

### MortalGods

By

Alex Manea

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Alex Manea

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes, copied, or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except for brief quotations embodied for reviews.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Artist: Ovidiu Stanciu

Edited by: Tracy Seybold

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.comPublished 2014

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

August 2014

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

# Prologue

1990 - Italy

Dawn was close to breaking on the small town of Pico, Italy when Hera and her husband, Zeus, entered the courtyard at 21 Via Santa Maria.The front door was unlocked, something that wasn't unusual for a place such as Pico—a small town in the Italian countryside where the crime rate was close to zero and all the Polizia Municipale had to worry about was the occasional old lady crossing the street againstthe red light, because her sight wasn't what it used to be.

The house had two floors, and they needed to reach the second one. Zeus led the way, without the help of a flashlight. They entered the room, closed the door behind them, and quietly approached the small crib in the center of the room. The baby was still asleep when they leaned over his crib. He awoke only when Hera pulled the blanket off him. But as the two old and unfamiliar faces looked down at him, the baby didn't cry.

_Maybe we remind him of his grandparents_.Hera's thoughts raced as she tried to find an explanation for the baby's calmness.

She took the baby in her arms, rocking him. Again, the infant made no noise whatsoever. As he was rocked, he kept looking straight into Hera's eyes.

"Remember when we used to hold our children like this?" she whispered.

"It feels like those days, those memories, are just flashes from a dream."

Zeus moved closer and put his arms around her, then looked at the baby and smiled. Hera felt comforted; thoughts of happier and distant days flooded her mind.She closed her eyes, trying to hold on to those memories for a few more seconds, but the thought of what was about to come took them away.

"He looks so peaceful and innocent," she went on, a moment later. "If he only knew what awaits him in the coming years. Do we really have to do this?"

"We've discussed that," Zeus said as he released her and walked over to the window, which offered a view of the courtyard. "We have no choice."

"But what if we fail, like we did in the past?" Once again, her maternal instincts were kicking in.

"You know very well what's at stake here and why we must do this, no matter the cost."

"That cost you don't care about are starting to add up," Hera said, still rocking the baby. "And tonight that numberwill get bigger by three."

A tear made its way down her cheek as she spoke the last words. It was the fifthtime they'd done this, the fifth time they were going to kill an entire family.

Hera remembered the first time they'd done it, a long time ago. Back then, she'd promised herself she would not get emotionally attached. Now she couldn't even remember the faces of everyone they'd killed, and the thought of this gave her goose bumps.

Even worse, now, for the first time, she was picturing her own children in that crib. The thought of putting Apollo or Artemis through this made her cry.For a moment, she was afraid Zeus would see her weakness. Thanks to the darkness, she managed to wipe away the single tearthat fell from her eye before he could see it. In all their years together, not once had she shed a tear for someone who wasn't one of theirs. She put the baby back in the crib.

"Let's save this conversation for another time. We need to hurry if we want to make it. It will be dawn soon," he said, ignoring her last words.

Zeus walked back to the crib and leaned over it, just as Hera placed her left hand on the baby's chest and closed her eyes. The changetook less than a minute and, because of the darkness, the effect could not be seen. Only in daylight could someone notice that the baby'seyes were no longer brown, but green. Now he was ready. He was a prime candidate for the transformation. When she was done, she took her hand off the baby and turned to the man she came with.

"He's ready," she said, taking the baby again and following him to the bedroom door."Do you still want Hep to take care of him?"

"Yes," he answered as he opened the bedroom door for her to pass first.

"But he just lost his only child. Do you think he'll be up to the task?"

"That's exactly why I'm choosing him," Zeus replied. "There's nobody more motivated than him right now, nobody who wants revenge more."

The two of them were now walking down the stairs. They trod as softly as a cat down the stairs, careful to not make any noise. They didn't want the baby's family to wake up. It was never easy to purposely hurt innocent people, and they wanted to kill the baby's family while the victims were asleep.

There was no other way. If they left the family alive, the parents would report the child as missing. Likewise, the monks would inform the police of another child abandoned at their front steps. And since even a police officer could put two and two together, the baby would soon be back in his parents' arms. Yes, his life would be saved, but that meant ruining another.

Without making a single noise, they exited through the back door of the house, closing it behind them. As soon as Zeus and Hera were out, Hep came out from behind the trees of the family's orchard. He was the same age as the two of them but in better shape.

"Hep, where's Apollo?" Zeus asked.

"He's with Aeolus, securing the perimeter."

"Okay, I want you to give Aeolus this baby. Tell him to take him to Monte Cassino."

"Monte Cassino? Are you sure about this?" Hera asked, still apprehensive.

"Yes. There he should have the best chance to be noticed and recruited. The Archbishop visits Monte Cassino every couple of years." He should easily be noticed."

Hep took the baby from Hera's arms while Zeus put his hand on Hep's shoulder, in a useless effort to offer comfort. He understood the pain Hep was going through and that this was just an empty gesture, which wouldn't make him feel better even in a million years. But Hera knew this was Zeus' way of saying that he would be there for Hep. She knew that only a great deal of time could heal the wounds created by the death of your child. Hep's wounds were almost gone, but she knew the scars would be there forever. One could never really escape the pain created by the loss of one's child.

Zeus gave a goodbye smile to the infant as Hep started walking back to the orchard.

"Hep," Zeus called, after Hep had only taken only a few steps. "From now on, he's your responsibility."

Hep nodded without stopping or turning. He walked straight through the orchard, to where Aeolus waited.

In the beginning, Hep would have avoided going near Monte Cassino at all cost, but the place was no longer dangerous after its destruction in World War II. After the reconstruction, it became an important tourist attraction, a pilgrimage location, no longer his enemy's henchmen's lair. Now the place was a simple abbey, and the only tie to Judas was that his men visited the place every couple of years for recruitment purposes.

The baby had a big distance to cover to get to the abbey, almost one hundred miles, and only a few minutes to do it. But Hep wasn't worried. There was plenty of time.

"Aeolus, where are you?" he called as loud as he could, without shouting, because he was afraid someone might hear him.

"Here," a voice answered from above him.

His old friend stood on the lowest branch of the fruit tree..

"Get down here. You need to go."

Aeolus jumped and landed like a feather after the twelve-foot fall, right on his feet.

"They gave the task to you and not Apollo?" Aeolus said when he saw the baby in Hep's hands. "That's odd. Did they at least say why?"

"No, but I think I know their reason."

Aeolus understood what Hep meant. He didn't want to talk further on the subject, because he knew it was still hard for Hep to speak about the loss of his daughter.

"So, where are we taking this one?"

"Monte Cassino."

"I'd better go, I'm not as fast as I used to be."

* * *

"I still think you should have given the task to Apollo," Hera said as she followed Zeus around the side of the house to the electrical panel. Even though it was very late, they'd parked their car on the side of the road about a mile outside the settlement. If an eyewitness told the local authorities that they had seen two strangers driving to that house just minutes before the fire started, nobody would believe it was an accident. Also, the car was a BMW 3 Series, the 1990 model fresh off the dealership lot. Such an exotic vehicle would surely be remembered.

Without replying, Zeus opened the box and touched the panel inside.A few small electrical arcs formed between his palm and the panel, melting the plastic components.

"We have a few minutes until the fire from the short circuit in the kitchen reaches the gas line and the house blows," he said, after closing the box and turning away.

"Just this once, can't we spare them?" Hera asked, desperately wanting to spare the innocent lives that were about to be sacrificed for what Zeus thought was the greater good.

"We can't take the risk. What if the police or Judas' men connect the dots between the missing child here and the one mysteriously appearing at Monte Cassino? We cannot take that chance."

"Nobody will make a connection between a missing baby reported here and another one ending up at Monte Cassino." She couldn't keep her tears back anymore. Seeing the beads going down her cheeks, he hugged her to his chest as hard as he could. After all, they were still husband and wife, although ages seemed to have passed since they'd last shared an intimate moment.

"Judas can," Zeus said, after she calmed down. "He has become more paranoid now. He knows he's weak and vulnerable, and he doesn't want to take any chances."

"Promise me something." She stepped away and wiped the remaining tears off her face with her hands. They would meet the others soon enough, and she didn't want to look weak and vulnerable herself.

"What?"

"That next time, let's choose one with a single parent with a drug problem."

"Hopefully there won't be a next time. We can't risk waiting twenty more years for another chance."

* * *

_Hep was right, I'm getting slower._ Aeolus had timed himself just to see if it was true. It took him five minutes to arrive at the base of Monte Cassino's hill. He decided that from there, it was best to go on foot through the forest that surrounded the abbey. Although he was very fast, he wasn't silent at all and couldn't risk being heard, not now, when he was so close.

The climb took him another ten minutes and the cover of the trees allowed Aeolus to get within a few feet of the entrance without running the risk of being seen. He looked over at the windows above the entrance, searching to see if anyone could spot him. When he was sure that he wasn't in anyone's line of sight, he walked over to the entrance and placed the baby gently on the doorstep, looking one last time at the little guy before he backed away into the treeline.

Now all he had to do was wait and hope that the monks would take the baby, then return and let the others know if the plan had succeeded or if they had to sacrifice some more lives.

He prayed for the first time in ages.

To whom, he didn't know.

* * *

Father Francesco woke up at six in the morning, just as the sun appeared over the horizon and the light entered his humble room. If he remembered right, today marked the fiftieth year since he'd entered the service of God.

He was ten years old when his parents took him to San Giovanni in Fiore Abbey, inCosenza, Italy. The war had broken out a few weeks before, and they were afraid something might happen to them and their son, and they were right: they were killed when the Allied Forces invaded Italy. He later found out that they died when their village was razed to the ground by friendly artillery, who received the wrong target coordinates. Father Francesco remained thereuntil 1964, when he was transferred to the newly rebuilt Monte Cassino Abbey.

Though this should have been a day of celebration, he decided to act as if it was just a regular Monday. After the morning prayer, he left his room, but not before taking a look out the window, at the city below, which was coming back to life.

Half an hour later, he left his quarters for his usual walk down to the city and back. His room was on the side opposite to the entrance so he had to walk past the cathedral and refectory to arrive at the entrance cloister. He opened the door to exit the abbey.

Before he could set one foot outside, he heard a baby cry. Father Francesco looked down to see an infant right where his foot would have landed, had he stepped forward. This wasn't the first time he'd found an abandoned child in front of the abbey. And it certainly wouldn't be the last. He couldn't understand why people had children if they knew they couldn't care for them. But then again, abortion was an even greater sin. People abandoned their children in front of an abbey, thinking that the monks would take the child and raise it, just like they had seen in the movies.

But this wasn't the case anymore. A new law stated that any child found like this should be handed over to the authorities. Father Francesco hated the new law, because he knew that from that point the fate of that child would be sealed.

He took the baby in his arms and walked back into the abbey, heading straight to his office, in the archives wing of the abbey. He put the baby on his desk and picked up the phone to call the police.

" _Polizia,_ " said avoice at the other end of the line.

Until that moment, Father Francesco hadn't realized that the baby had stopped crying the moment he picked it up at the entrance.

Could this be a sign from God? It must be. Otherwise why find him on this day?

He hung up and took the baby in his arms again.

No, he won't wind up in a foster home. He will be raised here, among the monks, like a true Christian and he will dedicate his life to God.

# Chapter One

Present Day

The loud music reminded Heather why she hated clubs. Unbearable sounds bombarding her ears and deafening her slowly, one beat at a time. And then there was the crowded dance floor, so full you could barely move, let alone dance. That was why this was only the second time in her life she had been in one. If it were up to her, she would have stuck to only one such experience, but when you are visiting your ex-college roommate in her home town, you go where she takes you.

Ever since she got to Rome, Heather had been hoping she could see the Coliseum or the Vatican,but Antonia only took her tofancy restaurants, bars, clothing stores and now this place, which she described as being the hottest club in Italy.

"Don't just stand there, dance!" shouted Antonia into Heather's left ear.

That was another thing Heather hated. You had to shout as hard as you could to be able to talk to someone. And sometimes, even screaming until your lungs hurt wasn't loud enough.

Instead of answering, Heather just smiled and nodded. She'd stood in the middle of the dance floor for almost ten minutes now, just looking at the people around her who were dancing and having a good time.

During this brief period, threemen had approached her and shouted something in Italian in her ear. She couldn't understand them, but the leering gestures were universal. They were asking if she wanted to have a drink with them in a quieter place. Every time, Heather smiled politely and shook her head.

Antonia had refused the first two guys butwas now wrapped around the third one, kissing him passionately.

Fed up with the club, Heathergestured that she was leaving as soon as Antonia made eye contact with her.Heather started walking toward the exit, squeezing herself through the crowd when someone grabbed her ass just as she was about to make her way out of the crowd.

This is the last straw!

When she turned a fraction of a second later, Heather saw five men standing close behind her. Of those, only one was facing Heather.

He was tall, handsome and smiling at her. In an instant, Heather felt her face heat up. She closed the distance between them and slapped him on the right cheek with the back of her hand, then strode toward the door. That made her feel a lot better. Much of the anger that had been building within her throughout the night disappeared once her hand hit the man's face. As she exited the building, someone grabbed her wrist. It was the same man. She tried to slap him again with her free hand, but he caught it mid-air.

"Let go of my hand or I'll scream." Heather kept struggling to get free.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that until you tell me why you hit me back there."

He let go of her hand, but Heather remained still, amazed bythe young man's request. Before she answered him, Heather took a good look at the man who was insulting her intelligence. He was tall, about 6'3'', she guessed, and was probably in his late twenties. He was wearing a black silk shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his hairless chest and tucked away neatly in his black jeans.

She blinked, then let her gaze travel over him once more. He was gorgeous, probably the most beautiful man she'd ever seen in real life. Movie star handsome. He had thick dark hair, perfectly styled, and piercing green eyes. His classically chiseled features wouldn't have been out of place on a Greek statue, and he had the long lean body of a basketball player.

She cleared her throat, determined not to let his looks sway her. "You're joking?"

"No, I'm not," he answered innocently.

"You mean to tell me that you don't see anything wrong with grabbing a woman's ass? I don't know what you people are used to doing here, but back home this would have given me the right to do much more than that."

"Grabbing your ass? I don't know what you're talking about. And I'm not from here, I'm British," he answered. Even his voice was beautiful, deep and well-modulated, flowing into her ears like honey.

_Why did someone this hot have to be such a douchebag?_ Maybe she'd been mistaken about who'd grabbed her in the crush inside the club. Why would anyone this good-looking have to resort to such measures to get a woman?

She shook the thought away. She knew what she'd seen. No one else had been close enough. "Then let me refresh your memory. Back there, before I hit you, you had your hand on my ass."

"I swear to God it wasn't me!"

"Yeah? Well, then, who?" she snapped.

"How should I know? There are about a thousand guys in there. It could have been anyone."

"But none of them were standing right behind me," Heather shouted, furious at the man's futile attempts to excuse his actions.

"I give you my word it wasn't me." He placed his hand on his chest, where his heart would be, as he said that.

"Then why were you smiling when I turned around?"

The entrance was full of people trying to get into the club, and by now most of them were staring at Heather and the gorgeous guy.

"Well, the truth is that I wasn't entirely sincere with you," he confessed.

"I knew it. You did feel me up." For a moment there,she'd started to believe that the young man was innocent and that she'd have to apologize for hitting him.

"I've been watching you ever since you and your friend walked in the club. I wanted to talk to you, but I saw how all those other guys kept walking up to you and then backing off disappointed. Then I saw you were leaving, and I knew I had to go for it, so I started to follow you. I wanted to take your hand, but accidentally put my hand where it didn't belong when I got jostled. All I wanted to do was get your attention and talk to you." He lowered his gaze to the ground, as though he was ashamed of what he'd done.

He probably knew just how incredibly attractive that hangdog look was on him. She felt herself weakening. How could anyone be angry at a face like that? "And what would you have told me?"

"First of all, I would have asked you why you wanted to leave," he went on. "And you probably would have answered that you didn't enjoy yourself here. Than I would have promised you a good time if you decided to stay and dance with me."

"And if I said no?"

"I would have walked away, but I'm sure that you wouldn't have turned me down," he said with a confident air.

"I don't know about the part where you told me you didn't mean to grab my ass, but this I definitely don't believe. I would have said no, just like all the other times." For just a blink of an eye, Heather allowed herself to smile but then she turned serious again.

"Trust me, you would have said yes."

Heather couldn't stop her smile this time.The nerve of him! "You're pretty sure about yourself. Okay, let's pretend that I would have agreed. What next?"

"I'd take you back to the dance floor. At first, I would have kept it very casual, kept my distance and smiled. Then I would lean a little toward you to ask something that you couldn't hear. You would get closer to me and ask me to repeat the question, and I would have whispered softly into your ear, asking if you if you wanted something to drink. You'd say yes. I'd go to the bar and come back after a few minutes, empty-handed, saying that the bar was so crowded it was impossible to get a drink. Then I would suggest a nice quiet cafe across the street, right there," he said, pointing his finger toward it."It's openall night, and we could go there for a drink."

"And what would I say then?"

"You'd say yes. We'd go there and sit for an hour or so over drinks."

"And what would we talk about?"

"The usual. I'd ask you where you're from and what you're doing in Rome."

"What makes you think I'm not from around here?" She wasn't angry anymore. She found his cockiness strangely attractive. _This guy is original. I have to give him credit for that_.

"Well, in the first place, you don't dress like you're from around here."

"Maybe I like to stand out," she said in a flirty voice.

"You don't look like that kind of girl. And no Italian girl would wear such a nice evening dress into a club, even if she wanted to stand out. And then there's your English. You don't have an Italian accent. I'd have to say you're American."

"Wow, I'm impressed," she said, smiling.

"Thank you." He took a short bow.

"All in all, it was a nice story but let me tell you which parts I don't buy. It could be true that you had your eyes on me ever since I got here. You saw how I turned down the guys who came up to me, so you decided that a head-on approach would fail. So you waited and when I started heading toward the door, you followed me. You couldn't just stop me and start talking because you were certain that it wouldn't work, so you decided to try something different. That's why you grabbed my ass."

"But—"

Two could play this game.

"Hush. Now it's my time to tell the story. You did feel me up, and when I turned around, you smiled because you were sure that it would make me think that it was you. Now, there was a fifty-fifty chance that I would slapyou. I did, and thus you had the perfect reason to follow me and start this conversation. How am I doing so far?" Heather was satisfied to see the man's expression change from confidence to amazement as she was talking.

"I have to admit that I'm impressed," he said."But how did you come up with it?"

"Well, that's simple. You're really cute, so you probably manage to hook up with a lot of girls just by using your looks. This gave you the confidence to try to smooth-talk them, which you quickly learned to do, due to your fast improvising skills. The self confidence that you've shown during our little chat and the fact that you've never hesitated, not even once, shows that you've done this exact scheme before, and it worked. At this point, you would ask a girl if she wants to have that drink at the cafe across the street, and she would most certainly say yes. After an hour or two of smooth talk over a glass of wine, she would end up in yourhotel room."

His jaw dropped, and then he cleared his throat. "What makes you think I wouldn't take her back to my place and woo her some more?"

"Simple. You don't take the girls you pick up to your home."

"And why don't I do that?"

"That's the easiest question so far. Because you're a one-night stand guy."

"And how could you tell that?"

"This is the easiest one. You dress to impress. Your clothes look like they're brand new. This is probably the first time you've worn this outfit, and the last. First impressions are everything to you, because you never meet the girls you hook up with a second time. You never even call them. And that's why I bet that you only try to pick up tourists like me, because it'seasier to never meet them again."

"Well, Miss..." He extended his hand to her.

"Heather," she said, grabbing his hand and shaking it, pleased that she'd analyzed him so well.

"Miss Heather. You're the first one to expose my evil plan. I have to say that I'm impressed and intrigued. How did you manage to figure all that out?"

"I just got my Masters in Investigative Journalism, and I double majored in Psychology and History. Oh, and did I mention I'm a huge fan of detective stories? I've read and watched every book, movie or TV show in the genre that's out there," she bragged.

"So now you're going to do a full psychiatric evaluation on me and tell me how my childhood traumas had something to do with the way I am now?"

"I don't know you that well yet. But let's grab those drinks, and I can tell you all about yourself afterwards!"She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the other side of the street, where the cafe was.

"I have an even better idea." He stopped after only a couple of steps. "Why don't we skip the coffee shop and go to my hotel room, where we can have those drinks in a more intimate setting, and I can show you all about our hospitality."

"Don't make a promise you can't keep," she said with a cheeky smile. He really was impossible, but she was drawn to him in a way she couldn't explain. And it wasn't just the alcohol.

"What do you mean?"

"You said _our_ hospitality, but you're not from around here either. Now where did you say your hotel was?"

She turned to the man she had met only a few minutes ago and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down, toward her. She looked into his eyes for a few moments and smiled. Her lips were so close to his that she could feel his warm breath. They were both breathing irregularly. She leaned forward, but itseemed an eternity until their lips finally touched. He pulled her even closer and then his hands drifted up her body until they reached the back of her head, and he ran his hands through her long, dark hair as the kiss intensified. He was the one who ended the long kiss by moving away from her. He grabbed her hand and started walking down the street.

"Where are we going?" she asked, disappointed that the romantic moment had ended so quickly.

"My car is just around the corner," he answered.

"You haven't told me your name yet," she said, feeling wild and daring to think she'd agreed to go to a hotel with him before learning his name.

"Apollo."

"As in the space missions?" She giggled.

"As in the Greek god."

"Please, don't flatter yourself," she said, trying not to laugh. "You're not _that_ good looking." That was a lie, of course. He was every bit as handsome as a Greek god.

As they walked down the street, Apollo was half a step in front of her, leading the way. They came to a dark side alley, and he started to enter.

Heather stopped, suddenly apprehensive."Where are you taking me?"

"Like I said, to my car. It's over there." He pointed down the alley.

She took a step back and let go of his hand. Most of the detective stories she read or watched started out like this, with a girl falling for a handsome man's charms, but finding out he was nothing more than a psychopath who just wanted to rape, torture and kill innocent women, not necessarily in that order. Now she feared she'd stupidly walked right into the same sort of trap."Who parks his car in a side alley when the street has enough parking spaces?"

"Long story. Look!"

He tooka small key remote out of his pocket and pressed a button. A few feet away, the lights of a car flashed.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to knock you unconscious and rape you. I'm not that kind of guy." He smiled, obviously hoping it would break the tension.

"I know," she lied, "but it's a little strange that you left your car in an alley and not somewhere closer to the entrance of the club."

"Okay, to tell you the truth, I parked here because I'm hiding from someone. A few weeks ago, I picked up a girl and as we left the club, we ran into her boyfriend. We got into a fight and, well, I sucker punched him and ran. I'm pretty sure he saw me get into my car, and I heard him swearing to make me pay for what I did. My car is the only '67 Chevy Impala in the city. So I parked it here in case he showed up looking for me. About a year ago, someone ran a red light and crashed into me. It took me five months to repair the car. I had to import the parts all the way from the US and take the car to an auto shop all the way in Switzerland."

The explanation seemed truthful enough to Heather, who was now willing to see the car, as long as she was at least two steps behind him, which would give her enough of a head start to run back to the bouncers standing at the club entrance if she needed to.

"Wouldn't it have been easier to just switch clubs or come without the car?"

"This is the place where most of the tourists come, and the car is part of my pickup routine. Plus, I really like this place, the music is great. Besides I did nothing wrong." Again, he smiled to break the tension.

He was incorrigible. "You mean except for the fact that you stole someone's girlfriend and then sucker punched him?"

"I didn't steal anyone," Apollo continued. "She came willingly. She practically jumped on me in there and invited me back to her place. And I sucker punched that guy because I didn't want to hurt him more than I had to. In a fair fight, he didn't stand a chance."

"And cocky too. Okay,Mister I-can-beat-anyone, let's go."

She took a deep breath and entered the alley. He took Heather's hand, and led the way to his car. The alley had no light whatsoever. Thankfully, there was a streetlightbehind them, on the sidewalk across from the alley, whichshed enough light to see where you were going. When they were only six feet away from the Impala, Apollo stopped and looked around, like he was searching to see if anyone was watching him.

"What's wrong?" Heather asked, once again starting to feel a little nervous.

Without any kind of warning, Apollo pushed Heather behind a dumpster. She lost her balance but before she touched the ground, she hit her forehead on the edge of the dumpster and was knocked unconscious.

# Chapter Two

"I'm in position," Artemis said into the Bluetooth headset.

"I'm two minutes out. Coming from the south on Via del Corso," Hep answered.

