Part Five: Rewind - b

“I’m pretty sure it’s how she found me and knew my past. Also how she found the girl. Conor’s daughter. They’re these threads and each thread represents a human life. It shows when threads interact with other threads. She can know about this whole thing right now if she chooses to look.” There was a touch of fear in Drake’s eyes.

Kendra looked at her mother.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” she asked.

Helen shook her head.

“Not a clue.”

“Threads huh?” Kendra looked thoughtful and for the first time since coming to this place, she didn’t look angry. “What you’re describing reminds me of the Fates from Greek mythology. Clothos, Lachesis, and Atropos. They were tasked with assigning mortals their destinies, usually by spinning the threads of human destiny. He could be talking about a literal version of that.”

“It looked more like a vast web-like thing. There were times when threads mingled together and times where threads were alone. Each thread represented the life of a single person. She showed it to me.” He shuddered at the memory of that place. Of how incredibly vast it was and how inconsequential it made him feel. “She pulled on the girl’s thread and showed it to me. Then she told me to kill her.”

“And you couldn’t?” Kendra asked.

“Wouldn’t,” he returned. “She didn’t do anything to me. And she’s just a kid.”

Kendra didn’t say anything for a long time. There was nothing she could say. The facts were staring her in the face and no matter how much she wanted to ignore them, she couldn’t. She absolutely hated Drake for what he did to Conor. She hated him with every fiber of her being. But she had seen inside his head to the person he was deep down. She knew him, maybe better than he knew himself.

He was, at his core, a good man. A noble man.

But he was still a monster.

“I hate you,” Kendra told him. “You know that.”

“I hate you and your kind,” Drake replied. “Conor killed my wife and you took him back in. Harbored him.”

“That’s enough,” Helen interrupted. “We all know the past and we know its pain. We have to move past that now because…”

She paused until they both met her gaze.

“The real monster here is Bendis.”

“Say we do agree to this insane idea of working together, how does that help us?” Drake asked. As crazy as it sounded, he actually seemed to be warming up to the idea.

“Excellent question,” Helen answered. “I have a theory about that.”

She went on to go over her idea in full, outlining every detail. She talked for a long time but in that place it didn’t feel like any time had passed at all. When they were done, Helen had accomplished her mission.

Both Kendra and Drake agreed to work together.

The door to the diner suddenly opened and then closed. As soon as it did, everyone in the diner blinked and slowly started to “wake up” as if they were coming out of a dream. Kendra was disoriented at first. The switch from that white void back to the real one had been so abrupt that it took her a second or two to get a grip on where she was and what she was doing. Next to her, Casey stirred. Her eyes widened and she started panicking. Her hands clenched at the table.

“Where am I?” Casey asked, hysterical. “How…”

Kendra put her arms on her shoulder. She turned her so that they were eye to eye.

“Sleep,” she said and Casey’s head dropped. She picked the girl up effortlessly into her arms, all the while thinking about the meeting her mother just forced on her.

And the disquietingly tenuous alliance she just made with Drake Harper.

||| ||| ||| ||| |||

It took Helen Henner an immense amount of effort to bring Kendra and Drake to the World Between Worlds so that they could all talk but it had to be done. Things progressed there almost exactly as she thought they would. The fight was a bit more brutal than she was expecting but not too bad that she thought they would actually kill each other. Even the discussion they all had went down the roads she expected. She knew it would be difficult for them to set aside their issues but she was happy when, after much deliberation, they were able to put their hatred aside and actually work together.

That was key.

Bendis thought she knew humans. She thought she knew their own selfishness and pride would keep them rooted to their various causes to where they wouldn’t stray from their paths. But the truth was, humanity was vastly more complex than the goddess was willing to admit. Morals and personality played more into a person’s motivations than she could ever know. Kendra and Drake, at their core, were good people that were motivated by their desire to help others. All Bendis saw was Drake’s desire for revenge and Kendra’s single minded desire for the same. She would never, ever think that either one could put those hatreds aside and actually come together against a common enemy.

But Helen had.

At the end of the day, Bendis had no clue what it meant to be human. It was her biggest weakness and Helen was going to make sure it would be her downfall.

||| ||| ||| ||| |||

“No!” Jenna yelled. “Scratch that. Fuck no.”

“For the record, I agree with Jenna,” Conor muttered. “For once.”

Jenna, of course, couldn’t see him so went on talking over him. It was hard for Kendra to concentrate on what she was saying when the both of them talked at the same time but she was able to put it together.

“You know what he is. He’s a fucking monster. A killer. And you know what he did to me. We can’t trust him.”

“She makes a lot of sense,” Conor went on, waiting for her to finish talking this time.

“You have to trust me,” Kendra said, ignoring Conor. “This is the only way. You think I want to work with him? You think I want to put my faith in a killer? I don’t.”

