by Maz Evans
‘Where’s the wicked stepmother?’ said Aphrodite, looking around for Hera.
‘Gone on some secret mission,’ said Zeus. ‘Hopefully Mission: Long Walk Off Short Pier . . . Are you ready?’
‘Always,’ said Athene, in answer to an encouraging nod from her sister.
They all looked on as the ancient monument was lit up by the morning light. On another day, it would have been a joyful sight. Today, it filled Zeus with foreboding: would they end up at Thanatos’s mercy beneath those stones?
‘Sho,’ Ares declared, giving Aphrodite a flirty wink as he passed. ‘Everythingsh in plashe. We jusht need to create enough of a dishtractshion for the guysh to finish their mishon down in Tartarush.’
‘Roger that,’ said Zeus. ‘We’re all set. Now all we’re waiting for is—’
The ground beneath them started to shake with the rhythmic thumping of thousands of feet.
‘I think the waiting is over,’ said Athene, raising her sword and shield. ‘Everyone – battle stations!’
The Olympians and the Zodiac Councillors scuttled to their positions around the historic monument, as determined by Achilles.
‘RIGHT YOU ’ORRIBLE LOT!’ he boomed. ‘THIS IS IT! OLYMPUS EXPECTS EVERY IMMORTAL TO DO THEIR DUTY! IF YOU NEED COURAGE, LISTEN TO YOUR HEART! IF YOU NEED INSPIRATION, LISTEN TO YOUR MIND! AND IF YOU NEED A HAND, I HAVE FOUR SPARE IN MY RUCKSACK! TO VICTORY!’
The ground shook harder as the Elemental army approached.
‘STEADY!’ shouted Zeus, feeling the tension of his troops rising. ‘Hold fast, team! Hold—’
But his command was drowned out by an unholy shriek as the first of the battalion came into sight. It was Asteria and her sisters, armed with spears and driven by years of frustrated captivity. Zeus shuddered. He knew what angry, desperate women were capable of. He’d married at least forty-nine of them.
‘AAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ came the fearful cry, ringing around the stones as they drew closer . . . closer . . . closer . . .
Stonehenge was suddenly lit up with a huge neon sign, startling the sisters to a halt.
FREE SPA TREATMENTS – TODAY ONLY! it flashed into the feeble light of morning. MANICURES, PEDICURES, FACIALS, MASSAGES – COME THIS WAY!
‘Ladies!’ Aphrodite, now decked out in a white tunic, greeted them warmly. ‘How would you feel about a forty-five-minute luxury manicure with hand massage and nail extensions of your choice?’
The sisters hesitated, staring longingly at the luxurious pink spa Aphrodite had constructed.
Asteria raised her spear.
‘For thousands of years we have suffered imprisonment, torture and frustration!’ she cried. ‘What makes you think that a manicure will change our course?!’
‘It’s shellac,’ Aphrodite shrugged. ‘Guaranteed to last for at least two weeks.’
Asteria looked at her sisters.
‘Done!’ she cried, and all forty-nine of them ran screaming into the spa to choose their perfect shade.
‘Shentaursh at shix o’clock!’ shouted Ares, using his binoculars to scan the horizon.
‘On it!’ cried Artemis from atop her steed. ‘Hi-ho, Golden!’
She charged off towards the centaurs on her dappled stallion with her hounds close behind. The centaurs galloped resolutely towards her, but just as they met, Artemis let out a blast on her hunting horn, sending the hounds off into the woods.
‘TALLY-HO!’ she roared joyfully, chasing off after them.
The centaurs pulled up and watched her longingly. They whispered briefly amongst themselves – but the thrill of the hunt was too much for them to resist and, with a happy cry, they followed Artemis off across the Wiltshire countryside.
‘Watch out for the fairies!’ Athene cried, pointing to a swarm of angry fairies approaching from the south.
‘Hermesh promished he’d deal with thish,’ Ares replied. ‘It should go off in three . . . two . . . one . . .’
Zeus instinctively ducked, fearing a massive explosion. But instead, the air suddenly came alive with the trill of a hundred mobile ringtones. The fairies came to an abrupt halt to answer their phones.
‘HELLO?’ they shouted as one. ‘I CAN’T TALK, I’M INVOLVED IN A MASSIVE LAND CAMPAIGN . . . WHAT? A VIDEO OF A KITTEN PLAYING A BANJO? WHERE?’
