Gods of War (War of the Gods Series) (7 page)

Nicolai turned his attention towards the judge. It was a mad scramble of people trying to get away in the viewing room. Nicolai walked towards the room, put his hands on the glass, and watched it melt away. Two of the judge’s bodyguards stepped in front of her, trying to protect her.

“You have two choices,” Nicolai said. “Either you leave the judge now and live, or stay and die with her. It is up to you.”

The bodyguards looked at each other, and one of them grabbed the judge and pushed her towards Nicolai. He grabbed her, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered in her ear. “You should have never signed the warrant.”

After dropping her body to the ground, Nicolai walked out of the room searching for Celeste’s father as the judge withered on the floor, dying.

With the prison on lockdown, it was a total mad house. Nicolai walked past the people still in the room, getting the attention of one.

“You,” Nicolai said pointing to one of the woman hiding behind a chair. “There was a business man here. Where did he go?”

The woman started stuttering, telling him that she didn’t know where he went. Nicolai cursed but kept on walking. When walking into the hall he began to smell a sweet perfume coming from the end of the hall. As he followed the scent, he found where it was coming from, Aphrodite.

“Nice little gift you have there, Nicholaus. If I were you, I would hold back on using your powers. We are trying to utilize you guys as a secret weapon. If you keep using your powers, Ares and Hades will be able to track you down.”

She started to slowly walk towards Nicolai. “Anyways, we need to go.” She ran her hand across his shoulder to the other side and grabbed his hand. “So if you can just follow me, we can get you out of here.”

“No,” Nicolai said pulling his hand back. “I need to find a man I was searching for. There is a long debt that has been overdue.”

She looked at him for a minute. “Come, I will take you to him.”

Aphrodite took Nicolai’s hand again and started walking down the hall. Nicolai noted that they were not being noticed by any of the people around.

“Why are we not drawing any of their attention? Are you doing something?”

“Yes and no. I don’t have that gift. But you do. The only thing I am doing is controlling it, since you don’t know how to yet. Here we are. Here is the person you are looking for.”

Celeste’s father was frantically trying to open up a door that was chained shut.

“Hello Joseph, it has been a long time.”

“Nicolai.” The man stopped what he was doing and turned around to face Nicolai. Eyeing him up and down, he continued. “Yes it has. I see you have not changed at all, killing innocent people with no cause for concern. What are you going to do? Kill me now? Just like you killed all of those people? Just like you killed my daughter?”

The anger inside Nicolai started to build up again. “I did not kill Celeste. The hit men were after you. You and your noble goals to stop the corruption in Russia that is what killed Celeste. You would not take the bribes. When I heard the hit men were after you I went to stop them. You were the one who put your daughter in that position. I loved her. I would have never put her in harm’s way. But you had to keep pushing their buttons. You had to keep mocking them on TV. Finally it got to a point where not even I could hold off the hit men.”

As Nicolai got closer to him, he put a finger on the man’s chest. “Now, you will die.”

Nicolai walked back towards Aphrodite as the man’s body fell lifeless to the ground.

“Now I am ready to leave.”

Terry was seated at the diner waiting for Jessica to come. After much pleading Terry finally got Jessica to agree to meet for lunch. He was seated at one of the outside tables, enjoying the nice summer weather. It was a nice diner with TV’s outside playing the local news, sports, and even the financials.

They were supposed to meet up at 1:30 and it was already 1:45. Terry reached for his cell phone to give her a call. Just as he was about to dial her number, she walked around the corner
.

She we looking as beautiful as she always did. This time she seemed really mad. Terry must have got her at a bad time.
This isn’t going to be pretty
he thought to himself.

Jessica approached the table, and as she sat down she spoke. “What was so important that we had to meet right now? This is why we had to split. Everything has to be done on your time. So let’s hear it. What is it this time?”

Terry looked down and took a deep breath. Then he started to tell her everything that happened from the day she left, what he did all day to that night he came home and found her note. He told her about the animal shelter he wanted to open up. Most importantly, he told her what happened afterwards, about the appearance of the old man who turned out to be Zeus.

