The Cult of Kronos Read online

  Olympia Heights:

  Book 4

  The Cult of Kronos

  by Amy Leigh Strickland

  Copyright © 2014 by Amy Leigh Strickland

  http://www.amyleighstrickland.com

  www.olympia-heights.com

  @AmyLStrickland 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

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  To you who have written to tell me how much you love this series. Thank you.

  “We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”

  -Aristotle

  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)

  “You rely on force: but it is not force that governs human affairs.”

  -Euripides

  i.

  After intimidating his way across

  the black and gleaming Styx by Charon's ferry,

  Herakles strode into Lord Hades' palace

  and asked for the Queen.

  He had come to rescue lady Alcestis

  Who had died to help prolong her husband's life.

  Hades was moved by the tale of sacrifice

  and struck a bargain.

  He could not allow a soul to freely leave.

  Orpheus had paid for his wife with a song.

  So Hades challenged the hero to a match:

  a wrestling match.

  Hades knew he could not beat Herakles in

  an honest and fair contest of pure muscle.

  So when the hero pinned the god to end it,

  Hades let them go.

  “Call no man happy till he is dead.”

  -Aeschylus

  I.

  Peter Hadley stood at the bottom of a long shaft. It was smoothly worn into miles of limestone and ended on a wet clay floor. He looked up towards the mouth of the cave, but at this distance, it appeared as nothing more than a speck—a tiny star. His lanky, underfed frame felt at ease for the first time in his life. There were no throbbing bruises, no aching and cold feet, and no gnawing sensations of hunger deep in his belly. There was no pain. He felt light.

  Ahead of him was a floor of greenish-gray clay, and eventually, after a hundred yards or so, it gave way to fields of tall blue grass and a river. The grass did not move. There was no wind. The river, vast and black, was lined with shapes. They were moving, translucent figures. As Peter walked closer, resigned to the fact that he would not be able to scale the slick walls to return to the entrance of the tunnel, he realized that the moving shapes were people. They were souls.

  They were packed so closely together, their forms overlapping, that it was hard to tell exactly what they looked like. Here and there a taller figure stuck out of the mix: a monk with the top of his head shaved, a skinny punk with a spiked mohawk, a woman with a braid wrapped around her head. Towards the edges, furthest from the shore, the figures were contemporary, dressed in suits and sun dresses. Peter assumed they were the clothes these people had been buried in.

  They moved slowly, shuffling rather than walking, their eyes forever fixed on the opposite shore. Their bodies, gently glowing, were one of the only sources of light, save for a few torches lit with blue flames stabbed into the mud along the shore. They did not speak, but they sighed. They stood one on top of the other, occupying the same space, but they did not dare touch the river. No matter how many of these translucent bodies stood in one place, then never disturbed the water.

  A man in a military uniform clutched a rosary to his chest with both hands. He shuffled forward, phasing through an elderly woman in a floral dress. Others came from the tunnel behind him, slowly approaching the shore with patient footsteps. Peter saw, through the glowing cloud of bodies (thousands upon thousands, stretched for miles in each direction) a small boat parked on the shore. In the boat stood a man, more solid than the millions lining the shore. Peter reached out to touch the soldier, meaning to politely push him aside so that he could approach the man on the boat. His hand slipped through the soldier’s back and through the back of the elderly woman that he was passing through. Peter’s solid fingers could not grasp them.

  Peter put up his hand to test the idea that he could walk right through the throng of souls. He kept his hands in front of him as he walked, not meeting a solid form for at least a hundred yards as he approached the shore.

  He stopped at the river, looking down at the unnatural black water. It rippled gently, like liquid hematite lapping at the shore. Peter tapped the toe of his sneaker against the water. It rippled and then fell still. He knelt down and touched his fingertip against its surface. A great roaring filled his ears, and he looked up in time to see a black tidal wave rise and come crashing towards him. He was thrown back, flung away from the shore, and the souls that stood there with him were also knocked away from the water’s edge. When the tide receded, Peter was left on his back, laying among a sea of prostrate souls, all writhing like fish in a net. The water tumbled back towards the river, rolling off of his skin and clothes and leaving him bone dry.

  Peter climbed to his feet and checked himself for injuries. The thrift-store suit he wore was intact, though the black tie was slightly askew. A low chuckle rose from the silence. The clay ceiling to the titanic cavern was hundreds of feet above them, but still the voice echoed. Peter looked at the man on the boat. He was naked, save for a red cloth that covered his waist. His beard was white and wild but cut so that it went no lower than his shoulders. In his beard were gold and silver beads that adorned the ends of thin braids. His whole body, strong and lean, quaked as his laughter grew. He looked different than the spirits on the shore. He was alive, or at least as alive as Peter was. Which was dead.

