She frowned, looking suddenly uneasy. Like she might have had a jewel she didn’t want anyone knowing about. Curious. But I let it go. Pressing her to reveal her secrets would only open me up for return interrogation.
“Anyway,” I said, “it wasn’t Hestia I upset, though you’re on the right track. See, I sort of set Prometheus free. And, in the process, ticked off the god who put him there. Since then I’ve been, you know…hanging around.”
She winced knowingly. “How long have ye been Zeus’ prisoner?” she asked, obviously knowing enough about Prometheus to guess correctly. And she’d known about Hestia as well. Interesting.
“I’m not sure, anymore. This is how I escape, how I stay sane. When I’m like this, it doesn’t hurt.” I was fudging the truth a little. No reason to tell her that I had only just figured it out.
“And your friends?” she asked. “Aren’t they comin’ to save ye?”
My smile grew brittle and weary, and I didn’t bother to hide it. “Shouldn’t you be worried about yourself?” I asked instead, gesturing to the bars of her cell. “That doesn’t look cozy. What did you do to get put in there?”
“It’s a long story,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. It was almost comical how cagey we were both being about our current predicaments. Her next words froze my blood. “This is the Titan realm you’ve wandered into. At least, I t’ink it still is. I was chasin’ someone with a grudge against ye, tryin’ to stop him before he hurts anyone, and that’s when—”
“A grudge against me?” I interrupted, fearing Prometheus had gathered allies to hunt down his enemy, Tainted Nipple—since he hadn’t gotten my name correct. Then again, if Quinn knew a Titan with a grudge against me, Prometheus must have figured out my real name. “Wait, is that what you said?” Maybe I was lucky enough to have pissed off two Titans.
“Aye, and don’t ye sound so surprised, like you’ve never done anythin’ to harm anyone in your life,” she chastised. “Ye and your friends killed his father, who was a member of the Wild Hunt tryin’ to track ye down for the Queens of Fae. And let’s not forget your parents stole an hourglass from under his watch, which got him exiled. Frankly, he has good reason to hate ye, all t’ings considered. But when he signed on to work for the Winter Queen to see ye killed, he started crossin’ lines, lines he shouldn’t have crossed.”
I stared at her, my jaw hanging open. It was a relief to hear that my own personal Inigo Montoya was of the Fae, rather than a Titan, but where the hell had she learned all that about me? Had she been fucking spying on me? That had been a long time ago. I pinched my nose, debating how I wanted to respond. It wasn’t like I could actually do anything about it in my current state. “This is ridiculous. I mean, we did fight the Wild Hunt once. But that was ages ago. And my parents…the hourglass…” I drifted off. “It wasn’t stolen. Or, if it was, I’m sure they had a good reason.”
Which was the biggest lie yet. No one had known that the Hourglass was not the property of the Fae. In fact, it was undeniably the property of my family—since the sand inside was actually the pulverized bones of my ancestors. It was what I had used to open up the Elder Realm in the Mausoleum.
“That’s what I’m told,” she replied bitterly. “Always a good excuse, Calvin and Makayla Temple.”
I was suddenly pressed against the bars, my eyes a little wild. I instinctively wanted to kill her. Who the fuck did she think she was? She didn’t know my parents. I realized that my skin was smoldering with vaporous light, and that I was somehow gripping the iron bars.
The very real iron bars. But none of that mattered right now.
“What,” I said through gritted teeth, “do you know about my parents?”
“More than you’d t’ink,” she replied, seemingly unfazed. She gripped the two bars farthest from my hands and leaned in, careful not to get too close, but stubbornly refusing to back down from my hostility. She was defiant, despite her current living conditions. “If it weren’t for your parents,” she continued, “I might never have been born.”
I blinked, my anger flickering like a candle in the wind. “Wait, what does that even mean?” The mysterious, unbidden power roaring from my flesh dimmed and I let go of the iron bars.
