His body visibly vibrated with anger, his lips twisted into a snarl.
She needed to stop this taunting or she was going to ruin everything, but he made her so angry. Who did he think he was, destroying worlds so he could boost his ego?
This quest for power was something she could never understand. Unity and equality were, in the long run, the only workable ways to live in peace. She hated Marcus for doing what he could to end all that.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said gesturing the hanging girl toward the boat. The girl stepped slowly forward.
Zoe reached into her pouch and her heart thundered hard. Where there was only one coin before, there were now two. Damn it!
She hadn’t taken into account how she would tell her coin from the coin that materialised for souls.
Which one was the coin she had planted in the pouch to throw at Marcus? With a trembling hand, Zoe pulled a coin out, hoping it was the right one.
Please, Gods, let it be the one. She tossed the coin over and Marcus eagerly caught it.
Zoe’s heart halted, her breaths stopped. With all her effort, she kept her face in a neutral expression, trying to hide her anticipation and hope. Marcus held the coin up before his eyes and brought it to his mouth, gently biting down on the gold with a clunk.
He raised his eyes to meet hers. “You deceitful fucking bitch,” he roared and jumped out of the boat. He charged at her but after three steps, he slowed. A haziness filmed over his eyes.
Marcus stopped and looked all about him, confusion written on his features.
Relief brought Zoe to her knees on the dusty ground. Not only was she unsure if she had tossed him the right coin, she also hadn’t known if it was going to work.
Before she left for Earth, she dipped a gold coin into the River Lethe, the liquid drying on the surface of the coin. She knew Marcus’s routine and lust for gold, perhaps better than he did himself.
When he caught the coin and placed it in his mouth, the dried enzymes liquefied and entered his system, causing him to forget. Instantly malleable.
But the Lethe carried a tell-tale taste, and if there weren't enough enzymes on the coin, not only would Marcus not lose his memory, but he would have known she had attempted to trick him.
“Marcus,” she said, getting to her feet again.
Marcus looked blankly at her and pointed to his chest.
“Yes. You. Your name is Marcus. Now hop in the boat. You’re driving.”
He looked back at the boat and shook his head. “I …I don’t know how to drive that thing.”
She pushed his shoulder until he was shuffling toward it. “Sure you do.”
With a quick fling, she tossed the hanging girl out. “You’ll have to wait here. I’m sure a little more time between realms won’t hurt.” Then she turned to Marcus and pointed at the boat. “Marcus, get in. I’ll direct you.”
◆◆◆
When the boat pulled up on the shore beneath Mount Olympus, Zoe started her search for Marcus’s stockpile of money. It had to be on this boat; it was the only hiding place the gods would never access.
Zoe got to her hands and knees and checked the deck boards for a hidden door. She pushed at the timber, searching for a weakness. On the deck of the bow, Zoe noticed a square of timber boards of a slightly different colour, unrecognisable under normal circumstances.
Fluttering her fingers around the edges of the square, she found a small divot where she could grip the timber and lift it. It came free easily. With the lid off, Zoe stuck her head down the square hole.
Flashes of flickering light were first to catch her attention as the moonlight above made the gold beneath sparkle. But what made her gasp was the sheer number of coins. The entire space of the hull was flooded with them. How long has he been stockpiling these?
Zoe thought about all the devastating weather events in the history of Earth and she shuddered. Had Dionne and Marcus masterminded them?
And Zoe, an unsuspecting pawn in their plan, had played into their hands, bringing all the spirits they could ever want, each with their coin for payment, to The Underworld.
They must have been conspiring for years, incrementally, so they could remain unnoticed. Somehow, after the coins were weighed and the attached soul judged, Marcus must have stolen the coins back and hid them on his boat.
Zoe stood then, her head reeling. More threads unravelled and she saw memories and moments from her past in a new light.
Was Marcus’s relationship with me a lie, so he could manipulate me to do what he wanted? What he and Dionne wanted?
She groaned. Her stomach roiled to learn of her own naive stupidity.
