by Candy Crum
“Did it work?” he asked.
“I – I think so,” Alee said, more than a little shocked. “That was amazing!”
The gryphon began to move. Joe moved out of the way as she started to stand.
“Unbelievable,” Joe said under his breath. “How did you know?” he asked Brittany.
“I’m sorry I had to be so cold. You just seem like the do-gooder type of guy. I hoped that if I tried to bring you down, that you’d be able to do it, just to prove me wrong. Seems it worked. Next time you have to do that; it won’t be so bad. I’ve been training for this my entire life. I’m the descendant of Athena. You are the descendant of Apollo. Your sister, I’m not quite sure of, yet. We will figure it out, though. We need to talk about those visions. I need to fill you in on everything. There’s a war coming,” Brittany said.
“Actually,” Joe said. “That war has already come. If what I saw earlier is correct, then Cronus just climbed out of Vesuvius. He’s free.”
“He’s free?” Brittany asked. “Then we need to hurry. We can’t stay still. That chimera is only the beginning. There will be others. Other beasts. Cronus won’t stop until we are all dead.”
“He said something,” Alee said. “In the vision. He spoke. It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever heard. His voice was stone cold, gravelly. That is a sound I will never forget.”
“What did he say?” Brittany asked.
Alee shrugged. “I have no idea. It was another language. I’d imagine he was speaking Greek.”
“Humans,” Joe said, his eyes staring blankly off into the distance as he remembered back to the vision. “I have returned. Cronus will be the name that you scream as your cities fall.”
Alee and Brittany both stared at Joe, unspeaking.
“That was when he made eye contact with us,” Joe said. “I saw it. He was looking down on an entire town, but I know he was seeing us.”
“That’s impossible,” Brittany said. “It was a vision. He couldn’t have seen you.”
Joe made eye contact with Brittany, his expression deadly serious.
“He looked straight at Alee and I. Then he said, ‘Hello, Fated ones,’ before disappearing in a lightning barrage. He saw us… He spoke directly to us… I have never studied any Greek at all, so I don’t know how I was able to understand him at all.”
“You’re the descendant of Apollo. He was the god of wisdom, so obviously he was very intelligent. It makes sense that you would know Greek. I’d be willing to bet that you can speak, or understand several languages now because Apollo spoke many. Cronus has freed himself and that means magic has returned to the world. That means each of us is going to get stronger as our powers are allowed to grow. We are going to realize strengths that we never knew that we had,” Brittany said.
“There are others, right?” Alee asked. “Where are they? Do they know who they are?”
Brittany shook her head. “No. They don’t. We can talk on the way back. We need to get out of these woods and get the gryphon somewhere safe where she can heal. Is your home close by?”
“It’s not far from here. We just need to follow this path. What exactly do we do with the gryphon? We can’t really just bring her home like a lost kitten, can we?” Joe asked.
“We are totally taking it home with us,” Alee said.
“And where does one keep a gryphon?” Joe asked. “I doubt the dog will share the back yard. I also doubt she would fit through our back door.”
“I’m sure she will be fine outside,” Brittany said. “Like you said, it’s not like she can fit in your exterior doors. She’s too big. Garage maybe. As long as your neighbors aren’t too close, she can just sleep in the backyard, so she can be close to us. We need to get her some food. She needs to refuel after how much she’s gone through.”
“We don’t have enough meat at home to satisfy a belly that big,” Joe said.
The gryphon growled, nudging him a little.
“Hey!” he said.
“She can understand you,” Brittany said, a smile on her face. “And you more or less just called her fat.”
Joe looked at her incredulously. “Are you serious? A self-conscious gryphon?”
“Apologize,” Alee said.
Joe turned, reaching out to stroke the side of the large eagle head. She was much softer than he could have imagined. Her feathers were even softer than her velvet-like fur.
“I’m sorry. I just meant that we might have a couple fish in the freezer. Or a couple pounds of meat. You are probably used to eating bigger things. Right?”
She chirped, a sound resembling a purr coming afterward.
“I’m sure Brittany, and I can take care of that,” Alee said, referring to hunting for some food for their new friend.
“I suppose we have a plan, then,” Joe said. “Let’s just get home.”
The trio and their guardian walked back to Alee and Joe’s. Their pace was slow, keeping a speed comfortable for the gryphon to walk. It took close to fifteen minutes to get back home, but everyone seemed to be very relieved to be out of the woods.
As they reached the back porch, Grace was there waiting for them. Her eyes widened as she saw them exit the woods, a massive mythical beast in tow.
“Is that…” Grace started.
“It’s a gryphon,” Joe said. “And apparently she’s our new house guest. She saved us.”
The family dog, Sammy, ran out of the house, barking at the gryphon and interrupting the slew of questions that Grace was about to unleash.
Joe looked at the gryphon and pointed at the dog. “Not food. This is our dog. She has a name. Sammy. Definitely not food. Okay?”
The gryphon nodded.
“I mean it. Please don’t eat my dog,” he said.
She purred again, lying down in the grass. Her posture was much better, and it was obvious that she was already beginning to heal internally. The color on the skin of the injured wing was returning to normal and the swelling was beginning to go down.
