The Gatekeeper's Promise: Gatekeeper's Saga, Book Six (The Gatekeeper's Saga 6) (8 page)

Plus, the Fates had said her twins would restore faith to humanity, so nothing bad could happen to them, right?

Just as she reached out to sense Than, he appeared before her.

“What are you doing?” he asked with a look of dread on his face.

“I’m making sure you’re okay.” This wasn’t exactly a lie.

He smiled and kissed her. “I’m
fine, but if you keep hanging around here, I’ll just worry about you. Let’s go home together. I’ll give you a play by play of what’s happening with Phorcys and Keto.”

She was about to tell him her plan to visit Cyclopes Island when she noticed
two boys kicking a dog on the southern coast of Italy. She sent arrows into all three beings and watched with satisfaction as they embraced, but then something strange happened: the dog turned into a third boy.

“That’s odd,” she said to Than. “Hold on.”
Shielding herself from the sight of the three using her invisibility mode, she flew down to take a closer look. She had barely landed on the beach when a fierce wind slammed against her and hurled her into the sea.

Something sharp reached up and gras
ped her in its clutches. As she struggled against the immovable claws, she realized she had fallen into the pincers of Scylla.

The monster
dragged Therese through the water and then up from the sea into a cave along the coast. Scylla’s six necks were twice as long as the Hydra’s one, and her six serpent-like heads each had three rows of teeth. She also had twelve long dangling legs, like tentacles, and the heads of six yelping dogs at her waist. Two long arms with pincers shot up from the monster’s sides and clamped Therese in a death hold. She tried to god travel out, but something was blocking her efforts.

The monster came to a halt and s
tared at her with the four center heads. Each had a single eye.

“What do you want from me?”
Therese shouted, but the monster said nothing.

The cave was bright, the inner walls covered in iridescent crystals. The source of light glowed somewhere in the back of the cave. Therese strained
her neck to look all around, hoping for a means of escape, when her eyes fell on a beautiful bright goddess, with bright hair and eyes beaming like the sun. She was the source of light in the cave.

“Who are you?” Therese asked as the goddess moved toward her.

“Circe,” the goddess said politely. “Daughter to Helios. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Therese.”

“Can you help me?” Therese struggled
against the claws.

All six of Scylla’s heads scoffed.

“I’m afraid it is you who will help me,” the goddess said.

“What can
I
do? I’m a bit stuck at the moment.” Obviously Scylla and Circe were working together, but why?

Unexpectedly, Scylla said, from all six of her heads,
“I used to be beautiful, like you.” Her voice echoed throughout the chamber.

“Tell the truth, Scylla,” Circe said in the voice of a kindergarten teacher correcting a child. “You were born that way, were you not?”

“I was,” the monster said. “But Circe transformed me into a beautiful goddess, and for years I was happy!”

“Until she stole my love from me,” Circe said in a voice less kind.

Scylla screeched, “I never asked for his love! It wasn’t my fault! It was never my fault! Now change me! You swore an oath!”

Therese’s head was spinning from the monster’s fierce shrieks.

Circe moved closer to Therese and sprinkled her with a white, bitter-smelling powder. The substance landed in her hair and on her face and arms. She breathed ii in by accident, causing her to sneeze.

When she had finished spreading the powder over Therese, Circe said
to Scylla, “We have to wait until she’s changed. Then, I shall change you.”

Circe
disappeared, and the cave became dark.

Therese’s mouth fell open and she met one
of Scylla’s four eyes. “What’s happening?”

“It was the only way she would change me
back,” Scylla said. “She set you up with the boys on the beach. She used her black magic to change one of them into a dog.”

“What is this stuff? What’s it going to do to me?”

“The bones of a slaughtered animal ground into a fine powder and mixed with her terrible herbs and potions.”

Therese felt a panic coming on. “What’s it going to do to me?” she repeated.

“It’s going to turn you into this.” Scylla lifted one of her pincers and motioned to herself. “So you can take my place.”

“I don’t believe you!” Therese shouted. “You’ve been deceived. How could a daughter of Helios have that kind of power?”

“Black magic,” Scylla said. “It comes with a price. Circe rarely sleeps because the black magic haunts her. The ghosts of her sacrifices torment her. Her power is not a natural gift. Nevertheless, she wields it.”

“This can’t be happening,” Therese insisted as a pressure gripped her chest.

Scylla laid her down on the floor of the cave. “Oh, but it is.”

***

Thanatos dove into the sea after Therese, but Charbydis pulled him under with her powerful whirlpool. He multiplied into fifty, then
a hundred, and swam against the monster’s current, slowing it enough for him to escape. Once he was free, integrated, and out of the water, he could no longer sense Therese.

Where are you?
He prayed. When she didn’t answer, he shouted her name, again and again, causing the skies to crack with thunder.

Back in the house of Phorcys and Keto,
where he sat across from his hosts, he turned to Ares, panting with panic and tears in his eyes.

Something’s happened to Therese
, he prayed.

Disintegrate and dispatch to Poseidon
, Ares replied.
We must complete our interrogation here.

Thanatos did as Ares
said. He god travelled directly to Poseidon’s palace and pounded on the door.

“So we need to know if you have any knowledge about the attack on Amphitrite and Poseidon,” Ares said
to Phorcys and Keto.

“They were attacked?” Keto asked with an expression that was far from surprised.

“Do you swear you had nothing to do with it?” Ares asked.

“We do not swear in this house.” Phorcys whipped his
fish tail down and stirred the waters around them. His pincer-like forelegs clacked opened and closed, opened and closed.

