The Gatekeeper's Promise: Gatekeeper's Saga, Book Six (The Gatekeeper's Saga 6) (24 page)

From the waist up, she had the proportions of an average woman, but what gave her height and formidability was her enormous tail. Presently, it was coiled beside her, poised to strike.

At that moment, he understood the sword would do him no good. If he attempted to strike her, the tail would whip around and slam him to the ground, and there’d be no chance of saving the babies. What he needed was his dagger, and he needed to get his dagger to her throat.

He carefully laid the sword
down in the leaves and slid his weapon from his boot.

***

Thanatos took careful steps in the direction of the baby’s cries, his stomach in knot
s over the silence of the other baby, whom he could no longer hear.

Please let both babies be okay
, he prayed.

Echidna spotted him at the same time as he spotted her.

“I just want to talk,” he said.

“Then put down your sword.”

He dropped it at his feet.

“Foolish, aren’t you?”

Echidna swung her tail in a thunderous sweep, like a giant wave, right in his direction, but a barrage of spears penetrated the tail, and in some places, pinned it to the ground and to the trunks of trees.

Thanatos grabbed his sword and plunged toward her, but Echidna threw one of the babies at him in a defensive move. He dropped the sword and held out his arms, unable to breathe as he navigated over dead leaves and branches, trying not to trip. He held his breath as his precious child sailed through the air.

A vine grabbed his boot, and he fell on the hard ground just as the baby was about to hit. Than scrambled to his knees, his feet, and lurched out just in time to break the fall. Little Hestia screamed at the top of her lungs, but otherwise she seemed okay. Tears filled his eyes.

W
hen he looked up at the monster, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Hip was on her back, his dagger at her throat, but Echidna was full of hysteria and panic. She waved baby Hermes around by a leg, screaming at everyone to back away.

“Back away! Or I will dash out his brains!”

The baby made no sound.

Therese rushed up behind Than, shaking like an epileptic. He handed Hestia over to her as they watched Echidna with terror. Hip made eye contact with Than, who nodded. He wanted Hip to do it. Cut her throat, and he would catch the boy.

Than rushed toward the monster as Hip scraped the dagger across her throat and blood poured out. But instead of dropping the baby, Echidna flung him through the air. Than’s heart stopped beating as he watched his son fly though the low hanging branches twenty yards away. The most intense feelings of desperation and helplessness overcame him as he ran, knowing there was no way he could catch this one, too.

A scream fled from his throat—high pitched, like a girl’s. If only he had his godly powers
, he could make it.

And th
en, miracle of miracles, from the woods, Ares ran out, his arms outstretched. Like the most skilled running back on the face of the earth, he caught the baby in the nick of time.

Thanatos had never loved Ares more.

Chapter Nineteen: Fallen Angels

The exhausted warriors left Echidna trapped in the woods and headed back to the grotto. Hypnos carried Athena. Although he was thankful and relieved that the babies were back in the arms of their parents, he had a bad feeling about Jen and wouldn’t be able to share in the joy of victory displayed by the others until he saw her face and knew she was safe.

“Oh, my sweet babies!” Therese said again. “I can’t thank everyone enough for your part.”

“They seemed fine to you, Apollo?” Than asked

“Just hungry, which I’m sure you’ll soon remedy,” the god of healing replied.

“And Scylla’s incapacitated?” Artemis asked Ares as they left the woods.

“Oh, yes,” Ares said in an arrogant tone. “She’s not going anywhere.”

Hip
wished it hadn’t been Ares that had saved the day, because now everyone was being especially nice and grateful toward him, and he was gloating like a prancing peacock.

Hermes ran to meet them as they neared
the smaller waterfall. “Let me help you there, Hypnos.”

“How’s Jen?” Hypnos asked.

“You’ll want to brace yourself, cousin.” Hermes lifted Athena into his arms with a grave expression on his face.

As soon as Hip’s hands were free, he took off running. He passed Scylla, where she lay
badly injured in the pool beneath the smaller falls. He scrambled up the canyon wall as fast as he could, nearly slipping on the wet rock before reaching the grotto. When he was at last on the cliff edge, he stared down in horror at Jen, laid out on the cavern floor, Hecate and Marvin bent over her.

He rushed to her side and fell to his knees. Her skull was crushed, and a pool of blood lay next to her. Her beautiful blond hair was mangled in it.

For many moments he couldn’t speak as he took it all in. Her eyes were closed, and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing. One of her shoulders appeared at an odd angle, as though bones were crushed there, too.

He finally mustered the ability to ask, “Is she dead?”

“No one can die, Hypnos,” Hecate said gently. “At least, not right now.”

“But as soon as we leave this place, as soon as my brother returns to his duties…”

Hecate gripped his hand and said, “I’m afraid so.”

***

When Hypnos started running for the gr
otto, Therese felt a chill crawl down her spine.

“What’s happened?” she asked Hermes.

“I’m afraid your friend was fatally injured,” the messenger god replied.

Therese felt dizzy and her knees went weak.
“That can’t be,” she said breathlessly, unable to think. “That can’t be.”

“Therese, I…” Than’s voice broke off as Therese handed h
im Hestia and ran for the bigger falls.

Before she reached the lip of the grotto, she heard Hip’s wail of sorrow ring out across the canyon.
This can’t be
, she repeated to herself. She refused to believe until she saw with her own eyes.

When she did see,
she still refused to believe. She knelt between Hip and Hecate with her hands over her mouth.

