Goddess (27 page)

The gods looked on with rapt expressions. It was clear that this was the best fight they’d seen in over three thousand years. They were soaking up every minute of Hector’s and Matt’s pain like they were cheering downs at a football game. It was sport for them.

Unable to bear watching the bloodthirsty gods, Helen looked over at Lucas for comfort. He wasn’t even watching the fight anymore. He was looking blankly at the sand, racking his brain for the body part that Matt would choose as his one weakness. She could see him talking to himself, frantic for a way to figure it out. She thought she heard Lucas repeating the word “heel” over and over to himself.

Lucas lifted his head and made eye contact with Helen, his face bright with hope.

He’d figured it out.

At that very moment, Helen and Lucas heard Hector shout. Their heads spun around in time to see Hector crumple to his knees. Matt’s sword was buried up to the hilt in his chest.

Many voices cried at once, and bodies on both sides of the arena’s circle pressed against the invisible barricade in a wave, as loving members from both factions tried to rush into the arena and come to Hector’s aid. But the magic of the battleground prevented any being from interfering.

Matt stood over Hector, his lips trembling and his shoulders hunched with regret. Nearly out of her mind, Ariadne was screaming hateful things at Matt while Claire tried to hold her back.

Hector fell onto his side, still clutching the thick blade that had run him clean through the heart. He hit the ground and his head turned upward, his eyes staring directly at the clouded sun. He pulled in one taut breath, then another, and then no more. His mouth seemed to smile at the sky, but his eyes, which had always been so fierce and full of life, ran dry.

Hector was dead.

FOURTEEN

S
taring at Hector’s body lying on the sand, Helen couldn’t help but think—
I chose him as my champion because I couldn’t bear it for Lucas or Orion to be lying there. This is my fault.

“Challenge!” Lucas shouted, his deep voice piercing through the commotion.

The gods collapsed into a tight group to confer.

“How can this be?” Poseidon asked. “I thought you said the Face took him to her world.”

“She did,” Hermes answered defensively. “She must not have made him . . .”

“Wait,” Zeus said, holding up a hand to silence them before Hermes could finish. “Hecate still has to decide.”

Lucas reached the edge of the arena and strode into the ring, unhindered by the barrier that had kept everyone else out. Whatever old magic tested a challenger’s fitness, it had accepted Lucas. The gods exchanged looks of confusion.

Helen followed Lucas in a daze, unconcerned with the gods’ reaction. She knew why it was possible for Lucas to enter the ring. She just didn’t know why he would
want
to. It didn’t make any sense. Matt had killed her champion, and now he was supposed to challenge her.

“Lucas? What are you doing?” she asked, fear making her breath flutter. He didn’t answer or even acknowledge that he’d heard her.

“Lucas is Hector’s second, Helen. It’s his right to challenge Matt before Matt can challenge you.” Jason’s voice was breaking. Helen looked at him. Tears were falling freely down his face for his brother. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“Can I stop them?” she whispered.

“No. This is what it means to be a champion’s second.”

Helen knew it was foolish of her not to have realized that, but it honestly never occurred to her that anyone could defeat Hector in the first place. And if they did, she figured it was up to her to do her own fighting. She looked at Orion pleadingly, and he shrugged, helpless.

Inside the circle, Lucas had crouched down over Hector’s body. Matt stood back respectfully as Lucas shut his dead brother’s eyes. Helen could hear Pallas and Ariadne weeping on the other side of the arena. Helen knew she was crying, too, but more important to her than her own sorrow was the guilt she saw in Lucas.

“One more second,” Lucas whispered to Hector’s body. A sob burst out of him unexpectedly, like it escaped without his permission. It was a rough and angry noise.

Lucas picked Hector up and carried him to Orion and Jason who were waiting at the edge of the barrier. As he handed Hector’s body over, Andy pushed her way into the tight circle that waited to claim the fallen hero.

“Wake up!”
Andy commanded, her voice carrying that haunting note that made nerve endings strain to obey. He didn’t move. Her cheeks flushed a bright red as she concentrated every ounce of power she had.

“I said,
wake up
!” she repeated, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

Her siren voice echoed across the dunes and the water. Sand and spray jumped into the air like they were trying to flee from her. But still, Hector did not move. When Andy started to shout and call him all kinds of nasty names for leaving her behind, Castor was the one to finally come in and drag her away from Hector’s body.

“Enough! He’s gone, and not even you can wake him,” Castor said, trying to get through to her. She didn’t have the strength of a Scion, but she fought him for a moment before she fell apart.

Noel was there to hold her as she cried. But even as she comforted Andy, her eyes were fixed on Lucas, who still had yet to fight. Lucas had his hand in his right pocket, his fingers worrying something he kept in there.

