"Hold up, you nutter," He said, "We can't jus' go bargin' into a noble's house like tha', not in ancient Greece. Trespassin' on a noble's property is a fatal offense in this time. If any soldiers catch us, I'll have to go Jack the Ripper on 'em and we don't need tha' kind of trouble."
"I do not believe I know this Jack, but I know this house," Dropper said, sticking Strafford with a challenging stare, "I just know there is an answer here."
But Strafford did not look convinced.
"Just think, Your Highness, the sooner I find out who I am and what I mean to your prophecy, the sooner you can be rid of me."
"Probably should've gotten rid of you yesterday when we found you."
"But you didn't," She said, "And come on, you said so yourself, there has to be something here we were meant to find. Maybe it's here. Maybe it's this house. What could be the harm in checking it out?"
"You don't want me to answer tha', Red." But she could tell she had won him over. He couldn't argue with logic. "Stay close to me. Do not leave my side. We'll search the villa together."
They walked right through the entrance to the villa, which wasn't locked or barred, and into the courtyard. They entered the kitchen and found the hearth blackened and cold. It was clear it hadn't been used in quite some time. Neither did the storeroom have any food nor did any of the rooms have any furniture beyond a few damaged pieces that had been left strewn about.
The house was deserted.
Dropper studied everything with unsettling intensity, running his fingers over the cracking, stucco walls, inspecting the elaborate mosaic floors, and stopping at every threshold to peek in each room. He picked up a piece of a broken bowl and carried it with him throughout the villa as if it had magical powers that might help him remember. They followed him––Chloe, intent on being there for the first sign that Dropper had remembered something; Strafford, more concerned with what may or may not have followed them there. He had a bad feeling about the house, he said, and she had to agree that the villa's desolateness was pretty unnerving.
Upstairs, they searched the bedrooms, one by one. As Dropper inspected the room beyond a doorless entryway, she chose one covered with a curtain and moved to push it aside.
A huge, roaring creature leapt out at her, claws slashing.
She screamed and fell back.
Dropper's arms caught her. "Chloe! What is it?"
"Wha' the hell, Red?" As she found her footing, Strafford shot into the room, Aor summoned. Less than a minute later, he was back, frowning. "There's nothin' there. You're hallucinatin'."
Hallucinations are projections of the present, Apollo had said. "I really hope not," She replied, swallowing.
"What did you see?"
"Nothing I care to see ever again."
"Your visions can mean the difference between life and death. Not tryin' to die today if I can help it."
She shuddered. "Big, big dog. That's what I saw."
His jaw clenched. "Time to leave."
But Dropper was back standing under the threshold of the empty bedroom. He stared into it for a long time, his eyes searching every inch of it, and when his back went rigid, she knew he had remembered something.
"What is it?" She asked, stepping into the room behind him. Groaning with impatience, Strafford moved with them, his back to them and his eyes on the entrance.
"I do not know," Dropper said, "There is something…familiar…"
He knelt beside the farthest wall and ran his fingers over its smooth surface. She knelt beside him. "Tell us what you're think––"
And that's when she saw them.
The engravings in the wall. Greek letters, she knew. The same ones were carved into the lower half of the wall over and over again, with deep, purposed strokes.
"Strafford," She breathed, "Come look at this." A moment later, he was knelt beside her.
"Wha' love sick wanker wrote this?" He said after studying the letters for a minute.
Dropper shrugged. "I do not know. However, I feel as though I have seen these letters before…in my head…" He fingered an engraving at the very bottom, near the floor.
Strafford scoffed. "Why am I not surprised?"
"What does it say?" She asked, almost impatient with being left out of the loop.
"It says, in the modern sense, 'she loves me, she loves me not'."
"Who?" She questioned Dropper with hope. "Who is she?"
"I do not know," he replied with a sad note, "I do not know who wrote this or who it is written for. It is like a distant memory. Maybe even a dream."
