Cutting between the two nearest buildings brought me onto another street with more houses and I made my way far from town toward the line of trees. The officers were following after them directly, I needed to get ahead of them. As I rushed past another house, I paused only long enough to see a horse tied to a post. Although not in my nature to ride, I had once been a horse and knew they ran faster than human legs allowed. Undoing the reins, I jumped onto his back and took off, hoping I reached Hecate before she escaped back to the future and left me stuck here alone.
The horse took off with a gallop, pleased to have free reign. I only steered when necessary to ensure I made it to the place where I needed to get. Between the buildings as we rushed past I caught glimpses of the officers, now joined by villagers holding household objects as weapons intent on helping to capture the escaped witches.
If only they knew.
Looking to the sky, I concentrated on the clouds, drawing them closer overhead and watching as they swirled into darker figures capturing the sun within their opacity. The first droplet of rain hit my shoulder, soaking into the shirt I wore. The second hit my hand, sliding into the worn leather between my digits. They fell freer, droplets like a gush of a water over rocks came from the sky and the rumble of distant thunder seemed to shake the earth.
I could only guess exactly where Hecate was, but I wanted to slow her to allow either the officers or myself to catch her. I directed the first bolt of lightning between the houses of the parallel street. The horse brayed and I held fast, encouraging it on as I cut between buildings and returned to the street Hecate and Hart fled along. At first, through the thick rain, I couldn’t see them and the shouts of the officers behind me only gave me pause to know they were either not long ahead of me or slightly behind me.
Another bolt of lightning crashed, illuminating the now darkened street and I saw the flash of a skirt flap around the corner of a building ahead.
“To the north!†I shouted at the officers, a bellow loud enough to hear me over the rain.
I steered the horse back from whence I came and returned to the street in time to see Hecate already attempting to conjure a portal.
“You won’t leave without me!â€
“Go to Hades, Zeus.†I laughed, amused by the irony. “You betrayed me!â€
“I believe you were the betrayer, Hecate.†Another bolt of lightning came down and missed her hands by inches, stalling her temporarily from casting any more signs.
“What the hell is going on?†Hart glanced nervously around, blinking through the rain that coursed down his face. He couldn’t see anything, I was sure, but he could hear the shouts of the officers behind me.
Without warning a bang went off, different from the thunder mating with my lightning. The horse reared and caught off guard I slid off its back, landing in a heap on the ground. It took off, knocking Hart over as well, at the sound of another bang. Had Hart come into his powers and learned how to control the storm as I did?
My answer came to me as I rose, seeing a darkened heap on the ground shaking for the cold and perhaps something else.
“Zeus.â€
Stepping closer to the heap, amidst the layers of fabric belonging to her, was Hecate. Another bolt of lightning crashed and from it I could see the crimson soaking through her clothes, washed out by the rain and pooling around her body. Two shots had been fired, the source of the previous bangs and landed right in her back. The bullets likely splintered, given the condition of the wounds and although she was a goddess, she was on Earth in a world of Christians who likely had never heard of us.
She had no power here and they had no faith. She would die.
I didn’t have any time to say anything to her as the officers from the courthouse finally made their way to us, guns brandished as they took in the scene.
“I surrender, I surrender… By the grace of god, I surrender.†Hart stood shaking, holding his hands in the face of the barrel. Two officers grabbed him, binding him with ropes and pulled the bag over his head once more to ensure their own safety. Another reached out for Hecate but I stopped him, reaching out myself to lift her instead. I couldn’t risk the mortal losing control of her and giving her one last moment for revenge, if such a thing was in her heart.
He nodded at me and stepped out of the way before our ignoble party to make its way back to the center of town. Although I wanted her to die, being shot in the back was not an honorable way to go. It was not the way of a Goddess. The least I could do was ensure her last moments here, as a body and a soul, were dignified. It was my job, after all, as King of the Gods.
Hecate laid shaking in my arms, eyes heavily lidded as she gasped for air. Up close, now I could see the bullet had indeed splintered and exited her body at the front in many different places. I could no longer tell if my hands were wet from the retreating rain or her blood. The mud under foot squelched as we walked, silence hung in our parade. The officers were whispering amongst themselves, discussing the possibility of future glory for having stopped and killed the witch. None of their consciences bothered by the act of taking another life.
As was the case with my magic, there came a point on our walk where the mud turned back to dirt and sand, dry as a bone as though no storm had ever happened. The men discussed this too amongst themselves, querying the possibility and deciding it had to have been caused by the witch. At some point during this discussion, Hecate took her last breath in my arms, her body slackening and growing leaden with death.
We returned to the center square to a chorus of applause, women and children cheering for their acquired safety. The hunt of the witch was over and now the judge could give his verdict. Although none doubted the guiltiness of either party. One might be dead but the other still had to be dealt with and it was Hart’s death I was most concerned about.
