I hoped she wasn’t going to bug us. There wasn’t much time left in long recess and I just wanted to play with Hannah.
Yay. The girls ignored us and headed over to the rest of their dumb friends, like Anil and Jackson. So annoying.
I stuck my tongue out at Bethany’s back.
Hannah looked up from trying to coax an earthworm back into the glass jar filled with grass that she’d made as its home, and grinned. “At least she’s in Miss Cohn’s grade two class. Not ours.”
My stomach growled even though we’d just had lunch. I flopped down and prodded the worm.
“He looks lost.”
“Huh?” I scrunched up my face, not sure who Hannah was talking about.
She stared off across the field. “That boy. Maybe we should say hi.”
I looked over at where she was staring. The new kid. Bethany was kind of right. He was sort of weird looking. His dark hair stuck up like he’d shoved his finger in a socket. He wore a T-shirt with a robot picture on it. And the black glasses on his face kept sliding down his nose.
It didn’t seem to bother him, because he just kept pushing them up to look around.
“Come on.” Hannah bounced to her feet and headed toward him, expecting me to follow.
I rolled onto my back. Didn’t want to move. I wanted to lie in the sun. And not talk to strangers. I had Hannah. I didn’t need another friend.
I waited for her to come back so we could keep playing. But she brought him with her.
“This is Theo. He’s going to be our friend.”
We’d see about that. Groaning and moaning, I pulled myself up and looked at him.
He tilted his head, kind of studying me.
I didn’t like that. So I gave him my best prickly look. Imagining I was a porcupine with my quills standing up.
“Yeah. You’re okay.” He grinned and folded himself down beside me.
Hey, wasn’t I the one who should decide if he got to stay? He was the new kid.
But then he peered at the home we’d made for the worm and said, “You need to make a better hole in the lid. Get some rocks and leaves and stuff.” It just felt right for him to be here then. With us.
With me.
I relaxed and listened to him talk about the worm.
Bethany skipped past and rolled her eyes. “Figures.”
“Shut up, Bethany,” I warned. “Theo’s our friend.”
Yeah. We had our group now.
Bam!
The air vibrated hard enough to jostle me sideways, knocking me back into the battle. I wanted to stay in that happy past, not this horrorshow present.
I swiped at my eyes. Kai was right. Here. Now. I would fight. And later, I would fight with Kai about what he’d kept from me. But at this moment, I had a job to do. No way was Theo’s …
absence
going to be for nothing.
Absence. I didn’t even want to think the other word. It made my insides twist as if Demeter was killing me a billion times over. I swear I felt bits of my heart breaking off and hitting the ground. I could hear the hollow thunks.
“Sophie!” Kai yelled. He stood, tense, in position next to Festos.
I blew a kiss toward the last place I’d seen Theo alive. And vowed that everyone who had brought this about would pay. Then I looked at Festos and nodded. “Do it.”
Festos spoke the words and brought our ward down.
I raised my face to the sky, feeling the wind on my cheeks as the minions swarmed to the attack. The war had begun.
Now
. Persephone’s voice swirled in my head. This time, I let her have her way. I mentally removed every block, every civilized impulse I had, and unleashed my full furious power.
Kai and I fell into a pattern. I blasted shockwave after shockwave, clearing the sky momentarily with each discharge. But in seconds more came back. That’s what happens with an endless supply of minions.
My ears rang with each explosion, until I felt like I existed inside of an endlessly ringing bell.
Kai handled the minions that got too close to Festos. He was Fee’s personal bodyguard, keeping him safe while he chanted the cleansing ritual.
I could see Fee’s body trembling with grief, but he kept going. And if he could, then I could too. His determination in the face of such insane loss, recharged me just as much as the magic ring on my finger.
I fired again and again, staying rooted to the spot, and forcing extra power from deep within the earth. I wiggled my bare feet into the dirt, digging my toes in deeper.
At least it didn’t stay dark. Between fireballs, lightning strikes, my shockwaves and Kai’s black light, it was quite the dazzling illumination.
My eyes closed. I didn’t need to see the Photokia and Pyrosim to know where they were. I could sense them, millions and millions, swarming me. More than I could count. More than I could process.
It was a plague of minions. The world was so thick with them that I was amazed there was still room for air. Their fireballs burned my skin and sparked my hair. Their lightning arced through my body.
The air was heat and smoke and burning destruction. Every particle glided over my skin in electric vibrations that shocked the tiny hairs on my arms. Black ash rained down, covering me in a blanket of soot. I took it all in and used it. Turned it around and sent it back with every shockwave I fired.
I felt untouchable. Even with all the hits I was taking, my healing abilities kept up pretty well. I had never been more a goddess, more every-inch powerful, than in this moment. I felt Persephone settle into my skin, connect to me in a way that had never happened before. For this moment, at least, we were in perfect synch. We were the vanquishers and our enemies would go down tasting our wrath.
Until I heard the laughter. The mocking from my vision. It rolled through me with such contempt that I could taste it. My eyes shot open and flicked to Kai. I wanted to know if he heard it, too. But there was no way to ask over the roar of noise. Over the ringing in my ears.
He understood though. He nodded and tilted his head up.
Zeus and Hades had arrived. They landed on the ground with perfect grace, about twenty feet away. I’d seen them both in their towering god forms, but this was different. For all the times when I’d confronted them and mouthed off to them and mocked them? There was nothing vaguely amusing about either of them now.
I shivered. A splinter of doubt wedged its way into my heart. I may have been a goddess, but they were truly the lords of all gods.
