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“Orion, don’t,” Helen said, putting her hand on his arm to stop him from chasing after them. “They’re right. We could spend forever bringing them water, but in the long run joy is just an experience—it’s not supposed to last. I see that now. Persephone must have meant a different river.”
“And what if she didn’t?” Orion asked, frustration cracking his voice. “What if this is our best hope at helping them?”
Helen stared up into his bright green eyes and shook her head mutely. She didn’t know what to do next. The littlest one poked her head out from somewhere deep in the shadows.
“Thank you,” she whispered before ducking back into the extreme dark on the other side of the tree trunk.
“We have to help them,” he said urgently. “We can’t let them suffer like this forever!”
“We won’t! And I swear to you, we’ll keep trying until we get the right river!” Helen’s eyes suddenly went out of focus, and she grabbed a handful of Orion’s shirt to keep herself from falling over.
“What’s happening?” Orion asked, bracing himself. The landscape blurred and Helen felt the world slow, like she was about to wake up.
“I think they’re making us leave,” she told him. She wrapped her arms around Orion’s neck and held on tight. . . .
Matt and Claire ditched the car when they discovered that the traffic was stopped dead for the night, and instead started running down the post-sunset dark of the deserted street, toward the center of town.
Technically, they weren’t supposed to be doing this, but neither of them was willing to sit safely at the Delos compound while the Scions went out to fight. Matt was more than a little insulted that Ariadne had begged him to stay behind, like he was a child who couldn’t defend himself. He’d tried to argue, but Ariadne, Lucas, and Jason had simply run away so fast Matt could barely see them move, let alone get a word in edgewise. It really annoyed him when they did that.
Cassandra warned them not to go. Common sense had told her it would most likely tick everyone off. Matt much preferred it when Cassandra used her unusually deep wellspring of common sense, as opposed to her talent as an Oracle, to suss out the future. He couldn’t even force himself to watch anymore when the Fates pushed their way out of her, like they were digging their way up from under her skin.
It was one of the many things that made Matt question the value of Scion “gifts” and the so-called gods that gave them to the Scions to begin with. What good were the Fates if they only used people like cups to be filled and then emptied, and eventually tossed away? As much as Matt abhorred violence, the thought of what the Fates did to Scions made him want do something athletic, preferably while wearing a pair of brass knuckles.
As he and Claire neared the town center, they could hear shouting and more than a few screams, but the voices were disconnected. In one spot, there were shrieks of fear, and in others there were shouts of rowdy enjoyment. It sounded as if different parts of the crowd were watching different movies.
“Hold up, Claire,” Matt said as they rounded a poorly lit corner. “The streetlights are out down that way.”
“But the News Store is that way,” she protested.
“I know, but let’s circle around back and go in through the alley. I want to get an idea of what’s going on before we go charging down the middle of the street.”
Claire agreed, and she and Matt slipped around the back of the News Store. It was quiet in the back alley, although they could both hear the raised voices of the crowd, like sneaking down the side hallway of a stadium while a rock band performed. They got the sense that something big was happening close by, but they felt strangely separated from it.
“My God, it’s dark,” Claire said, her voice wavering with fear.
“Yeah, and it’s not a normal darkness, either,” Matt murmured nervously as they went in the back entrance to the News Store.
“I think I’ve seen this before,” Claire whispered as she rubbed her arms in either cold or fear. “When Hector was attacked by Automedon and the Hundred at my track meet, this same menacing blackness covered everything. I think it means a Shadowmaster has been here.”
Inside, the store was a mess. Tables were overturned, crystal jars of candy had broken on the floor, and everything was covered in a layer of flour that must have been deliberately flung out of several torn bags. Matt and Claire picked their way through to the front, looking for injured people who might have been left unconscious, hoping like crazy that they wouldn’t find Jerry or Kate. Thankfully, the News Store was entirely empty.
The darkness seemed to be getting thicker as they made their way to the front, and Matt and Claire stumbled blindly out onto the street. They paused as their eyes adjusted to the fog-like darkness left by the Shadowmaster. Coming down the street was a mob of people in costume, led by a tall woman. As the gloom dissipated, Matt instinctively cringed.
“That has to be Eris,” he said in a lowered voice to Claire.
“Then who’s that?” she asked, facing the opposing street. She was pointing at a tall, skinny boy who seemed to be made up of spare parts. His arms were too long for his body, and he walked with a bandy-legged stride, even as he hunched his rounded shoulders. Despite his towering height, he seemed to creep rather than walk. Still pointing in mute fear, Claire backed up against Matt. He could feel her entire body trembling, and the gasping breaths she took threatened to turn into screams in her throat.
Matt had known her since kindergarten, and if there was one thing he was absolutely sure of, it was that Claire Aoki did not scare easy. Looking around at the behavior of the crowd, Matt could see people running around, frightened far beyond any normal measure. It was as if each person were being chased by his or her own worst nightmare.
“It has to be another god, like Eris.” His voice shook as he spoke. “Think, Claire! Eris is Ares’ sister, and she is the personification of chaos—she makes people feel like creating havoc. So what do we feel when we look at that creepy kid?”
“Panic?” Claire wheezed, trying not to hyperventilate. “But I thought the god Pan was a goat!”
“No, no, it’s not the damn satyr! There was another,” Matt groused, digging thorough his memory. The convoluted, inbred family tree of the gods popped into his mind. “Ares, the god of war, walks with Eris, the goddess of discord, and with them is his son, Terror. That freaky kid has got to be Terror.”
“Matt,” Claire gasped, using one arm to point one way and the other arm to point another. “The two mobs are headed right toward each other!”
Matt’s heart sank. Eris and her nephew were herding their crazed groups down adjacent streets that met at a large intersection kitty-corner to the News Store.
