The Gatekeeper's House (20 page)

“
I can come as well,” Hecate
said.

“
As can I,” said
Perephone.

Than wouldn’t dare leave Therese’s
side, so although he dispatched and arrived on the scene before
Apollo’s chariot, one of him stayed behind to accompany Therese and
the others across the sky to Colorado, where the sun was just
beginning to rise.

As the goddess of ghosts, the
Malevolent’s soul was impossible to separate from her dismembered
body, unlike every other deity in existence. This meant that, even
in pieces, she struggled to command her army of ghouls against
them. The Furies had been right to cut her up, however, because it
weakened her and made her more vulnerable to capture. The team of
gods needed to trap each part of Melinoe’s body and haul it to the
Underworld where they would place her into the custody of
Hades.

Alecto was already in the process of
binding the Malevolent’s head with her snake up in the air when
Than arrived on the scene. Meg and Tizzie each held an arm, and
Hip, disintegrated into the twenties, held the torso and legs. But
the army of ghosts would not let go of their mistress, and there
were so many of them that the gods could not break free.

Than and the rest of the gods focused
on fighting off the ghosts that feverishly clung to Melinoe’s body.
Hip leapt into their father’s chariot with parts of the Malevolent
and took the reins of Swift and Sure. Alecto managed to follow with
the Malevolent’s head. Tizzie and Meg joined her with the arms, and
then they took off for the Underworld with Persephone at the back
of the chariot, prepared to fight off any attack.

Hecate remained with Therese and a
multitude of Thans to scatter the ghosts left behind.
Unfortunately, the ghosts that were under the Malevolent’s power
were past being saved. Without their mistress, they would likely
wander aimlessly about the earth. Than wished there was something
he could do to give them peace, but he could think of nothing. The
bind that called him to the newly dying had been severed from these
souls by Melinoe, and Than had no power to guide them to Charon.
Once their mistress had been gone for many minutes, the ghosts
became frightened and docile, and soon they left, except for the
ghost of Mr. Holt, and Than turned his attention to the shivering
members of the Holt family.

Chapter Seventeen:
Recovery

Therese rushed to the tub, where the
Holts huddled in fear. She hated that they were dragged into her
conflict with the gods and hoped they weren’t irreparably
harmed.

“
They’re gone now. It’s
going to be okay,” she told them.

She watched the soul of Mr. Holt amble
over to the kitchen. No one but Pete seemed able to see him
anymore.

Hip came alongside them, too. “I could
ask my old fiancé, Pasithea…”

“
You have a fiancé?” Jen
asked in a broken, weary voice, her eyes half-closed.

“
Not anymore,” Hip
explained. “That was a long time ago.”

Mrs. Holt closed her eyes, and her
breathing became erratic. Therese realized Than’s presence was
killing her.

“
You’ve got to get away from
here, Than!” she cried. “And you, too, Hip. You forget you’re not
in mortal form, and you’re both going to either put them to sleep
or kill them. Now go on, so I can to get them out of this
tub.”

Than and Hip both gave her a frown
before they left the room. When Than disappeared through the door,
her heart ached. While they’d been lying together in the cave on
Crete, she couldn’t wait to hold him in her arms and talk to him
about the rest of their lives together, but that would have to
wait. She bit her lip and knelt on the bathroom floor beside the
tub.

Hecate knelt on the floor beside her.
“Do you want me to stay and help, or would you prefer I go as
well?”

“
No offense, but your
presence may frighten them,” Therese replied. “Why don’t you all go
back in Apollo’s, um, vehicle together, and I’ll ask Than to come
get me in a little while?” God travel was out of the question
during these dangerous times.

“
As you wish,” Hecate said,
and then she left the room to join the others.

As soon as Therese was alone with the
Holts, the four frightened family members became more alert. The
change was immediate and dramatic.

“
Therese?” Jen
asked.

“
Yeah, it’s me. I’m right
here.” Therese put her hands on her friend’s shaking knees. “Let’s
get out of this bathroom, okay guys? Mrs. Holt? You need help
getting up?”

Therese helped the Holts to the living
room, where everyone took a seat, still dazed and speechless. Mrs.
Holt lit up a cigarette with trembling hands. Therese eyed the
spirit of Mr. Holt, who no longer looked like a demon, sitting at
the kitchen table. In fact, he seemed frightened and
lost.

Therese needed to think of an
explanation for the Holts, and it couldn’t be the truth. The truth
would be too much for these mortals to understand.

Pete raked a hand through his blond,
tussled hair and said, “What a nightmare.”

This gave Therese an idea.

“
That’s exactly what it
was,” she said. “I’ve heard of it happening before in families that
are really close to each other. They’re called shared night
terrors.” She was lying through the skin of her teeth. “I was, I
was visiting my aunt and uncle and wanted to come by this morning
to see y’all and help with the horses, when I heard this screaming
coming from your house. So, when you didn’t answer the door, I let
myself in through the back. I heard screams in the bathroom. I was
going to call 9-1-1, but then I discovered all four of you walking
and talking in your sleep!”

“
Well, I’ll be damned,” Mrs.
Holt said with a look of relief on her wrinkled, leathery face. “Is
that what happened?” She scratched her head with the hand holding
the cigarette, the flaming end precariously close to her
blonde-gray hair. She chuckled. “I didn’t know what the heck was
going on. I thought maybe a tornado was coming, and then, next
thing you know, I’m having this horrible nightmare…”

“
It was horrible,” Bobby
added. “I dreamed that Daddy…” Bobby stopped abruptly.

Pete stood up. “Mama. Can you call the
center and check on him?”

