Dionne reached into her boot and pulled out a small spear. It glinted in the light. Zoe knew as soon as she saw the opaque colouring what it was—the eternity spear.
Despite the pain that ripped through her, Zoe stretched above her head for the obliterator. Her fingers touched it, but it pushed further away. She managed a breath, at last.
Theron charged in again, shouldered Dionne. She soared across the room.
Darian had recovered enough from his head knock to capture Marcus and was straining with everything he had to keep him apprehended while trying to bind his legs again with the chains.
Zoe hated to see this playing out in front of her. Seeing how they were forced by Dionne and Marcus to react in this way. Forceful, violent behaviour that went against everything they stood for and believed in with all their hearts.
“She has the eternity spear,” Zoe croaked, though her words were no louder than a whisper.
“Fuck!” Theron hissed. He was poised for the imminent attack.
Zoe lifted her leg, grounded her foot on the floor and pushed, easing her broken body along the ground. Her ribs throbbed with each movement until the obliterator was in reaching distance. She stretched out above her and gripped its cool, metallic handle.
Dionne sprinted at Theron, spear held high.
Zoe hoisted herself into seated position and held the obliterator out. “Stop,” she screamed at Dionne. “Stop!” The effort of breathing, yet alone yelling, was agony.
Dionne kept charging and leaped at Theron. To force her back, he thrust out his leg, his foot connecting with her stomach. The spear’s blade was so close as Dionne plunged it at him, barely missing his throat, but he jerked back in time to avoid being sliced open.
“Stop!” Zoe screamed when Dionne snarled at Theron and stormed at him again. Her body shook with adrenalin.
With her pain now hidden behind fear and determination, Zoe staggered to her feet and trained the obliterator on Dionne. “Stop. Don’t do this!” Her finger trembled on the trigger.
Dionne’s eyes were red with rage, lost to a violent lust. Consumed by such inner violence, Dionne wasn’t going to stop, wasn’t going to back down.
There was only one way to end this, and it would destroy Zoe’s soul to do it. It would change her from the inside out permanently.
“Stop!” she screamed again, but it was fruitless. Dionne lifted the blade and lunged at Theron. Theron slipped on a piece of broken stone as he shifted to fend her off.
His eyes met Zoe’s and, in that split second, she saw everything within them—her past, her future, Theron in all his luminous glory.
“No!” Zoe moaned. The trigger burned against her fingertips, yet was as cold as snow. Squeezing her eyes shut, she screamed as she pressed the sliver of metal and fired.
All the atmosphere in the room sucked into the weapon like it was a vacuum, then blasted, hot and fast, at Dionne. Flames licked at her head turning it to ash, and her body dropped to the floor with a thud.
The spear tinkled as it fell beside her headless form.
Silence consumed the room for a long moment as Zoe reeled. Her chest heaved with each ragged breath.
“NO!” Marcus screamed. “Dionne. No!” He spun to face Zoe, his lips twisted with anguish, eyes windows to the pain consuming him. “HOW COULD YOU?”
Zoe dropped the obliterator from her hands as though it was smoking hot. Her legs caved beneath her, and she fell to her knees on the floor.
She stared at Dionne’s limp body.
A tremble worked through her from head to toe. Pain wracked her so violently she could barely breathe.
All at once, she no longer knew how to feel, how to be, who she was. She buried her face in her hands as emotions stormed inside.
She needed to feel something other than what she was feeling. She screamed into her palms. Screamed again and again and again as the anguish of what she had just done vibrated through her soul.
Theron’s arms enclosed around her. She pushed her face into his neck and sobbed.
“Murderer,” Marcus screamed. “You killed her! You killed her.”
His words echoed in her mind, made her body ache.
She was a murderer.
She killed Dionne.
She had done the one thing she swore she would never do.
She had broken her vow.
“You had no choice,” Theron whispered against her ear. “You had no choice.”
Chapter 49
Laughing echoed around the Great Room. It took long moments for the sound to cut through Zoe’s emotional anguish and physical pain. When Theron got to his feet, leaving her cold and shivering on the floor, she looked up to see why anyone in this moment would laugh.
Marcus stood there, his blue eyes bright with glee because he had the obliterator in his hand and the eternity blade between his teeth.
With one arm, he held the Obliterator out, trained on Theron’s head and with the other hand, he carefully slipped the spear from his teeth and slid it into a leather pouch at his hip.
Never had Zoe seen him look so ferocious. Blue veins crept along his white face. Dark reddish black rings were thick under his eyes.
Theron put his arms up slowly in front of him, palms out. “Haven’t we seen enough death today?”
Darian was watching wearily a short distance from Marcus. His eyes were wide, one leg forward in a half-stride as though ready to pounce. “Come on, Marcus. Let’s end this here. Agnes is dead. Dionne is dead …”
Like a springbok, Darian dived at Marcus, arms reaching for the weapon.
Marcus swivelled to face Darian and without a second’s hesitation, blasted the obliterator, so quickly, Zoe hadn’t noticed what had happened until Darian dropped to the floor, headless, smoke and steam snaking into the air.
