by Maz Evans
Elliot sensed that Zeus was being modest, but he had a more pressing question to ask.
“Do any of you have healing powers?” he asked quietly. “Can anyone cure people?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Zeus gently, making Elliot wonder again if he could read his mind. “I’m afraid we’re often better at creating problems for mortals than solving them.”
Elliot’s mind flashed back to Stonehenge. “I can do what the Gods cannot,” Thanatos had said. Was that a lie?
“Thank the heavens Virgo got you out of there yesterday,” said Zeus, interrupting Elliot’s thoughts.
“Yeah,” he groaned. “She’s mentioned it once or twice.”
“She’s quite something,” laughed Zeus. “I know legendary heroes who wouldn’t have had half her courage. Mind you, I also know twenty-headed monsters who don’t talk half as much, but one thing I’ve learned about women is to take the rough with the smooth. Ah—we’re here, right on!”
Elliot clung on to Pegasus as the horse gracefully landed on a quiet patch of sand behind some beach huts.
“Brighton,” said Zeus, huffing and puffing off the horse. “How I do like to be by the shore. Back in two ticks, Peg.”
“Diet,” said Pegasus.
“Beg pardon?” said Zeus.
“Six down—a healthy eating regime, four letters,” said Pegasus, pulling the crossword out of his saddlebag with his teeth.
“Hmmm. See you later,” said Zeus, taking off his invisibility helmet and wriggling his Hawaiian shirt over his belly as he ushered Elliot across the beach.
They walked up to the promenade and crossed into the winding streets of the town. It had been over three years since Elliot’s last trip to the seaside—he and Mom used to camp on the Jurassic Coast, spending every sunny moment on the fossil-filled beaches and every rainy one playing cards as the water hammered down on their cozy tent. The smell of the salty air mingled with salty french fries transported Elliot back to some of his happiest memories.
“Now, Elliot, here’s the thing about my girls,” Zeus began as they reached a bright-pink door emblazoned with EROS in lipstick-red letters. “They are both beautiful, powerful, intelligent women who are a credit to their old dad. But I can’t lie—put them together and they’re like two harpies fighting over a half-price handbag. Need to handle this one with kid gloves, if you catch my drift.”
“Sure,” said Elliot, with precisely no idea what Zeus was talking about.
“Good man, good man,” muttered Zeus as he pressed the bright-pink buzzer.
Zeus and Elliot entered the reception area, which looked as though someone had lost a fight with a pink paint can. Everything was pink, from the walls to the ceiling to the lip-shaped chairs dotted around the room.
“Welcome to Eros—where love don’t cost a thing. Terms and conditions apply,” the receptionist chanted. “I’m Sally.”
“Well, aren’t you just a pretty little thing?” drawled Zeus. “Can you tell Ms. Venus that her old dad’s here? And that I’d like to take her receptionist out for dinner?”
Sally turned a shade of pink that perfectly matched her suit.
“I’ll give her a ring,” she giggled, picking up the top lip of the pink mouth phone.
“Keep being so beautiful and I’ll be giving you the ring, Sarah,” said Zeus.
“It’s Sally,” Sally giggled.
“It’s irrelevant.” Zeus grinned, picking up her hand and kissing it.
Elliot gazed around the waiting room, which was filled with people who looked … single. Photographs of Eros success stories lined the walls, hundreds of married couples grinning at the hopefuls from every surface.
“Daddy!” chimed the most beautiful voice Elliot had ever heard.
“Hello, my little pearl,” said Zeus, taking his daughter into a giant hug. “Come and meet my good friend Elliot.”
“Hi there, Elliot,” said Aphrodite, shimmying toward the boy glued to the floor.
Elliot tried to speak, but all the words evaporated inside his mouth. It was hard to say exactly what made the Goddess of Love the most beautiful woman Elliot had ever seen, but as he gawped at her long golden hair, her twinkling blue eyes, her full lips, and the snug jeans and T-shirt she was dressed in, he didn’t honestly care.
Zeus nudged Elliot in the ribs. “Your mouth called, my friend,” he whispered. “It wants its tongue back.”
But Elliot was deaf to anything but the angel song in his head as Aphrodite glided nearer.
