The Cult of Kronos (8 page)

“
No. No, thank God.” Jason
paused. “Celene and Peter showed up on my doorstep.”

“
Say what now?” Lewis
said.

“
But, Doc, they're dead,”
Teddy Wexler said. “Are you sure?”

“
We're sure,” Penny said.

Jason looked back towards the
kitchen. “You can come out now,” he called.

Celene walked out first. She
was dressed in a dark-green wrap blouse, tied with a sash, and a
long, brown skirt. Peter followed close behind her, dressed in his
black shirt with the leather shoulders and gray trousers. He carried
the water skin from the underworld on a strap around his shoulder.
They stopped a few feet behind the spot where Lewis and Teddy sat and
waited for the murmurs to die down.

“
Wait,” Nick said, holding
his hand to signal Celene to stay put. “Menoetius could change
shape. How can we be sure?”

“
It's my mom,” Penny said,
unconsciously scratching at the edges of the cast on her right arm.
“I know my mom. She hasn't been gone that long.”

“
And nobody but Hades could
have escorted me out of the underworld,” Celene said. “But thank
you, Nick, for thinking clearly. Safety should come first.”

Zach got up from his seat and
hugged Celene. “It's good to have you back,” he said. He then
turned to Peter. Peter looked startled, but Zach pulled him into a
hug before he could back away. “You too,” he said. “You went
out like a badass, but we prefer you alive.”

Zach's display of affection
sparked a round of hugs that took ten minutes to resolve itself. The
group had always felt like a family, but that had been in the
bickering, teasing sense. It took the deaths of two of their members
to make them express the love part of their family dynamic.

When everyone settled down,
Penny was wiping tears from her eyes and Frank was smiling like a
toddler with a new toy. Lewis did a little excited spin that looked
something like a tornado and sent the papers on Jason's coffee table
flying about the room.

“
Oh man, we have to call
Minnie,” Astin said.

“
No!” Zach snapped. “After
that nosy P.D., Spade, with all the murders we've been around, we
can't be sure we're not on some NSA watch list. From now on, we don't
discuss anything supernatural on the phone or internet. That includes
email.”

“
I can work on our own
special encryption program,” Evan said. “We can't have you in
Gainesville and Minnie in Massachusetts without some way to
communicate. She can't just drive down to Miami whenever we have news
to share, especially if we're in danger.”

“
Get on that this
afternoon,” Zach said. “You can sneak a thumb drive into a care
package to Minnie with the software. Until Evan writes the software,
the line is silent. Got it? Nothing more than a, 'Hey, come meet me
at Starbucks.'”

Jason nodded. “Zach's right.
Safety is our priority. Celene and Peter did come back, but you can
still be killed and still be captured. Remember that vase Epimetheus
and Prometheus tried to lock you in?”

“
There's an even bigger one
of those,” Peter said. “And it's called Tartarus, the
underworld's prison pit. Our old friends are there right now. If you
think mortal cellmates are bad…”

“
Peter,” Celene said, “The
water.”

“
Right,” Peter said,
slipping the strap for the water skin over his head and passing it to
Jason. “We ran into someone,” Peter said, “on our way out. Ryan
Bear was hanging out by the Mnemosyne.”

“
Ryan?” Diana asked,
perking up.

Peter nodded, his solemn black
eyes connecting with hers for a moment. “Yes. He was worried about
you.”

“
Most of the souls drink
from the Lethe,” Celene explained. “They forget their lives on
earth. Ryan and a few others chose a different path.”

“
Mnemosyne,” Peter
explained, “is the river of memory. Now, dying unlocked my memories
and my ability to do this.” Without warning, Peter shifted
suddenly. He grew six inches in stature and gained over a hundred
pounds of muscle. The wild-eyed, bearded Hades stood before The
Pantheon.

“
Woah!” Lewis shouted. “Is
that what you really look like?”

Hades nodded. “At least the
form that Doc can safely look on without his head exploding.”

“
Wait, what?” Nick said.

“
I'm mortal. If I see your
true forms my head will explode,” Jason said all-too-casually. He
had been over it with Celene before the meeting.

“
The memories are mixed-up,”
Celene warned. “You won't all suddenly remember everything at once.
It's a lot for the mind to take in. You'll have to sort it out.”

Peter returned to his mortal
form and pointed to the water skin. “The alternative is that you
could die, but that's painful and unpleasant, and I'd have to go back
to New Orleans to fetch you. Or you can drink the water of the
Mnemosyne. Think of it as a shortcut.”

Zach held out his hand. “I'll
go first,” he said.

“
Why you?” Nick argued.

“
Because nobody seems to
want you as the leader,” Lewis snapped.

Zach shook his head. “Because
Kronos sent that postcard to me. His beef is with me. I'll go first.
We'll take turns. Everyone will get a chance.”

Lewis began to sing,
“Ninety-nine bottles of memory on the wall, take one down, pass it
around, everyone gets the shape-shift…well the tune needs some
work.”

Jason tossed the leather water
skin to Zach. Zach closed his eyes and tipped the bag back to pour a
few sips into his mouth. The shimmering liquid passed over his lips.
Everyone waited. Zach's eyes opened suddenly, glowing white-hot. He
dropped the bag and fell to his knees. His fingers pressed into the
wood floor and sparks surged around his forearms. Zach threw his head
back and screamed.

“
There are only two people
who can tell you the truth about yourself- an enemy who has lost his
temper and a friend who loves you dearly.”

-Antisthenes

IX.

The sky over Mount Olympus had
darkened to a deep blue-purple with pinpricks of white light that
stood as monuments to Draco, Hercules, and the little bear. On the
mountain top, the version that mortals could not see from their homes
below, the kingdom of the Olympians was at rest. A night of feasting
had ended hours ago. Golden torches still burned in the streets and
in the halls of the mighty palace, but in the bed chambers of the
king and the homes of the council of twelve, everything was dark. The
constant thrumming of Cicadas was the only sound that hung in the
air, mixing with the smells of burning incense to create an
other-worldly atmosphere.