She looked through the scope and pointed the rifle left, toward Via del Corso. The street's entrance into the square was marked by Basilica di Santa Maria in Montesanto and Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli. The vantage point she chose didn't offer her the best view of the entrance, but that didn't matter. She only needed to have a good view of the tall obelisk in the center of Piazza del Popolo and the entrance from Via Ferdinando di Savoia.

Because they needed a quick exit route in case something went wrong, she set up on the side of the twisted road that led up to the Pincio Gardens, east of the square. The street started at Piazza del Popolo and climbed as it approached the park. The second U-turn had a high elevation and the trees and bushes on the side of the road provided excellent cover. It was almost as high as the buildings around but its big advantage was the adjacent eighty-acre park to use as cover in case something went wrong. Like the square, the park was visited by many tourists but at 3:30 in the morning, the streets were almost empty, except for the occasional bum or drunk trying to find his way back home. She'd arrived there just five minutes earlier and finished assembling her rifle just in time.

Earlier that day, she'd come to the park to check for the signal. For the first time since they started checking for it, about two years ago, Artemis finally saw the small red mark on the first tree at the entrance of the park, that signaled Marco wanted to meet. The place, and time had been set by Marco and Hep during their last meeting. Back then, they decided it would be easier for Marco to make it there unseen during the night.

"Hep, please, be very careful. We're too close to the Vatican," she said.

"Don't worry. It's just a quick exchange. I'll be in and out before you know it. Just like before. Besides, I have the best marksman in the world to watch my back," he said with confidence.

"That may be true, but I'm more than three hundredfeet away. In case something goes wrong, I'll need thirty seconds to get to you. Okay, I have you in sight."

Despite her voiced concerns, Artemis knew Hep was right. They'd done this kind of meeting in the past, and nothing ever went wrong. That was why Zeus had decided, a few hours ago, that only the two of them should go to this meeting. Plus, she was the best marksman, or marks _woman_ , in the world. She was the only backup Hep needed.

Everyone has been so casual about this that my brother decided to go out and have fun while we're here, potentially risking our lives.Unbelievable.

She followed Hepthrough the scope as he entered the empty square. He was walking casually, just like a tourist, looking to his left and right, admiring the architecture of the old buildings. He walked to the middle of Piazza del Popolo and stopped right in front of the obelisk. Hep looked at his surroundings once more before sitting on the low steps that led to the monument, facing the areashe was hiding in. He took out a cigarette and lit it, cupping his hand around the lighter.

"Do you see anything?" he asked.

She moved her crosshair up, pointing it into the direction of Ferdinando di Savoia, the street his contact was most likely to come from.

"No, nothing," she replied. "Wait," she said a few moments later."I see something. It's a man, dressed as a monk. It's him."

"Showtime!"

Hep got up, dropped the cigarette on the ground next to him and extinguished it with the sole of his shoe.He then took out a map from his back pocket and unfolded it. He resumed his tourist routine and started walking toward the monk, looking left, right, up, down, like he was trying to find a reference point. As he did that, he tried to always have the monk in sight, at the edge of his vision.The monk entered the square. Only then did Hep turn his head to look at him. Upon seeing the monk, he feigned a sigh of relief and started walking toward the man.

It had been two years since Hep had last seen Marco. They'd last met in the woods of Monte Cassino, on Marco's last day there before leaving for the Vatican. The boy was twenty-oneat the time, and he had just found out the truth aboutthe Catholic Church, who controlled it and why his parents were killed when he was only a baby. It wasn't exactly the truth, but it was what Hep had told him, a lie that convinced Marco to help them. Hep had explained to Marco how he was special and that was the reason why Judas had ordered his men to kill his family and take him to the abbey. It wasn't a very credible story, but Marco, having known him for more than twelve years, trusted Hep with his lifeso he believed everything the latter said and agreed to help put a stop to it. He agreed with Hep, that no other innocent men, women and children should be hurt by this so-called god.

" _Mi scuzi_ ," he said to Marco in the worst possible Italian accent.

" _Si_ ," the young man replied, stopping right in front of Hep and pretending they were meeting for the first time.

" _Parla Inglese_?"

"Yes, a bit," the monk answered.

Hep feigned another sign of relief."Oh, thank God. I'm lost, and I'm trying to get back to myhotel. Do you know where Vittorio Veneto is?"

"Certainly," the monk replied.

Marco leaned over the so-called tourist's map and pointed his finger at the hotel. To somebody even as close astwo feet away, this looked like a casual situation, where a local was helping out a lost tourist. The truth was far from it. Marco was holding a folded piece of paper inside his palm as his finger pointed to the hotel. In that same instant, he opened up his curled fingers and dropped the scrap of paper onto the map. As soon as it touched the map, Hep grabbed and wrapped his left hand around it.

"Thank you very much," he told the monk.

In reply, Marcobowed and resumed his walk.

Hep took another look at the map, then at the surrounding area, like he was getting his bearings straight, before making his first step toward the hotel.

"Done," he whispered into his Bluetooth device. "Meet me in twenty minutes at the pick-up location."

"On my way," she replied, relieved.

Artemis took her eye off the scope and got up, ready to head to the rendezvous point, before a startling, yet familiar sound made its way to her ears from the headset. The sound of a bullet hitting human flesh, followed by a scream of pain. She jumped back into position, automatic, like a robot.

"We've been followed," Hep shouted in the headset. "I'm hit, one in the abdomen and one in the hip. There are three of them coming from the North."

As she looked in that direction, she could see three more people, dressed just like their contact, as monks, running with super-human speed, straight for Hep. They were all in a line, armed with what looked like 9mm pistols, shooting. She put the crosshair on the chest of the one on the left and gently squeezed the trigger.

Miss.

The bullet hit the pavement and shattered six inches behind the designated target. She followed him in the crosshair again, this time targeting his feet.

Hit.

The bullet grazed the top of his right shoulder. The impact didn't even slow him down but it made the injured man drop his gun.

Before she could fire off another shot, she heard one more scream in her earpiece and moved her sight toher partner, just in time to see him fall to the ground.

"Hep, you okay?"

No answer.

"Hep!"

The three monks were now upon him. One of the armed ones stopped, and leaned over Hep, checking to see if he was still alive, while the other two continued their run, now heading for Marco. The monk straightened up and aimed his gun at Hep. Artemis pulled the trigger before he had a chance to fire.

Hit.

The bullet entered his head through his left ear and exited out the other side, blowing out a big chunk of his brain and skull. As the body hit the ground hard, the other two caught up with Marco, who was now hiding behind the obelisk. They stopped only for a few moments, just enough time for the injured one to take a look at his wound. All three, the two monks flanking Marco, ran, slower than before, heading toward the street that Hep had used earlier to enter Piazza del Popolo. The only one who still hada gun was about half a step in front of the others.

She placed the crosshair a few inches in front of the armed man and breathed in.

If I miss this shot, I could kill Marco.

She followed her target through the scope, the crosshair always in front of his head. A moment later, she exhaled and gently squeezed the trigger.

Hit.

Another headshot and the target fell to the ground. The last one, the injured monk, couldn't be targeted, not from this angle. He was right behind Marco and if she shot him, it would mean hittingboth of them. Marco was too important to be killed. His death would set them back at least twenty years. Seconds later, they entered Via del Corso and left her sight.

"Hep, you all right? Hep!"

Again, no answer. Now that the Piazza had once again been covered in silence, she could hear Hep's breathing. Irregular and heavy, but he was still breathing. She didn't know how many times he'd been hit or how bad it was, but she knew that while he was breathing he still had a chance of living. She just had to take him to Apollo as fast as possible.

With the help of the scope, she started checking every inch of the Piazza, every rooftop, every window and dark corner, looking for a hidden enemy.

Clear.

She left the rifle and ran toward Hep, on the road at first, then straight through the bushes as the street's two U-turns only detoured her. As she entered the square, she pulled out her 9mm, still running straight but her gaze darting left and right, still looking for that hidden enemy.

Three feet. Two. One.

She leaned over Hep, touching his body gently, looking for the wounds. The man in a monk's habit lay next to him,his head half blown off. Occasionally, he had a small twitch in his left leg. She saw it, but the movement didn't scare her one bit. Hep had been shot five times, she saw, once in the left leg, chest and right shoulder and twice in the stomach. She raised her hands, now covered in his blood, and looked at them.

"You're gonna make it. Just hold on," she said as a tear made its way down her cheek. "Remember, you still have a mission to finish. Don't chicken out now when you're so close to ending it." She brushedthe tear away but smeared her cheek with his blood. Then she lifted Hep up and placed him on her left shoulder, like he was a sack of potatoes.

Slowly at first, then a little faster as she accustomed herself to the extra weight, she walked back up the street she'd come down, backtoward the park. This time, she kept to the road.

In her rush to get him out of there, Artemis forgot to look for the note from Marco. That was the reason they were there and, without it, they would be lost, because the note was supposed to contain information about their next meeting place.

"Just hold on! Apollo is going to make you better."

Hep was still breathing, slow and heavy, but she didn't know for how long. For the first time, she doubted that her old friend was going to make it out of this one alive. As they passed by the place she used for cover, she thought about all the dead bodies and evidence that their encounter left behind. But she wasn't worried about cleanup. The enemy would do it. They wanted to keep this a secret as much as she did. Maybe even more.

# Chapter Three

Immediately after waking up, the body's first reaction is to open its eyes, but this wasn't the case with Heather, at least not this time. She knew something bad had happened to her and keeping her eyes closed gave her a fake feeling of safety. When she came back to her senses, she didn't know if she had been out for ten minutes or ten hours or even whether she was in the same place. What woke her was a strange voice whispering close to her. Her last memory was of walking with Apollo to his car. Then he started acting really strange and pushed her.

_Was this his plan all along_? _Or did something else happen?_

Her dark thoughts were interrupted by the strange voice. Heather perked her ears. It wasn't Apollo, she concluded. She couldn't understand what the voice was saying but she knew it wasn't English. Her ears finally caught something vaguely familiar.

" _In nomine Patris et Filli et Spiritus Sancti, Amen_."

_Latin_. _It's a prayer. Someone is saying a prayer. Maybe I'm in a church._

The drop of water that hit her forehead startled herand brought back the memory of Martin, the sexual predator who'd kidnapped her when she was a child. She'd been rescued before he could molest her, but he'd woken her just like this, with drops of water to her forehead. Since then, having water dropped on her forehead was the thing she hated and feared most in her life. Once she'd fallen asleep outside and a rain drop had fallen on her. Another time, a college friend had done it as a joke. Each time, Heather woke up screaming and crying, with images of Martin flashing through her mind. Heart racing, Heather quickly opened her eyes, only to see Martin standing over her.

No it can't be him. Martin is dead. He was executed a long time ago.

She blinked and when she opened her eyes the second time, Martin was gone. Instead, a bald man appeared in front of her. He was chanting the same prayer over and over again. His left hand was right above her head, holding a small bottle, which looked just like the ones flight attendants serve. It was tilted slightly and with every "Amen" spoken, the man let a drop of liquid drop on Heather's forehead. As it hit her skin, the liquid mixed with the blood from the cut on her forehead, oozing over her nose and eyes. Heather wanted to move, to get up and run away, but the fear paralyzed her.

The strange man had no reaction when she opened her eyes. He remained still and kept staring right at her, chanting, like he was hypnotized.

" _In nomine Patris et Filli et Spiritus Sancti, Amen_ ," he repeated.

But he stopped before dropping the liquid on her forehead with the 'Amen'.Then, she heard a muffled sound and blood started dripping from the man's opened mouth right on Heather's face. He collapsednext to Heather, his head hitting the asphalt near her left ear. In the few seconds of perfect silence that followed, she couldn't hear him breathe. He was dead. Heather started screaming. The loud noise filled up the narrow dark alley. Out of the same darkness, a man's silhouette appeared in front of her. Before she could realize who it was, he had his hand pressed tightly against her mouth.

"Be quiet," Apollo said as he looked beyond the dumpster like he was searching for something.

A muzzled sound came from her mouth.

"Are you okay?"

Heather shook her head.

"Listen to me very carefully," he continued while his hand was still pressed against her mouth. "Your life is in danger. If you want to get out of here alive, you have to do what I say, when I say it. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"I'm going to take my hand off your mouth, but you have to stop screaming."

She nodded again.

Apollo removed his hand. Heather didn't make a sound. She looked left, at the dead man lying next to her. Just as she did, his hand twitched. Heather screamed again. This time, her own hand covered her mouth.

"Here's what I want you to do," Apollo said, his green eyes glinting in the faint light."When I say 'now', run to the car, get into the passenger seat and put the key into the ignition. Stay as low as possible. I'll be right behind you."

"What if you don't make it?"

"If I don't, neither do you," he replied with a calm voice.

He peeked over the dumpster.

"You ready?"

He handed her the car keychain and she nodded.

"Now!"

Apollo steppedout from behind the dumpster and started shooting in the direction they came from. Heather got up and started running straight to the car. She got in and, as instructed, placed the key into the ignition. She curled up on the seat and waited. The few seconds she waited seemed like minutes. Heather moved her head between the front seats to see what was happening behind her. Apollo was moving slowly toward the car, his back to it, shooting down the alley. When he emptied his clip, he ran and got into the driver's seat. He reloaded his gun, dropping the empty clip on the floor of the car, and placed it in his lap.

"Who was—?"

Before Heather finished her sentence, a bullet came out of the darkness, shattering the rear window. The bullet missed Apollo's head by inches and exited the car through the windshield, cracking it. Heather screamed again, this time without bothering to cover her mouth.

Apollo started the engine, threw the car in gear and floored the gas. The Impala took off with its tires screeching, just as a man sprinted out of the darkness of the alley. He jumped and grabbed the frame of the shattered rear window. A piece of glass pierced his left palm as he did so.

The man hanging from the back of the car resembled the one who woke her up with the strange prayer. He too had a shaved head and was dressed in what looked like monk's robes. Even though his hand was bleeding and the piece of glass was still penetrating his palm, the man's face showed no pain. He raised his right hand, revealing a pistol.

"Look out!" Heather shouted as she ducked behind the seat.

Apollo glanced back. As he saw the gun, he pulled the steering wheel left as hard as he could, then right. The car zigzagged on the empty street and made the monk lose his aim just as he fired. The bullet missed Apollo by only a couple of inches.

"The gun, take the gun from my lap!" Apollo shouted as once again he pulled hard on the steering wheel, first left and then right.

The monk slidon the trunk like the pendulum of an old clock.

"Take the gun!"

The man found his balance once again, aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet pierced the driver's chair and entered Apollo's right shoulder. The sound of the shot acted like a wake-up call for Heather who, until that moment, had frozen in her seat, as stiff as a rock. She leaned forward and took the gun from Apollo's lap. The monk firedhis pistol again but the bullet only managed to hit the windshield, cracking it even more.

She handed the gun to Apollo.

"I can't move my right hand," he said."You shoot him!"

"What?" Heather couldn't believe her ears. Less than thirty minutes ago, she was on the dance floor with her old college roommate and now she was being told to shoot a man, who was trying to kill her.

"Shoot him!"

"I can't!" she cried, horrified by the very thought.

"Yes, you can." Apollo took his eyes off the road and looked at Heather. "Point the gun at him and pull the trigger."

"I can't. I never shot a gun before. I don't think I can do it."

"Listen to me, you have no choice. It's either him or us. Do you want to live?"

"Yes!"

"Then shoot him!"

Something in Apollo's eyes convinced her that she couldn't say no anymore. Heather pointed the gun toward the man. She pulled the trigger five times. The first three bullets missed their target. The fourth hit the man right in the middle of his forehead while the last grazed his scalp. Apollo zigzagged the car once more, and the man finally fell off the trunk.

"It's over," he said to Heather who had her eyes closed and the gun pointed at the back of the car. Her hands were trembling hard.

Heather dropped the gun, which landed on the backseat. She curled back into her seat, with her knees tucked tightly to her chest and her hands wrapped around them, and started crying. Apollo drove for two blocks until he pulled over in the empty parking lot of a supermarket. He left the engine running. Heather opened her door and tried to leap out of the car, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the seat.

"Let me go!" she shouted as loud as she could, while struggling to free herself from his hold.

"Remember how you said earlier that you would do whatever I told you to? We may still be followed. If you leave this car, you are as good as dead!"

"Who were those men, and what did they want? And why were they dressed like monks?" she cried, confused and trembling.

"We don't have time for that now. I will answer all your questions later, when we get to a safe place."

"What are we waiting for then?" she asked desperately."Let's go."

"In a minute. I have to take care of this wound. But first hand me the gun." Heather wiped at her tears but all she did was smear the blood across her face even more. She reached for the gun and handed it to Apollo, who managed to reload it quickly, using just his left hand.

"Now I want you to reach into the glove compartment and take out the pair of scissors."

As Heather did just that, Apollo unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his injured shoulder. His bare chest was smooth and beautiful, his muscles well defined, a fact she couldn't believe she'd noticed under the circumstances.

"Got it," she said.

"Okay, now I want you to take the bullet out."

He turned his back toward her.

"Are you crazy?"

"Just stick the scissorsin, grab and pull."

"But first we need to clean the wound and disinfect the scissors or else you might get an infection,"she said, worried.

"Don't worry about that, I'll be all right. Just do as I said."

"Okay, tough guy," she said, mockingly, just to encourage herself. The thought of sticking a pair of scissors in someone's flesh made her sick. Heather could feel her stomach turning inside out. She could have puked right there if she'd eaten more than a yogurt hours ago that morning.

Her hands were still shaking when she inserted the scissors into his flesh.Apollodidn't even flinch.

"Do you want me to stop?"

He shook his head.

Heather pushed the scissors in almost an inch before she felt the bullet. She grabbed it and started pulling it out slowly.

"Just take it out quick," he managed to mumble around the gun.

"Okay. On three. You ready?"

He nodded.

"One, two, three."

With one quick move, Heather pulled out the bullet.

"Now we just have to dress the wound."

"There's no need," he replied after letting go of the gun. "Leave it like that."

"But you might get an infection," she protested.

"I'll be fine. Now let's take a look at your forehead."

He took off his shirt and used the clean part to wipe the blood off Heather's face and forehead. After all the blood, and most of her make-up, was gone, he put the shirt in his lap. Apollo raised his right hand and placed his palm on her wound, pressing gently.

"What are you doing?"

"Shh. You'll see."

He closed his eyes. Heather could feel a strange warmth coming from where his hand touched her skin.

"That should do it," he said a few moments later and removed his hand. "How's your head now?"

The stinging throb in Heather's forehead vanished. She looked in the rear-viewmirror and couldn't believe her eyes. Her wound was gone. She touched the spot where it had been, just to make sure that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.

Gone.

She looked at Apollo. He had the same smile as when they first met. He was gorgeous, but he'd nearly gotten her killed. _Talk about the hookup from hell..._

Heather moved her head to the right. The car door was still open from her first escape attempt. She tried to leap out of the car, but again Apollo caught her before she could. This time he used his right hand.

She screamed and tried to hit him with her free hand. He grabbed that one too. Heather struggled to pull away but the effort was useless.

"Who the hell are you, and what have you gotten me into?" she asked once she calmed down. "First we're shot at by a guy who looked like a monk and had no problem stabbing his hand with a shard of glass and now you touch me and the wound disappears like it was never there. Who the hell are you, and what just happened?"

"I will answer all your questions later, I promise," he answered with a calm voice. "But right now we have to go."

"No! This ends here! Let me go! Help! Help, he kidnapped me!" she screamed. It was all in vain. The parking lot and the street were empty.

"Let me go, you...you monster!"

"Heather, please. You trusted me before. Trust me again when I tell you that in less than twenty minutes you will have all the answers you want."

"No! Let me go, now."

Again she struggled and managed to free her right hand. She reached and grabbed the gun and pointed it at him.

"Let me go or I'll shoot you."

"No you won't," he replied with the same calm voice, completely ignoring the threat.

"I shot a man earlier, I'll do it again."

For a few moments, she had forgotten that, but the cold gun in her hand reminded Heather that she had taken a life just a few minutes earlier.

Apollo reached for the gun and took it from her shaking hand before he could find out if she was serious or not. He released her other hand from his grasp.

"Fine, leave. But keep in mind that you won't last until dawn. I've gotten you mixed up in a very bad business and I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen, but now you're part of it. Please, listen to me when I tell you that I'm your only chance to make it out of this alive."

Heather stood perfectly still for a moment while her mind relived all that happened until that moment.

What have you gotten yourself into this time, Heather? You know your best chance is to get out of this car and go straight to the police. On the other hand, this is what investigative journalism is about sometimes. There is a great story behind this. Men dressed in monks' robes shooting at people in Rome on the open street? This could mean the story of a lifetime.

Heather looked at her hands. They weren't shaking anymore.She took a deep breath and closed the car door.

"So what do we do now?" she asked calmly.

"We go to a safe place. It's close by."

"And then?"

"Then we answer all your questions."

"We?" Heather asked, puzzled.

Without saying another word, Apollo put the car into gear and left the parking lot, heading for the outskirts of Rome.

# Chapter Four

Cardinal Raul Estevez wasn't feeling well. His whole body was shaking and his heart raced like it was going to explode. He knocked and entered the room where Judas waited. The cardinal wished he could be anywhere else right now. A small lamp, placed close to the door, was the only source of light. He took four steps forward and stopped at the invisible line where light turned into darkness.

"Excuse me, my Lord," he said,peering into the darkness.

"What is it?" a disembodied voice answered.

He tried to figure out where the reply came from but the acoustics of the room prevented that.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. There have been two encounters tonight, both in Rome. The first one took place in Piazza del Popolo. It looks like they were waiting for an apprentice there. We don't know why the apprenticeleft the dormitory in the first place, but we had him followed by a few guards.Our people managed to take down the man the apprentice met but there was a sniper who killed two of the guards and injured the third before the apprentice was taken to safety. I'm personally heading over there to interrogate him. My Lord, do you think he could be a spy who's working for _them_?"

"Who was it?"

"Marco."

"Impossible. He was closely watched from day one."

"Indeed, my Lord. He has been closely watched ever since he arrived at the Vatican. But this wouldn't be the first time that they infiltrated the ranks of the apprentices. It has happened before. Maybe he was recruited by them while he was still staying at Monte Cassino."

"Silence!" the voice thundered. "I will hear no more of this. He will remain an apprentice and proceed to the challenges with the rest of them."

"As you wish, my Lord."

"Is that envy in your voice? Are you afraid that this boy will replace you at my side? He might, but it will take at least two decades. Now, you have nothing to fear."

Raul winced at the reproof. "Yes, my Lord. I trust your judgment, and I know that everything you do is for the greater good."

"Raul, because I trust _your_ judgment, I will let you double his guard and keep him under surveillance at all times. When the time comes, replace the final challenge with an interrogation. If he is indeed a spy, this will expose it."

"Thank you, my Lord,"Raul replied, satisfied.

"Now, tell me about the second encounter."

"Threeof our men were on patrol when they spotted Apollo in the middle of a street. He was with a girl. Not one of theirs. At first it looked like he abandoned the girl and ran away when he spottedour men. One of the men decided to mark her, in case Apollo contacted her again. He was killed immediately after marking her. Apollo took the girl and escaped in a car. Our second man followed, but he was killed as well.Only the third got out alive, but he didn't tell us how. I suspect he probably remained hidden the whole time. I'll deal with him soon enough.We cleaned up both scenes before the local authorities arrived."

"Do you know who the girl is and what she was doing with Apollo?

"No, my Lord. But as we speak,our people inside the police force are interrogating a few witnesses. As soon as they find something, they'll tell us." Raul paused."My Lord, do you think that what happened tonight is just a coincidence or are they planning something?"

"Only time will tell.I want you to keep me informed. Now leave."

"Yes, my Lord."

Raul turned on his heel and walked back the way he came. As he opened the door, he gave the darkness one last look, hoping to see his master. He couldn't.

Raul left the room and closed the door behind him, walking back down the same narrow and dimly lit corridor. The small lamps placed at equal intervals revealed the cracks and the yellowish discoloration of the plaster. This house wasn't fit for a man of such power, the cardinal thought. Decades ago, when it was his turn to go through the ritual, Raul saw for the first time his master's true power. The books were right. But why a man like his masterwas living like this was beyond his understanding. Surely it wasn't because he was afraid.

Raul walked back to the entrance and left the old mansion. In the small courtyard, a black limousine was waiting for him. The driver was leaning on the hood of the car. He walked over and opened the back door for Raul.

"I need to get to the Vatican," Raul said as his driver started the car.

