The Cult of Kronos Read online

  “It is,” Hades said. “We'll work on the clothes as we go. Come on. There's no time to lose.”

  “A beard signifies lice, not brains. ”

  -Greek Proverb

  vi.

  Apollo and Poseidon took on the task

  of building mighty walls for Laomedon

  to protect the sovereign's city of Troy

  from outside attack.

  When it came time for the King to pay his bills,

  he refused to give the gods what they were due.

  For the high, impenetrable walls of Troy,

  the King paid nothing.

  Poseidon would not allow himself to be

  cheated by an arrogant mortal monarch,

  and he summoned a sea monster to attack

  those same walls he built.

  So perhaps Laomedon saw his folly

  when his daughter was strapped to the sea's cliff face

  and the monster was bearing down upon her

  to devour her whole.

  “Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.”

  -Aesop

  VI.

  Nick Morrisey swam like a bullet between the orange and green lanes of the university swimming pool. Every minute or so he would remind himself to pretend to breathe like a human being, picking his head up, opening his mouth, but not really taking in air. Nick had the unique ability to breathe water—or at least it was unique to creatures that walked upright on two legs.

  When Nick's body was spent, he climbed out of the pool and started towards the locker room. He had already been to swim practice this morning (it started up weeks before classes), but he still craved the water. It was a comfort to him. Since arriving back at school after the funeral, Nick had spent every possible minute in the pool. He had even skipped a kegger last night for an evening swim.

  Nick sat down on the bench in front of his locker, still dripping wet. He watched the beads of water drip off of his curly black hair and land on his feet. The first week of college was supposed to be glorious; he had planned to go to parties, pick up women, and bask in all the attention that came with his new role as the UM swim team's secret weapon. He credited his mood to paranoia: Kronos was coming to get them. Clearly that was the reason for his funk. Besides, why should he grieve Dr. Davis? She had never liked him. None of them had ever liked Nick. They just tolerated him because they had to. Because thousands of years ago they were family.

  But what kind of family were they? Nick stood up and slammed the locker door open. It knocked into the next locker and set the whole row rattling. June Herald had asked Minnie, right on the front steps of the church, to call when she got to Cambridge. Evan had even remembered to offer Valerie his services in rigging a security system for her car, as she was living with her parents and commuting to school. The ones who weren't going off to college yet—Penny, Astin, Diana, Evan, Lewis, Teddy—had agreed to meet regularly and continue their Sunday Pantheon meetings without their older peers. Had anyone asked where Nick was going? No.

  It had been that way since kindergarten. Nick remembered the first day on the playground at his new school. He was five; his mother had kept him home until then. All of the other kids knew each other from their fancy private preschool. Nick had been dragged from a summer of cookouts and swimming pools, stuffed into an itchy collared shirt, and sent away from his parents. He had cried when his mother left him at school. It was only a day, but to a boy who had never been without his parents or grandparents, it was a century. When recess came, Nick had made a solid effort to join in an unstructured game of soccer, but one of the boys had pushed him down. “Crybaby needs his mommy.” The other kids laughed. Nick had never forgotten that day, and he made his reputation on pushing that boy down, calling him “lard-ass”, and looking completely innocent when the teachers came around. Now Nick was at a new school again, and picking on the fat kid wouldn't guarantee him success. He had to impress his team mates. He had to be number one so that everyone would want to be part of his entourage.

  The coach's office door opened and he stepped out. Coach Cruz was a tall man with sandy brown hair and skin that was wrinkled not from age, but from sun. He had a strong swimmer's body, with the unfortunate addition of a few extra pounds right above the belt.

  Nick grabbed a towel out of his locker and vigorously rubbed his hair. When he hung the towel back on the hook, the coach was standing right next to him. Nick jumped.

  “Oh, hey…I uh, just wanted to get a little more practice on the breast stroke,” he said, feeling like he had to explain why he was here so long after practice had ended.

  Nick turned and looked into his coach's eyes. Something was wrong. The locker room, lined with neat rows of orange and green lockers, was brightly lit, yet the coach's pupils were wide and dark like the new moon. Was he high?

  “Dude…” Nick started to say, but the coach clapped his hand around Nick's shoulder.

  “Poseidon,” he said.

  Nick scrambled backward and fell into the lockers. The clasp on one of the lockers dug into his bare back, and Nick cursed quietly. His coach was a Titan? What were the odds?

  The coach just smiled and then continued to speak.

  “It's good to see you, my son.”

  “Are you here to kill me?”

  The coach laughed. “No. No, that would be wasteful. I'm here to make you an offer.”

  He held out his hand and Nick took it, letting Cruz pull him to his feet. Coach Cruz looked around the locker room and nodded before looking back at Nick. “How are the others treating you?”

  “The Pantheon?”

  “Yes, The Pantheon.”

  “Like…like Valerie. Like I'm invisible.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Kronos,” Nick said. “You killed Dr. Davis.”