I
n a voice laced with threat, Ares said, “If you and your wife refuse to swear, we have no choice but to assume you’re involved.”

“As you wish,” Phorcys said. “But we have no more to say, so you can
either depart amicably, or I’ll have to call Scylla and her sisters to help you on your way.”

“Don’t threaten me!” Ares stood up and puffed out his chest.

Than did the same, but inside, he felt helpless. Something had happened to Therese, and these two before him could be responsible. He narrowed his eyes, trying to read their faces.

“
Be assured we will return,” Ares added. “And you won’t have known a sorrier day.”

“
How
is
Scylla these days?” Than finally asked, his heart rate increasing. “I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.”

Phorcys frown
ed. “She’s busy at the moment.”

Taking this for evidence, and no longer able to stand there  without doing anything,
Than multiplied into the fifties and bound the old man and his wife to their thrones. “I thought I smelled a bluff. What have you done with Therese?”

This is not the time!
Ares prayed.
We’re on their turf without reinforcements.

I’m
our reinforcements.
Than multiplied into the dozens, ready to defend himself and Ares from attack. He was surprised the god of war wasn’t more enthusiastic, and this chipped away a little of Than’s confidence. He might not be doing the right thing, but he had to do something.

Then a long serpent’
s tail wrapped itself around Than’s neck and threatened to snap off his head, debilitating the entire group of him.

Echidna.

Ares drew his sword and swung at the half-woman, half-serpent.

The serpent goddess hissed, and from her
beautiful, humanoid face, a forked tongue flicked out and wrapped itself around the hilt of Ares’s sword. Phorcys leaped forward and held Ares’s boots with his pincers, demobilizing him. Keto reinforced the trap by wrapping her arms around the god of war’s waist.

“Mmm,” Keto said. “I’ve always wanted to kiss you, Ares.”

“Stop that nonsense,” Phorcys commanded.

Miles away in the Aegean, in
the foyer of Poseidon’s palace, Thanatos stared at the lord of the sea with wide eyes. His face went pale and he could barely breathe.

“What is it, my boy?” Poseidon asked with alarm.

Thanatos automatically reintegrated into one prisoner: The prisoner of Echidna.

***

Jen sat across the breakfast table from her mother and brother at the crack of dawn, dressed and ready to go to work in the barn. Neither her mom nor her brother had said a word about their trip to Tartarus, and Jen was beginning to fear it had all been a dream.

Had her brother and mother really witnessed Pete drinking Jen’s blood?

She
shuddered as she stirred some sugar and milk into her coffee. “Y’all doin’ okay this morning?”

Bobby let out a deep breath. “I still can’t believe it.”

Their mother’s eyes flooded with tears as she sipped at her coffee and sucked at a cigarette.

“Mom?” Jen asked.

“I don’t know whether I’m pleased as punch or ready for the looney bin,” her mother said.

A gentle knock
at the door disturbed their conversation.

Bobby went to the front window. “It’s Mr. Stern.”

Jen met her mother’s eyes and was surprised to see them crinkle into a smile. “Ain’t no way in hell we’re telling him about this. Y’all hear?”

Jen and Bobby grinned and nodded.

“Promise?” Mrs. Holt asked.

“Promise,” they each said.

“My oldest son is in the Underworld and is fixin’ to marry a Fury,” Mrs. Holt muttered. “No, I just don’t think John would take that very well.”

A
ll three of them giggled.

“Go ahead and let him in, Bobby,” their mother said.

Jen was surprised at how well her mother received Mr. Stern when just a few days ago, she’d been begging him to leave.

“I’m sorry to bother you all,” he said from the doorway.

Mrs. Holt went to the door. “Come on in, John. I’m glad to see you.”

“You are?” His bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“’Course.” Mrs. Holt put out her cigarette and winked at Jen. “Don’t say a word,” she mouthed.

Jen smiled.

Mr. Stern stayed all morning to help with the chores. Jen could tell he enjoyed horse work and had a talent for it. Despite her own sadness over losing Hypnos to the evil Sith lord, Jen was overjoyed that her mother appeared to be happy.

But all morning long,
she couldn’t stop thinking about what Pete might have seen in her future that had made him go berserk. Did he see her with Hip? Is that what had made no sense?

As
they returned to the house for lunch, Jen passed by the broken remnants of the dream globe and picked up one of the larger pieces. It glittered in the sunlight, felt like glass to the touch, but was cold, like ice. She closed her eyes and asked to see Hip. When nothing happened, as she had expected, she dropped the broken piece in the dirt, kicked it with her boot, and headed to the house. She washed up in her room, put on fresh clothes, and then picked up the crown from her side table. Now that her mother was feeling better, maybe it was time for Jen to be invisible again.

***

Hypnos flew across the Ionian Sea, where he had last sensed Therese. What could she be doing out this way? And why wasn’t she answering him?

He settled on a rock on the Sicilian side of the Messina Straight and rested his chin in his hands. He needed to give up on his dream of finding a way to make Jen a goddess. It wasn’t going to happen; instead, he needed to convince her that he was capable of loving her for the rest of her life—no matter how old and gray she lived to become.

But would she believe him?
He doubted it. Mortals tended to be as vain as the gods and even more insecure.

He had gone centuries without love, so why did he need it now? He realized it wasn’t love he needed; it was Jen. Her beautiful smile and fun-loving spirit and dedication to her family and friends warmed his heart. And the way she looked at him, kissed him, held him, wanted him—all those things filled him with joy and made him want to sing.