# Chapter Five

The ride to what Apollo called a 'safe place' took a little over fifteen minutes. After they left the parking lot, they drove on Via Tiburtina until they were close to the city limits, at the Circonvallazione, a highway that encircled the Italian Capital. In this part of the city, the northeast, the ring roadwas called'Circonvallazione Orientale'. Before they could reach it, Apollo took a left and entered a side street, Via di Scorticabove.

At first, Heather tried to keep track of where they were going. But the poorly lit streets made it impossible to read all the names. By the time Apollo took the seventh or eighth turn, Heather abandoned the idea. For the first time since they left the parking lot, she took her eyes off the road and glanced at Apollo.

Looking back at all that had happened earlier, Heather realized that her companionhad remained calm throughout. He had only raised his voice once, not in despair, but to make her snap out of her panic attack and shoot that man.

_His calmness could mean that he has done this for quite some time_. _But look at him, he looks like he's still in his early twenties. He must be military. Special Forces or something._

"We're here," he said, interrupting her chain of thoughts.

The car stopped in frontof a small two-story apartment building. Two minutes later, the car was parked in the building's basement garage.

"Look at what they did to my baby," Apollo said, mostly to himself. "Bent trunk hood, shattered rear and front window, pierced seat and mangled rear-view mirror. It's going to take me at least a month to get all the parts and fix her up. Last time I had to order the parts from the United States and take her to a shop across the border in Switzerland." He stroked the rooftop of the Impala. "It's okay, baby. You're going to be all right." He turned to Heather. "Let's go."

A flight of stairs led them to the ground level, into the main lobby of the building and then up to the second floor. Apollo opened the only door there and invited her inside. Even though the roomthey entered was spacious enough for two elephants to live in, it was barely furnished. In the middle sat a simple black dining table, with six chairs around it. Beyond that, near the wall, stood a small desk with a computer, which was turned on. Heather wasn't sure, but the monitor seemed to show images from four surveillance cameras. Left and right of the desk were two windows with shut blinds. On the right side of the room, there were two metal storage cases, the kind Heather had seen used in movies to hold weapons. Given everything that had happened tonight, she wouldn't be surprised if could be their purpose as well.

"Don't say a word until I tell you to," Apollo whispered to her just as the door to the other room opened and a tall woman walked in.

Although she looked to be in her late forties, by the lines on her forehead, her hair was still as black as coal and she was fit. Her almond green eyes, cold as ice, immediately caught Heather in her gaze.

"Who isyour companion, and what is she doing here?" the womandemanded of Apollo.

"We've been attacked,Mom," Apollo replied.

"What?" Apollo's momturned toward the door she came in from and shouted, "Come, quick!"

Atall well-built man, about the same age as the woman,came through the door immediately. The agelines on his forehead and his coldgreen eyes showed he was a man who had seen a lot in his life. From behind his thick and curly beard, he opened his mouth. His voice was like thunder."What happened, son?"

"We've been attacked," Apollo repeated.

"Are you all right?" If at first the middle-aged man's face showed no emotion, his concern could now be seen from a mile away.

"Yes, Dad. I'm fine. We're fine. I think it was only a patrol, just two of them, and it was an accident. They weren't following me."

"Where did it happen?" Apollo's dad asked.

"Outside the club."

"I've told you a million times to stop doing that. Stop going to those places!" His expression turned from concern to anger. "I warned you this might happen. But you never listen, Apollo. Never! Someday your stubbornness will get you killed." He gestured at Heather. "Who is that?"

"She was with me when I was attacked. I'm not sure, but I think one of themmarked her. I killed him, but I don't know if I did it in time."

"So you just decided to bring her here? A civilian? One who might even be marked?"

"And what was I supposed to do, Dad? Just leave her there? She would have been dead by now. Or even worse, interrogated by them. I thought we agreed no more civilians would be sacrificed in vain."

_Civilians sacrificed in vain? Jesus, what the hell's going on here? And what do they mean, I've been marked?_ Heather's journalistic instincts were kicking in. Unfortunately, as she'd learned in college, journalistic instincts and personal safety didn't always go hand in hand.

"Enough!"Apollo's dad thundered. "Pack everything! We're leaving as soon as your sister and Hep get back. We can't risk staying here anymore. We must assume that the hideout has been compromised." He looked at his wristwatch with concern. "They should have been here already."

A loud beep came from the computer. Apollo's mom, who had until then been only a spectator in the altercationbetween Apollo and his father, like Heather, checked the monitor.

"No," she screamed. Heather could feel the pain in her voice.

Apollo's dadleaped to stand next to her and looked at the monitor."Hep's injured. Apollo, get the kit! Zeus, go help them!"

The man left the apartment while Apollo ran into the next room and came back with a med-kit that he opened on one side of the table. Moments later, Apollo's dad came back. He and a girl, about Apollo's age, were carrying an unconscious man on their shoulders. They placed him on the table, and Apollo ripped open his bloody shirt. Heather could see the man was badly injured. He had been shot several times. Apollo lowered his ear to the man's mouth, then placed his fingers on the man's carotid artery.

"Nothing. He's not breathing.No pulse," Apollo went on.

He got up and placed his right hand on the man's chest, closing his eyes.

"It's too late," he said. "He's been in cardiac arrest for too long. There's nothing I can do."

For the first time since she'd met him, Heather saw Apollo lose his calm. He flungthe med-kit against the wall above the computer, while he screamed as hard as he could.

The girl who'd brought the deceased man felt to her knees, at the side of the table. She took the man's palm into hers and kissed it. She was crying."It's all my fault. I was supposed to watch his back but I wasn't able to. I'm sorry, Hep. Please, forgive me!"

Apollo's parents approached as well and touched the lifeless body.

The woman leaned down and kissed his forehead."Goodbye, old friend." Tears were running down her cheeks, and she was sobbing. "May you finally rest in peace."

Apollo's rage had evaporated. He was as calm as before but Heather could see on his face the sadness and pain he was experiencing on his face.

"What's this?" His motherremoved something from Hep's palm.

It was a folded piece of paper, drenched in blood. She unwrapped it.

"What does it say, Hera?" Apollo's father was the only one who showed interest in her discovery.

"Smith Square, London, one week," his mother read dully.

The computer beeped again. Apollo turned and checked it. "They're here."

"How many?" his father asked.

"I count ten. No, twelve. They're coming in from the front entrance." He looked at his sister. "Artemis, were you followed here?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe." Artemis frowned as if she was trying to remember."I didn't check. I drove here as fast as I could."

Apollo's dad went to the cases and opened one. Heather had been right. It was full of weapons. Zeustookout a pistol and checked the clip. Then he pulled out the gun's slide to chamber the first shot.

"When they get to the first floor, blow up the stairs," he said as he cocked the gun. "We need to go, now!"

"What about him?" Apollo's mom pointed at the dead body.

"I'm sorry but there's no time,"her husband replied.

Artemis walked up to the crate and removedtwo more pistols, checking to see if they were loaded."You go, I'll hold them off," she said after checking both of them.

"No," her father thundered again. "We all go. One lost friend is enough for tonight. I don't want to lose my daughter as well."

"But I'm the one who brought them here," she protested.

"Get ready," Apollo shouted.He pressed a key on the computer. There was a deafening boom that shook the entire building. Heather was the only one surprised and scared by the explosion, and she let everyone know that with a scream.

"The stairs are gone and so are three of the men," Apollo continued after checking the computer surveillance feed. "This should slow them down a bit."He raised the blinds, revealing a fire escape, and opened the window right of the desk."Let's go!"

Herawas the first to exit.

"Your turn, Artemis," Apollo urged.

She hesitated.

"Now!" Apollo shouted at her.

Artemis took one last look at the closed door, the only thing that stood between her and the people who killed her friend, before going through the window.

Apollo's father glanced at Heather.

"She's coming with us," Apollo told him before Zeus could say anything.

His father nodded. "Let's go," heshouted at Heather, extending his hand toward her.

Still trembling from the explosion, she moved slowly toward him. She was crying, but the second she touched Zeus'shand,Heather started feeling safer. She started climbing out the window butshe lost her balance. Before she could fall on the metal staircase, Artemis grabbed her and pulled Heather up the stairs. They had only one flight to climb before they reached the rooftop. Apollo's mother was already there, on the far left of the building, pushing a plank to make a pathway to the next building. Apollo and his father were right behind them.

"Let's go," Apollo said. "In ninety seconds, the entire floor will blow up."

The five of them crossed one by one to the other building, and ran across the roof. Apollo grabbed Heather's hand and stopped her a few feet before reaching the edge. In front of them, the other three jumped and disappeared.

"There's another rooftop beyond that ledge. When I say jump, you jump."

Heather nodded.

They were running again, clutchingeach other's hands. The edge of the building was getting closer. Heather still couldn't see the other rooftop.

Four feet. Three. Still nothing. Two. One.

"Jump!"

She closed her eyes and jumped when Apollo did. Mid-leap, Heather heard a big explosion behind them. They fell for five feet before hitting the concrete rooftop.

As soon as they got up, Heather screamed, "My ankle, I think it's broken."

He lifted her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. They got onto another rooftop, using another plank, before entering a building. They went down the staircase and exited into the street, after Apollo's father checked to see if there was any danger.

They kept walking away from the explosion, trying to put as much ground between them and their discovered hideout as fast as possible. At Zeus's signal, they all stopped near a bench. Apollo placed Heather on it and checked her ankle.A moment later the pain was gone. As he had with her forehead, he placed his hand on the ankle, and it healed completely.

Apollo's father took out the piece of paper and looked at it again.

"What do we do now?" Artemis asked.

"Listen up!" As Zeusspoke, everyone, except Heather, gathered around him. "We need to split up. Son, I need you to go to Paris and see Athena. We're going to need surveillance. I want her to monitor that square at all times. I don't want what happened tonight to take place again. Then find Aeolus and bring him to London. I want him to be with us for the meeting. In case something goes wrong again I want someone able to get out of there fast. Tell her to contact Ares as well. We will meet up in four days at our usual rendezvous point in London."

"And what about me? Are you just going to leave me here?" Heather protested.

More than anything, she wanted this whole madness to end. She could already picture herself on her way to the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport and from there on the first flight back to the United States, to her family and normal life but, most important, back to safety. She had never felt so scared in her life, not even when she was in Martin's hands.

"We can't leave her like this," said Apollo.

"But if she's marked..."

"Especially if she's marked," Apollo interrupted him. "Alone, she'll be a sitting duck, and it will be only a matter of time before they catch her."

"What the hell does _marked_ mean?" Heather yelled at them.

"That water they poured over your face," Apollo explained. "It gives you a different scent that any believer can pick up from three hundred feet away. It's like a tracking device."

"So you just want to leave me here?" Her fear was now turning to anger. "You want to let them catch me?"

"No!" Apollo jumped in before his father could say 'yes'.

"Good, because it's in your interest to keep me away from them!"Heather cried."I know about the note and the next meeting place and your informant. And you can be sure that I'll tell themeverything before they mess with a single strand of my hair."

"Very well.Apollo, take her with you. But please be careful. Stay away from areas where the believers are active. The three of us will remain in Rome. The explosion might not have destroyed everything. The believersmight find something that will lead them to another location. So we'll clean up the other three safe houses and set up a new one. After this, we'll head for Berlin to talk to your uncle." He checked his watch. "You should go if you want to make it to Paris in time to contact Athena today."

"Right," Apollo agreed.

The street was full of parked cars. After examining the closest vehicles, Apollo walked up to the Peugeot 206 parked in front of him. He looked through the window on the passenger's side.

"This should do it, I think." He turned toward his father. "Dad, could you... It has an alarm."

Zeus touched the car's hood with his right palm. Heatherheard the unmistakable sound of a car door unlocking.

"Do you want me to start the engine too?" his fatherasked sarcastically and smiled.

"That's okay, I got it."Apollo opened the passenger's door and gestured at Heather to get in. She obeyed, and Apollo opened the driver's door.

"I'll see you in four days. Be careful, all right?" his mother begged.

"Apollo!" called his sister.

"Yes, Artemis," Apollo replied.

"Take this." She handed her brothera pistol and a clip.

"Thanks. Take care of them, all right?" He kissed his sister on the foreheadand got in. "See you in London."

By the time he looked up from hotwiring the car, the others were already gone. Ten minutes later, the small car was out of Rome and on the highway to Milan.

# Chapter Six

"You still owe me some answers." Heather finally broke the silence that had been kept since they'd left Rome. She'd been going over everything that happened, trying to make sense of it, but she was no closer to figuring it out than she'd ever been.

"Fair enough," he said, keeping his eyes on the road,"but I must warn you. Some of my answers might be beyond your comprehension."

"Okay then, we'll start with an easy one. Who the hell are you?"

"Like I said when we met, my name is Apollo."

"Of course it is, but what does your birth certificate say?"

"Birth certificate?" He smiled. "I don't have one. Back then, when I was born, no such things existed."

She frowned, and slanted him a look, sure he was messing with her. "Hmmm. I was born in the mid-80s and I have one."

"I wasn't born in the mid-80s."

"Really? When were you born?"

"Remember what I've said about answers beyond your understanding?" He sighed and met her gaze."This is one of them. I was born about four thousand years ago."

Heather began laughing uncontrollably. Apollo, who had returned his gaze to the road ahead, set his jaw, looking a bit offended that she didn't believe his nonsense.

"Next thing you're going tell me is that you used to be a Greek god?"

"Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Celtic, Slavic and even Norse."

By the time Apollo finished his sentence, she was laughing even harder."Did you make that up just now or did you plan to feed me this bullshit all along?" she said when she finally stopped laughing.

"I swear it's the truth."

"Swear? On which god?" She laughed again.

Apollo slammed on the brakes and swerved into the emergency lane on the shoulder. "Dammit, Heather! The sooner you start listening, the sooner you'll understand what's going on."

"So I'm just supposed to believe you, word for word?"

Heather yawned, completely irritated. She looked at the clock on the car's dashboard. A little past five in the morning. Outside, the darkness was making way for the light, which brought with it the beginning of a new day. Heather hoped it wouldn't be as crazy as the past night.

"What about the cut on your forehead, your broken ankle andmy bullet wound?" Apollo said, interrupting her thoughts."Do you believe that I healed us? Or how about the guys dressed as monks who shot at you, who wanted you dead?"

Occam's razor was the first thought that came through Heather's mind. Even so, it was hard to believe that Apollo and the others were truly gods. Still, the evidence was there, and her journalistic instinct told her to keep digging.

"Okay," she said turning her head toward Apollo. "Let's say you are a god. Where do you come from? Are youan alien or something?" The last question just came out of nowhere, and she almost laughed at its absurdity.

Apollo, on the other hand, could not stop himself from laughing."Aliens?" He was laughing so hard tears were running down his cheeks. "That's the first time I've heard that. No, we're not aliens."

"Then what are you? And stop laughing. It's annoying!"

Apollo sobered."We're people," he said, wiping his tears off his face. "We're people just like you and the guy driving past us."

Heather instinctively turned to look out into traffic."Then how can you heal people?"

"If you would stop interrupting me with all your questions, I'll tell you."

"Fine," she sighed.

"I'll tell you everything from the beginning."

As he started talking, He put the car into gear and took off. Heather leaned her head against the window on the passenger's side. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.

"I was born four thousand years ago in a small village a few miles south of the Carpathian Mountains in the region where Romania is now," Apollo began. "We were a group of twenty. We wandered through the mountains hunting deer, boars and foxes. One day, this huge thunderstorm, like nothing we had ever seen, started. Naturally, we were afraid of it. We hid in a small cave until the storm passed. My sister, Artemis, who you've already met, went off exploring the cave. She returned with a strange, cube-shaped metal box."

Apollo stopped speaking for a second and turned his view from the road to Heather. She leaned against the window, arms crossed against her chest. Her eyes were closed, and he could tell she was breathing more slowly now, sound asleep.

"We'll leave the rest for another time," he said softly, grinning at her sleeping form.

He'd been drawn to her since he'd first seen her in the club, with her dark hair and sparkling green eyes. Still, he'd never planned to make this encounter into anything other than what she'd accused him of wanting—a one-night stand.

But as the night had progressed, and his past had caught up with him, Heather had stayed right by his side, scared but never faltering. She'd even saved his life, by shooting the believer who'd latched on to the back of the car, and he didn't quite know what to think about that.

In all his long life, he'd never trusted anyone outside his inner circle, but somehow, this pretty little American made him want to open up to her.

She intrigued him.

Apollo finally relaxed as well, as thecar continued its course along the Italian highway.Driving always did that to him. It was 5:30in the morning, and traffic was picking up. All the truck drivers were waking up and coming back on the road to try to cover as much ground as possible before the highway got crowded with the morning commuters.

Soon the little Peugeotblended invisibly into all the traffic.

# Chapter Seven

Cardinal Raul Estevezand his driver were speeding alongthe Autostrada A1 when to his surprise, the car pulled off the highway.

Raul pushed a button onhis armrest and lowered the window that separated the front seats from the back."I told you we were in a hurry to get back to the Vatican. Why are we stopping here?"

"Your Excellency, Archbishop Rosati is waiting for you here. I was told it was an urgent matter."

"Why didn't you tell me this?" The cardinal could feel his blood pressure rising.

"You were lost in your thoughts, your Excellency. I did not wish to disturb you."

The car pulled over in the small parking lot located behind a gas station, next to them was another limo. As soon as they stopped, a man exited the other car.

"Archbishop Rosati," the cardinal said as the other man approached his car."I thought we were supposed to meet at the Vatican."

The archbishop, in his late sixties, had worked closely with Raul for nearly two decades. Before Raul became in charge of everything, a shadow Pope, he'd handled the selection and training of the recruits, a job that the archbishop now had. Also, Rosati was the closest thing Raul had to a friend and confidant.

"Your Excellency, there has been another incident," said the archbishop as he entered the cardinal's limo."After our confrontation in Piazza del Popolo, our men were able to follow Artemisto their hideout, an apartment building on the outskirts of Rome. We stormed the place but they saw us coming and blew it up. We lost five more men. We also recovered the remains of the one enemy we killed earlier but the damage made to his body by the explosion was too extensive to discern anything. I thought it would be best to give you the news as soon as possible."

"You did well."

"Do you want to visit the scene?"

"No. I want to go directly to the Vatican. I want to talk to the recruit they wanted to kill."

"As you wish, your Excellency."

The cardinal pushed the intercom button on the rooftop, right above his head. " _Andiamo_ ," he said.

The driver got back on the highway that would lead them to Rome and Vatican City. The rest of the way, the two passengers didn't exchange another word. The cardinal kept watching out the tinted window of the limo. He hoped that he was right, that this would prove to his master how invaluable he was.

He was ready to get a confession out of the recruit at all cost, even if the recruitwas innocent. This wouldn't be the first time they'd done something of this sort. For his predecessors, during the Inquisition, this was a daily practice. Every man interrogated, innocent or otherwise, was found guilty of heresy, by his own confession.

Thirty minutes later, the cardinal, followed by Archbishop Rosati, entered one of the buildings and made his way down to the basement and along what seemed an endless passageway. At the end was a steel door with a keypad on its left. Raul Estevez entered a six digit code and the door opened.

Here, deep below the Vatican, a quarter of their agents lived and trained. This was known only by a handful of people in the Vatican, and the Pope wasn't one of them, because, as the cardinal told the archbishop when he recruited him to be his assistant, 'the true work of God is known only by a few people'.

The door led them to a spacious Gothic-style hallway, almost as long as the first. They walked halfway down it, where they were greeted by one of their agents. He was a tall man, well-built and dressed in a brown monk's robe. The man bowed his head, as a sign ofrespect. The cardinal did the same.

"Welcome, your Excellency."

"Where is he?" the cardinal asked impatiently.

"In here," the man answered, pointing to the door on his left.

The cardinal stormed into the room, with the archbishop at his side. Inside the small chamber, he found three people. The recruit who had encountered the demons earlier was sitting in front of a table. Behind him, up against the wall, two men guarded him. Even though they looked focused, they were relaxed. They knew very well that the young recruit didn't stand a chance against them.

The cardinal looked at them. The two men bowed their heads as well. He ignored them and took the only seat available, opposite the recruit. "Good morning, son."

"Your Excellency," the young man said quietly.

"What is your name?" Raul knew his name, knew the names of all the recruits, but the question was part of the interrogation technique he used.

"Marco, sir."

He didn't detect the slightest fear in the recruit's voice.

This could mean that he is not one of them.Nonsense. You know you are right. You were right the last time as well, but you were too afraid to speak up. Now's your chance to truly prove yourself.

Raul leaned over the table."Tell me, Marco, what were you doing outside the city at that hour?"

"Taking a walk, your Excellency. I had just been informed that I was selected for the twelve trials, and I got scared. I was afraid that I wasn't ready yet. All these negative thoughts were racing through my mind, and I needed to get some air. I'm always able to clear my mind of such thoughts when I go for a walk."

"And why would you think you aren't ready yet? Should we postpone you for another year?"

"It was silly of me, your Excellency. They were childish thoughts. I'm ready to serve our Lord, to sacrifice myself as he did."

"That is good to hear, my son. Now tell me, why did you go there, to Piazza del Popolo?"

"I wasn't going there, your Excellency. I was trying to get to the Villa Borghese. As you may or may not know, I was raised at Monte Cassino. The abbey there is surrounded by a beautiful forest. When I was a young boy, I used to spend all my free time there, with God's creatures. I guess I wanted to feel like that young boy once more. I know that once I pass the trials, my life will change completely, and I won't be able to enjoy such small pleasures ever again."

"I must admit that I yearn for such things myself, from time to time." The cardinal smiled. "Tell me everything that happened."

"As I said, I left the Vatican to go take a walk in the park, to clear my head. Villa Borghese was the closest one. So I went in that direction. I entered Via di Rienzo, then I crossed the Regina Margherita Bridge. There was this man in the square, sitting by the obelisk. When I entered the square, he approached me, but I didn't pay attention to him. I was deep into my thoughts. I didn't even realize that our paths would cross. He asked me for directions, and I helped. Then, the shooting started and I didn't know what to do." He lowered his head and paused for a few moments, like he was ashamed of what he would say next. "I froze. I kept watching but I wasn't able to do anything." He hit the table with his left fist. "I should have done something. I should have tried to help my brothersbut I just stood there and watched." He paused again and took a deep breath. "I saw him go down, and my brother as well. Then I was picked up by the other two and I carried back here."

"Do you know who and what that man was?"

"Not at first, but now I do."

The cardinal rose from his chair and walked toward the door.

"Your Excellency, does this mean that I won't be going through the trials anymore?"

"No, Marco. You will proceed as if nothing happened."

"Thank you, your Excellency. All I ever wished to do was serve our Lord."

Cardinal Estevez left the room. He was followed by Rosati, who closed the door behind them.

He is either the best actor in the world or he really is innocent. There are four parks around the city, all of them at almost equal distance. Why did he go to that one? Is it coincidence or is he one of them?

"Anything suspicious, your Excellency?" the archbishop asked.

"I'm not sure yet," he answered, disappointed.

"And how do you want to proceed?"

"Everything should go on as scheduled. The recruits should leave for London as planned."

"Marco too?"

"Yes, he'll go through the challenges as well, for now."

# Chapter Eight

"Last one," Artemis said as she carefully opened the door.

She had the gun in her hand and checked every corner of the two-bedroom apartment before holstering it. "All clear," she said, loud enough for her parents to hear.

She walked back to the entrance and took a spray paint can from her backpack. She used it to spray a huge _X_ on the wall opposite to the door. Below it she sprayed, with smaller letters, _RP1_. To outsiders, the letters she sprayed on the wall had no meaning. They were actually the location of the new primary safehouse. Artemis went into the living room to join her parents. Hera was taking several guns from the sofa's storage compartment and placing them into a bag, while Zeus was taking a computer apart. He placed both hard drives in his palms and short-circuited them.

"It's my fault," Artemis said. She was standing in the middle of the room. Both parents turned toward her, when they heard her voice. "I missed," she went on. "I never miss. This was the first time. Maybe if I had made that shot, Hep would still be alive right now. What ifthe man I missed was the one that shot Hep? I'd be to blame for his death. He counted on me, and I let him down."

Hera took Artemis in her arms. She was crying now. Artemis knew she would never forgive herself for this, and neither would Athena. Athena had a special bond with Hep. About three centuries ago, Athena lost her husband after he was killed by a group of believers. After a while, she found comfort in Hep's arms. They were together for about two hundred years, until Athena lost her son, Pan, as well.

It happened during a mission led by Hep, near Avignon. At first, everything went according to plan but soon enough things took a turn for the worse and Pan was shot. Outnumbered, Hep and Zeus had to run away, leaving Pan in the hands of the believers. What happened to him, no one knew to this day.

