She approached the boy with caution. He was dressed quite normal for where he was, in a navy polo and jeans. No neon-colored jacket or ridiculous print tie like she had seen on some of the guys here. His soft blonde curls were cut close to his head and complemented his almost infantile face. He didn't look to be much older than she was, however, she couldn't figure out his exact age. But age didn't really matter where the iceys were concerned anyway. He could be eighty-years-old for all she knew.
He spotted her before she'd even made her way out of the crowd. "Are you the one I've been waiting for?" He asked before she had even said one word.
She stopped just short of him. "I…I don't know..."
"The old Oracle told me that one day the "one who sees the future" would come for me here, in Los Atlas, and that I should wait for you. They said you would need me to fulfill another prophecy and that I should trust you. Are you the one? Do you need me? I've been waiting such a long time." He just looked so hopeful.
She smiled. His anxiety had somehow put her at ease. "What's your name?"
He stood, proud and tall, and actually saluted her. "Roman Nester, ma’m."
Ma’m? She stepped forward and gave him her hand to shake. "Nice to meet you, Roman. I'm Chloe, and yes, I'm the Oracle."
His blue eyes glittered with excitement. "And you need my help?"
"I think I do, Roman, but I have to say I don't know how."
He had a nice smile. "Well, I'm at your service, Oracle. I've been waiting many years for this moment. Whatever you need, I'm willing to do. Just name it."
Something clicked in her mind. Something so apparent and clear, it startled her. She stared long and hard at him, thinking it could not be this easy.
"You're the heart," She said, more to herself than to him. The most willing of hearts you seek, is in the god's sight, she thought. Dionysus, not Aphrodite. Tom was right. There was just one.
"What?"
"You're the sacrifice the prophecies talk about!"
"Um…sacrifice?" His voice wavered a bit.
"You're him!"
"What…"
"Will you come with me?"
"Of course. But you're not really going to sacrifice me, are you?"
"Come on!" She grabbed his hand and dragged him back to the second floor landing, not stopping to apologize to any of the iceys whose feet she stepped on. Strafford met her at the top of the stairs.
"Wha's going on, Red? Who is this fella?"
"We have to get back to the others, Strafford." She cut Roman off before he could salute and introduce himself. There was no time to explain. "I know what to do now."
"As I said you would," Dio commented, walking up. He had his arm around a maenad who kept nibbling on his pierced ear every two seconds and throwing her dirty looks.
"How did you know?" She asked.
"It doesn't matter," He replied, "You got what you wanted, didn't you?" He gestured at Roman.
"Did you get what you wanted?" She snapped.
"Your mouth, wan, is gonna get us killed one day," Strafford said as though that was some new revelation, but he was smiling.
Dio simply shrugged. "I apologize for blitzing you, Pythia. I thought you were here to get Tom to help you decipher the Great Unknown and I needed to know what you knew. However, I'm glad to see I was wrong." He stared at her over the rim of his glass as he drank.
"I don't even know the GUP," She said.
"Uh-huh." It was clear he didn't believe her, but she didn't care. It was the truth. "Peace out, Pythia. Hit me up when you're tired of living the life of a disgraced hero, Law." He turned away, took a few steps, then turned back.
"Oh and Pythia?"
She didn't like the way he was smiling at her. Not one bit. "Yes?"
"The time is now, or not at all."
Hermes had said it, now Dio. What did that even mean? The time for what was now?
Without waiting for a response, Dio winked at her, saluted Strafford, then turned, tossed his maenad over his shoulder, and disappeared up the stairs.
*****
XXXIV. Chloe
"We were jus' startin' to worry," Ace said as they burst through the door of Swindle's Los Atlas refuge. He was smiling but when he saw Roman, it evaporated. "Who are you?" He asked.
"His name is Roman," She said, as he flushed red and got ready to salute, "and I think he's the Most Beautiful."
That got everyone's attention.
"I had to be sure first," Chloe said, pacing, "I had to be sure that what I saw was right. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm right, but I had to work out all of the clues and piece it all together."
