The Gatekeeper's House (12 page)

“
Release her, friend!”
Therese commanded.

The whale lifted Meg, still holding the
eye, out on its tongue long enough for Meg to shoot up into the
sky.

Then a streak of lightning shot down
from the clouds and struck Meg. The Fury dropped the eye and fell
toward the sea.

***

Than saw the attack from Zeus coming,
but he hadn’t had time to warn Meg.

“
Save Meg!” Than cried.
“I’ll get the eye!”

Than multiplied into the hundreds and
swarmed around the one of him who caught and carried the eye.
Lightning zapped at the outside layers of his swarm and grazed him
a few times with painful surges of electrical fire. Every single
one of him could feel the shocks that grazed him. Thankfully he
suffered no direct hits, and he flew on, as low as he could without
getting too close to the sea, where a school of sharks followed
below him.

Do you have Meg?
Than asked as he neared the chasm to the
Underworld.

There was no reply.

***

Therese clutched Meg’s foot as the
other two Furies each grabbed an arm just before Meg was about to
hit the surface of the sea. Before they could surge back up into
the air, something giant lurched from the waves. A huge creature
with slimy, marbled skin and a tube-like head emerged, flailing
long tentacles that snatched at them. Meg was still unconscious,
and before anyone could prevent it from happening, one of the long
tentacles wrapped around her and took her under the sea.

Therese and the two other Furies dived
after the creature, conjured their swords, and struck at the
tentacles. Therese tried to shoot an arrow at the beast’s heart,
but the water shifted the arrow’s path, and she was unsuccessful
after three tries. Meanwhile, the creature sunk deeper and deeper
into the abyss, taking them all with it.

***

When Than delivered the eye of
Polyphemus to his father, his father had more bad news.

“
The Malevolent has taken
hostages—Hecate’s familiars and the mortal Jen Holt.”

“
Jen? How…”

“
You’re running out of
time,” Cybele hissed in her manly voice. “Point the eye toward the
stone goddesses and repeat after me.”

Hades did as Cybele
instructed.

“
How do we know we can trust
her?” Than asked, fearing for his mother’s life.

“
Silence, Than,” Hades
commanded. “You do not know all. Patience.” Then to Cybele.
“Proceed.”

Cybele pronounced a string of words in
ancient Greek, most of which Than recognized, but none of which
he’d spoken for centuries. Hades repeated the words. Than
interpreted them to mean, “Medusa’s eyes did turn you cold and
white as snow and hard as rock, but mine will now reverse her curse
and what you were will turn you back.”

The stone of the statues began to
crack.

“
They’re crumbling! Stop
this!” Hades cried.

“
Mother! What’s happening?”
Than shouted.

As the bits of stone fell away, Athena
and Persephone emerged, unscathed, from the rubble. Both of them
gasped for air.

Than let go of the breath he’d been
holding.

“
Water,” Persephone
said.

Hades snapped his finger, and vessels
of water appeared in each of the goddesses’ hands.

“
My dear Persie!” Hecate
said with joy as she ran across the room and threw her arms around
the Queen of the Underworld. “That’s one less worry on my
mind!”

“
Thanatos,” Hades said
suddenly, handing the eye of Polyphemus over to him. “The Furies
and Therese are in danger. Return to Cyclopes Island and parley the
eye for the girls.”

“
I should take the chariot,”
Than said.

“
Of course,” Hades
replied.

***

Therese felt the stinging suckers draw
her blood to the surface of her skin, but she fought with her one
free arm and sliced the tentacle in half. Once free, she swam
toward the long, tubular head of the beast, slicing tentacles as
they grabbed at her. The closer she got to the beast’s eyes, the
less able it was to reach her. Soon she realized that the head of
the beast was the safest place to be—until it opened its gigantic
mouth.

