Chapter Thirty-Five

Zeus looked down at us: he was not only tall, but disdainful and arrogant as well, the same dominance that oozed off of Alecto burst out of his form. He clearly thought there were better ways to waste his time than waging war against all of the Underworld, but hey, even the king of the gods has to do things he doesn't want to, right?

Piercing blue eyes glared out over the gathered forces, both in favor of and against him; all those who congregated on the riverbank were recipients of his ire.

He held a large staff in his right hand, one end resting on the soil of the riverbank. "Where is Hector, the pretender on the throne of my brother?" his voice thundered over our heads and was met with complete silence.

No one said a word. Not the army of Hades who had, just a moment ago, roared its enthusiasm for bloodshed. There once stood an army of beast and man to inspire nightmares, ready to take on an omnipotent enemy with infinite power. Zeus so quickly shattered that illusion.

I wondered where Ares, the replacement Ares, was. Did the Olympians exclude him as they had Hector, the replacement Hades? Did they despise Ares' new body as much as they did Hades' or were the Olympians simply prone to loathe Hades, as was their terrible habit?

Suddenly the world dropped away from my feet. No; Alecto had flung her powerful wings into the air and pushed off of the ground. She hovered majestically over the armies of both sides, assessing the enemy.

At least I think she was majestic. I wouldn't know: my worldview was a bit skewed from the limited vision I was privy to. I rather imagined her small and weak, hovering above the giants in her borrowed body.

Hold your tongue.

I grinned an invisible grin. Getting under her skin was easier than I thought. No pun intended.

When Alecto peered down at the ground and the armies below her, she was greeted with a fortuitous sight: Zeus and the Olympians had not brought an army half as large as that of the Underworld. They were outmatched; if numbers alone would win wars, the Underworld would revel in victory.

There was the River Styx and just on the opposite bank stood the army of Olympus. On our side was a mammoth gathering of misfits and beasts, some with multiple heads, some with wings, others looking ordinary and human, standing in the shadow of the fortress. It rose so far into the air that it touched the rocky ceiling of the realm, hundreds of feet above our heads. The only thing separating the ragtag bunch of creatures from the Olympians was the River, bubbling along, thick and ominous. It flowed excitedly, a living entity, like it knew we would be feeding it our dead to carry on to their next journey.

"You don't need him, Zeus. We are here, ready, why does it matter where he hides?" Alecto called out to Zeus. Until she spoke, he had made a show of not noticing her. Once she dared to open her mouth against him, he would never forget her face.

My face.

"He is the traitor here, at best he should have courage enough to face me," Zeus gripped his great staff and raised it to plunge the end deeply into the ground. A wall of light burst from the soil where the staff punctured it, starting at the point of perforation, creating a line across the ground between the two armies. It stood, a solid wall of light that rippled through the air, and then it was gone at quickly as it had come into being.

"There is no need for theatrics, Zeus," Hector's voice boomed out over the riverbank. "I have no need to hide from you, now or ever."

Alecto whipped my head around so quickly it nearly twisted away from my neck. Hector launched himself off of a balcony on one of the levels of the fortress behind us. I never knew there were balconies—or windows to get to the balconies for that matter—in the fortress of the Underworld. Apparently there was a lot I didn't know. It bothered me.

His feet hit the ground lightly before he strode out to the front of the army, walking beneath the air where Alecto hovered. Lindsay just inches behind, ever ready to stand at his side.

His eyes were for Zeus alone; those dark irises against the blaze of blue across the river.

Had he always been that tall? Hector seemed colossal in the midst of the men of his arm, as tall as Zeus. When did that happen?

It was his face that I had been dying to see, his quiet assurance that this was where I needed to be. I waited for him to look up at me, to see me. To know that Alecto—on whom he had been waiting, for whom he had been searching all this time—had started this. Not me.

He would have to know it wasn't me.

His gaze never waivered from his brother-god. I wanted to scream at him, to rush to his side and force him to look at me.

My eyes flicked back to Zeus, the enemy, and Alecto's hatred of Zeus only grew when she realized that neither god deigned to pay her attention.

Did you do this all for attention, Alecto?

She gave up the scowl in place of a grin with too many teeth; my teeth under her transformation felt sharp against my lips.

Looks who's talking. He never wanted you, little girl. It was me he truly desired, and when he learned the truth, he didn't even want that anymore. You, Autumn, mean nothing to anyone. Alecto's voice rang in my head. Outside of my entrapment, the army of Hades shifted their attention between Hector and Alecto, still in the air, to lead them; I could not see them but the shuffle was palpable. An awkward silence of eternal proportions. Alecto, who was meant to lead them into battle, watched only Zeus.

Just watching them on the other side of the River made her prickly. The wings protruding from my back flapped every once in a while, keeping us afloat with a steady rhythm, but that was the only stable thing about Alecto.

Her anger roiled in my stomach. I could feel it churning like the River below us. Fire materialized in her hands and petered out; appeared and was gone; again and again. She gritted my teeth, the new slightly sharper points scraping against my tongue

Below us, unaware, Hector and Zeus threw words from riverbank to riverbank.

"The Nectar will be restored to the gardens of Olympus, in which it rightfully belongs. You know where it is. Return it and your life will be spared," Zeus lied smoothly.

Hector let out a sharp laugh. "You yet assume that I have it in my possession. He who stole your prize from under your haughty nose is not on my battlefield. You know this as well as I; you must think me much more stupid than I had anticipated, and I was allowing you leeway." Hector bent into a low, mocking bow. "Forgive me, brother, it won't happen again."

Gone was the exhaustion I had come to fear in him. Here was a man—a god—willing to risk it all with a few petty words.