With Hecate gone, there was still a possibility Hart might father a child before Atlas returned to retrieve my soul. It was a risk I couldn’t take. As the workers reached for her corpse, I realized with her dead I lacked the ability to return home. Something in my haste to catch her, had escaped me. How was I to time travel now without the ability to do so?
I blinked through my frustration, anger coursing through me at my own ignorance before deciding this was not my fault and, in fact, it was Aidan’s. He was to blame and therefore, he could deal with this situation. I had handled my end.
My head was pounding when I regained control again, but the headache wasn’t the worst of it. Despite Hecate’s condition, they had her tied to the posts among the firewood and someone had lit the pyre. Superstition trumped logic in 17th century Virginia, it would seem. No one was interested in the burning of a dead witch though, and most of the crowd was moved to the platform where Hart’s neck was currently being fitted for a noose. They still had the bag over his head and his words were muffled by the twine knit.
To his left, a priest stood giving him his last rites and the hangman adjusted the knot to ensure a tight fit. What was comfort in the face of death?
When the priest stepped back the crowd silenced with a hush, everyone watching with eyes glued to Hart. There was no build up, no warning, nothing would prepare us for when the ground under him came out and his body dropped through the hole, a sick crack of his neck echoing over our heads and his lifeless body swung back and forth on the rope.
They left him there like that for what felt like an eternity, no one moving or saying a word. The joy and celebration of catching the witches was lost in this moment of doomed mortality. As quick as the trapdoor had opened, the hangman cut the rope and Hart’s body dropped to the ground. The children at the front cried out in delight and alarm before scurrying back to the arms of their waiting mothers with treasures pulled from Hart. Bits of clothing, clumps of hair, one brave soul pulled a tooth from his mouth; all became keepsakes of the man who overnight seemed to have become th
e thing of legends.
It was when they grabbed his body and hauled it into the heap of flames and ashes amongst the still burning corpse of Hecate that I turned away, my stomach churning with all the fillings from the last twenty-four hours. Bracing myself on a building away from the crowd, I doubled over and expelled the contents of my stomach until there was nothing but the smell of burning flesh in my nostrils. I immediately regretted staying behind to watch the execution.
Desperately needing a distraction, I turned my thoughts to my next dilemma – returning home to Savannah without aging three hundred years.
If only Zeus had the ability to time travel on his own, none of this would have happened in the first place. Hecate would have never gotten involved and all I would’ve had to do was track down Hart. Now, instead, I had to figure out something else. As I started to walk away, the crowd began to disperse as well. In a pantheon of over a hundred Gods, there had to be someone else who was able to time travel. Hell, there had to be a God of time – didn’t there?
Looking around at what was available to me, I realized for the first time how dependent I was on technology. How desperately I wished to be able to Google something and have the answer immediately. Instead, here I was, trapped and needing to search but where do I begin?
Walking back into the pub I spent the night at, the barkeeper recognized me immediately and called me over.
“Busy day, I heard you helped with the capture of the witch.â€
“Ah, yeah.â€
“On me.†He pushed a glass of foamy beer toward me and I smiled tightly, recalling the sour taste and wishing for a good old Coors back home.
“I was wondering if you could help me with something.â€
“Aye?â€
“I’m looking for a learned man, someone who would have access to a lot of books?â€
“Hm, well, the judge is a learned man,†he said thoughtfully, picking a rotten looking rag and wiping the counter with it. “I suppose he would have a lot of books. He’s from the old country.â€
“Holland?â€
“Oh, no, England. I’m from London myself.†He looked proud about that fact but I didn’t engage him any further, thanked him for the beer I didn’t drink and left to find where the judge lived. If I was lucky, the judge knew the answer to my question or if he didn’t, he had a book that might be able to help. I still didn’t know what I would do with the information but it was a starting point. Zeus couldn’t have been the only God who escaped when Atlas first released the Gods.
Thinking of the Titan in charge of Zeus’ task, I realized half of my answer. If I could find Atlas, he could take me to the God I needed and I would be able to time travel. It meant bringing someone from back here with me to the future but I could deal with that once I was home.
A bubble of excitement built inside me at the prospect of having a solid plan, although Zeus reminded me that finding Atlas wouldn’t be as easy as walking into the pub and asking for him. Once I knew which God I needed, Atlas would be my next task. He was sentenced to holding the world, I wasn’t sure if this was a figurative or literal punishment since I knew, and the ancient Greeks didn’t, the world was a round mass floating in space. There had to be somewhere else Atlas would hold the weight of the world on his shoulders and the only way to do that was… From the inside.
My plan unfolded. If I could get to the Underworld from this year, I would be able to travel into Tartarus where Zeus once had imprisoned the Titans. Maybe that’s where Atlas was, holding the literal weight of the world while in prison. The more I considered it, the more I decided it was a cruel punishment for someone who didn’t do anything half as bad as murder someone.
The judge was coming up to his house at the same time I was and he recognized me from bearing Hecate’s body to the flames.
