The Blood of Athens

Olympia
Heights:

Book 3

The Blood of
Athens

by Amy Leigh
Strickland

The characters
in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living
or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright
© 2013 by Amy Leigh Strickland

http://www.amyleighstrickland.com

@Nimbuschick
on Twitter

All
rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,
the duplication, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of
this book without permission of the publisher constitute unlawful
piracy and theft of intellectual property. Only small excerpts may be
quoted for review purposes. For further questions, please contact the
publisher at
[email protected]

Matter
Deep Publishing, LLC

127
Heather Ridge Drive

Pelham,
AL 35124

matterdeeppublishing.com

To all of the
English teachers who inspired me to write and taught me to love
reading.

“
You should
reach the limits of virtue, before you cross the border of death.
”

-Tyrtaeus

THE
PANTHEON

Zach Jacobs
(Zeus)

June Herald
(Hera)

Nick Morrisey
(Poseidon)

Valerie Hess
(Hestia)

Dr. Celene
Davis (Demeter)

Frank Guerrero
(Ares)

Peter Hadley
(Hades)

Devon
Valentine (Aphrodite)

Miranda
“Minnie” Rutherford (Athena)

Evan Fuller
(Hephaestus)

Teddy Wexler
Jr. (Dionysus)

Penelope Davis
(Persephone)

Astin Hill
(Apollo)

Diana Hill
(Artemis)

Lewis Mercer
(Hermes)

Dr. Jason
Livingstone (Mortal)

“
To give
birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne
even when injured by it.”

-Sophocles

i.

Because
Alkmene carried a son of Zeus,
she invited the full force of
Hera's wrath,
who sent Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth,
to
stay her labor.

Eileithyia
delayed the birth of the child
until the wait endangered mother
and son,
but a handmaid with no fealty to Hera
took pity on
them.

As
a trick, to startle the watchful goddess,
the handmaid suddenly
yelled, “A son is born!”
Eileithyia was confused by this
statement
and let slip her guard.

That
moment of chaos was all they needed
for the head to crown and a
face to appear.
With a sharp cry, Hera's vengeance was
thwarted.
Herakles was born.

“
A
society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know
they shall never sit in.”

-Greek
Proverb

I.

Mr. Hadley sat
on the end of his bed, dabbing a wet facecloth against his knuckles.
He had lost his temper again. He was sorry to say that most of the
blood on his hand was not his own.

He stretched
his fingers, feeling the split skin strain and scream with pain. He
had never wanted the boy; she knew that, but he had agreed for her
sake. His wife had wanted Peter so badly, and when she had bled to
death bringing him into the world, Mr. Hadley had lost everything.

He heard a
sound outside of his bedroom. It was a footstep on old, cracked,
pistachio linoleum. He was about to fly into another rage. How dare
that boy sneak out after everything that had just happened! The
bedroom doorknob turned and opened. Mr. Hadley waited, but no one was
there.

“
What
the--?” He approached the door to close it, but he was interrupted
by another sound. He spun around. The VCR on his old tube television
was accepting a tape. The play button depressed as if it were being
pushed by an invisible hand. The television flicked on.

Mr. Hadley
stood frozen in amazement as a video played. It began with a scene in
his kitchen three weeks before. It seemed to be filmed from between a
stack of soup cans, their blurred silhouettes looming in the
foreground of the low-quality video. Peter knocked a glass off the
counter. He did it on purpose? Mr. Hadley watched himself tear into
the room, shouting. Peter said something back, and Mr. Hadley
flat-out punched him in the jaw. The boy’s head whipped around and
barely missed the counter before dropping out of frame. Mr. Hadley
kept shouting, his wild, bearded face red with anger and spit flying
from his mouth.

The video
stopped and was replaced by Peter’s bruised face. He was sitting in
a janitorial closet, probably at school, and he was holding the
camera. His black eyes were fixed on the lens, staring through the
camera and the television to lock eyes with his father.

“
Dad,” he
said, his voice trembling even to say it in a recording. “I have
three weeks of this stuff on tape. I’ve given it to friends-- and
no, not Penny, so don’t even think about trying to intimidate her.
A grown up has a copy. So you have a decision to make.”

Peter took a
deep breath. His voice became steady and he stopped trembling. “You
can either lay off the booze and keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll
have you put away for a long time. Anything happens to me and people
know what to do. I’m seventeen, I can get a court order to live on
my own for six more months while you rot in prison.”