A sudden cry erupted from above our heads, but it didn’t sound natural. Nothing from Quinn’s current environment, then. She hadn’t seemed to hear anything. Was…it Carl? Trying to wake me? It hadn’t sounded like a voice. But…it had sounded raucously familiar.
I cursed, turning back to Quinn. “I have to go,” I said. I considered her thoughtfully, wanting to finish this conversation more than almost anything. “If you ever get out of here, you little delinquent, come find me.”
None of Quinn’s answers would matter if I didn’t get out of my own prison on Olympus. I hoped she found a way out of hers.
And, with that, I left her, pursuing the sound I had heard. Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized it had sounded like an epic asshole of a raven.
Hugin or Munin.
Then the cawing sound abruptly cut off and I felt a sharp pain on my arm.
5
I opened my eyes to find Carl gripping me by the arm, shaking me violently. The prison cell door crashed open and I scrambled to my feet with a grunt, my heart racing. Zeus stormed into the cell as Carl calmly rose like some kind of Zen monk.
Panic raced through me as I tried to embrace the sudden shift in realities and the fact that I now felt trapped inside a straightjacket—my physical body. It hurt, and I felt like I’d just woken up from a coma, my body slow to respond to my brain’s commands.
Zeus waved a hand at our chains, and they unhitched from our manacles, falling into piles with a loud metallic clanking sound. “Follow me,” he growled. Then he simply walked out of our prison suite, leaving the door open behind him.
I shot Carl a questioning look, wondering if I’d missed something pertinent while astral projecting, but he shrugged his shoulders, looking concerned. With nothing better to do, I followed the God of Lightning out of the cell. I motioned for Carl to keep an eye on our rear.
Despite somehow being able to access a power of sorts—without intending to—on the astral plane, I currently couldn’t do more than swing my fists or kick my feet. So, making a run for it was off the table. Even if I could escape, I wouldn’t have the use of my powers with these cursed manacles clamped onto my wrists. And I’d be abandoning Carl and my satchel.
And if I tried to attack Zeus with my bare hands—a monumentally stupid plan—I had no way to defend myself once Ares or Apollo showed up. I needed to find out why the hell we were being held hostage, and this was the first potential opportunity outside of seemingly meaningless torture. He obviously had something to say, and I obviously needed leverage.
The hallway outside our door actually hugged the face of the mountain, leaving the opposite wall a vast sweep of open sky, high above the clouds. The architect had thankfully built a two-foot tall safety wall—the perfect height to almost miss and trip over it in a potential mad dash for freedom. I felt a violent rush of vertigo and had a sudden desire to grab the wall beside us, as far from the open sky as possible.
Thankfully, there was a ceiling of marble arches spanning overhead and supported by thick marble columns on the inside of the trip-wall, making it feel more like an incomplete tunnel, which added a sense of solidity to the hallway. Still, the yawning sky pulled at me like a vacuum, reminding me of how small and insignificant I really was in the face of nature. The ocean of clouds looked almost inviting—a siren song lulling me closer to a final, epic swan dive that would end Charon’s Legend of the Catalyst on the exact opposite of a cliffhanger.
Zeus walked ahead of us on silent footsteps, utterly unconcerned about his unprotected back.
He had dressed more formally than his earlier white toga-jammies. He now wore an armored white kilt of sorts, consisting of leather straps affixed to a wide leather waistband that was decorated with Greek symbols cast in s
ilver. He wore a matching white leather shoulder guard over his left shoulder, but I couldn’t make out the details. It looked like a screaming eagle.
He exited the hallway and the mountain opened up onto a vast expanse of flat rock. We were obviously at the peak, and a quick full-circle sweep made me feel like we were on a stranded island in a sea of clouds. I saw no elegant marble structures or shining streets full of Olympians, and I saw no other nearby mountains. A thirty-feet-wide set of stairs stretched up towards a raised pavilion ringed with more Greek columns and topped with decorative marble entablatures to form a perfect circle overhead. I eyed the elevated platform warily, realizing that it was different from the one where I had first encountered Zeus before our imprisonment. I also didn’t see the area where Prometheus had hung for millennia. We were on a different mountain.
