Gods of War (War of the Gods Series) (18 page)

“Where are we?” Nicolai asked as he absorbed the city’s beauty.

“Welcome to Atlantis, the center of Poseidon’s lair,” Hermes announced. “There’s one thing I need to mention before we head in. Do not talk about Triton or Atlantis at all. They are sensitive subjects to him. If we upset him he may not help us and we need his help to get into the underworld
without
alerting Thantos or your father. Come, let’s meet your uncle.”

A look of disgust formed on Terry’s face when he learned where he was going.
God, I thought I was done with that hell hole.
For the past twelve hours Terry was mounted on the gryphon taking him back to Afghanistan. As he looked to his left he saw Aphrodite lounging on the Gryphon, looking sultry as usual. She sat in a flimsy dress, having no problems while Terry felt like he was freezing his butt off.
Wish they would have taught us how to ignore the weather like they seem to do,
Terry thought as he grasped the bird.

Aphrodite must have felt his eyes on her because she turned her head to him and gave him that sexy, but cold smile of hers. “Want to take a detour, Hun?”

“No, just wondering how long we have till we reach the entrance.”

She smiled to his response. “We are almost there, not too far ahead.”

Acknowledging her response, Terry went back to admiring the scenery. Even freezing he enjoyed flying this way rather than being packed in the back of a C130 like sardines with all the other idiots wondering why they signed the contract.

Looking to his right, Terry saw a firefight off in the distance. Something didn’t seem right to him. Only one side was firing—the other side wasn’t shooting back. When they got closer, he noticed the side not firing was Minotaurs. Then he recognized the tactics the men were using; they were Americans.

He turned to Aphrodite and yelled, “We have to save them. They are human.”

Shaking her head no she responded. “We don’t have time.”

“I’ll make time,” Terry yelled back, steering his gryphon as it dove down towards the battle.

As he got closer, he saw the Minotaurs were herding the humans into another group that waited in ambush. He flew towards the second group and opened fire from above. When the group was destroyed he went to find his own ambush site.

After finding the perfect spot, Terry landed his gryphon in a safe position and ran to the ambush site. As he waited for the Minotaurs to walk into his kill zone someone came up from behind his position. When he turned around, he saw it was Aphrodite with a pissed off look on her face.

“You will not do that ever again,” Aphrodite said right before she slapped him. “We are supposed to be traveling to Ares’ domain, not saving your precious humans.”

“We will save these humans because that is exactly what we are supposed to be doing,” Terry fought back. “If you slap me again, I will beat you so hard, not even your mother will recognize you.”

Without notice, Aphrodite went from cold-hearted goddess to the goddess of love. “Well, well, well. I didn’t know you liked it rough. If that was all it took to get you into bed; I would have done that first.” She giggled and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “I take it you are going to ambush the Minotaurs when they come. Good plan. But you are forgetting one important question. Who is leading this pack?”

Her lips were nice and soft, even better than Jessica’s. “What do you mean ‘who is leading this pack’?”

“Minotaurs is not the smartest monsters in the world. Strong but not smart. They are really lazy and wouldn’t have pursued these men for so long if they weren’t being pushed. They would have gone after easier pray. The only one who would revel in this sport would be Apollo,” Aphrodite said. “He is the only one that loves to give hope to his prey before killing them. Ares would not have wanted the battle to go on for this long and Thantos would have wanted to kill them himself. I can’t help you or I will give away our position. But when you do save them, just know that they will have to come with us.”

“Sounds good to me,” Terry said.

He quickly turned back to the field. He saw the humans run across and knew it was time to deal with the Minotaur pack.

“For being the goddess of love, you sure know your military strategy pretty well,” Terry said as he pulled up his assault rifle.

“That’s what happens when you get bored. You pick up new skills,” Aphrodite replied.

“Who would have thought you would have picked up those skills. I figured you would prefer working on perfecting the skills you were already great at,” Terry said trying to make small talk.

“You can’t get better than me,” Aphrodite said, flirting. “You are more than welcome to test them anytime.” Terry felt a pinch on his bottom.

