by Diana Tyler
“I’m fine.” The dýnami fell from her hand and struck the floor with a loud, metallic ting. She blinked several times, waiting for her sight to return and the gut-wrenching sounds to stop. “I told Athena I was going to recruit the rest of us. I’d completely forgotten I’d said that, especially after Ethan… ”
She clasped her hands to keep them from shaking, but she couldn’t tame the anxious tremor in her voice or the flood of adrenaline gushing through her veins.
This had to be it…it was their only chance.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ASHERS
The ceaseless sound of melting ice dripping was like a ticking clock, counting down the seconds until the rebel spirits would break free from their icy cells and warm themselves with human blood.
“You’re not making any sense,” said Damian, trying to keep his voice down, as if doing so might delay the melting process. “What you told Athena…what does that have to do with anything?”
“The dýnami can bring the Ashers here,” Chloe said. “I just had a…” She brought her hand to her face and rubbed her forehead. “I saw the past. Straton used his doma to summon all the other Ashers into one place.”
“Why did he do that?”
Chloe rubbed her lips together and looked away. “I think you know.”
Hermes cleared his throat and pointed his wand at the tripod. One of the eagle’s wings was already halfway thawed. “That beast will pluck out your eyeball the second it gets the chance. I can’t guarantee my staff can stop it.”
Damian placed his hands behind his head and watched the steady drip of water as it melted from the eagle’s feathers. “You think people can be summoned here who don’t even exist yet?”
“We have to try,” Hermes said.
Chloe closed her eyes and concentrated on the black void of her memory, the forgotten fragments of her past that Mnemosyne had promised would be pieced together over time. Since returning from Ourania, her recollection of life in the new timeline was spotty at best. She was still a long way from remembering the names and faces of her extended family.
What if there was only a handful of Ashers? That wouldn’t be enough. And even if they were numerous, what if they were too scared or bewildered to even register what was happening?
“Chloe, it’s working,” Damian whispered. “They’re showing up.”
He tapped on her wrist and she opened her eyes to see Asher after Asher appearing like ghosts beside the glowing pillars of ice. They looked so strange in their T-shirts, jeans and business attire, jaws hanging open at the sight of the ice-enclosed spirits around them. Chloe remembered the first day her doma had manifested and she’d seen Scylla, the sea monster she’d thought was purely mythological. She’d been sure it was a nightmare, and had made her arm sore by pinching it so many times.
“This isn’t a dream,” Chloe shouted, rushing to the front of the hall.
“Chloe?”
She looked at the woman who had spoken her name. She wore a bright floral one-piece swimsuit and chartreuse cat-eye sunglasses, and bouncy red curls framed her face. On the bridge of her nose was a thick white streak of sunscreen.
“Yes,” said Chloe, “it’s me. I’m sorry I don’t know your name, but—”
The woman slid her glasses down her nose. “I’m Andrina, your cousin, silly. You still don’t remember?”
Chloe was too distracted by the sudden sight of her father to answer. He was standing next to the wall, wearing a doctor’s white coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. It made sense he’d be a physician in this timeline. Who else could heal a patient simply by touching them?
“Dad!” Damian ran to Nicholas and hugged him hard, accidentally knocking the stethoscope onto the floor.
The other Ashers came forward, weaving around the discarded torches and the uneven aisles of frozen spirits. Chloe saw that one woman was dripping wet, just as Damian had been. She wore a navy pantsuit, Mary Jane pumps, and held a leather briefcase in both hands. The man beside her took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“Were you just in Eirene?” Chloe asked the woman. She could think of no other explanation for the woman’s appearance.
The woman touched her throat, willing it to make a sound. “Yes, I-I was,” she stuttered. “The sirens went off about ten minutes ago. We all had to evacuate the building I work in.”
“Did you see him? Did you see Zeus?” An old man approached Chloe. “I’m your great-uncle, Uncle Evzen.”
Chloe gave the man an awkward smile.
