The Lost Twins chapter 52 - The death of Ao

"You have a first aid kit?" Apollo asked the next moment, while he carefully lowered the ailing Ao to one of the sofas lining the wall in the spacious ground floor foyer. For the first time Apollo noted that Ao's face wasn't all devoid of emotions the way it always had seemed to him earlier. Now he saw agony and even fright in there, and it pained him. This girl had never been lucky in her life, and now she might be passing away. Artemis was shaking her head while plucking away her irregular weapon.

"Ao?" Artemis' eyes then slid over to their injured sister. The white dressed woman looked like a fallen angel where she laid with her arms spread as if in a pleading gesture, and a huge puddle of crimson blood spreading beneath her, staining the light gray leather. Red liquid wings to fly her from this world. It was all very beautiful and all very sad to behold.
"Yes," Apollo exhaled as he began to zip up Ao's quilted jacket, opening up to reach her bullet wound. As he did, he realized that the bullet had passed right through her body, and that it had been of the kind of ammunition which did a lot of damage to the tissue as it went. Almost the complete left upper chest of Ao was impaired, and the harm was frightening close to the heart.

Focusing all he had upon healing, Apollo started to work on the heavily bleeding woman in the sofa, working to knit the tissue together and prevent her from losing even more blood, however he feared that it was too late already. The poor thing's heart might be undamaged, but it was already failing to cope with the too less blood available to pump. Besides, Apollo was worn and far from in his best shape and he found to his dismay that his healing power wasn't working as well as he was used to. The way it worked when he was in more like normal shape. To his dismay did he begin to fear that he was losing this struggle.

Still he refused to give in. Apollo was not a man who gave in if there was even the slightest chance that he might succeed. Instead he pressed his hands across the bullet wound, healing and mending and repairing the deep injury and where he couldn't, he generated new tissue in its place. But this was beyond even him. As never before did he use all his force to desperately try to heal this little sister of his whom he barely knew.

Meanwhile Athena entered the foyer through the large front doors, carrying more than one firearm, she was defending herself against what remained of the guards outside. And she was not alone, a tall and agile brunet man was fighting by her side. A man who Artemis instantly recognized as Giancarlo Serreti, the mafioso she had encountered in Venice. The man she had stunned to sleep in Venice. Why was she suddenly fighting side by side with their older sister? Artemis decided to worry about that later, now they had more urgent things to do. Like staying alive. She reached for the gun she was carrying in her inner pocket, cocking it.

"We're getting company," Athena said before she shifted focus to Apollo, busy doing his best to heal Ao, who was wavering in and out of consciousness. "She's?"
"I hope I can patch her together, but she has lost a lot of blood."
"Artemis, help us!" Athena threw a rifle to her sister and when a trio of guards came crashing through the door, they became greeted with a shower of bullets. Then a few frantic moments followed as Artemis, Athena and Serreti kept the guards at bay and covering Apollo, who kept on working relentlessly on poor Ao. Finally the assault stopped and the three defenders were able to lower their guns. Athena glanced around, noting the dead bodies of Chermount and Giacobi.

"That huge Enforcer fart?" Artemis asked as she followed Athena's glance.
"Dead as well," Serreti answered coolly. "I put some led in him while he was wrestling with Minerva. Can't take another chance with that hulk."

Minerva? Artemis knit her brow before she recalled her sister's under cover name, and she grinned. The world of the spy and the world of the actor was never that far from each other.
"There'll be a long line to the ferryman today then," she figured. "Including Chermount and Giacobi."
"And that Serbian doc?" Athena asked.
"He's still alive, however he'll be under for quite some time more," Artemis replied, glancing at his watch.
"Then I consider that he should have to face justice," Athena said before turning to Apollo. "How's it going?"

"I'm sorry," Apollo was red faced and teary eyed and Ao's breathing was becoming more and more laboured. All too soon there was nothing more even he could do for poor Ao. He lifted his bloodied hands gently and dried them off upon the sofa, feeling depleted. Athena knelt down beside the youngest of her sisters, and in that instance, Ao's lids fluttered open.
"Athena?" she asked.
"You'll be okay, darling," Athena took Ao's hand, finding that it was cold beyond reason, as if the young woman had already partly entered the land of the deads. "Hang on in there, Ao! Apollo is gonna fix you. Then we can all go home."