“
Dad,” he
said, bringing the camera closer to his face. The autofocus couldn’t
adjust, leaving his features blurred. “Keep your damned hands off
of me or I will take you down. Sleep tight.”

The door to
the bedroom closed. Mr. Hadley sat on the bed. It was his turn to
quake with fear.

He stood up
and crossed the room. The bedroom doorknob was made of cheap metal
and painted over gold. The paint had chipped away over the years to
reveal its true nature. Mr. Hadley locked it and shook the door to be
sure that it was tight.

The threats of
the tape were not what held him in terror. It was Peter. Mr. Hadley
had witnessed him a handful of times over the past year talking to
absolutely nobody. That boy had never been right. How had he come in
here and played that tape without being seen?

“
I'm her
Doctor,” Jason Livingstone said, trying to keep his voice level as
he spoke to the receptionist at Mercy Hospital. “Dr. Jason
Livingstone.”

The large
woman slipped her thick, black glasses down her nose and looked
closely at Devon's file. “Livingstone?” She raised an eyebrow and
smirked.

“
Yes,” he
said. “Livingstone.” He glanced towards the elevator door. This
was it. This was the moment when they found out if the baby was going
to give them all away.

“
Oh, yes.
Here you are. She's in room 319.”

Jason ran down
the hall. The receptionist called after him. He tapped his foot as
the elevator brought him to the third floor. A nurse, who must have
been alerted, cut him off before he reached the door.

“
Sir, this
room is sterile. If you follow me, I can get you prepped.”

Devon screamed
from the other side of the door.

“
Is she
already delivering?” he asked.

“
She's
already at nine centimeters.”

Jason wasn't
going to waste time arguing with the nurse. He followed her to a sink
and washed up while she brought him a gown, mask, and gloves. Five
minutes later, he entered the delivery room. Devon was laid back on
the bed, her feet propped up in stirrups. Sweat covered her forehead.
Frank stood next to her, holding her tiny hand in his own massive
one. He looked scared.

“
Doc,” he
said, when Jason entered.

“
How's she
doing?”

Devon
screamed. She dug her nails into Frank's hand. He didn't flinch. The
contractions were coming close together now.

“
Alright,
Devon,” said the doctor at her feet. She was a middle-aged Hispanic
woman with streaks of grey in her black hair. “I'm going to need
you to push. He's almost here.”

Jason had been
in a delivery room many times before. He had observed a few times in
med school, assisted when they were short staffed at the hospital,
and he had witnessed the birth of his own three children. Watching
Devon now, he was amazed at how glamorous she managed to look,
screaming, red-faced, with her blonde hair drenched in sweat.

“
One more
push,” the doctor said.

The last push
came with a screamed expletive and then Devon collapsed back on the
bed, panting. Jason rushed to get a look at the infant as he was
brought to the sink to be cleaned up.

Ten fingers.
Ten toes. No horns. No hooves. He sighed and turned to Frank, giving
the thumbs up. Frank's smile melted his hardened exterior. For a
moment, the colossal eighteen-year-old looked like a child.

Frank pressed
his forehead to the glass, looking in on the nursery and the row of
baby boys and girls lined up orderly and classified by pink and blue.
Jason approached and stopped at his side, watching the massive young
man for a sign of what he was thinking.

“
Do you know
which one's yours?” he asked Frank, tapping his arm and handing him
a cup of coffee. Frank took the cup and nodded thanks. It was one in
the morning now. He was running on adrenaline.

“
Third row
away from us, six in from the left,” he said. “That's him. I can
tell.”

Jason squinted
through the glass at the infant. The baby boy was very pink, and his
hair was hidden in a blue hospital cap.

“
What's his
name?” Jason asked.

“
Minnie
found something for us,” Frank replied. “Xander. It's Greek. It
means defender of the people.”

“
Does Xander
have a middle name?”

“
Devon.”
Jason smiled. Frank did, too. “She's a little vain,” he said.
Jason laughed.

“
Every
heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.
Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover,
everyone becomes a poet.”

-Plato

ii.

It
was the night of Harmonia's wedding
when the goddess of fertility
first laid
eyes on the beautiful hero, Iason,
and knew she
loved him.

They
met in a field she had blessed with bounty.
The field had been
plowed three times and left fallow
so that she could restore its
fertility.
They met in darkness.

The
hero of the harvest took her in arms
and the two made love in the
naked wheat field.
Then they, gathering their clothes about
themselves,
returned to the feast.

“
Sex and
sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal.”

-Alexander
The Great

II.