies suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Did we even know Manakel was married? Was that a thing? Seriously, could someone have possibly warned me that that was a thing?!

I was still staring at the woman, no sound having found its way to my lips. She wasn’t glaring or anything. She wasn’t making any threatening moves, or even attacking. She was just standing there, grinning a bit lopsidedly at all of us. If this was a threat, it was a very casual one.

On the other hand, she had basically just plummeted out of the sky and disintegrated something as powerful as a Nuckelavee, then got up as if nothing had happened. So maybe she didn’t really need to go out of her way to look intimidating. Honestly, that was pretty damn impressive all on its own. And now she was looking at me. Looking at me because I had killed her husband.

Before I could move or find any words, Miranda was suddenly standing in front of me. She had her shield up, projecting a force field. “Flick, get out of here,” the girl snapped over her shoulder in a voice that was tense and brittle, like she was barely keeping it together. Yeah, seeing this chick blow through the Nuckelavee that easily had gotten to her too. “You guys get help, we–”

Abruptly, the woman started walking toward us. And that was apparently the trigger for everyone to react. Miranda sent the force-field flying that way, while Sands made a thick, solid rock wall rise out of the ground in the woman’s path just as the forcefield flew past that spot. At the same time, Koren made a wall of earth rise up to match and reinforce the rock. Finally, Sarah had her rifle in her hands, and took three quick shots through a scope-portal she had positioned above and to the left to hit the advancing figure from behind. They all acted instantly to protect me.

And all of it did essentially nothing. The force-field hit the advancing figure and shattered into bits of light without apparent effect. The bullets bounced off of her, and she walked through the rock and earth walls as though they weren’t there, leaving a her-shaped hole behind. She didn’t even slow down at all. Though on the other hand, she also wasn’t sprinting or anything. She was just walking at a normal pace. It was like she didn’t even really notice the attempts to hurt or stall her. She brushed off the frantic series of attacks as easily as a semi brushed off the flies that bounced off its windshield. And with even less notice.

Through it all, there was a strange sensation at the back of my mind. It felt familiar somehow. She felt familiar, in a strange way. Wait a second, I knew what this was. I knew what this sensation meant. It was absurd, crazy, but I knew what I was feeling in that moment.

The strange woman was still walking toward us, casual as could be, while the other three began to launch another wave of attacks as they shouted for me to move my ass and get out of there already, while I still could. Instead, I quickly held up both hands, shouting, “Stop!”

My friends listened and stopped attacking. But, more importantly, the strange woman halted. I felt my power reach out to her. My necromancy power. Yeah, she was dead. At least, I thought she was. It was a strange sensation. It was like she was sort of dead, but not completely. I had no idea what that meant, only that I had recognized the feeling that my power could affect her. My necromancy had wrapped itself around the woman and held her steady when I shouted for everyone to stop. And, just like that, she had stopped.

“Uhh, Flick?” Koren was looking back and forth between the apparently frozen woman and me. “What–huh?”

For a brief second, I had a flash of intense worry. This was at, least partially, power that had belonged to her dead husband, and I was using it to make her stop walking. I was using her dead husband’s power to stop her from enacting righteous vengeance for his death, or whatever. She was probably about to lose her shit on us, and I wasn’t sure I had the strength to keep her in place through something like that. Oh God, this was about to get bad, wasn’t it?

Except, the woman didn’t actually look mad at all. Instead, that smile she’d had the entire time just got wider as she clapped. Yeah, I felt her casually break the hold my power had over her just enough to bring her hands together a few times with obvious delight.

“I knew it!” the woman actually cheered while hopping up and down. “I knew you had it now. Do it again, do it again!” With that weirdly ecstatic cry, she started walking toward us once more, arms raised extended out to either side. I swear, it looked as though she was trying to hug me. Which was a hell of a lot more confusing than if she had been screaming at me in anger and attacking. At least that I would have understood. This? This I had absolutely no idea how to react to. And neither did the others.