Athena unjustly blamed Hep for what happened to her son and from that day on they never spoke until a month ago, when Athena came to Rome for a quick visit. For the first time in a century, Athena and Hep had spoken and she had forgiven him. When she saw the two of them together, Artemis swore that there was still something between them, that after all that happened they still loved each other. Now, because of her, Hep and Athena would never be together again. The thought made her cry even harder.

"It's not your fault." Hera kissed her forehead.

"Everything is my fault, Mother," Artemis shouted. "Remember, I was the one who found the damned cube. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me."

"Exactly," her father intervened. "We are all here, thanks to you. Think of all the good things we've done all these years. If it's anybody's fault, it should be mine. I was the one who said we should go back to the cave. It is me who has let all of us down."

Zeus hugged them both, then backed off and looked his daughter in the eyes. He wiped the tears off her cheeks. She gave him a wavering smile. He couldn't remember the last time they'd had a moment like this, when they acted just like a family and not soldiers. He felt like hundreds of years had passed since he last hugged his wife and his daughter like this, as a father and husband and not as a father-in-chief. He wanted to prolong this moment but ironically time wasn't on their side.

"We must go now," he said with a completely different voice,changing from compassion to authority in just moments. He fought so that moments like these wouldn't be so fleeting, and he couldn't stop until they'd stopped Judas, and they were finally safe.

# Chapter Nine

"Heather," called a distant voice. It had been calling her for a few moments.

Heather felt a gentle shake. She opened her eyes. She was still in the small Peugeot, with Apollo in the driver's seat. The surroundings looked familiar as well.

That's the Seine. We're in Paris. So it wasn't a dream after all.

" _Bienvenue a Paris, la ville de l'amour._ " Apollo smiled.

She looked at the clock again. It was 1:30 in the afternoon. Heather was amazed that she'd been able to sleep so much. Back home, she would get up at 7 a.m..

Home. I have to call my parents! They must be worried sick.And Antonia...

"Stop the car!" she demanded.

"What's wrong?" Apollo glanced at her with a worried look.

"My parents! I have to get to a phone and call them."

Apollo braked and the car stopped, right in front of a supermarket.

"Heather." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "You can't do that!"

"Why not?" she asked with surprise. She didn't expect to get that reply from him.

"Because," Apollo told her softly, "most likely your friend in Rome has already filed a missing person report with the police. After that, the police would have contacted the American Embassy, who would have notified your parents."

"Exactly. So I have to tell them that I'm safe."

"Judas has men inside Rome's police force. Last night wasn't the first time my people and his men have crossed paths in Rome. And never has there been a news report after such an event. They were covered up. If he hadn't infiltrated the police force, someone would have heard about those past incidents. You of all people should know how good journalists are at finding these things out."

"So?"

"So the moment you call your parents, Judas's men will find out where you are. There are dozens of believers stationed right outside Paris. They will be upon us in a matter of minutes."

Heather could picture her mother standing in the living room by the phone, crying and her father pacing around. _They must be devastated. It's the second time they've lost their little girl. They're probably thinking that they won't be so lucky this time._

She started crying. She knew he was right. When Martin, the sexual predator, had taken her from right outside her school, the police had monitored her home phone line 24/7. The lawmen, at first, treated the case like a regular kidnapping and were waiting for a ransom call. There was a good chance that they were doing something similar now.

"Heather, please understand. The best thing you could do right now is nothing. This will keep everyone safe. Us and your parents."

"But what if they go after my parents?"

"They won't. It would attract too much attention. I know it's hard, but please try to wait, at least until after the London meeting."

"Fine," she said, resigning herself. Much as she wanted to ease her parents' minds, the last thing she wanted was to drag them into this mess she was in.

Apollo took a five-euro bill out of his pocket and handed it to her."I need you to go to that supermarket and buy a pack of yellow post-its."

"What?" she asked, confused.

Apollo leaned over her and opened the passenger door."Hurry, I can't park here, and we're running late as it is."

Still confused, Heather left the car and returned three minutes later with the post-its. Before she got in the car, Heather threw the pack in Apollo's lap. He checked them as she got back in the Peugeot. He started the car and drove toward the heart of Paris, alongside the river until they reached Paris's government administration building, Hotel de Ville. As the car passed the beautiful French Renaissance building, one of the oldest in the city, Apollo took a right, leaving the river bank.

This was the second time she'd been in Paris. The first one was about ten years ago, during the summer vacation, when she visited Europe with her parents. Although they stayed here for almost two weeks, during which she had seen almost the entire city, Heather didn't recognize this part. She remembered that her father took her to see the Hotel de Ville, but besides that she didn't recognize anything.

Three blocks later, she recognized the Louvre. The last time she was here, she had to wait three hours to get into the museum with her father. But once she was in, Heather was amazed by all the spectacular works of art displayed here. She'd promised herself to return one day, to take another look at the _Mona Lisa, The Coronation of Napoleon_ or even _The Three Graces_. At fifteen, she didn't have the necessary knowledge to truly understand and admire all the masterpieces. Now she did.

Caught up in her memories, Heather didn't realize that Apollo had stopped the car, right across the street from the museum.

"Let's go!" His voice brought her back to reality immediately.

"Wait. You can't walk through Paris like that, your shirt is all bloody and torn up."

"Don't worry, we'll be back in the car in a few minutes." He checked his watch. "Now let's go, we only have five minutes."

"Five minutes until what?"

"You'll see."

Apollo grabbed Heather's hand, and they crossed the street, heading for the entrance to the museum. Apollo grabbed Heather's hand and rushed her into the Place du Carrousel. As always, hundreds of tourists were taking pictures in front of the glass pyramid or waiting to get inside the museum. Apollo took her toward the entrance of the Jardin des Tuileries, marked by a smaller Arc de Triomphe. They walked up to the statueon the right of the Arc, and Apollo looked at his watch. He waited for a minute, then placed a post-it noteas high as he could on its ten-foot pedestal. He looked around, as if he was searching for someone, then took Heather's hand and walked back to the car.

"What was that all about?"

"It was a signal," Apollo answered. "Athena is a little paranoid, so whenever we want to contact her, we have to come here and place a post-it on that statue at exactly two p.m., then we go to the Eiffel Tower and wait there for her to contact us."

"Athena?" Heather shook her head, still uncertain if he was telling her the truth. "We're talking the Goddess of Wisdom, here?"

"Of course. Who else?" he told her with a smile.

Apollo started the engine and they took off. The noon Parisian traffic was a nightmare so it took them about forty-five minutes to reach their destination. They parked at the entrance of the Champ de Mars, one of the largest public green spaces in Paris and the host of the Eiffel Tower.

"Now what?" she asked.

"We wait." Apollo closed his eyes.

The park was full of tourists, most of them heading for the iconic monument. She had visited the Eiffel Tower with her parents before, but because she was afraid of heights she had stopped at the first level. The view from up there was spectacular, but only until she decided to look down. She got sick instantly, and they had to return to the ground. Heather smiled. She knew that now things would be different, that she would be able to go on up all the way, to the third level of the tower, a dizzying number of meters above ground.

She continued to relieve her previous visit to Paris until a man dressed in a black suit walked up to the car and knocked on the driver's window.

Apollo glanced at the man and said to Heather, "Let's go."

They got out and the man led them to a black Mercedes limousine with tinted windows, double-parked across the street. He opened the back door for them. Once they got in, he took his place in the driver's seat, and handed them two blindfolds.

"You want us to—" Heather began.

" _Oui,_ " the man answered with a smile before Heather could finish her question.

"Me too? But I already know where she lives," Apollo protested.

"I believe that this will make the young lady feel less uncomfortable. Am I right?"

Heather nodded. Apollo sighed and put the blindfold around his eyes, and Heather followed suit. The car took off, taking them back into the infernal traffic. Heather's hand moved slowly on the backseat, searching for his hand. When she found it, she grabbed it gently. A soft squeeze from his hand told Heather that everything would be all right. Though she still didn't understand what was going on, and his story was insane, she found herself trusting him. Throughout everything that had happened, he had kept her safe, and she didn't think he'd put her in danger now.

In the movies, Heather remembered, the hero would concentrate on the outside sounds in the hope that they could figure out where they are going. But the Mercedes was soundproof and she could hear only indistinguishable noises so she abandoned the idea. The drive seemed to take more than an hour, but at last the car stopped.

"You can take off the blindfolds," the driver said.

The two passengers did just that, but all Heather could see were the gray walls and beams of an underground parking lot.

"That will take you straight to her." The driver indicated an elevator. "The code is 0263."

Apollo entered the code on the keypad to the right of the elevator and the doors opened. They walked in and pressed the up button. Apollo knew that Athena lived in the penthouse of a building close to the Eiffel Tower, because he was here only a few months ago. She had just moved in and even though she was a little paranoid, Athena changed her house only once every three years. Apollo also knew that the drive had taken so long because the driver was instructed to take them for a ride in the city, to make sure that the guests lost all their bearings. In fact, the building they were in was only a mile or so away from where the driver picked them up.

The elevator doors opened once more, onto a spacious and very chic living room. They took a few steps in, and the doors closed behind them. The two glass walls of the room had their blinds shut.

_This way we don't know where we are_ , Heather thought.

In the center was an L-shaped leather couch, with a glass coffee table in front of it. One of the stone walls had a built-in fireplace. It was surrounded by a full bookcase, while the other stone wall was used only to exhibit three large paintings. Heather recognized an early Monet, _View At Rouelles, Le Havre_ , painted in 1858. She remembered it from the book she had to read in college for the art history course. The painting showed a man fishing on a small creek, close to a country road. Given the name, it meant that this painting was done near Le Havre, about 100 miles west of Paris. Heather wondered if that beautiful view still existed.

_Probably not_.

The other two were a Renoir nude and an early Pissarro. She couldn't remember the titles, but she recognized the Impressionists' works, and that they were worth a small fortune.

Beyond the three paintings, Heather could see a door frame, through which came, only a few moments later, a young man. He was dressed in a black suit, with a white shirt and a matching bow tie. He was carrying a tray, with two glasses on it.

" _Madame, monsieur,_ the lady will be with you in just a moment," he said after he walked up to the two guests. "Water?"

Both of them nodded and took a glass. Heather was still looking around, examining the room, when a petite woman entered through the same door. Immediately, her concentration focused on the new woman, who, she thought, must be their host. After examining her from head to toe, Heather thought she appeared to be in her mid-thirties, but knew this wasn't the case. The woman was dressed in a pink skirt that barely covered her knees, and a matching pink jacket, over a simple, white shirt. Her long, blonde hair was up in a ponytail. What really caught Heather's attention was her jewelry. The woman was covered in gold. She had two necklaces, one with a pendant the size of a fist, three bracelets on her right hand, and a ring on each finger. Surprisingly, Heather thought, no earrings.

"Apollo, I'm so glad to see you. I've missed you so much." Athena hugged him. "Wasn't Hep supposed to come?" As soon as she saw Heather, her voice and expression turned from excitement to suspicion. "Who is she, and why have you brought her here? Apollo, are you insane?"

"This is Heather. It's all right," he replied soothingly. "Last night, I was attacked. She was with me. She saved my life."

Apollo had hoped that sharing his near-death experience would calm Athena down, even make her sympathetic. Instead, he achieved the opposite.

"You went to one of your clubs again?" she asked, infuriated. "What the hell, Apollo? I thought we all agreed you'd stop. And let me guess," she measured Heather with her eyes for a moment, "he used the ass-grabbing routine on you, didn't he?" Heather immediately blushed, giving Athena her answer. "Don't worry, honey, he's done it for so many years that it would have been a real miracle if it didn't work on you. You should feel flattered. He only uses that on girls who he thinks are smarter than the rest and who don't fall for every cheesy pick-up line."

Heather felt anything but flattered. She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't. She'd never felt so ashamed in her entire life. Ever since she started dating boys, she swore she would never fall for a pick-up line. And she hadn't until last night. She felt like a complete idiot now that she knew. But the worst thing, she thought, was that she'd fallen for a guy who did this regularly. It meant that she was just another piece of ass for him.

"You should have seen him—"

"Athena, enough!" shouted Apollo.

"All right, all right. Am I not allowed to mess with her a little after you had the nerve to bring her here?"

"Mess with me? Like I haven't been messed with enough already?" Heather shouted back, to everyone's amazement. "In the last twelve hours, I got shot at by men who could outrun a car. I even picked up a gun and fired back. And killed one of them." She started to cry again. Her tears weren't ones of sadness, but of anger and despair. "Just when I thought it was all over, I found myself jumping from rooftop to rooftop in order to save my life once more, only to find out that I may have to do this for the rest of my life because I've been marked with some liquid. Then, just because I saw a cute guy and wanted to sleep with him, I saw a man, one who was supposed to be a god and have the powers of one, die in front of my eyes. Now, if they were able to kill him, what do you think would happen to me?"

"You watched someone die? One of us? Apollo, what happened last night? And why isn't Hep here? I thought he was supposed to come," Athena's voice rose with each word.

"Something went wrong at the meeting," Apollo replied. His voice trembled. "Believers showed up out of nowhere. I'm sorry. He's dead."

"No!" Athena screamed. Everybody in the room could feel the pain in her voice.

Athena's knees went weak and she would have fallen to the ground, if it weren't for Apollo. He took her in his arms and walked to the couch, where he put her down. The young man, the butler, was right behind them, with a glass of water. He knelt next to Athena and handed it to her. He raised her head and helped her to take a sip. Still weak, she wrapped her arms around Apollo, who was kneeling next to her, and cried. It took her a few minutes to run out of tears, time during which she remained latched on to him. The butler, who stood by her side all this time, took out a handkerchief from his pocket. He gave it to Athena, who used it to wipe off her tears.

"How did it happen?" Athena asked between sobs.

"He went to meet with Marco in Piazza del Popolo. Artemis was covering Hep. Believers came out of nowhere, guns blazing. She did all she could but they were too many. Hep got shot real bad and when they finally arrived back at the safe house it was too late. His wounds were too severe. I couldn't do anything to save him. I'm sorry."

"And Marco?"

"We don't know. They took him and ran off. At least the one who was still alive did."

"Do you think he's compromised?"Athena asked, concerned.

"We don't know that either. Before the attack, he slipped Hep a note. It had the time and place of the next meeting. Smith Square in London, six days from now, at midnight. We're going to need your help. We don't want to end up in a situation like the last one."

Apollo still remembered everything like it was yesterday. It started about fifty years ago, when they took another baby named Paul. That time, Apollo was his 'handler', like Hep was with Marco. After they took the baby, it was Apollo's job to make contact, convince him that Judas had killed his parents and then persuade Paul to help them kill Judas. It was a hard task, especially when you had to deal with a ten-year-old boy, but he succeeded. It all went well until the final meeting, when Apollo was supposed to find out from Paul where the ritual would take place. The meeting was scheduled to take place at four a.m. in the center of Calais, right in front of _The Burghers of Calais_. Rodin's sculpture of six of the city's wealthiest men from the fourteenth century, served as a reminder of what happened in the city during the Hundred Years' War and that even rich men can sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the people. When Apollo got there, he found Paul dead and tied up to one of the statues, with a puddle of blood at his feet. To this day, he did not know what gave Paul away, but hoped that the same fate wouldn't happen to Marco as well.

"What do you need?" Athena asked.

"Surveillance. We'll need you to start monitoring the area forty-eight hours before the meeting. We don't need another confrontation with the believers."

"That's easy enough. Follow me."

Athena took a deep breath, to calm her nerves a bit more, before she stood up and led her guests to what she called her office. It was a large room, forty by forty feet wide, filled with computer servers and other electronic devices that Heather couldn't recognize. As she entered the room, Heather felt a slight chill, coming from the four AC units that kept the room temperature low in order to prevent the servers from overheating.

A bundle of wires ran on the floor, from each and every one of them, to the only two pieces of furniture in the room, a desk, with two computer keyboards on it, and a chair, which were scraped against the fourth wall, just a few feet away from the door. Athena made her way to the desk and started typing on the two keyboards. Careful not to trip on any wires, her two guests followed and stopped just a few inches behind their host. The eight computer screens on the wall in front of her, packed together in two rows, lit up simultaneously. The four on the left side showed images from what Heather knew had to be surveillance cameras from outside the building. Most of them were covering the garage doors and the two entrances into the building from different angles.

"Where did you say the meeting will take place?" Athena asked, typing hastily on the two keyboards.

"Smith Square, London," Apollo replied.

"Here we are." Athena hit the Enter key one more time and half the screens showed a satellite view of London. The image zoomed in until the monitors displayed only a small square, located less than a mile south on one of London's top tourist attractions, Westminster Abbey.

Although she was no expert, Heather knew that surveilling it was going to be a difficult task. The small square could be entered from five different streets and the buildings surrounding it had so many windows that could be used by the enemy. The good thing was that in the center of it was a small building, a restaurant, which provided some small cover.

"Keeping an eye on everything is going to be a problem," Athena said, after inspecting the map for a few seconds. "But I can try my tracking software again."

"The one that set your last apartment on fire?" Apollo tried to conceal his smile.

"I don't know why you find it so amusing. I lost two Rembrandts and a Picasso in that fire, and replacing my wardrobe cost almost as much as the two paintings. Anyway, I've bought some new processors, which shouldn't overheat. But just to be on the safe side, I will only monitor a 200-foot radius around the square."

"That's not much. The believers can cover that distance in less than ten seconds. It isn't going to give us much of a warning."

"It's the best I can do unless..."

"Unless what?" Apollo leaned toward her.

"Unless I can install my software on other servers and run it from there as well. There are only three places that have servers powerful enough for this, NASA, NSA and ESA. But, again, I won't be able to use it to cover more than a two hundred-foot radius on each."

"So what does that give us?" Apollo was scratching his head. "Eight hundred feet. That should do it."

"Wait a minute," Heather interrupted him. "You mean to tell me that she is going to hackinto the NASA, NSA and ESA servers and install software without anyone finding out about it?"

"That's about it," Athena answered without the slightest modesty. "After all, I am the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. My IQ is off the charts. I can do anything I want with the computers. The only limitation is the hardware. But you're right." Athena frowned. "They're going to notice that their systems will be more loaded than usual. I'll also have to tweak their software so that when they do a system diagnostics they'll think that the extra load is coming from a faulty program."

"OK, so what does your software really do?" Heather was skeptical but curious nonetheless.

"It is designed to identify and track people with certain physical features, in this case, believers. All of them are tall, bald and have green eyes," Athena explained as she started typing again. "I need to hack into the London CCTV mainframe—easy given their weak firewall—and connect the cameras around the square to my software. They will identify all the people with identical physical features as the believers, and the software will use the satellites to track the believers and pinpoint their location at any given time. Unfortunately it isn't 100% reliable, because sometimes it tracks people who aren't believers but have the same features as them. But in the last few days, I have been working on a newer version. This one zooms the camera in on the target's neck and determines the person's heart rate by observing the skin movement made by the blood flow in the carotid artery. The believers have a heart rate almost double that of normal humans."

Silence fell on the room but it was broken a minute later, when Athena announced that she had installed her software onto the servers of the three agencies.

Heather found it still very hard to believe. She'd met a hacker once before, a few years back, one who was supposed to be one of the best in the entire southwestern US. She went to him because her best friend's ex-boyfriend uploaded a video of him and Stacy, her best friend, having sex to an adult website. It took the hacker two hours to take it off the website and access the ex-boyfriend's computer in order to delete the remaining copy.

"Like I said," Apollo interrupted her thoughts, "she's the smart one. She actually does this for a living."

"I'm a programmer for the largest French bank, BNP Paribas." Athena never missed an opportunity to preen. "I am in charge of their firewall protection. I don't like to brag, but it's impenetrable. No hacker in the world has managed to get past it."

"Except her," Apollo said. "She regularly hacks their servers and steals their money."

"Just a little from here and there, enough for a modest living for myself and to finance Zeus' operations."

_You call this modest living?_ Heather wanted to ask, but decided to keep the question for herself.

"Aren't you afraid of getting caught?" she asked instead.

"Impossible," Athena snapped with a confident tone. "My system is foolproof. Every wire transfer done between two accounts is just data, 0's and 1's, and before it reaches the other bank's servers it has to go through the firewall. My firewall. Inside which I've hidden a software that alters the data of each transfer. As it passes through the firewall, five cents get detoured into one of my accounts. The amount is so small that it's impossible to notice. And if the client sees it, he'll just think that it's from the transfer fee. In the fifteen years that I've worked for them, no one noticed a thing."

The idea amazed Heather. It was so simple and yet so ingenious. She wondered what all those incarcerated bank robbers would say about Athena's idea. Heather knew that some of them spent months planning what they thought was the perfect heist, only to get caught because they forgot one tiny little detail. Even if someone had thought of a plan like Athena's, they would still need the help of a hacker as good as Athena said she was. But then again, people like Athena were paid a small fortune to remain on the good guys' side. She then remembered a newspaper article read a few years back about a guy who broke into some important governmental agency's computer mainframe. He was caught a week later and instead of going to jail, he got a job at the NSA. The kernel of the story wasn't the fact that he broke into the computers or that he got hired by the NSA, but that in just a few years, Heather didn't remember how many the article said, he managed to buy a small island in the Pacific on a governmental salary. Of course, both he and the agency denied the story but something deep inside her knew that it was true.

"And how much do you take each month?" Heather asked, snapping back to the present.

"It depends on the number of transactions. One hundred thousand euros, give or take. Plus my salary, another hundred."

"Jesus!"

"It may sound like a lot but it goes away just as fast. Between the maintenance cost for my servers and the money Zeus and the rest need to run around the world chasing Judas I'm lucky if I end up with a quarter of it."

"Speaking of costs," Apollo interrupted her, "we're going to need a plane to get us to Aeolus. Nothing commercial. After last night, who knows where they might be watching for us. And we're going to need a ride back to London."

"And there goes this month's salary," Athena said with a sigh.

"If all goes well, this will all end soon." Apollo placed a hand on her right shoulder, for assurance.

"You're in luck," said Athena a minute later after checking the website of a local company. "There's a Learjet 40 available at Orly. It'll be ready for take off in four hours."

"Also we'll need a couple of passports," Apollo told her.

"And some new clothes," Athena added, looking down her nose at their bedraggled appearance. "Pierre," she shouted, leaving her chair. "Follow me."

Athena left the server room with the other two just steps behind her, finding her butler in the living room.

"The lady and the gentleman are going to need a shower and some new clothes. Please see to it. When they're clean, take her to my wardrobe and let her choose whatever she likes, except the haute-coutures." She quickly measured Apollo and the butler with her eyes. "And give him some of your clothes. They should fit just right."

" _Oui, madam,_ " the butler answered with a bow. "This way, _s'il vous plait_."

The butler led Heather to one of the four bathrooms of the penthouse where he left her before returning a minute later with fresh towels. After he left again, she slowly undressed herself and headed to the mirror above the sink.

For a moment, she didn't recognize her own face. Her forehead still had a smudge of blood on it. Looking at it, her hands began to shake. This wasn't real, she thought. It was just a dream, a nightmare, really, which she hoped would end soon and then she would wake up in her bed, sweaty and afraid, but safe.

Heather soaked a washcloth in warm water and tried to get the blood off, but it was too dried to go away with a simple wipe. She undressed and entered the shower, turning on the water as hot as it would go. Sprinkles rained down from the showerhead, covering her in a warm blanket of water. She started to relax, feeling the soreness of her muscles, strained from last night's events, for the first time. Steam rose from the floor. Now that the adrenaline was gone completely, Heather began to feel tired. She sat on the shower floor, not having the strength to stay on her feet anymore.

Heather curled up and clutched her knees to her chest, still thinking about all that had happened in the last hours. She closed her eyes, and dozed off immediately.

Her dreams weren't any better than reality. She was back in that dark alley, coming back to her senses after she hit the dumpster. Again, she felt paralyzed. The bald man was again on top of her, dripping the strange liquid onto her forehead.

But in the dream, just as Apollo grabbed him, the man turned and stabbed Apollo in the heart with a knife, then picked Heather up and tossed her like a sack of potatoes in the trunk of a car, which was waiting just on the other side of the dumpster. The inside of the trunk was so dark she couldn't see an inch in front of her. After what felt like ages, the trunk opened, and the bald man dragged her out by the arm.

The light temporarily blinded Heather. A minute later, her sight came back, and with it, the ability to move. Scared, she looked around. She was in a large room, a warehouse, surrounded by what looked like hundreds of bald men, all of them looking just like her kidnapper. They were all sitting quiet, in a circle, around her. Her first instinct was to scream as hard as she could, hoping that someone would hear her and come to her rescue. Nothing. All it did was make all of them laugh like madmen.

