by Paris, Sevan
She extended her index and middle fingers and poked them into Alex's chest. "But a blade requires the effort of my entire body. It therefore connects with my soul. The weapon, in essence, becomes an extension of my soul. It's the only way the beast can be killed. It's the only way we can be killed."
It doesn't sound like Fiona.
Bos leaned over the roof of the car and pointed at Alex. "Dude, that's totally awesome. I'm so shooting you with a gun this weekend. I just wanna see it."
Alex sat on the passenger seat. "You're not shooting me with a gun. I've been shot once already and it freaking hurts."
Bos plopped in the driver's seat. "Why? Man, this is totally fucking hot! You can do the Superman thing. You know, put your hands on your hips and I'll pump a few rounds in your chest."
Alex looked at Bos.
"Come on, dude. I'd do it for you."
Fiona crawled into the middle of the rear seat and shut her door. "Can we go hunt down the Gorgon that's turning innocent people into stone, please? I think that would be, y'know, loverly."
It does sound like Fiona.
Alex shook his head. He didn't know what to think. So he just stopped thinking. "Let's go."
~ * ~
Bos slammed on the brakes and the satellite screeched to a halt in front of the red light. "Any ideas where we find this thing and its magic tampon?"
"They like dark places," Fiona said. "Dark places where there are no people."
"Dark places. Check. We're just looking for someplace dark at nighttime. How fuckin' hard can that be?"
"The steel mill," Alex said. The others gave him a blank stare. He couldn't blame them. For some reason, something he had no way of knowing seemed perfectly obvious to him. "The old steal mill. It's been abandoned for years. It's the perfect place."
"Right on." Bos turned the wheel and hit the gas before the light turned green.
~ * ~
It took them six minutes to get there. Six agonizing minutes Alex had to think about how he could keep from killing a fellow student or, more importantly, keep the fellow student from killing him.
Bos's car creaked to a halt. The old mill consisted of ten large buildings that were side by side. Their beige colors were spotted with large areas of rust, holes and broken windows. The large stacks seemed to be the only thing withstanding the passage of time.
Alex saw Gorgon's tail slither inside a window. "There, right there! Punch it!"
Bos yelled like a Wookie and hit the gas. The Satellite threw gravel in every direction and skidded down the embankment.
Fiona put her hands on the guys' shoulders. "Remember, don't look at its face!"
The Gorgon saw them through the window and disappeared into the darkness. Its screams somehow managed to drown out the roar of the Satellite's engine.
"Wait, turn out your lights and pull down there on the opposite side," Alex said.
Fiona looked over Alex's shoulder. "This plan is flawed."
Bos gunned the engine and they headed to other side of the building. "Whatever, I dig it. What the hell are we doing?" He slapped the dashboard and the headlights turned off.
"Right here. Stop right here."
Bos skidded to a halt in front of a window.
"Stay here." Alex jumped out of the car and disappeared around the outside corner of the building.
"Alex! Wait, Alex!" Bos said. "Why do I feel so vulnerable?"
Alex hated using Bos as bait, sort of. He had complete faith in his abilities, so his buddy wasn't in any real danger. Wait a minute. I'm not even sure what my abilities are.
Didn't matter.
Alex still had faith in them. He would just wait here. Wait for the Gorgon to go after Bos and Fiona then--
The Gorgon's tail wrapped around Alex's head and slammed it into the rusty wall.
He had absolutely no idea where the damn thing came from. One minute, he waited for the thing to attack his friends like it was suppose to. The next it came out of nowhere and attacked him. His head bounced off the wall and once again Alex found himself parked on his ass.
The Gorgon's tail extended out of a broken window. It grabbed the windowsill and a green shoulder came out of the darkness. He saw moonlight reflect off its teeth and shut his eyes. Alex couldn't fight the thing without looking at it. He couldn't look at it without turning to stone. So, at that moment, he came up with what he thought was the only good solution.
He charged it with his eyes closed.
Alex had no idea if the Gorgon didn't have time to get clear or simply didn't think it needed to. He guessed the former since he heard the thing scream in anger. He wrapped one hand around its torso and used the other hand to punch it repeatedly in the face.
It hissed at him between punches. "Oh, you don't like that, do ya?"
It hissed again and rolled him to the floor. Alex couldn't let the thing take off in the mill the way it did in the library. The building was full of equipment that was old, heavy, and big; a trifecta of hell should Alex be slammed into them.
Alex let the beast's torso slither though his hands. He planted his feet on the ground and tightened his grip when he felt the end of her tail reach his fingers.
"Well, you're gonna hate this!" Alex turned and brought the Gorgon around with him. He made two complete circles, slinging her through the air and threw her through an interior wall.
