The Blood of Athens (16 page)

A pebble
rolled under his foot. The Titan looked up. He sniffed the air.

“
I can smell
your sweat and fear. Invisible? It must be you, Hades.”

Peter revealed
himself. He tried to stand tall and proud, but it was hard not to
show fear in front of an unknown enemy. “Who are you?” he asked.

“
Finally!”
the Titan shouted. He put his hand over his heart. “Really, Hades.
I'm touched. It's so nice to know that somebody cares.” A sick
smile spread across his face. “Some call me passion,” he sang,
“Some call me action, some call me violence, but I prefer
murder.
Menoetius,
son of Iapetus.” He held out a hand to shake. Peter didn't take it.

“
Why
Livingstone?” Peter asked. “I mean, you have Zach and June.”

“
You
Olympians don’t trust each other, but all of you trust the mortal
without a second thought. I’m a god of many talents, but even I
can’t take on fifteen Olympians at once.”

“
Why take us
on in the first place?” Peter asked.

“
Well,
there's the whole moral question of dispatching the Olympians for the
sake of the mortals, which frankly,” he gestured to Frank,
unconscious on the ground, the taser still clicking away, “I don't
give a damn about that. Then there's the fact that you all murdered
my brothers. Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas were much nobler than
I am, but they didn't deserve to die. So, yes. I'm going to kill you
all for vengeance, and also because I like killing people.” The
taser stopped clicking. Menoetius dropped it on the ground, letting
the plastic shell crack.

“
That's why
you killed all of those other people?” Peter asked. “Because you
like killing?”

“
I had to
keep myself busy while I waited for you,” the Titan said. “And
when I get bored, I murder. It's rash, I know, but that’s just the
way chaos made me.” Peter could tell he was excited. He was showing
off. Menoetius flicked his hands and his appearance changed in a
flash. He was a short man with long hair and an impressive mustache.
He spoke in an eastern-european accent. “I've been princes, bloody
and terrible.” With another flick of his hands, more for show than
function, he was another, bearded man holding a scepter and a crown.

Now he was
tall with a top-hat and a black Inverness coat. He spoke with a
British accent and brandished a knife. “I've inspired theories,
movies, and novels.”

His form
changed again, this time to an Italian man with a red sox hat over
his eyes and a thick Boston accent. He twirled a piece of chord in
his fingers. “I've inspired copycats, too.”

He changed
into a man with short hair and heavy glasses, wearing a crosshair on
his chest, “And a good handful of frauds.”

Now he was
back to his shifting form, dressed in a black coat and never letting
his face settle too long on one identity. He had walked closer to
Peter, and now the young Olympian found himself backed against the
ledge.”

Peter clapped
sarcastically. “I am death, and you are murder,” he said,
stepping to the side slowly, trying to maneuver himself away from the
ledge. “You bring souls for my Kingdom. That would make me your
boss, then.”

“
Nonsense.
I'm a Titan. I came before you and I will be here when you are
destroyed.”

“
But if
you're murder... that's a very specific kind of death. So you fall
under my domain.” He had worked his way around so that the line of
sight between himself and the Titan was parallel with the edge of the
roof. Peter glanced over his shoulder. A purple Jaguar was pulling
into the school parking lot.

“
It won't be
your domain when I kill you,” Menoetius said. A long knife grew out
of his hand. He wrapped his fingers tight around the handle. “It
will be easy,” he said. “Especially with our agent among you.”

Peter's hands
clenched into tight fists. “What?”

“
Who do you
think released the Titans? Zeus did a fine job of cleaning up after
his coup. Even I give you enough credit to know that, had we burst
out on our own, you would have had some warning. Someone betrayed
you. One of your own.”

“
Who?”

“
Now, Hades,
why would I tell you a thing like that?”

“
Because
you're planning to kill me anyway?” Peter suggested.

“
Yes, well,
true... but I'm planning to kill Persephone first. I want to keep you
alive and make you watch. Maybe I’ll have a little extra fun, you
know what I mean? Like I taught my little friend BTK. Doesn't that
sound like fun?”

Peter blinked
out of sight.

“
Is that the
best you have? You think that your little invisibility trick will
keep me from her?” Menoetius asked.

“
No,”
Peter said from behind him. “But this will.”

There was a
scraping of shoes on tar as Peter charged towards the Titan.
Menoetius spun around in time to be struck by an invisible force.
Peter's arms wrapped around his shoulders, not giving him the chance
to squirm free. The back of Menoetius' calf hit the ledge around the
roof. He clutched at Peter's shirt, his fingers curling around
invisible fabric.

From
the parking lot Jason watched as a figure in black was knocked back
and tipped over the edge of the roof. His black cloak floated out
around him as he sailed to the ground and hit the concrete with a
thud and a thousand simultaneous cracks.

“
Everywhere
man blames nature and fate, yet his fate is mostly but the echo of
his character and passions, his mistakes and weaknesses.”

-Democritus

xx.

It
is said that once, a murderer, pursued
by the parents of the man
that he had killed,
fled from the city to hide in the forest
and
was followed there.

Along
the river bed he saw a lion,
and so, to escape the beast, he
climbed a tree.
But climbing through the tree he saw a serpent
and
so he jumped down.

As
he fell towards the surface of the river,
A crocodile popped up
and snapped its great jaws.
It caught the murderer and broke his
body,
killing him at once.