He continued to tell her about going to the library and trying to find any information he could about the Greek gods. Terry said he would like for her to come with him when he is taken back to Zeus’ domain. At first he thought it was going better than he planned since she just sat there. That all changed when she started to laugh.

“Terry, you are nuts. That has to be the biggest lie any guy has ever said to get in my pants. I’ll be honest, I was starting to miss you, but after this, I know you will never change. I never want to see you ever again.”

She stood up, grabbed her purse and started to walk away.

Terry got up and grabbed her arm. She turned around, and was about to smack him.

“Let go of me or…”

Her eyes were wide opened and they were fixed on one of the TVs. Terry looked at the direction she was staring at and even he couldn’t believe what he saw. On the TV was Pearl Harbor and attacking Pearl Harbor was this gigantic monster with tentacles coming out of its body. It was toppling destroyers and even split a carrier in half. It was slowly advancing towards the main base.

Terry felt this sense of danger coming towards his direction.

He grabbed Jessica and jumped out of the way. To his amazement, he jumped farther than he would have thought possible. He looked to where he was standing and saw a car engulfed in flames smashing into the diner and its occupants. A loud explosion took place and the cries of the dying patrons pierced his hearing. Terry looked to see where it had all come from, and saw the librarian from the library.

“Die, son of Zeus,” the librarian screamed hurling another fireball towards him and Jessica.

Terry grabbed Jessica and moved out of the way just in the nick of time. He ran from the librarian trying to find a safe spot where he could get Jessica out of harm’s way. As soon as he had Jessica safe, he came out of hiding and looked for the librarian. She was not that hard to find. All Terry had to do was look around and follow the buildings that were on fire.

Terry finally snuck up on the librarian. What she was doing horrified him. She was yelling out his name and setting every human that crossed her path on fire. It didn’t matter if they were trying to attack her or running away. The smell of burnt flesh reached Terry’s nose causing him to vomit.

The librarian looked up and saw a school full of children. Terry recovered and ran towards the librarian, picking up speed. He couldn’t allow her to kill those children. As he was about to tackle her, she turned around and simply sidestepped his tackle; tripping him in the process.

Terry went tumbling and was about to fall into a building that was engulfed in flames when something stopped him. He looked around and saw that the librarian was confused as he was. Looking past her, he saw Jessica had followed him and she was holding out her arms. As soon as she dropped her arms, he fell hard to the ground.

The librarian turned her attention towards Jessica to toss a fireball at her, but this time Terry had the advantage. He ran towards her as fast as he can and speared her right in the back. He then picked her up from the ground and tossed her as far as he could. She landed into a wall and the building toppled on top of her.

Terry ran to Jessica to see if she was alright. When he got to her, he noticed that she was in shock. She couldn’t talk, but just kept looking straight ahead. He picked her up and looked for a direction to flee. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the librarian break free of the rubble and headed towards his way. In each of her hand was a fireball, ready to be thrown.

“I am going to make Zeus feel the pain that I feel,” she screamed. “I don’t know why, but he has shown an interest in you that he hasn’t shown in ages,”

Just as Demeter was about to throw both fireballs; a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, knocking her to the ground. They were followed by multiple bolts pinning her to the ground.

A figure began descending from the sky. As it got closer, the figure grew bigger and bigger until it suddenly crashed down into the street, causing an impact into the ground the size of a car. In the center stood Zeus; he looked the same he had before, but he was about eleven feet taller than the last time Terry saw him. He looked over to where Terry stood with Jessica still in his arms.

“So this is who you want to save?” Zeus asked, staring down at Jessica. When Terry responded with a yes, Zeus replied, “Who would have thought, the son of Zeus falling in love with a daughter of Metis?”

Zeus took Jessica up from Terry’s arms, grabbed Terry by the shoulder, and then jumped back up into the sky. As they traveled upwards Terry spoke up.

“Who the hell was that?” he screamed. “I thought the gods weren’t allowed to be on earth yet?”

“The Change has happened. The laws governing us have been purged. Besides, she was already on earth. I exiled her long ago.”

“Who is she?” Terry said trying to hold on to Zeus as they sped through the sky.

