“What?” Jen demanded after Hip told her the plan. They stood together in the Fields of Asphodel with Muggie sleeping at their feet. “Are you crazy?”
Hip felt the blood leave his face. “Crazy? What? No. I thought this would make you happy.”
“How can you risking your life make me happy?” He’d never seen her face so red.
“Jen, I’m not risking my life. I’m a god.”
She whipped around, putting her back to him. “You know what I mean.” She turned back to face him. “Like you’ve said before, there are worse things than death.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to me.”
“Like Ares?”
“He was out of practice. He’d gone a whole year without his powers. That’s not going to happen to me.”
She grabbed a fistful of his white shirt and put her face close to his. At first, he thought she was going to kiss him, but, instead, she growled, “You don’t know that. And I didn’t give up my life on the ranch with my family and friends and all my horses just to be down here spending eternity without you. None of the other gods even like me—except Tizzie. She’s my only friend, and that’s just ‘cause she’s married to my brother.”
“That’s not true. Everyone down here likes you.”
“That’s what you want to believe. They don’t think I have what it takes. I can tell. And it’s holding me back.”
“You do have what it takes. I know you do. Isn’t that enough?” He cupped her angry face in both hands. “Listen to me. I promise I’ll be careful. And I’ll be here with you the whole time. If things go wrong, I’ll reintegrate right back to this spot.”
She sighed. “You and I have both been trapped somewhere where we couldn’t disintegrate. Just a few days ago, I was stuck in Circe’s lair. Remember?”
“That only happened because I was in Tartarus without my body and couldn’t keep tabs on you. But this time, you’ll have my back, right? And so will my father and sisters.”
The expression of anger left her face as tears filled her eyes.
Hip kissed her, quickly, and then added, “This is a chance for us to have a complete family.”
“If anything were to happen to you,” she murmured. “Oh, Hip.”
“Trust me, okay? Have faith in me, even if you don’t have faith in yourself.”
Silently, she nodded as the tears spilled from her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck, and he held her for several minutes, until she broke away and asked, “What if Muggie doesn’t want the same thing for him as we do? Shouldn’t we ask him first?”
“But if we ask him and I don’t succeed…”
“You just said I should trust you!”
Her hands were trembling again. He took them both in his own and, trying to calm her down, said, “Shh. Listen. I meant you should trust me that I won’t get myself eaten. But there’s still a good chance that I won’t be able to find Ares’s leg or figure out who’s attacking Gaia. I don’t think we should get the boy’s hopes up about becoming a god before we know if it’s a sure thing.”
She bit her lip and then slowly nodded.
“But I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If I do succeed, we can let it be his choice. If he doesn’t want to become like us and take us as his parents, we can go back to finding him a home.”
“But then you’ll have taken this humungous risk for nothing.”
“Not for nothing. For the chance of making our dreams come true. It’s worth it.”
She looked deeply into his eyes. “I never knew how much having a family meant to you.”
“Neither did I. It wasn’t until Than and Therese had the twins that it dawned on me.”
Jen smiled. “For me, it was spending time with Muggie. I’m not sure I’d have wanted just any child. You know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
He reached his lips to hers and sighed against her mouth.
Before he’d met Jen, he never would have believed that this was the man he would want to become. But now that he had her, and he loved her with all his heart, he wanted to take their relationship to the next level. It seemed natural and right to him to become a father, to multiply their little family unit into three. He doubted he would have ever wanted this if it hadn’t been for the love he felt for Jen.
He ran his fingers through her hair and pressed his lips hard against hers.
Jen rode on Stormy’s back across the Ionian Sea and into Scylla’s cave, where she dismounted on the rocky embankment. At first, she didn’t see anyone there, but in the next moment a figure appeared from a dark corner. She was a beautiful woman dressed in an orange iridescent gown that clung to her curvy form. Except for thin straps, her pale shoulders were bare, and her long, slender arms were bent at the elbows, her hands on her curvy hips. Her dark hair was in at least a dozen braids that were loosely wound on top of her head. She had a smile on her face, and one of her eyebrows was arched.
Jen took a deep breath. “Scylla?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” she said in a throaty voice that wasn’t entirely different from the one she’d had before, even though it was softer and more appealing to the ears.
Jen nodded. “It’s an amazing transformation. I’m so happy for you. How do you feel?”
“It’s nice that who I am on the inside can finally be seen on the outside.”
“That’s so great.” Jen crossed the rocky cavern to the edge of the pool to hug her. Scylla stiffened against her, and when Jen pulled away, she noticed Scylla’s face had reddened with a mixture of embarrassment and something else that Jen couldn’t read.
Jen added, “You helped save a lot of children. Doesn’t it feel good to be on the right side?”
Scylla frowned. “It did feel good. I’ll admit that.”
Jen felt uneasy. She took a few steps back toward Stormy. “You should be proud of yourself,” she said enthusiastically. “You’re a hero.”
Scylla cocked her head to one side. “What’s interesting is that it was the monster in me that saved those children.”
“It was the goodness in you.” Jen took another step back. “There’s good inside of you, and, like you said, now your outside matches your inside.”
“I had a very specific purpose before,” Scylla said. “My job was to challenge the sailors that crossed the Messina Straight. Did you know that in order for my transformation to remain permanent, I have to find a new purpose within a few months?”
“I can help you with that,” Jen offered just as Stormy gave her a nervous snort.
“That won’t be necessary,” came a familiar voice from the opening of the cave.