Hot chunks of her stomach’s contents surged up her throat, a combination of shock and sorrow, horror and guilt, shame and every bad emotion she had been forced to feel today.
She vomited all over the floor in front of her, her broken ribs and face throbbing with each convulsion.
“Stay right there, Theron, or you’re next!” Marcus shouted.
Zoe caught her breath and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. When she peered back up at Marcus through watery eyes, the obliterator was aimed again at Theron.
“No!” She screamed as loudly as she could despite her gasping breaths and injuries. “This has nothing to do with Theron. I’m the one who killed Dionne. And I’m so sorry, I know you loved—”
Marcus laughed, his deep whooping guffaws circling the room like a squawking raven. “Spare me the emotional bullshit. You did me a favour. You saved me from having to get rid of the crazy bitch myself.”
She shook her head, lips parted. “What?”
“You sick fucker!” roared Theron.
Marcus laughed again, louder than before. “Did you honestly think I was going to listen to Dionne whinge and moan for a hundred years just so I could get rich?”
Zoe shared a glance with Theron—a look that said, ‘we really underestimated this guy’. And they had. If Marcus hadn’t wanted to get rich to gain power, then what?
Marcus swaggered closer, more relaxed now, though his arm was rigid, trigger finger ready. “Sure, that’s what I told Dionne. That we should get rich, steal the artefacts and take over Olympus. But that wasn’t ever going to work. Money doesn’t give power in this world. You should know that from Hades, Theron. All he ever earned was false worship from humans who wanted his riches. This isn’t Earth. I can’t buy my way to the top.”
“Then what?” Theron asked.
A creeping smile slanted across his mouth. “I want my immortality back. What is more powerful than a man who is indestructible? Nothing. No one. I will be greater than any god with your dwindling immortality. And you, Zoe, are going to help me do that.”
She shook her head. “I will never help you.” Not that she even knew how she could.
“I beg to differ. You
showed me your cards just now by killing Dionne. Little Miss Can’t-ever-break-her-vows just broke them. And broke them with a fucking bang! I now know your weakness, and I have my obliterator pointed square at his head. You see, Zoe, you will help because if you don’t, Theron will be obliterated. Just like his headless friends here.”
Zoe wanted to scream, to charge, to tell him he’s a fool, but he was right. She would do anything to keep Theron alive. Anything. And she hadn’t even known she had it in her until less than five minutes ago.
She glanced at Dionne’s limp remains and shuddered. Sick dread brewed in her guts for what she had done and for what Marcus was about to make her do.
“Now, get up,” Marcus said, “We’ve got work to do.”
◆◆◆
Huddled together in the boat, Zoe slumped against Theron. Her breaths were harsh but shallow, unable to draw a lungful without pain piercing though her chest.
She couldn’t keep herself upright. All her remaining strength had been depleted binding Theron in the golden chains while Marcus watched on, obliterator always aimed at Theron’s head.
The long steps down to the beach were torture. She shrunk away into the blackness of her mind as the pain became unbearable, and when she fainted, Theron only barely managed, with his hands bound, to catch her against his body before she could tumble to the ground metres below.
During their passage across the rivers, pain was a force within her. She drifted in and out of consciousness as the waters rolled the boat and reverberated through her broken ribs like a sledgehammer.
Theron sat rigidly beside her, anger storming through him so strongly Zoe could feel his body vibrating. Not for a moment did his anger cease; it grew as Zoe’s pain deepened.
She wanted to whisper to him to calm down, that she would figure something out, and, most of all, not to make any foolish moves, but she couldn’t think through the dark fog of agony coating every thought.
And, besides, Marcus’s attention on them both never wavered.
At last, the boat pulled up along the dark shores of a small island that sat somewhere between Olympus and edge of the River Styx. As the hull skirted along the sand and broken shells, Zoe groaned with pain. Even the slightest change in momentum caused her agony.
Her face was tight and hot, and it was difficult to see out of her swollen right eye.
“Get out,” Marcus ordered.
Zoe used Theron for a support as they alighted the boat. Feet on the sandy shore, she held onto his shoulder as she staggered beside him and followed Marcus toward an ancient building made of old hardwood and stone.
Rolling black shadows crept along the ground. Gnarled leafless trees scattered across the landscape, bent and out of shape like twisted torsos. The sky overhead was a mass of bruised clouds that hung low. The atmosphere was humid, suffocating.
“Befitting,” Theron snarled.
Marcus spun and marched to Theron. He lifted the obliterator and cracked it across Theron’s head—the crunching sound was sickening in the silence.
“Stop it!” Zoe screamed.
But Theron barely registered a change in his demeanour.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Marcus spat.
Theron glared at Marcus, not backing down despite the physical threats. “Untie me. Put down the obliterator. And let’s go at it, god to…servant.” His voice was firm and measured.
Marcus’s nostrils flared. “Ask me again when I’m indestructible.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything different from you. Never one for a fair fight. Why do you think the only job I’d trusted you with was navigating a boat? Anything else would be too much for your puny intelligence.”
“I could kill you now!” Marcus roared.
