Tribe, p.27
Tribe, page 27
I did that…
…and it was right.
But maybe leaving her here…not finishing the job…maybe that was wrong?
“Do it,” the Sukeban said. “Send me to my ancestors. Do it n—”
Sarah flinched.
She’d stabbed the dory into the woman’s chest without much of a thought.
The Sukeban winced in pain, looked relieved, and then went slack.
Sarah looked at the dead woman, and then around the room. She’d destroyed a beautiful work of art, one of her favorite places to hang out, and killed eight women. And there was only one person to blame.
Memnon…
Anger brewing, she headed for The Art of the Americas and took the stairs two at a time, until she reached the second floor, where a bridge would give her access to the neighboring gallery, and then the Olympieion.
Sarah met no resistance. She worked her way through dimly lit, but still familiar galleries, her boots echoing in the empty spaces. She paused at a closed door. Outside it was a sign with a photo of ancient Greek ruins. Some kind of temple. And the words: Pay Homage to Zeus at: Olympieion!
She pushed the door. Unlocked. A staircase descended two flights and led to a short hall connecting the old museum to the new. She stepped through a second doorway and emerged in the ancient past.
47
Sarah flinched at the sight of two men. One of them held a spear, aimed straight toward her. The other…held a discus and looked poised to clock the spearman in the side of the head.
Neither man moved. They were made of bronze, gleaming new in the tall ceiling’s recessed lighting. Both men were nude and caught in mid action, like a comic book panel.
They’re Olympians, she thought. Athletes.
They were positioned on raised platforms, framing a ramp that led toward tall Greek pillars holding up a perfect recreation of a Greek temple. To the left and right, glass filled the space between pillars, forming the building’s exterior. Ahead, the pillars were open, leading to an open space full of more support beams, all holding up the heavy stone roof, which was angled, but also merged with the flat, modern ceiling. The front of the temple, just beneath the roof, was decorated with a detailed relief of Spartan warriors and their steeds, painted in surprisingly bright colors.
She stepped past the statues and then the pillars, entering the Olympieion.
Ahead were two, twelve-foot-tall, bronze doors with basic Greek décor—raised circles inside relief squares. They weren’t exactly dazzling, but they looked heavy.
Sarah tried to remember what the space was called, but Henry was the Greek history whiz.
Probably some kind of weird term. I’ll call it a foyer.
Heat tickled her skin when she stepped into the foyer. Metal bowls on two-foot-tall stands flickered with real flames.
That can’t be part of the normal exhibit, she thought, and she pushed toward the doors.
On edge, she scanned every pillar, expecting a new kind of cult-inspired hunter to step out. But she couldn’t see or hear anyone. Her feet echoed in the large, open space surrounded by perfectly cut stone and glass.
She paused at the door.
This is it. Memnon is either on the other side of the door, or Marg is a liar and he’s long gone.
She placed a hand on the door. It was warm to the touch.
She glanced back at the flames. Thought about the Sukeban.
He’s here.
Anger built toward rage, as images of what she’d been put through in the last twenty hours flitted through her mind. She’d been tortured and abused, lied to, betrayed, hunted, drowned, and fired from her damn minimum wage job. Even the positive things like not actually dying, being able to heal quickly, and maybe even being an immortal demigod were not in line with how she’d dreamed her life would turn out. She didn’t want to fight people outside of the wrestling ring. Didn’t want to kill people. But choice had been removed, her life warped into a freakshow, and now blood was on her hands.
A lot of it.
And she wasn’t done yet.
She pictured her entry. Shield at the ready. Dory aimed to fly. Whoever was on the door’s far side was in for a rough night. And if it was Memnon, she wouldn’t hesitate.
One more body. That’s all it will take to end this.
She pushed.
The door swung open without a sound.
She intended to strike hard and fast, but the insanity waiting for her on the door’s far side shocked her into place.
The temple’s sanctuary was a large open space. Torches mounted to pillars burned bright, their wavering light dancing over a hundred buck-naked men and women of every nationality and body type imaginable. They stood in neat rows on either side of the fifty-foot-wide, hundred-foot-long space, leaving a ten-foot gap down the middle, creating an aisle that led to the altar.
