“That bastard used a silver knife dipped in holy water”, Sam said, a cough rattling his whole body. “It’s poisoning me from the inside.”
He winced.
“I am sorry”, Cassandra said, croaking and trying to sit up straight so she could see what the noise down from the water was.
“Damn it”, she said when she saw that Scylla was already making her way up again.
Sam gave the shadow of one of his toothy grins.
“Yeah, she is almost as hard to kill as you”, he said and coughed again.
This time, he was spitting up black matter; it wasn’t hard to guess that it was his blood but when Cassandra offered him Ambrosia, he shook his head.
“It’s not for me”, he said and his fear of dying was almost palpable.
“We need to stop Mia” Cassandra said, standing up and testing whether her shoulder would hold her weight but she couldn’t even lift her left arm above the level of her hip without wanting to scream. “They must have realized by now that she is the one controlling Scylla.”
Sam had managed to make himself stand beside her.
“Get me up there”, Cassandra said but he shook his head.
“I am too weak”, Sam said, gritting his teeth and then shaking himself from her grip. “I can’t help you.”
“Then why are you even here if you are just going to leave me here to rot?” Cassandra cried.
It was getting pretty noisy again with Scylla roaring next to them.
“Wasn’t my decision”, Sam growled. “He told me to save you. And now I am wasting the last of my strength on someone who can’t even evade a tentacle. You are alive, I have kept my promise, I need to help my brother now.”
And with that he crawled up the wall with surprising speed. Cassandra howled in frustration and then risked a quick look down to see whether she could chance a jump but the water was too far away. At the same time she saw that there was much more movement down there than she would originally have thought possible after the two huge waves had hit the beach earlier. But there were still too many who lay lifeless or were being resuscitated and the Nereids kept diving for those who hadn’t been found yet.
Cassandra closed her eyes in grief and frustration and then she had an idea.
“I know you can hear me”, she cried after Sam who had almost reached the edge. “Use the rope with which Alexander was carried here. Or tell someone else to do it. Please. I need to get up there as well.”
She had no idea whether Sam would do as she had asked and when a minute passed with nothing happening, she guessed he hadn’t heard her after all. Then something thumped down beside her. Sam’s face reappeared shortly over the edge, then the rope started dancing. Cassandra tugged at it once to let him know that she had understood.
It took her several tries to get it in position. Eventually she had a makeshift knot bound around her waist, praying to the gods that it would hold her for as long as she needed to get up there. She pulled on the rope to indicate that she was ready and felt herself lifted up. After only a moment, the rope started to loosen, just like she had feared. She held on as tightly as she could with her good arm and somehow made it to the top.
She was drawn over the edge just when her strength started to fail her and for a moment she just lay there, panting, devoid of any power or strength, unable to move, or fight or care.
From the corner of her eye she saw Heracles and Hippolyta fighting Scylla. They looked pale and shaken and neither of them had much strength left in them while they had barely made an impression on Scylla.
Mia was still chanting and if Cassandra hadn’t known it was Arissa standing behind her, she would have thought it was a mummy who had taken her place. Arissa looked shrunken, completely drained and if it hadn’t been for the eerie white glow in her eyes, Cassandra would have been sure she was dead. Cassandra felt an immense power pulsating off of them but it was hard to tell whether it was coming from the girls or from the Pipe or from the combination of all three.
Sam was leaning against a rock, sitting upright. The only indication that he was still alive was his head that was swaying slightly from left to right. He had pulled her up and it had cost him the last of his strength. She called out to him but he didn’t react. Black pus was oozing from the wound at his neck and then she saw that Ben and Bear were still fighting.
Bear had pushed Ben back into the corner where Heracles had put Alexander so that he would be safe from Scylla. But it wasn’t Scylla going for Alexander, it was Bear and all that was standing between the son of Zeus and the huge son of Hephaestus was Ben who could barely lift his right arm anymore and was fighting with his left only.
Alexander, who was conscious again, had propped himself into a standing position against the rocks and kept shouting at Bear to stop. Every time he said something, Bear hesitated but then he continued as if he had no choice. Bear was bleeding from his nose, ears and eyes and he was even sweating blood but still he wouldn’t stop.
Ben needed help but Cassandra knew that they needed to stop Scylla before she killed them all. She threw a quick look around and saw Zeus’s and Hera’s projections still watching from above, Zeus in distress, Hera with cool disinterest. Cassandra suddenly hated her with all her might.
“Why aren’t you helping us?” Cassandra screamed in wild desperation. “Don’t you see that we are all dying here? Why aren’t you doing anything?”
Hera wrinkled her nose in disgust but when her eyes met Cassandra’s she felt her own iron-hot wrath not nearly match the ice-cold hatred of the goddess.
“We don’t meddle in the affairs of our children”, Hera said and Cassandra felt a lump of ice form in her stomach.
Hera hated them, all of them. Even those she could have considered her own. But maybe that was the problem. Hera had never had any half-blood children. She had no connection to those creatures down here on earth, no compassion for them, felt no interest in their lives and certainly no love for them. Zeus, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He obviously loved his son very much.