There
is a lesson to be learned from this tale:
when you stoop to take
the life of another,
you'll find no refuge on the land, in the
air,
nor in the waters.

“
A human
being is only breath and shadow.”

-Sophocles

XX.

“
What the--”
Teddy jumped out of the driver's seat and chased after Jason as he
ran to the fallen man. The Titan lay dead, his face frozen in a
distorted mixture of unharmonious features. Jason reached out to
check his pulse and felt something invisible block his hand.

“
Oh, shit,
Peter,” he said. He grabbed what he assumed were Peter's shoulders
and turned him over. Peter faded back into visibility, his head
covered in blood, his limbs twisted and broken.

“
Call 911!”
Jason shouted, “And then get the hell out of here.” He threw his
phone at Teddy. Teddy dialed the number, set the phone on the
concrete, and ran back to his car.

Frank looked
over the edge of the roof. “What happened?” he asked, wiping a
thick coating of sweat from his brow.

Jason took off
his coat and laid it over Peter to keep him warm. “Don't move
Peter,” he said, though he wasn't sure if the barely breathing boy
could hear him. There was a gurgling response. Peter was choking on
blood.

The voice of
the 911 dispatcher on speaker phone faded into background noise and
Jason worked, trying to help stabilize Peter without any supplies.
Frank jumped down off the roof, landing on his feet and sinking into
the soft lawn. He had Lewis draped over his shoulder. Lewis was
awake, but clearly concussed. “That's Zach's car,” Lewis said,
pointing to the Tesla Roadster parked hidden in the shadow of the
building.

Jason took the
keys out of the dead Titan's pocket and threw them to Frank. “Go
on,” he said as a siren sounded in the distance. “Take it back to
Celene's. You can't be found here.”

Frank ran with
Lewis still over his shoulder.

“
Put me
down, I’m fine,” Lewis said.

Frank ignored
him and kept running until he got to the Roadster. He set Lewis down,
and Lewis staggered before leaning against the car and holding his
head. His face was swelling and turning a deep shade of purple.

“
Man, you
hit me.”

Frank grunted
as he unlocked Zach's car and jumped in. Lewis took the passenger's
seat.

“
You
actually thought I was a Titan?”

“
Not now.
Where the hell are Zach and June?” Frank asked as he started up the
car.

“
Certainly
not in the trunk. That thing barely holds anything... wait.” Lewis
rubbed his head, “Zach installed a GPS tracker on the car in case
it got stolen.” He flipped open the glove box. Zach's iPhone fell
on the floor. The case looked scuffed, like it had recently been
dropped, but it turned on. Lewis logged in to the application for the
tracker and held it up show to Frank as they peeled out of the
parking lot. “We've got a map of everywhere this puppy has been in
the last twenty four hours,” he said. “Turn left up here.”

The
Lightning Green Roadster was out of sight just as the police and
ambulance arrived at the school. Sirens wailed and blue and red
flashing lights flooded the parking lot, casting Jason’s shadow
across Peter’s still and broken form.

“
There is
nothing permanent except change.”

-Epicurus

xxi.

Lord
Zeus called Hephaestus into his chambers
to commission him for a
special project.
He had received a visit from his sister
that
very morning.

Hestia,
the goddess of the hearth and home,
was wearied by the drama of
her siblings
and had asked to abdicate her golden throne
on
Mount Olympus.

And
so Zeus asked the Smith to craft a new throne
for his son, young
Dionysus, god of wine.
The fledgling god would take his seat as
one of
the Olympians.

“
Only
the dead have seen the end of war.”

-Plato

XXI.

The sleeves of
Zach Jacob's suit weren't quite long enough to cover the rope burns
on his wrists. He covered the left wrist with the watch his mother
had given him for Christmas and covered his right wrist with his left
hand. June clung to his arm, her fingers pressing painfully into his
bicep as she forced herself not to cry. It was a beautiful, sunny day
when they buried Peter.

Across the
cheap steel casket, Penny sobbed into her mother's shoulder. The
entire Pantheon had shown up, but hardly anyone else had come.
Peter's father stood at the head of the casket, stone sober and
expressionless. Peter's science teacher and the minister were the
only other attendees.

When the
service was over, a parade of cars left the cemetery, leaving a lone
worker to turn the crank and lower the box into the ground.

Zach sat on
Celene's couch, still dressed from the funeral. His navy blue trench
coat was draped over the back of the couch and his tie was loosened,
but he hadn't gone home to change. He sat with his hands folded, his
elbows rested on his knees, his fists pressed tight against his
mouth. The reality of the last few days was finally settling. Nobody
outside the Pantheon could know that Zach and June had been kidnapped
or that Lewis and Frank had found them in a storage locker on the
edge of town. Peter was dead. They were at war.

“
So,”
started Lewis in an uncharacteristically somber tone, “What now?”

“
He told
Peter something,” Frank said. “I heard it as I was coming to. He
said there was a traitor in the Pantheon. Someone who freed the
Titans.”

Zach's eyes
went straight to Nick, who didn't seem to notice the accusing glare.

“
Well,”
June started, “If someone did that, and he wasn't just screwing
with us, then they got double-crossed too.”

“
The Titan,
Menoetius: he was the last of the four sons of Iapetus,” Minnie
said. “Perhaps they're all that's coming.”