Hades (14 page)

Apollo went to find Ares so they could plan
their exit. The copters were still here and the boat remained
anchored nearby. “I only think it fair that those who flew in,
float out and vice versa.”

“I’m sure you do, Apollo. Did you and your
team get water logged?” Ares snickered.

“Here’s a deal for you, whoever flies back
takes all the kids. Zeus will want to see them as soon as possible.
Pick your poison, brother.” He saw that Ares shivered at the
mention of the young gods.

“Well played, youngster.” Ares often told
Apollo that he looked like a boy with his sweet face. He couldn’t
point out that Apollo didn’t have much facial hair because few of
the gods grew any. Even those that could kept shaved bare because
it had always been Origin’s policy. That might change, but it
hadn’t changed yet.

“Maybe you’re just a stuffy oldster.”

“I’ll never think of you as an adult.”

“I’m only a few days younger than you, but
you make it sound like years.”

“I still think of you as wet behind the ears,
little brother.” As the last one on their team to be born, the
older members had always looked out for him. When he thought about
it, it would be good for them to have some much younger gods to
worry about. They would finally stop treating him like a kid with
real kids around, or so he hoped.

“Yeah, and you always will, no matter that I
lead missions more often than you do.”

“That’s only because I’m needed at home.”

“Needed at home or too old to handle most
forms of travel?”

“Fine, we’ll take the boat and you take the
kids. It’ll be like a play date for you.”

Apollo had just gotten exactly what he
wanted. Ares was just too easy, it would probably take him until
they made it to Olympus to figure out Apollo had manipulated him.
That was when he would have to avoid him, because Ares would be
mad. The war god wasn’t very happy when they were home anyway.
Brandi, the female on Sierra’s team Ares wanted to mate, had
managed to stay just out of reach. She was gone on assignments more
often than not because she always volunteered. When she was there,
Ares mooned after her like a schoolboy with his first crush. Apollo
knew he had no room to talk since Way wouldn’t give him the time of
day.

They rounded all their men up and Apollo took
his males to the copters. He thought his guys were going to kiss
him, they had had enough of the boat. Ares males complained as they
headed to the boat and Ares was the most unhappy one of all.

“Jupiter, I need you to organize your gods
and divide them equally among the copters. You ride in the last one
with me after all the other gods are loaded.”

Jupiter nodded. Apollo knew he would
understand as leader, he left last unless there was a good reason
to do otherwise.

Apollo was thankful he wasn’t on the slow
boat to nowhere. He would be back at Olympus several days before
the gods with Ares were. It would give Ares time to reflect and
learn patience, Apollo chuckled to himself as the copter took off
and he was headed toward home. Putting up with the young gods would
be a piece of cake for him. He was in the copter with Jupiter and
the other two oldest. They wouldn’t complain and it was impossible
to talk with all the noise. Jupiter and his two leaders put on
their headphones, settled in, and went to sleep. Apollo wished he
could sleep so easily.

Two days later, he was sitting in the meeting
room with Zeus and Jupiter. He watched them examining each other
and looking for strengths and weaknesses. Jupiter reminded him of
Zeus at that age in many ways. Jupiter didn’t look like him
physically, he had deep green eyes and dirty blond hair, though he
was nearly as tall and broad as Zeus. Once Jupiter was through
growing, he would match Zeus in size.

“I’m glad you accepted our offer and came to
visit us,” Zeus said diplomatically.

“I thought you might help me to understand my
options when it comes to me and my gods. I also wanted to offer you
our assistance in freeing our brothers who remain in the hands of
Origin,” Jupiter said with a slight incline of his head to
acknowledge Zeus’s words. Apollo had no intention of doing anymore
than listening unless called upon by Zeus. He had to admit he was
impressed with the way Jupiter was handling the meeting with Zeus.
He was a grown male, no callow youth, in the eyes of all present.
He was earning respect by the way he was shouldering this
responsibility.