“This can’t be,” she said out loud. “She can’t be dead.”

“Not yet,” Hecate said. “But I’m afraid... I’m so sorry, Therese.”

Hecate
put her arms around Therese and kissed the top of her head, but Therese could barely feel it. She was numb, and now, too, she felt deaf and blind. A dull ache pulsed in her ears. Her heart started beating very fast. She couldn’t breathe.

She clutched her chest.

“Jen!” she screamed, vaguely aware that she’d caused those around her to flinch.

Hecate
was saying something at her right, and Hip was saying something at her left, but all Therese could hear was the pulse of her own blood thudding in her ears where the pain was.

***

Thanatos held his babies close as Her
mes carefully laid Athena down in the shallow part of the stream near the smaller waterfall. Apollo bent over her to inspect her wound. Than couldn’t feel sorrier for his brother. He wracked his brain for ideas—ways around Jen’s death. Soon they hoped to leave Circe’s battlefield, and his duties would be restored to him. But how could he take the soul that was the love of his brother’s life?

Therese, too, would be miserable over losing her best friend. Than could hardly think of what this would do to poor Bobby and Mrs. Holt. There had to be a
way out of this. What could he do?

The babies were hungry. He had to get them up to the grotto to Therese. He was able to get Hermes and Artemis to help him while Apollo and Ares stayed behind with Athena.

Artemis climbed to the lip of the grotto. Hermes stopped halfway up. Then Thanatos passed one baby at a time up to the other two gods before climbing all the way up himself.

When he reached their little camp, he found Hip sobbing into Jen’s belly and Therese curled up in a ball against the opposite wall. Marvin and Callisto looked up at Than with so
mber faces.

“The babies are okay?” Marvin asked.

“Just hungry,” Than managed to say through a dry throat as he took the infants back from Artemis and Hecate.

He crossed the cavern to Therese and carefully sat on the ground beside her.

“Your babies need you,” he said.

She seemed to wake up from her stupor as he handed them
over to her. He helped her lift up her shirt inconspicuously and get the babies suckling, so their cries would stop rattling everyone’s nerves. He covered her to protect her modesty and to keep the babies warm.

Therese held their sweet little heads to her breasts as tears rolled down her face.

“I’m going to break my oath,” she said. “I want to do for Jen what you did for me.”

The other gods gasped.

“Don’t do it, Therese,” Hecate warned. “You’ll lose the trust and respect of everyone.”

“Then
I’ll
do it,” Hip said. “I’ll break my oath.”

“Please,” Artemis said. “Please don’t even consider it. Our pantheon is already crumbling. The only thing we have left is our word to each other.”

“We swore,” Hermes said. “That has to mean something.”

Than felt sick to his stomach. He’d started down the slippery slope that Hip and Therese now wanted to follow. Would he do it again to have Therese as his wife? Of course. But did he think Hip should follow in his footsteps? No way. 

“What if you take her to Tartarus with Pete?” Therese asked Than with hope in her eyes. “If she has to die, could she stay there, so we could still talk to her?”

“You don’t want that for her,” Hecate said. “Eternity is a long time for boredom.
She’d be miserable.”

“But she’d have Pete,” Therese argued. “And I’d visit her every day.”

Than pushed Therese’s hair away from her face, since her hands were full and she couldn’t. As he tucked her fiery red hair around her ears, he said gently, “I don’t control the sentencing. Only the judges decide where a soul will go.”

Therese’s face pinched up in disappointment as m
ore tears flowed down her face. “Is there nothing we can do?”

“Someone could trade places with her,” Hermes said. “It’s the only way accepted by the Fates. Someone else would have to die in her place.”

***

Hypnos knew what he had to do. He had to take Jen’s place. He didn’t want to exist without her, without having had the chance to love her properly. He’d rather go to the Elysian Fields.

He ran the back of his hand against her soft face, wishing she would wake up and smile at him, just one more time before he died.

As certain as he was that this was what he should do, he was terrified of mortal death. He’d never had to think about it before. Finality. The end. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and a panic began to rise in his throat. This was one of his last and final days in existence. He would be no more.

Glancing across the room at his brother, he thought better of telling him his intentions. Thanatos would only try to talk him out of it. He looked at Therese, holding their babies, and at his brother, helping
her, and he admired what a sweet family they made, even though it was temporary. As soon as the duties of death returned, Thanatos would have to distance himself from his infants. It would be devastating.

But at least Than would be able to watch his children grow
up from afar. Hypnos would die without ever experiencing marriage and fatherhood.

Yet Hip
felt no envy. He felt only sadness. He loved his brother and hated to leave him.

As though in sympathy with him, the ground beneath him shuddered.

“What was that?” Callisto asked.

A few stones
and a spray of dust fell from the ceiling of the grotto.

“An earthquake?” Hip asked.

The ground fell beneath them, and a crack ran along the ceiling.

“
We need to bail ship,” Hermes said. “I’ll help you with the mortal.”

Hip carefully slid his hands beneath Jen’s armpits as Hermes lifted her legs. Her head bobbed at odd angles, so he lifted it to rest against his chest.
He coughed at the dust falling in his face, in his mouth.

The ground shook
again, and a falling rock hit Artemis on the shoulder. She staggered.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“We can’t climb down with her like this,” Hermes said. “Throw her over your shoulder. I’ll climb below you and help with the weight.”

Therese and Than were fumbling with blankets, turning them into slings, but Hip feared they were taking too long.