“Hello, my son,†he seemed overly cheerful for a man who had sentenced someone else to death. “Thank you again for your help with the witches. Terrible business.†He tutted to himself as he pushed his door open.
“Sir, if you don’t mind, I was told you might be able to help me?â€
“Of course, what is it?â€
“I was having a…†I paused for a second, coming up with a quick lie on the fly, “argument with a mate of mine. We were trying to decide who the God of Time was from the ancient Greek stories. I said it was Atlas but he told me I was wrong, the innkeeper suggested you might know, being a man of Oxford.â€
“Ah well,†he said, puffing out his chest with pride and pulling his wig off his head to reveal a patchy, balding scalp which he scratched thoughtfully. “I would have to say it would be Cronos, the father of Zeus.â€
Of course. I immediately felt stupid for not thinking of it myself, although to be fair in my world, he was dead. I had put him out of mind after he tried to kill Savannah and I.
“Right, well damn,†I forced a laugh, “guess I owe a man a drink.†I nodded my head gratefully and the judge laughed. “Thank you, and have a good night sir.†He waved goodbye before going back into his house and I turned around. Cronos. I was going to have to face him once more.
Taking a deep breath, I strode away from the house, feeling the exhaustion of the last few days beginning to wear on me. I couldn’t remember the last time I got a good night’s sleep. I might’ve slept deeply last night but the mattress, if you could call it that, had been awful and my back ached to prove it. With Valentina’s death and everything else going on with Asher and his cronies, anything longer than four hours had proved elusive. I wanted to curl up on something soft and sleep away my exhaustion, give my pounding head a break but I still had more work to do.
I needed to find a way into the Underworld with no help from anyone but myself. Thinking back on all the other times I had gone into the land of the dead, I knew there was only one trick left up my sleeve. If Zeus’ magic couldn’t lead me to Hades, nothing would.
Chapter 18
When I was trapped on the mountain, Zeus was able to pull out a spell to create a beacon for the other Gods to see. I wondered now if I would be able to do something similar, imagining those little floating balls of light you would see in a movie guiding me to where I would find an entrance to the Underworld.
Being King of the Gods had to count for something when it came to finding others of my kind. Zeus, however, was silent in the back of my head, proving not willing to work with me right now. Holding my hands in front of me, I thought back to my lessons with Atlas. He hadn’t explained exactly what I was capable of but neither had he said it was limited.
Recalling the warmth of Savannah’s magic, I sought more out, feeling through the darkness behind my eyes in search of someone else who gave out power. Nothing happened right away, I likely stood there foolishly for a good ten minutes before opening my eyes again and blinking in the sunlight. About ready to give up, I remember Savannah saying my magic felt cold to her and I wondered if it was a gendered thing.
I had no way of testing it anymore with Hecate gone but it would only mean losing another ten minutes if I tried searching for cold magic instead. At first it seemed a bust once more until I felt something like the pins and needles you get in your feet when your leg goes dead. Reaching out for it with my mind’s eye I took my first blind step, holding my hands out in front of myself to make sure I didn’t run into anything.
It didn’t take long for me to step off of the trodden road made for town and cross into the plushness of grass. The first tree branch scraped my arm and I opened my eyes reluctantly to see ahead of myself.
The sensation disappeared immediately and I sucked in a sharp breath of frustration.
I could do this. I could be awake and still connect to the magic. Affirmati
ve belief had to count for something, otherwise all of Savannah’s yoga crap was nonsense. I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. I said it over and over again, focusing on the trees in front of me while I reached out with my magic to reconnect to whatever it was I was feeling.
The underworld, I hoped, or better – Atlas.
My frustration grew and finally I broke from my open-eyed trance to punch the tree, my fist sinking right through the bark and would’ve broken through to the other side, if not for the thickness of the tree itself. With a growl, I pulled my hand out and surveyed the damage, no longer surprised by how my hand would magically stitch itself back together.
“C’mon, damn it!†I could almost hear Zeus chuckle in my head which didn’t help the situation but before I got the chance to lash out at him I heard him softly say, try again. I did.
The coolness was distant this time, not strong at first until I began walking, clinging to it like it was an invisible piece of yarn guiding me through the trees. I followed it, weaving through the sections of dense shrubbery until I realized the sensation had wound me through the woods, past the town and out to the edge of the ocean. My feet slipped on the sand, grains pushing into the cracks they could find in my shoes.
The sensation led me to the edge of the water, probing me to get into it, it was stronger here and I had no doubt I was meant to get into it but I didn’t know what would happen. I knew I could swim, I sensed I could breathe underwater but if my magic was expecting me to swim the length of the Atlantic over to England to go to the entrance at Stonehenge, it had another thing coming.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the frigid water, my jaw tensing immediately as the cold water washed into my shoes and brushed my ankles.
All Hail the King: Modern Greek Gods YA/NA Series (Grace of Gods Book 4) Page 15