“Then why?” Elijah said. Her uncle was leaning against a wall. He hadn’t said anything the whole time Kendra explained to them her crazy idea. He had let her speak her mind without interrupting.

“Because it’s the last thing Bendis would ever expect. She thinks because Conor killed Drake’s wife and Drake killed Conor that we will never be able to stop until one race completely wipes out the other. But if we can set all that aside and turn on her, we can take her by surprise,” Kendra explained, looking at everyone present. Jenna. Elijah. Abraham. Felix. Merrick. Alrich. And Merlin, who seemed to be back to his normal self. She made sure not to address Conor directly but gave him a very subtle nod to acknowledge him anyway.

To make sure Bendis remained unaware of their plan, she had to keep those who knew about it to the barest minimum and once the first meeting was over, she would only reach out to the core group through her telepathic powers. Helen thought their power was a blind spot for the goddess and Kendra had to agree. When she first accessed her own abilities during the Bishop Media attack, she had seen confusion on the goddess’ face.

“But she’s a goddess!” Felix exclaimed. “A freaking goddess. We are not on her level.”

“That may be true but she does have a vulnerability,” Alrich chimed in and Kendra actually smiled approvingly.

“Well don’t just stand there all smug, what the hell is it?” Jenna asked. She hated not knowing something that was obvious to others.

“Herself,” Merlin chimed in, looking at Kendra with a grin.

“Exactly,” Kendra said. “We know she can’t attack me directly because her power will bounce back on her so that means her own power can hurt her.”

“Yeah but I still don’t understand how that will help us,” Elijah said. Then realization dawned in his eyes. “Ah. I see.”

Jenna looked at everyone, clearly frustrated. Felix, however, just looked lost.

“You are way too smug about this,” Conor said with a chuckle. “I just hope you’re right.”

[I am. I know I am.] Kendra replied. To the others, she explained her case.

“Merlin explained that there is a tether of sorts that goes from any blood-born Bane to Bendis. This tether causes a rebound effect when she uses her power on me. It’s why she attacks all the Banes indirectly. If she did so directly, her own power reflects back on her and hurts her. I tipped to this at the Bishop Media attack. Merlin just confirmed my suspicions.” She made sure everyone was paying attention and then continued. “So the only thing that can hurt a god or goddess is god power.”

“I hate to break it to you but no one on our side has god power,” Merrick said.

“But that’s not quite true,” Kendra replied. “Bendis used her own power to change Alrich into a werewolf. She used her power again to change Drake into a vampire. This means that both of them are undiluted sources of her power. They can hurt her. Theoretically, so can any werewolf or vampire but she has to be caught off guard first. If she sees the attack coming, it won’t have any effect like when I’ve tried to attack her before.”

“What happens after that?” Merrick asked. There was a healthy dose of skepticism in his tone. “With all your talk and plans, the only word I’ve heard you use is hurt. Not kill. If we just hurt her, eventually she’ll recover and there is nothing in the world that will save us from her wrath. She went berserk and turned our grandfather into a monster just because he wouldn’t be her boy toy anymore. What do you think she’ll do to everyone after we actually hurt her?”

That’s where Kendra stopped talking.

“Ain’t got a clue on that one, do ya?” Merlin asked.

Kendra wanted to give them all a different answer but she was stumped on that part.

“I might be able to help with that. I’ll need to save all of my strength though so I won’t be of much help during any main fight. She’s strong as hell and even weakened, she’ll be a handful,” Merlin explained. “I can imprison her.”

He paused.

“Theoretically speaking.”

||| ||| ||| ||| |||

It took several months for the plan’s details to be finalized. There were a lot of trust issues when it came to Drake. Nobody wanted to trust him, especially Jenna. She was the one having the hardest time coming to terms working with the vampire king. In the end, the only thing that seemed to convince her was the fact that he was planning to kill all the vampires himself anyway. Once Kendra was able to tell her it really was the truth, Jenna started becoming more malleable to the idea of working with him.

In the end, she, along with everyone else, just wanted the war to end. Working together with Drake actually had a chance of success. It was a slim, paper-thin chance but it was something to hold on to.

In the end, their plan worked.

Sort of.

Truth be told, it was never really their plan that worked. The real plan that worked was Helen’s. You see, it was her idea to make the others weaken Bendis. It was her idea to team up with Drake. It was even her idea for Kendra to block the goddess from her powers. She knew her daughter, as strong as she was, wouldn’t be able to stop the goddess from using her power for long but that was okay. She wouldn’t need long.

All she needed was for Bendis to be weakened, physically and mentally. Once that happened, Helen was able to fully enter her mind and lock her there.

And since the mindscape is Helen’s domain, there was no escape.

Ever.

And rest assured, this is not one of those times where the villain of the story comes back. Bendis will be locked in her hellish prison for the rest of eternity. The only company she will have is Helen, always there to make sure the petulant goddess will never find her way out.

Bendis really is gone.

The End.