The Blood of Athens Read online

  The sound of crinkling paper snapped her out of her reverie. Minnie Rutherford, The Pantheon's very own Athena, was unfolding a map that she had picked up at information. The tour guide was busy explaining to the distracted students that Propylaea was plural for the Ancient Greek “porch.”

  “We're on the west side,” Minnie said. “This is like the front step for the whole place.” She folded her map carefully and handed it to Penny. “Want a map? I've memorized it.”

  Penny shrugged and took the map, sliding it into her black messenger bag. She set the bag on the ground and set to work on her shirt. Everyone with the school was required to wear a lime green shirt identifying them as students from Olympia Heights. It was shapeless and too large and Penny hadn't had time to hack it up in her hotel room to make adjustments. She grabbed the bottom hem, twisted, and tied a knot in the front of the shirt. “That's better.”

  “What are you most excited to see?” Minnie asked.

  Penny shrugged. “Everything?”

  Minnie smiled. “Yeah, I can see that. It's kind of like coming home, right? I can't wait to get inside the Parthenon, personally. Though this place has special significance for me, too. Did you know that in myth, Athena and Poseidon fought over this city. Guess who won?”

  Penny shrugged. “You?”

  “That's right.”

  Minnie didn't have time to recite any more history to Penny. Something, or someone, collided with her back and sent her down the last two steps of the Propylaea. She landed hard on her backside and let out a loud “Son of a--!”

  It was Peter. He was scrambling to get up and help Penny up all at the same time. A group of seniors just up the steps from them were laughing and covering their mouths with the backs of their hands. One of them bumped fists with his friend.

  Minnie glared daggers at them. They continued to laugh, unthreatened by the nerdy little goddess. There were four of them, one a short, freckly redhead, another a tall, skinny Hispanic boy, and two who were blonde and shaped like Abercrombie models. They looked like twins, but they were not.

  Minnie walked toward them. The group of boys, all players on the soccer team, exchanged glances and smirks.

  “You Goth Boy’s personal protector?” the short one asked. “What are you, five nothing?”

  “Five four,” she said, barely looking up to meet his gaze.

  “I’m so scared,” the skinny one said with a falsetto whimper.

  “And I play roller derby.”

  “What’s that?” Blondie number one asked.

  Minnie laughed and glanced back at Peter and Penny. Peter just looked at the ground.

  “You ever seen that Drew Barrymore movie where the girls knock each other around on skates?”

  “Uh, yeah. Bunch-a dykes.” The blondes high-fived.

  Minnie ignored them. “I knock down girls twice your size and keep skating. Peter’s my friend, leave him alone.”

  “Yeah, okay, whatever.” The skinny one turned his back to Minnie.

  Minnie turned around, ready to rejoin Penny and Peter. She muttered something that her friends couldn’t hear.

  Then something changed. Their grins vanished and they tensed.

  Minnie rolled her eyes and bent down to offer Peter a hand. He had succeeded in picking Penny up, but had not made it to his feet, yet.

  “What did you tell them?” Peter asked. He grit his teeth as he took her hand and pulled himself to his feet.

  Minnie smiled. “That we were both friends with Frank the Tank.”

  “Everything alright?” Lewis asked, coming down the steps to meet them. Astin, Evan, Nick, and Teddy followed. The poor tour guide, standing above the class, knew she was being ignored.

  “Just some jerks,” Penny said.

  Diana noticed that her brother had left his spot and met up with The Pantheon at the base of the steps. The tour guide stopped talking and Candice Matthews started taking roll... again.

  “You want me to knock them around?” Nick asked, winking at Penny.

  Minnie shook her head. “Bad idea, Nick. Though not the worst you've ever had, by far.”

  The group fell to whispers at the back of the crowd. “Have you remembered anything yet?” “Where do you think Olympus is? Literally on top of Olympus?” “Yeah, because mountain climbers over the last three thousand years never have found it.” “Is anyone else cold?”

