by Bill Hiatt
Dark Zeus shouted. An arrow had hit him. Artemis’s arrow. She must have seen Hermes go down and was trying to take over as a distraction. I couldn’t imagine how she intended to last long against the thunderbolts of Zeus.
Suddenly, I felt much better.
“I’ve healed as much of the nerve damage as I can right now. Staying here to finish is risky. We should be able to move well enough to get over to Umbra and revive her.”
We became invisible. That wouldn’t hold up against our enemies, but if they weren’t actively looking for us, they might just miss us. We weren’t strong enough to manage much else.
Crawling slowly, we managed to reach Umbra’s side without attracting attention. She was pretty badly injured, too, but Magnus and I managed to heal the worst of it.
Another scream. Artemis must now be down. Once Dark Zeus finished pulling her arrows out of himself, he would turn and see my body was gone.
Umbra opened her eyes.
“Can you get us out of here, back to the others?” I thought to her. She couldn’t yet stand, but she managed to use the shadows beneath us to drop us through the floor of the throne room and into the Land of the Shades. Somehow we avoided breaking bones on the cavernous floor we fell against. Since no one could follow us, we could take a couple of minutes to heal Umbra enough for her to be able to move us back with the rest of our group.
With any luck, the battle might not be completely lost by that point.
When she had enough strength, she brought us out through a corner right behind where the bulk of our people were.
Things were looking desperate. The fighters defending against the skeletons were just barely standing, and the waves of attackers were still not slowing down. Between Poseidon and their own group of skeletons, Athena and Hades were getting the worst of it. Just as we reappeared, Poseidon drove the trident down on top of Hades’s staff with so much force the ground shook, and Hades only barely stayed on his feet.
Shar wasn’t with the fighters. Where was he? I spotted him, moving as if he were wounded, but still moving fast, toward the other side of the room, where Dark Zeus was momentarily distracted by looking for my body and not finding it.
I started to call out to him, but Magnus stopped me.
“He’s probably crazed over Khalid and won’t be of any use until he’s checked on him. He’s also the only one who could stand up to the thunderbolts long enough to take the attack to Dark Zeus. Someone has to keep Zeus busy now, so he doesn’t attack us.”
I couldn’t fault the strategic insight, but Shar alone against an elder Olympian’s power? Zom would only take a few blasts, and then Shar would be just as dead as—
I almost thought Just as dead as Khalid, but I stopped myself. Khalid had to be alive. He had to be.
Hermes was down. Artemis was down. Magnus told me Eros was down. None of them could die, though. They could be brought back, no matter how bad the injury.
Khalid was no Olympian. He was only a boy—a boy who shouldn’t have been here at all. Atlante’s words came back to haunt me.
I managed to stagger over to where Apollo was healing Lucas. No, not Lucas…at least not just Lucas.
“I was right about New Kid being powerful,” said Magnus. “Let’s help get him back on his feet.”
The group around Apollo was so focused they barely acknowledged us, though I could tell they were happy I wasn’t dead. They eagerly accepted my help—well, our help—but none of them knew Magnus was inside me yet.
“An Oricha!” said Magnus. “I encountered them in West Africa, but I’ve never seen one endow a human with his full power.”
Whoever was inside of Lucas looked at us as if he could hear Magnus, but he said nothing.
Actually, as we reintegrated with the network Apollo had managed to revive, everyone quickly became aware of Magnus, but there was no time for anyone to raise the obvious question.
I could hear thunderbolt strikes in the distance. I focused on Shar just enough to make sure he was all right. So far Zom’s protection was holding, and Shar, with murder in his heart, was almost upon Dark Zeus.
Lucas rose. “This will have to do,” he said in a voice not his own. I am needed.”
Apollo nodded. “If you are careful—”
“I go into combat. How careful do you expect me to be?” asked whoever Lucas was. Without waiting for an answer, he ran in the general direction of Dark Zeus, filling the air around him with static electricity as he went.
“Now let us heal you,” said Apollo.