She could do only one more thing. Run. Heather jumped to her feet and sprinted toward them, desperately hoping that she could push through them. Just as she reached them, one of the men, with the speed of light, grabbed Heather and pushed her back in the center of the circle. Again, they all laughed as hard as they could.

As they stopped, one of them threw a knife at Heather's feet. She took it and ran toward the men again, this time in another direction. She held the knife high above her head, ready to strike. As she reached the chain of bald men, her hand came down with all her strength. The knife would have pierced his forehead if the man hadn't grabbed her arm. There she was, with the blade just inches from his head, pushing as hard as she could. But he was too strong. He squeezed her arm until the pain made her drop the knife. Another wave of mad laughter.

The man let go of her arm and picked up the knife. He looked at it for a second, and then stabbed Heather in the stomach. She felt no pain, but instead she screamed as hard as she could.

She woke up back in the shower, scared, still screaming. The door opened, and Apollo leaned over to wake her up. Heather forgot that she was naked, and wet, and she jumped out of the shower right in his arms.

"It's OK," Apollo told her, hugging her tightly against him. "You're safe here."

"I had a terrible nightmare." She was crying now, gabbling out the details of her dream incoherently.

"It was just a dream. As long as you're with me, you're safe. They won't hurt you."

Apollo's words calmed her down to the point where she realized that she was naked. She let go of him and sprang to the towel rack, a few feet away. She grabbed one and wrapped it around herself, heat rushing to her cheeks.

"What are you doing in here?" she demanded, starting to get furious at him for coming into the bathroom while she was taking a shower.

"I knocked for two minutes," he said, turning so that his back was to her. "You've been in here for more than half an hour. We were starting to get worried and when you screamed, I busted the door down and came in to see if you were all right."

Heather had completely forgotten that she'd locked the door after the butler brought her the towels. "I'm sorry, I just dozed off and started dreaming."

"Don't be," he interrupted her. "I'll just go and call the butler to take you to the dressing room."

Before he left, Apollo allowed his gaze to take a long, leisurely stroll over her towel-clad body. His expression made it clear that he liked what he saw. As soon as he was gone, Heather smiled. Only a few hours ago, she'd kissed Apollo and it was the best kiss in her life. If things hadn't gone the way they did, Apollo would have seen her naked much earlier, with a different outcome.

The butler knocked on the door." _Mademoiselle_ , follow me, _s'il vous plait_ ," he said, without entering.

Heather followed him to Athena's wardrobe. As she entered the room, she was left speechless. It was just six feet wide, but over thirty feet long. The two long walls were covered with racks full of clothes, all organized by category and bounded by large mirrors. Near the door, there were suits, immediately followed by the shirts. Next there were the dresses, first the evening ones and then the casual ones. They were followed by the jeans, casual shirts, blouses, T-shirts and jackets, ending with the sportswear. The different categories were separated by six foot mirrors. Under each category there were shoe trays that contained the appropriate footwear, starting with business shoes and ending with running sneakers. The wall opposite the door was reserved for the accessories and jewelry. The right wall was reserved for the haute-coutures, almost as many items as were on the left. Some of the clothes still had the price tags on them; a few garments were well over one hundred thousand euros.

"You can choose anything you like from the left side," he said and stepped out of the closet, closing the door behind him.

For the next five minutes, Heather browsed, just as she did in a store. She wanted to try on all the haute-couture items but was afraid to damage any of them. With a sigh, she turned to the other side and chose a simple pair of blue jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of casual sneakers. She laid them down on the floor, in front of a mirror, and started dressing. When she was almost done and ready to leave, Heather stopped and undressed herself. She turned to the haute-coutures, pulled out a black evening dress, one of those that still had the price tags, and tried it on. A perfect fit. She twirled twice in front of the mirror, admiring it and dreaming of buying one herself, someday. She sighed one more time, before putting it back on the rack. A minute later, she finished dressing and walked out.

The butler was still waiting for her outside. He looked at her, from head to toe, somewhat disapproving. He walked her back to the evening room, where Athena and Apollo were chatting in low voices. They stopped as soon as she entered.

"There you go, Mrs. Black." Apollo handed her a passport.

She opened it and saw that it had the same picture as her real one. Everything else, except for her nationality, was changed. Michelle? She'd never pictured herself as a Michelle. According to the passport, she was two years younger and born in California.

"How did you—"

"Get your picture? Easy," Athena bragged. "The Department of State server isn't that hard to crack. I also hid your real information, which should pop back up in their servers in a couple of weeks. Until then, you should use only this passport. And don't worry, even the people who usually issue them won't be able to tell that this is a fake. If anyone asks, you are a rich couple from California who spent the last five days shopping in Paris's finest boutiques and now you are heading to Hawaii for a wedding." She looked at her watch. "You should get going. It'll take you at least an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the airport. My driver is waiting for you downstairs."

"Thank you, once more," Apollo said as he hugged Athena and kissed heron the cheek.

"You be careful, OK? Oh, I almost forgot." She took a laptop bag that was sitting on a couch and handed it to Apollo. "I'll relay everything I see on the CCTV cameras and satellites to this laptop. In the side pocket, you will find an untraceable phone that you can use to call me."

"Don't worry, we will," Apollo promised.

"Heather, listen," Athena said, turning toward her. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I didn't mean it."

"It's fine," she said with a smile.

Heather gave her a hug as well. "Impressive wardrobe," she whispered into Athena's ear. She thought they might have been friends, under different circumstances.

"Thank you," Athena whispered back. It was her turn to smile.

Just as they were about to enter the elevator, Apollo turned back. "I completely forgot," he told Athena. "We're going to need you to get Ares back to London."

"I thought you would. While you were changing, I hacked into the Department of Defense's server and changed his orders. If everything goes to plan, he should arrive in London the day of the meeting. Maybe a few hours late."

"Thanks again," Apollo told her as they went back to the elevator.

As Heather and Apollo left, Athena went back to the server room to watch them on the security cameras. When her car left the garage, she took out her phone and dialed.

"Apollo came to see me," she said as the person on the other end of the line picked up. "They made contact and in one week they will meet again, in London. I think this is when they'll find out the location, but I think it's got to be somewhere close to London. I'll call you back when I know more." She hung up without getting a reply.

* * *

The car arrived at the airport in seventy-five minutes, just as Athena predicted. It drove into one of the small hangars reserved for the private jets. The plane was ready and a flight attendant waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. Right next to her stood a customs officer, who, after respectfully greeting them, asked for the passports.

"I hope you enjoyed your stay, Mr. Black," he said, giving the documents back after a brief inspection.

"Paris is lovely this time of year," Apollo answered with a smile.

"Anything to declare?"

"Just a ton of clothes." He smiled again. "My wife is an avid shopper."

Just at that moment, the driver opened the trunk and carried four trolley cases toward the jet. Athena really did think of everything.

"Very well. Have a pleasant flight. _Au revoir_ ," the customs officer said, and left the hangar.

"How did you know the driver was going to carry those cases?" Heather asked.

"This isn't the first time I've flown Air Athena." Apollo smiled, his green eyes sparkling, and waved her into the jet.

At the top of the stairs, another flight attendant waited for them, alongside the captain, who welcomed them aboard. The stewardess had a tray with two champagne glasses, which she offered. They both declined.

"We will take off in five minutes. What would you like served for dinner?" the flight attendant asked as Apollo and Heather took their seats.

"Nothing for me, thank you," he said.

Up until that moment, Heather hadn't realized how hungry she was. She hadn't eaten anything today, and nothing but a yogurt yesterday. She asked what they had and settled for a broiled porterhouse steak and steamed asparagus, which the flight attendant promised she would bring as soon as the plane reached cruising altitude.

She left the two passengers to prepare for take off. The plane left the hangar, taxiing along the runway. As it took off, Heather felt her stomach come right up to her throat. She enjoyed flying, but the take-off was one of the things she hated most.

Once the plane reached cruising altitude, the flight attendant returned with Heather's dinner. The hunger made her forget about table manners. She pigged out without even taking the time to breathe. She wanted more but decided against it, fearing she would feel sick afterward. Instead, she just leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Once more, she was asleep in seconds.

# Chapter Ten

It was just after midnight when Zeus, Hera and Artemis entered Berlin from the southwest, along Autobahn 115. Although he hadn't been to the German capital for some time, Zeus remembered the way and navigated through the streets easily.

In the backseat, Artemis was staring out the window, not paying attention to what was out there but reliving in her mind the events of last night for the hundredth time now. She was still short of the answer she was looking for. _What did I do wrong?_ She was reliving it, moment by moment, trying to figure out if she had missed anything. _Could I have spotted the believers sooner? Did I choose the wrong spot to cover Hep from? If I'd made that first shot would he still be alive? Should I have left the cover to draw their fire away from Hep?_

Deep down, she knew the answer to all of the questions but she didn't want to admit it. Going over and over everything, Artemis knew that she had done nothing wrong, but she still felt responsible for Hep's death. Her mind kept ignoring all the answers, desperately trying to find new ones that would justify her guilt. As the car passed the zoo and then the Berlin Tower, another question popped into her head. Did the others think she was responsible for Hep's death?

Before she could find and answer for it as well, the car stopped on Mollstrasse, in front of a two-story building, their destination. The three of them got out of the 1997 VW Golf 4 and walked over to the entrance of a club. Their path was blocked by a hulking bouncer dressed in a black suit and sunglasses, just inches from the door.

"He'll want to see us," Zeus told him.

The man stood his ground for a few seconds before opening the door for them. Zeus was the first one in, followed by Hera and Artemis, who gave the bouncer a long stare as she passed through the door. Their ears were immediately bombarded by heavy metal music. At first, the sound was so unbearable that Artemis had to cover her ears.

As with any club, it was almost empty on a Monday night. Just a dozen or so men and women, from Artemis' quick count, were laying back on a few leather couches. She spotted Hades on one of the couches, surrounded by three women. He got up and walked over to them.

"What are you doing here?" he shouted, loud enough so that the three could hear him over the music.

"Hello, Hades," said Zeus. "We've come to talk, brother. Can we go somewhere private?"

"Follow me, but if you've come to seek my help, the answer is no."

Hades led them into the club's office, a small room with blue walls and a desk with a swivel chair as its only pieces of furniture. It had a PC on it, with its monitor showing images from several security cameras mounted outside and inside the club.

"This way," he said, leading them into another room.

The next room was a plant nursery full of bonsai trees. Rows of tables stretched all the way to the back, while on the wall next to the entrance stood a shelf cabinet full of gardening tools. Hades selected a pair of shears and a watering can from it.

"I never pictured you the gardening type," said Hera with amazement.

"I started about fifteen years ago, when I needed a new hobby. But bonsai's not gardening, it's an art," he said, heading to the first row of trees. He stopped at the first tree and pruned it, then spent a few more seconds examining the plant from all possible angles. With a satisfied look, he moved to the next one. "Did you know that a bonsai can live for hundreds of years if properly cared for? But age isn't the important thing, it's proportion, balance and symmetry. As John Naka, the famous bonsai cultivator, once said, there is balance in unbalance, and there is symmetry in asymmetry." He looked at his three guests and saw their puzzled looks. "It's OK, you don't have to understand what I've just said. Some things even a god can't comprehend." He started laughing. "Now, tell me, why have you come?"

"We've finally got someone on the inside ready to become a believer," said Zeus. "The ritual should take place in the next few weeks. We don't know yet the when and where, but we will find out next week when he will contact us again." He paused for a few seconds and sighed. "We need your help, brother. For the first time in I don't know how long, we have a chance to kill Judas."

"No," Hades said as he watered one of the trees.

"Damn it, Hades, we have a chance to finally end this!" Zeus thundered.

"That's what you said last time, brother, and the time before that." Hades paused and closed his eyes. "And the time Persephone died."

"I haven't forgotten. We've all lost loved ones, but if we don't put an end to this we'll continue to lose loved one until none of us will be left."

"It's not just loved ones," Hades screamed, throwing the watering can against the wall next to Zeus's head. "How many innocent people were caught in the crossfire each time you fought the believers? Tens? Hundreds? And how many innocent children did you sacrifice on this mission of yours? And how many families did you murder in cold blood just so you could take their children and use them as your tools? How many, Zeus? How many? You think you're better than him? Well, you're not, brother. You're worse. He kills and deceives people because he's evil and hungry for power. You kill and deceive people and use him as an excuse to do it."

"Do you think I want to do this? Do you think that I want to hurt people? Did you forget the good we used to do?"

Hades didn't answer.

"You want to know why I do what I do? I don't want to lose my family, Hades. I don't want to lose Hera and my children. And I don't want to lose you, _brother_. I'll do anything to protect you, and I'll kill anyone who stands in my way, innocent or not. And if we don't act, he'll kill us one by one until none of us are left. And now is the time to act, while there are still enough of us left."

Hades, without answering, put the shears back into the cabinet and walked back to the door. Zeus grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"We're getting everyone back together for this, Aeolus and Ares too, and we're doing it with or without your help. But if we fail and one day the believers come knocking on your door, remember this moment." Zeus released Hades' hand. "I'll tell Athena to send you the when and where once we know, in case you change your mind."

"I doubt it. You know your way out," Hades said, leaving the room. He turned back a few seconds later. "Good luck, and watch your backs. You may very well walk into a trap. You should tell Hep to give you some serious firepower."

"He's dead," Artemis said, speaking for the first time since they'd left Rome. "He was killed last night while we were making contact with our inside man." As she told him the whole story, tears began to run down her cheeks.

Without warning, Hades punched Zeus on the chin, with all his strength. Caught by surprise, Zeus fell on his back. Before he could get up, Hades jumped on him and started hitting him with both fists, until Artemis and Hera were able to stop Hades by grabbing his hands and immobilizing him.

"That's enough," Hera screamed as they pulled Hades off Zeus. "Let's go." She helped her husband get up. "We're wasting our time here."

Zeus, Hera and Artemis left the club without another word, and drove off into the night to their next destination, London.

# Chapter Eleven

Heather woke up feeling relaxed and rested. She never knew airplane seats could be this comfortable.

Apollo came out of the bathroom and took the seat in front of her. "Good morning," he said with a smile.

"Good morning? How long did I sleep?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Almost eighteen hours. We're only a few minutes away from Oahu."

Apollo's words were confirmed by the flight attendant, who asked them to prepare for landing. "The captain will begin his descent shortly. Please fasten your seat belts," she said with a grin.

The two passengers buckled up. The flight attendant checked to see if there were any loose objects in the cabin. When she was satisfied, she went to the galley at the back of the plane, to inform the captain over the intercom that they were ready for the descent, before taking her seat as well.

The plane banked slightly to the left, beginning its final approach. As it lined up with one of the smaller runways of Honolulu International Airport, the captain began the descent. The plane landed safely, with a slight jolt, before taxiing to one of the hangars reserved for the private jets, where they found yet another customs officer and a limo. As soon as the plane stopped, the flight attendant went back to her two passengers, who were getting up as well.

"Aloha!" she said with a smile. "Welcome to Hawaii, where the local time is 4:00 a.m. I hope you enjoyed your flight."

Heather and Apollo both thanked her and left the plane. Just outside, they were greeted with another, "Aloha!" by the customs officer. As he checked their passports, Apollo told him that they had come for just a few days, to attend his best friend's wedding.

The check didn't take long and it ended with the officer wishing them a pleasant visit and hoping they'd enjoy the wedding. The two hopped in the car, where they had to wait for two minutes until the driver took their luggage and placed it in the limo's trunk.

A ten-minute drive on the almost empty streets of Honolulu took them to the entrance of the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort and Spa. A half-asleep butler opened their door and welcomed them to the hotel. The lobby was just as empty as the streets, populated with only two receptionists and a bellboy. The two guests walked up to the desk, where they were greeted with yet another 'Aloha' before receiving the key to their suite, which had been reserved by Athena only a few hours ago.

They had to wait for the bellboy to bring their luggage before taking the elevator all the way to the second to last floor of the K-Tower. The bellboy led them to their suite and after unloading their luggage off his cart, Apollo tipped him a twenty. He smiled and left, closing the door on his way out.

Heather quickly examined the suite parlor and decided that it was the most luxurious one she'd ever stayed in. "When are we going to see Aeolus?" she asked.

"In the morning morning. Right now, he's probably partying in one of the island's clubs and it will take hours to find him, but after sunrise he will be at his beach bar, which is just a couple of hundred feet from here."

"So what are we going to do until tomorrow morning? I just slept eighteen hours, so going to bed isn't an option."

"We could always pick up where we left off in Rome," Apollo said with a flirty voice. He took Heather's hand and caressed it. His fingers were gently running up and down her arm.

She moved toward him, looking Apollo straight in his green eyes, while his fingers made their way up her shoulders to her face, which he caressed gently. He leaned his head toward her, their lips just inches apart now. As their mouths got closer and closer, Heather felt chills going down her spine. Now her head was moving too, closing the distance even faster. Just a couple more inches. She stopped.

"Where?" she asked, turning away from him. "The part where I was almost killed in that alley or when I was running for my life from roof to roof?"

"You're right. I'm sorry." Apollo sighed. "Why don't we pick up where we left off in the car instead? I still haven't told you the whole story, and I know you have a lot of questions."

"That's better." Heather was still wildly attracted to him, but too much had happened to just fall in bed with him. This was no longer just a fun vacation one-night stand. They'd moved far past that, though she had no idea where.

"Like I told you in the car, I was born four thousand years ago in a small village a few miles south of the Carpathian Mountains in the region where Romania is right now. In our village, we were mostly hunters."

"You told me that already," she interrupted him, moving to sit on the comfortable sofa. She kicked off her borrowed shoes and tucked her feet up beneath her.

He smiled and sat down beside her. "Okay, so, the strange box had a hole on one side, big enough to stick your hand in. So, naturally, being curious, Artemis did just that. A bright light came out of it, blinding us for a few moments before disappearing into thin air. Then we got sick, all of us at the same time. Our heads hurt. The pain was unimaginable. It felt like my head was going to explode."

"So the light made you immortal?" she asked, frowning.

"No. It took us a little time to figure it out, but we realized that the light changed our brain."

As Heather tried to wrap her mind around what Apollo was telling her, he reached over and took her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

"How?" Heather asked.

"Experts say that people use about ten percent of their brain. The light made us use about fifty percent of ours."

"Scientists proved that's a myth," Heather contradicted him. "We have use of our entire brain."

"No. Those studies have been misinterpreted. Researchers say that we use all of our brain, but only about ten percent is active at any given time, right?"

Heather shrugged.

"Well," Apollo went on, "the light made fifty percent active at all times, which gives us a whole new different set of abilities."

"How come?" After all she had seen, Heather still didn't know whether to believe it or not.

"It's like forming colors. If you mix blue and yellow, you get green. That is how your brain works. What if you add something else into the mix? Let's say, red. While your brain only mixes blue and yellow, mine, _ours,_ mixes all three, which gives a totally different result."

Heather scratched her head. "I consider myself a smart girl but I don't quite get it, yet."

"Trust me, it's hard to understand. Our mind is taught what the limits of our capabilities are. Anything beyond that, it's called science fiction. There was a time when we thought that the Earth was flat or that only birds could fly. Now look at us. The human race has gone farther than any bird could."

He got up and walked over to the balcony, outside the French doors which were right next to the couch. Heather followed. Soon enough, both of them were leaning over the rail, looking toward the ocean. For a moment, Heather forgot about their talk and just admired the beauty of the place. She could see only a small fragment of the ocean, thanks to the bright illumination that came from the nearby hotels and beach bars. Here and there, small fires were burning on the beach, with people gathered around them, dancing and drinking. She wished she could hear the waves crashing on the beach, but instead all she got was soft music coming from the bars.

"Okay," she went on a moment later. "So you can do much more than a normal person can. I already know you can heal people and you don't age. What else?"

Apollo sighed."Right now, that's about it."

"What do you mean _right now_?"

"There used to be a time when we could do much more. "He turned to face Heather. "We could raise the dead. Telekinesis, telepathy, healing, manipulating the matter around us, superhuman speed and strength, senses heightened beyond your wildest imagination. We could even communicate with other species."

The last sentence almost made her laugh. The image of _Dr. Dolittle_ came to her mind. Every time she spotted something potentially funny in a serious conversation, Heather's mind started playing games on her, making Heather eventually laugh. Throughout the years, many people had accused her of being unable to have a serious conversation. It took her ages to convince them otherwise. Now, in her mind, she pictured Apollo, dressed in a lab coat, having a serious conversation with a monkey, about how to peel a banana correctly. The last part made it impossible for Heather to keep a straight face, and she just started laughing as hard as she could.

"What's so funny?" Apollo asked, obviously annoyed.

It took Heather a few moments to calm down and stop laughing. "I'm sorry!"

He sighed and took her hand again. He turned to face her. "It's all right. I know how it must sound."

Attraction flared between them, and she suddenly wished she'd just fallen into bed with him that first night and avoided this whole conversation.

"If you could raise the dead, how come you weren't able to help your friend?"she asked after a brief pause.

_How can you have all those powers and not save someone's life. Come to think of it, how can you have all those powers and die?_ Heather couldn't wrap her mind around the idea.

"In the beginning, we didn't know we could do all that. Our minds simply couldn't perceive that something like that was possible. But once we passed that barrier, we started discovering what we were capable of doing. When one of us learned something new, he or she would teach it to the rest of us. We helped our village thrive, but the other villagers started to treat us with suspicion because they couldn't understand what was going on. So we left. We began roaming the world, helping our fellow man. And our fellow man started worshiping us. We became their gods, in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome...everywhere we've been. At that point, we discovered something new. You've heard about the collective thought, the power of prayer?"

Heather remembered once reading an article about it."Yes," she said. "It's still a theory but it states that a large number of individuals thinking of the same thing can influence that event."

"Exactly. Thoughts are pure energy and by thinking of one thing, a group of people can channel their energy into that direction. Now, what if those people are praying to someone? They would direct their energy toward that person. We were able to access that energy, to use it. This increased our power even more. But after a thousand years, we lost the ability to tap into that energy. One by one, our other abilities disappeared and we were left with just two, the ability to not age and another one, different in each person, whichever one we used the most in the past. In my case, it was healing. But this too has faded. A thousand years ago, I would have been able to save Hep." Apollo bowed his head like he was ashamed of it. "Now I'm only able to heal one or two bullet wounds at the most and only if they were recent and didn't pierce any organs or major arteries."

For Heather, everything continued to sound too unreal. Even worse, Apollo's explanations, in her opinion, were getting weirder and weirder.

"But how was that even possible in the first place? How can anyone be able to do those things and why did they just disappear?"she asked with disbelief.

"The answer to the first one is pretty simple, but hard to understand. Genetics. By using half of our brain simultaneously, we are capable of manipulating our own DNA. We were able to mutate."

"But how?"

"I really can't explain that. It just happened. Raise your right arm." She obeyed, although she didn't understand where he was going with this. "Now explain to me what happened."

"I just told my body to do that," she answered, puzzled.

"Yes, but how? What happened in your brain? Did you think about it?"

"I don't know. Technically, yes, but only on a subconscious level." Until then, it never occurred to her that she couldn't answer such a question.

"That's exactly what we're doing. On a subconscious level, we were able to manipulate our own DNA."

"But what happened, what made you lose your abilities?"

"I'm not sure," he said.

Apollo walked back into the living room and went straight to the minibar across from the couch. He filled two glasses with bourbon and came back onto the balcony, handing one to Heather. Apollo drank his in one gulp, then stared at the glass.

"I'm not that smart anymore," he said, still examining it. "We thought about it, a lot. The explanation that we all agreed on was that we weren't evolved enough. Our brains couldn't handle it for very long. Somehow, our brain power has regressed to a lower percentage that restricted our ability to manipulate our own DNA, thus limiting us to only two 'abilities'. And we continued losing brain power. In a hundred years, we think our brain will go back to normal."

He went back inside and returned with the bottle. Heather took a few sips from her glass, while Apollo filled his up again.

"So what powers do the others have?"

"My father, Zeus, has the ability to manipulate and create electricity. My sister, Artemis, has perfect sight, which makes her a great marksman. She can hit a moving target at five miles, if she has the right gun. Then there's Ares, who hopefully you'll meet in London. He can feel the slightest changes in the air around him—if someone is approaching him, he can feel the air shifting around his skin. So he's never taken by surprise. Athena, as you saw, is the smartest of us all. She has eidetic memory. She can remember in a fraction of a second everything she's ever seen, heard or done. And then there's Aeolus, who we're going to meet tomorrow. He can run faster than anyone you have ever seen. His recorded top speed was one kilometer per second, but he has gotten slower since then."