"Wha' are you haverin' away abou', Red?" Strafford said, untucking his shirt, "You wouldn' tell me anythin' on the way over here, and now, you're going on and on without makin' any sense."
"I know, I know." She paused to take a breath and gather her thoughts. She had been putting it all together in her head. "My prophecy," She began, "says 'Beautiful, Beautiful this one must be saved, from a love that is dark, and a heart that's enslaved." She looked around at them, "That is Persephone, the Black Queen." She gave her friends a minute to catch on, then continued, "There will be no faint of heart on the road to be braved, for the faint of heart will surely see an early grave'. Those two lines I'm unsure about, but I believe they have something to do with us and our mission.
“Then it says, 'Beautiful, Beautiful, whose heart must be freed, from a battle of centuries and copious measures of greed, the most beautiful heart will sacrifice for one to succeed, for undone, it is written, the two will never concede'." She smiled, feeling good about this. "There is only one heart that has been caught up in the centuries-old battle between two goddesses––Persephone and Aphrodite. He cannot rest, he will never find any peace, and they will never stop fighting until one of them wins. And one of them must win him."
"Him?" Swindle questioned and the others leaned forward with anticipation, Dropper, the most anxious.
"Yes. Him," She said, "Adonis is the Most Beautiful.” Excited, she gestured at Roman. The boy blanched and his mouth flapped open a few times, but no words came out.
A silence followed. A very long one. Strafford was staring at Roman, like he couldn't believe that two goddesses were actually fighting over this guy, the supposed Most Beautiful.
"Adonis is the Most Beautiful." Swindle smacked his forehead. "Of course he is! I'm a complete jukka for not thinking of it earlier."
"You sure are," Strafford said, thumping Swindle on the head with the back of his hand. Swindle gave him a dirty look as he rubbed his skull through his curls.
"Wait…" said Ace, looking completely put out by the information, "Let me get this straight. All of this is over a man?"
She nodded. "Adonis…"
"A man?" He glared at Roman, who surprisingly didn’t recoil.
"Yes. Adonis was killed by the Ares Boar. He's the reason the tusk was broken. Aphrodite's love for Adonis was so strong it was able to shatter the tusk, because Aphrodite is Ares' one weakness." Clearly that little bit of knowledge had been left out of the history books, and she was glad. Made her spotlight brighter.
"We're out here riskin' our lives…over a man?!" Ace couldn't seem to move past it. "Bloody females…"
"Hey!" She exclaimed.
"Ah, dry up, Ace," Strafford said. "You've had a helluva good time and you know it." Ace could not deny it, and a second later he was grinning and nodding, admitting that he wouldn't rather have been anywhere else.
Swindle was still trying to make sense of everything. "Everyone knows that Lord Ares and Lady Aphrodite are notorious lovers, and that it was the Ares Boar that killed Adonis. Ares was, and will always be, the most jealous of gods. My thing is, if Lady Aphrodite is looking for Adonis, it means Lord Hades must have kept him from his true death. He saved him." He looked at Roman. "Adonis is an icey."
Roman opened his mouth to speak, but Strafford interrupted him. "So Hades saved Adonis? Why? For who?" Then he looked at her,
the answer in his eyes. "Persephone."
She bit her lip and nodded, though not voicing to the others that the idea that Hades had played a part in all of this had not occurred to her. She had kept her mind wrapped around the frightening idea that he just wanted her for his own evil means, not that he could have brought this entire prophecy about by resurrecting a dead man.
Looking at Roman, Swindle continued, "Lord Hades probably made you immortal so Lady Persephone could keep you forever. Lady Persephone had always wanted Adonis for herself. Legend says, the goddesses were supposed to have shared you––part of your time in the Underworld, another part in the heavens, and a part to yourself––but you spent all of your time with Lady Aphrodite and eventually stopped going to the Underworld at all. You can probably imagine how much that pissed Lady Persephone off. So when you died, she claimed you for herself."