She sighed, staring at the letters. "Well, we're one step closer to the truth. And that's good, right?"
Strafford stood, summoning away Aor. "The prytaneion," he said, "if we search the town records stored there, we may jus' find out the name of the person who owned this house," he pointed at Dropper, "and maybe who you are, too."
Dropper nodded. "Fine idea. Let us go there now."
She let Strafford pull her to her feet and together, they left the room and proceeded to the front of the house.
"We passed the prytaneion on the way here, if you remember," Strafford was saying, "It was unguarded. We should be able to walk right––"
They stepped into the courtyard and stopped.
What. The. Hell.
"By the gods…" Dropper mumbled in horror.
A vile liquid retched around at the back of her throat, threatening to bring itself forward, the sight being that horrendous.
It was no wonder there hadn't been any guards in the noble's village. They wouldn't have been able to fulfill their duties in this condition.
The condition of dead.
And how could anyone know that they were all dead when their bodies were now piled high inside of the courtyard?
*****
XXI. Chloe
"By the essence of Zeus, who could have done this?" Dropper breathed in a voice so thick with anxiety that she could almost see it.
Strafford flashed and Aor was in his hands. "They know we're here," He said.
"Who?" She croaked, dreading the answer. She gagged when she locked gazes with the dead, film-glazed eyes of one of the guards at the bottom of the pile.
"The bloody gods." He took a step towards the pile. Not getting too close, he used the tip of Aor's blade to push back the cape of one guard. She gasped at what had become of the bare skin underneath it. The soldiers armor had been violently wrenched away and his flesh had been ripped up by something long and sharp.
In the millisecond of bravery she managed to find, she moved next to Strafford to get a better look. She felt her stomach curdle. "Are those claw marks?"
A low, menacing snarl from something terrible was the only response she got.
They all froze, then turned as one in a slow circle towards the growling that had just come from behind them.
It was the giant, monstrous creature she had hoped never to see again, with matted black fur and teeth as sharp as knives. Its eyes were a dull yellow, its bloodied claws were curved and jagged and with its hackles raised, it was easily the most terrifying dog she had ever seen.
"Hellhound," Strafford mumbled, "Do. Not. Move."
The hound stared them down for several minutes, snarling and huffing, and not only did she not move, she wasn't sure she breathed either.
After a daunting lifetime of terror passed, the hound stepped forward and thrust its head towards them with a grunt of its snout. Its yellow eyes were looking at Strafford.
"It wants us to leave," Strafford said, taking her arm. He motioned with his head to Dropper, who stumbled closer to them, and with slow, calculated steps they headed towards the doored courtyard entrance.
Strafford pushed it open with his foot, keeping his hands gripped around Aor, and they all backed through it––Dropper first, then her, and Strafford last. The hellhound kept its distance, but made sure they kept moving as it wanted them to with a couple of encouraging growls.
Once through, they
turned and found an even more dreadful scene.
Six more hellhounds had them surrounded––and Ace and Swindle had been forced to their knees before them. They seemed calmer than she would have expected even with their confiscated weapons being guarded by a gruesome hound and Bill being nowhere in sight.
The hounds were of the same massive size and mangy appearance as the first one, and it made perfect sense to her now how the pile of dead soldiers had come about.
But what she didn't understand was what the woman had to do with any of it.
Standing in the center of the ring of killer hounds was a woman wearing a long, black leather trench and holding a coiled bullwhip in her hand. She had really short, spiked black hair, ashen gray skin, and sanguine eyes. Her head was cocked to one side and she was staring directly at them. The hound behind them barked, making Chloe nearly jump out of her skin, then with only one or two strides, leapt into a crouch beside the woman.
"Well done, Borno," The woman crooned in a raspy voice, stroking the hound behind its' ears, "Well done." Then with narrowed eyes, she hissed at Strafford, "I'll waste not a moment of my time with preliminaries on you, Son of Apollo. I can take the boy from you or you can simply give him to me. Make it easy for yourself and your fellow godlings and go with the latter."