He was about to say something, but the Minotaurs had reached the killing zone. He took his assault rifle and fired into the monsters. The whole pack fell down as they were getting torn apart by his bullets. Terry stopped firing when the last beast fell down trying to place its guts back in its stomach. Some of them were still alive, but too wounded to move. The humans that were being chased left their cover and finished the beasts off.

Terry stayed in hiding studying one man in particular and then smiled.
No way, what are the odds that it is him?
Terry thought.
There is only one way to find out
, Terry yelled toward the figure.

“Typical. You stand there, get all of the credit while I do all of the work. Some things never change.”

With a confused look on the man’s face, Terry heard the guy mutter
who the
hell while running his fingers through his mustache with his right eyebrow raised.

It is him. Only Jake would have that stupid look.

The men, who were with him, lifted their rifles and pointed it in Terry’s direction, finally the guy spoke, “Tell us who you are.”

Terry grinned even more. Revealing his position Terry yelled, “I am the guy your wife dreams about every night.” That really surprised the guy for he dropped his weapon.

The man started walking towards Terry and hugged him.

“Terry it is you. You crazy S.O.B what the hell are you doing out here. I knew that was your voice, but I didn’t believe it.”

“I would ask you the same Jake. I thought you would be dead by now.”

“Yeah so did I, but this pretty boy has been keeping us locked up. Every once in a while he would equip some of us, let them run off, and then the bastard would hunt them down with those beasts. We were the last ones.” Jake had the look of a man that had been through hell on his face. “Do you know what is going on?”

“That is a long story. Right now, we probably should get out of here or your new friend will probably find us. He may start wondering where his pets are. But real quick, let me introduce you to one of my friends.”

Terry and the rest of the humans walked over to where Terry took cover.

When they made their way over, they saw the most beautiful woman they had ever seen.

“Jake, this is Aphrodite. Aphrodite, this is my best friend Jake. The others I don’t know. Care to introduce yourselves?”

One by one they introduced themselves. When they stopped Jake finally spoke up.

“So you really do know what is going on. Do you care to explain? “

“Don’t worry, I will. Like I said, we need to get out of here before your new friend comes and finds us.” Terry then turned to Aphrodite. “How far do we have to go before we reach the entrance?”

“With them, it will take us the rest of the day. I assume that they are hungry.” They nodded in agreement. “I sent the gryphons to go and hunt us something to eat. They will meet us at the entrance with the food. Until then, you guys can snack on this.” She pulled out some bread from a satchel that rested against her hip.

When the men started eating the bread Terry watched as the exhaustion left their bodies. One of them asked, “This is good stuff. What did you give us?”

“It is mana,” Aphrodite explained. “It will give you the energy you need. But when it wears off, you will be even more tired. Let’s get going. Apollo is on his way here.”

With Jake and his team’s new found strength, Terry continued his journey to prevent the vision that started him on this quest.

Amadi entered Jessica’s cabin and saw Jessica leaning in her chair fingering her locket. Before entering, he thought he heard another voice talking with her. When he entered, only she was there. She was wearing the camouflage he gave her earlier in the day. With her hair done in a ponytail and a pistol holster on each of her legs, Jessica reminded him of someone.

“Nicolai and Terry have almost reached their respective entrances. It seems like both of them had gotten into a little scuffle,” Amadi said. He then quickly added, “None of them are hurt. Terry seems to have found us more fighters. Even though it is only five, they are Special Forces.”

“Did he say who they were?” Jessica asked sitting forward.

“He did not. He hasn’t even told Aphrodite that he going to send them here. I think he is trying to test her. I guess if they don’t show up, she has something planned on her own.”

“What, do you not trust her?”

“I don’t trust any of them.”

“That is a fast change,” Jessica acquired. Still not trusting him from her discussions with Terry she further prodded. “You and Athena seem to be getting along.”

Sitting next to her he started playing with his hat. Trying to find what to say, he finally spoke up. “Recently Athena has offered me an alliance. Her father is not even dead and she is already planning a power grab. Adding to the fact how they almost got us killed in the compound, I don’t trust them at all. We are just pawns on a chessboard to them. Do you know who the first ones to go in chess are?”