But something was puzzling Chloe and she hated that she had to ask. "Why would Hades save another man for his wife?" Roman opened his mouth to reply, but was once again interrupted.
"Probably to try to win her love," Swindle said, "Lady Persephone hates him because he kidnapped her and forced her to be his wife and live with him in the Underworld. She only gets to live in the heavens part time. The other part of the time she's corralling dead people in the Underworld with her lunatic husband."
She frowned at the absurdity she'd just been told and realized the dream she'd had of Persephone was making more sense to her now. She had felt how much Persephone hated her husband and knew it was true.
"So long story short, now tha' Aphrodite knows Adonis has been immortalized, she wants him back," Strafford said, "Understandable, but I still don't get wha' the Dropper has to do with any of this, wan."
"Don't you?" Chloe said, looking into Dropper's puzzled expression, glad that she had the answers, "You're Adonis's guardian angel, and to find him, the goddesses had to have you, because you're the one that could lead them to him. Stars are often used as guides, right? Even by gods."
There was another long silence.
"It would make quite a bit of sense…" Dropper said, looking thoughtful.
"And constellations are often thought of as guardians of mortals, among other things," Swindle offered.
"It would explain everythin' tha' happened in Corinth, too," Ace added. "Isn' Corinth the birthplace of Adonis?"
"No," Swindle replied, "Cyprus. But he entreated the people of Corinth to adopt Aphrodite as their patroness."
Chloe hated that even with all the Knowledge she had inherited from Apollo, she hadn't been the one to relay this information. Swindle knew more than she did and he didn't even have knowledge of the past three thousand years swirling around in his head. She felt her spotlight getting dim.
"But what about my prophecy?" Dropper asked, "What does it mean?"
"It means sacrifice," She replied, "Roman's sacrifice."
"Me?" The boy said, his blue eyes stretched wide.
She nodded. "The most willing of hearts. You're going to end this war. You're going where you belong, where you've always wanted to be. With Aphrodite. It’s your destiny. It was always your destiny."
Roman swallowed. "Are you sure about this?" He was staring at his guardian angel Dropper like he had just sprouted horns. Dropper didn't look any more relaxed.
"I'm positive," She said. "And we've got no time to lose." She took Roman's hand and wrapped his fingers around Dropper's wrist, then did the same with Dropper's fingers to Roman's wrist. They stood facing each other in an awkward handshake. "Don't ask me how I know what I'm doing. I'm totally winging it."
Just then, she felt a powerful jolt in her mind––those gears of Knowledge grinding to life again––and words she didn't know she knew began to roll off of her lips.
"Restore to one what he has lost, for a life that is his own he will pay the cost, from dark to light, from death to life, and liberty where our paths have crossed."
The ground rumbled beneath them, like an aftershock of an earthquake and the holographic image of a man came bursting through the wall, looking back as though something was chasing him. He was tall, burly and handsome. He radiated strength and power and he was dressed like a great noble warrior.
Chloe stopped breathing. She knew this warrior.
When he saw Dropper, he smiled and surged forward. Dropper jerked with a spasm as the image collided with him, merging their bodies into one. Roman was jolted to the floor from the force.
In that instance, Dropper morphed into the image of the man, taking on his robust body and noble air. He was more beautiful now than he had ever been before. This Dropper would have ripped the claws off of the Scorpion that had tried to behead him, plucked out every one of Borno's teeth with his bare fingers, and ran a sword through all three Graces. He was a hunter, a magnificent warrior, and everything living should fear him.
He was glorious. He was enchanting.
He was the Most Beautiful.
For a moment, he looked around like he didn't know where he was anymore. Then he made a choking sound, jerked, and looked down at himself. She gasped. Blood had started seeping through his shirt. Everyone took a step back as, surprised, Dropper raised his shirt to find that blood was gushing out of his abdomen.