  “I killed Demeter,” he nodded. “because I knew that getting to her would shake the mountain. Was I right? How is your brother, Zeus?”

  “He's devastated.”

  “Good.” Coach Cruz put his hand on Nick's shoulder again. “My son—”

  “You ate us.”

  Cruz laughed. “But I didn't kill you.”

  “There's a difference?”

  “You came back up whole, didn’t you?”

  Nick just glared.

  “I was rash, it's true. I believed a prophecy and in trying to stop it, I made it true. I've learned my lesson.”

  “And that lesson is?”

  “Don't try to thwart prophecies. Keep up, boy. It was obvious enough.” He took his hand off of Nick's shoulder and bridged his fingers in front of his chest. “You were brothers and you drew lots. Hades drew the underworld, Zeus drew the sky, and you drew the sea. Isn't it funny how the brother who orchestrated this whole drawing of straws managed to get the heavens? The best domain? By right, being the youngest, shouldn't he have gotten the least domain?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Ah, yes. Listen, Poseidon, I know you're tired of following orders.”

  Nick's shoulders tensed. “I mean, who isn't.”

  “And it's not necessarily because you don't like rules and authority. After all, you have no problem taking orders from an Olympic Bronze Medalist,” he said, placing his hand on his chest.

  “Well, I figure someone who's been to the Olympics deserves the authority.”

  “But Zeus…”

  “But Zach,” Nick said. “Who died and made him boss?”

  Cruz chuckled again. “Exactly. Why does winning one fight against an old man make him king? Who decided that it had to be a monarchy? Here you are, gods, and your mortal pets have invented a more progressive government than you.”

  “So what are you proposing, a democracy?”

  “When I ruled over men,” he said, “Everyone was happy. I don't just mean a few rich senators. Everyone. Not just men. Women too. And there was no slave class. They called it The Golden Age. Nobody wanted for anything. There was no fighting, no jea
lousy, no hunger. Everyone was their best self and everyone was happy. How would you like that?”

  Nick shrugged. “I dunno, seems kind of boring.”

  “There was no boredom either. There was no want.”

  “And you want to make everything golden again?”

  “Exactly. And you are just the god to help me.”

  “Yeah? How do I do that?”

  “Well, first I would have to convince your friends.”

  “I'm not exactly their favorite, as you pointed out.”

  “I was thinking the choice would be a little less persuasive and a little more intimidating. They join me or they die.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you give yourself over to my service, if you vow to be my loyal servant, when I kill them all, I will let you live. When they are gone and I am in charge, you will be a king. You will not just reign over the sea, but you will personally help me rule the land with fairness and wisdom. How does that sound?”

  “Uh…” Nick looked back at his locker. His green and gold Olympia Heights Senior High Athletics sweatshirt hung on the hook opposite his towel. He was being offered a chance to live, rather than to have his neck snapped like Dr. Davis. If Kronos was going to kill the Pantheon anyway, why shouldn't Nick make it out alive? “Can I have a few days to think about it?”

  Cruz smiled. “Of course. But while you mull it over, remember how they've treated you. Would they give the same consideration for your life?”

  As Nick was watching, Cruz's pupils snapped back to normal size. The change was quick, like watching a rubber band rebound. Cruz stopped smiling and blinked. “Oh, hey, Nick.”

  “Kronos?”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.” Nick watched Cruz put his hands into his pockets and saw the change in his stance. No longer was he solid and intimidating, but bouncy and open.

  “What're you doing here so late?”

  “Just…just practicing a little more.”

  Cruz clapped Nick on the side of the arm. “Well,” he said, “don't wear yourself out too soon, eh?”

  Nick nodded.

  Cruz turned back to his office, muttering to himself, “Now what was I doing out here?”

  Nick turned back to his locker and grabbed his shorts. He would shower in his dorm. He wanted to get out of here as fast as he could.

  “Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.”

  -Hippocrates

  vii.

  Asclepius, son of the god Apollo,

  was known across the land for his healing arts.

  And though he brought much glory to his father,

  he soon crossed a line.

  It was of great importance that mortals should—

  upon reaching the end of their time—pass on.

  Asclepius had learned to cure even death,

  and for it he died.

  It fell to Zeus to strike him down with lightning,

  even though he admired the human man.

  So when Apollo claimed the corpse of his son,

  Lord Zeus allowed it.

  The sun god took a cup of sacred nectar

  and poured it past the lips of Asclepius.

  Then he fixed his broken body with the light

  of his healing hands.

  When Asclepius then lifted his eyelids,

  the eyes that now gazed upon Mount Olympus

  were the shining eyes of an immortal god,

  god of medicine.

  “To love and be loved is everything.”

  -Greek Proverb

  VII.

  The house was too quiet. The wooden floors in Jason Livingstone's home were old and made with large, stained planks that had warped and shifted in the humidity of south Florida. The place had always creaked. There was a pleasant squeaking every time his children ran across the living room. Even the floor under the carpet in the utility room squeaked. He had gotten used to the sound like little mice constantly filling his house in the daytime. Now it was silent except for the pounding rain outside. The thunderstorm that raged—one that had been forecast, not one that Zach had caused—was threatening to become a tropical storm.

