The Cult of Kronos (11 page)

The doorknob jiggled. Someone
was unlocking the door. June ran to greet Zach, surprised that he had
made it back so early, and was surprised to see someone else standing
in the hallway. The realtor who was managing their rental stood in
the hallway, dressed in yoga pants and a tank top as if she had just
been to the gym. Something was wrong with her eyes.

“
Oh, I thought it was my
husband,” June said, embarrassed at how eagerly she had rushed to
the door.

The realtor did not reply. She
just shut the door behind her and stared at June.

“
Um, so what can I help you
with?” June asked.

More silence.

Footsteps in the hall let June
know that others were arriving. The door opened and two men in suits
walked in. They had the same blank look on their faces, and their
eyes were fully dilated.

“
What is this?” June
asked, backing up and wondering if she had anything on-hand to defend
herself.”

“
Hera,” the realtor said,
her voice apathetic and steady. “Come with us.”

“
And what if I say no?”
she said, trying to inch back towards the kitchen where she knew
there was a ready knife block.

“
Then we'll have to take you
by force,” one of the men said with the same lackluster cadence.

“
Alright, bitch,” June
said, her lip curling into an almost snarl. “Try.”

When the two men, bruised and
scratched, carried June Jacobs, unconscious, out of the apartment,
the realtor limped behind her, clamping her hand over a bloody gash
on her arm. June had gone down, but she hadn't gone down without a
fight.

Felon of Troy. That was the
name printed on the back of the sleeveless jersey that Minnie
Rutherford wore. Her number was 1100 BC. She had tried out for the
Boston team on a trip north to tour Harvard in July. Now she was here
for the semester and ready to play. The girls had presented her with
a jersey upon arrival.

Minnie wasn't the largest or
the strongest girl on the team, but she was fast, smart, and she knew
the rule book by heart. She hardly ever spent any time in the penalty
box; that was a rarity in the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.

The rink had glossy wooden
floors and strips of neon lights around the concrete block walls. The
carpet outside the rink was decorated with planets and stars, just
like every other skating rink Minnie had ever been to in her life.
The team was a mix of women from all professions. The captain was a
veterinarian. The assistant captain was a hairdresser. Her son, ten
years old, brought a bag of quarters to every practice to play arcade
games. At the arcade end of the rink, the end where they set up cones
to mimic a regulation flat track, a row of black lights made the neon
stars and planets glow in the dark.

Minnie laced up her skates and
double-checked her pads. Everything was ready to go. She skated a few
laps before doing a knee-drop in the middle of the rink and starting
her stretches. Once she was done stretching, she went back to get
water. Minnie wasn't a starter because she had just arrived, but they
were training for a tournament. Minnie knew that water breaks would
be few and far between.

The girls were bigger and the
hits were harder than they had been in the junior league. Minnie made
a few glorious wipeouts before her mind wrapped around the skaters
and their habits. By the end of practice, she was sneaking by without
taking any solid hits. She could move, predict the direction of the
pack, and dart through the gaps without effort.

The coach blew the whistle to
end the scrimmage. It was a team routine to warm down by skating ten
laps, going slower and slower, until they were coasting along with
barely any effort. Minnie was on her sixth lap when Bellatrix Smack,
a large girl from Lowell with frizzy black hair, careened straight
for her. Minnie dodged aside. “What the heck!” she screamed.
Turning around and trying to block head-on was definitely against the
rules.

Another girl, Donna Chernobyl,
came at Minnie from the other side. Minnie barely darted out of the
way. Was this some sick newbie hazing stunt?

“
Hey!” the coach screamed,
blowing her whistle. “Chernobyl, bench, now!”

Chernobyl ignored her and came
at Minnie again.

Now there were five girls on
the rink, and the rink manager was walking out. With six people after
her, Minnie started to realize that this was not a joke. Their
posture was different, and their eyes were wide and dilated. They
were moving like zombies—zombies who were very skilled on roller
skates.

The coach ran out, blasting
her whistle. Bellatrix Smack turned around and punched her, knocking
the other woman unconscious.

“
So,” Minnie said, her
back against the wall of the rink, black light making her electric
blue skate laces glow, “Who is this then? Kronos?”

Chernobyl laughed. “You're
quicker to pick up on it than your friends.”

Most of the twenty girls on
the team had already gone out to their cars. Minnie was alone with an
unconscious coach and a pack of possessed blockers. “I usually am,”
she said. Knowing the pack's habits wouldn't help her here; they
weren't behaving like themselves.

Minnie took a deep breath. She
couldn't hurt these girls; odds were that they were people under
supernatural influence, not Titans themselves. Still, she knew they
could take a hit. The problem was, these were five of the biggest
girls on the team.

Minnie darted to the left.
Bellatrix Smack moved to shoulder-check her, but Minnie ducked down.
Smack crashed into Chernobyl, who lost her balance and tumbled over.
Minnie popped up just in time to avoid a hip-check from Big N' Nasty
(she wasn't that creative) and slip past the wall of blockers.

She wasn't going to take off
her skates until she was locked safely in her car. Minnie darted
towards the door, scooping her purse up off a bench as she passed,
and racing to the front. The gravel was going to tear up her indoor
wheels, but protecting her gear wasn't a high priority at the moment.
Minnie opened the door and skated out. A foot caught her ankle and
she went flying, face first, into the gravel parking lot.

The owner of the rink stood
over her with a smile on his face. “Not bad,” he said. “But not
good enough.”

Valerie Hess was sitting on
the bed in her dorm room with a book in her lap, doing her first
homework assignment of her college experience. It was a beautiful
August day, but Valerie was foregoing the weather to stay inside and
get ahead on her work. Someone knocked on the door and Valerie put
the book aside. She got up and crossed to open the door.