Before any of us could figure out what to do, another interruption came. This one was in the form of half a dozen adult Garden Heretics, who appeared between us and the strange woman in a flash of light. No, they weren’t just Garden Heretics. They were Unset, led by Croc himself. The enormous Native American man in dark red armor loomed right in front of me, bellowing for the woman to halt even as two metal coils tore their way out of the ground and wrapped around her arms. The five other Heretics had produced weapons and seemed ready to lunge at her. Not that the woman seemed at all put off by that. If anything, she was smiling even more than before, as if the whole thing was just one big game. Hell, considering I kept getting the impression that she was at least partially dead, maybe it really was a game.

Well, there was clearly something very weird going on with this whole thing, so I quickly blurted out once more, “Croc, stop! Everybody stop. Just stop! Hold on for a minute!”

To their credit, the Unset stopped. So did my friends, who had looked as though they were about ready to jump into the fray again themselves. Everyone froze, even the strange woman herself, though she still looked like she wanted to hug me. Which was very much not the reaction I expected to get from a woman who claimed I killed her husband. This whole thing was even more baffling than my life usually was. And that was definitely saying something.

“Flick,” Sands demanded with her mace out and ready. “What the hell is going on?”

“Yes,” Croc agreed flatly, not moving his eyes off the woman herself, who was still at least nominally held by those metal coils around her arms. “Who is this?”

My mouth opened to say I wasn’t sure who she was, exactly. But before I could actually get the words out, another voice spoke up from nearby. “Persephone?”

It was Mercury. The real Mercury, not possessing Carfried as he had through most of last year. The somewhat tall (just over six feet, so fairly diminutive next to other people like Croc), leanly muscled man with very dark red hair worn in a ponytail stood there, beside one of the Unset people. He sounded just as surprised as the rest of us felt. Though perhaps in a different way. “When did you get to Earth?” Even as he spoke, the man was moving over to stand between me and the woman. I had the feeling he wasn’t exactly positive that she wasn’t going to attack after all. Which didn’t exactly help my confidence in the situation, considering he was the only one here who had any idea who she was. If he thought this might still be a problem, I wasn’t going to let my guard down anytime soon. And neither was anyone else, judging from the general reaction of everyone around me.

If she cared or even noticed that everyone facing her was right on the edge of violence, the woman–Persphone apparently, didn’t actually show it. Instead, she positively beamed. “Murky! You made it! And you’re not hiding! It’s so good to see you! It’s been a long time, huh?”

Sarah managed to catch my gaze, silently mouthing a confused, ‘Murky?’ She still had hold of her gun, but had lowered it to rest at her side in one hand. Her other hand, the artificial one, was touching Sands’ arm as though telling her to wait.

Mercury, who had put himself right in front of me (in front of Miranda and the others too) and near Croc, spoke carefully. “Yeah, been awhile. I ahh, I thought you were busy chasing down that crystal Manakel sent you after. How long ago was that?”

“Oh, that one took a long time!” Persephone piped up, sounding completely unbothered and casual as she added, “He asked me to find it about a hundred years ago. It was really hard! They kept moving it a lot, and I had to find someone who knew where it was, only he was hard to find and then he died so I had to find his friend on this other planet, then that guy ran away for some reason and I had to go find him again, and it was a whole thing.” Through all that, the woman was squinting thoughtfully, before abruptly brightening. “But I found it! I really found it! It took me so long, but I found it and I knew Manakel was going to be sooo happy and proud of me!” That proud, cheerful smile turned contemplative, her voice quieting a bit as her gaze moved past the others to focus on me. “And then I found out Manakel died, because she killed him.”

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“No,” a sudden new voice spoke up then, as Sariel emerged from the crowd to stand beside Mercury before giving him a nod of thanks, apparently for summoning her. “She didn’t kill Manakel, Persephone. I did. If you want vengeance for his death, I’m the one you owe it to.”

Oh boy, I really wanted to jump in and argue there. Not that she was wrong about the fact that she had basically been the one responsible for Manakel’s death (I certainly would’ve been completely screwed without her), but I really didn’t think it was a good idea to essentially call this strange, clearly powerful woman’s attention onto her like that. And, from the look of things, basically everyone else around us was ready to object and jump in to interrupt as well.

