Hera, Queen of Gods (Goddess Unbound)

by Thomas, T. D.

  “But what about her magick?” Artemis asked.

  “If we’re going to take on Ekhidna and an army of pythons, there won’t be time for the prep work magick needs,” I replied. “We need someone with powers. Like us.”

  “Understood,” Artemis said.

  “You two stand guard,” I told them. “The pythons could be back any second, and the ritual can’t be interrupted.”

  I nodded at Hermes and Demeter. They laid Sarah down in the middle of the living room and joined hands around her.

  Artemis handed me a knife, as she and Apollo headed to the door. She always knew what I needed. I joined Hermes and Demeter, put the knife on the ground, and held their hands.

  We began to chant, and I could feel the divine power building. It sang in my veins. Eager. Writhing. Almost alive. Longing to be free.

  The power swelled to bursting. As the energy peaked, I brought Hermes’s and Demeter’s hands together and left the circle. They’d keep the energy contained while I did the rest.

  I picked up the knife. I walked around the circle and nicked Hermes’s and Demeter’s palms. Caught in the ecstasy of the ritual, they didn’t even notice. I sliced my own palms, ignoring the pain. Chanting, I rejoined the circle, slipping my hands into Hermes’s and Demeter’s. Together, we built the power. More and more. Higher and higher.

  When the power was at its greatest, I left Demeter and Hermes again, taking the knife and joining Sarah in the middle of the circle.

  “I can feel it,” she whispered to me as I knelt down beside her, her eyes wide with terror and awe. “It’s like--”

  “I know,” I murmured.

  There was no more time. What I had to do now, I had to do as quickly as possible. There was no room for mistakes.

  “I’m ready,” Sarah told me.

  I nodded. I took a deep breath. And then I plunged the knife into her heart.

  Sarah gasped. I caught her in my arms and pressed my bleeding palms on either side of the wound, one on her front, one on her back.

  “Now!” I cried.

  Hermes and Demeter kept chanting. They were lost in the ritual, deaf to the world.

  “Now!” I repeated.

  They still weren’t listening.

  “Now!” I cried desperately.

  Sarah was bleeding profusely, and the divine power in my blood wouldn’t sustain her much longer.

  Then, as one, Demeter and Hermes stopped chanting, though the chant continued, carried by unseen voices. Demeter and Hermes opened their mouths and inhaled. The towering maelstrom of energy we’d created split in two like a tree struck by lightning. One half crashed into Demeter and the other into Hermes. They fell to their knees.

  “Quickly,” I yelled. Sarah’s life was ebbing away faster than my power was replenishing it.

  Hermes clawed his way along the floor, his body trembling and spasming. I wanted to grab him and pull him to Sarah, but I didn’t dare break my hold on her; I was a silken thread tethering her tenuously to life.

  Finally, he reached her, his body wracked with the pain of trying to contain so much divine power. With remarkable gentleness, he laid his lips on hers. Sarah convulsed like she was being electrocuted. I felt the energy blaze through her. There was a blinding flash of light. I turned away.

  As soon as Hermes pulled back, Demeter took his place, lips against Sarah’s. Electrocution. Roar. Flash.

  We all collapsed on the ground. Golden light streamed from Sarah’s wound. Slowly, her body lifted from the floor.

  “Pythons!” Artemis shouted.

  There was a massive slam against the apartment door, and the wood began to buckle. Claws burst through and began to tear out chunks of the splintering door.

  Artemis and Apollo slashed at the claws with knives they’d taken from the kitchen. There were shrieks of pain, and the clawed hands withdrew. But the pounding continued; the pythons would break through in a few seconds.

  “Don’t let them reach Sarah,” Demeter said weakly. She was struggling to get to her feet. Hermes was doing little better.

  Neither was I. We’d poured as much as we could into Sarah. That was the key to the ritual: emptying her as much as possible of her mortal life and transfusing our divine energy into her. It’d take time for us to recover.

  Time we didn’t have.

  If only Zeus were here. Or Athena. Or Justin. But they weren’t. We were on our own.

