The Gatekeeper's Challenge (22 page)

As she bent her knees and hiked into the musty cavern, the quiet, still air made her shudder. The thrashing and wailing had stopped, and the beast could be anywhere. Therese turned her head in all directions, shining her light around the tunnel, not wanting to return the same direction she came. To her right, above a boulder wedged in the rocky slope, she spotted another opening. She inched over to it and discovered it was more gradual in its descent. Crouched low, she crept along as quietly as she could, following its curves as it spiraled down. When she reached a fork, she sat on her bottom and looked down both ways. If only one of the gods could give her a sign. This was worse than the labyrinth. She would never find the heart-shaped pool; she might as well find a needle in a haystack. Tears pricked her eyes, and she gave into the tears as they slid down her face.

Then she spotted water in the tunnel to her left, so she took it. Not long into the tunnel, Therese could stand, and a few yards further, the walls opened up into a massive cavern, at least a hundred feet wide and twenty or more feet high. Shining her light all over the walls and ceiling, she lost her footing and fell into a body of water. She scrambled back to the bank, crawling on her hands and knees, and pointed her light on the water. It wasn’t the heart-shaped pool. As she sat there catching her breath, she noticed something moving beneath the water, and the craziest idea struck her: the only way she’d ever find the heart-shaped pool was by having the beast lead her to it. If the Hydra nested there, she might return to it. So, without allowing herself to think twice, Therese climbed to her feet, and when the Hydra emerged from the water and slithered across the bank, Therese ran toward, rather than away, from her.

“
Ahhhh!” Therese screamed as she ran, summoning the courage by burning her throat with the loudest sound she could muster. “Ahhhh!” she shouted again, and, surprisingly, the monster paused.

Therese leapt from the ground onto the scaly neck, and wrapped her arms and legs tightly around her. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,
don’t hurt me!” She closed her eyes, pressing her face against the slimy scales. The Hydra swung her neck back and forth, trying to buck her off, and, for a second, Therese compared the feeling to riding the octopus at the Pagosa Springs Fair.

Time for a new tactic, she thought in a lucid moment. “
It’s okay girl,” Therese said softly. “There, there. I’m not here to hurt you.”

The Hydra screamed back in reply and dipped down into the water. Therese held her breath and closed her eyes. When they resurfaced, Therese’s light was gone and she found herself in complete darkness.

Down into the ice cold water they plunged, only to come up again. Down and up. Down and up. Therese shivered but clung to the neck, her ankles crossed, her right hand holding tightly to her left wrist. Apparently, the Hydra hoped to wash Therese from her neck by continuously dunking her underwater, but Therese fiercely held on. Then like the fastest rollercoaster ride ever, they streamed through the air, turning one way and then another, Therese gritting her teeth and clamping shut her eyes. Before she had a chance to take a breath, they plunged down into the water again.

The Hydra rolled round and round beneath the water, like an alligator, but Therese clung to the beast’s neck with her arms and legs. Her neck and shoulders ached, and she trembled with cold, and now, she felt like she couldn’t hold her breath much longer. She opened her eyes with panic and noticed a light glowing across from her. The memory of the night her parents died flashed through her. There had been a light then, too. But this light was different. It was a boy.
A glowing boy. Was it Than? No, it was Hip, and he was swimming toward her!

She dived away from the Hydra and power kicked the dolphin kick to Hip. He wrapped his arms around her, and in the next instant, she was enveloped by sleep.

Chapter Thirty: Apollo

Than hovered helplessly above the Argos underwater entrance, ready to intervene and take Therese to his grandmother’s winter cabin the moment she became mortally wounded. When her traveling robe got hooked on the claw of the Hydra, he cursed himself for not anticipating that possibility. Without god travel, she was doomed. But when she crawled from the hill, safe in the Grecian moonlight, he couldn’t be happier, until he saw her turn back. She wanted to face the monster to spare him the maenads. His heart clenched with dread and love.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw her leap to the Hydra’s neck and hold on. What was she thinking? Was she actually trying to befriend the beast? Was she cooing, “There, there”? This was crazy. He couldn’t believe it. The Hydra could not be tamed. He wanted to reach down into the lair and shake Therese. Then he recoiled from the thought as he watched in horror: the Hydra thrashed Therese around like a loose, live wire.

He’d never seen the monster in such a panic. He couldn’t recall anyone ever clinging to her neck like that. The beast flailed her head like a huge whip, but Therese held on, even underwater. The Hydra became more and more terrified the longer Therese held on, submerging herself again and again, hoping to free herself of Therese. Then she did the only other thing she could think of: she ran to her nest.

At last,
Than realized Therese’s plan, and, though he hadn’t thought it possible, his esteem for her grew. He disintegrated and dispatched to the dream world to get his brother’s help.

Than wished he could have been the one to meet Therese at the underwater entrance, but he couldn’t risk weakening her further.
Better for her to fall asleep anyway after sustaining so many injuries. When Hip took her in his arms and carried her to his field of poppies, Than saw the wound on her back and winced. He fragmented and dispatched to Mount Olympus to beg Apollo for help.

“He’s not here,” Artemis, Apollo’s sister said, after
Than addressed those present.

“Do you know where I can find him? It’s an emergency.”

“He’s in Dallas with his boyfriend, who’s running in a marathon today,” Artemis replied.

