by Paris, Sevan
Sophie gargled a little as Hera's thumb pressed into her windpipe.
Soon I realized there was nothing at all wrong with me. Oh no, it was him! He could have had anything he desired, but he chose the plain over the godly. Do you feel plain, Sophie Anderson? Do you feel how plain you are as your life slowly ebbs away?" Hera grinned, a large, open mouth grin.
It was that moment Sophie shot half a bottle of mace into Hera's mouth.
Hera gagged at the foam and threw Sophie onto the stove. She rolled onto the floor with the falling pots and pans. Hera coughed and vomited the mace out of her throat. The goddess seemed incapable of speech, but her eyes spoke volumes to Sophie.
Sophie ran for the car.
The entire way, Sophie expected Hera to grab her by the neck again, but it never happened. Her shaking hands unlocked the car door and barely found the ignition. She started the Cherokee and had it backed out of the driveway right as Hera walked out the front door.
The front door?
Sophie had been around the gods long enough to know if they were pissed enough they didn't walk through doors, they made doors. Hera could have torn through the exterior walls as if they were made of paper. Why didn't she?
Alex...Hera was waiting on Alex.
Her son would return home, and Hera would be waiting for him in the darkness of a perfectly fine looking house.
Hera stood twenty feet away from the front of Sophie's Cherokee.
I love you, Alex.
Sophie put the Jeep in drive and slammed into Hera.
And the garage door.
And the three support columns inside.
Smoke rushed out of the Cherokee's crumpled front end. Sophie heard one of the vehicles many liquids gush out of the bottom. She raised her head without even realizing it had been resting against the steering wheel. She opened the door and eased one foot out. Blood dripped from somewhere above her eyes.
She had no idea if it was enough to kill or even stop Hera. The windshield was too busted to see out of, so there was really just one way to find out.
The Cherokee shifted back three feet.
Hera stood at the front, shoving the vehicle away from her body. One arm hung limply at her side and there were scrapes all over her face.
She walked toward Sophie.
Sophie backed away and looked around for something, anything that could help. Her eyes finally settled on a chainsaw.
She grabbed it off the shelf, puling half a dozen empty cans down with it.
She heard Hera limp closer.
Sophie primed it and pulled on the ripcord. The chainsaw screamed once then died. "Shit!"
Hera kicked a piece of the broken fender out of her way as she limped even closer.
Sophie tried the cord again. It screamed a bit longer, but died again. "Shit!"
Sophie thumbed the choke right as Hera grabbed Sophie's shoulder.
The chainsaw cranked. It was the most beautiful thing Sophie Anderson ever heard. Sophie brought the chainsaw around in a wide circle, aiming right for Hera's face.
Hera slapped the chainsaw away, grabbed Sophie's jaw and broke her neck.
The body fell to the ground and Hera's only regret was that she couldn't kill it twice.
BOOK THIRTY-FIVE
A HERO'S DENIAL
Alex pulled Bos' car into the driveway and froze. After seeing the ruined Cherokee and what was left of the garage, he somehow knew without actually knowing. "Mom?"
He left the Satellite running and crept into the garage. God, it was so quite. "Mom?"
He eased around the corner of the Cherokee. His eyes were half closed.
Then he saw her.
Her lifeless eyes stared back at him. The air separating him from his mother became thick. He found it difficult to walk through, so he crawled.
He closed the gap between them. She lay on the garage floor, neck twisted at an impossible angle. Some part of him--some small part--forced him to breath. A sound escaped his mouth and he inhaled a little.
He grabbed her collar. She was right there. How could she be gone? No she wasn't there, nobody could be in that thing, that lifeless, hollow thing.
Alex buried his head in her neck. It didn't feel like his mother's neck. Instead, it felt like some sick, twisted…
Alex's scream echoed off the garage walls, outside in the yard, and in the bottom of his soul.
He inhaled a second time since entering the garage. He smelled his mother's shampoo, soap, and her piss that slowly gathered around him.
He screamed again.
"Alex?"
Alex turned to see Fiona and Bos standing in the remains of the garage door. Something yellow drove away behind them.
~ * ~
Fiona saw Alex stand and walk into the house. Sophie lay there alone. Bos walked outside.
A rush of emotions hit the goddess. Emotions about Fiona's parents, emotions about Sophie, emotions about Athena's parents...
Athena's parents.
They were the cause of this.
She closed her eyes and turned her head. She had been in this body, connected to this soul for too long. Emotions were getting in the way at a time when she absolutely couldn't allow them to. Her hero needed help.
By the time Fiona caught up to Alex, he was in his bedroom. He had changed into a black shirt and the duffel bag full of weapons rested easily on his shoulder.
