“I’m not sure.” I raised an eyebrow, having a good idea about where he was going with this. “Why?”
“Because we’re about to have a contest.” He divided all of the items on the dessert plate in half—a mix of strawberries and bananas, and bite-sized brownies, sponge cakes, and marshmallows. “Let’s see who can finish their side faster.” He held his fork up, and I did the same, nodding to let him know that I was ready. “One… two… three…”
Before he finished saying three, I’d already shoveled the strawberry into my mouth and was spearing the brownie in preparation to dip it into the chocolate. I ate so fast that I barely had time to enjoy it. I continued wolfing it down until most of my side was gone—I’d never eaten so quickly in my life—but somehow, Blake managed to beat me.
He finished chewing and dropped his fork on the table. “Done,” he declared, sitting back and crossing his arms in victory.
I forced down the last few bites of cheesecake, even though each bite made me feel as if I might explode. But I had to finish it so I wouldn’t be completely defeated.
“Thanks for not letting me win,” I said once I was done, taking a few sips of my water to help wash all that food down.
“Is that sarcasm that I detect?” he asked.
“No.” I smiled and shook my head. “I’m serious. I hate when people let me win. If I win, I want to know that I earned it.”
“Which is exactly why I didn’t let you win,” he said. “You’re competitive. I know that. And lucky for me, you’re good competition. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a girlfriend of mine.”
I smiled, loving how it sounded when he called me his girlfriend.
“What?” he asked, as if my silence concerned him.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just… I’ve never been someone’s girlfriend before. It’s nice to hear you call me that.”
“Then I’ll remember to say it more often.” He signed the check for our meal, stood up, and held out a hand to me. I took it, allowing him to help me up. Once our eyes were almost level, he leaned forward and kissed me, letting the kiss last slightly longer than what was acceptable in public. It was like he was announcing to the world that we were together—that I was his, and that everyone else should know it.
“Now, are you ready to go?” he asked once he pulled away.
All I could do was nod, my stomach still fluttering from the memory of his kiss.
He smiled, clearly amused by how much he affected me. “Good,” he said, taking my hand and leading the way out of the restaurant. “Because my girlfriend and I have some monsters to slay.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Wolves,” Kate repeated for the third time since Darius had told us what we were up against. “In the cemetery. It sounds like something out of a television show.”
“Just make sure you don’t get bitten,” Chris teased from the back seat of the van. “We wouldn’t want you turning into a werewolf.”
“Werewolves don’t exist,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. “But the legend of them did start from the story of Lycaon. He was a king in the ancient times. To test how powerful Zeus was, he cooked up his own son and served him to Zeus for dinner. But Zeus knew what he did, so as punishment, he turned Lycaon and all of his offspring into wolves. It’s no wonder the wolves fought against the Olympians in the Second Rebellion. They blame Zeus for being as they are.”
“You knew all of that off the top of your head?” Danielle asked.
“I wish,” Kate said, holding up her phone. “But no. I looked it up on Wikipedia.”
After leaving the restaurant, Blake and I had rushed straight to Darius’s house. Everyone else was already there. Once we arrived, Darius explained that the witches on patrol had reported a pack of wolves escaping from Kerberos. The wolves had run across the street to the cemetery, where the witches were able to conjure a protection spell to keep them trapped inside the fence. But the spell wouldn’t last forever, and it wouldn’t stop humans from entering the cemetery, so it was up to us to take care of the wolves before they could turn an unsuspecting human into a late night snack.
After hearing what happened, we gathered our weapons and jumped into the van, which was where we were now. Blake was driving, since we all agreed it would be unnecessary for Darius to come along. Darius didn’t have anywhere close to the physical strength that we did, and we didn’t want to risk his getting hurt.
It didn’t take long to reach the cemetery. Once there, we hopped out of the van, grabbed our weapons, and located one of the witches on patrol. He was older than us, but still young—probably in his mid-20s.
“A group of middle school kids tried to come in here to do who knows what, but I scared them away,” he told us. “But the cemetery won’t stay empty for long. Those wolves need to be taken care of before morning.”
“It won’t be a problem,” Blake said, stepping forward. “We’ve got this.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?” he asked. “You all look like you haven’t even graduated high school.”
Blake didn’t reply—instead he flicked on his lighter, created three fireballs, and sent them flying into a nearby tree. The witch on patrol stared at the blaze, his mouth dropped open in shock.
Then a stream of water rushed towards the tree, putting out the flames in seconds.
“Really, Blake?” Danielle crossed her arms, glaring at him.
“What?” he asked, his face a perfect expression of innocence.
“That was completely unnecessary,” she said, motioning to the tree. “You used up energy you may need for fighting those wolves, and now that old tree is destroyed.”
“I was just showing our new friend here what we can do,” he said. “Besides, Kate can fix up the tree. Can’t you, Kate?”
“Trust me, I will,” she said. “After we take care of the wolves.”
Something howled nearby, the call echoing through the air. It was unmistakably a wolf. A sound like that belonged in the mountains of Montana—not in our town outside of Boston.
