Prophecy of the Most Beautiful

by Jones, Diantha

"Of course, my lady."

  The woman smiled. It was a deadly gorgeous smile. "And you will promise me one thing more?"

  "Anything." Radiance said this without any hesitation.

  "Promise me that you will––dispose of––anyone that gets in the way of our progress."

  Radiance beamed as if she had just won the lottery. "My lady," She began with a low bow. She looked up from under her heavily-lashed eyelids, "It would be my absolute honor and pleasure."

  *****

  Chloe woke up with a start, her heart beating like a jack hammer. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and she could see Ace's silhouette sleeping soundly on his lounge by the door.

  She didn't know how long she had been asleep or what time it was, as if time even mattered in this place. She felt groggy and unrested, but that wasn't something she was unaccustomed to. She rarely slept well and only the luxurious, out-of-this-world bed had caused her to drift off. She wished she hadn't even laid down.

  But the day had been sooooo long. The first thing she'd done after getting the hell away from Strafford was getting lost inside the Chateau. No matter what he said, the palace was beautiful, but a frickin’ labyrinth. Thank the gods for Mystic. The strange girl had found her at her wits end sitting cross-legged in a random hallway just waiting to be discovered. Mystic had giggled, then taken her to the courtyard, where Ace and the other demigods were chowing down on lunch.

  She'd joined them, and what do you know, Strafford had shown (Hector had pretended to be overwhelmed with surprise to see him), but she had done all she could to ignore him. Yeah right. She'd done a terrible job of it, spilling not one, but two glasses of nectar juice and squirting ketchup all over her blouse. Luckily, black hid the stains well, but could do nothing for the red in her cheeks. Swindle had finally come to her rescue after her elbow had sent her lamb chop flying off of her plate and through the air like a boomerang, landing right at Bill's feet. While the hawk got busy on it, Swindle had led her into the maze and they'd sat around a pond of exotic fish not discussing her sudden case of the klutz or that Strafford had been staring at her the entire time.

  Instead, he answered questions without her asking and told her that for demigods, Oracles were almost as important as the gods themselves. Yeah, the gods were pretty accessible to be deities, but were they open and cooperative? Hardly ever. Easy to get along with? Not one bit. Sneaky and underhanded? At every opportunity. But Oracles? They were the medium between, the one constant that could be relied on because the Fates didn't play games. Destiny was not a gambit to them, something they used as a distraction to pass through eternity. It was everything, the here and the was and the gonna be. It would only be once she realized just how crucial destiny and fate was to their world that she would understand her true purpose.

  Sitting up in bed, she wondered now if this strange new dream was part of her understanding her purpose. She hated dreams. They never made any sense, and they always felt so…real. They were the reasons it had become so hard to distinguish reality from a hallucination. Why couldn't she just sleep in peace for once in her tortured life? Why did she even have to dream at all?

  Dreams are important, Pythia.

  Hearing the sudden voice made Chloe jump. She recognized the sharp trill as Trophy's.

  "Please don't do that," Chloe thought, "You scared the crap out of me."

  After all of these years, I would have thought our sudden appearances in your conscious thoughts would no longer frighten you.

  "After all of this time, I would've thought you would've told me what you were really doing in my head instead of letting me think I was crazy for six years. Guess we both thought wrong."

  It appears we have, said Trophy sharply, Now, you were about to wish that you didn't dream anymore…

  Chloe thought, "Basically."

  That's silly. Your dreams are everything. Now, more than ever, you cannot avoid them. You are the Oracle. Dreaming is vital. Your strong Intuition is consequential. Listen to them. They are everything.

  "And that dream…"

  …was very important, Trophy insisted.

  "How?"

  You alone must decipher its meaning, Pythia. We will be there to guide you, but we threaten our own existence if we interfere beyond reason. This is the way it has been done since the beginning of time.

  "But I thought ya'll were the Fates. They said you know everything. You're the most powerful. Ya'll can do anything you want." She paused for a moment. "And you can still call me Chloe."

  There is always a higher power to contend with. And Chloe is no longer your name.

  She decided not to argue that. "Fine, whatever. Now explain what you meant about the higher power."

