The Blood of the Hydra (21 page)

I nodded, since when she said it that way, it was hard to disagree. “It’s worth a try,” I admitted, looking at the others. “What do you all think?”

“You already know that I’m in,” Blake said.

“I guess it’s not a
terrible
idea.” Danielle shrugged. “But it’s a bummer that we’ll have to waste some of our fruit on this. We can’t go back and get more, and we need it for the potion.”

“We need the
seeds
of the lotus fruit for the potion,” Kate corrected her. “Not the actual fruit. We can remove the seeds, feed the fruit to Melina, and still be able to use the seeds later. It’s a win-win.”

“Then let’s do it,” Ethan said. “As long as Lampetia approves?”

With that, we all turned to Lampetia. She’d stopped twirling her necklace, and I held my breath as we waited for her to speak, afraid that she might not be on board with the plan.

“Melina will not be hurt by this fruit,” she asked. “Correct?”

“Not at all,” I assured her. “The fruit will simply calm her down. Once it’s out of her system, she’ll be back to normal. Ethan was trapped on the Land of the Lotus Eaters for over two years, living off nothing but the fruit, and he’s fine now. Melina will be fine, too. I promise.”

Lampetia studied me for a few seconds, and I tried not to fidget under her gaze. “If you
promise
, then I’ll trust you,” she decided. “Give Melina this lotus fruit and see what you can do. If you’re able to acquire her milk, then you’ll be making history, and I’ll be most impressed.”

“Thank you,” I breathed, finally able to relax again.

“Now—get to it!” she said, clapping her hands in a chop-chop fashion. “There’s no time to waste.”

It didn’t take long for us to drink the yellow energy water and extract the seeds from the lotus fruit. Now, we were ready to feed it to Melina.

“Do you want to do it?” Kate asked me. “Since this was your idea.”

“Sure.” I smiled at Melina, whose big brown eyes watched me with a mix of curiosity and confusion. “I’ll just hold it out to her, and she’ll eat it?”

“Yes,” Lampetia said. “She’ll eat it if she wants to. If she doesn’t want to, you won’t be able to force her—the same way you were unable to force her to allow you to milk her. And I won’t have you shoving anything down her throat.” She scowled. “How… undignified.”

“All right.” I inched closer to Melina, a piece of lotus fruit perched in my hand. It smelled deliciously sweet, and my mouth watered as the scent filled my head. But the energy water I’d drank kept me focused enough to know
not
to eat the fruit myself.

Melina seemed to enjoy the scent as well, because she sniffed a few times, and her ears perked up. She walked over to me and nudged the fruit with her nose, gobbling it up in one bite. Once finished, she licked my hand until the juice was gone, and then she looked at me, as if thirsty for more. But we’d left the rest of the fruit near the door, so we could use it on the other cows if it worked.

“I think she liked it,” Lampetia observed.

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “It’s impossible to resist the lotus fruit.”

Melina’s eyes glazed over—clearly the fruit had taken effect. She started to lie down, but Ethan rushed over and wrapped his arms around her neck, his muscles tightening as he held her up.

“No, you don’t,” he said sternly. “You’re going to stay standing so that we can get your milk.”

“Are you seriously holding that cow up by yourself?” Danielle asked him.

“I’m strong,” he said, winking at her. “I’m a son of Zeus.”

“How typical.” Lampetia laughed. “Sons of Zeus are always so arrogant.”

“Can you blame us?” he asked. “Our father
is
the king of the gods, after all.”

“As I said,” Lampetia said, although she smiled at him. “So arrogant.” Then she motioned for us to proceed, which reminded me that we didn’t have endless time here.

“Is it okay if I try milking her?” I asked Kate, reaching out to stroke Melina’s nose again. The cow let out a long breath of what seemed like appreciation.

“Go ahead,” Kate said. “Do you have any questions about what to do?”