  I had a desperate idea. I stumbled back to the bedroom and into the closet. The sounds of battle began behind me. The pythons had broken in.

  I flung aside clothes and shoes. I knew what I was looking for. It had to be here. I had seen it.

  A roar. Pythons don’t roar. Artemis. She had shifted form.

  There. I knew the moment I touched it. It sent out a shock that made me jerk back, surprised.

  I grabbed the spellbook. I made it to the living room in time to see Artemis, now a massive grizzly bear, smash a python into the wall with a crushing swipe. Her jaws snapped at another, who barely managed to duck and escape certain death.

  But there were at least five pythons, and only one Artemis. Already, one was wrapping its coils around her hind legs to bring her down.

  Apollo saw what the python was up to and leapt on it, knives slicing again and again. But the wounds he inflicted were mostly superficial; python scales were tough as armour.

  More pythons stood in the doorway, blocked by Artemis. The twins were trying to use the entry as a chokepoint. But it wouldn’t hold.

  Hermes and Demeter were finally on their feet. Barely. Hermes tried to line up a knife to hurl--but with the intense struggle going on, it was impossible to get a clear shot.

  To my surprise, the pythons suddenly pulled back from the doorway. For a second, I thought we’d actually managed to drive them off. But then they flung themselves at Artemis, using their bodies as a battering ram to knock her out of the doorway. With a yelp of pain, Artemis skidded several feet, and the pythons swarmed inside.

  Apollo leapt into the middle of the pythons before they could tear Artemis apart. He swung wildly, trying desperately to attract their attention. He’d die without a second thought to save his sister, but it wouldn’t matter; at best, he’d only buy her seconds. Then she’d be next.

  Hermes and Demeter rushed forward to help him. But neither was in any condition to fight. They were still too drained. Hermes slashed a python in the throat, and Demeter snapped her whip at another python’s face. But it wasn’t enough. Just momentary distractions. The pythons would soon slaughter them all. Right in front of my eyes.

  I slammed the spellbook on the ground.

  “Show me!” I screamed.

  My divine power was gone. I’d given it all to Sarah. But Sarah’s power remained. In me. My blood had flowed into her, and hers into me. It was an echo, a residue, nothing more. But it might be enough. It had to be enough.

  The pythons had pinned Artemis, one was coiled around Apollo, and another had cornered Hermes and Demeter. It was closing in, claws ready to shred them, just like Stella.

  But the book heard Sarah in my voice. It flew open, pages flipping madly, so fast they were a blur. And when they stopped, I jammed my hands against the pages as hard as I could. The blood from my palms flowed onto the pages, into the words and the symbols, tracing every line and stroke. My blood. And Sarah’s. Our blood silently sang each word in a language older than language. Every beat of my heart chanted it; every pulse screamed my will to the cosmos.

  It was witchcraft, not divinity. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether it worked.

  It did.

  A terrible howling reverberated all around us, shaking the walls. But in the heat of battle, no one else even noticed.

  A python had my sister by the throat. If this spell didn’t work soon, she’d be the first to pay the price. I would’ve killed my own sister.

  But the python dropped her. She fell to the floor, gasping for air. Hermes tried to drag her back from the ba
ttle, but he could barely move her. He was still too weak.

  The python howled, the same howl that had ripped through the apartment. Then it flung itself at the python squeezing Apollo, knocking Apollo free. He fell to the ground, panting but alive. I could feel Artemis’s relief--she’d been helplessly watching her twin brother die inches away from her.

  The howling python clawed again and again, driven by a fury I’d summoned from beyond, but the other pythons abandoned Artemis and turned on the traitor. He was dead in seconds.

  The spell had granted us a reprieve, but it was painfully brief.

  Artemis was back in mortal form, too drained to maintain the shape of a bear. Limping, she grabbed Apollo, and together, they stumbled back toward me. At the same time, Hermes finally managed to drag Demeter back to regroup with us.

  But the echo of Sarah’s power was gone. I’d had one spell in me, and it’d been cast. We were still outnumbered and overwhelmed. It was over. The pythons knew it, and we knew it.