  Once we decide on a single soul's path, it is in their hands. Their actions and decisions will determine how they get there, but their destiny is already decided for them. Their destiny is transferred into their subconscious where it can execute itself. We cannot change it once it is there. It is the part of the mind that we cannot touch. If we attempt it, we weaken ourselves and our abilities to make firm decisions. We must be sure of the path we have chosen for you, therefore, we must not interfere with it after it has been decided, just like the godling Lenka said. We have chosen you as the Oracle, now you must make the right decisions to fulfill your destiny.

  Chloe snorted. "So what you're saying is, you can interfere, but you won't."

  Not if we want to continue to exist. Faith in us will fade, as we will, if we are not sure of ourselves, and that just will not do. I like my existence and wish to keep on existing, thank you very much.

  Chloe blew out a frustrated breath. "How can you abandon me to do this all on my own?"

  Abandon you? We would never do that. But you must see it from our perspective. It is simply something that we cannot do. We must not interfere beyond reason, our reason. Besides, you have all of Apollo's memories. I have been looking through them. They will be very helpful to you and I have all the faith that you will use them wisely. But you must make your way down your path on your own accord. It's the only way you will ever find the true meaning of being an Oracle. You must interpret this dream by yourself.

  Chloe sighed, literally and figuratively. "But it's so much. I don't even know where to start."

  How about starting at the beginning? That's always a good place.

  "She screams and throws a vase of roses," Chloe began, thinking of her dream.

  Okay, maybe not exactly at the beginning, Trophy yawned. But I think I will leave you to figure it out. Sweet dreams await me.

  "Voices sleep?"

  Trophy laughed. We are not voices, Pythia. We are goddesses and yes, we do need our rest sometimes. Deciding the course of each person's life is quite a job for the three of us. Maybe one day we will reveal to you why, but right now, I'm returning to my slumber.

  "Okay," Chloe was reluctant to reply, "Good night," and she heard no more stirring inside her head.

  She sat back against the headboard, rubbing her temples. Since she had become the Oracle, it seemed as though her brain never stopped working. When she wasn't talking to the Fates, she was dreaming. When she wasn't dreaming, the Knowledge made her head so heavy she was sure she'd soon need a neck brace to help keep it upright. She had accepted her role as the Oracle, but wondered if it would be too bold of her to charge them for the overtime brain workout.

  She tiptoed to the loo to relieve herself of the entire pitcher of nectar juice she'd managed not to spill at dinner. The food and drink here were fantastic. The cook, Chef Petál, was a master of the culinary arts and they ate gourmet for almost every meal. It was a luxury that she could definitely get used to.

  Feeling the clamminess of a deep sleep, she bent to wash her face in the marble basin. The water was cool and fresh against her skin and she drank some to share the refreshing feeling with her dry throat. Eyes closed, she let the water drip from her face before fumbling around for her towel. She knew she had hung it up on its hook this ti
me instead of leaving it on the floor for the servants to collect. She felt along the wall she thought the hook was on, but when she found it, the hook was empty. She came to the conclusion that she had the wrong wall and turned to head in the other direction.

  She took a few blind steps.

  And walked right into her towel.

  And the hand that was holding it.

  "Looking for this?" A young man's unfamiliar voice said.

  Her eyes flew open, just in time to watch his fist slam into the side of her face.

  She hit the ground hard. She was so stunned, she couldn't even scream.

  Her face throbbed where he had hit her, but she was too dazed to feel any real pain. Scared, she struggled to stand up, seeing circles as she found her footing. She was assisted by the boy, who yanked her up by her night shirt and slapped her again. She stumbled, but didn't fall. He slapped her once more.

  "What's a man gotta do to make you scream for him, baby?" She managed to focus in on the bastard who was beating her up. She was hanging onto a tiny thread of hope that Ace had heard the commotion, but she remembered how thick the door was and with Ace sleeping, the chances of him hearing were slim to none.

  The boy slapped her again to get her attention. He was an average looking guy with blonde hair, pale skin and paler lips. He was kind of skinny, standing over six feet tall with a pointy nose and far set black eyes. He wore simple jeans and black t-shirt and showcased a grisly leer when she spit the blood in her mouth out on his boots.