“It was Zeus, wasn’t it?” said the woman. She set the briefcase down and used the jacket as a towel. “It was terrifying. This is terrifying.” The smoke from the torches was floating up like climbing tendrils from the floor. “We’ll asphyxiate in here with all this smoke.” She coughed and pushed a palm toward the far wall behind the tripod, blasting a hole in it the size of an SUV. “Sorry.” She shrugged. “I can’t really control it when I’m nervous.”
“Well, no need to worry about Zeus just this second,” said Chloe, the light from the hole burning her eyes. “He’s frozen solid right over there.” Every eye followed her finger as she pointed to the massive crystal-blue rock.
Evzen spun around, his old eyes squinting at the macabre gallery of statues. “How did…” He reached out and touched Menoetius’ elbow. “How extraordinary.”
“This,” Chloe said, holding up the dýnami. “I don’t have time to explain it to you all, but this contains all of Straton’s powers. You all learned about him in school, right?”
The Ashers nodded and murmured uneasily.
“He was a lunatic,” Evzen shouted, his gravelly voice reverberating throughout the cave.
“And a murderer,” piped another.
Hermes sighed. “I’m going to do some murdering myself if they don’t shut up,” he muttered.
“I don’t want to be pushy, but you’re just going to have to trust me,” Chloe said, trying to ignore Cronus’s dark eyes staring at her through the ice. “Straton’s domas are locked inside this chip that Hephaestus created. It’s what summoned the Ashers together for him to kill, and it’s what brought you here a few minutes ago.”
“Where are we, exactly?” asked the businesswoman. “And why are we here?”
Is there a doma that can make everyone less inquisitive? Chloe thought.
“Listen,” she said, surprising herself by the forcefulness in her tone. “We’re in heaven, just before the war that exiled the rebel spirits to Petros. Damian and I came here to stop that from happening, but we can’t do it alone.”
Her eyes swept over their faces, half expecting at least one of them to call her a lunatic. But they remained quiet, attentive, waiting for her to continue. She took a breath.
“If we don’t use our domas together to fight them, the Zeus you saw in the future will take over the planet. The rebels will kill anyone who doesn’t bow to him.” She paused, her chest and throat constricting as she bit her lip to keep from crying. “Just like they killed my uncle and Ethan.” She turned her face to the hole in the wall and breathed in the outside air.
“We can’t have that.” Evzen was shaking his head at the floor. “No, we can’t have that.” He snapped his fingers and yellow sparks zapped the air with an electric buzz. “One-hundred and fifty milliamps are in these fingers,” he said, grinning at the sparks. “Excellent for generating power in storms and, incidentally, destroying the god of storms.”
Andrina pouted and pushed her sunglasses back on. “I was enjoying a perfectly good day at the beach, too.”
“How many of us are there?” Chloe said, starting to count.
“Twelve,” a voice rasped from the back.
It was the councilman. Of course, how could she forget that he was an Asher, too?
The councilman shuffled his way to the front, his limbs sagging as if loaded down by a yoke. His business suit, which had been crisp, clean and neatly pressed was filthy and full of wrinkles. “I
apologize for my lack of decorum,” he said. “We were taking cover in the basement when you snatched us.”
He turned and nodded at a shadowy figure standing next to Zeus. Hector.
“I assume Straton is ineligible to assist us, given his unorthodox means of extending his life.” The councilman glanced at his father, as though considering the nectar Hermes had given him to enhance his own atypical lifespan. “To be honest, I’m not sure I have much to offer in the way of superhuman abilities.”
“And all he does is steal abilities,” said Damian, indicating Hector with a jerk of his head.
“Damian, you’re brilliant.” All eyes were on Chloe as she ran to Hector and grabbed him by the arm. “You can take their powers, Hector.”
Hermes raised one eyebrow, a sign of his interest.
“Excellent,” said Andrina, rubbing sunscreen down her nose and onto her cheeks. “That means I can go back to the beach, right? I had a surfing lesson lined up.”
The councilman laid a hand on Hector’s shoulder. “Is it true what your cousin says? Can you take their powers?”