  “That’s funny?” Peter asked.

  “M’Lord,” he said, coughing as he tried to regain control. “The Styx lets no man pass, alive or dead or otherwise.”

  “Will you let me cross?”

  “Of course,” he said, a smile still in his eyes. “You are my master.”

  “What about these people?” Peter asked. He approached the shore. The man held out his hand for Peter to help him climb into the long, narrow boat without touching the water.

  “They do not have the fee.”

  “The fee?”

  “A gold coin.”

  “But I don’t have the fee.”

  “You do not need the fee, Lord Hades.”

  Peter looked over the edge of the boat and saw his reflection in the rippling black surface. He tensed in surprise as he saw that his face was not that of a lean teenage boy, but older and bearded. The black eyes were still the same, however. “I’ve changed.”

  “Have you?”

  Peter touched the tight black cur
ls on his face and stared back at his shivering reflection. When had it changed? The boat began to move. “I was a boy.” He watched in the river as his face changed. The beard shrank away and his face sank into sharp, hungry features. “This, this is my face.”

  “Are they not both your face, my Lord?”

  The beard returned and Peter looked back at the ferryman, who used a long pole to propel the boat across the river. “I suppose so,” Peter said. “Charon. Your name is Charon.”

  “You remember,” Charon said.

  “I remember a lot of things.” Peter looked down at his hands. As he watched, they grew from the long, tapered fingers of Peter Hadley. They became larger with rough pads. His arms, once lean and bony, swelled until they were built with muscle as solid as granite. Even his clothes changed. He found himself wearing a robe made out of fabric blacker than space and a mantle on his shoulders of equally black fur. His sneakers were gone; now he wore sandals. He felt stronger, too, like the frail form of Peter Hadley had always been an act. “I’m not dead.”

  “Well, you are not alive.”

  “I’m…”

  “A god.”

  “A god.”

  “It will be good to have you back,” Charon said. “The shore is a mess and the guards in Tartarus are becoming lazy.”

  “The people on the shore,” Peter said. “They cannot pass without a coin?”

  “The fare has always been one gold coin. For some reason, they aren’t burying the dead with them anymore. It shows a horrible lack of respect for their elders.”

  “Yeah…” Peter scratched his chin, still surprised to find it bearded. “They don’t do that anymore. Does it have to be a coin?”

  “You set the price. Someone has to pay me.”

  “But could you take… like… anything? Jewelry? Watches?”

  Charon thought about that for a moment, giving a great push with the pole and pausing as the boat glided along the water and then slowed to a stop. “I suppose I could.”

  “Do that, then,” Peter said.

  When the boat touched the opposite shore, Peter—Hades stepped off, careful not to let his exposed toes touch the dark water. Ahead of him was a gray clay wall and set into that, a great onyx gateway. Peter knew the way from here. The layout of the whole realm was collecting in his mind like a remembered dream.

  “Good luck, my Lord,” Charon said.

  Hades nodded and continued on, into the land of the dead.

  “Cowards do not count in battle; they are there, but not in it.”

  -Euripides

  ii.

  One hundred gigantes were spawned from the droplets

  of Uranos' blood that fell to the ground,

  and during the war between Zeus and Kronos,

  they fought as Titans.

  Not one of the Olympians sat out of

  the rebellion against fearsome Kronos.

  Even Demeter, her domain fields of grain,

  took up a weapon.

  With a torch in one hand, a spear another,

  she fought back the monsters with tails of serpents,

  and when the fight had ceased with Olympus won,

  she had played her part.

  “There's nothing certain in man's life except this: That he must lose it.”

  -Aeschylus

  II.

  Rain beat down hard on the windshield, distorting the road ahead. Every heavy drop on the glass was thunderous, and the sounds of their impact blended together to mimic the roaring applause of a stadium. The highest setting on the wipers was not enough with its rapid, rhythmic chug chug chug to keep the windshield clear. Visibility was minimal, and Celene Davis gripped the wheel tightly, ready for anything as they drove along U.S. Route 90.

  Her daughter, Penny, bundled-up in a too-big black hoodie featuring an illustration of Death from The Sandman, sat in the passenger's seat with an enormous bag of M&M’s (the kind that was so big that it came with a zipper). She munched on chocolate candy as she listened to the radio—an NPR interview with a current, trendy, self-help author.