  The class began to move. Minnie prodded Lewis with her finger and he started to climb the steps. The tour guide was back to chatting away in her sweet southern accent. She was blonde and perky, but not so fake that she couldn't shoot a death glare at an overzealous teenager when she heard their inappropriate comment. Minnie listened closely, memorizing everything she said.

  “This particular structure was built at the conclusion of the Persian war in the 430's, BCE. It was commissioned by Pericles, who you all may remember from your World History books... No?”

  Penny looked at the scaffolding that held the crumbling structure together. It wasn't bad, she thought, for a marble and limestone structure to look this recognizable after more than two thousand years.

  They reached the top of the steps and the class passed through a row of six Doric columns. They were simple in design, but monumental in scale. Penny looked up as she passed under them, and when she looked down, she received quite a shock.

  Everyone was gone.

  Well, not everyone. Peter and Minnie stood beside her.

  “Where are we?” Minnie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Peter said.

  Everyone else, the tourists, their classmates, the tour guide, were gone. The room they stood in did not look like the crumbling ruin they had been approaching, and when Penny look back through the arches, she saw nothing but billowing clouds and bright sunny sky below. The Acropolis was gone.

  “Woah, shit!” Lewis appeared through the arch, nearly walking into Peter. He walked backwards on his heels, turning quickly to take in his surroundings. “We're not in Kansas anymore.”

  “Like you've ever been to Kansas, Lewis,” Minnie said, shaking her head. “But allusions aside, we're clearly not at the Acropolis, either.”

  The others followed shortly. Soon they were all spinning around on the marble floor, taking in their surroundings and shouting profanity.

  “Where is this?” Nick asked.

  “Dunno,” Peter said.

  Nick looked at the archway, biting his lip as he thought about it. He took a deep breath and stepped back through the columns. He vanished. Diana shouted and ran to the edge, looking down, expecting to see Nick plummeting to his death. Nick stepped back in and collided with her, knocking them both to the ground.

  “Where did you go?” Astin ran forward to pull Nick off of his sister. Nick seemed to be enjoying the view a little too much.

  “Back to the Proppy-whatever place. It's like a portal!”

  It was Astin's turn to look back over the edge. “It looks like clouds to me. Clouds and a death drop.”

  “Naw,” Nick dusted off his shoulders. “It's like a wormhole or something, it just brings you back to the steps.”

  “So why did we go through it, and no one else?” Peter asked.

  “Well, it's likely because of who we are, wouldn't you say?” Minnie shrugged.

  They all turned to examine the place where they had arrived. Wherever the portal had brought them, it was clearly nothing any archaeologists had ever uncovered on Nat Geo. The floors were made of flawless white marble and the ceiling, also marble, was at least fifty feet high, held up with columns covered in pure gold. The room they stood in was long, and at the far end, at least a hundred yards away, sat a gold basin on a marble pedestal. The sides of the pedestal were painted in red and black with scenes of a man drinking from the basin and others of him neck-deep in water and reaching with his teeth to bite an apple just out of reach.

  Around the pedestal, on three sides, was another level six inches higher than the floor. To the left and right were five th
rones each with elaborate metalwork and straight ahead were two more.

  Lewis dashed ahead of the group and immediately found the throne that belonged to him. The high back of the chair was made of gold and shaped like a lyre and the seat was ivory, carved to look like the underbelly of a tortoise. The arm rests were wrapped with a golden serpent. The sides of the back, at the ends of the arms of the lyre, had wings mounted on them, straight and angled for high-speed flight. Lewis sprawled across the thrones as if it were an old arm chair and spread his arms.

  “Boys and girls,” he said, “I think we're home.

  The rest of The Pantheon jogged to catch up.

  Behind the thrones was a balcony. Minnie passed right by her throne-- decorated with shields and spears, with an owl's wings sheltering the head and a olive tree made of bronze forming the back-- and looked down over the balcony. Below the throne room stretched a city made of bronze. It was empty and silent.