“Bow and arrow,” Lucas called to Jason.

A startled murmuring began to rise among the onlookers. Several of the gods laughed.

“This one doesn’t disappoint,” Apollo said excitedly to the goddess in armor. Helen assumed she was Athena. “It’s just like last time.”

“That’s what worries me,” Athena said back to Apollo. Her shrewd eyes were trained on Lucas.

“Why didn’t he pick a sword?” Helen asked Orion, ignoring the gods as they placed bets.

“I have no idea,” Orion responded.

“Well . . . how many arrows does he get?”

“Just one.”

Helen’s head snapped around, and she stared at Lucas as he stood calmly in the ring. “Why would he pick that weapon then? That doesn’t make any sense,” she pressed. Orion’s puzzled look deepened Helen’s fear.

“Come on, Luke,” Jason said, throwing up his hands in an exasperated gesture, like he didn’t know what Lucas expected of him.

“Bow and arrow,” Lucas repeated distinctly.

Flushed with anger over Lucas’s seemingly suicidal choice, Jason picked a bow and a single arrow from the weapons chest that waited on the edge of the dueling ground. He pulled on the bow and stared down the shaft of the arrow to test them, and then brought them to Lucas.

“You aren’t even wearing armor,” Jason said to him in a harsh undertone. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

As soon as Helen heard Jason say this, she realized that she hadn’t considered that possibility. What if Lucas was so fed up that he wanted to die?

Lucas took his weapons without answering Jason and moved away from the edge of the ring. He didn’t try to communicate with his father or mother. He didn’t embrace Jason or give a last-minute speech about what he was doing and why. He didn’t even look at Helen or try to let her know that it was going to be okay. Lucas simply took his weapon and squared off opposite Matt, signaling that he was ready.

But Helen wasn’t. “Hang on,” she said, her voice coming out breathy and shrill with fear. “You don’t really want to die, do you?” she asked frantically. When she looked at his chest, all she saw was a dull, lifeless mass inside of him that was equal parts grief and resignation. It looked to Helen like he didn’t much care if he died or not. And that was the one thing that could kill him.

She ran at the invisible barrier surrounding the arena, sending orange fire coursing across the surface of the dome-like barrier. Even if she could find a way to batter it down, she knew it was too late.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Lucas lifted his bow, and Matt his sword before Helen could yell. As she threw herself at the barrier and was stopped short a second time, Matt charged forward. Both of his hands were wrapped around the pommel of his sword and his arms raised over one shoulder, the blade held high, to cut Lucas down with a single powerful stroke. Lucas loosed his arrow.

Matt stopped abruptly, his face shocked. The arrow stuck out of Matt’s left hand.

Out of the
heel
of his left hand.

Matt dropped his sword, and Lucas lowered his bow. Staring at his hand for a moment, Matt smiled and nodded.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Matt said, looking up at Lucas as his legs wobbled and weakened. “I shouldn’t have said the word
heel
to Hector. I should have known you’d figure it out.”

Lucas dropped his bow and met Matt as he toppled over to catch him and break his fall. Lucas laid his defeated foe respectfully on the sand.

“She’s too powerful,” Matt whispered as his life faded away.

“I’ll be there to balance her,” Lucas promised.

“Worse than Olympus,” Matt said, his voice failing. “At least with them there were twelve.”

“We don’t want to rule, Matt,” Lucas told him gently, but in vain.

Matt was already dead.

Lucas closed his eyes, just as he had Hector’s a few minutes earlier. For a moment, the only sound was of Ariadne weeping. Dark shadows spun out of Lucas like a black fog, and Helen heard gasps all around her as the crowd fearfully whispered the word
Shadowmaster.
He stood and pointed a finger at Helen.

“Don’t follow me,” he ordered.

Darkness billowed around him like a cloak and hid him. Before Helen could even process what he’d said, Lucas launched himself into the sky and disappeared.

Lucas soared up into the roiling thunderclouds, hidden in his cloak of shadows. He knew Helen well enough to know that by ordering her not to follow him he’d made her determined to do just that. Lucas wanted to kick himself. He would bet one of his legs that Helen had the Shadowmaster talent as well and could see through the darkness, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t learned to use it yet. This was Lucas’s only edge, and when he turned back and confirmed that Helen wasn’t following him, he went right to her house.

From the air, he could see that it was miraculously undamaged even though no one had been home for days now. The blue tarp was still covering her bedroom window from when Helen had accidentally thrown a rock through it. Lucas ducked under it and flew into her room.

It was cold and empty and the smell of her all around made him ache.