“So you’re our little mortal,” sang Aphrodite, or so it seemed to Elliot as he drowned in her boundless blue eyes. “Hermes called me last night and told me all about you. Lovely to meet you.”
“Hubhurghrumph,” garbled Elliot dreamily as he reached for her outstretched hand.
With a twinkle in her look, Aphrodite pulled Elliot toward her and planted a big kiss on his cheek. At the touch of her lips, Elliot felt a blush begin fifty feet below the Earth, surging through the ground before it burst into his shoes and erupted all over his face, making him resemble a thoroughly happy tomato.
“Aphy, could we have a word, please? Bit of business to discuss,” said Zeus with a wink.
“Yes, of course—I’m just with a client,” she whispered, gesturing to the gentleman in the knitted sweater in her office. “With you in a sec, Colin!”
“Er, right-o, okay, then,” replied Colin as he tried to remove his cardigan, banged his knee on the desk, and tripped over the chair, sending his thick black glasses flying. Aphrodite looked lovingly at him.
“Bless his heart. Such a catch,” she said, winking.
“Aphrodite Venus?” a voice boomed across the reception. It belonged to quite the tallest and broadest woman Elliot had seen without a shot put, a giantess in a gray suit brandishing a briefcase.
“That’s me,” said Aphrodite sweetly.
“Millicent Tronglebom,” declared the woman, flashing an ID badge. “Health and safety officer. I’m here to inspect your toilets.”
“Madam!” Zeus boomed admiringly, much to Sally’s annoyance. “You are my kind of gal. You can inspect my toilets anytime!”
Millicent gave Zeus a look that could raise a wart. He shirked against the wall, burbling incoherently.
“Your annual hygiene inspection is overdue,” she barked, turning her attention back to Aphrodite.
“Ah. Whoopsie,” said Aphrodite mischievously.
“Whoopsie, indeed, Ms. Venus!” roared Millicent, pulling herself up even taller. “It seems you’ve never been granted license BS666: Operating Toilets Where People Might Need One! And if you can’t come up with a reasonable explanation, you can expect a substantial fine!”
“I see,” said Aphrodite, looking back at Colin, who was now staggering blindly around the office. “Won’t you come through? I’m sure we can sort something out.”
With a wicked smile, Aphrodite ushered Millicent into her office, gesturing to Zeus and Elliot to follow. She took a seat at her heart-shaped desk. Colin was crawling around the floor in search of his lost glasses.
“Now, how can I help you?” Aphrodite asked Millicent sweetly, opening a small drawer and removing a pink leather box.
“According to our records, you haven’t applied for a toilet license since … well, since forever,” said Millicent.
“That sounds about right,” Aphrodite trilled, opening the box.
“You don’t deny it?” said the incredulous Millicent.
“I have nothing to hide,” said Aphrodite. “Paperwork is boring. I don’t do boring. Besides, I can’t pay your fine. My services are free. Money is such silly stuff.”
Elliot wanted to argue that it was easy to think that about money when you didn’t need it. But everything Aphrodite did was amazing and beautiful and wonderful.
“Don’t you have a secretary?” asked Millicent. “Someone to handle vital matters such as toilet licenses?”
“Nope,” said Aphrodite absentmindedly, fiddling with whatever was
inside the box.
“This is a very serious offense, Ms. Venus,” Millicent roared. “You could be facing—”
“Have you met Colin?” said Aphrodite, gesturing to the helpless soul floundering about on the floor.
“No,” sneered Millicent, peering down at Colin as if there were a pile of slug vomit at her feet.
“You two should get to know each other,” said Aphrodite, suddenly standing up and yanking a pink Taser gun out of the box. “I think you’ll get along!”
“What the—?” gasped Millicent, but it was too late. Aphrodite fired the gun and two wires tipped with pink hearts sliced through the air toward their targets—one attaching to Millicent’s magnificent bosom, the other to Colin’s scrawny butt.
For a moment, both parties tried to overcome the shock of having a Taser fired at them in broad daylight. Elliot noticed that Colin’s glasses were lying by his feet, so he handed them to the stunned man, who was plucking the heart from his backside.
Colin rose slowly from the floor, adjusting his glasses to fix his gaze on a dumbstruck Millicent.
“Millicent Tronglebom,” she said softly, extending her hand toward a slack-jawed Colin.
