“We’re looking for the key so Aidan can take back the Heavens, then we’re going to cast the Titans into the Underworld where we can trap them.”
Atlas nodded his head, apparently pleased with the plan. “I can help with that. I have something that might help Aidan find the key. I’ll be back.” He turned and disappeared from the hall a few doors away from us. Silence settled over us, static with the awkwardness.
I glanced at the door, longing to try it again, if not for something to do, but I didn’t want to look stupid. Half a glance in Aidan’s direction told me he was thinking similar thoughts and feeling the same. I decided—being the new Griffin, who embraced his God and loved Valentina—I would try to be the bigger man.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper and hit you.”
Aidan turned to look at me, almost in surprise, before nodding.
“Thanks.” That was it? He wasn’t going to apologize back? The rage began to boil and I thrust my hands down to my side, my hands balling into fists. “I’m sorry I egged you on. You’re right, I don’t know what went down between you and Valentina, but I have this uncontrollable urge to protect her. No doubt because she’s my Godly daughter, but also because she just seems… so innocent and I don’t want this place to corrupt her.”
“At least there’s one thing we can agree on.”
“Do you truly love her?” He looked over at me, an almost tender expression passing over his hardened features. I nodded with ease, looking down at my hands like I was inspecting them.
“She’s the only person I think I have ever truly loved. I would die for her.” I looked up at him and he nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. It threw me, I never expected to ever be the cause of such an expression on Aidan’s face.
“Good. Because if you hurt he—”
“If I hurt her, you’ll hurt me,” I finished for him, rolling my eyes at the cliché.
“No, what I was going to say was, if you hurt her, I won’t protect you from Savannah’s rage. Hell hath no fury like that woman scorned. Let me tell you.” He smirked but not in a malicious way, as if he was proud of her for her volatile emotions.
“I don’t intend to hurt her.”
“I just think, if anything, your actions earlier don’t really reflect that.”
“I just have a few things I need to wrap my own head around before I throw Valentina into them. She doesn’t need, or deserve, my baggage.” It sounded lame, even to me, the second time I said it. But at least this time, Aidan didn’t say anything, he just nodded and let the conversation die.
After a few beats, he looked back at me again, “This doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
“Thank the Gods,” I admonished, just as Atlas returned to the hallway. He was holding a massive globe in his hands, one particularly bright dot pointed at us, glowing. I knew what he was going to say before his mouth even opened.
Setting the globe down, Atlas turned to us and pointed directly at the bright light. “Your key.” He said with a curt nod. I wasn’t sure about Aidan, but I knew my eyebrows raised in disbelief. It couldn’t be that easy. Why would Soren be stupid enough to make it that easy for us?
I moved forward to reach for the light, when Atlas suddenly clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“No, not the globe. Where it is on the globe.” I looked up at him and nodded, glancing at Aidan to watch him smirk at my misunderstanding. Rolling my eyes, I stepped back, squinting to see around the brightness where it was located.
“Greece. Perfect. That’s not helpful.” Atlas shook his head at me and touched the light with his finger. Before our eyes a screen emerged, a conversion of images blurred together as the scene seemed to zoom itself into something specific.
It unfolded into an image of what looked like one of the rooms in Olympus if the interior was anything to go by. But I’d never been there before. I glanced again at Aidan to see if he recognized it, but he shook his head slightly at me, before we both looked back at the screen. There was a sconce on the wall, inside of it a bright fire burned. The image hung there just staring at the fire before it collapsed and disappeared. “Now what?” Aidan asked, looking directly at Atlas. The Titan shrugged unhelpfully before picking the globe back up.
“I suppose now you find the fire.”
“The fire?” Aidan sounded confused.
“I guess Valentina’s hunch was right, Soren did give the key to Oliver. But he didn’t make it a lighter or anything that starts fires, he just went straight to the fire.”
“That could be dangerous if Oliver can manipulate fire.”
“Like you manage the weather and lightning?” Aidan shrugged, he seemed smug about his powers.
“What I don’t understand is, why you’re helping us. You’re a Titan. Aren’t you supposed to be on their side?” I looked back at Atlas, trying to read his expression and wanting to know if this was all an elaborate trap.
It weirded me out as well that we hadn’t run into any other Titans yet either. Where was everyone here?
“When I first took my punishment from Zeus, relieving myself from an eternity in Tartarus, my brothers claimed I was softened to the Gods and against their plight. Later, when Zeus came to me and asked me to hide away the souls of the Gods, my brothers once more accused me of choosing the Gods over them. They told me that the hibernating souls were the perfect opportunity for them to rise again. But instead of helping them with their plan, I put them to sleep with the Gods, hoping that when they woke, perhaps they would’ve changed and seen that it was not beneficial to fight the Olympians but to work with them. I was wrong. And now, I am an outcast to my own kind because they believe I have chosen you over them. Perhaps I have.” He looked sad, almost regretful. I knew what it was like to feel like an outcast, I could relate to the conflict he was feeling right now.