“I think I’ve got it,” I said. “I watched the video, too.” I walked around to Melina’s backside and sat down, positioning the pail under her udder. Like the video instructed, I nudged the udder a few times to make sure the milk had dropped. The cow didn’t kick my face or buck back, which I took as a good sign. So I held onto the teat like the video said—by “clamping” it off with my index finger and thumb—and squeezed. I hadn’t expected anything to happen, so I hadn’t given much thought to aim, but out came a small squirt of milk—straight onto my face and hair.

“It worked!” I exclaimed, wiping the milk off my face. “I did it!”

“Now try getting it
in
the pail,” Danielle said. “Although, who knows? Maybe the sacred immortal milk is a good conditioner.”

I didn’t reply to her, instead continuing to squirt out the milk—and making sure that it landed in the pail. The whole process was taking quite a bit of time, so eventually Kate kneeled down next to me and milked one of the other teats, so we could work together. It didn’t take long for us to get a steady rhythm going.

“This is kind of fun,” she said, continuing to squirt one teat after the other. “I don’t know why Melina wouldn’t let us milk her before. It doesn’t seem to bother her at all.”

“Who knows?” I asked. “I’m just glad the lotus fruit worked.”

After about fifteen minutes, the milk production slowed down, until her udder was dry. Two of our pails were now full of milk. It wouldn’t take long to do this to a few more cows, especially if we split up. Then we could take the milk and get out of there.

“Ummm you guys?” Ethan said, still standing with his arms wrapped around Melina’s neck. “I don’t think Melina’s doing too well.”

I stood up, brushing my hands off on my jeans. “What do you mean?” I asked, walking around to check on her. But he didn’t need to answer, because I saw it for myself. Melina’s eyes were halfway closed, and her breathing was labored, as if each breath was painful for her to take. She continued like that for a few more seconds, until she let out one long breath and collapsed to the ground.

“My
cow
!” Lampetia shrieked, shooting up from the sofa and rushing over to her. She fell to Melina’s side and tried to shake her awake, but the animal was unresponsive. She nudged her a few more times, and then looked back up at me, her eyes wide. “What did you do to my cow?”

“She’ll be okay,” I assured her, joining her at Melina’s side. “I don’t know what happened to her, but I can heal her. She’ll be fine.”

“Yes,” Lameptia said, her voice soft with desperation. “Heal her.
Now
.”

But when I placed my hands on Melina’s body, I couldn’t sense her spirit. I searched harder—for a pulse, for the light that was her soul, for
something
—but no matter how hard I strained, there was nothing. She was beyond my help.

I pulled my hands off Melina’s body and leaned back on my heels, blinking away tears at the sight of the fallen cow. “I can’t heal her.” I shook my head hopelessly, unable to meet Lampetia’s eyes. “She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

“Gone?” Lampetia snarled. “Do you mean to say that you
slaughtered one of Helios’s sacred cattle?
”

Blake stepped forward to stand next to me, resting his hand on my shoulder. “We didn’t
slaughter
your cow,” he said. His other hand was wrapped around his lighter, as if he were worried that Lampetia might strike out at me at any second. “You were here the entire time. You saw everything we did. You approved of it all.”

“What I
saw
was that you milked Melina dry,” she spat, her eyes narrowed into slits of anger. “And now I finally know why the cows refuse to let anyone milk them. Because once they’re milked, they
die
. Just like poor Melina here.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her again, my voice catching in my throat. “I didn’t know. If we’d known, we never would have taken all of her milk…”

“There’s no point in apologies now,” she said, standing up and crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll have to tell my father about this.”

“You mean Helios?” Kate asked, her eyes wide. “You’re going to tell
Helios
that one of his cows died?”

“Yes,” Lampetia said. “More precisely—I’m going to tell him that you and your band of cursed witches were the ones responsible.”

“But it wasn’t our fault,” Danielle said, her gaze level with Lampetia’s. “You were on our side—you helped us get the milk! Obviously none of us knew that it would end up killing the cow. If you’d known, you wouldn’t have let us do it.”

