“That's convenient,” Trevor said.
“I'll look into the soul-stealing while you're gone,” Athena offered. “I have several books on the Atlanteans and the gods we became.”
“Thank you,” Azrael said as he stood up. Then he helped me to my feet. “It shouldn't take us long to investigate the mines.”
“Wonderful,” Athena said with relief. Then she shouted, “Aleksanteri!”
“I'm right here; you don't have to shout,” the owl huffed.
“Fetch Torrent please.”
“Yes, O' Great and Powerful One,” he said dryly as he flapped away.
“And here I thought that I was the only one he sassed,” I said.
“He's an owl,” Athena said. “They sass everyone.”
Chapter Fourteen
Since Torrent and Artemis had already been to the mines, they were able to trace us there directly. We stepped out of the Aether into a sunny afternoon. It was hot and humid in Argentina, very similar to Hawaii, and that would have made me feel at home. Except this wasn't a lush paradise; it was a wasteland.
I frowned as I stared around me at the pumpkin-colored dirt. Just dirt, dirt, and more dirt; the air reeked of it. We stood at the bottom of a tiered bowl that reminded me of an arena. There were ledges cut into the sides of the bowl going all the way up; perfect for a few giants to sit on and holler for their favorite team. Beyond the top lip, there was even more of that rusty earth; rising up into sheer mountains. Directly before us, there was a tunnel cut into the side of the bowl—reinforced with steel bars—but it was tied off with caution tape and littered with rocks and debris.
“I expected Argentina to be prettier,” I murmured. “Greener.”
“It is,” Torrent said. “This is a mine; mines are never pretty.”
“This is what we do to the Earth to get shiny stuff?” I asked with horror. “It looks like...”
“Death,” Trevor said with his eyes fixed on the mine.
“Well, not quite that bad,” I said. “I was thinking more like a wound or Mars after Re got through with it.”
Don't even get me started on what Re had done to Mars.
“No. I mean; I smell death,” Trevor amended.
I took a deep sniff and winced. Trevor was right; people had died there. Some of them hadn't made it out of the mine.
“We're not here to recover bodies,” Odin said gently. “Do either of you smell anything unusual?”
Trevor and I started walking around; sniffing the air like bloodhounds. It was hard to find the scent at first because it was so similar to the earth—and the ancient odor of soil was so overpowering there. But the other scent was a tad sharper; more metallic with a tinge of magic. A god scent.
“I found something.” I stopped at the edge of the mine entrance and let my sight shift with my sense of smell.
It felt as if I started to see the scent, but I knew it was just my dragon's way of helping my human mind understand what we were smelling. The scent looked golden to me; a bright, glowing haze that ambled around the mine and then disappeared into the Aether.
“Torrent,” I said, “I need your help.”
“I got you, V,” Torrent said as he took my hand.
The others would have to wait at the mine, but I didn't bother telling them that; they already knew. Plus, I was too busy keeping my sight—or my smell, rather—on the trail. As soon as Torrent touched my hand, my vision shifted again, and the Inter Realm came blazing to life around me. The world seemed to come into too-sharp focus; that kind of hard edge that you get when you overly enhance an image on a computer. Things were brighter too, but again; it was in that almost unreal way. A picture of life, not the actual living, breathing world. Adding to the alien atmosphere were glowing streams of information that crisscrossed the landscape. It wasn't as congested as it would be in a metropolitan area, but there were enough of them for us to use.
“Give me a minute,” Torrent said. “There aren't a lot of Internet veins going into the Aether here.”
Gods had been connecting their territories to the Internet for awhile now; even before Torrent had come around to open veins of Inter Realm for us. Most gods simply formed a bond between two items, stashed one on Earth, and then its counterpart in their territory. This created a small tunnel of Internet that stayed open in the Aether. The Gods could use these to stream in cable, Internet (obviously), and phone calls.
Torrent could use these tunnels to travel slowly through the Aether; allowing us to take a look around and see where a god went after they traced. Torrent could also unmake wards; magic was like binary code for him, and he was fluent. In a pinch, he could even make a new tunnel, but he'd have to connect it to a god territory to stabilize it, and that would take longer than finding one that was already here. So, the first order of business was to find a stream of Internet that went through the Aether.
“Here we go,” Torrent said.
Torrent grabbed a bright green stream of buzzing information, and I was yanked along the line with him. It didn't hurt; it didn't even strain my joints. The Inter Realm was a realm of information where bodies became forms of energy; very similar to the Aether. In the Inter Realm, you could shape your information however you wished, but that's all it was; your information—like a blueprint that floated along until you needed to be remade. I know; it's a little mind-blowing. I try not to think about it too much. But that's why I didn't get