Jen turned to see Keto emerged from the water to her waist. She held a fishing spear with a barbed hook at the end.
“Keto,” Jen said with surprise and fear. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and she felt the sudden instinct to run, but she ignored it. “We were just coming to see you. Weren’t we, Scylla?”
Jen glanced back at Scylla to find a strange smile on the newly transformed goddess’s face.
“Scylla?” Jen asked, realizing too late that she was about to be betrayed. “Don’t do this. I can help you.”
“My mother offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse,” Scylla explained. “She said that if I fed you to my father, she’d forgive me for forsaking my birthright by becoming beautiful.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Jen said, barely able to speak or to breathe. She was in full panic mode. She couldn’t think. “That isn’t who you are.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong,” Keto said. “It’s exactly who she is. No matter what she looks like on the outside, she will always be one of us. She will always be a monster.”
Jen looked from Scylla to Keto and back at Scylla again. “Don’t believe her. It’s not true. You told me yourself. You’re not a monster! You get to define who you are!”
Scylla frowned, and for a moment, Jen thought the new goddess would be persuaded to stand up against her mother. But instead, Scylla said, “If you pray for help, we’ll eat Stormy, too. If you want to spare his life, you’ll be smart and cooperate.”
Stormy snorted again and stepped away from Keto.
Just then, Keto drove her fishing spear into Stormy’s flank, and blood spurted from his body as he wailed with pain.
“No!” Jen screamed and raced toward him.
But before she could reach him, he floundered into the water, where a whirlpool sucked him down.
Charybdis! Jen saw the monster’s face for the first time. Four circular mouths lined with teeth opened and closed, sucking the water and ripping everything solid that passed through them to shreds. It was horrifying, reminding her of the Kracken from a movie about pirates.
But Stormy was still alive. Jen could see him through the transparent skin of the monster. The horse was flailing and shrieking. Jen wanted to vomit.
“We’ll let Stormy go if you cooperate,” Keto said.
Jen did the only thing she could. She dove into the water and swam after Stormy.
She tried to pray for help, but the whirlpool that was Charybdis sucked her this way and that, making her lose sight of Stormy. She cried out to him, turning her head side to side, up and down, until another current blasted her, flipped her over, and sucked her even further down, down, down. Her head felt like it was going to explode. She couldn’t even hear herself think. She was deaf and blind. And when she finally remembered that she could breathe underwater, she opened her mouth only to find the oxygen gone.
A roar like the sound of a train blasted her eardrums, and that’s when she knew where she was. She was inside the belly of the monster.
Dawn had not yet come to the cold, windy mountains of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska, where Hip hovered in search of the Giant that had swallowed Ares’s leg. Back in the Fields of Asphodel, Hip held little Muggie while he slept, and, in the Dreamworld, he watched the boy command the figments with amazing control. Hip had enough going on to distract himself from worrying about Jen, but he still worried.
He was disintegrated in the millions around the globe, but he couldn’t stop thinking of his wife.
He hadn’t liked the idea of her going alone with Stormy to meet with Scylla, but he needed Jen to know he believed in her. And as much as he wanted to reach out in prayer, to ask her if all was well, he knew he should wait for her to report back to him, so she didn’t think he doubted her.
Some of the other gods were with him in different parts of the world, helping with the hunt. Hermes had joined him in the eastern mountains of Alaska, Apollo ran along the river with him in central Alaska, and Artemis flew beside him above the Yukon. Athena went with him deeper into Canada, closer to the edge of towns, and Hera flew beside him in the snow over Greenland. So far, they had seen no sign of the Giant.
Of the companions Hip found himself with today, Hermes was by far his favorite. The god of travel and communication, of commerce and thievery, had no trouble making conversation anywhere he went. The stories from his younger days, when he used to play his tricks with much more frequency than in recent decades, were sure to entertain, and Hip enjoyed hearing about them. He was especially fond of the one that Hermes told about Hip’s father—about a time Hermes, Hades, and Dionysus played a trick on Poseidon by dressing up his white mares in Persephone’s jewels, scarves, and hats. Hermes told it in great detail, including the part where Hades was sent to work on a pig farm. Although Hip had been born by then, he had no recollection of any of it.
Hades ended the story with, “Your mother wasn’t too happy about that. It was a delicate time. Lots of tension between Olympians.”
“Isn’t that always the case?” Hip pointed out.
“Right you are,” Hermes said. “Except for times like these when we share a common enemy.”
“Any theories about who’s behind this?” Hip asked.
“None yet. You?”
Hip shook his head. He didn’t have a clue, which wasn’t the best start to a quest with so much riding on it.
Therese hadn’t felt this nervous since the day she stood on the platform in Circe’s battlefield preparing to face the monsters while Jen and Marvin held her babies in the cave where she’d given birth to them. She and Than had stayed up late last night talking, and they had decided it was time to tell Carol and Richard the truth.
Therese thought it would be better if she told them alone, so, while Than took the twins and Lynn for a swim in Lemon Reservoir across the street, Therese sat down in her childhood living room on a chair across from her aunt and uncle and took a deep breath.
“Is everything okay?” Carol asked.
“We’re here for you no matter what,” Richard said. “Just calm down, and tell us what’s on your mind.”
Therese took another deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to let her teeth chatter. She’d kept this secret from them for so long—for over five years. She wasn’t just afraid of their reaction to the fact that Than had been the god of death and that her children were demigods; she was also afraid that they’d be hurt that she hadn’t confessed it all sooner.
“This may come as a shock to you,” Therese began.