by Maz Evans
“Don’t all rush at once, I’m fine,” grumbled Hephaestus, struggling to his feet.
“Seriously, where did I leave it … here it is!” said Hermes triumphantly, spotting the tortoiseshell iGod on the floor. “So this is just wicked. I downloaded a new app from the Golden Apple Store just the other day. It’s called Veritum—when you tap on a photograph, it shows you the true essence of the person in the picture. Bosh!”
Hermes tapped the picture of the first billionaire on the iGod, a bald, bespectacled man who had made his fortune in computers. At his touch, the photograph changed from a middle-aged man to a scrawny-looking chicken. Hermes nearly fell off his bale laughing. “Boom! You should see what happens when you Veritum some Hollywood actors—it’s disgusting. Now then … ”
Hermes went down the list, tapping the pictures. The images variously changed from snakes to toads to rats, while one famous model turned out to be nothing more than a pair of plastic jugs.
“What about this one?” said Aphrodite. “Richard M. Trumpington, founder of 1Born, online gambling site.”
“Quite righty, Aphrodite,” chimed Hermes, prodding Trumpington’s unremarkable mortal features. The picture instantly changed into a gaunt, wild-eyed young man, whose face was locked in a crazy and quite terrifying grimace. At first glance, his chaotic white hair encircled his head like a warped halo. But on closer inspection, it was in fact a mass of tiny feathers in the shape of a pair of wings on either side of his head. In his hands, he clutched a curved ivory trumpet.
“That’s him,” said Zeus quietly. “That’s Hypnos.”
“Wow, he hasn’t exactly had a rough time of it,” said Hermes, dropping his iGod on the hay bale. “Estimated wealth of five hundred billion pounds. He lives in a seventy-five-bedroom mansion in the Scottish Highlands. What a show-off.”
“I thought immortals can’t keep mortal money?” said Elliot.
“We can’t,” sighed Zeus. “We all had to swear on the Styx to adhere to the Sacred Code. But the Zodiac Council didn’t know Hypnos was alive—he wasn’t made to take the oath. Our rules don’t apply to him. Lucky dude … ”
“If we can find him this easily, so can Thanatos,” said Athene, as a copy of the Daily Argus flew into the cowshed out of nowhere, hitting Hephaestus, who dropped the hammer on his thumb in a symphony of “Snordlesnots.” “We need to get to Hypnos first while we’ve got the element of surprise.”
“You can forget about that,” said Pegasus, eyeing the front page of the Daily Argus.
Elliot surveyed the newspaper. The lead story was illustrated with a black-and-brown picture in the style Elliot had seen on the side of Greek vases. At first he couldn’t make out what it depicted, but when he looked more closely, he saw that the picture was of Thanatos dangling Virgo by the hair while Elliot cowered in front of him.
MORTAL PERIL!
By Ovid, Current Affairs Correspondent
The Argus has just come across
The great escape of Thanatos
Virgo met the ancient crook
And let the Daemon sling his hook
The Virgo girl was only due
To visit Prisoner Forty-Two
She took the drink for him to sup
And then she royally screwed it up
’Cause when she crossed the sacred portal
Stupid Virgo brought a mortal
The human child broke the spell
Now Thanatos will give us ’ell
The Daemon villain’s on the loose
Those silly kids have cooked our goose.
“We’ve got a mole!” shouted an outraged Athene.
“Are you accusing one of us of leaking the story?” huffed Aphrodite.
“No,” said Athene, picking up a shovel and whacking a small mound of earth next to her. “We’ve got a mole.”
A slightly dazed mole holding a notepad and pencil stuck his head out of the soil before scuttling back underground.
“I’d better call the Zodiac Council and let them know,” said Virgo. “May I borrow your iGod, Hermes?”
“Bosh,” said Hermes, dialing the number before replacing the device on a bale. “Not being funny, the signal is THE worst. It might cut out.”
After a few rings, a flickering hologram of Pisces’s fishy face was projected onto the wall of Bessie’s pen.