“We can’t help you but it is about time we send someone who can”, Zeus cried, throwing an angry look at his wife. “
As if in reply to this, Scylla reared her ugly head, roaring. And suddenly a horribly maimed Medusa came slithering up from behind. She had been blinded, her eyes terrible unseeing empty sockets and her hair had been cut off so close to the head that it had left ugly, oozing spots where her snake hair had been.
Cassandra remembered that Heracles had said that she wouldn’t be punished for what had happened to River but maybe they had revised their judgment; why she would still help them in their distress was for another day to find out. Medusa, sniffing the air, hissed and then stretched out her metal claws, ramming them into Scylla’s lower body where the dog part was. Two of the three dogs looked like they were dead by the time Medusa was finished with them and if her roar had been loud before, it now became deafening.
Scylla shook her head and dragged herself forward on her aching, bleeding stomach, her tentacles slashing through the air uncontrollably.
Cassandra gritted her teeth and told herself to get up again. She started towards Mia but kept slipping and then she fell. She landed on her hurting shoulder and almost passed out from the pain once again.
“I wouldn’t touch her if I were you”, Charlie suddenly croaked beside her.
Cassandra grabbed him and drew him towards her.
“What are you doing here?” Cassandra cried, and then realized that he might be their only chance.
“You need to turn”, Cassandra said and Charlie looked at her as if she was crazy. “You need to be who you really are, Charlie, please.”
But Charlie, who still looked terribly ill, gave a burp and then simply passed out beside her.
Cassandra felt like throttling him but drew herself towards Mia instead. What had she expected, really. He was useless and she should have known it. Heracles got smashed into a rock not too far away from her an
d Cassandra felt desperation rise. Hippolyta could barely hold herself upright anymore and even Medusa looked like she had almost exhausted her strength.
At the same time Bear was gaining ground on Ben and Cassandra knew they were going to lose this battle.
“What are you doing?” Charlie cried, suddenly holding on to her leg. “You will never survive this. Release me and I will help you.”
He said it like it should mean something to her but it didn’t. She tried to make him let go but he was stronger than she had thought. She screamed at him to leave her alone and suddenly the world stopped turning.
Cassandra looked around. The world seemed to be frozen into a terrible tableau of war where no one but her seemed to be able to be moving.
She looked up and saw that Zeus was holding up his hand and staring in horror at his son. Cassandra followed his gaze and saw that Bear had fallen to his knees and was holding on to something on his chest, like it could save him but he was beyond help now.
Bear’s last act on earth had been to release a knife that was now flying towards Alexander. The knife, too, was frozen in time for the moment but as soon as time would come back, the knife would pierce straight through Alexander’s heart and Ben wouldn’t be able to prevent it. When she wanted to move, Zeus shook his head.
“Not yet, child of my child”, he said. “It’s not time yet.”
Cassandra wanted to scream at him, wanted to tell him that he was as useless as everybody else but then she saw the love in his eyes, the desperate wish that he could be down there and have the knife pierce through him and knew that it wasn’t his fault.
“You need to release me, father, I can help them.”, Charlie cried frantically.
“You know I can’t do that”, Zeus answered and Charlie fell to his knees, begging.
“You demoted me. You cursed me to become human. To suffer for what I did to Artemis and Athena. You said that I would suffer as long as that terrible night wasn’t redeemed. But you never told me how I could redeem myself. You have stuck me in this damn university for almost twenty years now and I get it. I do. I was a bad boy. Naughty, really. And I am sorry. Truly. But how shall I redeem myself if I don’t get to save them today?”
Cassandra bared her teeth. It was all true what she had seen in her flashback vision. It had been him who had mixed something into Artemis’ and Athena’s drinks and it was his fault that the two goddesses had gotten pregnant after that fateful evening. It was all because of Charlie. Charlie who wasn’t Charlie after all and who wasn’t a simple descendant of the gods. He was the real thing: Dionysus, the god of wine and merry making and ecstasy.
“You haven’t changed one bit, son”, Zeus said derisively. “Still whining instead of doing something, of finally manning up and be responsible for yourself. I can’t even bear to look at you.”
Charlie tried to hide his hurt behind a flippant comment but Cassandra had seen the crack in his façade. It hadn’t been much, but maybe there was hope after all. She remembered how Charlie had stayed with her when she was sick, how he had taken care of Jim long before they had come here. He hadn’t always been the nicest of people, but he had given her good advice and he had helped her become who she wanted to be. There hadn’t been any deviousness in his behavior then and she knew that this was the Charlie she had come to like, not the one standing before her and his father now.
“What did you mean when you said I should release you?” Cassandra asked.
She almost felt sorry for Charlie when she saw the hope in his eyes: He wanted this to be over almost as much as she did.
“I was cursed to be human until I was relieved of my guilt”, Charlie said, starting to get up and focusing entirely on Cassandra. “Only two people on this earth can do that.”
Me and Jim, Cassandra thought and suddenly remembered her nightmares from four months ago in which she had dreamt that Charlie would be swallowed alive and that she would be too late to save Alexander.
“All right”, Cassandra started and Charlie raised himself to his full height. “I…”
“Wait”, Zeus cried and Charlie stomped his foot in frustration.