An older man with white hair
and a clean-shaved face stood in front of her, likely a professor.
She opened her mouth to greet him when she noticed that his eyes
looked strange. “Can I help you?” she asked.

Valerie looked down and saw a
knife clutched in his hand. The door was blocked. All she could do
was slam the wooden door and hope he would give up his pursuit. His
hand shot forward and his fingers wrapped around her slender wrist,
cutting off her chance for retreat.

“
Hestia,” he said.

“
Kronos,” she replied,
some distant memory of her life in ancient Greece informing this
recognition.

“
Come with me.”

The hotel ballroom was packed
with politicians and campaign financiers. Senator Wexler was retired
from office, but he was hosting the event for a colleague who was
looking to run for governor next year. It was a private luncheon,
meant to give the impression that this was all casual—that they
were among friends. Five hundred close friends. Teddy hadn't wanted
to go to the event, despite the open bar and fancy appetizers, but
Mrs. Wexler had insisted that he put on a suit and be there to
support his father. Mrs. Wexler just liked that Teddy's presence,
with his dark hair and caramel-colored skin, courted the hispanic
vote; that was about the only thing she liked about Teddy.

Dressed in a grey designer
suit with a lilac shirt and wine-colored tie, Teddy made the rounds.
He smiled when old women told him how handsome he was (“such long,
dark eyelashes with those bright blue eyes!”) and tried not to be
spotted turning his ginger ale into something stronger.

The special guest for the
party, the big speaker everyone was here to see, was Atticus Speal,
the latest self-help guru. Teddy didn't know exactly how much Speal
was being paid to twist his “surrender control” bit to apply to
big government, but he guessed that his fee could pay for a new car
or feed and house a local family for a year. Speal stood by the
stage, laughing and chatting. He was a tall man with a wild beard and
a tight haircut to balance it out. He wore a red tie and the
requisite American flag pin, and he gestured charismatically as he
spoke to the cluster of white-haired CEOs around him.

Teddy watched Speal, trying to
imagine what scandal would undo his self-improvement empire. Perhaps
he'd be caught with a prostitute. Perhaps three corporate big-wigs
would die mysteriously on a retreat he hosted. Perhaps he would have
a mental breakdown and run naked through the streets like the Kony
2012 guy.

Teddy was smirking to himself
as he imagined all of the possible disasters. It took a moment to
realize that, despite the woman yammering on in front of him, Speal
was looking directly at Teddy. Teddy sat up straight and Speal
smiled. Teddy knew that face, and he knew it was from somewhere other
than TV and magazines.

A strong hand gripped Teddy's
arm. He looked up to see his father's aid, Jerry, standing over him.
His eyes were dilated. “It's time for you to leave.”

“
I'm not doing anything,”
Teddy said, hoping Jerry couldn't smell the liquor in his glass.

Jerry smiled. It wasn't
Jerry's usual dopey grin; it belonged to someone else. “Party's
over.”

“
I…you…what are you
doing?” Teddy jerked his arm away from Jerry. He was getting pretty
creeped out.

Another hand landed firmly on
his shoulder. Teddy looked up to see a congressman from the
panhandle, whose name he couldn't remember, standing on his left. He
had the same distant, dilated look in his eyes. “I don't think you
understand the situation, Dionysus.”

Teddy splashed his drink in
the congressman's face and bolted. He expected to hear gasps and
screams and he stopped in the door to the ballroom, confused when
nobody made a sound. One older gentleman asked, “Who's making all
that racket?” The rest were silent.

“
Dionysus,” they said in
unison. It was a haunting sound, their voices blending perfectly as
one. No amount of rehearsal could accomplish such a feat.

Teddy turned back for the
door, but the waitstaff had blocked him in. He loosened his tie and
shook his head. “Great. A mind-control Titan.”

As the crowd closed in on him,
Teddy saw Atticus Speal sipping a martini and smiling.

Frank and Devon were living in
off-campus housing in Boca Raton. It was a small apartment with one
bedroom, one bathroom, and a tiny living room, but they could afford
it. Frank's football scholarship granted some housing money, and
Devon was benefiting from a teen mother's charity that Minnie had
found online. They still had to work part-time jobs to pay for
diapers, but they were determined to make it work. Devon had begun
hosting parties (sort of like Tupperware parties but for naughty
accessories) and had become the company's top-seller. Frank had
transferred to another auto dealership owned by the same guy he had
worked for in Miami and was keeping a handful of hours in between
classes and football practice.

This morning was quiet. Xander
was sitting silently in his green and blue bouncer while Devon ran
over her inventory and Frank mowed a lawn down the street for fifteen
bucks. Xander was a peaceful baby, and that made everything a lot
less stressful for the young couple; Devon knew she had gotten lucky.
She sat quietly on the floor, her back against the sofa, brushing her
long blonde hair away from her face and counting how many cherry
massage oils she had left in her tote.

Frank came in, sweaty and
smelling like grass clippings, and went to the refrigerator for a
glass of water. He pulled the curtain aside and looked out the
sliding glass door that opened onto their little eighteen-square-foot
balcony. “Devon.”

“
I'm doing math. You just
messed me up,” Devon said with a frown. She had never been great at
math because she had never seen its relevance in her life. Now that
she had to earn a living, she wished she had paid more attention in
algebra.

“
Is there a parade today?”

“
No. Who has a parade in
August?”

“
The street is full of
people.”

Devon put down her inventory
check sheet and went to the window. There was a crowd of people,
mostly older men and women in professional dress, but a few college
kids scattered here and there, walking down the street.

“
They're coming here,”
Frank said.

“
Was something going on in
the building?”

Something was wrong with these
people. Devon realized it when she saw a man pull his wind-breaker
aside and draw a sidearm. This wasn't a parade. It was an
frighteningly-calm angry mob.