Further south, Thera made itself felt in Egypt as well. Falling clouds of ash caused unnatural darkness. Animals acted strangely, frightening the people. Tidal waves washed up the Nile River, and water tables in other places dropped sharply. Poisonous gasses, heavier than regular air, rolled in from the ocean and settled into the rich valleys, killing many Egyptians who lived there, while Hebrew slaves, who lived high in the scrubby hills, survived.
Thousands of Hebrews took advantage of the confusion to escape into the desert. Ganymede saw their future. They would become nomads and increase their numbers. Their power would grow, and with them would grow their strange idea of worshiping a single god. Attempts to crush the idea would fail, and even Greece would succumb to monotheism. Left with only a tiny handful of worshippers, the Olympians, including Zeus, would diminish and fade.
Ganymede sighed and set the goblet down. It had happened, just as Prometheus and the Fates had said. Ganymede had killed Zeus, though it would take time for him to die.
“Ganymede.”
The summons was quiet, almost gentle. Ganymede sighed. The two remaining hairs of Prometheus weighed heavy as threads in his tunic, and he wondered if Zeus would find them. Not that it mattered. Ganymede started to focus on Zeus, but a soft hand gripped his and interrupted. Iris’s rainbow eyes were soft. “We go together,” she said.
They appeared before Zeus’s throne in the great hall. The ring table was gone, and the twelve thrones were gathered in a circle instead, all of them filled with stern-faced gods. Hestia stood next to the fire in the center, sorrow and regret creasing her gentle face. Hera looked grave instead of angry, and Zeus was impassive. Ganymede took a deep breath and realized he was still holding Iris’s hand. Was it his imagination, or were the gods already looking a little dim? Apollo’s golden light looked a little faded, and the grapes vines weaving around Dionysus were wilting. Aphrodite showed strands of silver in her perfect blond hair.
“You’ve destroyed me,” Zeus said. “All of us. Including yourself. I want to know why.”
Ganymede thought about explaining the whole thing, about the gods playing with humans as if they were toys. And even then Ganymede knew that he was lying to himself. Ultimately, he had done it because he had watched his brother and his father sell him for personal gain, and seeing the gods destroy his old home because three goddess had squabbled over a golden bauble had been more than he could stand.
But he knew most of this would make no sense to Zeus or the other Olympians. So he only said, “You let the Greeks destroy Troy.”
“Petty revenge,” Zeus said, nodding. “Still, you’ve set in motion events even I can’t change, and you’ve condemned us to a slow death. You have to pay for that, Ganymede. Iris, too, since she helped you.”
Zeus spread his hands, and an enormous thunderbolt crackled between them. Utter calm came over Ganymede as he stared his own final death in the face. Even in this moment, he could see how much effort calling up the lightning was costing Zeus. His red-blond hair was turning gray, and his skin was becoming pale and translucent. Zeus raised the thunderbolt over his head. Ganymede closed his eyes, smelling sharp ozone deadly as poison.
“Wait!” Eros appeared before Zeus in a flutter of white wings.
Zeus checked the bolt before he threw it, though it continued to crackle in his hand. “What’s this?”
“Eros!” Aphrodite called from her throne. “This doesn’t concern you. Get out!”
Eros flinched at his mother’s harsh tone, but he stood firm. “No, Mother. Not this time.” He linked arms with Ganymede and Iris. “I stand with my friends.”
“You told Aphrodite what happened,” Zeus growled, “including your role in it, and you were forgiven. Now move, boy, before you get hurt.”
Again Eros flinched, but his arms remained firmly linked with Ganymede and Iris. “I stand with my friends,” he repeated. “I left them once. I won’t do it again.”
“As you wish, boy,” Zeus said, raising the thunderbolt again.
“No!” Aphrodite screamed. In a split second she crossed the great hall and flung herself between Zeus and Eros. “You can’t! Zeus, you can’t do this!”
Zeus’s anger was clearly growing. “Aphrodite, you forget yourself.”