  Demeter took my hand and squeezed it.

  Then the pythons came for us.

  “No.”

  The pythons smashed into a shimmering wall of light that erupted from the floor a few feet in front of us. Enraged and surprised, they clawed at the barrier. They managed to tear tiny holes in the light, but the curtain of energy quickly repaired itself.

  Sarah’s eyes snapped open. She lifted a hand. The barrier flared and, then with a sweep of her arm, it slammed the pythons against the doorway and pinned them there. They shrieked in pain and fury and panic.

  The pillar of golden light shining from Sarah’s chest vanished, and she floated down to the ground. As she came toward us, she stumbled, and the wall failed.

  The pythons charged at her, screaming.

  But Sarah was faster. She raised her hand, and the wall reappeared, blocking the pythons a foot away.

  She was trembling. It was too soon for her to be drawing on her new powers. And when she failed, her wall would collapse, and we’d die.

  But for now, we were safe. Safe, but also trapped.

  Sarah collapsed in Artemis’s arms as she reached us. She was exhausted. Blood flowed from her nose and ears. She coughed. More blood.

  She was already dying.

  “Ideas?” I asked.

  I tried to guess how much time we had. The pythons were mercilessly tearing at the barrier. Every blow pummeled Sarah’s fragile mind. She couldn’t have much power left.

  “The pythons are blocking the door, and we’re too high up to go out the window,” Hermes said.

  “And we’re too weak to fight,” Apollo added, as he healed his sister. He was running out of power too. Too many injuries to heal and no time to rest.

  We couldn’t run. We couldn’t fight. There were no options left.

  “There’s Justin,” Demeter murmured.

  “Justin’s gone,” I replied.

  “But he could come back,” she insisted.

  “No, he can’t, ” I told her. “His powers have consumed him. I saw it. He’s gone.”

  “There might still be a part of him left,” Demeter argued.

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Hera, I know you don’t want to hear this, but since we’re probably going to die anyway . . .” Hermes said. “Justin’s in love with you. He’s risked his life for you. He’s saved you over and over again. He’d do anything for you. If you ask, maybe he’ll remember that and save you again. Save us all.”

  “If there’s any way that he feels . . . connected to you, you have to try,” Demeter begged. “It’s our only chance, Hera.”

  In that moment, I hated her. I hated them both. I wasn’t Zeus. I didn’t seduce mortals for my own amusement or twist their feelings to make them my tools. But I wouldn’t let my family die. Not for anything. Not even for my pride.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Hurry . . .” Sarah gasped.

  She was curled on the floor. Tears ran freely from her eyes, mingling with the blood on her face.

  “Just . . . reach out to him,” Demeter suggested vaguely.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

  But I didn’t have any better ideas. And doing something, anything, felt better than doing nothing and waiting to be eviscerated by pythons.

  I shut my eyes. I tried to block out the shrieking pythons, the sound of them tearing into the barrier and Sarah’s vulnerable mind. I retreated inside myself.

  Justin, I thought.

  It seemed so stupid, thinking to myself as if I were talking to him.

  Justin, I repeated.

  No response. I was wasting my last moments making a fool of myself.

  Justin! I shouted angrily in my mind. If they’re right, if you do . . . love me, then save me!

  Still nothing. I sighed. Another failure. I opened my eyes.

  And then.

  Something. A brush. Feather-light. Tentative, almost shy, but familiar.

  “Hera,” Demeter said. She was staring behind me.

  I turned.

  Unnaturally pale skin. Ebony hair. Glowing crimson eyes. Face frozen like a statue. And the unmistakable aura of power. Dark power.

  “Justin?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  You called. Justin spoke directly to my mind, like talking was alien to him. Or perhaps beneath him.

  This wasn’t Justin. It was something else. Something I couldn’t name. Not a mortal. Not a god. Just . . . else.

  The pythons, I replied.

  Justin cocked his head at me. His eyes were entirely crimson with only the faintest flecks of brown, the barest hints of humanity.