Therese noticed Pete watching his
father’s spirit, and her heart ached for him. And as much as Jen
feared her father and hated him for what he’d done to her all these
years, Therese knew Jen also loved him and would be upset, along
with the rest of her family, over his death. Therese thought of her
own parents perched in the trees behind their log cabin half a mile
up the road. She reached out to them with a prayer.

***

Than sat in the ring of gods in his
father’s room thinking of nothing but Therese. It wasn’t that he
didn’t want to rescue Athena or resolve the conflict that had
erupted between his father and his uncles, but a heart—even the
heart of a god—could only take so much. When Therese prayed that
she was ready to be picked up from the San Juan Mountains of
Colorado, he only too happily disintegrated and drove his father’s
chariot to meet her.

Helios rested at high noon above the
clouds over Therese’s Colorado home. Than kept the chariot low,
near the treetops, so as to be as inconspicuous to Zeus and his
spies as possible. With Melinoe captured and Cybele working with
Hades, who knew what Zeus’s next move would be?

He found Therese a mile up the mountain
from her house. She, like he and the chariot, were in invisibility
mode, but like any other god, he could see her, and he could see
she was crying. The cardinals that were her parents were perched on
each of her shoulders, consoling her as best they could. After he
brought Swift and Sure to a halt in a clearing a few yards away,
her parents flew to a branch above them, and he helped Therese into
the chariot and into his arms.

He held her for several risky minutes
before they sat behind the reins and he commanded Swift and Sure to
take them home.

“
Mr. Holt’s funeral is
Friday,” she said. “I’m going to go. I have to. Jen’s my best
friend.”

“
I know.”

“
So even if this war between
your dad and his brothers can’t wait, I’m going to the funeral,
understand?”

She had a fierce look on her
tear-stained face.

“
I do.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her
face soften as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Then she
buried her face against him, and he never wanted the moment to
end.

He was grateful for the lack of
thunderbolts and giant waves and sea monsters as he directed Swift
and Sure through a chasm and back home again. He parked the
chariot, and together, they unbridled the horses, spoke a few
minutes with Stormy as they stroked his flanks, and then headed
back to Than’s rooms, where Clifford and Jewels were waiting. After
spending some time with the animals, Than led Therese across the
chamber and into the bedroom, so the two of them could finally have
some privacy.

As soon as they had walked through the
door, Than closed it, pressed Therese against it, and took the kiss
he’d been hungry for. Six months of desire was expressed in that
kiss, and he was pleased when her hands gripped his hair and she
kissed him back.

“
Did you mean what you
said?” He had to know. As much as he didn’t want to stop the
kissing with speech, he had to know if she had meant it. “What you
said in the cave? I couldn’t always tell what was dream and what
wasn’t.”

“
I meant it. I want to be
with you forever as your wife.”

Her hands moved across his shoulders
and chest, and he gasped with pleasure as she returned her mouth to
his.

***

Tears of joy escaped Therese’s eyes as
she kissed the one she loved, and he kissed her back. That dreadful
day that he’d pulled away from her and had said she didn’t have to
show gratitude could be erased by these magnificent kisses, more
passionate than they’d ever been. His lips swept across her jaw
toward the side of her head, where he nibbled on her ear and then
gently blew his warm breath against it. Chills rushed down her
spine and a smile burst across her face.

It reminded her of the experiment they
had done when she was learning to disintegrate. He had played with
her ear like that while they were in a half a dozen other
places.

“
Oh, Than, that feels so
nice.”

He cupped her face in his hands and
kissed her lips again. She couldn’t stop her own hands from feeling
along the muscles of his back, his arms, and his chest.

He groaned with pleasure. “Eternity
won’t be long enough.”

Tears streamed down her face in
reaction to that comment, and she kissed him back even more
fervently than before. She wished they were already married. She
couldn’t wait to start being his wife.

As if he had read her mind,
he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Her nerves
tingled and jumped like jumping beans. She’d slept in the bed
beside him before—though, as gods, they didn’t sleep often. But
this time, she sensed a hunger and an eagerness in him that made
her skin ripple with expectation. Maybe they
wouldn’t
wait to be
married.

He gently laid her on top of the bed
covers before climbing alongside her. His expression was serious
and lustful when he kissed her, and the chills and shocks coursed
anew throughout her body.

At that moment, the bedroom door burst
open. Therese and Than turned toward the intruder with surprise. It
was Hermes.

“
Your timing is impeccable,”
Than said with sarcasm.

“
Don’t do this, cousin,”
Hermes intoned with what sounded like desperation.

Than scowled and snapped, “What I do
with my future wife is none of your business.”

“
What?” Hermes’s expression
changed from desperation to bewilderment. Then, as he took in the
scene, he shook his head with a soft chuckle. “I’m not talking
about this.” He swept one hand around the room. “I’m talking about
what you all are deciding back in your father’s chambers. I didn’t
dare confront you there with the others present.”

Therese studied Than with narrowed
eyes. “What are you all deciding? What’s going on?”

Than sucked in his lips and was
silent.

Hermes said, “Hades is planning to wage
an all-out war on Mount Olympus.”

Chapter Eighteen: A
Message from Hermes

“
How do you know this,
Hermes?” Than asked, dreading the answer. “Have you been spying for
Zeus?” He used a protective arm to move Therese behind him where
they sat up in the bed.

“
You don’t need to fear me,”
Hermes said, uneasily. “I’m not going to attack you.”

“
Answer my
question.”

Hermes crossed the room and sat down on
one of the golden chairs by the fountain. “It’s not a simple
answer.”

Than studied his cousin. “Yes or no.
It’s simple enough.”