“No, Khalid first,” I said. I had reached out with my mind and found him, still alive, but just barely. He must have dodged well enough to get only a small dose of what the thunderbolt had to offer.
“That will move us closer to Dark Zeus,” said Apollo warily.
“I will retrieve the boy,” said Umbra, who had finally made her way to us. She was clearly shaky, but she managed to walk through shadows again and return with him.
Apollo set to work on Khalid, and we looked around to see where we were needed.
Beyond the little zone our fighters were still keeping free of skeletons, everything still looked grim. The fighters themselves, even Hercules, were sagging, worn out by wounds and loss of blood and ichor. Poseidon was slowly making progress against Athena and Hades. The worst trouble spot, though, was clearly Dark Zeus.
“We can’t get too close,” cautioned Magnus. “Your body won’t take even being grazed by a thunderbolt.”
“We need to move a little closer, try to finish that spell,” I insisted.
Shar had collided with Dark Zeus and almost knocked him down, but the fake ruler of Olympus started parrying with a sword that seemed to be made out of lightning, a weapon that flickered only momentarily each time it struck Zom. Add to that the fact that Zeus was far stronger physically than Shar, and there was a good possibility Dark Zeus could beat him.
From what I could tell, Lucas should have been able to more than even the field, but he started slowing, hindered by his partially healed legs.
Unfortunately, Dark Zeus was no longer alone. Hecate, looking somewhat the worse for wear but clearly having defeated the shadow-assassin venom, was at his side, as was Nicneven, and both of them turned their full power against Lucas: a storm of mingled stone and ice that would have pulverized him quickly if he had not conjured lightning to deflect it. The one inside of him was indeed powerful, but the limitations of Lucas’s only partially healed body were getting in the way. If only there had been time to heal him completely.
Lucas glanced in my direction and thought, “I can deal with the women. Do what you can against the rival Thunderer, or that excellent warrior will die.”
I questioned Lucas’s—no, Magnus told me Changó was speaking—Changó’s assessment of the situation. He looked as if he was gradually losing ground. I could feel protection around him, but it didn’t seem strong enough to resist the combined magic of an Olympian and a faerie queen if his lightning failed him.
“Gym Rat is in more immediate danger, though, and even weak, we can pull off that spell,” pointed out Magnus, and I had to agree. We moved as close as we needed to be to make sure the spell would take, a shift which would end with us getting incinerated by a thunderbolt if Shar lost too fast, but we had no choice.
“You almost got there,” said Magnus, “and surprisingly the part you finished has not yet dissipated. We only need a minute or two to finish.”
Dark Zeus was strong, but Shar seemed to be more skillful. If he could hang on to Zom long enough, he might actually win, but every blow from Zeus’s sword nearly tore Zom from his hands, and more than once Shar nearly fell from the force of Zeus’s impact. Occasionally, Shar did manage to nick the bogus Olympian, though, and when we started casting, Dark Zeus became distracted, and Shar inflicted a couple of deeper wounds.
Dark Zeus knew what we were doing, but Shar wasn’t giving him room enough to attack us. However, the false ruler of Olympus managed to yell to Nicneven, who broke off her
attack on Lucas to start spraying us with flesh-shredding ice.
Had I kept Magnus out earlier, we would have lost. As it was, he kept casting the spell against Dark Zeus, and I used White Hilt’s flame to counteract Nicneven’s ice attack. I could not maintain the power level I needed to do that very long, but if Magnus succeeded, I wouldn’t have to.
“Done!” announced Magnus. Then he diverted his energy into helping me maintain the fire, though working from a partially healed body almost certainly meant that Nicneven would overpower us before long.
Dark Zeus hadn’t disappeared yet, and now he was fully focused again on Shar, who again started losing.
“Shar, it should be only a short time before Dark Zeus is gone,” Magnus told him. Fighting for his life, Shar didn’t respond, but I hoped knowing he only needed to keep going a little longer might help get him through.
“Campe comes!” yelled Hades, probably to me, but everyone else heard.