At the back of the temple, seated on a throne and looking contemplative, was a towering marble statue of Zeus. But the grand sculpture didn’t hold her attention. She turned her attention to the altar below.
Helen was there, gagged and dressed in a flowing white robe like some kind of sacrificial virgin. Two metal cables hung from the ceiling. One was attached to her hands, bound behind her back and yanked high. The second was attached to her chained legs, holding her off the ground. She hung at a forty-five-degree angle, torso dangling over the altar.
She is a sacrifice.
How the hell did they catch her? And if they can stop Helen, a Spartan demigod with unlimited resources and thousands of years of experience, what the frik can I do?
Men and women on both sides of the central aisle turned to face her, craning their heads around, but not their bodies. None of them moved. Did they expect her? Did they not care? Were they high? Sarah didn’t know what to make of their blank stares.
They knew who she was.
Had to.
But no one moved to stop her. No one looked afraid. She made eye contact with a man and recognized him. Chuck, the van driver. The electrician from Chelmsford. The one with the daughter. She gave him a subtle squint of disapproval.
He didn’t react.
And the young woman standing beside him was a spitting image. His daughter was in the cult, too. The whole normal guy routine had been an act. Sarah had lowered her guard and paid the price.
Not this time.
Shield raised, the dory ready, Sarah stepped into the temple, walking between the cult members, doing her best to not be distracted by their nudity.
A hundred sets of eyes followed her progress.
She stopped in the middle, as fearless as Henry. These were normal, unarmed people. She’d just lifted a few tons back in the café. Knocking the lot of them back with her shield wouldn’t be too hard “Memnon!”
“Patience,” he replied, stepping onto the platform, dressed in brown armor that, like hers, combined new technologies with ancient styles—this time Ethiopian. A large curved sword hung at his hip. A tall, oval shield adorned with an intricate red, turquoise, and white pattern was held in one hand. The hair of some kind of animal bulged from his shoulders, and on his head, a crown of gold—king once more. “You’ve been through so much to get here. Don’t rush the—”
Sarah flung the dory.
Memnon raised his shield. The blade passed through and snapped to a stop. He looked incensed when he lowered the shield, the dory impaled a full foot inside it. How close had he come to being struck?
Two archers stepped onto the platform, bow strings drawn back.
They wouldn’t be enough to stop her.
She leveled her shield in front of her, about to charge.
Then the cult members at the front of the room moved inward, fusing together, blocking her path.
So I’ll jump, she thought.
“You’ve been impressive,” Memnon said. “Really. Far beyond my expectations. Beyond our queen’s.”
He placed a hand on Helen’s back. She sneered, but didn’t move.
“Blessed be,” Memnon said.
“Blessed be,” the gathered cult repeated.
“But you cannot stop what has been more than three thousand years in the making.” Memnon pulled the dory from his shield. Dropped it to the floor.
He could have attacked. What’s he waiting for?
“What you can do, is watch.”
Sarah bent her legs, ready to jump over the cult nudists and bash her shield into Memnon’s face.
“Do it,” Memnon said.
Sarah raised her shield at the sound of a loosed arrow. She expected to feel it shatter, but instead she heard a wet crack and the sound of a body slapping to the floor. She lowered the shield.
Lying at her feet was Chuck’s daughter. The arrow impaled the back of her head and extended through her forehead.
“Most of my followers live normal lives. Have families. Young children. Only a handful were involved in the events of the past day. The rest…well, they might not be innocent, but then, neither are you. If you try to interfere…”
Chuck stepped out of the crowd, standing directly behind his dead daughter’s body.
The archer to Memnon’s right fired another arrow. It struck Chuck’s head, killing him instantly and spraying Sarah with his blood.
“…their blood will be on your hands.”
Sarah stared down at Chuck and his daughter, feeling numb.
All of these people are willing to die for this, and if I make a move…
She looked up into Helen’s eyes, trying to read her. But she just looked pissed. And would no doubt sacrifice every life in the room. But Sarah hadn’t gone there yet. So she held her ground.
“A wise decision,” Memnon said. “Considering the men and women before you will soon be your family, and your equals.”
He lifted a metal case from behind the altar. Opened it to reveal a hundred small syringes embedded in foam, the fluid inside luminous yellow.