Lord Zeus, covered only by a
silk sheet, lay sprawled across his bed, his large chest rising and
falling with steady, peaceful breath. Hera curled up at his side,
tucked under the crook of his arm. Her hair, normally worn in an
intricate knot at the top of her head, fanned out around her as she
slept. They did not hear the creaking of the palace gate; Zeus slept
too heavily with the scent of honey wine on his breath.

The indigo sky beyond the
columns of the master bedroom turned inky black and all of the stars
seemed to extinguish like candles. The blackness took the torches and
hid the light of the moon, blanketing the sleeping gods in its cloak.
Zeus shot up in bed. With no light, they were blind.

“
What's happening,” his
queen asked, her hands gripping his arm to make sure she knew where
he was.

Zeus held up his hand and
generated a fistful of crackling electricity, but that too was
quickly absorbed by darkness. “Erebos,” he hissed.

He grabbed his wife's hand and
pulled her up from the bed, afraid to lose her in the dark.

“
We need to sound the
alarm,” she said. As the final word passed over her lips, massive
hands, invisible in the darkness, clamped over her mouth. Zeus felt
her slender fingers slip out of his own.

“
Hera!”

Silence.

He roared with fury, swinging
wildly in each direction, hoping to catch the infiltrator. “Come
out, you coward!” he shouted. Below, in the homes of the council,
Zeus heard a distant bellowing and the clanging of swords; Ares was
not going down without a fight. “I am king of the Olympians, fight
me!”

The darkness receded. Three
gods—two of them Titans—stood before Zeus. One, Epimetheus, held
Hera, his hand clamped over her mouth, the other looped through her
arms, pinning them behind her back. He stood five feet taller than
the Queen of the Gods. She was no match for his strength. His
brother, Prometheus, held a torch.

“
What is this betrayal?”
Zeus growled.

“
I, Prometheus, son of
Iapetus, by order of the Titans of Mount Othrys, charge Zeus, King of
Olympus, and his council of twelve with abuse of his station as
governor of mankind. He, his council, and the court of Hades, King of
the Underworld shall hereby serve an eternity in the pit of Tartarus
for their crimes against humanity.”

“
Speak to me in your own
words, you coward!”

“
I'm sorry,” Prometheus
said, the sadness evident in his eyes. “But you're out of control.
You’ve lost site of your duties.”

“
So you turn back to Kronos?
You fought alongside me in the rebellion. You were on my side!”

The slapping of leather
sandals on marble floor filled the hallway. Perses approached, a
Titan as large as his cousins. He was covered in dirt and blood,
though none of it was his own. “Ares is subdued,” he said.
Indeed, the shouting had died out. “That was the last of them. We
have them all.”

“
How did you get in?” Zeus
growled. His hands sparked.

“
We had a little help,”
Prometheus said. “Come, Perses. Bind the king before he gets any
bright ideas. Any…surges of inspiration.”

“
Someone let you in?”

“
Even your own people don't
want you in charge, Zeus.” Prometheus watched as Perses drew a pair
of golden manacles from his belt. He crossed to Zeus.

“
Don't touch me!” he
shouted. His hand surged with energy and he swung at the Titan.
Perses ducked the blow and backed off.

“
Keep fighting and I'll snap
her neck,” Epimetheus said. He moved his massive hand from Hera's
mouth and gripped her jaw. He pushed her head back, showing her
throat to Zeus. “It'll be easy.”

“
And impermanent,” Zeus
said.

“
But this,” Epimetheus
said, removing his hand from her jaw to reach for a dagger at his
belt, “is more permanent. Dipped in the Styx.”

“
You wouldn't.”

“
I would,” Epimetheus
said. “She's got my wife's eyes, or rather my wife has hers, but I
could still do it.”

“
You were our ally,” Hera
pleaded, her eyes trained on Prometheus. “You will go down in
history as a traitor.”

“
Like
I was a traitor for a harmless prank? It was a bad cut of meat, not
the
poison
you fed your own father. And was I was a traitor when I gave mankind
fire so that they could live? I would rather be marked as a traitor
than a tyrant.”

“
You're just going to let
Kronos rule?”

“
No. I'm going to let
mankind rule. You never believed in them, Zeus. And neither does
Kronos. I'm going to let them govern themselves for a while, to
aspire to greatness without fear of being struck down by a jealous
god.”

Epimetheus pressed the corner
of the blade into Hera's throat.

“
Surrender,
Zeus,” Prometheus said, “and I won't have a vulture pick out
your
innards for a thousand years.”

Zeus looked back and forth
between his wife and Epimetheus. The younger Titan had hunger in his
eyes; he wanted to do it. Zeus cast his eyes to the floor and held
out his wrists. Perses stepped forward with the manacles and
hesitated.

“
You took down Ares, but
you're afraid of me?” Zeus asked, looking up at the Titan.

“
A little,” Perses said,
before he swung his fist and knocked Zeus unconscious.

The lightning crackled and
faded away, leaving Zach doubled-over on the wooden floor, scorch
marks burnt around his hands. The light faded from his eyes. He
panted, his whole body covered in perspiration. It had only been a
few seconds, but the memory had been so vivid that, to Zach, it felt
like minutes.

Jason had shielded his eyes
and turned away, afraid that Zach would burst into a form that would
burn out his eyes or make his head explode. He had done his homework
and read the myths. He knew what happened when mortals, like Semele,
looked on the true forms of the gods. He didn't know exactly what
would happen if he looked on their true forms, but he knew it had a
final result of death.