  “This is totally Olympus,” Penny said. “I've seen it in a dream. This is our throne room. That's Zach's chair, and June...” Penny knew that she had no seat here. Her own throne was in the underworld where Peter-- Hades had taken her.

  Nick was standing over the basin, looking down. “What is this stuff?” he asked, pointing at the liquid it contained. The basin was filled with an opalescent liquid with a green tint.

  Minnie turned back from the balcony and walked around the pedestal. She took her time examining the images painted there before nodding. “Nectar.”

  “What?” asked Peter.

  “It's Nectar. See, this painting tells the story of Tantalus, who stole the sacred Nectar from Olympus and how he was punished for it. These are warnings, like a curse on an Egyptian tomb. Don’t drink this if you’re not a god or we’ll punish you.”

  “What is Nectar?” Lewis asked. “Like from flowers?”

  “Well, as usual, I'm going from myth here, so it could be wrong.”

  “What does the myth tell you?” Astin asked.

  Minnie reached into the basin and dipped her finger in the liquid. “It's a drink that gives you eternal life.” She touched the tip of her finger to her tongue and tasted the Nectar. Her eyes closed and she sighed.

  “What does it taste like?” Diana asked.

  “I don't know,” Minnie said. “Like... a backyard barbecue with my dad.”

  Lewis scowled, “The Nectar of the gods tastes like barbecue sauce?”

  “No. It tastes like that feeling. Like summer and family and good food.”

  Nick reached over Minnie's shoulder and dipped his finger in to the Nectar. As soon as he had tasted it, his lips spread into a devilish grin. “It tastes like skinny dipping at sunset on the beach. With a hot girl.”

  Teddy laughed and high-fived Nick. “Sweet.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a shot glass that he had bought at a gift shop earlier that day. Teddy dipped it into the basin and drank. A peaceful expression washed over his face. He opened his mouth to speak, and froze.

  “What?” Peter asked. “What is it?”

  “Eating root beer barrels in a tree at my parents’ vineyard in California.”

  “I have to try this,” Lewis said, snatching Teddy’s shot glass from his relaxed hand. He pushed Minnie aside and dipped the shot glass pack in the basin. Lewis drank.

  Everyone from The Pantheon took turns drinking from the basin and telling what they felt. While everyone was interrogating Evan on his insights, Peter scooped up a bit of Nectar with his empty water bottle and saved it for later. He just didn’t think he had a happy enough memory to relate it to. What if it didn’t taste good for him? He didn’t want everyone watching while he drank.

  Evan was being practical. He held up his wrist, showing off his silver watch. “Guys, we've been here for ten minutes. You think the tour might be missing us?”

  “Oh, crap, you're right!” Lewis said.

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Who cares? We're on Mount Olympus, for Christ's sake! We're gods! Nobody gives a damn about the school.”

  “What about my Mom?” Penny asked. “You don't think she'll be a little worried?”

  Lewis opened his backpack and pulled out a water bottle. He dumped the contents on the marble floor and tossed it to Evan, who barely caught it. “Fill 'er up, Evan. We'll take some back for the rest. Penny is right. We've got to move.”

  “Who put you in charge?” Nick asked.

  “Give it a rest, Nick” Minnie said. “It's always about who's in charge with you! How about who's right? This is really cool and I'd love a chance to explore the whole city, but people are going to be looking for us and I, for one, do not want to be drawing attention to our group. In case you've forgotten, we've been responsible for a few dead bodies in the last year. I'd like to keep a low profile.”

  Nick mumbled something.

  “Speak up or shut up.” Minnie pushed past him and started off across the hall. The others followed. “When we exit through the portal, stick close to a column. We're less suspicious if we come out from behind a column, rather than appearing smack dab in the middle of nothing.