  Something else was wrong too. Very wrong. Justin was flickering. Literally. In and out of the mortal world. There and not there. Fading and reappearing.

  As I watched, he vanished again, this time reappearing in front of the pythons. They threw themselves against the barrier in an even greater frenzy, desperately trying to tear through and kill him. He watched, impassive.

  Sarah screamed.

  “Do something!” I yelled desperately. “They’re killing her!”

  Justin flickered, materializing only inches away from me. He seemed completely indifferent to Sarah’s agony, to everything around him, even to me. Like it was all some kind of dream. Maybe to him it was.

  Then I noticed something. Something I’d missed before. Justin’s hands were gone. When he flickered, they didn’t flicker back, and even as I watched, his forearms were disappearing. Inch by inch. Piece by piece. Every time he flickered, a little less of him came back. Justin was dissolving.

  But I couldn’t worry about that yet. First things first.

  Get rid of the pythons! I said. Send them to the Dreamlands! Hurry!

  Sarah screamed again.

  Justin cocked his head.

  Now! I shouted.

  He flickered, and the pythons vanished. They just . . . vanished. As if it was nothing to him. Completely effortless. Just like that, he’d saved us all.

  With the pythons gone, Sarah finally relaxed. But so much damage had been done already.

  Worse yet, now I had to deal with what was happening to Justin. I knew pythons. But this new, powerful, inhuman thing that looked like Justin? I had no idea. But I had to try. He, or it, had saved me. Again.

  “Justin,” I said, “you have to stop using your powers.”

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t move a muscle.

  “It’s killing you,” I continued. “It’s literally erasing you from existence.”

  “Hera--” Demeter began.

  “It’s eating you alive!” I shouted. I might as well have been shouting at a brick wall.

  “You won’t get him back that way,” Demeter said. “He won’t listen to reason. He doesn’t think like us anymore. He’s too far gone. He belongs to a different world now.”

  “I won’t give up!” I replied. “He’s not dead yet!”

  “Death is for mortals,” Justin replied with eerie calm.


  “You are mortal!” I snapped.

  Justin flickered. And I was no longer in the apartment.

  We were standing on the same rocky spire where he’d taken me after witnessing Stella’s murder. But this time, the waves seemed even higher, and there was barely enough room on the spire for both of us. It was slowly crumbling into the raging sea around us.

  This place was it. The centre of his power.

  “Justin, listen to me! I’m trying to save you!” I said.

  “Save me?” he echoed. “Save me?”

  He laughed.

  “I’m beyond saving!” he shouted. “I’m beyond everything! I am power itself!”

  Thunder crashed above us. Lighting slashed the sky. More and more of the spire was crumbling away. I was running out of time.

  “Justin!” I said, trying to yell above the storm raging around us. “Justin! Power isn’t everything!”

  The buffeting wind. The blinding lightning. The slickness of the rocky ground, soaked by the pounding waves. I wasn’t sure how or why. But I fell.

  I toppled over the edge of the spire. It was like everything moved in terrible slowness for a moment, as if time stretched so I could fully realize with cruel clarity exactly what was happening and how powerless I was to stop it.

  My mind flashed back to when Justin and I sat side-by-side, watching Zeus dying. I could hear Justin’s voice.

  “What happens if Zeus . . . doesn’t make it? I mean, the Dreamlands aren’t real, right?”

  “They’re real enough,” I said softly. “The Dreamlands is a reality, just like any other. Best case scenario: he dies here, and his mind dies too. Everything that makes him real, everything that makes him who he is, will die here, too. There will be nothing left to wake up.”

  I screamed.

  And then Justin was there, his face inches away from mine. It was horrifying to be this close to a face I no longer recognized, a face that had become a horrible, uncaring mask.

  But I wasn’t falling anymore. Justin’s arms were around my waist, solid as iron. My lifeline.

  We appeared back on the spire. I collapsed, gasping. The fury of the storm was fading. It was moving away. The worst was over.

  Justin fell down beside me. The crimson was fading from his eyes.