“Come on.” I turned toward the sound and reached for my bow, wanting to be ready in case anything jumped out at us. “It came from that way.”
“There’s still five of them, right?” Chris asked the guard.
“Yes,” he said. “From what we’ve seen of their behavior so far, they stick with their pack. There are no lone wolves in this group.” He looked back at where the sound came from, and then eyed us up one more time. “Are you kids sure you’ve got this? You don’t want any help?”
“Trust me—we’ll be fine,” I told him. “These wolves have nothing on the monsters we’ve killed before. It’ll be easiest if you just let us handle this.”
He glanced at the tree again, where the smoke was still rising up, the smell of burnt leaves filling the air. “Be my guest,” he said, motioning us to go inside the gate. “If you need any backup, I’ll be here.”
I nodded at him, and the five of us marched toward where the howl had come from, ready for a fight.
CHAPTER FOUR
The wolves were gathered in front of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia—a re-created monument in the center of the cemetery that had been built over a hundred years ago to honor the gods. Since it was under repair, the statue currently had scaffolding around it . According to the humans in town, the statue had been struck by lightning so strong that it destroyed the stone eagle Zeus had been holding. No one knew where the eagle had gone—some of the more superstitious suspected that the god had incinerated it himself.
We were the only ones who knew the truth of what had happened—how the eagle was part of a scavenger hunt set up for us by the gods. We had to remove the eagle from the statue to find the clue hidden inside. It was now displayed in our training center in Darius’s basement.
The statue had been peaceful then. Now, we formed a semi-circle around the wolves, backing them against the statue, giving them no place to run. They growled at us, their glowing yellow eyes staring us down. T
heir lips pulled up to reveal their teeth, which glinted white in the light of the moon. But I held their gazes, not backing down. If they thought they were intimidating us, they didn’t know who they were dealing with.
They must not like being backed into a corner, because the wolf in front—the biggest one, who appeared to be the pack leader—pulled back, snarled, and barreled toward us.
He didn’t make it five feet before I shot an arrow straight into his heart.
“Three pointer for Nicole!” Chris called out, as if announcing a sports game. “Bullseye.” He threw a knife, and a breeze passed by my face as he used his power over the air to plunge the weapon into another wolf’s heart. “These puppies are making this way too easy for us,” he said with a laugh.
At that moment, Blake and Danielle charged toward the remaining three wolves, holding their swords in front of them. They swung, and two more wolves were down, the swords covered in blood.
Chris pumped his fist in the air. “Blake and Danielle both go in for slam dunks, and they both score!” he said, still talking in his sports announcer voice. “There’s only one wolf left, and there’s five of us.” He rubbed his hands together, eyeing up the wolf. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”
The wolf must have agreed with him, because it backed itself into a corner, its tail down. I had my arrow strung, ready to shoot, but seeing the animal like that made me pause. Despite the unnatural yellow glow in its eyes, at that moment, it looked harmless. I didn’t doubt that it would attack if the odds were in its favor, but that wasn’t the case now. Without it going on the offense, I couldn’t shoot. It felt too much like killing in cold blood.
But that didn’t stop Danielle, who rushed forward and ran her sword through its heart. The wolf let out a final whimper and collapsed at her feet.
“Danielle goes for the final point, and she takes the team in for a win!” Chris said, clapping and hollering in victory. “The wolves should’ve known that they had nothing on the Elementals.”
Within seconds, all five wolves flickered and disappeared, as if they had never been there in the first place. They’d been sent to limbo, where they would remain for the next year until being returned to Kerberos, thanks to the poisonous serum coating our weapons.
Danielle wiped the blood off her sword and held it up in the air, admiring the moonlight glinting off the metal. “Was that ridiculously easy, or are we just getting better?” she asked, slipping the sword back into its sheath.
“You’re getting better,” an unknown, female voice said from off in the shadows. The voice was soft, although it somehow managed to be clear and strong as well—as if I could hear the echo of it inside my mind. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to be so full of yourselves. Especially given all of the challenges you have ahead.”
I turned toward the direction of the voice as a tall, ethereal woman stepped into the clearing. Her black evening gown slithered around her like the shadows themselves, the fabric billowing around her and sparkling with the lights of the stars. Her long, black hair flowed to her waist, her skin so pale that it glowed with the light of the moon.
I blinked a few times, to make sure she was real and not a hallucination. She was there, but she was also slightly hazy, as if she wasn’t there at the same time. It was like she was a ghost, or a shadow.
“Who are you?” I asked softly, still transfixed by her otherworldly beauty.
“I am Nyx,” she answered with a smile, the stars on her dress twinkling as she spoke. “The primordial deity of night itself.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Primordial deity?” I repeated what she’d said. “What does that mean?”
By the way Kate’s mouth had dropped open and she was staring at Nyx in complete awe, I had a feeling that Kate knew the answer. But she stayed quiet, allowing Nyx to explain.
“We—the primordial deities—are the first gods and goddesses to exist in the universe,” Nyx said. “We rule over every universe, every galaxy, and every planet. We are the universe itself.”
“So you’re more powerful than the Olympians?” I asked. “And the Titans?”