  "Aw, don't be like that, baby," He said, circling her, "Maxie knows how to treat the ladies."

  She wanted to shove that smile of his down his throat. "Your name is stupid," She snapped, "Better suited for a lap dog."

  He smacked her with the back of his hand. Though her face screamed with pain, she refused to let out even a sliver of a whimper. "Maxie is an awesome name. But insults to my moniker aside, you still haven't told me how to make you scream yet."

  "Go to hell," She spit.

  "With pleasure," He replied with a sly smile, "since I already live there. How would you like to come back with me? If you're good, I'll let your corpse eternally rest at the foot of my bed."

  She dodged his next attempt at hitting her and ran for the door. But he was so fast and got there before her. "Where do you think you're going, baby?" He said, shoving her back. "I'm just getting––"

  A kick straight to the groin cut off that sentence.

  She pushed him to the floor and started for the door but he grabbed her leg. She tried to shake him off, but his grip was firm.

  "Ace––!" She started to shout, but she felt her other leg jerk from under her and his name became a grunt of pain on her lips as she hit the ground.

  Maxie had a hold on both of her legs now and as he stood, his hands slid to her ankles. He dragged her across the floor as she struggled, and kicked her in the side when she tried to scream for Ace.

  "Shut up!" He hissed. "I said, I was going to make you scream. My name, preferably."

  Maxie stepped back, dropping her legs, and that's when she saw a small opportunity for escape. He was standing on top of her towel. One good yank on it and maybe he would go down. She'd seen it work in the movies and since she felt like she was in one more times than not nowadays, she didn't see why it couldn't work for her, which meant it probably wouldn't.

  "The picture I saw of you didn't do you any justice, baby," Maxie said, looking down at her. "You're hot, chick, real hot. Well, at least you will be when your face heals." She opened her mouth to call out to Ace, but Maxie cut her off. "Scream his name, Chloe, and I'll lose all male courtesy and kick you in the puss."

  "Male courtesy?" She retorted. "You're hardly a man if you'd slap a girl around."

  Maxie laughed. "What have they been telling you about us demigods around here? Bet they gave you the impression that being a demigod was all daffodils and sunshine, didn't they?" He laughed again when she didn't reply, but she had made a mental note that Maxie was a demigod too. "Girl, guy, makes no difference to any of us. If I'll hit a guy, I'll hit a girl, and every demigod thinks like me. Even the Sun Prince."

  "You're nothing like Strafford!"

  He reared back his head and laughed. She took the opportunity to pull herself closer to the towel he stood on. "Already got a thing for Strafford Law, huh?" But she could tell the idea irritated him. "Do you even know why he's disgraced? Doesn't matter, huh? He's got a crown and a few muscles, and now you're all goo-goo gaga over him. But know this, sweetheart, with a reputation like his, it's gonna take more than good looks to get his honor back." He glanced at himself in the mirror. She inched closer. "He's nothing special. I could dye my hair black and get a tan, get a stupid piercing in my lip, talk with a funny accent, and the ladies would love me too. And what's his tattoo of? A dragon? How stupid. I would get a tattoo of something much more––-"

  THWAT!

  His head made a solid connection with the edge of the marble basin as Chloe jerked the towel from under his feet. He crumpled into a motionless heap on the marble floor. It had actually worked.

  "Now you've got something Strafford doesn't," She muttered to the unconscious Maxie, "A cracked skull."

  She pulled herself into a sitting position up against the wall, and when she was settled, sucked in a deep breath and screamed at the top of her lungs, "ACE!!"

  She heard something crash to the floor, who knows what, heard his hurried footsteps, then the loo door was flung open.

  Ace surveyed the scene with wide eyes. She gestured at the unconscious boy. "Ace, meet Maxie. Maxie, Ace."

  Ace looked from her face to Maxie's motionless body and back again. "Bloody hell…Are you okay?" He was at her side in two strides, helping her to her feet. "Wha' happened here?"

  "He attacked me. Slapped me around a little."