As the other gods watched impassively, Aphrodite threw herself on the floor at Zeus’s feet with a terrible wail that flattened the grass in all directions and made the stone pillars tremble. She ripped her dress open and tore her hair free of its jeweled netting so it stood out wild and untamed. “I’m begging you, my lord! He’s my son. Please!”
But Zeus remained unmoved. The thunderbolt danced its electric moves between his fists. “You played no small role in this, Aphrodite. Now leave, or you’ll be caught up in it, too.”
At that, Hestia came forward, lifted the sobbing Aphrodite to her feet, and escorted her away. Eros watched her go, his expression resolved, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Ganymede squeezed his shoulder, then reached into his tunic with his free hand.
“No more delays,” Zeus said, and raised his hands one more time. “Know that I did love you, Ganymede.”
He flung the deadly bolt at the trio standing before him. In the same moment, Ganymede tossed a hair of Prometheus into the air. His enhanced juggler’s reflexes timed it perfectly. The two objects, one of destruction, the other of creation, slammed into each other. A terrible blast of sound and wind tore through the great hall. Strange light and impossible energy crawled over the ground, the thrones, and even the gods, who gripped their thrones with startled desperation. Iris threw a rainbow in front of herself, Ganymede, and Eros, and three of them clung to it while the wind tried to fling them away. A strange rip appeared in the air between Zeus and Ganymede, gaping like a mouth hung in a void. Through it Ganymede glimpsed a different world, one completely different from his own. Ganymede saw people in strange clothes using machines he couldn’t begin to describe. In this place, Zeus was dead and the Olympians had little power, and a bit of hope flickered in Ganymede’s chest.
In a weird land on a strange continent he saw a broad, shallow lake surrounded by houses. A brown-haired woman met a blond man on a long, rickety dock, and they clung together with hungry animal passion. On the same lake in a vacation cottage owned by the blond man, a husband made soft, gentle love to his wife. Not far from them, a third woman was thrown weeping to a bed, where a man forced himself upon her. Each woman conceived a child, and their bellies grew full and round.
The tear pulled at Ganymede, Iris, and Eros, and all three of them felt their grip on the rainbow loosening in the terrible wind. Zeus shouted something incomprehensible. The trio was being pulled away from Olympus into this strange world, but in three different directions, and Ganymede shifted from acceptance of death to fear of separation. He couldn’t bear the thought of escaping Zeus only to lose Iris and Eros. Letting go of the rainbow with one hand, he drew the knife from his belt and slashed his arm. White pain scored his skin as heavy golden blood flowed over the blade.
“Iris!” he shouted over the wind. “Take it!”
He tossed the knife to her, and she let go of the rainbow with one hand to catch it. His blood spattered over her, and he felt the connection between them solidify. Iris met Ganymede’s eyes with her own for a moment, then she let go with her other hand. Still clutching the knife, she flew backward into the rift and vanished.
“No!” Eros shouted. “Iris!”
The rainbow was already starting to fade. Barely able to breathe in the wind, Ganymede reached inside his tunic with his free hand, then stretched out to Eros. “Grab hold!” he shouted. “The rainbow won’t last much longer!”
Eros snapped out his hand for Ganymede’s and when their palms touched, his eyes widened. Then Ganymede let go of him. The wind sent Eros tumbling toward the tear, his bright wings beating uselessly, but from his hand trailed the third hair of Prometheus. The other end stayed connected to Ganymede. Like Iris, Eros fell through the rift and vanished. The hair v
anished as well, but Ganymede could still feel it holding them together.
The rainbow was nearly gone now. Ganymede looked over at Zeus, who had regained his balance and was clinging to his throne. The roaring wind whipped his hair and beard around, and he looked tired. His eyes locked on Ganymede’s and for a long moment, everything seemed to stop moving.
“I’m sorry,” Ganymede whispered. “So sorry.”
Zeus nodded once, and Ganymede let go just as the last of Iris’s rainbow vanished. Wind rushed past his ears exactly as it had when a giant eagle had plucked him from the top of a cliff all those centuries ago. Then he was through the rift. Olympus vanished, and Ganymede was falling toward the earth, toward the lake, toward the woman who had conceived him.