“Ah, Pisces—Virgo here, I thought I’d better update you on a development in the ongoing situation vis-à-vis the Daemons … ”
“UPDATE US!” hollered the projection of Pisces. “The phones are ringing off the hook! We’re inundated with panicked immortals! There hasn’t been a stink like this since the Titans’ last pork and beans night!”
Intrigued by the noise, Bessie strolled out of her pen and went to sniff at Pisces’s face.
“Young lady!” Pisces went on, his face now projected on Bessie’s backside. “Have you any idea of the mess you have created?”
Virgo tried not to be distracted by Hermes and Aphrodite’s giggles.
“No,” she said innocently.
“We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it!” shouted Pisces, the angry bubbles from his lips looking as though they were coming out of Bessie’s butt. “You’ve really landed us in the poop!”
“I’m sorry,” said Virgo, trying to make herself heard over Hermes and Aphrodite’s guffaws. “I have taken steps to ensure that Thanatos is recaptured immediately. I have sought the assistance of the Olympians.”
“Ha!” scoffed Pisces. “Those old has-beens! They couldn’t catch a cold!”
Aphrodite and Hermes stopped laughing.
“I’m warning you, Virgo,” said Pisces, flickering violently and starting to fade. “You are wet behind the ears! My pants are older than you! I will not have a whiff of scandal!”
“Sorry?” said Virgo. “You cut out. I didn’t catch that … ”
“I said,” huffed the fish over the crackling signal, “I … wet … my … pants … I … whiff … ”
Pisces’s face disappeared as the signal dropped out altogether.
“Yikes!” cried Zeus. “Hermes, get yourself to Hypnos’s mansion, quick smart. Find out where he hid those stones. We have to get to them before Thanatos does.”
“Bosh! I love a good spy,” said Hermes, as his motorcycle whizzed into the shed by itself. “I’ll take the low road—Scotland, hold tight!”
And he raced his motorcycle out of the barn in a flash, leaving a blizzard of hay in his wake.
“Well, that’s that,” said Zeus. “Now what about some security measures? Hephaestus—we need something around the farm, something that will keep Elliot safe inside and everyone else out, something big and tall, something strong, something … something like … ”
“A fence?” suggested Hephaestus dryly as he wrapped his bright red thumb in a dirty rag.
“That’s the ticket!” boomed Zeus, as if Hephaestus had just invented the wheel. “Get to it, my friend, good work.”
“I get all the good jobs, me,” grumbled the blacksmith, heading out of the shed with a golden tape measure, just as Bessie’s water feeder started to work beautifully.
Zeus glanced over at Elliot, who suddenly couldn’t keep his exhausted eyes open.
“You go and rest,” he said. “You’re going to need your wits about you. Virgo, you stay with Elliot at all times—until we know what Thanatos has in mind, we have to be on constant alert.”
“Wait!” said Elliot. “I have to go to school tomorrow. I have a stupid history test.”
“What an admirable attitude,” said Athene, who was weaving sumptuous silk sheets out of straw.
“Don’t bother,” said Aphrodite, pulling a face behind Athene’s back. “All the best stuff you learn outside school.”
“If I don’t go to school, they’ll come looking for me here,” said Elliot. “And none of us need that.”
“He’s right,” said Zeus. “And the less disruption to Elliot’s life, the better. Virgo, you will go to school a
nd protect him.”
“Excellent,” said Virgo. “I look forward to spending time in an illuminating mortal educational establishment.”
“Shame you’re coming to my school, then,” muttered Elliot.
“You have to promise us you’ll stay safe, my boy,” said Zeus. “Now go and sleep well, it’s been a long day.”
“I’ll walk the kids back to the house—make sure they get there safely,” gabbled Aphrodite, hustling Elliot and Virgo out of the shed before anyone could object.
Virgo and Aphrodite chatted away while a tongue-tied Elliot walked a few paces behind them. But when they reached the farmhouse, Aphrodite held Elliot back, waiting until Virgo was out of earshot before speaking.
“Now listen, Elly,” she said, opening a locket around her neck and producing a heart-shaped pearl from inside it. “Ignore the Fun Police back there; here’s some real help for your test.”
She handed Elliot the pearl, which he turned slowly in his palm.