“That was Demeter, mother of Persephone. When Persephone died, Demeter tried to kill me. Instead of killing her, I just exiled her to earth, never to die, but to live as a mortal. Since the Change, she probably allied herself with Ares so that she can kill me.”

“I am guessing we are going to run into a lot of gods that want you dead.”

“When you get to the top, you never run out of enemies, especially gods. We are not the most humble creatures, if you have not noticed,” Zeus replied.

Ares convened his council after the troubling news he just received. His council arrived just in time to watch the servants drag the messenger’s lifeless body away. He led his council into his war room that contained a map of earth on the floor. On that map held many figurines. The figurines varied in shape and sizes, representing both his forces and his enemies.

Ares’ eyes concentrated on three red ones. They represented the three demi-gods that were taken. How could Zeus pull off that extraction without my knowledge? Three demi-gods pulled from earth at the precise second the Change occurred. That was no coincidence.

“How did we miss this?” Ares shouted to his council.

His council took to their seats that formed a semi-circle in front of his chair. Ares sat down in his chair and asked them again. “Well, I am waiting for an answer.”

From left to right sat Apollo, Artemis, Atlanta, Dionysus, Helios, and Thantos. Looking at each other none dared to speak.

“If you five want me to succeed, you will find out what Zeus is up to.” Ares said breaking the silence.

“Well, you could just summon Demeter and ask her,” Thantos said. “Apparently she and Zeus battled a bit after she attacked one of the demi-gods. Zeus even picked that one up in person.”

“How do you know this Thantos? As I recall you were preoccupied slaughtering humans when the Change happened,” Ares responded coldly.

“I am Death. I am wherever death is. There was a lot of death that day, especially from Demeter. Zeus must have really pissed her off,” Thantos said chuckling.

“Apollo and Dionysus, you will go down and bring her to me. Thantos, you will go and tell your father that I want to talk with him. I want a status update on the project he is working on. Tell him that I love how he brought the Kraken back, I hope he has more tricks like that up his sleeve.” Ares stared down the remaining council members. “Now the rest of you, let’s talk strategy.”

Moving back to the map he motioned them to follow. Pointing at his forces position on the map he continued. “We are moving slower with my conquest than I want. Tell me why Atlanta is the only one on the correct side of the line. I want the land mass the humans call Africa under my full control.”

After collecting the demi-gods and seeing them settled Zeus convened a meeting of his advisors. Though not as powerful as Ares’ advisors, Zeus had to use the resources at his disposal. Still waiting for Hermes, Zeus sat on his throne sipping from a cup and staring off in space. Both Athena and Aphrodite sat uncomfortable not daring to intrude on his thoughts. Very few gods would dare interrupt Zeus when he was in this state. Most of them were long gone. The door to his chamber suddenly flew open as Hermes flew in.

“Zeus, the other gods are falling into position. They are furious they can’t join in the battle. Some have even gone to Ares.” Hermes gathered himself a drink and sat down in his chair. “I don’t know anything about military strategy, but we should move fast, before we lose anymore gods to Ares.”

“You can tell the rest of the gods we will move when it is time,” Zeus spoke harshly to Hermes. “The reason they are not to fight is the same reason as it always has been. Because I command it.” Zeus gulped the rest of his wine before adding. “What is Ares doing now? What do our scouts say is happening on earth?”

“Well, he is doing what he has always done,” Hermes said lounging in his chair. He was one of the few gods who could get away talking to Zeus like that, since he had saved him from the monster Typhon. “He is putting the ones who support him in charge, and he is either enslaving or feeding his enemies to his monsters.”

“The weird thing is, he is not acting the same way he normally does,” Aphrodite said. “He would usually be savoring the bloodshed, but he is not,”

“Regardless,” Hermes continued. “He is spreading like a plague. He has started his assault on two fronts. The lands named Africa and Asia. He hasn’t hit the main land—Greece— or the Americas yet, but he will get there soon. The most intriguing aspect of all of this though is how fast he is conquering. He is using one of man’s religions to gain more followers and prayers. He is growing stronger by the second,”