“Well, we’re grateful for your help, Atlas.” I looked over at Aidan, my expression telling him to agree with me even if he didn’t.
“Yeah, except—you wouldn’t happen to know where that room was?”
Atlas stared at me, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of recognition on his face. He did know. I was sure of it in the pit of my stomach. But he shook his head, lying blatantly to us.
“You’ll have to find it for yourself. It’s a part of your destiny.”
“How—” Aidan took a deep breath, trying to control Zeus’ rage, “is this a part of our destiny?” Atlas shook his head sadly, before he turned and started walking away.
“Hey! I was talking to you.”
“I don’t have any of the answers to the questions you ask.”
“This mysterious bullshit is getting really old, you—” I touched Aidan’s arm and he looked down at me. The iciness of his eyes made me want to back up, but I knew I had to stand my ground, so I shook my head at him. Something really felt off about Atlas. Still, despite his explanation of where he stood with his own kind. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was no way we were getting to the bottom of it with him here to overhear us. It was best to let him go.
The door clicked shut down the hall and I glanced to make sure he was gone.
“Why did you let him go?”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that he makes that speech about being an outcast with his own kind, then refuses to help us? I think he’s trying to get back in with them, if he isn’t already. Why didn’t they cast him out of Olympus with us if they didn’t trust him? Why leave him here and put him on display for us to find?”
“Val mentioned that she found him chained in his office when she came through.”
“Exactly. So why? What reason would they have to do something like that? Neither, Soren or Oliver, are the kind of guys to do something on a whim. Everything, so far, has had a purpose. Except maybe me helping them, but they tried to make me a purpose with the smoke.”
“That almost worked,” Aidan pointed out, making me wince slightly, I wished I had known the full repercussions of my powers.
“I
guess you’re right, there is something suspicious about all of this.”
“If we play into whatever he’s up to, then we might not actually manage to get back the heavens. Maybe that’s his plan.”
“Then what’s yours, genius?”
I hadn’t thought that far. Frowning to myself, I backed away from him, pacing up and down the hall for a moment trying to come up with something.
“The throne room,” I said suddenly, turning to face him again. Aidan’s eyebrow quirked as if to say, “go on…”, so I did, “In the Underworld, in my throne room, I can open up these screens. They show me everything that’s going on here and all the deaths in the world. Logically, your throne room would do the same; except you can see into the Underworld and probably everything to do with your realm, including the key. It is a major part of your rule…” I wasn’t sure about that last bit, but it seemed to make sense to me.
“I know about the screens,” he said curtly, but his voice didn’t sound like he was on board with the plan, “What about the small fact that I’m not currently the King of the Heavens?” Good point.
I frowned, scratching my ear before shrugging, “I could try.”
I could immediately tell Aidan hated that idea. In fact, I think hate wasn’t strong enough. A ripple of power went through the small hallway and gushed over me. Yeah, he wasn’t pleased at all. I shook the sensation of his magic off my skin and raised both my eyebrows, “if you have another suggestion, by all means…”
“I don’t. That’s why I’m pissed.” He turned quickly and grabbed the door behind us and tugged it open, leading us back into the throne room.
I entered and looked around. Aidan was standing away from the gore of the crimes we’d all witnessed, and faced the massive window, overlooking the forest below the mountain.
“These are the screens,” he said, hands stuffed in his pockets. I wondered if he was even going to try, or if he’d already counted himself out on this one. I stepped forward, uncertain about how he was going to react if they answered to me; but before I even got the chance, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and snapped his fingers. Like that, the window turned to a dozen or so screens before us.
Aidan turned to look at me with a shit-eating grin on his face, like he had known all along it was still going to work and he was just screwing with me. I rolled my eyes, adding “dramatic” to my mental list of reasons I disliked him, before looking up at the screens.
He’d managed to open them up to where the Titans were, the Underworld with Savannah and Valentina on full display, then every other screen up there, displayed one other thing: a wasteland, smoky and barren. There wasn’t a mortal in sight, but there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of mythical creatures roaming over the plains of what once was Earth.
Aidan and I were looking at the same thing, and for the second time, we seemed to trigger our brotherly connection as we both spoke, “what the hell?”
Chapter 19
Each screen looked entirely the same. The only way we knew they weren’t, was because the monsters crowding the images for each one were so different. Centaurs, Dryads, Sirens, Minotaurs, Hippocampi, Hydras, Chimera, Nymphs, Gorgons, Harpies; there were even a few dogs that looked like Cerberus.
“Where did they all come from?” I glanced sideways at Aidan and shrugged.
“Maybe they’ve been there all along but we never saw them.”
“Why would Atlas not tell us about them?” I gave him another sidelong glance, raising my eyebrows suggestively. Aidan finally nodded his head.
“We’ll deal with him once we’ve got Olympus back under control.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t really listening, as one of the cameras had begun to pan, showing us more of the damage out on Earth. But as it headed toward a city, I was shocked to see the destruction that had been laid on Toronto.