  "It's important," the author said, speaking in a soothing baritone, "that we identify the sources of our troubles. The source of our anxiety, our stress, our insomnia. It is control—the human need to exercise control. Once we surrender control, we can be our best selves. We are golden."

  "Are you listening to this?" Penny asked her mother.

  Celene shook her head, "I can hardly see the road, never mind listen and drive."

  "Should we pull over?"

  "So someone can careen into our tail lights on the side of the road?"

  Penny pressed the button for the CD player. The dull drone of the radio interview was replaced by the wail of an electric violin. The tumult of the rain died down. Though the storm persisted, Celene could now see the two-lane highway ahead of her. "Oh thank God," she said, "the monsoon is over."

  Penny's eyes moved from her bag of candy to the road, and she saw a silhouette up ahead. "Mom!" she shouted.

  Celene turned the wheel sharply to the right and slammed the brakes. The wheels spun on a thick layer of water and the car continued forward. Penny braced her arms on the door and center console as they careened toward the man in the road. His bearded face was briefly lit up by the headlights. He was calm. His hands caught the hood of the car as it struck him.

  Penny closed her eyes, expecting to hear him roll over the hood of the car. Instead the car lurched and the world seemed to flip. They were in the air, upside-down, and then they came crashing down.

  Penny opened her eyes. Something was wailing—the car horn. Hot blood dripped up her forehead; Penny was hanging upside-down in her seat-belt. The ceiling of the Volvo was filled with broken glass and M&M’s.

  "Mom?" Penny turned to see her mother hanging in her own seat-belt. Celene turned off the car and took the keys out of the ignition.

  "Stay calm," she said. "We'll be fine."

  "We hit someone. Why did we flip?"

  "Shh," Celene said. Penny heard footsteps and crunching glass. The rain was still beating down hard outside the car. Penny squinted, trying to see through the spider-webbed windshield. A pair of large, black boots stepped beside the driver's side window.

  "Help," Celene said, "There's two of us in here."

  The wearer of the boots crouched down and reached in through the broken window. His large, strong hands grabbed Celene's around the middle and pulled. The seatbelt strained. It pulled at her shoulder and caused Celene to cry out in pain. Finally, the mechanism that fastened the seatbelt to the interior of the car snapped, and Celene hugged the steering wheel to avoid falling on her head. The large hands pulled her out of the vehicle, scraping her arms along the fringes of broken glass.

  "Frank?" Penny asked, realizing that the seat-belt should not have broken that easily, but the skin was too fair and the boots were to small for it to be Frank Guerrero.

  Celene shouted. The man who had pulled her out of the car laughed. Celene started to kick and fight, but Penny could only see her legs.

  "Mom!" Penny shouted. "Let her go!" She fumbled with the buckle on her seat belt, trying to get out. There was a crack and Celene stopped screaming. She stopped moving. Her body fell and hit the wet concrete. Something was wrong. Her head was twisted the wrong way. Her eyes were wide and empty. Penny screamed.

  The boot started to move around the car, passing by the windshield, nearly opaque from all of the cracks running through it, and approaching Penny's side of the car. A hand reached in through the passenger's side window and grabbed at Penny. She bit it. The attacker shouted and then reached back into the car, grabbing Penny's wrist and twisting. She felt the bones in her right arm crack and split. The pain was almost unbearable, and the edges of her vision darkened. Penny grit her teeth and forced herself to stay conscious. She couldn't defend herself if she blacked out.

  High beams flooded the road. The hand withdrew from the car and vanished. Penny was left with the beating of the rain an
d the broken car horn.

  "Hello?" a woman called. Penny could hear car doors slamming. "Is anyone alive in there?"

  "Help!" Penny screamed. "My mom! My mom is hurt!"

  "Jesus, Kyle, call 911," the woman said.

  "Holy—" a man mumbled. "What in God's name happened here?"

  "Just stay tight," the woman said, leaning down to look in the window at Penny.

  "Did you see him?" Penny asked, "Did you see the man?"

  A pair of black Chuck Taylors stopped next to Celene's body. The man crouched down next to her as he spoke to the dispatcher. "I'm out on ninety, just outside of Miami," he said. "There's been a wreck. A car flipped. Some guy ran from the scene."

  The woman started cutting Penny's seat-belt with a small pocketknife. "How old are you?" she asked, trying to keep Penny's attention off of her mother. "Fifteen?"

  "Sixteen," Penny said.

  "Yeah? Which high school do you go to?"

  "Yeah, there's a teenage girl, she's conscious. And a woman," the man said. "The woman… I think her neck is broken. I'm pretty sure she's dead."