“This wishing pearl will grant you anything you want—but only once a day and only for seven minutes. Seven’s my lucky number,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Keep it near you and make a wish at the start of the test—you’ll ace it.”
“Wow—thanks,” said Elliot, stringing together his longest sentence to the Goddess.
“You’re welcome, sweetie,” Aphrodite said, winking.
And with a musical giggle, she sashayed back to the cowshed, leaving a happy pink boy so dazed that he didn’t notice an especially nosy neighbor lurking in the shadows, a neighbor who had been spying on the strange new guests and who was determined to find out what was really going on at Home Farm.
Until very recently, life had been a blast for Hypnos, the Daemon of Sleep. In fact, several lives had been a blast, as he was now enjoying his twenty-ninth incarnation.
Blessed, as all Daemons were, with the ability to dissemble into any shape at will, for the past two thousand years the Daemon of Sleep had enjoyed making history—and money—as some of the world’s most notorious characters. Emperor Nero, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Rasputin, Al Capone—Hypnos had been them all, “dying” when he’d had enough and reincarnating in a new guise. With the Zodiac Council unaware that he was still alive, Hypnos was free from the Sacred Code and able to do as he pleased. Life was a game. And Hypnos was the winner.
Nothing mattered to Hypnos more than winning. The moment his father, Erebus, had robbed him of his destiny as king of the Daemons, Hypnos had become obsessed with beating Thanatos. The deal with Zeus had made his yellow, bloodshot eyes dance with vengeful glee. Indeed, his victory over his brother had excited Hypnos so much that he hadn’t been able to sleep—for two thousand years. It didn’t matter—his insomnia gave him a buzz, a manic energy, a hyper edge that hadn’t wiped the smile from his face in two millennia.
But winning had proven dangerously addictive. Once Thanatos was defeated, Hypnos discovered that he needed to find more and bigger victories. He tried dissembling into sportsmen, but his Daemon strength gave him such an advantage, it was pointless. Winning was only fun when it was unexpected.
And that’s how Hypnos discovered gambling.
Now the thrill of the unpredictable win could be his every day—or could it? That was the buzz. There was nothing Hypnos wouldn’t bet on—horse races, roulette wheels, which raindrop would reach the window ledge first … The losses made the wins that much sweeter, and he could afford both. In his current guise as Richard M. Trumpington, his online gambling business 1Born provided yet another way for Hypnos to cheat mortals out of their money, torturing them with dreams of big wins and making their worst nightmares come true when they lost everything. Nothing gave him greater pleasure. Hypnos had everything just the way he wanted it. The Daemon of Sleep was having the time of his lives.
Or at least he was until yesterday. He never normally paid much attention to the Daily Argus, having no interest in the immortal losers featured within. But yesterday’s front page had filled him with a fear he hadn’t known in twenty-nine lifetimes. Zeus had lied. Thanatos was alive. And Hypnos knew that his twin would be coming straight for him. Most things were a joke to the psychotic Daemon. The thought of being killed by his brother was not.
Hypnos immediately hired the best security guards money could buy and gave every single one strict instructions not to let anyone in. It didn’t matter if someone claimed to be his long-lost son or his dying mother—only Richard M. Trumpington was allowed in his Scottish mansion.
So the guards thought nothing of allowing Richard M. Trumpington through the massive gates early the next morning. His butler happily opened the door to allow Richard M. Trumpington into the house while Trent, his personal bodyguard, gladly unlocked the door to the office when Mr. Trumpington said he had forgotten his key. Had they all checked with one another, they would have realized that Richard M. Trumpington had never left his office in the first place. But by the time Thanatos had tricked them all and was standing in Hypnos’s office, it was far too late.
“Hello, brother,” said Thanatos eventually, after an eternal silence while each twin tried to read the other.
Beneath his laughing stare, Hypnos was frantically calculating how to stay alive.
“Hi, yourself,” he said at last. “You’re looking well.”
“How kind,” said Thanatos coldly. “Two thousand years imprisoned beneath the Earth doesn’t do a lot for one’s social life, but it certainly restricts poor lifestyle choices. But we have more important matters to discuss. May I?”
Thanatos pulled a tacky golden chair back from the desk and sat on the edge of the seat. He surveyed the opulent room with a sneer.