Her eyes fell on Dropper. He turned a pasty shade of white and the sparkle in his eyes dulled.
Strafford took a step forward, not intimidated. "You're the goddess of witchcraft, aren' you? Take him if you want him."
The goddess of witchcraft, she thought……Hecate!
Borno growled. "Now, now," Hecate said, before redirecting her attentions to Strafford. "You always were the most troublesome of the royals, and the most defiant. But do not let your arrogance dull your good sense. The boy is the key to the Oracle’s prophecy, yes, but is he worth dying for? "
“How did you know abou’ the prophecy?”
Hecate smirked, red eyes brightening. “Is that a serious question, demigod?”
“I’m askin’ it, ain’t I?”
Hecate laughed. "So it’s a fight you want then, hero?"
"I'm always geared up for a fight," Strafford said, looking up, "And it's midday. The sun is bright and high in the sky. There's not a time in the day I'd like better for puttin' you and your mutts down for an eternal nap." Sensing what was coming, Ace and Swindle shuffled around on their knees. They appeared to understand their time to act was coming. They exchanged one of their looks and seemed to understand each other.
Hecate started to unroll her whip. "I will repeat myself for the last time. Hand over the boy and live. Continue to defy me and die."
Strafford growled in response, "And I will repeat myself for the last time as well. Take him if you want him."
Hecate laughed. "See you in hades then, hero," and started to chant loud and clear in some language that definitely wasn't Greek. She twirled her whip around above her, creating a cyclone of darkness like nothing Chloe had ever seen before.
She's casting a spell, She knew. We're screwed.
The hellhounds watched them as the darkness grew larger, becoming more like a full-sized tornado with every passing second until it finally, with roaring winds, consumed the goddess in its mad fury.
"What is she doing?!" Dropper shouted to her at the same time she caught sight of something wonderful out of the corner of her eye. It was Bill, flying from one perch to another, sneaking up on the scene. She knew when Strafford spotted the hawk too because he nodded once at Swindle, then once at Ace.
Strafford held up a fist when Bill had perched himself near where their weapons were piled up. Chloe saw Swindle make a guarded hand signal and like the silent predator Bill was, he swooped down and grabbed a sword up in his talons without notice.
"Now!" Strafford yelled over the roar of the ever-growing funnel.
Having been distracted by the spinning like any dumb dog would, the hellhounds were not quite prepared. Bill dropped the sword in Swindle's hands and the demigod jumped to his feet. A hellhound lunged over Ace as he ducked and rolled away and flew right into the point of Swindle's sword. Ace made a mad dash for his weapons but was tackled by a hound on the way. He kicked and thrashed, and even managed to pummel it a few good times. The hound roared its irritation and drew back its claw to strike.
"No!" Chloe cried, wanting to run and help. Strafford grabbed her arm to stop her and she struggled against him, determined to get away. She twisted and pulled and somehow, managed to break free.
That's when the tornado exploded.
She was blasted back against the colonnade with so much force that she swore her brain backflipped inside her head. She blinked several times, cringing from the pain of landing the wrong way, trying to find her bearings again.
The blood curdling roar that she heard next sped up the process significantly.
From out of the settling dust and debris of the explosion came the most terrifying thing she had seen thus far. In life.
The thing had eight legs, not including its two giant pinchers, and a long, segmented tail that curved up and forward over its hard-shelled back. On the end of its tail, venom dripped from a stinger the size of her head. It had eyes, several of them, and two mobile claws for a mouth.
It was gigantic, an enormous monstrosity from hell.
It was a freaking Scorpion.
And it wasted no time trying to kill them.
It caught her in its sights first and struck out with one of it giant pinchers. Reflexes triggered, she threw herself flat against the ground just as its pincher slammed through the colonnade. She ducked and rolled away from two more deadly attempts before she felt Strafford throw his body on top of hers. The Scorpion roared and started to salsa dance over the top of them, but something drew its attention away.
