“Forget Hephaestus’s plasma screens, I don’t care how enormous they are. When you’re mortal-watching, they just don’t offer the same video quality as a good starlit pool. And if you knew half of the secrets I do about plasma screens, you’d never want to get near the things.”
—Hecate (blog entry, January 12, 2010)
“Oh, please. The only ‘secret’ Hecate knows about plasma screens is that she broke hers and Hephaestus refused to fix it for a decade. Don’t ask how she broke it. She’s . . . weird. Adopted, too, you know.”
—Aphrodite (The Early Show with Danny O’Neill, January 14, 2010)
IN A CONCRETE, whitewashed chamber in the middle of a secret compound, Brittany Simons (a.k.a. Wynter Nightsorrow, a.k.a. the young woman from Chapter Four) sat tied to a chair. Her captors had tied her up with a distinct lack of mercy—the ropes binding her wrists cut and chafed until she'd abandoned trying to escape. Sweat beaded on her forehead under the blinding, hot lights. Every once in a while, her captors would come in to ask her questions or try to convince her to turn from her heathen ways, and each time she refused to answer with anything but curses. To those who observed, she was clearly miserable.
Yet inside, Wynter couldn’t stop unsmiling. At last, some persecution! As a bonus, her captors had let slip that she was now held prisoner in what they described as a “secret compound”. Jackpot!
Yes, Wynter hid her elation well. So well, in fact, that deep within the Olympian courtyards, Hecate gazed into a starlit pool displaying Wynter’s distant image and saw nothing but suffering.
Though none were watching Hecate, the goddess’s own displeasure was plainly apparent to those nonexistent observers: the insult was unimaginable! That these so-called Ninjas Templar would dare to desecrate one of her own temples was repugnant enough. That they would kidnap and attempt to “save” one of her favorite priestesses set her seething. That they had burst in on the cusp of a ritual of secrets enraged her beyond words!
Worse, not all of that rage was directed externally.
She demanded it repeatedly of herself: Why, why in the name of all that was shadowed did she have to pick that exact moment to share that particular secret? Hecate, goddess of night, mother of witches, queen of secrets, had a new secret: she was in deep, deep trouble.
She could have chosen some other secret with which to bless Wynter: The true name of the now-deceased Loch Ness monster (Larry), the first of the eleven secret “herbs and spices” (disturbingly, also Larry), or which of the Three Stooges was really a British agent (curiously, not Larry). Had she chosen to disclose any one of those secrets, she would have been free to exact retribution upon these Ninjas Templar and their masters. This is not to say that she was incapable of retribution as things stood, but the price was far too high. Dispensing divine wrath attracted the notice of her fellow immortals. Other gods paid attention to see if the wrath was directed at one of their own favorites, and if not, then simply for professional interest. Now that the Olympians were back, many of them anticipated the return of the annual Wrathy Awards, as well, and it paid to keep track of the competition. Any scrutiny of the situation would lead to the discovery of just what secrets Hecate had shared with Wynter:
The secrets of the Titans’ prison.
Everyone knew of the Titan War in which Zeus, his siblings, and some mercenary giants barely defeated their elders in a battle that nearly shattered the world. (Scholars and poets knew it officially as the Titanomachy, but Athena decided “Titan War” had more kick.) Everyone knew that after the war, the Olympians imprisoned most of the Titans in eternal voids in Tartarus, the worst part of the underworld. Those were the broad strokes. The details were much less known and far more dangerous, and Hecate had given them out like Halloween candy.
It wouldn’t matter that Wynter had been interrupted before she could write down everything; the very act of sharing such things with anyone could very likely get Hecate herself locked away in eternal nothingness.
The goddess stifled a scream. She shouldn’t have shared it, but Wynter’s devotion was so exuberant! The young woman began her worship before the Return, before she even had evidence that the goddess existed. She was trapped in a family that failed to understand her, her friends were long gone, and her college demanded tuition in payment for acceptance—tuition that she sacrificed to Hecate. With her adoration of the magic of night and secrets, Wynter was a kindred spirit who reminded the goddess of herself.
No one on Olympus listened to her, after all. No one cared. They were only her adopted family. Oh, sure, she was as powerful as they, but no one acknowledged it. When she originated the idea of hiding cheese in the crust of a pizza, none of the gods gave her credit. When she became a successful supernatural romance novelist, they didn’t read her books. Heck, even after she created some of the most interesting monsters since the Return, they didn’t pay her one single compliment. Hecate supported Zeus’s death, supported the Return; she even knew who was responsible. The murderers met even now in a room Hermes thought was a secret. Yet did they ask her to help? Not even for a moment.
She just wanted someone to talk to, someone who understood.
Wynter understood.
So telling her about the Titans’ prisons was a mistake. She’d deal with that. The pool in which she watched Wynter could only show her the room her priestess was in; she had no ties to the mortals who held her. They lurked in separate rooms, likely discussing their find and what to do about it.