As she heard Tizzie scream in agony,
Therese took an arrow from her quiver and dived, head first,
through the creature’s ring of teeth. Her foot narrowly escaped
getting bit in half. The blood oozed around her, nearly suffocating
her, until she remembered she could breathe underwater, so she
could probably breathe in blood. She told herself to get a grip and
think and to forget about the pumping membranes sucking her down.
She plunged through the narrow membranes until she finally came
upon the heart and pierced it with her arrow.

Get to the creature’s
eyes
, Therese said to the Furies.
Whomever he looks upon will be able to get him to
cooperate.

Therese hoped either Tizzie or Alecto
would manage to be seen by the beast, but, just in case they were
not, she forced her way through the creature’s innards and out the
other side, taking with her a pool of blood. With the speed of
light, she negotiated through the flailing tentacles, back toward
the creature’s face, met its terrifying eyes, and commanded, “Be
still, my friend!”

Immediately, the creature relaxed its
arms and hung limp in the sea. Alecto appeared beside her with Meg
in her arms, but where was Tizzie?

***

Swift and Sure pulled Hades’s chariot
from the chasm and up into the bright morning with Than behind the
reins. Like a flash, Than arrived at Cyclopes Island with the eye
of Polyphemus in his hand.

Down below, he saw Polyphemus sitting
with his sheep, petting them and sobbing from his eyeless
socket.

At least he’ll be nicer to
his sheep
, Than thought.

Hovering in the chariot just above the
Cyclops, Than shouted, “Your eye for the Furies and the goddess of
animal companions. We want safe passage away from this
place.”

“
Father!” cried the Cyclops.
His voice resounded across the sea.

***

Therese heard Than calling to her, but
she was busy searching for Tizzie. She told Alecto to go on ahead
of her and take Meg to the chariot. Therese could sense Tizzie near
the bottom of the sea, and when she finally found her lying on a
bed of anemone, she lifted the Fury in her arms and surged into the
air.

***

Thanatos was relieved to see Therese
and Tizzie join him and his other sisters in the chariot. He
delivered the eye to Polyphemus by quietly laying the eye in the
giant’s lap (“What? I see me leg! What yer know, me lambs, but I’ve
found me eye!”), and then Than turned the chariot back toward the
Underworld.

“
They aren’t dying,” Than
said of Meg and Tizzie. “Only stunned. Apollo has agreed to meet us
in Father’s chambers.”

Therese gave him a relieved smile, and
although he returned it, his quickly turned into a
frown.

“
What is it?” Therese
asked.

He hated to tell her bad
news. He wished he could sweep her up in his arms and assure her
that all would soon be well, but he wasn’t so sure it
would
be. “Clifford and
Jewels are safe, but Melinoe the Malevolent has taken Jen and
Hecate’s familiars as her prisoners.”

Chapter Ten: The
Prisoners

Upon the crest of the tallest mountain
for miles in the blistery snow, Jen sat bound by leather straps at
her wrists and ankles against the entrance to a cave, where she was
forced to look at what the monster warned was a
twenty-thousand-foot drop. The Doberman named Cubie and the weasel
named Galin were also tied and lying in the snow on either side of
her. The monster, half white and half black, stood over Jen and her
fellow prisoners. Beside the monster were two ghosts invisible to
Jen, one which was called Sisyphus and the other Medusa.

With nothing but a bearskin thrown over
her, Jen was freezing, and she could barely breathe. Her teeth
chattered, her body trembled, and her head spun from the high
elevation.

The monster had brought Jen and the
animals to this mountain cave and left them in the custody of the
ghosts, which were ordered around by the monster. Maybe the ghosts
weren’t real. Jen couldn’t see or hear them, except for an
occasional howl that might have been the wind.

But now, after what must have been at
least an hour, the monster had returned and was staring at her. The
monster had a white eye on the black side of her strangely-shaped
face and a black eye on the white side, and swollen red veins
appeared around her nostrils and lips. Thin and tall, she had hairy
moles all over and a hump on the white side of her body near her
shoulder. Her black leg was thinner than the white, like an
ostrich’s leg.