“She is the guardian of Tartarus,” he said when I didn’t respond.
“She’s coming to help?” I asked, though the alarmed tone of Hades’s thoughts should have answered that question for me.
“From what I can tell, she means to attack.”
“Why would she attack us?”
Hades sighed mentally. “She is confused. I think she has realized that Cronus and Hecate have escaped. Perhaps she can smell their blood.”
“From all the way down in Tartarus?” asked Magnus.
“Her senses are as keen as her attacks are powerful,” Hades replied, sounding as grim as I had ever heard him.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “We are fighting against Cronus and Hecate. Why would Campe attack us?”
“As I told you, she is confused. It may be the absence of Zeus and the fact that Olympians seem to be fighting each other. Whatever the cause, from what I can tell, she seems determined not only to recapture her prisoners but destroy anyone else she finds here—and I cannot get her to obey me.”
“Powerful, you say?” Magnus asked.
“The guardian of Tartarus has to be powerful enough to defeat an escaped Titan if needed. Only Zeus has ever defeated her.”
Great! So even if we beat the adversaries that were pretty close to wiping the floor with us, we would get to face one too powerful to beat.
“Blood of Zeus!” I thought.
“That your idea of cursing?” asked Magnus.
“No, we need to find the blood of Zeus. There must be some nearby, right? Hecate wouldn’t risk keeping the real Zeus on Olympus, and Dark Zeus would need to recharge periodically.”
“You want—”
“If only Zeus can beat Campe, then we need Zeus. I know if we find the blood, you can do the spell, right?”
“If we can find the blood, and if everybody else can keep attackers off us for a while—quite a while. That spell can take half an hour.”
“I’ll keep our defense against Nicneven up while you search for the blood,” I told him.
OK, so it was a desperate plan. Even if everything worked perfectly, we’d barely have time—and working perfectly meant Dark Zeus disappearing, as well as defeating Hecate, Nicneven, Poseidon, and all those skeletons—oh, and doing that all with wounded fighters, some of them barely on their feet.
The problem was that it might be the only option we had.
Nicneven’s ice was getting closer and closer, and White Hilt felt heavy in my hand. At this rate, I wouldn’t be standing long enough to even try the plan.
Then we got our first real break. Dark Zeus cried out and dissolved, leaving behind some poor dupe of Hecate who fled rather than face Shar. Shar then turned toward Nicneven, and even in his weakened condition, he could certainly wound her with Zom, probably disrupting her magic and giving me the upper hand.
Unfortunately, Nicneven knew enough about us to realize the same thing, and she had no intention of getting caught between Shar and me. Dropping the ice attack and dodging my flames, she started running faster than the nearly exhausted Shar could manage. I was too shaky to target her again quickly or even get a shot that close to a rapidly moving target. She kept going until she got to about the point at which the skeletons were originating, and then she quickly had a row of skeleton fighters in front of her that blocked Shar. Once she could stop running, she started streaming ice at us again.
“Found it!” said Magnus.
I contacted Apollo, who had gotten Khalid out of danger, and he agreed to move himself into position to keep Nicneven busy, mostly because I had to be free of the need to keep up the fire barrage. Apollo’s talents as a healer were needed, too, especially now that the fighters were again on the verge of collapse—but if I didn’t get to that special ichor fast enough, we would all die as soon as Campe arrived.
First, though, I had to relieve Lucas, who had been holding his own once he faced Hecate alone. I needed more than deadlock, though; I needed him to crush her, so he could help out with Nicneven, Poseidon, and the skeletons. In order for Magnus to have a chance of turning us into Zeus, we needed to end the rest of the battle—and quickly!
Feeling drained as I was, I still managed to hit Hecate with fire from behind. She was caught between us and Lucas, and I expected her to fall. She put up a surprisingly good fight, but clearly the poison had weakened her, and soon enough she was hit simultaneously by fire and lightning. She screamed and crumbled to the floor, charred and unconscious.