I only recognized it from the tower, CN was it? But they had erected a massive wall all around the city, cutting through the suburban areas that spread out of the city and locking down the whole of the downtown. Huge buildings had been ripped down and in the shambles makeshift homes were created.
The camera zoomed in more, to show that the people who had managed to survive were dirty, hungry, and living on the streets. At the center, there was one building still intact, it almost glowed compared to the wreckage around it. Standing on the steps was Gage, grinning like he’d won the lottery, as a line of women were standing in front of him. I didn’t want to see anymore as my stomach turned, my mind imagining what could possibly be happening.
“How did they manage to get it like that so quickly? It’s been two days…”
“Time runs differently in the mortal world than it does here. Atlas—” Aidan scowled, “hadn’t fully explained it to me, but from the sounds of it, a day here could be a month, even a year, in the mortal world.
“How are we going to fix everything then?” My eyes flicked back up to another screen, a new city this time, where it looked the same. The population was drastically reduced and the quality of life was non-existent. Soren had done it, he had turned the mortals into slaves. This would significantly weaken our power if they believed the Gods were also responsible.
“We need to show the mortals we’re on their side. It’s only their faith in us that is going to give us the power we’ll need to destroy the Titans and return Earth to new conditions.” I looked at Aidan hopefully, but he didn’t seem too confident.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Look at the damage, there’s barely any vegetation left, and the buildings that were there are destroyed. There’s no supplies… Nothing.”
“We’re Gods! We created the Earth the first time, surely we can do it a second time.” Aidan still didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t say anything as we both stared at the screens. We had to be able to do something. At this rate, the Underworld would be teeming with souls. I’d be busy for years just processing everyone.
“Show me the key,” Aidan said, his voice cracking with power as the screens flickered and changed. My eyes glanced quickly to Valentina one more time. She was deep in conversation with Savannah and she looked distressed. That was probably my fault. She must think I used her for sex and now I was done with her. I wanted to make it up to her. I wanted to apologize for my rudeness.
The screens changed, and a different room from the one Atlas showed us appeared. It was like the throne room we were standing in, but where there were busts of the Gods here, there were busts of the Titans instead. The thrones were a dark steel color, almost like mine in the Underworld. The image zoomed into a pillar behind the thrones, topped with a heavy metal bowl that held fire in it.
“That’s it.” I felt like an idiot the moment I pointed out the obvious, but Aidan didn’t seem to be paying attention either way. He was still scowling, no doubt going over Atlas’ betrayal in his head. I reached out, touching his arm to pull him back from his thoughts.
“Hey, we need to get moving. If Atlas is working against us, he’s probably alerted the other Titans that we’re here. We need to get the key before they get here.
“I just don’t understand why Atlas would go through the song and dance of giving me the key in front of everyone, where two people were killed, instead of just handing it over to Soren in private. Why make a show of it?”
“What about Atlas is straightforward?” I countered before moving away toward the door. “Are you coming with me or not?” Aidan took a deep breath before following me to the door. I pushed it open and thought about the Titans’ throne room, entering a hallway with only one door: a heavy, double oak, inlaid with gold and encrusted with jewels around the doorframe. We both looked at each other in disbelief. Power had certainly gone straight to their head.
Aidan went first, pushing the door open and stepping right into whatever was waiting for us. I paused, unsure if dashing in had been such a great plan, but I wasn’t going to leave Aidan to fight whoever was waiting for us on his own.
I
pushed the door open, stepping into the throne room we’d seen on the screen. And it was just as empty as we’d seen it on the screen. Aidan and I exchanged uncertain looks before he tentatively made his way toward the fire bowl with the key instead. I clenched my fist at my side, feeling the flow of magic move down my arms and concentrate in my fist as my eyes looked around for any sign of trouble.
We were completely alone and, however grateful I was feeling, I was overwhelmed by the sense of danger that hung in the air too. It was all too weird.
“I can’t grab it.” Aidan said, drawing my attention away from the rest of the room. Crossing over to him, I inspected the key. If it was anywhere under the fire there was no way of telling. The center of the flames burned a bright blue fire, so hot, we both wouldn’t be able to touch it without being burnt.
“Maybe we should put it out?” I suggested, glancing around the room for anything to douse it with.
“What if it is the fire and not something underneath?”
“Is there something we could use to collect some of the fire before putting it out?” The throne room was rather plain except for the idol worship and the thrones.
I looked back at Aidan, realizing with a start, he’d pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his hand. He suddenly reached out and ran his hand through the flames, watching his shirt ignite. When he pulled back the shirt was on fire and nothing happened. We both stared at it, expecting the fire to change into a lightning bolt or something else meaningful to Zeus, but nothing did.
After a few moments, Aidan suddenly jerked, dropping the shirt on the floor and stamping it out.
“God damn it!” He hopped around for a second, waving his hand, while I attempted to suppress my grin. He turned to me, obviously I wasn’t doing so well and shouted, “fuck off!”
“I’m not entirely sure why you thought that was a good idea,” I said with a shrug.
Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series Page 64