It roared at him. Alex let out a roar of his own and ran inside the room. Keeping his eyes on the ground, Alex could see out of his peripheral that it was coiling up, getting ready to charge him back. Alex yelled the entire way, or at least until the Gorgon hit him with a large piece of metal.
Alex fell. It happened so fast he couldn't even tell what the metal had a former life as. All he knew, it was really fucking big. And it really fucking hurt.
Alex picked himself up and the Gorgon wrapped its tail around his midsection. It picked him up and slowly closed the distance between them. The more Alex fought, the tighter it squeezed. He felt his ribs start popping and panic seized his throat. Bos yelled his name from somewhere. He saw Fiona, once again armed with a sword, rush to him.
The Gorgon saw her too. She turned and placed Alex's body between them.
Fiona stopped and raised her sword.
"Fiona," Alex struggled to find his voice, it was barely above a whisper, "Fiona, don't."
Fiona didn't look at him.
Shit, she's gonna do it. She's gonna kill her. Alex reached as low as he could. He hoped to find a piece of metal or something he could use as a weapon. His hand just couldn't break the Gorgon's hold, which seemed to still be getting even tighter.
Then he found something, a string. A tampon string.
A magic tampon string.
Alex pulled with every muscle in his index finger. The creature screamed and the tail wrapped around Alex quickly became a pair of legs. Its green scales fell away to reveal ivory skin and the blond hair sprouted from her scalp. The snakes fell off and died.
A very naked and unconscious Helen DeTroy lay underneath Alex. Her tampon dangled from his finger.
Bos ran up and slapped Alex on the back. "Dude, I knew you were into her."
BOOK NINETEEN
THE GREAT MONTAGE
The next few weeks became an eighties-style montage for Alex.
After they rescued, saved, whatever they did for Helen, they laid her on a park bench and made an anonymous call to 911. When she woke up in the hospital, channel three news said she remembered nothing about what happened.
Lucky for her.
Alex expected to have another visit from Zeus, but he never showed up. Fiona said he was probably just too busy, but they should continue his training.
"Whoa, wait a minute. I never signed on for any training."
"It's not up to you, Alex; it's up to your DNA. And it says you need training before somebody or something else tries to kick the shit out of you. Plus, you're a hero now. It's time to start acting like one."
Alex wasn't sure how
he felt about the whole hero thing, but Fiona did have a point about things constantly coming after him. He decided training wasn't such a bad idea.
Bos thought being called a hero was totally badass. In fact, he wanted to join in the training thing, but quickly changed his mind when he found out they were walking most of the way. "Screw that, dude," he had said. "That's all you."
The training ground Fiona picked was miles away from anyone or anything. Being a small town, Athens was always within spitting distance of vast miles of secluded woods. Fiona had no trouble picking a spot away from prying eyes. They parked her Rabbit on a side road and walked for an hour before coming to a leafy ravine. It was twice as deep as Alex was tall and trees covered all four sides. Fiona said it was perfect.
Fiona's hair was now green with purple highlights and she wore one of her usual goth getups. Alex wore a pair of old jeans, sandals, and a Transformers t-shirt.
Fiona pulled the sword out of the nowhere place she kept it in on her back. Alex looked down at the large duffel back full of weapons she insisted on bringing. Of course, she'd also insisted he be the one to carry it.
He sighed, bent down and picked a sword out of the bag. It was short, had a simple handle, and looked really old. "So..." he twirled it once, "how does this work. Do I just come at you or, shit!"
Fiona rushed him.
Her sword hummed as she swung high once and low twice. The sound of their swords echoed through the forest. It seemed so loud people had to hear it in Nashville.
Athena backed off and raised her sword.
"What the fuck was that?"
"You must always be ready for an attack."
"I thought we were practicing."
"Yep."
"You almost killed me!"
Fiona shrugged. "We're practicing to kill."
She rushed him again. Alex deflected three of her blows but the third one cut him across the cheek. He dropped his sword and held his face. "Fuck!"
"Pick up your weapon. We are not finished."
Alex felt blood ooze between his fingertips. Surely she couldn't be serious.
She attacked again. Alex dove over her blade and fell on the sword, trapping it with his body. Athena slashed Alex across his back.
"Fuck!"
Alex forgot the weapon, turned around and drove his foot into Athena's knee. If he had any clue about what he was doing, he figured he would have broken it. As she stood, she backed up a few inches and readied herself for another attack.
Alex gripped his sword, turned to stand--
And Fiona drove her pommel into his face.
Alex fell to the ground, nose gushing blood.