And, in a mass of tapping fingers, the fairy threat was dissolved.
‘ATTAAAAAACK!’ came a new voice from across the plain.
‘Tantalus!’ Zeus cried. ‘He’s leading an army of goblins. Demeter – are you ready?’
‘Don’t you worry, my lovely,’ said Demeter, ladling out bowls of steaming stew to accompany the golden flagons of nectar on her makeshift bar. ‘Dionysus, give us a hand!’
‘Do you have any idea how many calories are in that?’ tutted the God of Wine.
‘Yes – 24,568,’ winked Demeter. ‘Or 25,000 flat if you add the dumplings. Now, do your thing!’
‘If I must,’ scowled Dionysus, before pinning a smile to his face. ‘Tantalus! Welcome to Elysian Eats, the latest pop-up restaurant experience! Won’t you come in and have a bite? Families welcome . . .’
‘No!’ cried Tantalus. ‘I mean, I can’t . . . I . . .’
He hungrily eyed the especially large dumplings Demeter plopped into an overflowing bowl of stew.
‘What was that, my lovely?’ she asked, ripping up some huge hunks of bread to go with it.
‘I-I-I-I’M STARVING!’ he cried, lunging at the stew and burying his face in it.
‘Good lad,’ said Demeter, patting the back of his head as the goblins descended on the other bowls. ‘Here, why not wash it down with a lovely glass of nec—’
The flagon was snatched from her hand and Tantalus glugged the nectar down in one go.
‘I hate drinking alone,’ he belched. ‘Come, friend – have a drink with me.’
‘I c-can’t,’ said Dionysus hesitantly. ‘I’m on a strict juicing detox that requires absolute—’
‘Oh, get that down yer neck!’ said Demeter, forcing a flagon into his hand.
‘Well – I suppose one can’t hurt,’ Dionysus slobbered, and drained it with a single gulp.
‘There’s the boy,’ laughed Demeter, refilling his flagon from a golden jug.
‘And so if you subtract x from the value of sin minus cos, I believe you’ll find that the value of a is equal to the product of f,’ said Athene to a group of nodding gorgons, who were enthusiastically taking notes from her chalkboard.
‘That’s why I told ’em,’ roared Poseidon from a hot tub full of mermaids, mermen and sea nymphs. ‘I said, “If you think that’s a sea monster, you should meet my ex-woife!”’
The rest of the story was lost to uproarious laughter and the clinking of glasses. Zeus looked around. The plan was working. Apollo was jamming by the Heel Stone with a makeshift band of satyrs. Hades was playing blackjack with a group of pixies. Sisyphus was busy working out his sibling rivalry with Salmoneus in an inflatable sumo suit.
‘The thththing isssss,’ slurred Tantalus, his arm slung around Dionysus, who was draining another flagon of nectar. ‘Thisss modern-day parenting issss sssso child-centric.’
‘It’s absssssurd,’ Dionysus agreed, refilling his drink from the jug.
‘I mean,’ Tantalus continued, ‘all theesssss guidelinessss about what you can and cannot do. Don’t feed them this. Don’t let them watch that. Don’t kill them and sssserve them up at a feasssst. It’s political correctnesssss gone mad . . .’
‘Isssss ssssso ssssssstupid,’ said Dionysus, nearly falling off his stool. ‘But do you know what’ssss wonderful?’
‘Tell me,’ hiccoughed Tantalus.
‘I love you,’ said Dionysus sincerely.
‘Oh, sssssssshhhh,’ laughed Tantalus.
‘No, I mean it,’ Dionysus insisted. ‘I know we’ve only jussssst met and you cook children and everything. But I really love you.’
‘That’sssss beautiful,’ sobbed Tantalus. ‘It’ssss been so long ssssince I
had a friend. It’ssss . . . it’sss like no one even wantsss to come round for dinner any more . . .’
‘You shee,’ said Ares, coming up behind Zeus. ‘I told you we’d shucsheed.’
Zeus had to agree. The Elemental troops were under control. The prisoners of Tartarus could easily be returned. But where were—
A horrifying shriek above his head answered his question. In a haze of multicoloured evil, the Daemon army filled the sky with their battle cries, polluting the air with their fearful curses. Zeus felt the maelstrom of emotion that they spread, all his feelings fighting one another. They couldn’t be unleashed on the mortals. They had to be stopped.