“Colin Limpwad,” he replied, taking her hand as if it were a holy relic. “You have the most beautiful name I’ve ever heard. Millicent Tronglebom. It’s like a choir of heavenly hamsters singing your beauty.”
“Why, thank you, Colin,” giggled Millicent coyly. “I hope you’ll not think me forward, but that’s a lovely cardigan.”
“Sweet Ms. Tronglebom—my mother knitted it for my forty-third birthday. We live together.”
“Oh, Colin—how I’ve longed to find a man who lives with his mother!”
“Sweet Milly—may I call you Milly?” asked Colin.
“Only if I can call you—Schnookykins!” Millicent blushed.
“You can call me anything you want!” roared Colin, gathering the ample Millicent into his skinny arms. “I have yearned for a woman like you! A woman with grace! A woman with substance! A woman with a bosom I could build our house on! Marry me, Milly!”
“Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!” screamed Millicent, tearing Aphrodite’s file in half. “Let us go to the Little Chapel of Love this very afternoon!”
“If we hurry, we’ll catch the next bus!” cried Colin, picking up his thermos and the cheese sandwich his mom had packed for him. “I’ll flag it down!”
“You can flag my bus anytime, my little Colly Flower!” shouted Millicent, shaking her hair free of its bun and scooping Colin up into her arms as they ran out the door and toward wedded bliss.
“And that’s why I don’t need a secretary.” Aphrodite grinned, replacing the Taser in her drawer. “Now. What can I do for you?”
Zeus was barely halfway through his explanation of Thanatos’s escape when Aphrodite had pulled the keys to her sports car out of her handbag.
“I’m in,” she squealed. “Sounds like fun!”
But Athene was going to take more persuading.
Zeus, Elliot, and Aphrodite were in Athene’s office at St. Brainiac College at Oxford University, where Athene was an esteemed professor of politics, philosophy, economics, English, French, Spanish, classics, natural sciences, and basket-weaving. It was a delicate negotiation.
“YOU ARE SUCH A BORING-BRAINED, LIBRARY-LAME-O NERD-BUTT!” Aphrodite shouted at her sister across the grand mahogany desk.
“I see you’ve been studying the Big Book of Intelligent Insults,” Athene shot back over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses.
Zeus looked at Elliot with raised eyebrows. See what I mean? Elliot could hear him say.
“I can’t believe you’d rather sit here with your big pointy nose stuck in a book than be out finding the Chaos Stones,” Aphrodite pouted. “Just because you look like a pensioner doesn’t mean that you have to act like one.”
Painful as it was to disagree with Aphrodite, Elliot could see that she was being very hard on her sister. Athene would normally be the most beautiful woman in the room: she was slender, with ebony hair piled into an elegant knot, her deep brown eyes radiating intelligence and grace over the rims of her glasses. But Elliot was convinced that all other girls looked like snotty warthogs next to Aphrodite.
“I am a highly regarded academic,” said Athene grandly. “Some of us aren’t fortunate enough to play boyfriends-and-girlfriends. Some of us improve mortalkind with brilliant thought.”
“I’ve given mortals beauty and joy,” replied Aphrodite. “You’ve given them some boring books for the downstairs bathroom. Besides, you’re not so grand when you’re cheating on those TV game shows … ”
“I do not cheat!” said Athene defensively. “I win those competitions fair and square.”
“Sure you do,” said Aphrodite with a naughty grin. “Although with a few extra millennia to study, any idiot could beat those poor mortals.”
“Not any idiot,” said Athene, looking directly at her sister.
“Come now, girlies, this is no time for squabbling,” Zeus chided. “We need to get those Chaos Stones and put Thanatos back in prison where he belongs. We’re a team. I need you.”
“Yes, Father. Your pact with Hypnos—surely you can’t think that was wise?” said Athene, her dark eyes full of disapproval.
“Whatever,” yawned Aphrodite. “Prissy-pants, are you in or out?”
“Out,” said Athene stubbornly.
Aphrodite opened her mouth to launch another barrage at her sister, but was hushed by her father’s hand on her shoulder.
“We could really use your fabulous noggin, sweetie,” said Zeus. “But no is no.”