“Yes.” She laughed, the sound like twinkling stars. “We are the parents of the Titans and the grandparents of the Olympians. We are far more powerful than all of them. They—our descendants—can only live here on Earth, and on any parallels of Earth, like the distorted version called Kerberos that’s being used as their prison. But they cannot create portals between the worlds, and they do not have access to the rest of the universe as we do.”
“Does that mean that you can stop this war?” Blake asked. “You can seal the portal to Kerberos?”
“Perhaps,” she said, her lips curving up into a small smile. “But that’s not why I’m here tonight.”
I frowned, confused at her response. If she had the power to stop this war from happening, why wouldn’t she use it?
“Then why are you here?” Danielle asked what was surely on all of our minds.
Nyx nodded at Danielle, as if she’d expected her to ask. “Tonight, I’m here to give you a warning,” she said. “As a primordial deity, I can see what’s happening in all realms, and in all universes. I can also see the possibilities of how every event can play out.”
“You can see the future?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” she said. “The future is never written in stone. But I can see possibilities. Everyone—mortals and gods alike—has free will. You choose the path you will take. Some of those choices have a huge impact on the future, and others do not. The five of you will soon have some very important choices to make, but to make those choices, there is information you need that I must give you.”
“Are you going to tell us how to seal the portal to Kerberos?” Kate asked. “Darius and the Head Elders have been researching, but none of them have found any answers. I can tell he’s anxious that we may never learn how to close the portal. And if the Titans escape… I don’t see how we could be powerful enough to defeat them.”
“You will know in time,” Nyx said, slowly and calmly. “But you are not ready for that yet. No, I have something else to tell you. Something of extreme importance.”
If it was so important, she really was taking forever to spit it out. But I supposed that as an immortal, all-knowing deity, time wasn’t something she had to worry about often.
“We’re listening,” I said, since it didn’t feel right to be snarky toward a goddess.
“As you know, the most dangerous Titan of them all is Typhon,” she started, looking around at each of us. “He is powerful and cruel—if there was a ‘god of the monsters,’ Typhon would surely be it. He was the leader of the Second Rebellion, and many of the monsters fought by his side. The war was violent, and full of more blood and death than the world has ever seen. If that comet hadn’t shot through the sky and allowed the Olympians to create the portal to Kerberos, I fear how the war may have ended.” She swished her dress, the stars in it twinkling, and what appeared to be a comet sped across the fabric—as if she’d created it herself.
Had the primordial deities sent the comet? Both 3,000 years ago and this past January? If they had, it would mean our powers were a gift from them—not from the Olympians.
Before I had a chance to ask, Nyx continued with her story. “Once the Olympians won the war, Zeus decided that locking Typhon in Kerberos wasn’t enough of a punishment,” she said. “So he split Typhon’s soul and his body with a bolt of lightning. Typhon is a very physical creature, and without his body, his soul is weak. Zeus buried Typhon’s body under Mount Etna in Sicily, and sent his soul into Kerberos. Separating his body from his soul and imprisoning them in different realms was seen as the ultimate punishment.
“But now, since Typhon’s soul is so weak, he was able to escape Kerberos,” she said. “As we speak, he’s making his way to Mount Etna so he can reunite with his body. But his soul and his body will not be able to become one until the day of the spring equinox—the time when the body and mind ar
e in balance. You must meet him there on that day to defeat him once and for all.”
“Why wait?” Blake asked. “Why not find his soul and destroy it before it reaches his body?”
“Good idea,” Kate said. “It’ll be easier that way, since his soul is so weak. I don’t know how we would be able to defeat him in his true form…”
“A soul without a body cannot be found or destroyed,” Nyx explained. “It’s as impossible as trying to catch a shadow. Typhon will reunite with his body. There is no way to change that. Once he does, it’s up to you to be there and stop him. I know you have your doubts, but there is a way for you to do this—I’ve seen it myself. It’s the only way for Typhon to be defeated once and for all.”
“How do we stop him?” I asked. “Because right now, it sounds impossible.”
“You have the tools you need to figure that out on your own,” Nyx said. “I prefer to interfere as little as possible. I am only here now because if I did not tell you tonight about Typhon’s soul escaping Kerberos, there would be no chance for you to succeed. By delivering this information, I have laid out a path for you to be victorious. But remember—the way to success is only one path out of many. It’s up to you to make the choices necessary to follow that path to its end. Those choices will not always be easy—there will be many difficult decisions ahead. But the five of you have the strength and the courage to bring peace to the world once more. You would not have been brought together and gifted with your abilities if you didn’t.”
“There’s one big thing here that I don’t get,” Chris said, and Nyx looked at him to continue. “Since you’re so powerful, why don’t you just defeat Typhon and seal the portal to Kerberos yourself? Why do you need us to do it for you?”
“Very wise question,” she said, which surprised me, because I’d never thought of Chris as particularly wise. “It is the job of the primordial deities to keep the universe in order. We’re not supposed to fight with or against the inhabitants of the universe, whether they are mortals or gods. It is ultimately up to you—the inhabitants of this planet—to determine how this war will end.”
Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa Page 2