‘What do we do?’ asked Zeus, as Ares searched around him frantically. ‘Who have we got left?’
But all the Olympians were occupied with their Elementals. And the Daemon army was advancing.
‘OK,’ said Zeus, drawing his thunderbolts. ‘Looks like we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Ready—’
‘HADES!’ came a ferocious scream across the stones. ‘GET OVA HERE, YOU BIG LUG.’
‘Oh, Geez,’ gulped the God of the Underworld, throwing down his cards and pulling at his collar in unease. ‘You think the total destruction of mortalkind is a problem? You ain’t met my missus . . . Persephone! Dollface! Good to see you, baby girl!’
‘Don’tcha “baby girl” me!’ thundered Persephone. ‘I bin looking all ova for yous. Thought you’d get outta rehoisals for my noo jazz opera cabaret, did ya? Well, I got noos for you, pal! If you won’t come to the music, the music will come to you . . . Take this! Nessun dorma!’
‘No, baby, don’t do it,’ Hades pleaded. ‘Dollface, I’m begging you . . .’
Persephone took a massive breath.
‘NESSUN DORMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!’
Without warning, Persephone let rip a high C that made the very foundations of the Earth shudder. Everyone’s hands snatched to their ears to drown out the dreadful sound. The flagons along Demeter’s bar each smashed in turn as they reverberated with the endless note. Even the ancient rocks of Stonehenge, which had withstood every natural and man-made disaster since the Stone Age, trembled precariously.
‘Ye Gods!’ cried Zeus, clasping his ears. ‘Make it stop!’
‘Don’t shtop!’ Ares cried back. ‘Look!’
He pointed to the sky, where the Daemons were vibrating uncontrollably, looking at one another in bewilderment. Without warning, a teal Daemon suddenly exploded in a shower of turquoise goo.
‘Yes, of course! Daemons explode at the right frequency! Keep going, old girl!’ Zeus cheered, as a cerise Daemon detonated, filling the air with pink slime.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!’ Persephone continued her endless note, causing more Daemons to explode with every second. Everywhere the eye could see, they were bursting into splatters of colour, as if the sky were filled with a slimy firework display.
‘Urgh,’ said Zeus, wiping a large yellow glob out of his eye. ‘Go on, girl, give it some welly!’
And Persephone sang on, the last few Daemons exploding left and right. Before long, her big finale had eradicated the entire Daemon army.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-hh,’ Persephone spluttered, finally running out of breath as a large dollop of pink goo landed squarely on her head.
Zeus looked up at the skies. The Daemons were gone.
‘I love you, dollface,’ said Hades, gathering his wife in his arms. ‘I always knoo it – you have a killer voice.’
‘Aw, you say the sweetest things,’ said Persephone, as she accepted his big smooch.
‘I think we’ve done it,’ said Zeus cautiously, looking around at the enemy troops, who were variously too full, too exploded or too worried about their wet nail polish to wage war on anyone. ‘We’ve defeated Thanatos’s army! We’ve—’
‘ZEUS!!!’
An almighty roar thundered around the stones.
‘Pleash tell me you’ve upshet Hera again?’ said Ares, using his binoculars to scan the horizon.
‘That’s not her,’ said Zeus nervously. ‘It’s not nearly loud enough . . .’
Slow, thudding footsteps shook the ground. The sun, still forging its way towards the zenith, was slowly obscured by a vast, dark shadow.
‘Oh, crumbs,’ mumbled Zeus. ‘I think we forgot someone.’
‘Who?’ said Ares. ‘I’ve got everyone here: shatyrs, gorgonsh, fairiesh, shentaursh, goblinsh, inmates of Tartarush. Who have I forgotten?’
‘The Titans!’ gasped Athene, as The Ram and The Brain came lumbering into view.
‘Shtay calm,’ said Ares, removing a gun from his pocket. ‘Thish shtun gun ish sho powerful it will . . . Oh!’
And Ares crumpled to the ground as the stun gun fired spontaneously at his foot.
‘FINALLY!’ Achilles bellowed. ‘SOME REAL ACTION! CHAAAAAAAAARGE!’
Without warning, the war hero launched himself at the Titans with his spear in his hand. It was a determined charge by an experienced solider. But as soon as Achilles reached them, The Ram simply batted him away with his hand, sending him flying in a shower of body parts across the grass.