“First I thought we might discuss the place
you came from. It has already been taken by the local government
and they tell us they intend to keep it. It isn’t an option, but we
were able to get some money for part of the cache of weapons,
tools, and etc. that Origin stored there and I have set up an
account with a portion of those funds for you and your gods.
Unfortunately, it is only five grand and not enough to do much
with.”

“I thank you for sharing that with us. It was
enough that you managed to free us, but I am aware that it takes
money to survive. What are our options?”

“The younger members, those under twelve are
minors in the eyes of any law. Here at Olympus we allow those
twelve and over to make their own choices, but our mates so far
have not been approving of that. I fear they will change that now
that it effects real children. I would offer those of you twelve
and above a place to live and a chance to make your own decisions
but those under twelve need to live in a family of some sort. Look
at it as the chance for our younger brothers to have a better life
than any of us did at that age.”

“What families could they join?”

“We have four mated couples and three single
females with children. You’ll all have a thousand brother/father
figures in your lives, but for the young ones, they need the love
of a mother.”

“I’ll admit I can understand the appeal of
having a mother if the shows Origin allowed us to watch are
anything to go by.”

“Let me radio Sierra, she wants to meet you.”
Zeus called to let her know she could come in and the door flew
open. She ran in, her eyes alighting on Jupiter immediately. Zeus
and Apollo stood, so Jupiter did as well.

Sierra jumped into his arms, hugging him
tight. He flushed and it was clear to Apollo that Jupiter was taken
with her as a man not a boy. Zeus seemed to draw the same
conclusion for he pulled her into his arms. Apollo laughed to
himself as he saw the glazed look the young god had on his face.
Apollo remembered the first time Origin had given them women was
after their first successful mission. Jupiter was already past that
point, he looked and behaved like a man fully grown in many ways.
His childhood and that of a handful of the others was past the
point of being redeemed. All they could do for those gods now was
help them live the best way they could, respect them by putting
them in the rotation for missions, and treat them as the adults
they had been forced to become at a young age.

Zeus let Jupiter go to talk to his gods,
while he called a meeting with his own gods. Doc and Hades had made
it back yesterday so only Ares and his team was still out. They
would be back tomorrow at the latest. The room filled rapidly with
gods that Zeus had summoned to the meeting before the door finally
closed.

“I want everyone to know that Ares will be
home tomorrow. I’m sure everyone wants to know more about the
children that he, Apollo, and the other gods discovered on the
mission. There were twenty-nine young gods found at the facility.
Three were five year olds, two were seven, three were nine, five
were eleven, ten were thirteen, and seven were fifteen. I’m hoping
the thirteen boys under twelve will be put with a family of their
choice and that everyone will take our younger brothers under their
wings to help them settle in.”

“What are you considering a family?” Hermes
asked.

“I feel they need a mother at that age. Not
that I turned out badly, but if I had had a mother I’d probably be
perfect,” Zeus joked. A chorus of rude remarks rose from around the
table.

“Okay, guys enough. We have a few more
facilities to hit, but I want to wait for Ares before we select our
next one. If no one has anything else, this meeting is over.” Most
of the gods and demons left, but those on the council and their
mates remained.

“Now that everyone else has left, Poseidon
wants to share his problem with us. He’s been a little embarrassed
which is why he didn’t tell us sooner, so no teasing.”

That grabbed everyone’s attention and all
eyes were on him as he started speaking. “When Sierra’s team first
rescued us, I met Zippy and I was confused before I decided she was
my mate. She’s been gone often and made it hard for me to pursue
her and impossible for a bond to form. I still have strong feelings
for her, but Zeus had me interview Lizzie since he had concerns
about her loyalty. I felt something for her too and I kissed her. I
find I’m not sure which one is my mate.”

“Doc, what are your thoughts on this?” Zeus
wondered.