They weren’t even angry. It was as if we were as much beneath their notice as ants. Suddenly I knew where the laughter—in my vision and in real life—had come from. We amused them. Kai and I. Their silly children throwing a temper tantrum. Zeus and Hades looked at us with exasperation and resignation. Like our fun was over now. It was time for the grown-ups to dole out the punishment.
I wondered how I had ever been deluded enough to think myself equal to them.
Except …
Since our punishment was death—ours and all humans—so that the gods could freely roam, I wasn’t going to roll over and accept whatever they intended to dish out. I sidled over to Kai and Festos, still blasting away at the minions. The magic ring may have been recharging me but using so much power made me feel wonky. Light-headed.
My human form strained to contain my power. My limbs trembled. My skin felt tight, stretched to its limit and ready to tear. My light wanted to break free, unhindered by my puny mortal body.
I was burning up. Sweat streamed down the back of my neck and under the elastic of my bra. My hair was plastered in limp, damp strands. Moss green spots danced in front of my eyes. More and more with every shockwave I fired.
I stumbled, anxious that my power would kill me before the gods did. We’d been so happy that Festos had found a way to recharge me, that we hadn’t stopped to consider whether or not I could handle a continuous re-up. Whether perhaps the reason I had to rest between blasts was because my body couldn’t take it.
If this were a video game, my life bar would have been blinking red. And I’d be ignoring it. Voluntarily shortening my life span to keep firing at the minions. Keep trying to save the world.
I burrowed my feet deeper into the earth and looked over at the guys. Festos had finished the cleansing, which meant that Kai and I were good to go.
Seconds, Soph. Hang on a few more.
My head cleared enough to hear Kai yelling at Fee to leave. Festos shook his head and Kai grabbed him by the shoulders. “Go!”
Fee took in the situation. He knew that it was down to Kai and me. And despite all his power, his presence was now a distraction we couldn’t afford. He looked at me with dull eyes and I forced myself to nod. As much as I wanted him here, not to fight but to comfort, I couldn’t lose him, too. One more reason to wrap this up as fast as possible. Fee and I were going to need each other tonight.
He understood. Blowing me a sad kiss, he disappeared.
Kai took my hand. Resolve flowed through me. Let Hades and Zeus do their worst. Kai and I had love on our side and we would win. We’d make the minions ours, turn them on our fathers, seize their power, and save humanity from destruction.
It would all be over.
Kai threw up a shield of black light as we stepped onto the ritual location. I stayed on alert, ready to keep blasting even as I spoke. Between us, we’d deal with whatever they threw our way.
It was a good thought. In theory. Thing was, they didn’t throw anything at us. Instead, Zeus and Hades began to chant. The wind picked up and the air grew cold. But beyond that, not much happened.
A wide smile broke across Kai’s face. “They’re trying to start the apocalypse. One above and one below. But it’s not working.”
I felt hope blossom within me. Zeus and Hades chanted more insistently, their faces clouded, turning splotchy with anger. I could have danced. The big top gods were achieving squat. Kai and I were going to win. I knew it. I felt it.
I squeezed Kai’s hand, turned to face him, and spoke the first line of our ritual. “
Katabaino
.”
“
Anabaino
,” he replied.
Zeus roared and fired a thunderbolt that burst Kai’s shield into thousands of fragments of toxic light. It knocked us to the ground, our momentum rolling us away from my father’s next killing blow.
A staff appeared in Hades’ hand. He struck the ground twice. Jagged cracks opened up in the earth, sucking everything into their depths.
We got to our feet, hands still clasped, and ran. Forget staying in place to do the ritual. Our lives depended on outdistancing the earth that came toward us like a wave. I prayed that saying the words in the general vicinity would be enough.
“
Di’erota,
sthenos gignetai,
” we chanted.
The ground disappeared from beneath Kai’s feet. He stumbled and went down.
Ironically, it was only the shockwave coming off Pops’ next lightning strike that kept me from falling into the hole as well. It hit and hurled me sideways. The mocking laughter started again.
Kai. I had to get to Kai. The total and absolute terror of him not by my side, of losing him while my vision unfolded before me, gave me the jolt of adrenaline I needed to keep moving.
Dazed and bleeding, I crawled to the lip of the hole on my belly. Nothing else mattered in that moment. Nothing but Kai. Without him, there could be no victory. I didn’t care that the minions continued to swarm me with their deadly assault. I fired another shockwave. almost carelessly, clearing the skies for another moment. But I wasn’t re-charged with the same level of light.
Festos’ magic ring was running out of power.
A shadow fell over me. Zeus raised his thunderbolt …
… and missed as Kai shot out of the hole to physically tackle my father out of the way.
It bought us precious seconds. Our eyes locked and in perfect unison we chanted the last line of the ritual. “
Di’erota, menos gignetai.
”
The world went still. The minions hadn’t returned. I think that Zeus and Hades were too shocked that we’d completed the ritual to do anything. We all stood frozen, waiting to see what would happen.
The ground beneath me bucked with a force no Richter scale could measure. Kai and I couldn’t get to our feet. The world shuddered so violently that we were flung around like rag dolls.
I couldn’t understand what had happened. We’d done it. We’d said the ritual. We’d stopped Hades and Zeus.
Hadn’t we?
A roar split my eardrums. It wasn’t just loud. It was all-consuming. The noise slithered into me and punched me from the inside.
My eyes bulged at a tsunami of water rushing toward us. So much that I wondered how there could be any left in the ocean. It was one atrocity too many. My mind snapped and I stared, hypnotized.