"Where are you going?" she said.
Alex came nose to nose with her. "You tell me. Where do I find Hera? How do I get to her?"
"No," Fiona said barely above a whisper. "You're--Alex you're not thinking. She will expect this. She will be ready for you and she will--"
Alex shoved her.
It wasn't a particularly hard shove, at least not for godly standards, but it was enough to cave in a good portion of Alex's bedroom wall. His Justice League bobble heads fell to the floor. "WHERE IS SHE?"
Fiona punched Alex so hard he flew into the bathroom.
"Think, Alex! This is what she wants! She'll kill you and the world can't lose you, not now!
Alex pulled himself out of the remains of the sink and let the duffel bag fall to the ground. He screamed and rushed Fiona around the waist, carrying both of them into the plaster of the dining room wall.
Fiona rammed her elbow into Alex's back twice. He fell to the ground, arms still around her knees.
He didn't move. The only sign he lived at all was his back moving up and down with each breath.
After clinging to her legs for a full minute, Alex looked at Fiona with eyes full of tears. "The last thing I said to her was get away from me." He looked down and clung to Fiona's leg even tighter.
For the second time in her life, the Goddess of Wisdom cried.
BOOK THIRTY-SIX
GATHERING THE TROOPS
It didn't make sense.
That's all Fiona could think. Or at least, that's all the goddess of wisdom part of her could think after she had recovered from the mortal anguish which had so completely incapacitated her yesterday.
Surprisingly, Bos became the voice reason. "Hey dudes," he said after finding them on the dining room floor. "The cops are coming. Unless you wanna explain the unexplainable, we need to get out of here."
And so, they left. Alex didn't put up a fight, but he didn't exactly cooperate either. By the time they reached old mill to hole up, Alex still wasn't talking, but at least he was opening doors on his own.
It was then that news from the rest of the world reached them via Bos' car stereo. President Tree Jr. somehow managed to convince the rest of the U.S. military it was in their best interests to launch five mother fucking nuclear warheads into Afghanistan. He didn't even try to hide it from the American people. He went on public television and addressed the nation of his intentions in something looking more like a Saturday Night Live skit than an actual presidential address.
Most of the American people loved him for it.
The rest of the world--not so much.
> As a result, other countries were now pointing their warheads right at America. They feared the most powerful nation in the world was now led by a mad man and, worse yet, that madman had support from the majority of his people.
It just didn't make sense.
Fiona was very old. She had developed the ability to size people up by their intellectual and physical capabilities over two thousand years ago. Tree had the intelligence of an amoeba. There was no way he could have pulled off such a daring move in his favor unless he had help.
That goddamn apple of knowledge. Fiona shook her head. She should have destroyed the thing the first time she laid eyes on it. It has caused trouble for the gods and mankind ever since the thing was first discovered. People assumed it gave a being absolute knowledge, when in actuality it only gave him knowledge to obtain an overwhelming ambition.
The only reason Zeus even agreed to let Aphrodite take the apple was because she swore an oath to never let it out of her sight. But, if there was anything the events of the past four months had taught Fiona, it was that oaths--even godly ones--simply weren't what they used to be.
The world now hung on the brink of Armageddon. People in nations everywhere were divided between supporting their nation, supporting their religion, or supporting their political party. As a result, most nations had more internal strife than external. Even Athens wasn't immune. Mob fights and violent protests had been happening all day in the once quiet town.
"Why now?" Alex said, breaking Fiona from her thoughts. The three of them sat around a fire in one of the many abandoned buildings. It was the first thing he had said in at least twenty hours.
"Got no idea what you mean, Alex, but I'm glad one of you is finally saying something. You two have been creeping me out." Bos threw a thick branch on the fire and spark filled smoke drifted through one of the building's many openings.
"Hera's had months to do this. Why wait to go after my mom and do this whole clean slate thing?"
"She hoped the rest of us would do it first."
The three teenagers turned to see Aphrodite standing in the darkness. Leave it to her to wear high heels through a building full of rubble and still manage to not be heard.
Bos stood and Fiona drew her sword. It filled the old building with its hum.
Aphrodite sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Easy, Theeny, I'm here to help."
"Why should we trust you?" Alex said. "You tried to kill me twice."
"Oh yeah, that. That was like, forever ago. Things have changed since then."
"You've got three seconds to explain yourself or you're dead," Alex said. He never looked up from the fire.
Aphrodite laughed. "Kill me? I can just teleport right out of here before you have a chance to."