But that was what she was realising: because her mind didn’t work like the deplorable few that plagued this kingdom, she didn’t suspect that others existed that were not at all like her. Others who went to unimaginable lengths to serve their own sordid means.
She looked up at the palace sitting high above the river and her heart stuttered.
Dionne knew that Zoe’s relationship with Marcus wasn’t real, so why had she become so angry earlier? She would have known it was all lies and that Marcus never truly had feelings for Zoe.
Zoe’s heart beat out a thunderous pattern. All this time, she had thought she was playing Dionne when it was actually Dionne playing them all.
“Oh, no,” she hissed under her breath. “They could all be dead.”
Zoe narrowed her eyes at Marcus. She strode to him and prodded his chest with her finger, hard. “Hey,” she yelled. “You in there?”
Marcus stepped back, his eyes glazed and showing no recognition. She didn’t trust anyone or anything in this moment. She couldn’t even be certain that she had really wiped Marcus’s memories. But surely, they wouldn’t have been able to predict that move?
Zoe closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.
Keep a level head. The coin has done its job.
But was Dionne still caged in the basement cell?
Chapter 48
“Hurry!” Zoe yelled, taking Marcus’s hand and forcing him to run beside her along the shore. At the base of the long staircase, she pushed Marcus ahead and shoved his back whenever he slowed. “Quickly.”
Zoe gripped his hand at the top of the stairs, and they rushed along the thin bridge and inside the palace walls. She stopped just inside the door and listened. Only an eerie silence filled these halls. She wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.
Pressing her back against the wall, Zoe tiptoed, creeping sideways until she had vision of the Great Room.
Holding her breath, she peered into the room and sighed when she saw the gods sitting on their designated chairs. Theron was speaking animatedly, using large hand gestures.
Zoe yanked on Marcus’s arm and pushed him into the room. He stumbled forward. “I’ve got him.”
The gods focused on Marcus, then on Zoe.
Theron came to her, assessing Marcus suspiciously. Zoe ran into Theron’s arms and sighed against his neck.
“It worked?” he asked.
“I’m fairly certain.”
Theron lowered his voice. “What do you mean, fairly certain?”
Zoe resisted against the anxiety balling in her belly and creeping up her throat. She pulled away from Theron and met his gaze. “Where’s Dionne?”
Theron’s forehead furrowed. “In the basement.”
“Are you certain of that?” Her words were quick and loud.
Theron nodded. “I locked her in a cell there myself.”
Zoe’s shoulders eased, but she couldn’t shake the intuition that this had all been too easy. “Take him,” she said shoving Marcus toward him.
Theron led Marcus into the centre of the room and pointed him toward one of the chairs. “Take a seat.”
“What’s going on here?” Marcus asked, looking from one god to the next.
“You’ve wiped his memory?” Agnes asked.
“Yes. It was the safest option.”
“I still think we need to take precautions,” Theron said. He reached for the golden chains sitting next to the obliterator and tied Marcus’s arms and feet, then hooked him to the stone chair that was embedded into the ground and had been that way for millennia.
Marcus was going nowhere. He lifted his arms up in front of his face and stared, mesmerised, at the golden chains. Even with his mind lost, his lust for the precious metal could not be satisfied.
“You unbound Dionne?” Zoe asked.
Theron nodded. “She’s behind bars. And I thought we’d need the chains for Marcus.”
That made Zoe uneasy.
“We ran an inventory like you asked,” Darian said, still seated in his chair.
“And?”
“We found four missing items.”
“The invisibility helm?” Zoe asked.
He nodded. “And the obliterator, which we found earlier. But also the eternity spear and an old alchemy book penned by Hermes.”
The eternity spear was a worry. If it cut a god, even a pin prick with the tip of its blade, the victim would never fully recover, hovering between life and death for eternity, no better than the waifs waiting at the shore. Zoe would rather be obliterated than endure that tortured existence.