"I don't... think so," Ao's whisper was barely audible. "I'm sorry I never was a better person. But I was by no means..." she drew another rasping breath. "Athena, know this. You were the only one who cared. When all the others just saw me as a freak and a nuisance, you were the only one who gave me a home. A place to belong. I love you, big sister!" she smiled meekly. Then she struggled to take in one more breath. The next moment her head slumped back and the light went out in her oddly white eyes.

"Oh no! Ao!" Athena pushed her knuckles to her mouth as she felt her eyes turning all wet with tears. "Ao please..."
"She's gone," Artemis was also kneeling now, putting her hand to Athena's shoulder, then embracing her while Athena let the tears flood down her face.
"It became too much," Apollo staggered. "Too much even for me! I wish..." but Artemis turned to face her twin.
"You did your best, Pol. There was nothing more any of us could have done. This girl was a hero!"

"But how did she?" Apollo knit his brows as he stood up. "How did she find us? How did she get here?"
"I encountered her outside," Artemis said. "And I asked her the same thing. She wouldn't tell though, but she said she had a plan. She was going to let them take her, believing it was me. And the rest you know."
"She must have followed us without us knowing it," Athena said between her sobs.
"Yes, that's all very sad," Serreti said as he glanced down at the prone form in the sofa. "But I have to get to my guys, we need to find what Chermount took from us."
"I highly doubt you'd find anything in this place," Athena responded drily. "We passed by the convoy on our way here. Or what was left of it. Chermount did your people in, and what had been in those trucks was gone."
 
"So why don't we ask him?" Serreti asked.
"Too late for that now," Apollo shook his head.
"What was your part in this relly anyway?" the mafioso wanted to know.
"My employer told me that Chermount had to be stopped, or countless of people would have died, that's all you need to know," Apollo said.
"And just what are you implying by that?"
"What you don't know can't hurt you," Apollo answered. "Just rest assure, if we hadn't stopped Chermount he'd done worse to you and your employers' business than set you up in a cocaine deal."

"And why should I believe you?" the Italian insisted.
"I'm convinced you've heard the abbreviation SIS earlier," the son of Leto went on, watching Serreti frown as he ransacked his memory. "Well, SIS is us. We've left you people mostly alone and you've left us alone. Let's not change that now. Forget what Chermount took from you."
"And if you want some return on your investment," Athena added. "There's a whole laboratory down on the lower levels, with equipment worth millions. Help yourself to what you can carry and then hurry up and get out of here. Consider it a consolidation price. Because we need to get the Italian authorities here before someone else does."

Giancarlo Serreti seemed to think this over while regarding the dead Ao and Giacobi and several other bodies littering the floor, blood spilled all over the place. These people standing in front of him were nobody you played around with, so much was clear. Besides he did know the SIS, or at least knew of them. They were also people whose paths were no good idea to cross. Finally he nodded his head.
"Deal," he said and held out his hand and shook with each of the Olympians. "And I'm sorry about your friend," he glanced over at what had once been Ao Pallas.

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Two hours later the Unicorn base was like an ant hill. To Athena it felt like half the Italian police force had relocated to this place. They were now swarming the area, taking absolutely everything apart. In a way she was glad Serreti and his accomplishes had made it off, because mafiosi or not, she found that she respected the man. He had a codex of honour which wasn't common these days, even among those men and women who were supposed to be honest. As the dawn began to break she, Artemis and Apollo had to answer so many questions and repeat them so many times that their poor heads were spinning.

The pitiable Ao had been put in a black body bag and flown off together with the dead bad guys, and Athena had to tell several times that Ao had been a Greek citizen and that she should not be lumped together with Crooks International but threatened with a bit more respect. She had also informed the policeman in charge of Ao's identity of what to do with the body and that she herself would take care of the calls to Ao's family. Which in this case was in fact just their father Zeus.

"I'm so sorry," Athena whispered as they were watching the helicopter with the dead taking off in a sky awash with colours, the sun would soon break over the mountain ridge. "Ao appreciated me. She loved me actually. And all I could manage in return was being annoyed by her and her antics. At her sullen behavior and her mood swings. But she had her own qualities, which I failed to see. She followed us here and put her head in the snare, when she didn't really have to do so. She took the risk, risked her very life, put it at stake and lost it. She was a true heroine, and too late did I realize that."