Alex disappeared in a puff of pink smoke. He appeared next to Fiona, stole her sword then reappeared again behind Aphrodite. He yanked her hair back and held Fiona's sword to Aphrodite's throat.
"Which means I can teleport too." He yanked her hair harder. "Two seconds."
"I don't want things to change, okay!" Aphrodite said with her eyes on the sword. "The gods, they want worship. Thanks to DVD's and the Internet, I get way more worship than ever. The others wanna live like gods. I am living like a freakin' god! Hera's in a real swell position to take all that away."
Alex shoved Aphrodite to the ground. "Why kill me then?"
"Yeah," Bos said, "twice."
"Hera played me, all sucker-like. I thought killing Alex was the only way to protect dad. If the others find out about him breaking his promise, well, what's happened could've happened."
"And what's Zeus' angle then?" Alex said. "He knew I was gonna die before. It was in his big ball of yarn or whatever. Why even give me a little bit of help?"
"Because, it's not about you, it's not about Hera, and it's not even about your mother. It's about humanity. Zeus has always had a soft spot for you guys even before The Fall. That's why he made Theeny over there."
Fiona stepped between them. "How did you find us?"
"Oh please." Aphrodite snorted and dusted off her red dress. "You're two half god, half mortal teenagers in love and lust. I could smell you if I were in Amsterdam."
A silence.
"Okay, all right, so now all we need is a plan, right?" Bos said. "What's our plan?"
"It simple," Alex said, turning his eyes away from Fiona. "Kill Hera."
All of them stood there for a few moments before Bos finally looked at Aphrodite and broke the silence: "Hey, aren't you like, a porn star or something?"
~ * ~
Helen DeTroy couldn't believe her luck.
Honestly, God seemed to have it out for her. Not only was she unable to talk to Alex today, but the episodes were getting worse. She had to get help and she had to get it soon. One way or another, she had to talk to Alex Anderson. She desperately needed answers.
She crawled into bed and looked for something loud on her iPod. Loud music was the only way she could sleep now. The Gorgon's voice was always louder at night.
She settled on a Korn album and closed her eyes. She reopened them two songs in.
And saw Alex Anderson standing over her.
Maybe it was dealing with the horrifying voices and images staring back at her in the mirror over the past five months that caused Helen not to scream or really be surprised at all. Maybe it was the measure of relief she felt from seeing Alex's sword.
"You're not surprised to see me?" he said. She could barely make out his lips from the light of the iPod.
"I am but...I have," God, where was she suppose to start?
"Fiona saw you at school today. She thinks you're having trouble and you know a little about what's going on."
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. And do, but I don't, I can't understand any of it. This voice, this thing..."
"We're about to go fight the woman who did this to you. I don't think we'll make it, I don't think we'll even--"
"Take me with you." Helen jerked the covers away and stood. She didn't care she was just wearing panties and an old Home Depot shirt. If there was a way, any way she could bring some sort of sense to her life, she was all for it. Even if it meant dying, which was something she'd been thinking a lot about lately anyway.
"Your parents?"
Helen reached for some jeans. "Are safer without me here."
A couple of hours later, Helen knew everything Alex knew about the Greek gods and the shit they were doing to people. She also knew his plans to fight them. He was right. They didn't stand much of a chance.
~ * ~
Hector never thought about the gods before he died.
Beyond appearances, he really had no reason to. In his experience, most people only prayed to the gods when their lives were absolutely miserable. Being a Prince of Troy, Hector had just about anything his heart desired. The only time he ever thought about praying to the gods was during the last days of Troy. By then, he was too drunk to care.
Then he actually met a god.
After Achilles delivered his final quote and final blow, Hector found himself waiting at the edge of the River Styx along with four hundred thirty seven other Trojans. Trojans who, like him, had no relatives or friends left on Earth to place money in with their bodies that--as Hector understood--he could give to boatman as payment for passage into the afterlife. They were forced to wait on the riverbank for over two and a half millennia. Two and a half millennia of boredom that was broken only one time by Hades himself.
"How are you faring, noble Hector?" Hades had said, nearly causing Hector to choke on the tasteless apple he had been eating.
He spit several seeds out of his mouth. "How do you think, you miserable maggot?"
Hades' eyes grew wide. Hector didn't know if it was from anger or surprise. He really didn't care. What was the god to do? Kill him?
"There aren't many who have spoken to me as you now do, Hector. Even the other gods--"
"Are you going to let me and my men across?"
; "It is not my intention, no."
"Then, I have nothing more to say to you. Go find another hapless soul to toy with. That of Hector's has been toyed with enough for ten lifetimes."
"I could send you to another level of Hades, one where you would suffer tortures far greater than boredom and tasteless apples."