"And your mother?"

"Hera? She can't do anything anymore. She's lost all her powers."

Heather drank the rest of her bourbon and extended her glasstoward him. Apollo poured hersome more.

"That's one hell of a story," she concluded.

"And all of it is true, trust me."

She didn't want to believe him, but she'd seen the evidence with her own eyes. All that had happened in the last day and a half tied perfectly into what he'd told her. _Everything except the people who attacked us._

"Okay, but who were the people who attacked us? Where do they fit into all of this?"

"This is going to sound even weirder." He gave her an apologetic look, obviously realizing how it sounded.

Trust me, it can't get even weirder than this. If I tried to explain to someone else what you've told me, I'd be in a padded room, with a straightjacket.

"About two thousand years ago, we decided to return to that cave for the first time since the moment we were changed. One by one, we each put our hands in the hole of the box but light never came out again. In the meantime, man began to pervert religion. Sacrifices 'in the name of the gods' were more frequent, and when the people saw that they didn't get what they wanted, the sacrifices became bloodier .The priests that led the temples dedicated to us began to demand more and more offerings, which they kept for themselves. So we decided it was time for a change, a new religion system that wasn't based on sacrifice."

"You mean to tell me that you created Christianity?" She couldn't help it. She burst into laughter again.

So it really does get weirder. Next thing he'll tell me is that Jesus was one of them.

"Some of it," said Apollo.

"But why? Why not just correct the old religions?"

"It was too late for that," Apollo sighed. "We tried it on a smallscale, an experiment, on one village. We explained to the people there that their ways were wrong, that this wasn't the way to honor the gods and ask for their help. But they kicked us out before we would anger the gods and bring death and destruction upon their village. The problem was that man needed to see with his own eyes in order to believe. The only way we could have changed their perverted ways was by showing them the wrath of the gods, to let their gods explain what was right and what was wrong, but we couldn't do that anymore without our old powers. We weren't those gods who they prayed to anymore."

"So you decided to create a new religion."

Don't laugh! This man saved your life a couple of times. The least you can do is be serious. But who got me in those life-threatening situations anyway?

"Correct. We knew that first of all we would need to have a set of rules. Because we weren't responsible for the creation of the old, polytheistic religions, we didn't make the rules, we didn't create the 'correct' ways to pray and honor the gods."

"But why not make another polytheistic religion?" Ever since she'd discovered ancient Greek history in high school, Heather had been very interested in the subject. She always thought that a polytheistic religion worked best.

"No. Priests of different gods would start to contend amongst themselves and it would lead up to the same thing. No, monotheistic was the best choice. Once we decided on that, it was time to lay down the rules. We created ten."

"The Ten Commandments?"

"Yes."

"Are you serious?" Heather could barely keep a straight face anymore. This had gone farther than any science fiction or fantasy movie she's ever seen.

"Dead serious." He looked straight into her eyes as he spoke.

"So everything the Bible said about Moses?"

"We'll get to that later. The next thing that we needed was a face to associate with the religion, a god, or in this case, the son of a god."

"Jesus Christ?" She couldn't believe she was asking that.

"Yes. Heather, please, I know it's very hard to swallow but I'm not making anything up. This is very serious, and everything I'm telling you did happen."

She started feeling bad for laughing at him.

"But why the son and not the father? Why not God Himself?"

"This way we showed everyone how much God loved them. He made the ultimate sacrifice for them, sent his son to die for them, for their sins. Such a thing has a great impact on the human mind. But that wasn't enough. In order for people to believe that he was truly the son of God, he had to be wise, and powerful."

"So I imagine that it was one of you who embodied the son of God."

"Correct. Grace, someone mentioned in the history books as a minor Greek god. She had the ability to change her appearance."

If anyone heard you say this about five hundred years ago, you would surely burn on a stake. A woman turning into the son of God? If I didn't know any better, I would say that I have the craziest person in the world standing right in front of me. And the evidence against it is very thin.

"So what you're telling me is that Jesus Christ was a shape-shifter and that you created Christianity?" For the first time in their conversation, Heather was able to ask something unbelievable with a straight face.

"Yes and no. Most of what is written in the New Testament, the four Gospels, is true. I haven't time to explain what is, what isn't and how it was all done. In short, the betrayal, the crucifixion and the death are all true and part of our plan at that time, as were the resurrection and ascension. That's when things went wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"In order to make it believable, Grace had to really be dead, or at least appear dead. I put her into a deep coma and lowered her heart rate so much that it looked like she was dead. When we went to the tomb to 'bring her back to life', there was someone else there. Have you read the Bible?"

"Some of it."

"The person standing next to her was Judas."

"Who?"

"Judas. You know, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. Now this is where it turns a bit fuzzy. It turns out that Judas is just like us. So, right in front of our eyes, he took Grace's shape and incinerated her body. Then he attacked us. We tried to stop him, but he was much stronger than us. We figured he'd followed us the second time we went to the cave. So he was only recently transformed and his powers were in their prime. Before we were able to run away, he killed three more, Amphitrite, Hebe and Eros."

He paused for a moment, like he was taking a moment of silence for his lost comrades. "From that day on, he began hunting us, and that's what he did for the next three centuries. He managed to kill more of our own, until one day he stopped chasing us, but only for a while. When the religion got more and more believers, he started to get involved, to control it, to lead it. He took advantage of the Second Coming and revealed himself to the people within the Church and began controlling them, leading the Church."

"That's not possible," she said, shaking her head, having a very bad feeling about where this was going.

"After three more centuries, he started once again hunting us. But this time he wasn't alone. He had created an army of his own from those 'true believers'. They were the ones who attacked us the other night. The 'true believers' are recruited from the ranks of the monks from all over the world and trained as warriors. When they are ready, they go through a ritual. This is the first and only time that the recruits meet Judas. From what we could find out, during this ritual he uses the Spear of Destiny to cut himself. The blood is put into a chalice and the recruits must drink from it. This increases their physical abilities. They become faster, stronger, tougher, more agile. With the invention of modern weapons and the deterioration of our abilities, they are now a serious threat. Hep is the second one of us they managed to kill. Euthenia, Hep's daughter, was their first victim, twenty five years ago."

"But why is he hunting you?"

"He believes that we are the only ones capable of killing him and taking away his power. The truth is that anyone can kill him, but nobody knows it. It's simple. Put a bullet in the back of his head and it's done."

"That simple?" Once again, Heather was astonished by how fragile the human life was. Even someone who was thought to be a god could be killed. And this could be done easily, even by someone like her. The thought that she could kill a god gave Heather chills.

"Yes. The brain makes the body heal itself. If you damage the brain, then it can't tell the body what to do."

"Then why haven't you killed him yet?"

"We were never able to get that close to him."

"And now you can?"

"Yes."

After finishing another glass of whiskey, Apollo gestured Heather inside the suite. A few moments later they were both back on the couch.

"So, what's different now? How come you can kill him now, but couldn't in the past?"

"First of all, he is now weaker than he was. Like I told you earlier, our powers begin to fade after about two thousand years. He is still stronger than us, because he was transformed after us, but not by much. But what we lack in strength, we make up in numbers. Plus, this is the first time we managed to get someone so far on the inside. We're days away from finding out when and where the ritual is going to take place."

"But how did you manage to get someone on the inside?"

Apollo poured himself another glass and emptied it just as fast."That's a story for another night." He smiled at Heather, obviously unwilling to continue his story.

She knew she'd touched a nerve with that final question, but she decided not to pursue the issue."I'm going to take a shower."

Heather returned and found Apollo sitting on the living room couch with a full bottle of bourbon sitting right next to the one they'd emptied during their conversation. He gestured for her to have a seat next to him. As she did, he filled both glasses and handed her one. Half an hour later, the bottle was empty.

By then Heather was very drunk and half-asleep, trying to take a sip every now and then from the empty glass in her hand. Apollo took her in his arms and led her into the bedroom. He gently placed her on the bed and whispered, "Good night."

She barely mumbled 'good night' back to him before falling asleep. Her alcohol-induced sleep lasted for only a few hours, when Apollo came back to wake her up.

"What do you want?" Heather growled as he shook her gently.

"Time to wake up. We need to find Aeolus."

"Just five more minutes," she said, turning on the other side, with her back to him.

"Fine, but if you're not up in five minutes, I'm going to have to make you wake up the hard way," he told her teasingly.

"Um hum."

Apollo left the bedroom and went to the phone in the living room to order breakfast. He returned five minutes later, only to find her still sleeping. He leaned over the bed and took her left index finger in his hand. An instant later, Heather jumped out of bed screaming, holding her finger.

"Ouch, what the hell did you do to my finger?"

"Just as I can make people feel better, I can make them feel worse as well," he said with a smile.

"Then make it better again, it still hurts like hell." She glared at him, holding out her finger.

He took her finger again and seconds later the pain was all gone.

"I've ordered breakfast. Hope you like scrambled eggs and toast. It'll be here in a few minutes."

Heather nodded and went into the bathroom to take a shower. When she got out again, breakfast was set on the living room table.

"Did you eat already?" Heather noticed that there was only one plate.

"No, I don't need to eat."

"Why not?"

"It's hard to explain, and we don't have the time for it. Let's just say that water is enough for me."

"I guess that has something to do with the reason you're not hung over, even though you drank far more than me," she said grouchily, rubbing her aching head. "Do you think you can take care of my hangover as well?"

He grinned and nodded, then touched her forehead. The pain was all gone. "Now sit down and eat."

She did and twenty minutes later they were leaving the hotel. They climbed into a taxi, which took them to a beach on the other side of the island. It was a secluded one, with only a few tourists, most of them sunbathing at that hour. In the middle of the beach stood a small beach bar, which looked like an old and abandoned shack.

"Whatever you do, don't mention the name Flash," Apollo told her while they were walking on the still cold sand.

"Who?"

"Flash. You know... the comic book character."

"Why not? What does he have to do with anything?" Heather asked, confused.

"He claims Gardner Fox stole the idea from him."

"Gardner who?"

"You know nothing of comic books?" Now Apollo was amazed.

"No. I spent my childhood reading books. I thought comics were stupid."

"Why?"

"There was nothing credible about them." Heather felt pretty silly saying something like that now, after all she'd been through.

Apollo laughed."Okay," he said. "Just remember, no Flash."

There was only one customer at that hour, Heather observed as they reached the beach bar. He was sitting at one of the four tables, with the remote in his hand, changing the channels of the TV that hung from the beach bar's ceiling. He stopped once he reached one of the local stations, where the news was on.

"Nice little places you've got here," Apollo said to the man.

"Apollo," he said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" He got up and hugged his visitor. "Please, sit." He gestured toward the table. "And who is your friend?"

"This is Heather," said Apollo. They shook hands.

"Are you two here on vacation? The islands are really nice this time of year," Aeolus said as all of them sat down. "Kale," he shouted to the bartender, who was just taking out the trash. "Bring my guests something to drink."

"We need your help, Aeolus," said Apollo without preamble.

In a split second, their host's face changed completely. His smile went as fast as it came and his eyes went from joyful to sad. "Do you remember what I told you when we took that boy?"

"I recall very well but—"

"I said it was the last time," Aeolus interrupted him. "I told you we were becoming like him and I didn't want to be a part of it," he said, almost shouting. "And now you're coming here to tell me that we need to sacrifice a few more innocent people? And for what? Don't tell me because it's for the greater good 'cause it's not. Nobody in this damn world knows anything about us or him. His death wouldn't make this world a better place. Neither would ours."

"Damn it, Aeolus, that's not true and you know it." Apollo was shouting even louder. "Did you forget all the good we did and the people we've helped? What about the technologies we helped invent, the breakthroughs in medicine? Thanks to us, this world has evolved faster than it would have on its own. What about those things?"

"Big deal. Maybe we've helped them evolve two hundred years faster. What was that good for? Look at them! They're fighting each other in every part of the world. They even used the atom bomb on themselves." He laughed like a madman and slammed his fist on the table. "Do you remember what Athena said when she helped them build it? She said exactly what you just did. _Think of all the good it could do._ I wish I could have seen her face when Hiroshima went up in flames. Helped them, no. I think we did them a disservice. They would have gotten here slower, yes, but also wiser. Like we always said we were. We've always put ourselves on a high moral pedestal, while at the same time we were sacrificing innocent people. And for what? To kill the bad guy who is doing less evil than us."

"Less evil?" Apollo snapped. "Did you forget that he killed hundreds of thousands of people during the Inquisition, just to catch us? Isn't that reason enough? Than how about for your family, for the loved ones he killed. They deserve to be avenged. And if you think that this world is better off without him and us, then help us kill him. Then you can go and put a bullet in your brain if you don't want to live anymore. But then again, you wouldn't be here if you wanted to die." He stood up and turned to Heather. "Let's go. We're wasting our time here. There's no point in talking to a brick wall."

He left the table before Heather could get up. She started to follow Apollo but stopped only after a few steps and stormed back to Aeolus.

"So hiding away on a beach halfway around the world is the wisest thing to do? Did you think for a second what would happen if all of you did this? Do you think Judas would still be hiding as well? The fact that you're out there, searching for him, is the only thing that's stopping him. From what? I don't know. But judging from what I've heard during these last few days, well, let's just say that it wouldn't be pretty. If I was him, I'd do anything to gain the power I had back then, when he killed all those people just to get to you. To tell you the truth, I like your way better, less bullets, but abandoning your brothers and sisters isn't the wisest thing. And this is coming from someone you labeled earlier as one of _them_ , the less evolved people, who just got sucked into all of this a few days ago and is more afraid than she's ever been in her life, but who is going to see this thing to the end, even if I don't have super powers like you. I would rather die fighting, like Hep did, than live like you."

She turned and ran to Apollo, who stopped a few feet away when he heard her talking. As she reached him, so did Aeolus whose speed, Heather saw, fully deserved the name of king of the winds. Tears were running down his cheeks.

"Hep died? When did this happen?" His voice was full with sorrow.

"A few days ago, in Rome," Apollo said, with sadness in his voice as well. "He was shot when we contacted Marco. He was supposed to give us the time and place for the ritual. But instead he gave us another meeting place, London. We think that's when we're going to find out everything we need to know. Brother," Apollo pus his hand on Aeolus's shoulder, "we're almost there, but we can't do it without your help."

"All right," Aeolus sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

"We need you for the meeting in London, for starters. Your speed is going to help us avoid what happened in Rome."

"OK, when do you need me there?"

"The rest should be in London already, checking out the place. We're leaving in two hours. Athena booked us a private plane."

"I'll see you at the airport. Kale!" Aeolus shouted to the bartender. "We need to talk. I'm leaving for a few days."

Heather and Apollo went back to the hotel, where they told the receptionist that they would be leaving earlier than planned, but not before a quick brunch.

This whole time, something was bothering Heather. _First, Apollo refuses to answer about how they indoctrinated Marco and now Aeolus says that they've sacrificed people as well. Am I just a tool for them as well? An acceptable loss?_

The thought gave her chills. She tried several more times to open the subject, but each time Apollo refused to answer her.

"Heather," Apollo said, interrupting her over brunch at the hotel. "I know you are scared and that you have a lot of questions, but I think it's best that you don't know everything. All you need to know right now is that I will do anything in my power to protect you."

It had the right effect on her, as Heather stopped worrying about the matter and enjoyed her food.

As they still had time to kill, the brunch was followed by a quick visit to the hotel gift shop, where Heather looked for a good book to read during the almost eighteen-hour flight to London.

She knew she couldn't sleep the entire trip, like she did on the way here, and a book would be the perfect pastime. She was in the mood for a romance novel but she couldn't find a book to match her expectations, so she settled for the next best thing, the newest thriller from Tom Clancy.

With only an hour before the scheduled take-off time, which could have been pushed since it was a private flight, the two of them left for the airport. The drive took a little longer than the first one since it was almost noon, and even here the traffic was a problem.

They arrived with half an hour to spare, but before they headed to the area reserved forthe private flights, they collected Aeolus from the front entrance of the airport. He was still wearing his flowered Hawaiian shirt and his white linen pants. He was packing light, having only a small backpack, which he didn't even bother to put in the trunk.

A few minutes later, they were in the plane hangar, with the customs officer waiting just like he did when they arrived. The shift had changed and now it was a different officer who looked over their papers. Again, Athena had taken care of everything, including the passenger manifest list, which now included three people. The passport check was as fast as the first time, and the man wished them a safe trip back and that they would visit the Pacific paradise again.

The plane took off according to schedule and as soon as they were at cruising altitude, the flight attendant came to ask everyone if they wanted anything to eat or drink. Everyone refused her politely. Only after she left the cabin did they start talking. Aeolus asked about what had happened to Hep and tried to keep his cool as Apollo recounted the events of that night of Hep's death. After that, Apollo went on to the plans for the meeting in London, explaining to Aeolus his part. Business out of the way, the two of them went on to talking about what everyone had been doing for the last twenty or so years.

Heather wasn't interested in finding out about all of Apollo's sexual conquests. After all, that's what got her mixed up into all of this, so she took the pair of headphones from the side of her seat and stated searching for some music on the LCD screen mounted on the cabin wall just beside her. Heather settled for a Johnny Cash selection of greatest hits and grabbed the book she'd conveniently placed on the table next to her. She'd been a fan of Tom Clancy ever since high school and she couldn't wait to see how Jack Ryan would save the world this time.

At first it was a little hard to concentrate on reading with all the thoughts swirling in her head. With Johnny Cash's golden voice in her ears, she started thinking about her life after all of this. Already, she was trying to come up with a believable story to tell her parents. She couldn't just tell them that she was with Apollo and Zeus fighting Judas. First, she thought about telling them that she just ran off with a boy, but the story would stick only if she would be able to contact them in the next few days. Otherwise, they wouldn't buy it.

She decided to drop the matter for now. She knew she could come up with something believable, as she always did in such situations. Although she wasn't proud of it, Heather was an excellent liar. Her mind wandered to her future job, a news reporter for a local TV station in her hometown. She was supposed to start in about ten days, but she had no idea if she would make it home by then. She'd had to go through a lot of interviews to get it, and now it looked like all that hard work was for nothing. She sighed, then cleared her thoughts and surrendered all her attention to the Man in Black and Jack Ryan.

Apollo noticed that Heather wasn't paying attention to them at all and used that opportunity to ask Aeolus for help.

"Aeolus, I have to ask you something."

"Sure, but first, tell me what her story is?"

"She got caught up in all of this by accident," Apollo answered. "It's my fault. A few hours before Hep died, I wanted to get laid so instead of going to the meeting, I went to a club." He told Aeolus the rest of the story.

Aeolus' face suffused red. "I'd love to punch you right now."

"I know I messed up badly," Apollo admitted.

"Dammit, Apollo, this isn't the first time you've done something as stupid as this!"

"I know, all right? You don't need to lecture me about it. And please, keep your voice down. I need to ask you something, and I don't want her hearing it."

"What do you need?" From his chair, Aeolus leaned toward Apollo.

"It's my father. I don't know why, but he gave in easily when I told him that I wouldn't leave Heather to fend for herself. I think he plans to use her in some way," he sighed. "Aeolus, you're the only one fast enough to get her out in one piece. Promise me that you'll do your best to keep her safe."

Without speaking another word, both of them looked at Heather.

# Chapter Twelve

As soon as Artemis arrived in London, she went to work. Smith Square, where Marco would contact them in a little over thirty-six hours, was only a few blocks away from their safe house. They'd bought the apartment twenty years ago, the last time they were in London. It was located near Pimlico Underground, near many of the main tourist attractions. They knew the believers wouldn't risk an attack in such a crowded area, for risk of exposure.

Her main job before the meeting was to find a good high point, where she could provide sniper cover.

She left the apartment building and went across the street to a newspaper stand where she bought a map. Twenty years ago, she'd known every street, building and bus stop within a two mile radius of the flat, but now needed to refresh her memory. With the map unfolded, she began her walk to Smith Square. It took her less than fifteen minutes to get there, using the straightest route.

Straight away, she didn't like what she saw. The square was accessible from five different streets. While it gave them a lot of ways to get out if things went wrong, covering all of the streets at once would be impossible. The other bad news was the building in the center of the square, St. John's Concert Hall, obstructed her view of half the square from pretty much all the likely vantage points. Disappointed, she continued to examine every inch of the square and the buildings surrounding it.

Satisfied with this, she went on to her next task, mapping every possible exit route. Five entrances also meant five exit points. For the next six hours, she used all of them to head back to the safe house, marking each route with a crayon on the map. It was almost sundown when she returned to the apartment.

Zeus and Hera were in the living room, cleaning and checking every gun in the house, which were left there twenty years ago, when they bought the apartment.

"We're going to have big problems with this place." Artemis placed the unfolded map on the dining table, and reviewed what she'd done that day. Both Zeus and Hera leaned over it. "The concert hall, isn't that tall, but most of the buildings around it aren't either. Also, the sidewalks are filled with trees, some of them with branches so thick you can't see anything through them. This is at least a two-man job."

"Damn it," Zeus thundered. "The four of us can't do it. Even if Apollo gets Aeolus to help us, we'd still need one more."

"What about weapons, what do we have?" Artemis asked.

"Not much," Zeus replied. "An L96A1sniper rifle for you, four FAMAS rifles and six P220 pistols. The ammunition isn't much either, just four clips for each weapon."

"Can't we get something built in this century?"

"No," said Zeus. "The smuggler we bought these guns from twenty years ago is probably dead, he was sixty back then, and I don't know anyone else. Hep was the one who knew every gun trafficker in England. So we'll just have to make do with this."

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. Artemis' first instinct was to go for one of the pistols on the floor. Once the first round was in the chamber, she nodded to Zeus, who answered the front door, just as Hera was grabbing another gun, this time a FAMAS, and loading it.

"Who is it?" Zeus asked as he reached the door.

"It's me," a familiar voice answered.

"Apollo?" he asked.

"Yes, open the door."

Everyone sighed in relief as Zeus unlocked the door. Apollo came in, followed by Heather and Aeolus. The sight of their old friend, who they hadn't seen for more than twenty years, made all three of them smile.

The most excited was Artemis, who, at the first sight of Aeolus, tossed the gun on the table and jumped to hug him and kiss him on the cheeks. She was followed by Hera and Zeus who, as well, hugged and kissed him.

They spent the next five minutes chit-chatting, asking Aeolus how he was doing and how he'd spent the last twenty years.

The scene reminded Heather of high school, catching up with her friends at the beginning of the school year. Only the time frame was different, three months instead of twenty years.

During all this time, the three of them ignored her, as if she weren't there. It annoyed Heather a lot, but she wasn't surprised, given their reaction the first time she'd met them, back in Rome. The fatigue caused by the jet lag made her care even less. In fact, all she did care about was a bed and a few hours of sleep. But now was not the time for sleep. Soon, everyone was over the dining table, examining the map.

"Here's what I think we should do," Artemis suggested.

"Wait," Apollo interrupted her. He went to the backpack he'd left near the entrance when he came in. "I have something from Athena." He took the laptop out. "She installed software on this that detects any nearby believer. She said that it's ninety-nine percent accurate." Apollo placed the laptop on the table, near the map.

""Okay, this is going to make things a lot easier," said Artemis. "The layout of the square means that we'll need two people on the rooftops. Dad," She looked at Zeus. "You're going to be on the building on the northeast corner, here." She pointed to the map. "You'll have to cover the two streets coming from the north. I'm going to be here, on the south side." She pointed to another place on the map. "And I'll cover the last three streets. "Aeolus, you need to be here, on the east side, near the riverbank. It's about six hundred feet away from the square. How fast do you think you could get to Heather and get her out?"

"Two seconds, tops." He smiled.

"Wait," Heather said. "Why me? What if I don't want to go?"

"Heather," Zeus said with a shake of his head. "We need to find out if you've been marked. If you have been, the believers will sense you. If you haven't, then you'll be free to go once the meeting is over."

"You will be in no danger," Apollo assured her.

"Okay," she said, not really sure she should have accepted.

"Perfect. One more thing. The sidewalks are lined with trees and we may have some blind spots so we might have to rely on your shooting as well. Now for you, Apollo," Artemis went on, looking at her brother. "Dad and I are going to need a way to get out of there fast."

"No problem, first thing tomorrow I'll go find us a car," he answered.