“It is the pawns,” Jessica answered. “What are we supposed to do then?”

“In chess, the pawns can turn into queens. That is exactly what we are going to do. We just have to act like we are moving in Zeus’ direction or he will use us as the sacrificial pawn.” Amadi got up and started heading out of the cabin. “If I were you, I would find out how you can stop being Zeus’ pawn.”

“I guess you’re taking Athena’s offer then?” Jessica said staring him down.

“I am, and I am sure Nicolai has his as well. Come one, let’s start this war.”

Jessica stood up and followed Amadi out of the door. They were in the valley that held Amadi’s men. His men had been resting and training for the war that was coming their way. With them were the women they had brought along. All of them were pregnant and already halfway through their pregnancy.

Amadi asked Athena how that was possible, since they have only been there for about two months. She explained to him that it was the power in the valley, Artemis’ valley. Seeing how she was the goddess of childbirth, every woman here was exceedingly fertile. Even the men were more fertile. They happened more frequently and in a shorter amount of time. Instead of single babies, the women would have twins and even triplets in some cases. The children would be powerful as well. Having partial super strength and speed, they would almost be as powerful as a demi-god. After hearing this, Amadi was pleased.
We will be able to raise an army in time.

Amadi and Jessica reached a table with a group already congregated around it. Athena, Amadi’s Sgt. Major, and his other officers were discussing different tactics and didn’t notice when Amadi approach them. The table held a sand map of where they were going to set up their headquarters at. Unlike other sand tables that Amadi hated, he loved this one. It didn’t take forever to set up and it was easy to change the sand table to whatever he wanted. All he had to do was picture an image and the sand took its form.

“This is what we control.” Amadi pointed to the map of Florida and the neighboring islands. “As you can see, we don’t have much. We have a couple of islands and what used to be the state of Florida. Seeing how Ares disconnected it from the main-land, we seem to have no staging point to the rest of the Americans.”

“Well sir, why can’t we just use one of those boats that brought us here?” one of the officers asked.

“That is a good question captain. Athena, would you be kind enough to answer him?”

“The reason we can’t use the boats is because of this creature,” she said as the sand took on the form of the Kraken. “This is Kraken. It is an ancient creature nearly impossible to kill. And as you can see, this thing will destroy any ship that will carry our troops. It also has standing orders from Ares to destroy any island that we land on. It was dead, but we have Hades to thank for bringing it back.”

The group was silent for a few seconds when Jessica spoke up. “How did it die the last time?”

“Just like the stories say,” Athena answered. “Perseus used Medusa’s head to turn it into stone.”

“Why can’t we do that this time?” Amadi asked.

“Well, for one, she is dead and her head has rotted away,” Athena said. “Any more stupid questions?”

“Athena, these are not stupid questions,” Amadi said. “We have not grown up knowing any of these monsters. Your knowledge can help us and we will appreciate it if you share.”

Getting flustered, Athena continued with her briefing. “There are two monsters that commenced the creation of all legendary monsters. The first one was Echidna, who is the mother of all monsters. The next one is Typhon, Echidna’s mate. Together they birthed many monsters. Like all gods they cannot be killed. They can be temporarily decommissioned, but they can’t be killed. The Kraken is somewhat similar to these monsters. He has all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses. The only difference between the Kraken and the monsters is that the Kraken
can
be killed, if you can figure out how to kill it.”

Athena zoomed in closer to show the jaws of the monster. “As you can see, it has thousands of razor-sharp teeth. Each tooth is about twenty feet long and can chew through anything. Its skin is the toughest known matter in the world. Not even Echidna can bite through it.”

She zoomed out to show the whole monster again. “It has four arms and four legs. It also has a hundred tentacles that aids in its movement. It has four more tentacles on its back that are used as weapons. The tentacles have razor-sharp claws that can pierce anything you have on earth. There is no weakness. It was made to kill Echidna and Typhon, if Typhon ever escaped his prison.”