"Athena," Artemis put a hand on her sister's arm, tried to sooth her. "Loss is an ordeal. A physical encounter to be lived through, relished and explored crack by smack by whap. Our losses and pains exist so that we may demonstrate to usselves our constant and gentle readers out there, that we are inexorably - alive."
"Fancy words," Apollo murmured.
"Not mine," Artemis replied. "Giovanni Romerio, early twentieth century play writer."

"Too late did I appreciate her for what she was," Athena shook her head. "She was a great person in her own peculiar way. And she was my – our sister."
"There was very little you could do," Artemis said. "Besides, I'm certain she knew the risk."
"But that was just one bullet," Apollo furrowed his brow. "It wouldn't have killed any of us others, no matter that it nearly severed her aorta. Girls, all the time I more or less regarded Ao as the most powerful of all of us. I would never have guessed  that it should take so little to do her in. She was as vulnerable as a regular in this case.
Upon first seeing her wound, I thought it would be hard but far from impossible to patch her together again. But then I found that she had no healing powers herself to speak of. Unlike any of us. That's something I don't understand."

"There is so little we really knew of Ao," Athena said. "Like where she was hiding all of those years between running away from the Olympians in Greece and then turning up at my place in the Azores. Things I've been wanting to ask her, things I've been dying to find out. But now I guess we'll never know."
"Can't we hire a private investigator or someone like that, to find out?" Artemis suggested.

"I'm not sure," Athena shook her head. "In a way that doesn't feel like the right thing to do. It feels like snooping around among things we perhaps should not know. Besides it can never become the same thing as if she had gotten the chance to tell the story herself. So the way I feel now, I'm going to let the matter rest."
"You're right, I guess," Apollo said solemnly.

Then Athena had taken up her phone and given Zeus the somewhat overdue phone call. She ended up spending quite some time on the phone updating her father about what had happened in Italy. Including the loss of Ao. And it had been hard to gauge her father's reaction when she came to Ao's death. He had sounded grave and concentrated however not overly distressed.
"Her body will be shipped to Athens," Athena finally said. "You will receive a call from the authorities either in Italy or in Greece with more details, I assume. So that you can take care of the poor girl properly."

"And what will you do, Athena?" her father asked her.
"I think it has become time for me and the twins to come home. As in coming to Athens," she replied.
"I've forgotten to ask this before, but how much have you told them?"
"Everything. Everything I know, that is." Athena took a breath and let her glance shift to the twins before continuing. "Still, they are eager to know all the details you can give them. Suffice to say, for them to meet a father they have never seen earlier in real life, will be quite the experience. Be prepared for that."

"I am," Zeus replied. "Now, how soon can I expect you to arrive in Greece?"
"As soon as we're done here, I'll arrange the travelling details. Then I'll let you know."

After that they had exchanged their usual endearments before Athena hung up and turned to the twins. But Artemis had beaten her to the words.
"So, we're going to Greece?" she asked.
"Yes," Athena smiled. "We're going to Greece."

Some fifteen minutes later the sun peeked up behind a snow-capped mountain crest and the shaded place suddenly turned all sparkling white as the rays hit the snow and lit it up. And with squeezed eyes the trio were watching as the handcuffed professor Jerzy Deivoron was escorted away together with the few other survivors, mostly workers in the plant. Deivoron had turned to stare at them, dark eyes burning with malice, and Athena couldn't help but smirking spitefully at him. He had lost this round and there wouldn't be another one.

Then finally they had been dismissed by the policeman leading the investigation, but having to confirm that they would remain in touch. Athena crossed her fingers when she had made that promise, she had already told the police all they were supposed to know, and she was not interesting in doing the bureaucratic dubstep.
"So how do we get off this place?" Artemis asked. "Hope we're not climbing again."
"No, I've fixed a bit better transportation," Apollo grinned. "Come with me, sisters!"

Five minutes later a crimson coloured Ferrari left the garage and thundered down towards the gates of the compound. Two surprised policemen could do nothing but opening the doors and let the vehicle, with Apollo behind the wheel out.