“Enough,” Zoe said. “Enough. This doesn’t achieve anything. Honestly, Marcus, I don’t even know how you expect me to make you immortal again. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Marcus shifted his gaze to her and smirked. “That’s where you’re wrong. Come. The quicker we can get this over with the sooner I can get you both out of my sight.”
Zoe shuddered. He may have said ‘out of sight’, but as soon as she had completed this task, he would kill her and Theron. What use would they be to him with his quest for overarching rulership?
“You forget who I am,” Theron said with a darkness Zoe had witnessed only once before. His words were almost tangible, full of dark foreboding.
Marcus stopped mid-stride and stilled. He had heard it too. After a moment, he spun to face Theron. “I haven’t forgotten. But there’s not too much you can do bound by those chains. Great work going to get them for me, by the way. You two have made this quest so much easier.”
“Let it be known, when the time is right, the first thing I will do is kill you,” Theron said in a deep, hostile tone.
Marcus took a step back. His tough veneer slipped for a fraction before he was able to put a wall up again. “What about your precious vows?”
“Vows only work when everyone is playing by the same rules. The rules have changed. Darkness is all I can see now and me shoving my vows down your throat.”
Marcus swallowed hard.
Zoe shuddered to hear the venom in Theron’s words. It took her back to darker times and as this memory stormed in her brain, it hurt her skull more than any of the others.
Zoe crouched in the darkened corner of the cave with Darian, Agnes, Dionne and Theron.
Overhead two deranged gods were blasting their way through the boulders and dirt and rubble placed over the entrance by their parents to keep them safe.
With each blast, the ground shook. With every inch closer, the children shrieked.
They each knew what their fate was if these gods penetrated their refuge—death.
And death was such a new thing in this realm, it created hand-trembling, mind-numbing terror.
They had heard stories of the obliterator, and its ability to wipe them out. They knew that even the original Olympians—Zeus, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis and so on—were no match for this new weapon.
Nothing existed that was more frightening than an infinity of nothingness.
And these gods were getting closer, sealing the children’s fate with every passing millisecond.
But then Theron leaped away from them and stood in the centre of the dark cave, illuminated by the flame of a single candle. “They will not get inside,” he rumbled from some dark place inside him. His threat was a force between the cave’s walls, and it moved within Zoe like rusty blades scratching at her bones.
How fierce Theron looked, though in a young body, as the shadows danced across his face. His eyes rolled back in his head and a turbulent wind rocketed around them. Moans and low mournful cries pierced the air.
The sound was unmistakable; it was the sound of the dead. Many dead.
Above them, she could hear scurrying like a thousand pin-legged spiders rampaging. Then the deep, fearful cries of men sounded. The shrieks and moans lasted a long minute until silence fell upon the cave once more.
The wind settled. Theron’s eyes relaxed in his sockets.
Only when the children were retrieved days later after the war was over did Zoe see what had happened to the intruders. All that was left of them were bones with few remaining chunks of flesh rotting in the harsh sun.
The bones still shuddered and rattled, for death had not yet arrived. And for all that she knew, it still hadn’t.
Theron’s words resonated within her. The rules had changed. The playing ground was no longer even.
To allow Marcus to get away with more deaths and more ruin would be dangerous. Marcus needed to be stopped by any means possible. The greater good required it.
And maybe that’s what it meant to be a god, to keep the peace and remain ethical, but when the stakes were this high, when her people here in Olympus and those on Earth were under threat, she had to stand up and take whatever measures were necessary to stop that threat.
She p
laced her hand on Theron’s shoulder, not as a gesture to stop, but as a gesture of support. Together, they had to take Marcus out and by any means necessary.
Chapter 50
“Enough of this macho bullshit. Get moving!” Marcus said, raising the obliterator and moving to stand behind Theron and Zoe.
He shoved it into Theron’s back, then Zoe’s. “Move!”
Pain ignited like fire to kindle as the hard metal ground into Zoe’s broken ribs, and she fell to her knees, panting. Little stars burned behind her eyes. She groaned with agony.
Theron crouched beside her, but she could barely see through the pain.
“Get up!” Marcus roared. “I don’t have time for this.”
“What do you expect? You broke her ribs then jab her in the fucking back. You’re more of a moron than I already gave you credit for.”
Marcus laughed, though it was strained. “You’re purposefully antagonising me. And I’m not sure why, but it’s not going to work. Get up on your feet. Both of you. Now!”
Zoe pressed her palms into the sand below and slowly dragged herself upright, needing to stop for breaths twice. It may take much more for a god to die than it did a human, but pain was felt the same. And time was still required to heal.
Theron strode on. Zoe shuffled beside him.
Marcus opened the door of the ancient structure and motioned they go inside.
Inside were rows of benches filled with tubes and beacons, pipettes and burners—a laboratory. An ancient chemical scent sat in the air.
Zoe’s lips parted and chest tightened as it dawned on her why they were here. She recalled the missing inventory items, one in particular—her great grandfather’s handwritten book of alchemy.
Did Marcus want Zoe to make him immortal by turning the gold coins, with all their memories, into life?
She felt for the coin inside the leather pouch around her neck. “For what is life in the end but the memories that one has lived,” she whispered.
Marcus laughed. “Sounds like we’re on the same page.”
After Life Page 30