It remained for Hecate to determine what she would do about them.
Elsewhere on Olympus in the secret chamber Hermes himself built long ago, five Olympians had gathered to tackle their own particular problems.
“You did it wrong,” Hermes told the others.
“Did it wrong?” the goddess shot.
“If Zeus can still be brought back? Yes!”
“It was a trap,” Ares snarled, turning his wrath on another god among them. “Ol’ Zeus knew it wouldn’t work! He just blurts out some bull about a god-killer, and you go and think he let it slip ’cause he’s drunk! It was a loyalty test! You doomed us all!”
The smooth-voiced god whom he was addressing straightened up. “Zeus was drunk off his ass, believe me! Strongest ambrosia-liquor I’ve ever tasted. The poor fellow blacked out, didn’t remember a word. I’d bet my life on it.”
Hermes rolled his eyes. “Really, you already did, you know.”
“Hey, I only passed on what I heard. It was her idea to kill him!” he blurted, pointing at the goddess.
“Okay, even if it ain’t a trap,” Ares went on, “point is the son of a Titan is coming back.”
At that, the immortal who had been sitting silently in the corner cleared his throat, once.
Ares winced. “Didn’t say bein’ a son of a Titan is always a bad thing.”
“Might be coming back,” the goddess corrected.
“Might be’s as good as done, far as I’m concerned.”
“But it’s got something to do with this mortal?” the goddess asked.
Hermes nodded. “So Apollo thinks. And you know how he is with visions.”
The god of war perked up. “Easy answer, then: find this poor loser, and kill him! Problem solved.”
The silent god in the corner cleared his throat again.
Ares gritted his teeth. “What?”
Hades stood, moving out of the corner to stand behind Ares. His face was grim, his eyes deep. “Mortal deaths release . . . energies,” came the answer.
“Hades is right,” the goddess said. “We don’t know enough. Killing him might very well lead to resurrecting Zeus. Somehow.”
“Somehow?” Ares snarled.
“You know how these things go!”
“Yes.” Hermes grinned. “You make one simple bet about who’s prettiest, and suddenly the entire Trojan nation is wiped out!”
The goddess glared. “You just shut up about that, Hermes! The others were—I didn’t—it wasn’t my—shut up!”
He winked at her before going on. “Apollo did think the mortal might be a child of Zeus. That might even increase the chance that killing him could be what starts things in motion.”
Hades gave what was, possibly, a conceding nod.
“Might. Might not.” Ares shrugged. “One way to find out.”
“It’s a bad idea until we know more,” Hermes said.
“Kill first, ask questions after!”
“Sage advice!” Hermes sniped. “Are you a god or a stereotype?”
“Yer a timid damn pussy, Hermes.”
“Oh yes? Who risked himself to steal the god-killer in the first place, eh?”
“We didn’t ask for your help!”
“Ah, well you did, actually. ‘Don’t tell our secret, Hermes! Steal the god-killer for us, Hermes!’ With all ‘due’ respect, Ares, you’re not the brains of this operation. Frankly, I don’t even gather just what you bring to the table, so why don’t you let the rest of us do the thinking and—”
Ares shot to his feet. “Yer all a bunch of pussies!”
Hades put a single hand on the war god’s shoulder. His whisper close against Ares’s ear somehow echoed through the room regardless. “We shall not kill him. Yet.” A firm arm pushed Ares back to his seat before Hades returned to his corner.
“Okay,” Ares tried, “so we haul out the god-killer again and off Apollo.”
Protests echoed about the table from all but Hades, who merely shook his head.
“Yer worried about Poseidon’s new ‘no attackin’ another god’ rule? We’re not attackin’ him; we’re killin’ him!”
Hades stared at Ares with infinitely patient disapproval. “No.”
“No one wants to investigate who killed Zeus,” Hermes added. “We do it again and we might not be so lucky. Besides, Apollo’s usually a decent chap.”
“But—”
“We’re not killing him, Ares,” the goddess insisted.
“Okay, okay, it was just an idea,” he said. “Damned good idea, if ya ask me . . .”
“So what, then?” asked the smooth-voiced god. “Ideas, anyone?”
“We have him followed, for starters,” said the goddess suddenly. She turned to Hermes. “Any one of us can find a mortal to do a favor.”
“Discreet," said Hermes. "I like it.”
“Come on, following?” Ares grumbled. “That’s it?”
“Yeah,” the smooth-voiced god agreed, “that’s not enough.”
“We can’t take action until we know what this mortal is destined to do. Apollo said he wasn’t even sure if the vision was literal, so—”
Hermes brightened. “Oh, that’s perfect! Look, we can’t kill him, but we can’t just let him go about his business, right? So, obviously, we find a way to distract him!”
Ares grinned. “Good solid boot to the head’s always mighty distracting, I find.”
The god gave a sly chuckle. “Not quite what I had in mind. But first, we’ve got to find the lucky fellow and get just a teensy bit of Aphrodite’s help.”