“They say that money can’t buy you taste,” he said. “How kind of you to prove them right.”
“They say that you’re dead.” Hypnos grinned. “How inconvenient of you to prove them wrong.”
The two brothers stared intensely at each other.
“So how are you?” Hypnos inquired.
“Can’t complain,” said Thanatos. “Although perhaps I can? It’s not every day you are betrayed by your own twin brother … ”
“Yeah—about that.” Hypnos smiled cheekily. “If I hadn’t accepted Zeus’s deal, one of the other Daemons probably would have. Seemed a shame to let the Chaos Stones leave the family … ”
“WHERE ARE THEY?” roared Thanatos, jumping out of the gold chair, sending it clattering across the room. “Tell me, or I’ll kill you this second.”
“If I tell you, you’ll kill me that second,” said Hypnos, his wild stare challenging his brother. Maybe Hypnos could blink. Maybe he couldn’t. No one had ever kept their eyes open long enough to find out.
“I’m going to count to one,” said Thanatos.
“You haven’t thought this through … ” chirped the Daemon of Sleep, his eyes as wide as his laughing mouth.
“One,” said Thanatos reaching over the desk toward Hypnos’s slender neck.
“I always was faster,” cackled Hypnos, deftly dodging the hand by taking flight with his winged head. “Catch me if you can!”
Thanatos lunged repeatedly over the desk, trying to grab his brother, who taunted him by flying away with split-second timing.
“Too slow!” laughed Hypnos. “You’ve lost your—”
The remaining words were knocked out of Hypnos’s smug face as Thanatos landed a colossal punch on his cheek.
“I always was stronger,” said Thanatos, and he grabbed his twin by the neck with one hand and twisted his kardia with the other. “Where are my Chaos Stones?”
“If I die, you’ll never know,” rasped Hypnos.
“Then you’d better start talking,” said Thanatos, lifting his brother clean off the floor and pulling the kardia away from his neck.
“I … know … something … you … don’t … know,” sang Hypnos, his eyes still laughing despite his face turning a fearful shade of puce.
“TELL ME!” said Thanatos, shaking his breathless twin.
Hypnos shook his grinning head, no longer able to speak.
“Oh, for … ”
Thanatos released the kardia and threw his brother down in disgust. Despite his desperate gasps for air, Hypnos was delighted that Thanatos realized he’d sooner die than lose. He threw back his sore neck and screamed with dark laughter.
“In a funny way, I’ve missed you,” Hypnos said, wiping the tears from his eyes as he returned to his seat.
“If you’re never going to tell me, I may as well kill you now,” said Thanatos, calmly retrieving the chair and sitting down.
“And then you’ll never know,” said Hypnos. “Fun, isn’t it?”
“Where are they?” Thanatos asked again slowly.
“Tell you what I’m going to do,” said Hypnos, his fingers dancing across the table. “I’ll tell you where they are one at a time. That way, you get your stones, I get to stay alive.”
“Until I get them all,” said Thanatos. “Then I’m going to kill you.”
“I hoped we might have a side bet on that.” Hypnos grinned. “You need someone to kill the mortal child. You can’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“A chicken gyro, some fries, and a tub of OMG! Marshmallow Ice Cream,” said Hypnos.
“You’ve spoken to Pythia?” said Thanatos.
“I’m her best customer.” Hypnos replied. “I bet you I can kill the child. You must swear on the Styx you won’t kill me if I win.”
Hypnos loved watching Thanatos trying to quell his murderous rage. He knew his brother had no choice.
“Done,” said Thanatos darkly. “Start talking.”
“Oh, I had such fun hiding them!” whispered Hypnos. “But it’s going to be even better getting them back! Let’s start with the Earth Stone—that one was tricky. Every time I buried it underground, some greedy mortal would dig it up again and I’d have to … persuade them to give it back. But then I found a great spot for it … ”
Hypnos watched gleefully as Thanatos hung on his words.
“It’s in … the Tower of London!” he whispered with a giggle. “It’s an impenetrable mortal fortress and I hid the Earth Stone there—smack in the middle of the Crown Jewels!”