Accidentally freeing Prometheus hadn’t earned me any points. In any other scenario, I would have instantly understood the reason for my endless torture, chalking it up as punishment for freeing Olympus’ Most Wanted Titan.
Except Zeus had kidnapped me before I’d freed Prometheus.
And by freeing, I meant I had knocked Prometheus off the mountain, sending him plummeting to Earth with a giant, hungry eagle pursuing him, so it wasn’t like the Titan had a soft spot in his heart for me, either. He hadn’t even gotten my name right. “Tainted Nipple,” I muttered under my breath.
Carl frowned over at me, absently reaching for his chest to check his own nipples. I sighed, shaking my head.
The pavilion up ahead was also not the one where I had killed Athena.
Zeus had a lot of random pavilions, apparently. Like McDonald’s buying up every highly trafficked corner lot in every major city across America. Location, location, location.
Zeus strode up to the stairs, so we followed suit. Even from our new vantage point, I saw no gleaming city in the distance—only a better view of the endless clouds—and I saw no guards or monsters hiding in wait to keep their boss safe. We were alone. Which probably meant we weren’t alone at all. Or Zeus was mocking me, rubbing my face in my situation.
Yeah. Probably that.
It was now an irrefutable fact that Zeus didn’t want witnesses to my imprisonment—or our impending conversation—which tracked with his vague initial request before he’d locked us up in our prison cell. He needed my help with something, and it had sounded suspiciously like he’d wanted a godkiller on retainer. It would be counterintuitive to hire a secret assassin and then let his potential targets know of my presence.
But…where the hell was Mount Olympus? Were we at least close to the fabled city?
Zeus came to a halt in the center of the pavilion, turning to face me as I made my final approach. I stifled my surprise when I noticed the Temple Crest carved into the center of the polished marble floor, directly beneath Zeus’ sandaled feet. It had to be eight feet in diameter and was ringed with twin bands of solid gold and silver. He smiled arrogantly.
His white beard was thick and long, and his eyes crackled with inner lightning. Although obviously old, he had enough carved muscles to shame the most devout bodybuilder. The only other indications of his age—other than his storm cloud gray hair and white beard—were faint wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
I stopped just shy of the Temple Crest in the event it was some kind of trap. There was every possibility that merely standing on it would cause some reaction. I was the last of my bloodline, and to find my family symbol here among such an old pantheon was unnerving. It implied that our families had once been pals—a long, long time ago.
Which was highly suspicious and unlikely, leading me to assume it was all theatrical. My family couldn’t be that old, could it?
I tried to dismiss the obvious implication, but it was too loud of a thought. Was I…an Olympian? A demigod? Was that the reason for all the insanity in my family? The reason for Hermes’ past help? The reason so many damned Greeks had made Missouri their home?
If so, had I become a kin-killer when I’d killed Athena? Was that why Zeus was so uneasy around me? Or was it more like my family’s relationship with Odin, where my parents had roped him into serving our cause?
Or maybe Zeus was just a fucking liar. Anyone could draw my family crest. He’d said so himself when I’d first mentioned the similarities on his belt.
I’d already known he needed me, and there was only one reason he would keep me imprisoned and spend the last week torturing me. He wanted me—needed me—to do something for him that no one else could. And it was something he was entirely certain that I wouldn’t want to do. He’d skipped threatening my friends and gone straight to breaking my spirit and body.
Which meant that he really needed me. Badly.
“Who do you need killed, old man? I’ve had about enough of this shithole and your syphilitic groin spawn, Ares and Apollo.”
Zeus regarded me with pursed lips, not reacting to my slight about his sons. “Your torture was punishment for freeing Prometheus,” he began, clasping his hands behind his back. “I have a reputation to protect, after all. If I didn’t punish you for that offense, I would appear weak.”
He paused, but I didn’t offer a comment on his bullshit speech.