‘Achilles!’ Athene shouted. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’M ALL RIGHT!’ Achilles’s head groaned. ‘NOW, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY BUTT?’
‘So,’ The Ram growled, staring straight at Zeus. ‘Will you fight like a man? Or will you run like a mouse?’
‘I’ll fight you, all right,’ said Zeus, mounting Pegasus. ‘But not like a man. Like the King of the Gods! AAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!’
And with his trusty steed taking off high into the air, Zeus flew at the Titans, armed only with his thunderbolts and the hope that everything they were doing would buy Elliot enough time to defeat Thanatos down in Tartarus.
17. Beware Gods Bearing Gifts
Nyx wasn’t accustomed to waiting. She stalked back and forth on the balcony like a nervous cat, looking across Tartarus for any signs of trouble. With Thanatos on his way to the Earth’s core with the Chaos Stone, and only a small guard of Daemons with her in Tartarus, she felt curiously vulnerable. She wasn’t accustomed to that, either.
Victory had been snatched from her family once and she wasn’t about to see it happen again. Trickery had won the day for the Gods 2,000 years ago. It wasn’t going to happen again today.
A knock on the door disturbed her restless pacing.
‘Enter!’ she commanded.
The door slowly edged open to reveal two Daemons.
‘Er . . . excuse me, your, er, mighty Mum-ness,’ Epiphron, the Daemon of Carefulness, stuttered.
‘She’s called Nyx, you idiot,’ snapped Corus, the Daemon of Disdain.
‘Are you sure?’ Epiphron whispered. ‘I don’t want to get it wrong.’
‘What is it?’ Nyx demanded impatiently. ‘And it had better be worth my time, or I’ll frazzle you both for something to do.’
‘Not to worry,’ said Epiphron, backing out of the room.
‘You are such a loser,’ sighed Corus. ‘Ma’am, we’ve had a . . . delivery.’
‘Is that all?’ said Nyx. ‘Deal with it yourselves, I’m busy.’
‘We would,’ said Epiphron cautiously, ‘but this is addressed to you and your son. We thought that it would be rude to open it.’
‘Yeah, he thought it would be soooooo much better to come here and disturb you. The idiot,’ said Corus, rolling his eyes.
‘Who’s it from?’ said Nyx.
‘Don’t know,’ said Epiphron. ‘I didn’t like to look.’
‘Well, bring it here, then,’ snapped Nyx.
‘Er . . . no can do, boss,’ chimed Corus. ‘It’s kinda . . . big. It’s outside the main gates. You’re going to need to take a look.’
Nyx felt her nerves flutter. A big delivery to the gates of Tartarus? This sounded suspicious.
‘So be it,’ she said. ‘Take me to this . . . delivery.’
‘OK – but mind your step,’ said Ep
iphron. ‘The path is a little uneven and I’d hate you to turn your ankle.’
They made their way through the fiery plains of Tartarus, until they came to the mighty bronze gates that guarded its entrance. Nyx wasn’t going to open them for anyone or anything. They were so impossibly high no God or mortal could scale them. To overtop them, you needed wings. She took flight alongside the two Daemons and flew over the gates, landing on the bank of the River Lethe beyond.
She was met with . . . she wasn’t entirely sure.
Before her was a large wooden sculpture. It was an animal of some kind, with a squat body, four legs, a long snout and tusks. Was it really—
‘A warthog,’ scoffed Corus. ‘Who sends a wooden warthog as a gift?’
‘It came with this,’ said Epiphron, handing over a golden envelope. ‘I made sure it didn’t get creased, someone clearly took a lot of care over this.’
Nyx took the envelope in her talons and read the note:
A gift for the victors. In honour of Thanatos and Nyx – a little surprise from an old friend.
Nyx screwed up the note.
‘Burn it,’ she said, taking off to return to the safety of her post. She didn’t like this. She didn’t want to be near it.
‘The note?’ asked Corus. ‘Why?’
‘The whole thing,’ Nyx roared. ‘It’s obviously a trick.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Epiphron. ‘This happened at Troy.’
‘Er, the Wooden Horse, duh?’ Corus scoffed. ‘Everyone knows that story.’
‘What? I was talking about the day the Greeks sent the Trojans a warthog as a joke – it’s the stuff of legend,’ said Epiphron. ‘So what happened with the Wooden Horse?’