Acheron handed his unconscious daughter off to Sin. “Something from the demon bite interacted with Epithymia’s powers,” he explained. “I drained her, but she needs to feed.”
Sin nodded grimly as he took her and vanished.
Acheron was aghast at the others who were supposed to have been there to help them fight. “What happened?”
Set growled. “We’re locked out. If you’re not Greek or Atlantean, forget it. Only Katra had the ability to get to you.”
Urian glared as he joined them. “I couldn’t get in either. I tried everything I could. You’re all he’s got. And they’re beating the hell out of him. You can’t leave him there.”
“Simi, return to me.”
She immediately laid herself over Acheron’s heart as a dragon-shaped tattoo.
Xirena bit her lip. “Me, too, akri?”
“Absolutely.”
That would get the demons in. Urian’s arm was neon now as his heart pounded furiously. He couldn’t stand the thoughts of what they might be doing to Styxx.
Acheron glanced around. “I’m weakened and the weapons Artemis brought might work on Apollo, but they’re shite on the Atlanteans. Who wants to try to go in with me?”
They all stepped forward.
“All right. Here goes nothing.” Closing his eyes, Acheron summoned everything he could and teleported them back to Katateros.
It didn’t work.
Not until Urian closed his eyes and wrapped his arm around Acheron’s waist. He felt the surge through his own body an instant before he shot his own powers into Acheron.
Only then were they able to break through whatever Archon had done to shield the temple.
Unprepared for the sight that awaited them, Urian staggered away from Acheron. Blood was everywhere. It looked like some kind of zombie movie. Yet what terrified him the most was the fact that Styxx’s phoenix shield lay twisted and bent out of shape in the middle of the largest pool of blood. Blood that was smeared to the doors as if a body had been dragged out, through them.
Demonbrean and Ilios lay moaning on the ground near Apollo.
Dikastis, true to Styxx’s prediction, hadn’t joined in with the others. He was standing calmly in the shadows of the hall as if he couldn’t believe what he’d witnessed.
Urian wanted his throat.
He started for him, but Acheron reached him first.
“Where’s my brother?”
Raw anger flared in the old god’s eyes. “They took him to the temple arena.”
Urian curled his lip. “Why aren’t you with them?”
“I’m a god of justice. I will not participate in something that’s so wrong and undeserved.”
That alone saved his ass from Urian’s wrath.
Acheron inclined his head to the god. “Will you fight with us?”
Dikastis nodded without hesitation.
*
His breathing ragged, Styxx was so battered and bruised at this point, he wasn’t sure why he was still conscious. He’d managed to knock out three of them and weaken the rest, but in the end, he’d been outnumbered and was no match for a dozen gods.
Archon and Asteros had dragged him to the temple Acheron had confined him in years ago … to the arena where they’d once made his life utter hell. Against his best efforts, they’d secured him to the rack they’d used for his beatings and other things he didn’t want to think about.
Damn them.
Laughing, Archon fisted his hand in Styxx’s hair and jerked his head back. “You’re not defeated so soon, are you, Prince?”
“Fuck you.”
“How I wish, but unfortunately, we’re making you a sacrifice.” Archon gagged him, then looked over to Leto. “Summon our lady vengeance.”
Leto laughed as she neared Styxx. “You didn’t really think Epithymia had Bathymaas’s heart, did you? Trust me, I kept that for myself. Now I’m going to finish what I started fourteen thousand years ago.”
And when I’m done destroying what’s left of the Greeks, I’m going to tear apart the Atlanteans as I did the Sumerians and Egyptians.
Styxx’s eyes widened as he heard her thoughts loud and clear.
Leto pulled out a knife and sliced open Styxx’s cheek so that she could fill a vial with his blood. She mumbled words he didn’t understand as she blended his blood with another compound. And as she did so, his head began to spin.
Suddenly, he remembered being Aricles …
He saw Bethany at his side as she held on to his biceps. Only she wasn’t Bethany. She was Bathymaas. “Do not fight Apollo for my honor. It’s not worth a single drop of your blood. Run with me, Ari. Let’s leave all this behind and never look back.”
“I can’t, and neither can you, my goddess. We have too many responsibilities. Too many to protect. We cannot leave this world in their hands.”
“I no longer care about them. You’re all that matters to me.”
His blood racing with fury and pain, Aricles had pressed his head to hers and held her close. “And you’re all that matters to me. I won’t have your reputation tarnished by that pig. You’ve done nothing wrong and I will beat that bastard down for you. Have no fear.”
She buried her hand in his hair. “I can’t live without you, Ari. You are the heart they claim I was born without. It’s why I can’t be the soul of justice anymore. Because of you, I feel for the first time in my life. You’ve changed me forever … You can’t leave me now. Not like this.”
He kissed her forehead. “Let me win your honor and then we can leave and never look back.”
“Swear it to me.”
“On my eternal soul. I will always be with you, Bathymaas. Nothing will take me from you, ever. Not even the gods.” He lifted the Egyptian ieb amulet from her chest and kissed it, then tucked it back between her breasts.
Styxx gasped as he fully understood what Set had told him. Bathymaas had been created by the Source, not born of a mother …
The Egyptian jug-shaped amulet was the heart Set had given her as a girl when she’d asked her father why she didn’t have a heartbeat like others.
“This holds my love for you, child, and while you can’t understand it, know that so long as you wear it, you carry a piece of me with you. My heart has great power and it will keep you safe and warm in my absence.”
That was how Leto had destroyed the Egyptian pantheon and trapped Set in the desert. She had weakened him with that half of Bathymaas’s heart that held her father’s DNA and Seth’s blood to trap the primal god.
Lifting his head, he saw the broken ieb shard on Leto’s wrist that matched the one Bethany had worn as a bracelet. It was so obvious now, but unless you knew what an Egyptian heart looked like, you’d never guess its origins.
Or its significance.
Leto poured the blood from the vial onto her fingers and waved the ieb over it. Then she wiped it down his other cheek. “History always repeats itself. Poor you to die twice by the hands of the woman you love. And once you’re dead, she’ll destroy the gods for me.” Stepping back, she let out a sharp, piercing ololuge … a sound used in his time to summon a god’s presence when a sacrifice was being offered to them.
All of a sudden, a fierce wind came tearing through the arena. It blew open doors and ripped at his body. Leto stumbled against it.
A baleful howl sounded an instant before a swirling specter joined them. Inhumanly large, it floated on the wind wearing a white cloak. And when it neared Styxx, he realized this was the vengeful spirit of Bethany.
With his gag in place, he couldn’t say a word to her.
Leto pointed to him as she spoke to Bethany. “Behold the bastard son of your enemy who cost your prince his life and existence. Take your vengeance on them both! Rip out the heart of Apostolos!”
Bethany screamed in furious agony.
Styxx’s eyes widened as he realized she was going to kill him and there was nothing he could do to stop her.
*
Urian paused as he recognized this temple. It was the same one Acheron had confined Styxx to when he’d first brought him here to Katateros to live. The one Styxx had left behind so that he could sneak into the temple next door to Acheron’s where he’d been living the night Urian had first met him.
It was beautiful in a cold, sterile way.