“It seems you have ascended, godkiller, and you are also the Catalyst. I cannot permit the other gods to see me letting you off with a mere slap on the wrist. It’s just business,” he said with a cold smile, flashing his perfectly white teeth. “I hope you understand. Our families are old friends, after all.” He pointedly glanced down at the crest below his feet.
I’d heard the word ascension a few times, now. But I was still a little hazy on the details. “Thank you for your apology,” I said in a pompous tone, knowing full well that he had not apologized. His shoulders stiffened slightly, but he didn’t correct me. “Explain this ascension business, and I’ll consider forgiving you. Right after you upgrade our rooms, free of charge.”
He did not find my tone or words funny because he was obviously a man devoid of joy and happiness. Because I knew I was hilarious. I even laughed at my jokes, which was the best barometer for humor.
“Your ascension onto a new level of power. It has caused quite the stir among the gods of all pantheons. You are, in many respects, equivalent in power to the gods.” His gaze shifted to a more threatening undertone. “Of course, there are many levels of power among gods. We were not all created equal.”
I sniffed at the air. “You smell that?” I asked. “Smells like someone’s cooking up some fresh patriarchy with a side of elitism and misogyny.” He stared back at me, unimpressed. “You should probably hire a good PR firm. That kind of stance doesn’t fly these days.”
Zeus stared at me blankly, not seeming to follow along.
“Pantheon restructuring is one of the many services I can provide. For a sizable fee, of course.” I leaned forward, speaking in a stage whisper. “It usually starts at the top, with the immediate replacement of the executive team.”
6
His glare grew brittle and I sensed his shoulders tensing. It wasn’t like he could expect me to be meek and submissive—not in general, and definitely not after how he’d treated us. It would have seemed strange had I not mouthed off to him. I had a reputation to protect, too.
Instead of reacting, he exercised godly restraint and resumed his earlier topic. “Here, we call ascension by a different name—Apotheosis. It means to make something or someone divine. In simpler terms, when a mortal transcends into godhood.” He eyed me as if I had a pungent aroma. “Of course, becoming a godkiller was not the original intention of this rite of passage. It was a loophole we seem to have overlooked.”
“That’s me. Always sneaking through the back door.” I swept my gaze across the columns and clouds. “Is there a committee or something? An inter-pantheon union? Or was this just a participation trophy for offing Athena? You’re welcome, by the way. I’ll give you that one for free.” I had to force myself to appear disinterested and unimpressed while choo
sing inflammatory words to describe his daughter’s death.
After a few moments of tense silence, I turned to look at him. Pressing him in such a disrespectful manner also validated my theory that he needed me. Otherwise, he would have killed me for the slight. A calculated gamble, but there was no return without risk.
“You do have an admirable track record for…restructuring pantheons, as you put it. Like what you recently did with the Norse Aesir gods. In a way, that is why you are here. That, and our two families share a long, illustrious relationship, of course,” he added, again bringing attention to the crest by tapping his foot against it.
He watched me, looking about as pleased as a cat with a mouse under its paw—which was oddly poetic since he had his feet firmly planted on my family crest. I suddenly had a very bad feeling. Worse than I’d had before, and that was saying something. “Yeah, well, I don’t offer friends of the family discounts, I’m afraid. If what you’re claiming is even true,” I muttered.
“Why do you think there are so many Greeks in your city?” he pressed. “Asterion. King Midas. Achilles. Leonidas. Athena focusing her war on your own home.” He leaned closer as if to impart a secret. “Hermes giving you a lucky coin to use against the dragons years ago,” he added, smirking conspiratorially. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, and I hoped that I successfully masked my facial twitch. “Your family has worked with me for centuries. The Fates decreed it.”
Charon had claimed something eerily similar—how he’d stood in the shadow of the Temple dynasty. I scoffed, not bothering to hide my opinion on the matter. “Times change. And if this is all above board, why are you holding me prisoner at an Olympian black ops site? Your story doesn’t hold up—not if we’re friends, and not if you want the world to see you making an example of me for releasing Prometheus.”
Carnage: Nate Temple Series Book 14 Page 4