"We're going to need two of them. You'll take one and cover the east side of the park, with Aeolus. When I give you the signal, you come from this street and stop here." She pointed to another place on the map. "The other car will stay here, with Mom. Mom, you'll have to stay here and use the software Athena made. We'll rely on you to give us the heads up on any believer. And finally, Heather. She'll wait for Marco here, on the north side, in front of the concert hall's main entrance. If any believers show up, then we can be almost certain that she's being tracked. If she is, then Marco will most likely be dead and we can kiss our best chance of ending all of it goodbye. What do you say, Apollo?" He answered with a slight nod. "The backup rendezvous point should be on the other side of town, so that we can outrun the believers. Aeolus, in case something goes wrong you bring Heather back here and all three of you get into the car and go to Manor Park, in Sutton. We'll see what we can do from there. Apollo, when you go buy the cars tomorrow, I'll need you to pick up six disposable phones as well, and a Bluetooth hands-free for each."

"How much cash do we have?" asked Apollo.

"A little over 20,000 euros," Zeus answered.

"I think that should be enough for a couple of decent second-hand Minis. I'll get to it first thing tomorrow."

# Chapter Thirteen

The flight from Leonardo da Vinci landed at Heathrow at exactly midnight, five minutes earlier than scheduled, and taxied to its designated terminal. As soon as the seat belt sign was off, Marco hastily unbuckled his belt and grabbed his backpack from the overhead compartment. The fact that he was dressed as a monk helped things speed up the passport check at the customs office.

Once it was over, he, along with the other apprentices, or chosen ones which was the official term the guardians used to describe them, went straight to the exit, where a black bus was waiting to pick up him and the other chosen ones. Ten minutes later, they were all aboard and the bus left Heathrow on the M4, heading for London. Thanks to the late hour, the traffic was light. They were almost at their destination, at least that was what one the recruits from the row in front of him said, when one of the guardians from the back of the bus went to the driver and told him to stop. He was quickly followed by the other two. All three of them looked concerned, Marco could see.

After a quick discussion, two of them got out and the bus started again. A few minutes later it stopped at its destination. The guardian remaining, still standing in front, turned toward them and spoke loud enough to be heard all the way in the back.

"Listen up! We have arrived at Westminster School. Tonight you will sleep in the boarding building and tomorrow at 16:00 you will take the final test. The day after that, those of you who pass will be taken to Fountains Abbey, where you will go through the ritual and join our ranks as guardians. Those of you who do not pass, remember, there is no shame in that. Even so you can still serve Our Lord. Tonight, I will pray for all of you so that God will give you the strength to pass the final test." He gestured everyone to get off.

Marco was one of the first to step out. They quietly walked to the entrance of the dorm. Another guardian was waiting there for them, with a clipboard in his hand. Each of them were asked their names and directed to their room. Marco was sent to one on the first floor.

Once inside, he placed his backpack near the bed. He knelt down to say his prayers and went to bed as soon as he finished. Even though he was tired, Marco couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about the next night, when he'd have to sneak out of the building unnoticed. He knew that Smith Square was close by, because he chose the place when he was told where the final test would take place. Unfortunately, he hadn't had time to properly examine a map of the area at that time, only a moment on a computer, just long enough to pinpoint Westminster School on Google Maps.

Now he needed to look at a map again, but in less of a hurry. His best chance of finding a computer would be to search the rooms in the dormitory, in case someone had left their computer behind when they went away for summer vacation. The best time for doing that would be tomorrow, during the test. Each apprentice would be tested individually, so the testing of all the approximately fifty apprentices would take the better half of the day. What he needed to do now was to make sure he'd be among the first ones in. This way, the dormitory would be almost empty when he finished, with all of the others waiting to take the test.

As much as he tried, he hadn't been able to find out what the final test was. He knew that if he exposed himself during this last interview, he would be killed. Brutally interrogated at first, then killed. But more importantly, once more Judas would survive, and would continue to kidnap children and slaughter their families just to create his army.

No, I must not fail. I have to pass the final test for my family, who was taken from me by Judas, and for Hep, who more than likely was killed in Rome.

Deep down he felt that Rome was the last place he'd ever see Hep, his childhood friend, who'd opened his eyes and exposed Judas for what he really was.

# Chapter Fourteen

Cardinal Raul Estevez was just taking off his night robe when his cell phone rang.

"Yes, what is it?" he answered with an annoyed voice.

"I'm sorry to disturb you at such a late hour, Excellency, but it is an urgent matter," said the voice at the other end of the line.

"Go on."

"As you know, the chosen ones arrived at Westminster for their final test. On the way back from the airport, the guardians escorting them felt a marked one nearby. They got off the bus and went searching for that person. I told them to keep their distance once they find the person and to wait for my orders."

"You judged correctly. Call me when the guardians find him, and remind them to stay as far away as possible. They could be up against something more dangerous than a marked."

"Understood, your Excellency." The line went dead.

"Angelo!" Raul shouted to his aide who, despite the late hour, was still waiting outside the cardinal's chambers."I want my car to be ready in five minutes."

Raul rushed to his wardrobe where he hastily put on a black cassock and a cap. The car was already in front of the building when he came out. Angelo opened the door as soon as he saw the cardinal and closed it as he got in.

"Where to, your Excellency?"

"I have to see him," the cardinal answered vaguely. The driver knew very well what he meant. "And hurry!"

His phone rang again just as the car was arriving at its destination.

"Have you found the marked one?" the cardinal asked the caller as he swiftly entered the house.

"We have, your Excellency. He is in an apartment building very close to Westminster. Do you think this is a coincidence?" the voice on the other side of the line answered.

"We shall see. I will call you in a few minutes with instructions."

"Very well, your Excellency."

The line went dead as the cardinal reached the first floor of the house. As he reached one of the doors that was protected by two guardians, one of them nodded to Raul and knocked on the door.

"Enter," a voice from inside said.

The guardian opened the door and the cardinal stepped in. Just like on his last visit, Raul Estevez found himself in another dimly lit room. The only light came from a small desk lamp. His eyes needed some time to adjust to the darkness.

"My Lord," the cardinal said, while his eyes were scanning through the darkness for his master. "You were right. Marco, the chosen one, is one of them. The guardians found a marked one in London, close to Westminster. Although they haven't IDed the person, it must be that girl who was with Apollo in Rome. How do you want us to proceed?"

"Call the believers back to Westminster and place someone else to follow the girl," the voice answered. The cardinal's eyes were now adjusting to the low light and could see a dark human shape sitting in an armchair on the far side of the room.

"Very well, I shall tell them to send a couple of chosen ones to follow the girl."

"No. They mustn't be guardians or chosen ones. We can't risk being spotted. Tell the headmaster to send two of his most trusted employees. And tell him they shouldn't be dressed as clerical men."

"And what about the boy, my Lord? Should we punish him for what he did?"

"No! We can still use him. We finally have the opportunity to rid this Earth of all the forces of evil at once. The girl and the others are in London to meet with the boy. Does he know the location for the ritual?"

"I don't know, my Lord, but if he doesn't, he'll find out tomorrow after the test."

"Which means that they will meet tomorrow night. He will need to sneak out just like he did in Rome, but this time he will be more careful. The guardians must follow him just like they did in Italy, only this time they should allow him to escape, otherwise he will not make contact. In the meantime, I want you to get every guardian you can to Fountains Abbey, except the ones in London. They must get there before tomorrow midnight and remain hidden from the moment they arrive up until the demons attack us."

"Very well, my Lord, I shall go to Westminster myself to make sure everything will go as planned."

"No. You will stay here with me, and we'll leave for the ceremony together."

"As you wish, my Lord."

Raul left the room to make the appropriate phone calls. The first one went to Westminster, where he relayed the new orders. As he paced in the hallway, Cardinal Estevez made other calls to various monasteries in Europe. Half an hour later, he finished and went back into the room.

"Everything is in place, my Lord. By tomorrow evening, fifty guardians will arrive at Fountains Abbey."

"Only fifty?"

"It's all we can do on such short notice. I could get twice as many, but it will take another twelve hours to do so."

"No. Fifty will be just fine. Now leave me. I must prepare for the ceremony."

"Very well, my Lord," the cardinal said.

Raul bowed and left the room. He went downstairs and ordered one of the guardians to prepare a bedroom for him. Old age was beginning to take its toll, and the cardinal couldn't afford to lose an entire night's sleep. At least not on the eve of such an important event.

After the room was ready, he gave the same guardian orders to wake him up after six hours, or earlier, if He summoned him. As he got undressed for the second time that night, Cardinal Estevez reflected upon the events that were bound to happen in less than forty-eight hours. He thought about the first and last time he encountered the demons, almost forty years ago, when he had just joined the rank of the guardians.

# Chapter Fifteen

Marco left the dormitory forty-five minutes before midnight and headed west to Victoria Street. He wanted to leave earlier, but he couldn't do it before he had the chance to examine a map of the nearby area. The plan he made the night before had failed from the start.

That morning, every chosen one was informed that he had to wait in his dormitory room, before and after the test. The interdiction lasted until ten p.m., when the last chosen one finished the test. When they were allowed to leave their rooms, most of the apprentices headed for Westminster Abbey for prayer.

This was Marco's time to act. The dormitory was almost empty, with only a few chosen ones, the ones who failed to pass the test, left in their rooms where they were praying alone. One by one, Marco searched each empty chamber until, fifteen minutes later, he was able to find one with a computer.

He turned it on and searched the Internet for a map of London and its public transport system.

Having memorized all he needed, Marco went back to his room. But his plan was thwarted once again. Just as he was leaving his room, the rest of the chosen ones were coming back from prayer. Marco couldn't risk being seen leaving, so he quickly went back to his room, where he waited for everyone to settle down in their rooms.

Now his whole plan depended solely on the punctuality of the bus and metro drivers of London. He arrived on Victoria Street just as the Number 24 bus was pulling into the station a hundred yards away. Marco sprinted and jumped onto the bus. As he headed for a seat at the back, he could see from the rear window that the two guardians who were following him had failed to catch the bus.

He sat down, relieved that he was able to shake them off more easily than he'd anticipated. Even though he wasn't followed anymore, Marco decided that it would be best to stick to his initial plan and switch a few more public transport lines before heading to the meeting place. The ride on the bus took only a couple of minutes.

Marco got off at the first stop, right in front of the Foreign Office. From there, he ran to Westminster Subway Station, just in time to catch a District Line train. He traveled on it for two stops, then switched trains at Victoria Station. As he got on the subway car, he carefully looked around him, searching for familiar faces that he had seen while on the last two public transport vehicles. There were none.

He got off the Victoria Line subway at Pimlico, where he jumped on another bus, Number 748. It was now 11.45 PM. The bus ride would take about ten minutes, according to Marco's calculations, which would leave him enough time to walk from the bus stop to Smith Square.

It was six minutes to midnight when Marco got off the bus a few hundred feet east of Smith Square, on Millbank. As the bus drove off, he looked around once more, making sure that he wasn't followed.

Satisfied, Marco proceeded to the meeting place. He entered Smith Square through Dean Stanley Street. The place looked deserted except for the few cars parked on the sidewalk. But no people in sight.

Was it possible that after the incident in Rome, they would lose faith in him and not come? What would happen if they really did abandon him? What should he do? Should he go on with the ritual or use this opportunity to run as far away as possible? His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a young woman heading his way. She didn't look like any of the three women Hep had introduced him to.

"Marco?" the girl asked when she was a few feet away.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the one you're supposed to meet tonight."

"Where's Hep?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"He's dead. I'm sorry."

"Damn it!" he shouted. "Tell the others that I'm sorry and that it was my fault. I should have been more careful getting to the meeting place but I didn't know I would be followed. Tell them I'm sorry, okay?"

"Okay," she said, sounding sympathetic.

"The ritual is going to take place at Fountain's Abbey at 16:00. We'll be leaving London at noon. I must go now. Please, tell them I'm sorry."

Marco started walking in the direction opposite from which he'd come. He needed to clear his thoughts before he went back to the dormitory so he decided to go for a walk in Hyde Park. As he was walking, Marco felt a slight breeze. Strange, he thought, because there was no wind tonight.

* * *

The ride in Aeolus' arms took only a few seconds. When he set her down on her feet in front of the apartment building in Pimlico, Heather felt a little light-headed.

"You okay?" Aeolus asked Heather through the Bluetooth hands-free. All six of them were on a conference call using the cellphones Apollo bought earlier.

"Yeah, just a little dizzy," Heather admitted.

"What did he tell you?" Zeus asked.

"He said the ritual will take place at Fountains Abbey tonight at eight."

"Where's that?" Zeus continued.

"He didn't tell me," Heather answered.

"Let me check," intervened Hera. "Fountains Abbey," she went on a minute later, "is in North Yorkshire. It's a five-hour drive from here."

"All right. Hera, start packing. We're leaving now," said Zeus just as his car pulled up in front of the apartment building. "Apollo, get hold of Athena. We're going to need her help. Tell her we need satellite surveillance of the area as soon as possible. And tell her to get in touch with that stubborn brother of mine and ask for his help once more."

As Heather entered the safe house, she saw a new face. In fact, it was the only face in the apartment, the two of them being the first ones to arrive. It was another man, tall, at least six feet, well-built and clean cut. He was wearing a military uniform, an American one, Heather recognized right away.

"Ares," said Aeolus, heading straight for the new man and hugging him.

They talked for a few minutes until the rest of them arrived. Some more hugging continued, but Zeus quickly broke it off and all of them were back to being serious and military.

Thirty minutes later, they were ready to leave. Artemis, Ares and Aeolus carried down the rest of the weapons, while Hera and Apollo cleaned the apartment until they were sure they'd left no trace behind. The first step was to reach their destination before sunrise, a task that would be easily achieved.

As they reached their cars downstairs, Apollo turned to Heather.

"I guess this is where we say goodbye," he told her. "I'm sorry that I've gotten you into this." He reached into his pocket and took out the passport Heather got from Athena and a few hundred euros. "Here. This should be enough to get you back to Rome."

She hesitantly reached for them.

What are you doing? You can't walk away now. You have to see this thing through. The first rule of journalism is always follow a story to the end. Besides, I can't let things end like this between us. We need a chance to talk after all this is over.

Heather pulled back her hand before she could take them.

"I want to go with you," she said. Heather could see the amazement on Apollo's face.

"Heather, you can't! It's dangerous," he protested.

"Did you forget I've been shot at more times than I can count? I want to see this thing through. I'll stay out of your way, I promise. You own me this much after dragging me into this whole thing."

"No!"

"Fine, then I'll just go to Westminster Abbey and start shouting about how you know about the location of the ritual until one of those believers catches me."

"Are you crazy?"

No, just bluffing.

"Are you sure you want to find out?"

"Fine," Apollo yielded. "Get into the car. But once we're there, you do exactly as I tell you."

Heather nodded and jumped into the car.

A minute later, the two Minis were driving away, leaving the safe house behind. The occupants of the two cars spent most off their road trip talking to one another and to Athena, going over the map of the area and developing a plan of attack. They didn't know how many guardians they were up against, and the area surrounding the old abbey was flat so finding a suitable sniping position for Artemis was impossible. The good news was that the surrounding forest ended within a few feet of the abbey on the north and south side, thus providing good cover for their approach.

"Okay," said Zeus after thoroughly studying the map, "here's what we do."

Fifteen minutes later, Zeus finished explaining the plan, which, if executed properly, would end with Judas' death.

# Chapter Sixteen

The mobile phone began to ring on the night stand next to him. As he picked it up, he first looked at the clock. It was almost morning. He groaned when he looked at the caller ID.

"This better be good, Lieutenant," the man said as soon as he answered.

"Sorry to wake you, Colonel Jameson," the voice on the other end of the line said, "but we were just contacted by Athena, and you said you wanted to be informed of it immediately."

"Go on!" The colonel was now out of bed and making his way toward the bathroom.

"Sir, she said that the ritual would take place at Fountains Abbey, tomorrow at 16:00."

"Do we know where that is?"

"It's in England, between Leeds and Middleborough. She gave us the coordinates, sir."

Colonel Jameson, who was no longer officially a colonel, since he'd left the military five years ago to join a private security company, was checking himself in the bathroom mirror. He was getting more and more worried about the ever-increasing dark circles around his eyes. His lack of sleep was getting to him.

"Good, I want a team and three choppers ready for the operation. Get everyone to the operations center now. We have a mission to plan. I'll be there in half an hour."

"Yes, sir."

"And, Lieutenant, get another team ready for Athena. I want to have her in custody before this whole thing goes down. It's time for her to be reunited with her boyfriend's daughter."

"Yes, sir. I'll get right on it," the voice said before the colonel ended the call.

He took one more look at his face in the mirror and then hopped into the shower. The cold water was the best way to wake himself up, better even than a cup of hot coffee. Ten minutes later, Colonel Jameson was dressed in his uniform and was leaving his apartment.

# Chapter Seventeen

Fountains Abbey, just outside the small city of Ripon, was surrounded by a forest, which, on the southern and northern part ended only a few feet away. The old abbey was fairly isolated, with only two farmhouses a few hundred feet away. The centuries had taken their toll, and now only the tall, eroded stone walls remained of the once mighty abbey. One of the largest and best preserved monasteries in England, it was named, in 1986, a Grade I UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Not far from the ruins, the site had an administrative building, much younger than the old stone walls, which hosted a restaurant, a shop, and, of course, the offices of the National Trust employees who worked there.

The two Minis arrived in Ripon about half an hour before sunrise, after a mad dash across the English motorways. While still on the road, the two drivers, Apollo and Zeus, decided that it was safer to leave the cars just outside the city and approach the old abbey on foot, so they parked on the western edge of Ripon as the stars disappeared, one by one, from the lightening dawn sky. As Apollo pulled over, Heather, who was sleeping on the backseat since they left London, woke up, startled.

"Time to go," he said as he turned off the engine. He and Artemis got out, and pulled his seat forward to allow Heather to exit. The occupants of the second Mini did the same.

"We need to get going if we want to get into position on time," said Zeus.

Without another word, he and Apollo pulled out two large duffel bags from the trunks. Even though the city looked completely abandoned at that hour, they couldn't risk being seen carrying heavy weaponry. Besides, in case something went wrong and they were caught by surprise by the guardians, they still had pistols tucked away on their waists.

The area between Ripon and Fountains Abbey was largely composed of wheat fields, separated by hedges, and forests, which provided perfect cover for a stealthy approach. They sprinted for the first treeline, only a couple of hundred feet away.

Heather wasn't exactly a morning person and after only four hours of sleep she still needed a big cup of coffee. At least until the adrenalin started kicking in. As they reached the first forest, Artemis, who had the best sight, took point, followed by Zeus and Hera. Heather was already starting to fall behind, but Apollo remained with her. As she entered the forest, she tripped on a root and fell.

"You all right?" he whispered as he helped her get up.

"I think I just twisted my right wrist."

"It's okay, I'll fix it."

He did and afterwards Apollo gently took her other hand and guided her through the rest of the forest. After a few hundred yards, they reached another field, and Heather was able to pick up the pace a little, but they were by now far behind everybody else and as hard as she tried, Heather was unable to match their speed. Apollo had to drag her across the field, managing in less than a minute. Zeus and the others stopped at the edge of the forest.

"This is where we split up," Zeus said once Apollo and Heather reached them.

He opened the two duffel bags and gave each of them, except Heather, one of the FAMAS and two mags.

"That's all the ammo we have, so make every shot count," he added. "And no calls unless absolutely necessary until fifteen minutes before 16:00."

Artemis also received the sniper rifle, though it wasn't likely that she could use it. After Zeus hid the two bags under a bush, they split into two groups: Apollo, Artemis and Heather went north, while Zeus, Hera, Ares and Aeolus went in the opposite direction.

* * *

They'd been waiting for almost ten hours now, at the edge of the treeline north of the ruins. Laying still on her front for such a long period of time, on the hard ground, had made Heather's skin and bones hurt like hell. A few hours later, she wanted to move, but as soon as she was starting to get up, Artemis brutally stopped her. She grabbed Heather by the hand and pulled her back down on the ground.

"Don't move," she whispered, "someone might see you."

Who that might be, Heather had no idea. Even though the ruins were an important tourist attraction in the area, she hadn't seen a single soul pass by since they'd gotten here. After what seemed like endless hours more, she was beginning the feel her body go numb. Pain was starting to go away, and, along with it, the feel of the cold, hard ground. It felt like she was floating. Unfortunately every time she tensed her muscles, the pain came right back stronger than before. On the other hand, Artemis and Apollo looked just fine, without even the slightest hint of pain on their faces.

The low buzzing sound of Apollo's vibrating phone made her twitch, bringing the pain back once more. He pressed the Answer button on the device, and Artemis and Heather followed suit.

"Get ready, here they come!" Zeus told them.

As Artemis and Apollo made a final check of their weapons, Heather began to shake uncontrollably, once again bringing back the pain in her chest and abdomen. Then adrenaline kicked in and the pain disappeared just as fast.

The long waiting hours now felt like only fractions of a second, compared to the speed time was running now.

"Shit," Zeus' voice thundered in the earpiece. "Athena isn't picking up."

"Do we fall back?" asked Artemis.

"No, we go ahead as planned," answered Zeus.

Just as Apollo, Artemis and Heather were ready to move to their designated attack positions, another voice thundered over the ear-piece.

"It's a trap," Ares shouted. Three loud gunshots from the same direction.

"Fall back!" Zeus shouted.

Heather got up and turned back, just in time to see a weapon butt coming straight at her face. A fraction of a second later, she felt the hard blow and passed out.

* * *

When she woke up, Heather didn't know how long she'd been out or what had happened. She was lying on the ground, but the earth was far grassier than where she'd been hiding, and the light brighter, as if there were no trees. Then she felt it, the copper taste of blood in her mouth. Heather tried to touch her face but she couldn't.

Both her hands were tightly tied up behind her back. She tried to free them but in vain. As she tried to get up, she felt a hand grabbing her hair from behind and pulling so hard the pain was almost unbearable. The hand let go as soon as she was up on her knees.

As she looked around, she realized that she'd been carried to the middle of the inner yard of the old abbey ruins. And it was filled with armed guardians, who were surrounding her in a circle, twenty feet away. To her right, Apollo, Artemis and the others were on their knees as well, each of them closely watched by guardians. Only Ares was down on the ground, still unconscious, with a puddle of blood underneath his left shoulder.

"Are you all right?" asked Apollo.

His question was rewarded by a hard blow with the back of the guardian's pistol in his right ear, which sent him to the ground.

"Silence!" shouted the guardian.

Apollo slowly got back on his knees. As he did, Heather only nodded her head yes, afraid that her reply might have the same consequences.

* * *

Marco and the other chosen ones had been recalled to the abbey's administrative building just as they were approaching the ruins. None of the guardians who were escorting them said anything, but Marco guessed this could only mean one thing, that their plan had failed and that he'd soon be discovered as well.

As he entered the inner courtyard of the old abbey, his worst fear was confirmed. All of the gods were on their knees in the middle of the cloister. Each was watched by a guardian, standing just four feet behind them, holding pistols to their heads. Some more guardians, about fifty, by Marco's count, were spread around in a wide circle, all of them armed with Uzis. They were guided near the middle of the courtyard as well, less than twenty feet away from the captives. Marco tried to look as calm as possible, but inside he was as scared as ever. Sweat was beading on his forehead and nape. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, ready to explode. He took a deep breath to steady his heart rate. It didn't do the trick.

"Are you all right, brother?" the chosen one next to him asked.

"Yes, just a little nervous. I have been preparing my whole life for this moment. Emotions just got the best of me."

# Chapter Eighteen

The blow to the back of Apollo's head had cut his skin but the small wound healed itself very quickly. Now came the hard part. The handcuffs were too tightly wrapped around his wrists for him to break free. Apollo first had to break the bones in his wrist, and then use the handcuffs to shatter them to the point where his hand could slide out of the restraints, without the guardians behind him seeing a thing.

He focused his mind for a few moments, until he could feel his bones' toughness turning into that of glass. Now all he needed was an excuse to fall on his back and quickly free his hand. Just as he thought of how to do it, the recruits entered the courtyard. Apollo spotted Marco, but averted his eyes in an instant. It took him only a fraction of a second to see just how scared Marco was. As the ten recruits lined up in from of him, a few feet away, he took his shot.

"You are all fools. They have deceived you," he shouted. Apollo wanted to say more, but his outburst was awarded by another hard blow, this one straight into his left ear. Perfect, he thought. Apollo fell on his right side and then straight on his back. The guardian bent down to pick Apollo up but by that time, it was all done. Just as he hit the ground, he forced his hand out of the handcuffs, breaking his Trapezium, Radius and thumb metacarpals in the process. As he was raised back on his knees, he slid his hand back into the handcuff, without anyone noticing anything had happened. Now all he had to do was find the guardian with the keys and wait for the right time to act.