"Over here!" Dropper screamed, jumping and waving his hands, one of which was holding his old sword. "Over here! Get away from them right now!"
The Scorpion obeyed and tried to snap his head off.
They got to their feet and Strafford shed his robe. "Would you agree tha' your Dropper's a bloody nutter now, wan?" He said and ran off to help after demanding that she stay put. Yeah right.
There was another fight going on against the hellhounds. Swindle was pulling his sword out of one and Ace had somehow freed himself from the hound that had been about to maul him, but had found himself pinned into a corner by two more.
She didn't hesitate. She ran and dove for one of Swindle's swords, did one hell of an amazing tuck and roll and buried the hilt of the sword into the belly of the hound she came up next to. Ace reacted quickly and stabbed the other one in its eye before it could maul her face off.
"Thank you," She said, catching her breath as she pulled her sword out of the dead hound.
"No," He replied, with an awed smile, "Thank you. Tha' was bloody brilliant!"
She blushed her response.
The Scorpion roared and it shook every house and inch of ground in the area. She saw why right away. Strafford had just amputated two of the Scorpion's legs and was now performing a spectacular running backflip up and off the colonnade wall and over the Scorpion's pursuing venom-riddled stinger.
There was only one hellhound left by now, she could tell by its yellow eyes that it was Borno, but the sight of all the piles of lifeless fur around him and the Scorpion's spine-tingling roar made him scamper off down between two of the villas in the culdesac. But she knew he wasn't gone forever, just for now.
Like it wasn't obvious, the Scorpion was pissed now. It swung and snapped its pinchers with a vengeance, destroying just about every structure nearby. It tried to sting them or stomp them to death and they all fought it back, especially Dropper, who seemed to want to prove that he was just as capable of protecting her as the others were.
But it was like trying to kill a fortified army tank. The Scorpion's shelled body was impossible to penetrate, and it had turned into a battle that had the potential to last for hours. But she wouldn't l
ast that long. Her arms and body were already starting to slow down and the sword had become like lead in her hands.
But then something happened that made all of that irrelevant.
It happened so fast. One second the Scorpion was trying to decapitate them all, one by one with pinchers the size of small cars, and in the next second it had focused all of its attentions on Swindle. He was caught off guard. Didn't use his swift in time. The Scorpion brought a pincher crashing down on the wall behind him––a clear miss, but it achieved its purpose. The attack diverted Swindle's attentions just long enough for the Scorpion to sink its stinger into his stomach.
"NO!" She screamed.
"Swindle!" Ace cried out, lunging for his friend as the boy's knees started to collapse from under him. The Scorpion roared. Or maybe it laughed.
"I'm fine!" Swindle shouted, but it was clear the sting hurt like hell. His sword and shield clattered to the ground as he gripped his abdomen in pain and Bill morphed back into a hawk. He squawked and squawked with distress then shot off into the sky, disappearing from view. Dropper draped Swindle's other arm around his shoulders and helped Ace to hoist him back up to his feet.
There was a boom! and a bright, glaring light engulfed the culdesac of villas out of nowhere, and soon, she couldn't safely see far enough in front of her to make a move. She shielded her eyes with her hand. She could hear the Scorpion roaring with frustration and she guessed that it was just about as visually impaired as she was right then.
Like a true guardian angel, Strafford walked out the sea of light a minute later.
"What did you do?" She shouted as Ace, Dropper and a declining Swindle appeared next to them, stumbling from their lack of clear vision.
"I summoned a ray bomb, wha' d'ya think? Now come on before it wears off! We have to get to the acropolis!" With a angry glance at Swindle's wound, he took her hand.
"Why?" She shouted. "Why the acropolis?"
"Because, Red!" He was pulling her behind him through the mass of sun rays. It was clear he could see just fine. "Apollo has a temple there! We're going to it, you're gonna beg the bastard's mercy, and convince him to get us out of here!"
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