Changó try to run and ended up hobbling in the general direction of Nicneven. He was tiring, so I retasked Apollo. Better at the lyre of Orpheus, which was created partly by Apollo’s blessing in the first place, and assisted by the muses, he started churning up power and feeding it to Changó, who used it to hit Nicneven. She would not be able to hold out for long.
Now that the tide of battle was actually starting to favor us, Magnus and I raced over to the throne of Zeus, under which we found the blood. Hecate, once again a victim of pride, had not thought to guard it magically.
“This spell doesn’t require huge amounts of power, but it takes intense concentration,” thought Magnus. “I’ll have to submerge myself in it completely. You stay alert, and contact the others if any adversaries get too close, but try not to fight them yourself. You might disrupt what I’m doing.”
He used my hands to gesture, drawing a drop of blood from the supply and beginning to weave the magic into it.
While he was occupied, he kept my physical eyes on the blood, but I could look around mentally, so I monitored the battle as best I could.
Nicneven must have already fallen, and Changó had turned his lightning upon the skull talisman he determined was the source of the skeletons. Nicneven had betrayed its location by running over to it, and a few blasts destroyed it, after which the guys attacked the remaining skeletons with renewed hope, making short work of them.
In the meantime, Changó had turned his electrical wrath upon Poseidon, who had managed to fell Athena and had nearly beaten Hades. Caught between Hades and Changó, however, Poseidon fell in minutes.
Unbelievably, we had won—at least for the moment.
Apollo bustled over to heal me, but I waved him off.
“If this spell works, I’ll have a different, unwounded body anyway,” I told him. “Use your powers to heal the others.”
Everyone who was able served as a power source while Apollo went into a frenzy of healing, first the mortals, then the Olympians, including the fallen.
“How close is Campe?” I asked Hades, who seemed to be able to locate her at all times.
“No more than ten of your minutes away,” he replied.
“How long?” I asked Magnus.
“Longer than we have, apparently,” replied Magnus.
The others helped as best they could. Now that the worst wounds had been healed, some of the accumulated energy of the group could go into Magnus’s spell, enabling him to work faster. Hestia relighted the sacred hearth fire, though the Olympians agreed that even though t
hat might slow Campe, it would not stop her from entering.
Hermes, somewhat restored by Apollo, locked the great doors leading into the throne room and put on them what magic he could, but he, too, conceded that his work would at best only slow Campe down.
The Olympians and the guys began to arrange themselves in such a way that they could fight Campe if needed. By now everyone knew the plan and knew that, if Campe disrupted what Magnus was doing, we might have no chance of winning.
I could hear a certain amount of argument, but in the end the Olympians demanded and got all the front positions. “We cannot die; you can. It is that simple,” insisted Athena.
Apollo had everyone able to stand and hold a weapon, but he hadn’t had time to fully heal the wounded. Even under ideal conditions, they would have had a hard time holding Campe for long, but these conditions were far from ideal.
The ground began to shake as the monster approached.
“How long?” I asked again.
“Too long,” replied Magnus. His half-hour estimate had been appallingly generous.
It was then I remembered that Robin Goodfellow had more experience with the spell than Magnus. I tried to call him over, but he, knowing Magnus was inside me, refused to get any closer than the far side of the room. Given that Magnus had held Robin prisoner in his own body for months, I couldn’t really blame the faerie, but we could have used his help.
The shaking was getting progressively worse. I helped Magnus block out the distraction and kept his focus all on the spell.
I heard a great pounding, then the sound of the massive metal doors giving way, then the thud as they were tossed aside as if they were as light as Styrofoam.
A roar shook the entire room, big as it was.
Campe had arrived—and we were still not ready.
Chapter 23: End Boss Fight? (Michael)
I didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of Eva, but I couldn’t imagine how a guy could be as scared as I was and not just pass out. Maybe I’d been scared for so long I was getting numb.
Then there was all the pain. Yeah, I healed fast, but I felt a sword cutting through my flesh just like anyone would.