Lucas went directly to her bed, still tussled and dirty from the time Orion and Helen had emerged from the Underworld onto it—landing on top of Lucas in the process. Throwing the bedding on the floor, he lay down on top of the bare mattress.

Reaching into the right front pocket of his jeans, Lucas pulled out the last of the three obols he’d stolen from the Getty and tucked it under his tongue.

He shut his eyes and opened them again.

“You know, chasing a loved one to the Underworld never ends well, my friend.” Morpheus sighed.

Lucas sat up next to the god of dreams, took the obol out from under his tongue, and offered it to him.

“Please,” he begged, holding out the god’s payment. “Please let me at least speak to Hades.”

“Oh, you are so
noble
,” Morpheus huffed, punching one of his silk pillows to show just how miffed he was. “Have you really thought this through? Do you think Helen would want you to do this?”

“Of course she wouldn’t. But Helen’s not making this decision, and yes, I have thought it through,” Lucas said calmly. “There’s nothing for me up there anymore.”

He wasn’t being self-pitying; it was the simple truth. After Lucas had refused to kiss her in Everyland, Helen had made it clear that she had chosen Orion as soon as they were back on Earth. She could barely take her hands off of him, and Lucas could only blame himself. He couldn’t very well expect Helen to pledge herself to him if he wouldn’t even kiss her. Lucas had always known that Orion could give Helen what she needed, and now he was just making it easy for her, and making himself useful at the same time.

Andy really loved Hector. Everyone loved Hector. Lucas was an extra body now, the Lover who wasn’t allowed to love. So why not do something good with his life?

“I just want to speak to him,” Lucas repeated.

“All right,” Morpheus said reluctantly, taking his coin and rising from his enormous bed. “I’ll take you to the tree.”

Morpheus led Lucas through the many rooms of his dream palace. As they passed, the impossibly long, slender elfin people who danced inside the glowing circles of mushrooms and chased the bright, iridescent bubbles that seemed to beckon “follow me” stopped their cavorting to stare.

Lucas could hear them gasping as he passed. He thought he heard a few whisper “Hand of Darkness,” but he couldn’t be sure.

Outside the palace, they walked across the plain that bordered Hades and stopped at the edge of Morpheus’ land. They both stood for a moment, looking at the nightmare tree.

It was so large it seemed to take up acres along the border between the land of dreams and the land of the dead. The notched branches flared out as if they were a million fingers of bone reaching up, and trying to scratch the very black out of the night sky.

“Stand under the branches,” Morpheus began.

“And don’t look up,” Lucas finished for him, remembering his last trip to the tree.

“Try not to get damned or cast into Tartarus or anything horrid like that, okay?” Morpheus said with genuine fondness.

“Thank you, Morpheus,” Lucas said sincerely. “I owe you.”

“You and Helen both,” Morpheus replied with a lazy wave of his hand. He turned and walked away, fading into the blur of the eye-teasing lights.

Lucas could hear the nightmares moving through the branches. He held his breath as a light feeling thrilled through him. He forced himself to walk under the branches, his legs marching forward in stiff little strides.

It was a cold fear he felt, responding to nightmares that didn’t threaten him in the usual way. The tree knew he wasn’t afraid of dying or pain as he had been the last time he stood under these branches. Those things were not what he truly feared anymore. This time, instead of claws and teeth scraping across the bark, Lucas heard familiar voices whispering above him.

He heard Matt. He heard Hector. He heard his aunt Pandora. He heard Helen weeping, “I’m bleeding,” over and over. The voices and the shapes of all the people who he had loved and lost hung over him in the branches of the nightmare tree.

Lucas was surprised that Matt’s presence and tone of voice were so familiar to him after just a few short months of friendship. But then, they had shared much more than just lunch tables and homework assignments. They had shared the last moment of Matt’s life, and because Lucas was the one who took it, he would carry a part of Matt with him forever.

“Hades!” Lucas called, forcing himself to shout over the sound of the nightmare-Helen’s crying. “Please, just hear me out!”

The nightmares went silent and disappeared. Lucas looked up to see Hades walking toward him. He stopped on his side of the border. It was the first time Lucas had ever seen the lord of the dead, yet when Hades pulled off the Helm of Darkness and revealed Orion’s face, Lucas was not surprised. He’d already guessed at the connection between Hades and Orion.

What Lucas didn’t expect was to see Hades swaddled in shadows, exactly like the shadows Lucas made. While Lucas stared, Hades tucked the helmet that made him invisible under his arm.
I can make myself invisible,
Lucas thought.

Something clicked in his head. Lucas wanted to scream it was so ironic.

“Hello, son,” Hades said softly, confirming Lucas’s suspicion.

“How?” Lucas asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Did my mother . . . ?”