  Minnie waited as each member of The Pantheon stepped beyond the columns and vanished, returning back to the steps of the Acropolis. Nick was the last to step through. Minnie put her hand out to stop him.

  “What?” he asked, sticking his tongue against his cheek and refusing to look her in the eye.

  Minnie stepped close. Nick towered over her, but somehow, that didn't matter. Her eyes swirled with silver fury. “When Zach's not here, I am in charge.”

  Nick’s brow twitched in shock at the shifting of her eyes. He pulled himself together and scoffed. “Whatever.”

  Minnie watched him walk through the portal and followed close behind him. Dr. Davis was waiting for them on the steps.

  “Where did you all go?” she asked, keeping her voice hushed but harsh.

  “See those two columns?” Lewis pointed back with his thumb. “Some kind of wormhole.”

  “What?”

  Minnie shook her head at Lewis. She stepped in front of him so she could whisper to Celene. “Basically, what he means is, we have to figure out how to catch up to the class without taking a portal to Mount Olympus.”

  “What?” Celene asked again.

  “The short of it, for now, is that we shouldn't be walking between those two columns,” Minnie said. “We'll tell you the rest at the hotel.”

  “I will reveal to you a love potion, without medicine, without herbs, without any witch’s magic; if you want to be loved, then love.”

  -Hecaton of Rhodes

  vi.

  The occasion for the great celebration

  was the marriage of mighty Zeus to Hera.

  All of The Pantheon was in attendance

  for the wedding feast.

  A golden throne was brought forth to match the King's,

  as great the couple was seated side-by side,

  a tree erupted from the ground and blossomed:

  a gift from the earth.

  From the tree that Gaia gave them, there sprouted

  a perfect crop of gleaming golden apples.

  It was a great blessing for their wedding day,

  a day of pure bliss.

  “No better thing befalls a man than a good wife, no worse thing than a bad one.”

  -Semonides of Amorgos

  VI.

  It hadn't been easy, scraping together a short-notice wedding on a Monday afternoon. On the way into town Sunday night, June had tracked down a minister who did weddings out of a tiny chapel in Savannah, Georgia. They got in well after dark and went straight to sleep, preparing to wake up early the next day to handle paperwork.

  Zach and June filled out all the forms, showed two types of identification, and even paid the extra fees for not going through a marriage course. Eight hours and one sassy courthouse clerk later, they were standing before a minister, witnessed only by the minister’s wife and an elderly assistant.

  The chapel was small
with painted hardwood floors and simple, block, stained-glass windows. The minister’s wife had hung white Christmas lights from the rafters. They twinkled like stars above them. The evening sun pouring in through those windows cast squares of colorful light on June's tea-length white dress. Zach wore his charcoal grey suit with a white tie they had picked up earlier that day. The rings had also been found that day at a pawn shop.

  As June repeated the last words of her vows, she slid the simple gold band on Zach's finger. “...for as long as we both shall live,” she said.

  “We're married,” Zach said, flipping open his wallet to find the key card for their hotel room. He missed the lock with the card as he stared at June. They had run from his Roadster to their hotel room through a light rain shower and her hair, styled that afternoon with gentle curls, lay flat and wet against her back.

  “We are,” she said, reaching around him to take the card and unlock the door. He was obviously too distracted, staring at the droplets of rain that beaded on her shoulders. Zach ran his knuckles along her arm.

  “I can't believe we drove all the way to Savannah and got married.”

  “Do you regret it?” she asked as the lights on the door blinked green and she turned the doorknob.

  Zach shook his head. “No.” He laughed. “Not one bit.” Zach pushed the door open and pressed his body against June, pinning her to the wall in the hallway at the front of their room. He kissed her, sliding his hand along her jaw and burying his fingers in her wet hair. June seemed surprised, but only for a moment now. She was married and she reminded herself that there was nothing anyone could say about her if she gave into Zach now. She was his wife. She had every right to be in this position.