  The kids were out of state, staying with Jason's father. Penny was in Haley's room, camped on the pull-out mattress that normally hid under Haley's bed. He hadn't seen her since breakfast, when she had popped out to claim a toaster pastry and then vanished into the room. That was sixteen hours ago. He wanted to give her plenty of space, but the silence was eating at him.

  Jason sat on the couch, reading a Game of Thrones book. He was just past the point where the TV series had left off for the summer, but despite his curiosity, he couldn't focus. The rain beat on the roof outside, and the constant noise reminded Jason that the house he occupied was just a very small box in comparison to the raging ire of mother nature outside. He was very small, and he was very alone.

  Jason slipped a bookmark into his book and set it down. He got up and crossed the room, pleased to hear the squeak squeak squeak of his old floors. He knocked gently on Haley's door. “Penny?” He needed to hear signs of life.

  Penny opened the door. She wasn't wearing any eyeliner around her pale blue eyes, which made Jason suspect that she had washed it off because she had been crying.

  “What do you like on your pizza?” he asked.

  “Pizza?”

  “Yeah, I mean it's only four thirty, but I figure it'll take the pizza guy time to get here in this rain anyway, and if we wait too long it might be raining too hard to get delivery.”

  “Oh, uh…I like cheese.”

  “Just cheese?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “You don't want to live a little, get pepperoni? Black olives? Spinach and tomato?”

  Penny shook her head. “Just cheese.”

  “Okay. Half cheese, half meat lovers.”

  Jason went to the kitchen and rooted through his basket of takeout menus. He wasn't one of those single Dads that ordered pizza every night (he was a doctor, after all, and he tried to cook healthy meals at home), but he did enjoy the convenience of ordering out on Fridays. It was a nice reward at the end of a work week. It had become ritual. After he placed the call, he went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

  Jason was just settling down and finally getting his mind in a good place to find out what Tyrion Lannister would do next when the doorbell rang. Jason thought he'd imagined it for a moment, but then it rang again. “It's too soon for pizza,” he said out-loud to himself as he marked his book, set down his beer, and headed to the utility room at the side of the house.

  The utility room was carpeted in an old, grey berber. The walls were paneled with planks of stained wood that matched the floor in the living room. Jason walked by the antique tin signs and coat-hooks lined with tiny jackets and raincoats and stopped at the window. He looked out the little, foggy window in the room. There were no cars in the driveway, save for his own Buick Electra. Large globs of rain bounced off of the metal body and filled the driveway with thunderous noise.

  Jason opened the front door just as a flash of lightning and a simultaneous clap of thunder erupted. The sky lit up, and standing on the porch, Jason saw a large, bearded man and a small, dark-haired woman standing in front of him.

  “Uh…hello?” if they were about to tell him that their car had broken down up the road and that they needed a place to call for help, he planned to hand them an umbrella and call the cops for them. Jason wasn't about to let two soggy strangers into his home after all that had happened.

  Jason was about to ask what they wanted when something strange happened. As the lightning flashed like a strobe light, the rain that poured down over their heads washed away the illusion. The large man's beard and a hundred pounds of muscle dripped away, and Peter Hadley was left standing on Jason's doorstep. When he looked down at the woman, she was no longer a stranger, but Celene.

  Jason stepped back and sat down quickly on an old wooden bench he kept tucked against the wall for removin
g muddy boots. He was worried that the room would start spinning and he would collapse. This couldn't be real. He was seeing what he wanted to see.

  “Doc,” Peter said, his voice a little deeper than Jason remembered it. “You alright?”

  “Of course he's not alright, Peter. He's just seen two dead people.”

  Jason put his head between his knees. His back heaved as he tried to catch his breath. He heard the door close, muffling the sound of the pouring rain.

  “Jason,” Celene said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her clothes and hair were soaking wet. She rubbed his back in large, soothing circles. “We're real. We're really here.”

  “Maybe the 'surprise, dead people!' approach was a bad idea,” Peter said.

  Jason, still panting, looked up at the boy. “Hades,” he said, before breaking into a fit of weak laughter. “You're Hades.”

  “Yeah. And look who wandered in through my front door,” he said, jabbing his thumb back to point to Celene.

  “How are you alive?” he asked them.

  “Turns out it takes more than a broken neck to really kill a goddess.”

  Jason threw his arms around Celene and buried his face in her wet hair. The dam burst. The powerful urge to sob rose up in his throat, choking him and causing him to shake as he began to cry. He clung to her, letting out the tears that he had held in for Penny's sake.

  A creaking sound traveled across the living room and stopped at the door to the mud room. “Mom?” Penny asked.

  Jason looked up just as Penny dash across the little room and threw her arms around Celene and Jason both.

  “Mom, you're not dead,” Penny croaked, hugging her mother tight.

  “No, not anymore. I had an escort home.”