She grabbed the neck of Zeus’s shirt and yanked his face up to hers. “You killed him.” She wanted to roar, but the words came out in a ragged whisper, her chest too tight to admit any air. “Theo’s gone. And you’re smiling.”
Zeus looked at her with a father’s love. “Theodore Schultz was a hero. We will sing his song through this new Age and into all the rest to come.”
“His song isn’t what I—” Selene began.
Maryam interrupted, her voice hushed. “That’s not Tartarus,” she said, staring out over the barley.
Scooter tittered a half-mad laugh, his spreading smile jarring with his tear-swollen eyes. “Do you recognize it yet?”
Far beyond the field, hazy in the distant glare of the sun, rose a tall rocky butte. A single point of brilliant light shone above it like a beacon.
Selene didn’t understand, not at first, but Maryam looked from the distant light to the tip of the weapon in her own hand. “It’s the spearpoint on the Athena Promakhos statue atop the Acropolis.” For once, she sounded awestruck. “You opened a door to ancient Athens.”
Selene’s grip on her father’s shirt loosened. She dropped him to the ground, shock freezing her rage.
Scooter scooped up his winged cap and set it on his head at a jaunty angle. “The new Age is waiting for us. It’s just through that portal.” He swept his arm toward the sun-warmed barley. “So. Who’s going in first?”
Poseidon and Hestia immediately hobbled through. When they turned around in the middle of the field, Selene’s breath caught in her chest. Poseidon’s hair had turned a blue so deep it seemed almost purple, as wine-dark as the sea itself. His eyes blazed in a face unmarked by age. The Hearth Goddess dropped her cane and threw back the hood of her parka, revealing a long curtain of chestnut hair. She smiled with a gentleness and warmth Selene hadn’t seen on a goddess’s face since her own mother had died. Hestia held out her hand to her niece.
“Come,” she urged. “Join us.”
Chapter 47
KING OF THE GODS
Zeus stood on the rocky summit with a self-satisfied smile, watching as his siblings discarded their frailty as easily as spent rags. Once more, they clothed themselves in the glory of godhood.
Selene wheeled toward him, her fury tempered by a sudden hope. “Step through the portal and you’re the omnipotent King of the Gods again, right?” she demanded. “So go in there and use your power to bring Theo back to life.”
“No need,” a familiar voice croaked.
She spun back to the portal. Theo’s arm stuck out from among the barley stalks.
Scooter clapped his hands. “I underestimated you, my friend!”
The lightning bolt, no longer a blaring white column of energy but just a mass of twisted metal, rolled free of Theo’s grasp to rest among the grain. He stretched his arm beyond the portal’s boundary, out of one world and into another. His fingers floated just above the rocky ground of Olympus, reaching for Selene.
She rushed forward to grab his hand. The portal hovered an inch from her face; she could feel the heated air, smell the rich soil, hear the cicadas hum. She dragged Theo out of ancient Athens and into her embrace. He was solid and real, and although he smelled of electricity and his fair hair waved in a wild halo, he seemed unhurt. She threw an arm beneath his shoulders and helped him stagger away from the field.
“I thought—” she began.
“I know,” he finished. “But I’m a Makarites. If Theseus could defeat the Minotaur and Hercules could survive twelve labors, I can get past a little bad weather.” He laughed shortly, then caught her gaze in his. “I stood there burning up from the inside, and I made a choice. I’m not leaving this world again without a damn good reason. At least not while you’re still in it.”
His green eyes were warm. Finally, the answer she’d been waiting for since the moment in the Phrygianum. She tightened her arm around him, desperate to finally restart their life together.
Theo looked over her shoulder at the barley field. “Now will someone explain to me what’s going on?”
Cora giggled. “Isn’t it obvious? That’s home in there. And I’m going back to it.” She took an eager step toward the open portal.
Selene disentangled herself from Theo, who swayed but remained upright, and grabbed the older woman’s elbow before she could pass through. “Wait! We don’t know what—”
“I know what I see!” Cora answered, trying in vain to wrench her arm from Selene’s iron grip.