With Aphrodite chewing her tongue, Zeus started to usher her out of the door. Elliot didn’t have siblings, but he’d seen enough of other people’s to know how they worked. Besides, if Athene could help him find the Earth Stone, he needed her on the team.
“I’m sorry you’re not coming, Athene,” he said.
“I’m sorry too, Elliot, but I wish you well,” she said grumpily.
“That’s really kind,” he said. “Besides, it’s probably for the best. This isn’t your sort of thing.”
“What makes you say that?” bristled Athene.
“Oh, nothing. Just something Aphrodite said. Nice to meet you,” he added, starting out of the room under Zeus’s admiring gaze.
“Wh-what did she say?” asked Athene, failing to sound as if she didn’t care.
“Nothing bad. Just that you preferred reading to fighting—”
“Well, that’s not strictly true, I am a Warrior Goddess!”
“And that you probably felt a bit old to fight Daemons—”
“I’m hardly any older than she is!”
“And that she usually comes up with the best plans anyway—”
“SHE SAID WHAT?” shouted Athene, hastily stuffing some books into a large bag. “Aphrodite! Come back here! I’ll show you who’s the best fighter!”
And in a blaze of fury, the Goddess of Wisdom swept out of the door toward Aphrodite’s sports car.
“Good stuff, my boy!” Zeus winked as they headed out of the university behind her.
With the squabbling Athene and Aphrodite dispatched to fetch Hephaestus, God of the Forge, from his job fixing supermarket self-service machines, Elliot and Zeus flew back to Home Farm. Elliot looked in on his mom, who was happily chatting with Hestia about wallpaper textures in the living room. All was well—or at least no sign of the Horse’s-Bum—so Elliot hurried back to the cowshed to find out how he was going to get the Earth Stone and save his home.
“Boom, you’re back!” shouted Hermes. “We’ve been busier than Photoshop in Fashion Week. We’ve found Hypnos in a list of the Earth’s richest mortals.”
“How can you be sure?” said Athene sharply, striding into the barn with Aphrodite and a short, stocky man whose right shoulder was slightly higher than his left. He reminded Elliot of a troll action figure he’d enjoyed playing with when he was younger, althoug
h when he saw the huge bronze ax hanging inside the man’s brown trench coat, he quickly decided he wouldn’t tell him that.
“Ah—you’re here!” boomed Zeus happily.
The troll inclined his head in greeting.
“Marnin’,” he said.
“Hephy, my man, this is Elliot, a marvelous new friend. Elliot, this handsome dude is Hephaestus, inventor and builder extraordinaire.”
“How do,” said Hephaestus coolly, but not unkindly.
“Hi, Hef … Hefist … Hefor … ” bumbled Elliot, unable to get his mouth around the name.
“Heff. Ice. Tus,” Zeus whispered in his ear. “Darn awkward name.”
“Nothing wrong with me hearing, though,” said Hephaestus, producing a massive hammer from his coat before wandering over to the other side of the shed to look at Bessie’s broken water feeder.
“Hypnos will have dissembled into a mortal form,” Athene continued. “He won’t look like the Daemon we knew.”
“Hold tight,” said Hermes, putting his palm up to Athene. “Now where is my iGod? You’re gonna love this.”
“Snordlesnot!” yelped Hephaestus, hitting his thumb with the hammer as he fixed the feeder.
Hermes scrabbled around in his small bag, his whole arm delving in up to the shoulder. He threw out unwanted items, including a stuffed panda, a green macaroon, and the 1994 edition of the London street map, the last of which hit Hephaestus on the head, bringing the golden hammer down on his thumb for a second time.
“Snordlesnot!” cried the immortal blacksmith again as he whipped the throbbing thumb to his mouth, immediately dropping the offending hammer on his foot.
“SNORDLESNOT!” he bellowed for the third time, not knowing which injury to treat first, leaving him awkwardly sucking his thumb and hopping on his good foot for the five seconds it took him to fall over and bang his head.
“What does ‘Snordlesnot’ mean?” Elliot grinned.
“Ah, well. It’s not a word one usually hears in polite company,” said Virgo disapprovingly. “It’s an ancient Titan curse. It’s tricky to translate, but roughly it means, ‘May the Gods forever poke you in the rear end with a pointy potato and throw monkey poop at your sister.’ ”