BOOK 8
PART XI
Lucian screamed, and blood spattered over Irene as she yanked her knife free and stabbed him a second time. His pistol hand jerked, and the gun dropped. Eryx leaped forward with the grace of a heroic gymnast and kicked it away. And me, I smashed Lucian on the temple with my mug. The shock swept up my arm and numbed my fingers. Lucian wavered, still clutching his leg, and I hit him again. This time he went down. He lay there on the thin carpet, blood leaking out of him like red wine. I stood over him, the mug raised again in case the monster wasn’t dead. But he didn’t move.
“I think he’s out,” Eryx said. He was holding the pistol.
“Shit,” Irene said. “The fucker hit me hard.”
I didn’t lower the mug. “Is he dead?”
“He’s breathing.” Eryx felt his neck. “And his heart’s beating.”
“Too fucking bad,” Irene said. “And we need to get out of here.”
“He’ll bleed to death,” I said doubtfully.
“So what?” Irene snarled. Lucian’s blood on her face changed her into a leopard that had just made a kill.
“So you’d be up for murder, probably,” Eryx told her. “Besides, helping him doesn’t mean it won’t hurt him.”
Irene smiled at that. Using her knife, they tore up Lucian’s shirt and made a crude bandage for his leg. They weren’t gentle about it. Lucian groaned but didn’t wake up. I, meanwhile, went behind Lucian’s desk. One of the drawers was open, and his cash box was in it. He was probably about to take it out when we showed up. I remembered him locking it with a key on his belt. In seconds I had it, and the box opened easily. I stared down at the pile of green bills.
“There has to be four or five thousand here,” I breathed.
“Grab it and let’s run,” Irene said. “That’ll piss him off more than anything.”
I was splitting the cash between us when Lucian came to.
“My leg hurts,” he groaned. “What did you do to me?” Then he saw us stuffing the money into our pockets. He struggled to sit up, but the pain in his leg was too much for him. “You little shits! That’s my fucking money!”
“Think of it as a trade agreement,” Eryx said. “Our fucking for your money.”
“I’ll call the cops,” he gasped. “I’ll tell them you stole it. They’ll drag your asses to jail, and then you’ll learn what fucking means. The sheriff is a customer of mine.”
Irene kicked him in the leg wound and he screamed. “You goddammed liar!” she screeched at him. “We talked to the sheriff. We know!”
She drew back her leg to kick him again, but Eryx caught her and pulled her away. I squatted down next to Lucian’s head. I hated him so much, my hands shook. Blackness filled me up, overflowed into sewage, and I wanted nothing more than to vomit into his mouth, give back every bit of disgust and rage and fear he had given me. I wanted to kneel on his neck and watch the life leave his eyes. But all that was something he would do, and most of all, I didn’t want to be like Lucian.
“I’ll make you a trade,” I said to him. “You give us the money, and we’ll keep our silence. If you don’t agree, I’ll tell the sheriff what really happened in this hotel, and watch the ruin of your life.”
Everything is happening again. Didn’t you learn anything from the first time, you little snot?
“Agreed?” I said, holding my mug over his head.
Lucian closed pale eyes, defeated. “Agreed.”
We dropped the phone next to him so he could call for an ambulance—let him explain the stab wound on his own, we figured—and took off. Irene stopped at a bathroom to rinse the blood off her face, but that only took a sec. I felt powerful, and I felt real.
Eryx, who still had Lucian’s pistol, said we needed to go back to the ocean to get rid of the stupid thing, so that’s where we went. The waves were seriously high now. I was getting a little scared. The adrenaline from the fight in Lucian’s office had worn off, and the shakes were setting in. Eryx drew back the pistol, took three lithe steps toward the gray ocean, and threw the gun as hard as he could. The foamy sea swallowed it without even a visible splash.
Me, I clutched my mug and stared at the heaving water and darkening sky. A gust of wind whipped stinging sand into my face.
Everything is happening again.
I had brought Hurricane Tyler here. I knew this the same way I knew water gets you wet or the sea tastes salty. I had unleashed him on Aquapura to destroy Lucian and the Haidou Hotel without a thought to all the other people whose lives would be changed or even destroyed.