  "A little?" Ace examined her bruised face. "Your face…Strafford is gonna bust me yockers good for this," He groaned.

  "No, he won't. It's not your fault." She cringed at his touch.

  "I'm the one tha' let this wanker, whoever the hell he is, slip past me," He said, "I let him in here to hurt you. Strafford will blame me."

  "I won't let him. I'll talk to him."

  Ace snorted. "You let me know how tha' goes, eh? I'll be the one with the two black eyes."

  He went and stood over the unconscious boy. After staring at him for a few seconds, he pulled the pair of drumsticks out of his back pocket.

  "What are you going to do with those?" She asked, "Drum him to death?"

  He twirled the drumsticks in his fingers like batons and they turned into two black daggers. "Somethin' like tha'," He said.

  "What are those?" She questioned, moving closer.

  "Gadget Morphs," he replied, dropping into a crouch, "Magic weapons. They can be of any sort, actually. Objects, animals…people…" He raised a dagger over Maxie's chest.

  "Wait!" She shouted. "You can't kill him!"

  Ace frowned. "The hell I can't. I'm one of your guardians and this unlucky bastard put his hands on the wrong Oracle. No doubt he would've done more if you hadn't knocked him clean out." He tightened his grip on the dagger. "And simply for showin' his ugly mug here, he has to pay," with a hard jab, the blade of his dagger disappeared into Maxie's chest, "with his life."

  Maxie's body shuddered once with his last breath, then became motionless. Chloe couldn't find the oxygen she needed to scream. She just stood there, shocked beyond belief that Ace had just killed Maxie in front of her, despite the fact that the demigod had beat her up and deserved death a million times over. She watched his blood spill out onto the floor, creating a massive puddle around him, and realized with a sense of terror that fun time with the demigods was officially over.

  "His blood is black," she mumbled, not even knowing where she found her voice.

  Ace pulled his dagger out of Maxie and wiped it clean on the dead boy's pants. He twirled the daggers back into drumsticks. "Only children of Hades have black blood
…" He looked up at her, saw the horror on her face. "All demigods are born to kill, Chloe. Try to always remember––watch out!"

  Before she could react, an arm looped around her neck and snatched her through the open door, dragging her back into the bedroom as she struggled and shouted curses. Ace ran in after her, but two large boys seized him as soon as he appeared. He struggled, but they had him outnumbered and outsized. The arm holding her grabbed her shirt and jerked her around to face them. A cold hand gripped her face.

  "So you're the little red-headed harpy that's got Olympus all in an uproar," said the girl whose nails were cutting into Chloe's face. She snorted. "You're not even as pretty as they said you were." She was a girl of equal height, but like Summer had been, of unmatched strength. Her grip on Chloe's face was almost bone crushing. She had waist-length raven black hair and chalk white skin, but her lips were as red as a rose. She was beautiful––like a corpse is beautiful after visiting the mortician. Her eyes were of the blackest black and they chilled Chloe right to her core.

  "Hurt her and you're dead, Varney!" Ace threatened.

  She's the Bane Princess, Chloe thought with dread. This can't be good.

  Varney turned and looked at one of the big oafs holding Ace. He nodded his ugly head, then punched Ace right in the gut. She heard the air leave his mouth with a whoosh as he doubled over, but they forced him straight again, not giving him a chance to catch his breath. He coughed and sputtered for air.

  The Princess turned back to her. "You killed our brother."

  "No, I––"

  Varney slapped her, hard. "I didn't ask you to speak. You are a murderer. You killed our brother and you will be judged for it."

  "I killed your brother," Ace gasped, "and was glad to do it. The prick deserved wha' he got." That statement earned him a knee in his groin, but he took the pain like a man and didn't make a sound.

  "Two murderers then," Varney snarled, yanking Chloe by the hair. She followed Ace's example and didn't voice her pain. "First Oracle in forty years. My father Hades is going to just love this."

  "Today's not the day Chloe gets to meet your highly disturbed father," A voice said from the doorway. Chloe looked up to find Swindle there, but then the next second, he was gone and sprinting around them so fast he was like a human smudge on the canvas of her suite.