Fiona looked like she was ready to pounce again. Alex raised his hand. "Wait a minute. How is beating the shit out of me going to train me to do anything except get the shit beat out of me?"
Athena dropped her guard and stepped beside Alex. "Very well, do as I do."
"You mean that's it?" Alex said, blowing blood away from his mouth. "That's all I had to say to get you to stop?"
"It's been proven your kind adapt well to the question and answer method of learning."
Alex wanted to yell at her, but his face hurt too much.
~ * ~
After a month of learning, cutting, and bleeding, Alex finally felt like he learned how to fight. He told Fiona as much after they finished off three harpies that had built a nest off I-75. Fiona, however, told him he was just starting to learn.
After three months of learning, cutting, and bleeding, Alex definitely felt like he learned how to fight. After they finished killing a baby Chimera that had taken up residence in Hiwassee River, Fiona told him he still had more to learn.
"Why is it I'm never as strong as I think I am?"
Fiona wiped Chimera blood off her sword. "Alex, I can speak every language on this Earth, and I still have no idea what you just said."
"Alright, look. Sometimes I feel really strong. Other times, not so much. Why?"
"Oh, that's easy. It's the curse of the demigod."
"The what of the what?"
"Zeus didn't tell you?"
"I forget a lot, but when it comes to personal curses, my memory is like a steel trap."
"Your existence is defined by the gods. So you are only as strong as the closest god-like being."
"So if I'm closer to you than Chimera-boy here--"
"Physically, you're as strong as I. And I'm not as strong when away from Athens. The city is named after me, so it's only natural I would be stronger there."
"Naturally."
"Don't mock me. I'll stop training you and you'll be killed."
"Sorry."
Fiona shook her head. "Also, you can gain a god's abilities. That's why you heal quicker when you're around me."
"And if a god isn't around?"
"You're as strong as any other mortal."
"See, this is the kind of shit you're supposed to tell a guy in the beginning of this whole training thing. Not three months in."
Still no Zeus.
"I don't get it," Alex said as they crossed swords once again in the forest. "If I'm supposed to be this hero-type person, why is my strength so limited?" He grunted and pushed against her blade. "Why can't I just be strong all the time?"
Their blades meet four more times. Fiona had a difficult time getting past Alex's guard now. "That's why demigods make such wonderful heroes. Your abilities are so powerful the other gods actually fear you. Yet, you can still be killed by something as crude as a bullet."
"You said I couldn't be killed by a bullet."
"I said we couldn't be. And as long as I'm around you, you can't."
"That really sucks, Fiona."'
Alex put his sword back in the bag and saw three metal rods in a leather holster. The rods were the size of arrows. "What are these?"
"Those are the lightning bolts of Zeus, made by Hephaestus himself."
"He only has three of them?"
"Zeus no longer needs them. He figured out how to produce them on his own ages ago."
Alex lifted one and balanced it in his hand. "Why only three? Why not make more for the other gods?" Alex tapped it on the ground.
And accidentally ignited it.
The rod transformed from a cold metal into a white bolt of electricity. It engulfed Alex's forearm and, in a panic, he slung it to the ground. Leaves, rocks, and dirt exploded around them and Alex's senses were completely engulfed by a white light, the sound of thunder, and the sweet smell of burning ozone.
The force of the blast propelled Alex and Fiona twenty feet away from each other. A smoking crater ten feet deep stood were they once were.
Fiona coughed, rolled onto her back and wiped dirt off her shirt. "Because they're super dangerous, fuck head."
The fourth month of learning became Alex's last lesson.
Alex gathered his bag and sword together for their trip to the forest. Fiona stopped him.
"What? No lesson today?"
"Today, we learn another lesson." She placed the bag under Alex's bed. "Today, we leave to see the Fates."
BOOK TWENTY
THE ROAD TO THE FATES
After a short phone call to Bos, the three were on their way a la Satellite to see the Fates.
Bos glanced at Fiona in the rearview mirror. "So, what are the Fates?"
Fiona adjusted the girdle she wore over her Hello Kitty shirt. "Three sisters. They spin the thread of every person's life."
Alex unconsciously grabbed the dashboard while Bos looked in the back seat. His friend had the attention of an amoeba.
"What does that even mean?" Alex said.
Fiona sighed. "Every person's life is measured in thread to them. They sit at a wheel, spinning it until that person dies."
"Man, sounds like that job sucks," Bos said. He turned his attention to the road in time to avoid an old man walking his even older mother? The two looked like they were about to have a heart attack as the Satellite bounced off the curb next to the
m. Bos hand-over-handed the steering wheel. It made clapping noises as he jerked the car back to the road.
Alex had the strength and vitality of a god, but Bos's driving still scared the shit out of him.