Selene turned to Zeus, still refusing to let go of her cousin. “But what about Tartarus? What about Saturn?”
At the sound of his name, the grain shivered, and the God of Time struggled upright. Unlike the others, Saturn hadn’t regained his youth. Burns no longer marred his face, but the crossed scars on his stomach remained, and the golden chains still bound his wrists.
Cora waved away Selene’s protests. “Look at him. He’s not Saturn anymore, beloved god of the Mithraists and Romans. He’s just Kronos, the Titan that our parents overthrew. He can’t hurt us.”
As if to prove Cora’s point, Poseidon and Hestia grabbed the old man before he could take a step.
This time, when Cora yanked her arm away, Selene let her go.
As she entered the field, Cora’s hair tumbled free in soft blond waves; her round cheeks flushed with youth. She was unspeakably beautiful. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her face to wet her smiling lips.
“Mother!” she cried, stretching out her arms to Demeter. “Do you see? Hurry! Hurry!”
Demeter took a cautious step forward, her face full of longing as she stared at her newly youthful daughter. Yet she paused and looked out over the mountaintops, her gaze resting for a moment on the green valley below.
“I will miss this time, and it will miss me. Yet where my daughter goes, I must follow.” Demeter walked into Athens. She moved slowly through the stalks of grain, resting her hands atop the feathery heads of barley.
Cora—Persephone, now—scampered forward to throw her arms around her mother; the two looked longingly westward.
They will head straight for Eleusis, Selene knew. There, the two goddesses had presided over their own powerful cult for thousands of years. They’re going home.
And if I enter, she couldn’t help wondering, if I walk south to Brauron, will the little girls await me there? Will they don their bear robes and dance at my arrival? She remembered the rush of power she’d felt striding through the glories of Delphi with Apollo. Would she feel that again?
Zeus put a hand on her shoulder. For now, he was still shorter than she, his fingers crooked with age. She didn’t throw him off: All her anger had drained away with Theo’s return.
“It’s not a trick,” he said quietly, answering her unspoken question. “When you enter, you will be Artemis again. Artemis at her best. Not some twisted version born of a cult’s imagination, nor a barbaric proto-goddess, but Artemis at the absolute height of Greek civilization. Worshiped. Adored. Feared. Able to protect the women and girls of your domain from any threat.”
But Apollo won’t be there, she thought. And he is what made Delphi beautiful. Without his love, what do I care for power?
Her father lifted a hand to her cheek. The pads of his fingertips were as soft as a baby’s. “I’ve opened a new universe, a new Age. The Olympians are already there—and have not yet arrived.”
Selene shook her head, confused. “Are you saying—”
“I’m saying Apollo may exist there even as he’s ceased to exist here.”
She snapped her head toward the portal, searching for her twin’s familiar face. Was it possible? Did his horse-drawn chariot drive the sun above the barley field even now?
Beside her, Theo spoke quietly. “It’s everything you wanted.”
She had not forgotten his words. He wouldn’t leave this world without her again. “You could come with me,” she said quickly. “We could visit all the places you’ve only read about.”
D
ennis cleared his throat loudly. “Hey, sister. You know if you go through you might not be able to come back, right? It wouldn’t be just a visit. More like a permanent relocating.”
“I was in there,” Theo said hesitantly. “And Selene pulled me out again.”
Dennis shrugged. “You made the portal, dude. And you’re a Blessed One. Different rules for you.”
Selene still couldn’t move. Every fiber of her ached to seek out her twin. But she needed more time to think.
Scooter moved to stand before her. “Whatever you decide,” he said quietly. “Know that I’m sorry. For everything.” Selene looked into her younger brother’s eyes. The Trickster. He’d known Zeus’s plan would likely kill Theo. He’d been secretly plotting with their father about the hydraulis long before they’d captured Saturn. And he’d lied about the true nature of the portal—although she wasn’t sure why. Yet the regret etched upon his face made her think his apology referred to an even greater crime.
“I …” she hesitated.