Didn’t you learn anything from the first time, you little snot?
I had released Tyler to destroy my own hell, except now I—we—had faced it and destroyed it ourselves. I didn’t need Tyler. I never had.
Didn’t you learn anything?
“Yeah,” I said to June. “I did learn.”
“What?” Eryx asked.
“It isn’t right,” I said. “I need to stop the hurricane.”
I expected disbelief. I got nods instead. “Then do it,” Irene said.
“And hurry!” Eryx added.
“You don’t think I’m nuts?”
“If anyone can do it, Danny, it’s you!” Eryx shouted over the rising wind.
“You’re the strong one!” Irene hollered. “Strong as the ocean.”
Not feeling at all stupid, I lifted my hands, the mug in my left, the wind in my right. Water leaped and swirled, licking and lashing the shore. Wind whistled and roared, wiping my face with salty spray. I drew a design in the sand with my foot, and chanted louder than an angry priest.
Blood strong as wave
Wave wide as wing
Wing bright as color
Color deep as blood
Turn aside
Back to sky
As the cup
Says you must.
I waited. Nothing happened. Last time, lightning struck a tree and I felt a change. This time, I felt nothing. The wind blew in from the ocean just as before. Tyler was going to destroy people’s homes, take their lives, and it was my fault.
I was so tired. Tired of feeling bad, tired of feeling scared, tired of feeling torn between two extremes. I’d felt this way for so long, I didn’t know how else to feel or what to do about it. The solution, when it came, felt like a backpack full of stones. It weighed on me, pushed me down to the sand. I’d been throwing bits of myself into the water for years. Maybe now it was time to hand over the rest. Sacrifice myself to the monster as June had sacrificed herself to me. Tyler would feed and, sated on the blood of the one who had released him, drift slowly back to the ocean trenches.
I wouldn’t feel torn anymore. I wouldn’t feel anything. Simplest thing in the world—just go forward until pain and fear and uncertainty stopped.
I hadn’t realized I was speaking all this aloud until I saw Eryx pale and Irene nod.
“I’ll go with you,” she said, pulling me to my feet. “Way better if there are two of us. Or maybe three. Eryx?”
“No!” he said. “You can’t!”
Irene turned her back on him and raised her knife to the sea. The blade still ran with Lucian’s blood and she looked older than the sky. “We’ll banish Tyler together!” she shouted
over the wind. “And end pain forever! Hey, look—I can write poetry, too.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me forward, toward the high waves. I didn’t resist. The water looked happy, welcoming. It looked right. I started my life here and here it would end. A perfect circle, like the rim of the mug I still held in my hand. The rim went round and round and round, though a chip in one spot interrupted the cycle’s perfection. Stupid thing to see just before I died. Irene pulled me toward the ocean again, and water wet our feet.
“NO!” Eryx screamed again. “Danny! Irene!”
He grabbed for me, missed, and tore out some of my hair instead. It hurt a little, and I whipped around to look at him. Eryx stood behind me, holding three black hairs from my head. Then I looked at Irene, who was still holding my hand and urging me toward the ocean. I hung there, caught between them, and both of them were different. Irene wore a shining rainbow that wrapped her in impossible colors, and her feet blurred in quick, inhuman steps. Eryx carried a bow of light and air, and bright wings stretched from his back. And me—I was taller, stronger, regenerated, and my cup was edged with gold. All three of us quivered with unharnessed power, and all three of us danced on the ends of invisible strings that we held in our own hands.
The vision faded. Even the gold sheen of my mug disappeared, but the chip seemed a little wider now. Why the fuck was I carrying the stupid cup around with me? And why the hell would I walk into the ocean to die when I had the power to change and live?
“Come on!” Irene said. “Let’s get this over with!”
I ignored her, stuck the fingers of both hands inside my mug, and pulled. My arms strained, and I felt my biceps bulge. Sweat popped out on my forehead, but I kept pulling. Something gave. With a terrible scream that started in my feet and ended at my soul, I tore the mug in half. Then I ran toward the ocean, one step, two, three, and threw the two pieces as hard as I could. They sailed into the distance and vanished.
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