Than thanked her and dispatched to Dallas, hovering above the city where the sun was now rising, until his eyes spotted a street filled with runners. Among them in mortal form was Apollo, running alongside another man.
Than traveled to a copse of trees on the edge of the road, waiting. When the runners caught up, he fell in line beside the two runners, not in mortal form—he couldn’t disintegrate and be in many places at once if he changed—but as a dimly lit god in a hooded track suit, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed by the runners whose faces turned forward, focused on the road ahead.

“Can you be bothered, Cousin?” Than asked.

“For a price.” Apollo’s face gleamed with sweat in the light of dawn.

“Name it.”

The next words by Apollo were prayed rather than spoken: “When this lover of mine perishes, hopefully many decades from now, give me time with him before you take him to the Underworld, and speak on his behalf to the three judges. He’s a good man, deserving of the Elysian Fields.”

“I swear,” Than prayed back.

Apollo then turned to his lover. “Marvin, this is my cousin, Than.”

The blond, trim man b
eside Apollo saluted Than, who dipped his head in reply.

“We’ve got a family emergency to attend to,” Apollo continued. “Sorry to have to back out of the race. I’ll see you at
Monica’s later.”

“Sounds good,” Marvin said.

Than and Apollo veered from the road and into more trees, Than saying, “My chambers,” and together god-traveled to the Underworld.

On
Than’s bed, on her side, sound asleep, lay Therese, with Hip beside her. Than left as soon as he arrived to watch from a distance, so as not to endanger her life.

“The Hydra,” Hip explained to Apollo.

The god of healing, and of music, and of many other things, hesitated. “My healing her won’t implicate me in anyway, will it? Do we have your father’s blessing?”

Hades appeared beside them. “Yes. She fought well and is deserving of your help.”

Apollo laid his fingertips gently on Therese’s wounds. The torn skin sought and found where it had once been joined and reunited into a seamless organ. He found other wounds on her legs and arms and healed them, too.

“She’s a beautiful girl,” he said when he had finished. “She’ll make a lovely goddess.”

Than felt his heart heat up like a spark ignited from stones. The hardest parts of the challenge were behind her, and now that she was healed, the excitement kicked in: soon, Dionysus would change her and they would spend eternity together. No more would he be forced to look at her from a distance. No more would he have to steal moments with her in her dreams. Never again would he have to beg and bargain to have his brother or Hermes take his place so he could be at her side. Soon, he would have unlimited access to her. They would spend all their days together. It occurred to him that though she must live with him in the Underworld, there was no reason why they couldn’t travel the world together. Unlike his father, Than could disintegrate and be at many places at once, so while Persephone was forced to remain at Hades’s side in the gloomy Underworld for six months out of the year, Therese could accompany Than anywhere. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Only now, had the possibility of her being his wife seemed real enough for him to fully contemplate. He’d never felt happier.

Of course, there was the
problem of finding her a purpose. All gods and goddesses must perform a service, a duty to either humanity or to the world. If they were to be accepted on Mount Olympus, and if the transformation to immortality were to be permanent, Therese must find a purpose. He’d have to help her.

Before Apollo left,
Than thanked the god of healing and music and assured him that he would keep his promise. Then he hovered above his chambers and took great pleasure in watching his future wife sleep.

Chapter Thirty-One: Preparations

Before Therese opened her eyes, she smelled him. Than’s scent surrounded her as she stretched and yawned and hugged his pillow to her chest. In her mind, she prayed to him, “It won’t be long now. One more challenge to go.”

As she enjoyed the soft sound of the water cascading down the shelves of stone beside her, she wondered if she was supposed to begin the last of her challenges now. Could she find her way to Erebus on her own? There were two doors to
Than’s room: one led from his sitting room. The second must lead out to other parts of the Underworld. She walked across the room and to the second door, reaching out her hand. Strangely, her hand moved through the wooden door as though it were a curtain of light.

“This is odd,” she muttered, but dismissed the anomaly as a typical occurrence in the Underworld and pressed the rest of her body through the door.

Light from the river of fire illuminated a narrow passageway, reminding her of the tunnels beneath Larissa Hill in Argos and the palace ruins in Crete. Just what she needed, she thought: another labyrinth. She followed the flaming river along the passageway, twisting and turning first to the right and then to the left and again to the right, the shadows on the walls and ceilings creeping her out and making her flinch more than once. Up ahead, she thought she saw someone turn a corner. She quickened her pace to catch up.

“Hello?” she called.

When no one replied, Therese moved onward, mentally sending out prayers to Than, Hip, and the Furies for help and guidance. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “How can I succeed in the last challenge without directions?”

It was like trying to solve a puzzle with too many missing pieces, or to write with an inkless pen. This was crazy. This was ridiculous. But she pushed on through the tunnel, hoping for inspiration.

Therese turned another corner to find the path opened up to a large body of water, very much resembling the pool of water beneath Larissa Hill where she had leaped onto the Hydra’s neck. A movement beneath the surface made her take several steps back. What appeared was not the Hydra, but Meg. Her blonde hair wasn’t wet, as it should be, but long and curly, and blowing about her fiercely beautiful face, though no current moved through the cavern. A falcon rested on her shoulder, his feathers also dry. He stretched his wings with two quick motions, and then resumed his statue-like position at attention.

“Hello, Therese.” Meg strolled across the surface of the water toward her. “I’ve been meaning to tell you how sorry I am that I was reluctant to accept you into our family. I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to you in Colorado. But I’ve been truly pleased with your performance and look forward to the day when I can call you my sister.”