Zeus bent double with a racking cough. Blood spattered his lips. The strength he’d summoned during the storm had vanished as swiftly as the clouds.
“I have to go through,” he begged. “Before it’s too late.”
Scooter held out a solicitous hand to his father, but Zeus waved him away. “Go on, my Tetractys. I’ll join you shortly.”
With a deferential nod, Scooter sprinted through the portal. The wings of his hat bounced limply behind him.
Theo’s hand slipped into hers as she watched her brother go. She clutched it like a lifeline.
Scooter stopped running when he entered the barley field. The wings of his cap straightened and spread. He tilted his head up—and flew.
Dennis grunted, watching Hermes hover high above the field. “Show-off.” He twirled his thyrsus. “Wait until I point this thing at the earth and vines start sprouting up to wrench that little twit out of the air.”
“You’re going?” Selene asked.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Looks better than this shithole.”
“But you …”
“Yeah, yeah, I said you can’t come back out. But why would I want to? If you want to stay here and get older and weaker in the arms of Theo-bore, feel free, hon.”
“I don’t know …” she stammered, flustered.
Theo saved her from having to say more. “Dennis, buddy, you’ve been in grad school for decades. Did you forget already that the Golden Age of Athens lasts for less than a century? Give it another thousand years and the Romans will turn against you, too. You’ll just have to go through the Diaspora all over again.”
Dennis snorted. “You really think Dad didn’t think of that? Please. He said it’s a new Age, remember? Not just the same one over again. Don’t you see? Mankind’s been asking the same question since they looked up at the stars and realized there was more to life than hunting and fucking. The same question we’ve been asking since the Diaspora: How do we transcend these ever-dying meat sacks we call bodies and become something greater? Well, thanks to dear old Dad, we finally know the answer: Don’t fight against Time. Just step through it. Remake the world. Remake yourself. Sounds good to me.” And just like that, he sauntered into the field. He laughed when ivy sprang up around his feet and twined up the barley, the dark, glossy leaves bending the golden stalks beneath their weight.
Theo squeezed Selene’s hand a little tighter and leaned close to whisper, “Why did Zeus call Scooter his Tetractys?”
“Maybe it’s an epithet I don’t know about,” she murmured back.
Theo shook his head, but before he could explain further, Zeus interrupted them. “Come, Aphrodite, Eros. Come Hera, my queen. Artemis, Hephaestus. It is time.” He did not, Selene noticed, ask Athena to join them. “The portal won’t last much longer.”
The line between field and mountaintop, she saw now, wavered like the edge of a mirage.
June shook her head, the pom-pom on her hat waggling. “Absolutely not. I have a honeymoon with Maurizio to get back to.”
“Hera, my greatest love,” Zeus wheedled. “You can rule at my side.”
June snorted at the offer, tilting up her chin. Despite the softness of her fleshy neck, she moved like a queen. “I remember your love. It was so great it needed a hundred women to satisfy it. Never again.”
Esme chuckled. “And I’m not going anywhere near the fourth century BC, but thank you.”
Zeus’s eyes grew hard. “Why not?”
“Because it’s filthy, that’s why,” she replied. “Animals everywhere. And did you forget that the men washed themselves in olive oil? Slippery is all very pleasurable in the right situations, but I’ve gotten used to soap.” She tilted her left hand so the large diamond caught the light. “Besides, I’m enjoying myself. I create my own beauty now. I’m not just a reflection of what men think is beautiful. And I don’t have gods like you telling me who I should and shouldn’t sleep with.”
Philippe put his arm around his mother’s shoulders with a proud smile, but looked at Flint. “What about you, Papa?”
The hunched Smith had eyes only for Selene. His gaze flicked to her hand, held tight in Theo’s, and his lips flattened. She watched his chest heave with all the things he wanted to say to her.
She slipped from Theo’s grip and moved to Flint. “You have been a true friend.”
“But that’s all,” he grunted. “Just a friend.”
“No. More than that. You’ve been a brother.” She searched for the right words. “A partner. The gift of your love …” She swallowed. “It’s more than I deserved. More than I could’ve ever asked for.”