“
Who are you? What do you
want from us?” Jen asked through her chattering teeth.

“
What was a mortal doing in
the Underworld?” the monster asked.

“
I don’t know,” Jen said.
“My friend, Hip, took me there to see my friend, Therese.” Tears
pricked the back of Jen’s eyes. She wanted her mom and Pete and
Bobby. She wanted to go home. “Please, let me go.”

“
Hypnos? Is that who you
mean?” the monster asked in her stern and scratchy
voice.

“
I, I, I only know him as
Hip.”

“
The god of
sleep?”

Jen’s mind whirled. God? “I think so,
yes.”

“
You, Hecuba!” the monster
kicked the Doberman. “What do you know of this?”

The dog winced. “Hypnos brought the
mortal home to prove to her that he’s a god.”

“
Is he in love with her?”
the monster asked.

“
I do not know,” the dog
replied.

The monster slapped Jen’s face with a
rough and bony claw. “Is he in love with you?”

Jen flinched and cupped her cheek.
“We’ve only just met.”

“
You’re worthless to me
alive then.” The monster rolled her eyes and sighed. “I suppose
I’ll have to kill you. I can use your ghost in my army.”

The monster conjured up a sword and
raised it over Jen. Jen squeezed her eyes shut and told her mother
she loved her.

“
Wait!” the weasel said.
“This mortal is important to the goddess of animal
companions.”

Jen opened her eyes. She had no idea
what the talking weasel meant.

“
You speak of Therese, yes?”
Melinoe asked. “I was promised her in the first place, not this
girl.”

“
She’s soon to marry
Thanatos!” the dog added.

Jen bit her tongue. Blood flooded into
her mouth. She wanted to spit, but didn’t dare. Therese was a
goddess?

The monster lowered her sword, and the
weapon vanished. “Hmm. Maybe I’ll put off the death of the mortal
for now.”

“
She’ll die in this cold,”
the weasel said. “Then she’ll be no good to you. You should make a
fire, to keep her alive and valuable. Thanatos will do anything to
get her back.”

“
He wouldn’t want a
despondent bride,” the dog added.

“
Yes. A fire,” the monster
said. “Sisyphus! Collect some wood from below. Medusa! Gather
kindling! And make it quick!”

“
Who are you?” Jen asked
again. “And what do you want?”

The monster turned and glared at Jen.
“My name is Melinoe the Malevolent, and I want to rule the
Underworld.”

***

Therese looked at Than with disbelief
as he lowered the chariot down from the bright sky toward the chasm
that led to the Underworld. “Cubie, Galin, and, and, did you say
Jen?”

“
I’m sorry,
Therese.”

But that couldn’t be, Therese thought.
Her best friend in the clutches of the goddess of
ghouls?

Than flew his father’s chariot past
Cerberus into the gates through the corridor leading to the garage.
He parked and released Swift and Sure to the stables. Then he and
Alecto carried Tizzie and Meg down the corridor along the
Phlegethon as Therese followed dumbly behind.

She couldn’t believe her best friend
had been stolen by the Malevolent. It was mindboggling to even
think of Jen down here in the Underworld to begin with, and now she
was a prisoner of an insane tormentor. She shuddered as she
imagined what Jen might be going through.

“
Poor Jen,” she whispered to
herself as they neared Hades’s chambers. “And poor Cubie and Galin.
I’ve got to do something.” Tears streamed from her eyes.

Therese was relieved to make telepathic
contact with Clifford and Jewels, who were safe inside Hecate’s
rooms, and equally relieved to see Persephone and Athena fully
recovered in chairs beside Hades, Apollo, and Hip. Cybele had not
moved from her position on Hades’s couch. Therese sensed a powerful
spell binding Cybele to her seat. Hecate was also there, sitting at
a round table in the back of the room, sobbing with her face in her
hands. Therese crossed the room to Hecate’s side.