The dog wandered up and sniffed her. Sammy was very slow at first, getting braver and braver as time went. After a few moments, she got nose to beak with the gryphon, sniffing her again. The gryphon returned the action. Soon, the dog was panting and attempting to be playful with the gryphon.
“What happened?” Grace asked.
“It’s a long story. Let’s go inside and talk about it,” Joe said.
“Are you sure the dog is safe?” Grace asked.
They all looked back to see the gryphon unfurl her healthy wing, hiding behind it for a few seconds before jumping out and pouncing over and behind Sammy. It looked like some hybrid version of the games leap frog and hide and seek. The dog barked and wagged her tail as the gryphon continued to hide behind her own wing, only to jump out after the dog again.
Joe rolled his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.
“Yeah. I think it’s safe to say the dog is in zero danger from the gryphon,” he said.
WEDNESDAY
Texas
Ariyah Jackson and Chelsea Davenport sat in their living room floor, their eyes opening simultaneously. They both sat in silence, neither one needing to say a word as they took in their failure. Ariyah stood, making her way into the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, needing to replenish after having used so much strength. Chelsea also came to retrieve a bottle of water, both girls’ foreheads covered in sweat.
“This was far worse than last time,” Chelsea said.
Ariyah nodded. “Those creatures are way too difficult to control. We weren’t meant to do it.”
“Hera was the only one that could,” Chelsea said. “We should have started with the chimera. It was a lot weaker than the Hydra. We wasted way too much strength going with that one first.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ariyah said. “Magic has only just returned. We’ll get stronger. They will, too, but not as fast as we will. We know who we are.”
“Well, you did,” Chelsea said. “I didn’t.”
Chelsea smiled. “Good. Because I don’t want to be on Cronus’ bad side. I want to be on the winning side, for once.”
“Oh you will be,” Ariyah said. “We will be. Cronus wants them alive. With the Hydra, we thought it could pull the kid under until he was incapacitated and then get him out. We almost lost control. The Hydra almost killed him. He would have if the kid hadn’t managed to save himself. We greatly underestimated that situation. That isn’t even taking into consideration that the one kid the Hydra managed to grab just happened to be the descendant of Poseidon. There are twelve of them. The odds of that happening were pretty slim.”
“That was my fault. I wanted to go after her, but he seemed more vulnerable,” Chelsea said.
“It’s fine,” Ariyah said. “This time, the gryphon got involved. That is the one beast we can’t control.”
“We can’t control any of them,” Chelsea said. “We only barely manage to establish dominance over them, like a dog, and then tell them what to do. We have to keep a constant link the entire time, or it doesn’t work. Ariyah, this is exhausting. I honestly have no idea how many more times I can do this.”
Ariyah stepped forward, placing her hand on Chelsea’s shoulder. “Everything will be okay. Like I said; we will get stronger. Cronus has risen. He knows us. He needs us. He’s given us a job to do. We can do it. We just have to make sure that we stay within our own abilities. I think I have a better idea. We just have to make sure to be careful because Cronus needs them alive. He needs to absorb their power, or it will take a long time for him to gain enough strength to overthrow Olympus.”
“Do you feel like he’s using you?” Chelsea asked. “I mean; he can’t even see them. There are other witches out there protecting them. There are spells on the Fated. He can’t see them at all, even if they were standing right in front of him. He needs us. I don’t know what’s going to end up happening to us in the process.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Ariyah said. “Cronus will always take care of us. He told us that. Right now we just need to focus on catching them. I have an idea, but it will be a little more hands on. We need to call out to Cronus and tell him what happened to the chimera and what we plan to do next.”
Κεφάλαιο X
WEDNESDAY
Southern Indiana
Joe and Alee sat on the couch with their mother, their eyes wide. Each one of them stared at Brittany, unable to speak. She’d just told the family that Joe and Alee were descended from the gods, though Joe was the only one of the two whose god she could identify. The twins had already received that information, so it didn’t come as quite of a surprise as it had to Grace. It was the rest of the information that had them overwhelmed and unable to focus. They saw Brittany without actually seeing her, staring through her as their minds wandered in many different directions.
Cronus vowed to come back and, not only take back Olympus and kill the Olympians, but to take Earth as well. Brittany told them how each of the twelve had been given the power of their respective god, no matter how great or small that power was. It would take all twelve of them to defeat Cronus.
“How exactly do we find the others?” Joe asked. “If they are all like us, clueless, then we have no idea how to find them. Do we even know what we’re supposed to do?”
“I’m wondering that also,” Grace said. “There is no way that twelve sixteen year olds can just walk up to Cronus and kill him. I don’t care how much power you have. Especially if he is as big as Alee described. By what she said, he’s a monster. There is no way he can be taken down by just all of you. What do you plan to do? Walk up, ask him to lean down, and lop his head off with the world’s biggest axe?”
Alee and Joe laughed at their mother’s sarcasm.