“There are a few possibilities and we may be
able to run some tests to find out. The first possibility, “ Doc
fought hard not to smile, “is that Poseidon is very horny and is
sexually drawn to both these women and because he wants very badly
to find that one woman that can be his alone, he’s confusing desire
for the need to mate. Another possibility is that one is a near
match as a mate. Both Zippy and Lizzy tested as possible mates and
I can test to see compatibility but it may not be conclusive. The
last possibility I see is that he desired Zippy, but then found his
soul mate in Lizzy. I know Zippy was attracted to you before you
pissed her off, what about Lizzy?”

“She responded too.”

Apollo noticed Eres didn’t seem too surprised
about the Lizzy thing. Had he already known and if he had, how? He
wondered if more than one potential mate might exist but he
couldn’t imagine wanting someone more than he wanted Way. Since she
had brought her son, Charlie, here to live with her, she used him
as a shield to hide behind. Apollo had only known the boy for a
couple weeks, but he liked him and knew he could grow to love
him.

The boy could have almost been a god, but
Apollo knew he wasn’t. Even though fully human, he was cute, smart,
athletic, and had some serious fighting skills for his size. He was
funny too and never failed to make Apollo laugh when he was around.
They could make a great family, her stalling was costing them time
they could be living life to the fullest. He knew he would have to
take things in hand soon, but first he had to figure out what to
do. At least he wasn’t stuck where Poseidon was, between two
women.

Zeus covered some financial things which
Apollo had to pay particular attention to since Zeus planned to
eventually let him deal with those types of things. He asked Dione
about plans for the New Year’s Ball that they were setting up. They
all listened as Dione excitedly went into more detail than his
brothers could stand though the mates seemed to want to hear
it.

“It’s going to be the event of the decade,”
Dione finished with a scary laugh that all the females joined
in.

“Alright, it seems like we are done for now,”
Zeus said with obvious relief.

“Aren’t you going to tell them about the
hotline?” Cherish asked.

“Oh, yeah. We now have a hotline set up with
a reward for information leading to the recovery of one or more
gods. We originally hired a company to set it up, but it crashed
constantly and they couldn’t or wouldn’t fix it properly. That
caused a delay on our schedule since we planned to have it running
right after Halloween. Cherish got it running this week and the
leads are already coming in. We have two gods on each of three
shifts and so far, it has been nonstop. We have a rotation set up
so no one is stuck working the hotline too long because some of
these humans who call, can be very aggravating. We have a team
based out of Olympus security running down the leads. We have one
human teamed up with one god on each of four teams. They start
tracking down today’s leads, tomorrow. I feel really positive about
the chances of finding our brothers now. If anyone has work they
need to get to, they can leave now. Darius, you stay.”

Several gods left but Apollo was caught up on
his work, besides he was nosy when it came to mated gods. He wanted
to know everything he could in case it would help him draw his mate
to him.

“Darius, you’ve been quarantining your mate
to the point everyone is talking about it.”

He turned bright red. “I’m just taking the
time to get to know her before I share her with everyone.”

Doc laughed. “You mean you want her barefoot
and pregnant so she won’t leave and no one will try to lure her
away.”

Darius turned even redder and dropped his
eyes to the floor. Apollo understood what is was like to be
insecure with a mate, from what he had seen, every god had gone
through it. Only Darius had been in a position to act on it or
maybe his mate just wasn’t as forceful as the rest had been.

Zeus said gently, “I’d like you to bring her
to the table tonight at supper so the other mates can meet her.
Women need the company of other women especially if they are newly
mated and planning to raise children soon.”

Darius nodded and fled the room. Apollo
planned to have his butt at Zeus’s table at supper time. Everyone
was dying to see the hidden mate. He didn’t envy Darius all the
grief he had coming his way for waiting so long.

Apollo remembered he had checked out her file
and thought Zeus had a hidden agenda in meeting this particular
mate. She was a nursery school teacher with a degree in early
childhood education that had she chosen, could have seen her
teaching up to third grade level. It was something they needed now
more than ever with the young gods they had found. Fabian
homeschooled as did Charlie, the gods over ten years old would too.
That still left a need for the ones under ten and a need was being
created by the babies that were recently or soon would be born.