Zeus was not to be played with, it would seem. His face betrayed no signs of emotion at all. Unlike Ares, who could be goaded into a fight, Zeus stood safely behind his blurry-invisible wall of light. He had not a care in the world—certainly not Hector and his massive army.

Hector opened his mouth to speak again and Alecto shot from the air forceful as a bullet and landed forcefully behind him, kicking up dust clouds. Hector turned, finally looking at me, and frowned.

Alecto had been right: he didn't want me here.

He had never wanted me; none of them had. Not Jasper, who did in fact want to eat me but not how I feared; not Lindsay, who wanted Hector to herself; not Alex, who followed the strongest Fury; not Hector, who looked at me now with revulsion. He hadn't wanted me at all, only the power I could bring him.

Not that Hector's desires mattered to her. She strode passed Hector to assert herself just in front of him, as a higher rank than the lord of the Underworld.

Declaring herself the head of the army. Declaring herself better than Hades, equal to both he and Zeus.

"You won't find the ambrosia here, for it is safe—far from you and your Olympian ilk. I orchestrated your downfall and you have no choice but to watch it happen."

Villains and their need to gloat, I thought, unable to stop myself.

Several things happened at once. Hector whipped his hand impossibly fast to grasp Alecto's forearm; with her free arm, Alecto ignored him and signaled behind her; winged women from the army behind us stepped forward and hurled bloody daggers at the invisible wall; Zeus's composed mask dropped away to reveal a vindictive god as the wall of light proved easily broken, not the protective shield it had seemed.

Ares wasn't the only one weakened; Zeus hadn't been protecting his army, he had been hiding behind his display of power.

The wall cracked at each place where a dagger struck it. Pieces broke away and fell like slivers of a ruined mirror, shattered into nothingness when they hit the ground.

It was the Harpies who attacked first, carrying a chorus of screams with them. They were met in the air above the River by the Olympian's winged beasts, griffons and Pegasi. They fell in pairs, landing with a sickly squelch in the River.

Upon contact they struggled against the pull of the murky water and succumbed to the powerful suction of the pathway of the dead. Both disappeared beneath the water's surface; neither came up for air.

A Harpy met the same fate with a screech that cut off abruptly as she hit the River. A griffon fell with a dagger in its throat; Styx swallowed him cleanly. One Harpy made her way to the crumbling light wall around the Olympians and though it burned her, tore a shriek from her body, she made it through in one piece.

All around me people and creatures and gods were throwing weapons, punches, and magic across the River. The human souls created a bridge over the water and creatures without wings were taking the battle to the Olympians. Alecto roared and took flight with the army as it charged, wings carrying her over the sickening water.

She took my body into the brutal fighting. I did not appreciate it, especially being a useless observer, but I trusted her to get me out in one piece. She needed my body; she wasn't about to let it get broken in battle.

I found that I still cared about getting through this alive. My whole purpose, the meaning of my existence and my imaginary importance, had been ripped from me, but I wasn't about to give up my body. Not to Alecto.

Through her eyes I watched winged women dive and snatch at the Olympian army, no longer hindered by the light wall. Throwing men, colliding with shields, leaving deep gouges in their armor, drawing blood with their talons. There was a reason that "harpy" meant "that which snatches". Alecto glanced at them with pride before she was overcome with the enemy and we could no longer see them.

I could not see Hector from this side of the River. If I could have been anywhere, I would be by his side. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to get a vote.

A heavily armored Olympian charged us. Alecto ducked beneath his incoming sword and sunk her claws into his leg. Without hesitation she used both hands to rip apart the muscles and ligaments in his thigh, rendering it useless. With bloody hands she turned to the next attacker.

Alecto had taken no weapons with her into battle. Her claws, wings, and teeth were her weapons. It hadn't been for her sake that I had undertaken all of those lessons. I wanted to fight—I wanted to be in control of my own skin, to be the one knocking down enemy after enemy. Watching with my own eyes as Alecto fought using my body yet not being able to participate was torture.

She dodged another attack, this time with short wooden staffs, one aimed at her head, one at her middle. My fist sunk into his face, knocking him down. A woman advanced in front of me; Alecto took her down and spun to drop kick another Olympian behind her. The wings protruding from my back stabbed a man in golden armor behind us, the wet spray of his blood coating the leathery webbing.

With a sweeping motion, a man all in black sliced at my chest with a long scythe. He was so old I didn't know how he could stand, let alone wield such a weapon. Alecto blocked his blade with the leather armor cuffs on her forearms. The man in black wasn't interested in attacking the Fury regardless; he used the momentum of his swing to rush passed us and head for Hector.

For the first time since the fighting began, I could see Hector in the carnage. Lindsay fought at his side; between the Olympian soldiers who bled under my fingers, suffered for the Fury's wrath. The two of them worked seamlessly together, a team of killing machines, to take down as many bodies as Alecto had. Lindsay held a short dagger in one hand and a whip in the other; from my vantage point I watched her hurl the blade at one golden-clad soldier to then turn and snake the whip out to trap the bicep of another to wrench his body back from Hector, who thanked her with a grin. A giant stepped into the circle of battle, reaching for Hector. Lindsay flew into the air, insignificant in comparison to the giant, and launched fire at him.

Not that Hector needed saving; he picked off attackers one by one, never letting the enemy land a hit. They fought fluidly together, using each other's momentum in a dance, their movements so graceful despite the spilt blood and gore surrounding them as they slashed their way through the golden army.

My heart surged in my chest as unwarranted jealousy overtook me. I should be there protecting him. An enormous hand knocked Lindsay from the sky, a cloud of dust arising from the point where she hit the ground. I didn't see her get back up before my gaze was wrenched elsewhere. Alecto laughed and kept killing.