* * *

As strong as she had been so far, Heather knew she was starting to lose it. She regretted that she'd insisted upon coming along. Looking slightly sideways, moving her head just barely, she saw the impassible faces of the others. They were as calm as ever, with no signs fear or anger on their faces. They weren't even worried about Ares, who was lying on the ground next to them, with blood gushing out of his shoulder.

The first time she met them, just a few days ago, in that apartment in Rome, with Hep lying dead on the living room table, they were different, emotional. Crying, shouting angrily because they had just lost a loved one. But not now, even though they were close to losing somebody else. This, Heather thought, could only mean one thing. All of them, Apollo, Artemis, Hera, Zeus and Aeolus were trying to find a way out of this.

The thought of this gave Heather back some much-needed strength. Would they succeed? What should she do? Just stand here, with her hands tied behind her back, just watching? No, she needed to find a way to be useful. But how? Remembering all those movies and books, she decided she needed to thoroughly analyze the situation.

She lifted her head, slowly, and looked around, carefully studying the guardians surrounding them. Heather saw how all of them were bowing their heads. Next, two more guardians entered the courtyard through the north entrance, followed by a man in his early sixties, in cardinal's red. He was followed by another man, in a white robe, exactly like that of the chosen ones, but wearing a hood over his head. That must be the one they were after, Judas, Heather thought, just as he walked to the middle of the courtyard along with the other three. He took his hood off, and stared for a few seconds at the chosen ones, then at Heather and the rest of their captives. By now, all of the guardians were raising their heads.

"After centuries of trials, the day has finally come," Judas finally said in a thick voice. "The day we finally rid this Earth of all its evil and the day we start cleansing mankind of all its sins. But first, let's take a moment to remember our brothers who sacrificed themselves in the fight. They are in a better place now, and thanks to them, we can finally bring Heaven on Earth." He took a few stepstoward Heather and the rest. "For thousands of years, these demons before us have plagued the Earth with death and suffering. But no more. Today we send them back to that dark place from which they came. Unfortunately, we will not send them alone," he said, turning to the chosen ones. "Their evil has spread so much that one of our own has fallen into temptation." He paused. "The location of this ceremony was known only by a few people, most of them being here right now," he said."Bring him to me," he ordered.

As he saw the finger pointing at him, Marco froze. The two chosen one standing beside him grabbed his arms and moved him forward, toward Judas, throwing him down at the latter's feet. As he got up, Marco was grabbed by the neck and raised off the ground, his feet dangling in the air a few inches from the earth below. The grip was so hard that Marco felt his neck would snap.

As he started to suffocate, Marco, along with the everyone, started hearing a strange sound, low at first, but increasing with each passing second. A few moments later, they found out where it was coming from.

Three Sikorsky MH-60S Nighthawk helicopters appeared from the north and surrounded the old abbey. As soon as they stopped, only fifty feet above the ground, the cargo bay doors opened and men with machine guns opened fire, before anyone in the courtyard could react. The spray of bullets caught everyone by surprise. The first two guns opened fire at the guardians forming the circle, killing four of them. The third one fired a line of bullets across the center of the courtyard. The first three bullets hit the guardian behind Heather, killing him. The guardian fell like a sack of potatoes on top of her.

The next target would have been Judas. Although caught by surprise too, he was able to react in time. Still holding Marco by the neck, he used the chosen one as a human shield. Four bullets entered Marco's back, killing the young man on the spot.

Less than five seconds had passed since the men in the helicopters opened fire on the courtyard. By now, the remaining guardians were returning fire while trying to find less exposed places to fire from. As they did, more men, dressed like soldiers, were zip-lining out of the three Sikorsky. The Uzi was a good weapon, but only from a short distance. Although all the guardians were expert marksmen, most of the bullets missed their targets by quite some margin. Even so, they managed to hit three of the men who were zip-lining.

# Chapter Nineteen

It was Apollo's time to act. The guardian behind him, who was also carrying the keys to the handcuffs, was turning his back on his hostage and aiming his pistol at the closest chopper. Apollo freed his hand, turned, and jumped on the guardian, taking him down. The impact threw the gun from his hand, which Apollo quickly grabbed with his now healed hand and shot him in the head from point blank.

The sound of the close gunshot made the other guardian tasked with watching the prisoners turn. He was able to rotate only halfway before two shots coming from Apollo's pistol entered his head, right above the ear. Apollo took a few seconds to look around and make sure there was no immediate threat, before grabbing the keys. Apollo first uncuffed Aeolus, and gave him the keys while he went to try to heal Ares. But the extent of the damage was too severe and all Apollo could do, for now, was close the wound and stop the bleeding. It was a hard task, which drained most of Apollo's power. He would need to take Ares to a safe place to heal him completely.

* * *

Up until that moment, Heather thought that Aeolus' ability was to just run fast. It turned out that she was wrong. His hands moved just as fast as his feet. Only a few seconds after he was freed, Aeolus had uncuffed all of them. The last one to be released was Hera. As Aeolus finished freeing her hands, she got up, but was immediately sent to the ground by two stray bullets. Apollo quickly jumped next to her and started checking for the wounds. The bullets hit her one in each leg, just above the knees. He placed his hands on both wounds and tried to heal them.

"I can't do it all the way," he said a few seconds later. "I'm too weak from healing Ares."

"We need to get them both out of here," said Zeus, now standing right next to Apollo. "Aeolus, Heather, I need you both to get them and take them to the woods south of here, as close to the farm as you can. Then go and get the cars there as well."

"Right," said Aeolus. "Heather, you take Hera, and I'll take Ares."

"Apollo, Artemis," Zeus continued, "you come with. We need to end this once and for all." He grabbed the gun from the second guardian Apollo had killed and motioned Artemis to do the same with the third.

By now, some of the guardians noticed their escape and opened fire on them, but the guns' poor accuracy at long distance made the bullets go wide. Not so for Artemis. She grabbed the gun off the ground and chambered the first round. Quickly looking around, she made a body count of the remaining guardians.

Ten were left in the courtyard. She aimed the pistol at the closest guardian and shot. The bullet hit its target right where she wanted, between the eyes, and the guardian dropped dead. Artemis continued to shoot until she emptied the clip. Six rounds later, four more guardians were down—two of the six at which she'd aimed had been dropped by one of the helicopters' shots before her bullets could reach their heads.

"I'm out," she shouted to Apollo and Zeus.

Her father threw her his other gun, which sheused to take out the last remaining guardian in the courtyard. By now, Aeolus was picking up Ares' heavy body as Heather did the same with Hera's much lighter one. Although he was carrying an extra 220 pounds, Aeolus was still faster than any normal human being, and maybe even a guardian. With Ares in his arms, he left the courtyard through the south exit, which led into yet another cloister, much smaller than the first. This one also had what was not only an empty door frame—a door centuries ago when the abbey wasn't just an old ruin tourists came to visit—which led straight into the forest. As he reached the trees, Aeolus continued to run for another hundred feet, close to the other edge of the forest and leaned Ares against one of the trees.

"Hang on, brother," Aeolus whispered to him before he doubled back to the courtyard.

When he reached the ruins, Heather was just about to exit the courtyard and enter the second cloister. He took Hera's motionless body from her, and told her where to go. Seconds later, he was back to the tree where he left Ares, placing Hera next to him. Less than a minute later, Heather arrived as well. She ran as fast as she could and now she was gasping for air.

"Get your hands up and don't move," a voice behind her shouted, catching both Heather and Aeolus by surprise. They both did as instructed.

"Now turn around," the voice said again.

They both complied and as they turned, they saw two of the soldiers standing just a few feet behind Heather, with the weapons pointed at them.

"We've got two of them in the woods, a hundred feet south of the abbey," one of them said into his radio. "Roger," he added a few seconds later. "On your knees, now," he shouted to his two prisoners.

For Aeolus, it was time to act. He started bending his knees, but instead of kneeling, in the blink of an eye he darted to the side of the first soldier. Aeolus took the combat knife from the soldier's leg strap and stabbed him in the neck. Before the soldier could react, which he did a second later, by trying to stop the fatal bleeding, Aeolus had already moved beside the second one, inflicting another deadly neck wound. The first soldier's last act before he died was to squeeze the trigger on his weapon, just enough to release a three-round burst. The first two bullets missed Aeolus by inches, ending up in a tree trunk a few feet away. But Aeolus wasn't so lucky with the third shot, the bullet piercing his lower abdomen. The pain quickly surged through his body, and Aeolus fell to the ground, right between his two victims.

It took Heather a few seconds to comprehend what had happened. As soon as she did, she jumped to her feet and hurried to check up on Aeolus.

"Aeolus, are you all right?" she screamed as she leaned down to him.

"It hurts like hell, but I think I'll be all right." Slowly, with Heather's help, he got up, his left hand covering the wound.

"Let me have a look at it," she went on.

"It's fine." He smiled. "It's only a scratch." Aeolus refused to take his hand off his abdomen.

The sound of the three shots awoke Hera, who was now struggling to stand up, with the help of the tree she was leaning on. She was too weak to do so—she stood only halfway before she and fell back to the ground, screaming as she hit the earth. Her shout startled Aeolus and Heather, who were unaware of her endeavor. As they were leaning over her, Heather heard a branch snap behind her. The first thing that came to her mind was that another soldier, or maybe more, made his way to them after hearing the gunshots. In a blink of an eye, she jumped toward one of the two dead soldiers, grabbed his gun and awkwardly rolled to a prone position, pointing the weapon toward the general direction of the sound.

What she saw before her eyes was a tall and dark man, who looked more like a biker than a professional soldier. He looked to be in his early twenties, bald, with a tattoo that covered half his face, and dressed in black leather pants and jacket. He too had a gun, a pistol, what model Heather couldn't tell, and it was pointed at her. Both of them froze still, with their weapons pointed at each other, but refusing to shoot.

Aeolus also turned to face the new attacker, who was now shifting his aim between the two. Before he could act and take him out as he did with the soldiers, another sound came from a nearby bush, followed by the sound of a voice.

"Put your weapon down. They're the good guys," the voice said. A few seconds later, just as the young man lowered his gun, the man behind the voice appeared.

"Hades," Aeolus said with relief. "What are you doing here?"

"Athena called me last night, told me you were here and that you needed help. I have to admit, at first I wanted to have nothing to do with this anymore, but you're my family and I can't leave you like this."

As Hades was talking, a dozen more men came out of the bushes or behind the trees, all of them looking almost exactly like the onen who only seconds ago had his gun pointed at Heather: young, dressed in black leather outfits, bald headed and, of course, armed.

"Who are they?" asked Aeolus.

"They are my little army. I figured if the enemy has one, we should have one too," Hades replied with a grin.

"Are they what I think they are? Hades, I thought we all agreed that you should not use your power to create our own believers."

"You should be glad I did. Otherwise, you would all be dead," Hades snapped.

"Dammit, Hades," Aeolus shouted, but then lowered his voice, knowing this could give away their position, "you know what, forget it. There's no point in fighting about this right now. The others need help. They're still in the old abbey. They went after Judas."

"And who are the soldiers?" Hades asked, pointing at the two dead men on the ground.

"I don't know what happened. Three helicopters appeared out of nowhere and these guys came out of them. Started shooting at everyone, us and the believers. We got a few of them but I have no idea how many more are left. Ares and Hera were shot, so we had to get them somewhere safe. Heather and I were supposed to go get our cars but I got shot so I can't carry her anymore."

Hades and Hera traded looks and in the end the former nodded. Without a word, he rushed to Heather, grabbed her and took her next to Hera. Taken by surprise, she was too stunned to figure out what was happening. But Aeolus did and tried to stop it by throwing himself on Hades. The latter brushed him aside with ease.

"Hold him," he told one of his soldiers. The young man grabbed Aeolus and dragged him a few feet away.

Heather was now within Hera's reach and the woman grabbed her hand with both of hers. That's when Hades let go of Heather and backed off a couple of feet. Hera closed her eyes and focused. At first, Heather didn't feel anything but then a strange warmth spanned from her hand into her whole body. At first, it was a pleasant sensation but soon enough it started to burn really hard. When she felt she couldn't withstand it anymore, Hera released Heather and closed her eyes for the last time, while Heather fell to the ground, huddling her body in a desperate attempt to fight off the pain.

"No," Aeolus shouted, not caring if he would be heard by the soldiers or not. He freed himself from the young man's hold and jumped to Hera's side, who he began to desperately shake. "Hera, wake up!" he shouted again. "You son of a bitch, you killed her!" he said to Hades, who was now pulling a knife from the second soldier's dead body.

He used the blade to make a deep cut in his right palm, which he then put on Heather's face, while he used the left to hold her hair and immobilize Heather's head.

"Drink!" he ordered her. She refused and shook her head. "Drink if you want to have a chance to live through this." Finally, she obeyed him.

As she sucked on his palm, she could feel the warm blood enter her mouth. Its metallic taste immediately hit her, and she was about to throw up before she could swallow. After a few moments of struggling with herself, she gulped down a mouthful of blood before Hades removed his hand. She fell back on the ground where she curled into a fetal position. The pain was back, worse than before, surging through her whole body.

"Why did you do that?" Aeolus asked resignedly. He wanted to jump Hades and punch him, but he knew he didn't have the strength. It would take all of his remaining power to go and get the cars back to the others.

"To save all of you, you fool," Hades snarled back. "Look at you! You barely have the strength to stand up straight. Now she's your best hope of getting out of here alive."

"All but Hera," Aeolus sighed.

"Did you at least look at her?" Hades snapped back. "She was already as good as dead. Five more minutes, and she would have been gone." He looked at Heather, who was now slowly getting up. "You okay?" he asked in a softer voice. She nodded. "Good. Now go, get the cars. We'll bring everyone to the end of the forest south of here, a hundred feet that way." He pointed into that direction. "There's a road that leads there."

Heather was now back up on her feet, trying to wipe away the blood left on her face. The pain was still there, slowly diminishing but bearable. A few feet in front of her, Aeolus signaled with his hand the direction they should go, then he started running, but only a little faster than a normal human. She quickly followed him. It took her a while to realize that she felt much lighter on her feet than usual. Then she noticed that although Aeolus had a few seconds head start, she was catching up to him, to the one people referred to as the God of Wind two thousand years ago. Her heart rate was much faster as well. What other superpowers had she gained?

# Chapter Twenty

By now, Artemis, Apollo and Zeus were out of the old ruins as well, chasing the man they had come here to kill. Getting to him wasn't an easy thing to do. Passing through another cloister to get to the exit, they encountered more soldiers, who went down as soon as Artemis opened fire on them. Now, thanks to those kills, all three of them were armed and equipped with enough ammo to kill three times as many enemies as faced them. The hard part was to stay hidden from the soldiers in the choppers, who were shooting at almost everything that moved.

Just as they left the abbey, Zeus caught a glimpse of their target. It looked as though he'd first headed to the administrative building, but that meant running a few hundred feet in open space, under fire from two helicopters. Instead, he entered the small forest north of the ruins, which ran all the way to the other building.

"Into the forest," Zeus shouted to his two children, while pointing to where his target was just a few seconds ago.

The three of them weren't the only ones following him, they found out a few seconds later. As they entered the treeline, they could see six more soldiers a few feet ahead of them running toward the target. Artemis stopped and crouched, with the other two doing the same.

"I got the one on the left," she told the others. "Apollo, take the middle, and Dad, right."

The three of them aimed and squeezed the trigger almost simultaneously. Artemis's target moved just a fraction of a second after she pulled the trigger, to avoid a tree, and the three-round burst missed him by inches. Apollo's target did the same. Still, one of the bullets pierced his left shoulder, making him lose balance and drop to the ground.

Zeus was luckier. His target kept running in a straight line and all three bullets hit him in his upper back, stopping in his Kevlar vest, but knocking him to the ground. The two soldiers that fell to the ground, plus one more, ducked behind the trees and returned fire, while the other three continued their chase for the common target.

As the three soldiers opened fire, Artemis, Zeus and Apollo jumped behind the closest trees they could find.

"Artemis," Zeus shouted, "Apollo and I will keep them busy. You go around and take them out."

She nodded and the two of them started firing at the soldiers. As soon as the enemy ducked behind cover, Artemis sprinted to her left. It took her about a minute to go around them, running at first, then slower as she got close. After she reached a good vantage point, from where she could see all three of them, Artemis crouched and aimed.

The first soldier to go down was the farthest one, having been hit by three rounds in the face as he was changing his clip. Five seconds later, before the other two realized what happened, the second one went down with a bullet in the back of his neck. By now, the last soldier, the one who Apollo wounded, was turning and shooting at her. Although he looked like a pro, his first burst left his weapon before he could aim and the bullets missed Artemis by a foot. Her shots did not miss, and she shouted at Zeus and Apollo.

The three of them were picking up the pace again, running as fast as they could, while keeping a close eye at their backs and flanks. They ran for about a hundred yards before they stumbled upon another fire fight. From what Artemis could see, their target and the believers were pinned between two groups of soldiers, one standing right at the end of the treeline, only a few feet away from the administration building, and the rest of the group that Artemis took out just seconds ago.

"We need to split up and go around them," Zeus said after Artemis told everyone what she could see. "Artemis, you stay on this side, and Apollo and I will go around and attack the soldiers from behind. Shoot at everyone but Judas. He's mine!"

The two of them nodded, but before they could split up, another group joined the firefight.

"I think I see Hades, surrounded by what looks like some bikers with guns," she said, after looking toward where the new gunshot sounds were coming from. "They're coming from the south side."

"What the..." Zeus paused for a second. "All right, change of plans. We take them on from this side. Just remember, he's mine."

By now, both the soldiers and the believers were firing on Hades' group as well as each other's. Because both groups were taken by surprise, they suffered some losses. Hades' men managed to kill two believers and one soldier before they had to find cover behind trees, in order to avoid getting shot as well. Artemis, Apollo and Zeus also caught them by surprise and took out the three soldiers standing between them and the believers.

One by one, the believers were starting to fall, being the targets of gunfire coming from three directions. When only three were left standing, Judas and the cardinal took off in the only direction bullets weren't coming from. Zeus saw them and followed, while ordering Artemis and Apollo to stay there and provide him cover fire.

Unknown to him, Hades was right behind. He was trying to reach Judas but, as soon as he saw Zeus taking off, Hades sprinted as well. After less than a hundred feet of running, Zeus was only a few yards behind his target. He stopped, aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. Before the bullet could reach his target, the cardinal unknowingly placed himself in its trajectory and the round pierced his upper back, sending the man to the ground. The sound of the gunshot, which was closer than the rest he could hear, made Judas stop in his tracks and turn to see Zeus standing right in front of him, with his MP-10 raised.

Without a word, Zeus aimed for his head and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. He pushed it again, with the same result. During the mad firefight, Zeus forgot to count the number of shots fired and now he stood right in front of the man he had been trying to find for centuries with an empty gun and no spare clip. Seeing this, Judas didn't waste any time and darted at Zeus. The latter threw his empty weapon at him, but Judas dodged it and as soon as he reached his target, he grabbed his enemy by his neck, raising him off the ground.

Zeus quickly realized that his strength was no match for Judas's. The last thing he saw was the mad smile on the face of his arch enemy. Judas snapped his neck and threw him on the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Hades helplessly watched the scene from only a few feet away, while he was still running to lend a hand to his brother. As soon as he saw Zeus being thrown on the ground, he raised his weapon and aimed. Unknown to any of them, a few feet on his right, concealed by a large tree, were two soldiers who, seeing Judas flee, followed him as well. The two men opened fire before he could.

Their spray of bullets caught Judas off guard and all of their eighteen bullets they let loose in a fraction of a second hit their target in the chest, neck and face. Judas was dead before he hit the ground. As he did, Hades was still holding his gun aimed but instead of firing he quietly made two steps toward a tree and hid behind it. From behind cover, he saw the two soldiers go up to the dead body, which they picked up.

As soon as he saw that the two of them let go of their weapons to carry it, Hades jumped out of cover and shot off two rounds. Both hit their targets, the heads of the two men. Hades waited a few more seconds, during which he made sure no one else was close, before heading to Zeus. He checked his brother's pulse. There wasn't any. He spent three more seconds over the dead body before he got up and started running toward Artemis and Apollo. He stopped after only a few yards and turned around, now heading for the cardinal. He leaned over him and checked for a pulse, finding a weak one. Hades lingered for another moment, checking the area near him, before he picked up the body and headed back.

He reached Artemis and Apollo two minutes later. The two of them were still engaging the remaining targets, one believer and five soldiers, but were almost out of ammo. He dropped the body of the cardinal behind them.

"Apollo," he said. "I need you to heal him."

Apollo didn't know that Hades followed Zeus and Judas so before he turned he assumed that one of his uncle's men was hit. As he looked down on the cardinal, he startled.

"Who's this?"

"Dammit, we don't have time for questions. You need to heal him and then we must get out of here," Hades went on.

"But what about Dad?"

"I'll explain everything once we're safe. Now do it!" Hades shouted. Apollo followed his instructions and a few seconds later Hades could feel how the cardinal's pulse was picking up. "Let's go! Follow me!"

"What happened to Zeus?" Artemis asked.

Hades was already running as she asked, with Apollo right on his tail. She fired three more shots in the general direction of the soldiers, jumped to her feet, and followed them.

Following Hades' lead, they headed south, to where Heather and Aeolus should have waited for them with the cars. It didn't take long before they were out of the northern forest and into the open. One of the two helicopters was now landed in front of the administration building and the second one nowhere in sight. They remained unseen as they reached the other tree line and, under the cover of the thick canopy above, they kept running unseen.

As planned, the two cars were waiting for them at the designated rendezvous point, less than a hundred yards from where the tree line ended. But Heather was beside the opened driver's door of the second car, leaning into the vehicle.

"What's wrong?" Apollo asked her once they reached the cars.

"I think he's dead," she answered, with tears in her eyes. "When we got back here everything was fine, but when I went to pick up Ares and get him in the car," she pointed toward the backseat of the other Mini, "I found him like this."

"Move!" He pushed her aside and leaned into the car, where Aeolus was sitting with his head resting on the steering wheel. Apollo checked his pulse but couldn't find one. He kicked the side of the car as hard as he could. "He's dead."

Hades moved him aside and tossed Aeolus' body out of the car.

"What are you doing?" Artemis asked with a shocked voice.

"We're still not safe, we need to get out of here now."

"What about Dad? We can't just leave him," she cried.

"He's dead, all right? Judas snapped his neck. And Hera's dead too. Now get into the other car and let's move!"

The news hit Artemis and Apollo like a rock. Both of them could feel their bodies freezing up.

Artemis started to cry. "But..."

"No buts! Dammit, get into the car now!" Hades shouted as hard as he could. As he did so, he pulled the driver's seat forward and threw the cardinal's limp body on the backseat.

"We should at least go back and get their bodies. Give them a proper burial," said Apollo.

"There's no time for that," Hades yelled. "Not unless you want to end up like them. Now get your asses into that car and let's go!"

Before Artemis could argue, they heard the sound of an approaching helicopter. By now, Hades had straightened the driver's seat and was ready to enter the car.

"Heather, you come with me," Hades said with a calmer voice. She nodded and ran around the car, getting in on the passenger's side.

The pilot had spotted them and was now heading toward the two cars.

"Do you have any rounds left?" Artemis asked Hades. In reply, he threw her the gun and turned the ignition key, starting the engine.

Apollo was doing the same with the second Mini, while opening the passenger's door for Artemis. Before she got in, she aimed her MP-10 at the helicopter and shot her last five rounds. They all went wide. Next, she took Hades' weapon and emptied the clip at the incoming chopper. Two of the twelve rounds hit their target, the helicopter's windshield, and seconds later the aircraft was turning away. Although Artemis and the rest couldn't see it, the helicopter was heading toward the other one in order to land. The pilot was badly wounded, and he couldn't risk blacking out while still in the air.

"What now?"Artemis asked before she got into the car.

"We hide," Hades answered. "We need to find a safe place to hide and figure out what we need to do next. This thing isn't over yet."

With that, he closed his door and drove off, with Apollo following him, first back into Ripon and then on the highway that would lead them back to London. In her seat, Heather kept looking out the window, reliving in her mind everything that had happened in the past few minutes. It all led up to one conclusion. It was too late to go back to her life. Now, she was as involved as the rest of them and the only way out was to see this thing through.

Hi,

Thank you for buying and reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please mention it to your friends the next time the "what books have you read recently" topic comes up. Also, I'd really appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes of your time and write a review on the retailer's website. This way you'll help my story reach more people.

If you want to read more, you should go to my website where I regularly post short stories from the Forgotten Pantheon universe. Just go to www.forgottenpantheon.com.

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Alex