Hector looked first at Damian and then Chloe. She’d never seen a more fearful face. It was rumpled and swollen, evidently disagreeing with the strange black, pasty goop stuck to his skin. “I’ve only taken a few domas.” He laughed weakly. “Not the powers of the entire pantheon.”
“You can do it,” said Chloe. The truth was, he had to do it; they were outnumbered by the rebels and running out of time. “Trust me.” She smiled with as much comfort and confidence as she could muster. “You were born for this, Hector.” As had happened before on rare occasions, the words were not her own, but had bubbled up from a hidden well deep within her, an exhortation that was more prophecy than platitude.
Hector straightened a bit, the muscles around his jaw tightening as he watched the breeze blow dandelion seeds into the darkness. “Duna won’t use me, will he? I rebelled, just like Straton did.”
Chloe stepped closer and took his cold, grimy hands in hers. “Hey, listen to me. Duna doesn’t just throw us away like a piece of trash when we do something wrong. None of us is perfect. We all screw up.” She laughed, remembering the mistakes she’d made in the old timeline that still felt as though they’d happened yesterday. “I can’t recall much of my life in this timeline, but in my old life, I followed a sea nymph into the Styx and ended up in hell. You can’t make a much bigger mistake than that.”
Hector smiled. “You used to get in trouble a lot for time traveling during PE.”
“Again, dumb decision,” Chloe said. That definitely sounded like something she would do.
“But you didn’t try to kill anyone,” Hector said. “I think my mistake’s a little more serious than yours.”
Suddenly, Hermes was hovering over their heads, his wand raised at the eagle. Chloe spun around to see the bird’s beak hinging open. The ice that had covered it was now a puddle around the tripod’s feet.
“Act now or die soon, those are the options,” Hermes declared, the urgency in his voice betraying the indifference he’d been feigning earlier. He dropped beside Chloe and Hector, the ice-cold ichor of his veins prickling her skin as he huddled close. “If you don’t end this conversation soon, my family will end it for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
INVINCIBLE
Tell the Ashers to get ready to use their domas,” Chloe told Hermes. “We’re going to need every one of them.” She cast a glance at the councilman, who was standing beside her father. “Better yet, ask the councilman to tell them. They might take it better from him.”
Hermes grunted and turned away, giving Chloe a few more seconds with Hector.
“Duna never gives up on us, Hector. Look at Hermes.” Hector looked at Hermes over his shoulder. “If a rebel spirit responsible for countless acts of evil can be forgiven and redeemed, what makes you any different?”
“They’re ready.” The councilman’s voice was surprisingly lively and full, like his father’s.
“Me, too,” Hector whispered. He walked past Chloe and lifted his hands to the half-melted spirits; their dripping fingers were writhing like worms, desperate to free themselves.
“You can do this,” Chloe said to Hector, backing away. She’d need space to send them all back to the future if things went south. Closing her eyes, she felt a hand take hold of hers with a warm squeeze.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,” her father said. “Whatever happens, I’ll always be proud of my children; the Vessel.”
Chloe turned and hugged him, savoring the sound of his strong heartbeat and the sandalwood scent of his cologne. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He kissed her forehead, then let go and joined the semicircle of Ashers lined against the wall, their arms outstretched, hands raised level with their closed eyes, ready to unite their domas for the very first time.
Chloe nodded at Hector.
“Here’s to redemption,” he said, then flexed his fingers, his entire body stiff and still in the unsettling silence.
Chloe watched as, one by one, the Ashers’ eyes peeled open, and an invisible wave crashed into Hector, causing him to stagger and stumble back. He righted himself, only to have another blow hammer against his side. He doubled over as the councilman called out to him, but Hector didn’t hear, or at least pretended he didn’t. He unfolded himself as a rapid series of unseen jabs rammed into his body, making him convulse and shake as though he were seizing.
Nicholas stepped forward, but before he could lay his healing hands on Hector, Hector stopped, planted his feet, and stretched his arms out to his sides as the black slime on his skin sluiced off his body, smattering the gray rock floor of the cavern like globs of paint.
“Look!” Andrina took off her sunglasses and used them to point at Hector. “He’s getting bigger.”