The alchemy book was a non-issue. She couldn’t even imagine why Dionne and Marcus would have thieved it. They weren’t alchemists; they wouldn’t be able to transform any substance into another element.
Zoe’s shook her head. “I should be shocked. But, truly, I no longer am. Especially because I uncovered a stockpile of money in the hull of Marcus’s boat. They’ve been carrying out this plan longer than I suspected. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that they have also thieved forbidden artefacts. But more alarming is how they have lied to me. Lied to us all.”
“What do you mean?” Theron asked.
Zoe fought back tears. “My relationship with Marcus was never real. I was a merely a pawn in his plan.” Zoe straightened tall, not letting her emotions get the better of her. “And Dionne has known that all along.”
Agnes peered hard at Marcus, then gasped when she came to the same conclusion Zoe had. “Dionne was pretending earlier?”
Zoe nodded. “I believe so.”
“Oh, fuck!” Theron said, neck straining. He spun to face Agnes. “Are you certain that cell is safe?”
“Of course. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Theron yelled.
“Unless Dionne tampered with it before tonight,” she whispered. “But surely not. That would mean she was two, three steps ahead of us…”
Zoe met Theron’s gaze knowing they couldn’t trust Dionne or Marcus in any way.
“Damn it!” he yelled.
“We’ll go check. We could be worrying about nothing.” Zoe looked at the obliterator that was sitting out in the open on the centre mantel. “I’m taking that.”
Agnes shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be that way. There is always another way. You know that.”
“I understand that more than anyone. But it’s better in my hands than—” she stopped mid-sentence because the obliterator that was resting on the mantel a second before was now gone. Zoe pivoted, searching the room.
Theron leaped to stand in front of Zoe, shielding her. “Dionne,” he roared. “Stop hiding like the coward that you are and show yourself!”
A flickering form appeared in the corner of the room beside Marcus as Dionne threw off the invisibility helm. The tatty cloth fell to the floor like a floating feather. Dionne had the obliterator pointed directly at Theron’s head. “Don’t. Call. Me. A. Coward!”
Zoe stepped out from behind Theron and stood in front of him. Dionne adjusted the obliterator’s barrel so it was honed on her forehead. Zoe shuddered but straightened taller and kept her face impartial. “Your plan won’t work without me. Unlike you and Marcus here, there are no more Soul Shepherds. I’m the only one left.”
“We don’t need you.”
“You do! Or all this scheming will have been for nothing.”
“Shut up!” Dionne screamed. “What have you done to Marcus?”
“I’ve wiped his memory.”
Dionne growled from her chest like a lion. “You just can’t fucking mind your own business, can you?”
“This is my business. This is all our business. We all made that vow.”
Dionne scoffed, then her lips twisted into a scowl. Such hatred radiated from her glare. “You’re all a waste of space. What a joke you’ve made of Olympus. Gods, designed to be the supreme rulers of everything, too scared to even utter a harsh word. Pathetic. Disgusting.” She spat on the floor. “It’s embarrassing. Ridiculous. Fools, making yourself so weak you’re prey to anyone and everyone, even meagre humans.”
“Even you?” Theron asked.
Dionne laughed. “Especially me. This place needs a tougher leader. A goddess to rule them all.”
Agnes stepped forward, hands up, palms facing outwards. “Dionne, end this nonsense now. This is not you.”
“It’s more me than you’ll ever know. You’re the weakest of them all. A joke.”
Agnes edged forward, letting Dionne’s insults roll off her. “We can settle this now, in a rational way. Not with weapons and verbal attacks.”
“Nothing is settled that way, Agnes. You should’ve learned that by now.”
“No. You know from our ancestors that in-fighting destroys us all. For over one hundred years, we have had no trouble here. You know that. You need to open your eyes and your heart and see the reasons why. It has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with our new ways.”
“Fuck you, and fuck your new ways,” Dionne hissed. A blast of atmosphere crackled through the room. Fire engulfed Agnes’s head, flames flickering then extinguishing just as quickly.
Her body dropped to the floor like a sack of wet flour.