“But she’s dead, nonetheless.” Lampetia sniffed. “So I need to tell my father—now.”

“Just give us enough time to bring the milk to the boat and get off the island,” I pleaded. “Please. We
need
this milk. Without it, we can’t make the potion that we need to stop the Titans and their supporters from escaping Kerberos—”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Lampetia said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve already told me about the milk and your special potion. But you’ve forgotten one important detail—my father Helios is a Titan. Sure, he sided with the Olympians during the Second Rebellion, but who’s to say he won’t switch sides if the Titans come out ahead? And I’ve always been neutral in all of this war stuff. None of the gods care what I do, as long as they and the demigods and the witches and any other magical creatures out there have a grand old time on my island resort. So you’re going to need to leave that milk here, at least until I return from telling my father, so he can judge you as he pleases. I will leave it to him to determine what to do with you all.”

Kate’s eyes widened in panic, and she didn’t need to say anything to get the message across—Helios’s decision wouldn’t be in our favor. So I did the only thing I could think to do—I grabbed an arrow from my quiver, stabbed it through the remaining part of the lotus fruit, and threw it straight into Lampetia’s shoulder.

Her eyes went wide, and she stared at the arrow embedded into her skin, her mouth dropped open in shock. I’d purposefully aimed for a non-fatal spot, since I didn’t want to kill her—if it were even possible to kill an immortal goddess. I just wanted to get the lotus fruit in her system. Since she wasn’t going to eat it voluntarily, shooting her with it was the best way to do that.

She held my gaze for a few more seconds, but then her eyelids fluttered, and she gave me a loopy smile. “Ow,” she said, sitting down and pulling the arrow from her shoulder. She held it up and laughed, as if this were the most amusing thing to happen all day. “That hurt.”

“Sorry.” I walked over to her and plucked the key ring out of her pocket, twirling it around my finger. “But thanks for this.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and turned to the others, who were watching me with expressions of shock and awe. “Let’s take the milk and get out of here,” I told them, looking at the pails we’d filled. “We have to bring it to the boat as fast as possible.”

“And what are you going to do with her?” Danielle pointed to Lampetia, who was massaging the place where she’d been punctured with the arrow. “Lock her in here with the dead cow?”

Sadness filled my heart as I looked at Melina’s body. She was a sweet cow. If I’d known that taking all of her milk was going to kill her, I never would have done it.

But it was too late now—we couldn’t take back what we’d already done. All we could do was make sure the sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.

“Yes, we’ll lock her in here,” I said, marching toward the door. “By the time she snaps back into focus and manages to escape, we’ll be long gone from this island.”

Once back on the yacht, we secured the milk and told Hypatia, Chris, and Rachael the story of what had happened on the island.

“I warned you not to slaughter any of Helios’s cattle,” Hypatia reminded us. “Once Lampetia tells her father about this, you all are going to be in serious trouble with him.”

“What’s he going to do?” I asked.

“I can’t be sure,” she said. “Back when Odysseus’s men slaughtered the cattle, Helios told Zeus and the Olympians that if they didn’t take their vengeance, he would shine the sun in Hades instead of on Earth. The gods couldn’t have that, so to calm Helios, Zeus struck Odysseus’s boat with a lightning bolt and destroyed it. Odysseus escaped by swimming to Calypso’s island, and he remained there for seven years.”

“I think we can be pretty confident that Zeus won’t destroy our ship,” Rachael said. “Not with two of his children and one of his descendants onboard, and with him being so vested in helping us on our mission.”

“I agree that Zeus wouldn’t harm us,” Hypatia said. “But what about the other gods? They can be… unpredictable.”

“The Olympians are on our side,” Blake pointed out. “They’re counting on us to reseal the portal to Kerberos to stop the Titans from returning to Earth. Helios can beg all he wants, but I can’t imagine what would convince the Olympians to stop us from completing our mission.”

“I can’t, either,” I agreed. “But we’ll still have to worry about Helios himself.”