She was right. Hector was growing. Chloe could hear the creak of his bones lengthening, stretching out his limbs and spine as he shot up toward the ceiling. The growth didn’t stop until he was a head taller than Cronus, who at this very moment was adjusting his wilting crown and kicking the water from his sandals.
“Zeus!” Cronus roared, his purple lips struggling to enunciate.
The eagle shrieked as it leapt off its perch and weaved its way to Zeus’ shoulder. His skin, like all the other spirits reanimating around him, was a sickly gray color that was reminiscent of a bloodless, frozen fish.
“Kill them all,” bellowed Cronus. He picked up his sickle and gave it a menacing twirl as he looked up at Hector with a sardonic grin. “You may look like a giant, but doubtless you still fight like a boy.” He charged, sickle raised, slicing the air like a man possessed. Hector moved only his arms, swatting at the weapon as though it were a gnat.
It hadn’t been planned, but Hector’s clumsy fighting skills made an excellent distraction. Cronus didn’t see Evzen creeping up behind him, sparks of electricity hovering over his fingers like tiny, flaming bullets. With a simple flick of his fingers, Evzen released them and they disappeared, whizzing fast as light into Cronus’s head and chest.
There was a surprised pop of Cronus’s eyes as his muscles tensed and twitched. With a violent twist of his torso, he flung the sickle at the wall of Ashers, striking a middle-aged man in a jogging suit in the middle of his femur. Nicholas ran to the man’s side, eased him down, then pressed his hands against the wound; he would be good as new in seconds.
The ground quaked as a loud thud reverberated throughout the cavern. Chloe turned to see Cronus lying dead, the extinguished torches jutting out from beneath him like the logs of a funeral pyre.
Silence, like the sinister calm of a green sky pregnant with storms, filled the room, stunning every soul, mortal and immortal alike. The self-proclaimed father of the spirits had fallen. The spirits weren’t invincible after all, and for all their faith and confidence, even the Ashers could not believe it.
“Prepare to engage,” cried the c
ouncilman.
The Ashers’ feet made a shuffling sound as they gathered closer, rallying behind the wide, dark streak of Hector’s shadow. Even Hermes stood shoulder to shoulder with Nicholas and Damian, his golden wand raised, copper eyes flickering.
“Hermes…” Zeus’ footsteps thundered as he made his way to Cronus, his eagle trailing behind him. “You cannot imagine what joy your imminent suffering will grant me.”
“Funny how treachery works, isn’t it?” said Hermes. “To betray can be intoxicating. To be betrayed, maddening. I wonder what the All-Powerful will do when he learns of your own betrayal.” He tapped his chin with his wand. “Tell me, will it be worse, in your mind, to suffer physical torment for all eternity, or bear the knowledge that you were undone by a laughable band of dirt-bound beings?”
Zeus knelt beside Cronus’s corpse and joined the spirit’s hands atop his belly. “Do it again,” he said, his steel gaze directed at Evzen. “You slayed Cronus so easily. Why not dispatch me as well?”
Evzen cleared his throat. “I-I-I…”
Chloe knew what Evzen wanted to say. He couldn’t do it again. His doma’s limit had already been reached. “It’s okay,” she said, only then noticing that her brother had disappeared from her father’s side. She fingered the jasper stone hanging just below her collarbone. Duna, please tell me what to do.
Zeus stood as the other spirits clustered around him, their armor and metallic jewelry nearly blinding as the outside light bounced off them. “Duna has been stingy with you, has he not, old man?” Zeus said. “He teases us mere creatures with ephemeral bursts of power, only to snatch them back lest we forget our place in the hierarchy.” He rose, gesturing to his brothers and sisters.
Athena stood beside Zeus, her eyes like ashes behind the almond-shaped slits of her helmet. But despite the mask of bronze, Chloe could see fear swimming in those famous gray eyes, and trepidation leaking from her fingertips as they fidgeted along her robe.
“Have you considered that maybe that’s the reason we’re here?” the councilman said to Zeus. “To snatch your powers before you abuse them, to the detriment of all Duna’s creatures, both living and unborn?”