But, before any of us could say anything, Persephone reacted in a way that was, uhh, a little confusing. Not that that didn’t describe this entire encounter, but still. She laughed. Okay, it was more of a giggle. Yeah, a simple, casual little giggle. Her hand waved dismissively. “Ohhh no, silly goose. You helped! You were there, sure. But that doesn’t matter. You don’t have his power.” Slowly, her eyes moved over to lock onto mine, past everyone who was standing in front of me. “She does. She has his power. I knew it. I knew it before, when they said she killed him. And I felt it just now. She made me stop. She used his power to make me stop.” Her voice, strangely, didn’t sound angry or indignant about that. She was talking about me using her husband’s power to make her stop walking, and yet she didn’t sound pissed off about that. She didn’t even sound resentful or anything. No, she actually sounded positively delighted.

Sands slowly raised a hand. “Okay, so is anyone else really fucking confused right now?

Beside her, Sarah offered a hesitant and clearly uncertain, “She didn’t like Manakel?”

“She was devoted to Manakel,” Mercury put in. “Obsessed with him. You heard her earlier, he sent her to get something it took a hundred years to find and she still did it. She tracked it across the universe. He did that a lot, and she always managed to find whatever she was sent for. And she always brought it to him. The only thing he could never get her to do was leave forever. She always came back and always did everything she could to help. She loved him.”

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Persephone agreed easily, bouncing up and down a bit. In the process, the metal coils that had been wrapped around her arms simply snapped like they were made of tissue paper. If she had the slightest bit of worry about the fact that she was still surrounded by a bunch of very tense looking and powerful Heretics who had their weapons out and pointed at her, she didn’t show it. Instead, she smiled broadly while continuing with, “I loved him. And now I love her.”

Yeah, she uhh, she pointed at me. And it was a good thing I wasn’t drinking at all, because it all would have ended up on the ground as I spat it out. As it was, a fit of coughing grabbed me as I stared that way. After the first few violent heaves from my chest, I managed a weak, “What?”

“The power,” Sariel abruptly put in. “You loved Manakel because of his power. You…” Trailing off, she glanced around, raising her voice a bit to address all of us. “She’s a Revenant.”

Oh. Well that sort of explained part of why she was so powerful. I’d learned about them in school. They were spirit-like creatures who were weak in their natural state, but when they possessed a dead body, they became almost unstoppable. The problem for them was that they tended to run through a body pretty quickly. It would age rapidly and fall apart around them as they used it. They were incredibly strong while possessing a corpse, but all you had to do was wait for the body to run out, and then hit them when they were in their natural state again.

“We found her while the Olympus was out exploring other parts of space,” Mercury added. “There was another of us, another Olympian named Kore. She… something happened and she was infected by these parasites. We couldn’t save her. She was dying in the medical bay and no one could do anything. Even her own power wouldn’t save her.”

“Her power?” Croc asked, voice a bit tense for utterly understandable reasons.

Sariel answered. “Any physical condition Kore created in any living being, she could recreate in that same being at any point after that. If she broke someone’s nose, any time she saw them again after that, she could re-break it just by looking at them. If she stabbed them in the stomach, she could recreate the same stab wound in that same person later with a glance. On the other hand, if she used magic to heal someone’s broken arm, she could re-heal that same arm later. It worked on herself. Except… except the parasites couldn’t be removed that easily. She could reset her body as much as she wanted, but they were separate organisms. She… she couldn’t save herself. We couldn’t save her. And when she died, the Revenant called Persephone possessed her body.”

“Oh my God,” I realized aloud, “that’s why she’s still here. She’s still using the same body after all this time because… because Revenants make their hosts age while they use them. They age really quickly until they die. But Olympians are immortal. I mean, they never get any older. So she can–she can just possess her forever. She’s a Revenant with a permanent body.”

While everyone else (aside from the two Seosten who already knew what was going on), reacted to that, Persephone gave a near-blinding smile. “See?! I knew she was smart. She had to be smart to help beat Manakel. He was really strong. You beat him, and you took his power!”

She was smiling at the fact that I helped kill her husband. This was a man she’d been devoted to for thousands of years, doing everything he said, including scouring the universe for a century just to find something he wanted. That was how much she cared about him. That–wait a minute.

“It wasn’t Manakel,” I abruptly blurted as the sudden realization came right then. “She wasn’t in love with Manakel. It wasn’t him she was so devoted to. It was his power, his Necromancy. She was… like, drawn to it? She loved his Necromancy. And now… now I have his Necromancy.”