He looked up at them with surprised fear in his eyes. He tried to speak, but no words materialized. Sweat formed on his brow, and his breath started to come in short spurts. All the color drained from his face and his once sparkling eyes became vacant. After a moment, Chloe wasn't even sure he could see them anymore. His body went limp, his knees buckled and he started to collapse, but there was a dark flash and a pair of arms came out to catch him from behind. Chloe gripped Strafford's arm.
The arms belonged to a tall dark woman with wild black hair and skin as white as snow. Chloe gasped because she had seen the woman before––in her dreams.
It was the Black Queen––Persephone.
"Thank you, Pythia," She crooned, wrapping one arm around Dropper's waist and the other around his neck. She caressed his face. "He is mine once again." She kissed his cheek.
Then there was another dark flash, and they were gone.
*****
XXXV. Chloe
"He's gone, Red."
Chloe had misunderstood it all.
She stared at the puddle of blood that was all that remained of Dropper for several long minutes, absorbing her failure. She couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from it. She wanted to smack Strafford for pointing out the obvious. The Queen of the Underworld had come for Dropper. Of course, he was gone. Dead and gone.
"So does this mean that you're still giving me to Aphrodite or what?" Roman asked, picking himself up off of the floor.
Ace smacked the back of his rising head. "Could you be more of a heartless jackass right now?"
"Sorry…" Roman mumbled, rubbing the back of his skull.
Her voice flat and emotionless, Chloe said, "The most beautiful heart must sacrifice for one to succeed, for undone it is written, the two will never concede." She recited other parts of the prophecies as well, especially the parts about the sacrifices. It had all been about sacrifice. "There was one soul––Dropper’s, not Roman’s. I had it all wrong."
"I don't get it,” Ace said.
She smiled sadly. "It was always going to be Dropper. It was his destiny. Don't ya'll see it now? Dropper is Adonis, not Roman. Roman is here to take his place, not save him. I was wrong."
As the information registered in each of their minds, their expressions took on varying degrees of astonishment and pissivity as they realized the answer had been in their company all along.
Chloe continued on, "His life was traded for freedom––freedom from the obsessive love of two goddesses who would have fought an eternity over him. The darkness that is death. Persephone will get his body. His soul? Well, I'd like to hope that he has finally found his way back to the stars where he can be free. The bright light that is life. But I don't think it's meant for us to know for sure." She
sighed. "Aphrodite will have to settle for the new most beautiful––Roman. She got dealt a better hand, but in the end, they both lose. Prophecy fulfilled."
Well done, Pythia, Madame Cee said. Chloe did not respond.
"Dropper, rather Adonis, was the constellation, The Great Lover." Swindle said. His locket was a computer screen and he had fished around the Salamander's search engine and come up on some information. "Aphrodite commissioned it from Zeus when Adonis died." He shrugged. "The dissension on Olympus must've caused him to fall out of orbit, releasing his soul from Persephone's clutches in the Underworld."
"And tha's how he ended up in the Billows," Ace concluded, snapping his fingers.
"Yes, and he fell and landed at your feet because that's what the Billows do––lead you in the right direction. It led him to us."
"Yeah, but his soul had the memories."
"And he was fated with mortality… or immortality depending on how you look at."
Chloe wondered to herself why none of that had never occurred to any of them before now. She wondered what might have happened if Dropper (Adonis) had found his soul before she had found Roman. But then she realized that wasn't the way the Fates had designed it. The Fates had already determined everything. This was always how it was going to end.
"Aphrodite is gonna lose it when she finds out he's dead…for real this time," Ace said.
"Persephone didn't seem to mind that he was dead," said Roman, "She seemed kind of happy."
"For now," said Swindle. He must have sensed that Chloe didn't really want to talk anymore when she turned her back on them again. "She thinks she's won. But something tells me the only thing she has won is a corpse."
"Do you really think they'll stop fighting now?"
"No," Strafford replied. "The gods never stop fightin'. It's wha' they do. And you'll only make this lil' situation worse." His arms were around her now, but surprisingly, she found little comfort in them.
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