Flint stared at her, hard. “And you didn’t ask for it, did you?”
She could only shake her head.
He balled his massive hands. “I watched you all the way up the mountain. With him. He came back into your life and you forgot I was ever in it.”
Selene started to protest, but he thrust his palm out toward her angrily, cutting her off. “Give it back.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, not at first. Then she pulled the heavy gold necklace from her pocket.
He shoved it roughly into his own. Then, to her shock, he turned and started walking toward the sunlit barley field.
“Papa …” Philippe warned.
“Please …” June begged.
But Zeus spoke over them. “Yes, Hephaestus! Come, my son, I would cure your lameness!”
Flint rounded on Zeus like a trapped bear. “Now you offer that? Now you call me son? You, who threw me off the mountain, who watched me fall, who broke me and let me suffer as an ugly, unloved god for my entire existence. I AM NOT YOUR SON.”
Selene could breathe again. He will stay here, she thought. He will not leave my life forever.
Flint unslung the wide hammer from his back. Selene was sure he would raise it against his stepfather. Instead, he held it out to Philippe. “Take it,” he said. “To remember me.”
Philippe looked stunned, but he clutched the massive tool to his chest. Flint turned back to the portal. He took a single limping step toward it.
To Selene’s shock, it was Esme who spoke first. “You think you’re unloved,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re wrong.”
Flint didn’t turn to his wife. Instead, he looked down at his withered legs encased in their titanium braces. “Perhaps. But that doesn’t change the fact that I hate myself.”
Philippe made a sound of strangled protest, but Flint went on. “I can stay here and live another few miserable decades. Or I can try again. Be someone new. Someone whole.”
He looked back at his mother, his stepson. “I am weak,” whispered the mighty Smith. “Forgive me.”
Philippe started forward, but June put a hand on the young man’s arm. Her lined face shone with tears, yet she seemed determined to finally allow her selfless son to do something for himself. Selene could not accept his decision with such equanimity. This is my fault, she knew. If I loved him, he would stay.
Instead, Philippe loses his stepfather. June loses her son.
I lose my friend.
She forced herself to stay silent, to respect his decision as Flint hobbled to the portal and stepped inside, though every ounce of her wanted to lunge forward and drag him back where he belonged.
He stood amid the waving barley, facing the distant Acropolis, even as his spine straightened and his grizzled hair darkened to deepest coal. Selene watched his barrel chest heave once, twice, before he reached to rip off a sweater and shirt that could no longer contain his massive torso. Next, he bent and unfastened the braces from his legs. When he finally turned around, she barely recognized him.
Hephaestus was beautiful.
The sculpted muscles of his chest gleamed in the sunlight. No wrinkles scarred his face. His legs were as strong and shapely as his brother Mars’s had ever been. But the biggest difference lay not in his restored limbs nor his suddenly youthful features—but his eyes.
“He looks …” Selene began.
“Hopeful,” Esme finished.
“You see,” Zeus said with a smile. “I tell the truth. The world I’ve created is brand-new. The mistakes of our past will be wiped away. We can create our own future, our own fate! Wouldn’t you like to get your wings back, Eros? The ones you sliced from your own back so long ago? I could make that happen. Aphrodite, you could have any man you wanted!” Zeus swung to Selene next. “Artemis, your twin is waiting for you!”
But it was Maryam who stepped forward, holding her spear now in both hands, as if ready to strike. “Zeus wants this too much.”
A slow worm of suspicion crawled through Selene’s gut. Her gaze flicked to Flint’s glory, then back to her father. “If this is so wonderful,” she asked slowly, “why didn’t you just tell us the truth?”
“I needed your Makarites,” Zeus said easily. “If you knew he could die, you wouldn’t have let me have him.”
“I wouldn’t have. But why lie to everyone else? They’d happily trade one mortal life for an eternity of power.”
Zeus started to answer, but a cackling laugh cut him off. Saturn, still held captive in the barley field, stared directly at Selene through eyes slitted with deranged hilarity.
Olympus Bound Page 36