Darian groaned with shock. Zoe’s body went rigid. Theron pulled her into his arms.
“Anyone else who wants to challenge me will receive the same treatment.” Dionne swaggered out from beside Marcus, a renewed fervour in her eyes and stance. “Theron, my dear, unchain Marcus for me.”
Theron held his place.
“Now!” she screamed, pointing the obliterator at his chest.
“Go, you better go,” Zoe urged.
Eyes trained on Dionne, he crept toward Marcus.
Dionne laughed manically. “I expected more from Hades’ blood. He’d be disgusted seeing you now, knowing what you’ve done to The Underworld. Compassion? Hades spat on compassion.”
Theron leaned over Marcus and unshackled his wrists, painfully slow.
Dionne thrust the obliterator into his skull with a gut-wrenching crack. “Hurry up, you antagonistic fuck.”
Lifting his hand to his head, he rubbed where Dionne had struck him. Dionne raised the obliterator again, to crack him once more, but Theron checked the strike with his forearm.
The weapon toppled out of her hands and scooted across the stone floor. They both dived for it, bodies skidding across the ground.
Dionne reached it first, gripped the handle. She rolled onto her back and attempted to stand, but Theron grasped her ankle, pulled her foot out from under her, and she flung back, head thumping against the floor.
Zoe sprinted to them and ripped the obliterator from between Dionne’s fingers. She rushed a few paces backward and pointed it at Dionne with a trembling hand.
This wasn’t Zoe. She didn’t threaten people with weapons; it went against everything she believed she was. She had seen how violence caused horrible heartache both on Olympus and Earth; she swore never to contribute to that.
She’d lost loved ones, friends and family, to this type of ridiculous fighting. Zoe swallowed hard. It sickened her to even hold this weapon. Something so powerful and dangerous.
Dionne jumped to her feet and charged at Zoe.
“Stay back,” Zoe shouted.
Theron lurched to his feet and dived at Dionne again, s
natching her ankles. She crashed to the floor, moaned as her chest and face collided with the stone.
Zoe pressed her foot to Dionne’s neck, hard enough to know she was serious.
Dionne, sucking in rushed gasps of air, swatted at Zoe’s leg, clawed at it, but Zoe held her position.
Theron straddled Dionne’s back, knees on her legs, hands pressing her arms down. “The chains,” he yelled to Darian who was watching with wide eyes and an open mouth. “Pass me the chains!”
Dionne’s eyes rolled back in her head, a darkness shadowed her flesh, lining it with deep blue and red veins. The walls trembled as lightning flashed and thunder cracked in the air above them.
Lightning struck the floor, splitting it wide open. Rocks and dust blasted from the hole and propelled around the room, hitting them hard. Darian took a hit to the head and stumbled on his feet. He fell to the floor.
“I will kill every single one of you,” Dionne shrieked.
“You may hurt us, but we will heal,” Zoe said with as much conviction as she could muster. “As long as I hold this obliterator, I’m in charge.”
From the corner of her eyes, Zoe saw a blur of colour.
She spun to see.
But it was too late.
Marcus was close, lunging at her. His shoulder connected hard with her waist. All air whooshed from her lungs as she flung backward.
“Zoe!” Theron yelled.
Her head struck the ground hard. Pain. Darkness crept in and little lights shone behind her eyes.
A force struck her face solidly, she thought her head would sink through the floor. Pain shot through her, agonising. She groaned. Another strike to the same cheek. The bone crunched; she felt it shatter.
And then the weight above her was gone. She opened one bleary eye to see what was happening. Marcus was flying across the room from Theron’s hands. Dionne was on her feet, her eye on the space behind Zoe.
The obliterator.
Zoe’s head was woozy and an intense throbbing pounded. She could barely see but managed to roll onto her knees and crawl toward the weapon.
A boot found her ribs, a loud crack echoed in unison with her groan. All breath was stolen from her lungs. She gasped, but nothing could pass her throat as though her head was wrapped in an airless plastic bag.
After Life Page 29