“Exactly!” Persephone sounded like this was all very obvious and not insane in the least. “You have his power, so you’re the one I love. If you want, we can play games. Manakel and I used to play games, like Hold This Bomb, or Airlock Jump. We usually played hide-and-seek after Airlock Jump, cuz the ship would fly away and then I’d have to find it. Sometimes it took a long time cuz they went really far! But it was fun, and Manakel was always excited when I found him again. He drank a lot to celebrate.”

Squinting toward Mercury and Sariel despite myself, I hissed, “You guys just got her to jump out the airlock and then left?”

“Or put a bomb in her hands so it’d explode?” Miranda added sharply. She was squinting that way too, sounding just as offended.

Sariel shook her head. “Not us. Manakel and Puriel were afraid of what would happen if she ever turned, if she ever changed her mind about being so devoted. She was–she’s a Revenant with a permanent body. They were trying to find out what weaknesses she might have, just in case.”

“And,” Mercury added in a slightly quieter voice, “she’s possessing Kore. A lot of people liked Kore, including Manakel. He felt like–he felt like he completely failed her. He was the ship’s main doctor, and he couldn’t save her. He couldn’t save Kore. When Persephone started… started walking around as her, possessing her body, it really messed a lot of people up. Including Manakel. Especially when she went on about loving him and all.”

Sounding completely innocent, the Revenant in question spoke up. “I thought they’d be happy, because I made her walk again. I tried to say hi, but people were… they were still sad. And they were angry too. I didn’t… I didn’t understand.” Her voice had gone soft, gaze focused off into the distance as though trying to comprehend those emotions.

Swallowing hard, Sariel murmured, “It was a lot to deal with. People were upset. There were all those emotions every time anyone saw her, for a long time. And as I said, they were terrified of how much damage she could do if she wanted to.”

Persephone, of course, wasn’t suddenly deaf. At that, she promptly piped up. “That’s true, I can be pretty scary. Raaaawr.” She held up both hands in front of herself like a monster, growling in a way that could only be described as unbelievably cute.

Fuck, stop it, Flick. What the hell was wrong with me?

There was a flurry of murmured words between all of the Unset, before Croc spoke up. “We need to make the rounds to check for any more Nuckelavee. Is uhh…” He awkwardly gestured back and forth between the woman and me. “Is whatever this is under control?”

“Persephone,” Sariel spoke then, her voice careful. “You don’t want to kill Felicity Chambers?”

Persephone, in turn, giggled as though that was the silliest question she had ever heard. “Why in the Void would I want to kill her? She has the power. She took Manakel’s power. That means she took me. You don’t kill the person you’re married to, unless they hurt you. That’s just rude.”

It took a second for her words to really penetrate, a moment for me to actually comprehend what she was saying. Then I was sputtering all over again, my eyes widening. Despite myself, I moved that way quickly and put myself next to Sariel. “Hold on, wait, what did you just say? What was that about being married? Cuz you’re not talking about us. You can’t be talking about us. We’re not married. I don’t even know you. I don’t know anything about you except for what I’ve heard in the past, like, thirty seconds. I haven’t even met you until right now. You and me, we’re not–we’re definitely not married.”

In the background, I could see Croc getting his people to head off to do their search. None of them wanted to be involved in this now that it wasn’t turning into a fight. Which was fair, but still. Cowards.

Persephone, still grinning just as cheerfully as ever, corrected me. “No, see, Manakel and I were married. We took the binding oaths to each other. But I didn’t make the oaths to him. I made the oaths to the power, to his Necromancy. We were linked through that. He’s dead, but you have his power. He’s dead, but I took the marriage oaths to his power, and that’s not gone. You took it. That means you took my oath. You own it. So, my marriage isn’t over. It just transferred to you. You own my loyalty. Like I said, we’re married! Isn’t that fun?”

“I…” My throat was dry. The sudden rush of terror, confusion, then more terror, then even more confusion over the past few minutes from the moment the Nuckelavee had shown up had taken its toll. And this? How was I supposed to deal with this? What was I–how was I–where was…

“I think I need to sit down.”