“What is it?” Charlie hissed. “She is about to release me, so shut up.”
But Zeus didn’t seem to hear him. He was entirely focused on the knife flying towards his son.
“Hera said that we don’t meddle in the affairs of our children”, Zeus said slowly, stretching out his hand as if he could stop the deadly weapon. “But that is not true. We meddle with their beginnings when we fall in love with human women and abandon them. We meddle with their upbringing when we decide whether we take them in as our own or abandon them into the orphanages. We meddle with the decision of who they are to love, who to marry and we never stop. Because we are parents and that’s what we do. You will understand one day.”
Cassandra had no idea whether that was true but he was talking more to himself than to her anyway.
“Will you be fast enough once I turn time back on?” he said and Cassandra looked at the knife about to pierce through Alexander’s heart.
Then she nodded, slowly, because she knew there was no other way.
Zeus threw another longing look at his son.
“Save him”, Zeus said and Cassandra stared at Alexander, hoping that he would forgive her for what she was about to do. “It’s the only reason you exist, Cassandra.”
And with that time started running again.
24 Dying
Time had started running again but it was still in slow motion, like it needed a moment to accelerate. Cassandra judged the distance between herself and her target and guessed that she would maybe have another thirty seconds left. Then she cried out for Charlie. Her friend saw the determination in her eyes and started smiling.
“Go ahead, do it”, he whispered and Cassandra could feel Chaos reaching for her, attempting to cloud her vision. But she saw clear enough.
“I know what you are going to do, Charlie”, Cassandra said and locked eyes with Charlie. “Nevertheless, I am relieving you of any guilt.”
She felt the air around her getting charged with a power that felt alien and familiar at the same time. That was when she started to run.
“Good-bye my friend”, she called out to Charlie. “Enjoy your old family.”
She heard Zeus roar with anger because there was nothing he could do from up there. He had to watch helplessly when she acted in direct contradiction to his orders and betrayed his son. She hated herself for it but she had no choice. Because even though she was running away from Alexander, she was running towards Ben. Ben, who wasn’t standing between Alexander and Bear anymore, because he had been grabbed by a tentacle that was quickly crushing all life out of him.
Cassandra didn’t see that Sam was slowly stretching out his hand trying in vain to reach out for his brother. She didn’t listen when Zeus yelled at her to stop. And she didn’t look to see how Charlie, who had now turned into Dionysus for real and whose divine power was tangible like an electric current, turned to walk away from them. All she saw was Ben’s sword gleaming in the hot afternoon sun. She snatched it up in passing and then she jumped up the side of the rocks and raised his sword to cut off the tentacle that was holding him.
And then time was on for real again.
Cassandra felt the knife pierce through Alexander’s heart the moment she cut off the tentacle and Ben crashed down beside her. She fell to her knees, reaching for her breast, unable to breathe. She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t have been fast enough to stop the knife and then go after Ben, that no matter how fast she could have run, she would have never reached them both in time. But it didn’t matter now that she had made her decision. All she could do was live with the consequences and for a moment she wasn’t sure she could.
Ben, struggling to free himself from the tentacle, looked from Cassandra to Alexander and when he realized what had happened to his friend, he threw off the last of the tentacle and went to Cassandra to draw her into
a violent, desperate embrace. She felt his whole body shake, felt his disbelief and his utter despair. Then he grabbed her hair with both hands and their foreheads touched so hard it hurt. His breath was hot in her face and she closed her eyes, knowing that this would be the last time they would ever be this close.
“It should never have been me,” he whispered into her ear and Cassandra felt her heart shatter into a thousand pieces.
With that he let go and ran towards his friend.
“I am sorry”, Cassandra whispered, her voice breaking, but he didn’t hear her anymore.
When he reached Alexander, he pounded his fist against the rock beside him and slid down to cover his head in desperation.
Cassandra made herself turn away from that picture because she knew she still needed to stop Mia. As if reading her thoughts, Scylla positioned her huge body between Mia and Cassandra, effectively blocking Cassandra’s access to the girl. Cassandra raised Ben’s sword and started hacking at Scylla all the while thinking that according to her nightmare vision this could have all been over now: Scylla killed by Charlie and Alexander saved by a miracle, just not by her. But Charlie was gone and there was no miracle. She had been wrong and now they would all die because of it.
On the verge of a major panic attack, Cassandra stumbled on nevertheless, desperately trying to find a way to pass the creature. Zeus, who was looking in shock and grief at his dead son, was crying something in old Greek.
The air around her crackled and suddenly Charlie reappeared. Or rather it was the god Dionysus who still looked a lot like Charlie only that he was five times as tall and vibrating with power. He was wearing nothing but a leather loincloth in the form of a wine leaf and there were black lines dancing on his skin. His body showed no signs of his heavy drinking anymore. He looked strong and utterly alien. And yet she could still feel Charlie somewhere in there.
“You want me to kill her?” Charlie roared at his father who slammed his lightning bolt into the earth ineffectively. “You want me to kill the only person who has seen through me and still called me her friend?”
The Unclaimed (University of the Gods Trilogy Book 1) Page 30