Brittany only managed a smile, finding the situation much more serious. “First, no. We have no idea what we are supposed to do, or where to start. That is something we’re going to find along the way. The gods aren’t able to speak to us, or at least not much. My mom said they are way too weak, and that was before they gave up their power. I know Apollo has spoken to you before, but I’m sure he sounded incredibly weak,” Brittany said.
Joe nodded. “He did. He sounded sick.”
“He wasn’t sick,” Brittany said. “They are all on their death beds. They gave every last bit of power they had to us the day we were born. That was the prophecy, and it seems that we are the chosen ones. The only power they have left has to be saved. They can only speak to us very little, or they will weaken even more. Secondly. We will not be alone in this war. Cronus rising is bringing magic back into the world, including its magical creatures, like the gryphon out there. There isn’t only a single gryphon. There are many. Well, there will be anyway. There are also many other types of good creatures being reborn. We are not alone, but neither is Cronus. There will be many creatures coming back to kill us, like that chimera that we fought earlier, and witches. Just like there are witches that fought for the gods, for us, there are also witches that fought for Cronus. They will be coming for us as well.”
“If the prophecy was told so long ago, how do you know that they gave us their power? Maybe I just see things. Maybe you are just really strong in fights because of how you were raised. No one has spoken to a god in a couple thousand years, from what I’ve read anyway,” Joe said.
“The prophecy said that the fate of the gods rested in the hands of their descendants. That Cronus would come back, and when he did, that the gods would have to make a decision. If they chose wrong, they would die. My mom believes the wrong choice would have been to keep their powers for themselves as they always had, relying on their own abilities. If they chose correctly, giving up the only thing they’d grown to care about, their power, then they had a chance to survive, as did Earth. My mom said that Mount Vesuvius began showing signs of eruption the night that we were all born. The world was covered in storms. There were blackouts, power surges; it was chaos,” Brittany explained.
“I can vouch for that,” Grace said. “The night the two of you were born, the power in the hospital went out. Luckily the generators were working, but it was terrifying giving birth to twins in those kinds of conditions.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “When is your birthday? Because if the twelve are all born on the same day, then we would all share the same birthdate.”
“Duh,” Alee said. “Way to science, bro.”
“Shut up,” Joe said. “Anyway, the only difference would be if any of them were born overseas. Obviously, they may have been born the day before, depending on the time.”
“My birthday is September sixth,” Brittany said. “I will be seventeen.”
Joe looked over to his mother, then his sister. Both girls had the same expression on their face as they wondered if he would stop arguing and ask something useful.
“Well, okay,” he said. “Just curious. So what now? What do we do?”
Brittany sighed. “We have to find the others. Like you said, the descendants are spread all over the world. I have no idea where. My mom and dad have no idea either. Now that Cronus is free, he can be anywhere. He isn’t nearly strong enough to be able to do what he needs to for world domination. He’s still very weak and could easily be killed. I suspect he’ll hide out, regaining some of the strength that he lost being locked in Tartarus for so long, and then the rest that he lost climbing free from a volcano.”
“How do we start?” Alee asked. “Do you know of any way to track them?”
“I found both of you because of a gryphon that I saw on a newscast back in LA. The world will be preparing for a battle and it knows that it will need magic to
win. Now the world will be full of magic. Including the other Fated. They will more than likely use powers they didn’t know that they had and by total accident. It’ll scare them, just as it did you, Joe. We have to hope that we have some sort of connection to them. Some kind of way to feel them out. I’m just glad that I found the two of you first. Joe might be able to see them if he looks hard enough for them,” Brittany said.
“I wouldn’t even begin to know how to search for someone,” Joe said. “Alee has always been the better tracker. She has a weird knack for it. She might not have the visions, but she can find anything.”
Brittany’s brows furrowed. “I’m an idiot.”
“What?” Grace asked. “Why do you think that?”
“I saw how you handled that sword earlier,” Brittany said to Alee. “You were completely comfortable with it. You knew to go for the lungs on that animal because it was the fastest way to kill it other than going for the heart, brain, or carotid artery, none of which you could reach.”
“That sounds like common sense to me,” Alee said. “Really, it’s not a big deal. I hunt a lot. My grandfather used to take me when he was still around. I’ve just always enjoyed it. You might be trained in battle techniques, but hunting is my strong point. So doing all that was common sense for me.”
“I don’t know for certain, because I have literally no way of knowing,” Brittany said. “But I think you may have Artemis’ abilities.”
“Artemis?” Alee asked. “Why do you think it’s her?”
“I never thought of that before because Artemis and Apollo are twins. It was impossible for both of you, also twins, to take after two separate gods,” Brittany said.
“Are you saying there was some inbreeding somewhere down the line in the family tree?” Grace asked, wrinkling her nose.
“No,” Brittany said, laughing. “Not at all. Artemis never took a lover, but she and Apollo were both twins. That means that anyone that Apollo fathered would also share Artemis’ blood. She was related to each and every descendant of Apollo. Artemis was a virgin goddess. She never married, or had children, according to lore anyway. I just always assumed that she secretly had a child that no one knew about in order to prepare for the prophecy. I suppose that she never really had to. As long as the child is related, a descendant, then the prophecy could be carried out.”