Divinity.
He did it…
“Brothers and sisters! The time is at hand. The divination is now!” All eyes turned back to Memnon.
Sarah stood among the cult, considering her options. Save Helen, stop the cult, and kill a lot of people. Or…let Helen suffer, let the Culus become demigods, and then…what?
I’ll have to fight them anyway, but then they’ll be as strong as I am.
It wasn’t really a hard decision. She knew that. But she still couldn’t bring herself to let another defenseless person die. They might not be innocent, but they were also in a cult, brainwashed by a man who’d had a long time to perfect the art. How much could they really be blamed for having their minds twisted?
“Each will drink of her blood and be changed. Kings and queens of the world. Servants of the most high, Helen of Sparta, mother of all.”
It was word garbage. Made no sense. But it didn’t need to. These people were all in, no doubt true believers. And they were about to be granted immortality.
A skinny man dressed in a red tunic, the top slung over one shoulder, belted at the waist, stepped out from behind a column. His face was concealed by a black executioner’s mask. In one hand, he held a knife. In the other, a bowl. The man stepped up to the altar, said, “Blessed be,” and then slit Helen’s throat.
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Blood flowed into the bowl, pulsing and spattering. It was harder to collect than Henry had imagined. He could feel Memnon’s annoyance with his performance growing, as the spray shifted direction, coating the altar’s top in Helen’s blood. The wound was healing, as Henry knew it would. Memnon didn’t want Helen dead. Just wanted her blood for this bullshit ritual.
“Sorry,” Henry whispered, voice barely audible through the mask. But Helen heard him, her eyes locked on his. He couldn’t tell if she was pissed about what he’d done, or confused about why he’d done it. She was doing a good job hiding her feelings—from everyone.
The bowl was full.
The flow of blood ceased.
Henry turned around, holding the bowl out, unsure of what to do next. He had no plan beyond ‘blend in and gain the Culus’ trust, get in close, and plunge his hidden kopis through Memnon’s heart.’ It was a far stealthier approach than he preferred, but he didn’t want to screw this up.
When Sarah walked into the temple, his plan grew complicated. She was a badass, for sure, but he could see the way she was looking at the naked people around her, especially when the archers shot down two of them. She felt bad for them. Felt mercy.
And that put her in danger.
If Henry attacked and failed, she could get hurt.
As much as Henry hated to admit it…and loathed to believe he was capable…Sarah’s welfare concerned him.
Worried him.
He was afraid.
For her.
And he didn’t know how to process that. For most of his life, he’d believed his lack of fear was from a birth defect to his amygdala. Nothing else made sense—because he didn’t know he was a descendent of Zeus. The blood of a god in the veins of a human sometimes had strange side effects—like Helen’s uncontrollable supernatural ability to attract the opposite sex. Now he knew he could feel fear…but not for himself, or for most people.
Just those he really cared about, and right now, that was just one person.
So, he was going with the flow, trying to follow what little he knew about the ritual. The first obvious problem was that there was supposed to have been a woman with him. The second was that Phoebe and Deimos would soon wake up and raise hell.
After coming to, he’d unleashed an aged-to-perfection bottle of whupass on the twins, attacking with a savagery not held back by Sarah’s concern for them being children, and the knowledge that they could heal from just about everything he dished out. He’d gained the upper hand the moment the pair realized that he’d do anything to win. Now they were tied up in the closet, along with the corpses of the man and woman he had killed and replaced. He considered killing the kids. They were a pain in his ass. But he didn’t really know how to kill a demigod, and he knew that Sarah and her bleeding heart might not forgive him for it.
“And now,” Memnon said, standing behind Henry. “A gift of blood.”
Henry held the bowl up in offering to the naked cult, some of whom had no business running around in their birthday suits. He nearly said so, but controlled himself for Sarah’s sake.
He stood there for a moment, waiting for some kind of cue. Were the Culus going to come up one at a time and drink from the bowl, like communion at a Catholic church? Was he supposed to carry the bowl around? Or was it symbolic? They were in a cult, but that didn’t mean they weren’t grossed out by the idea of drinking blood.
Henry’s thoughts were interrupted by a profound pain punching through his gut from behind.
He looked down as raw agony slid through him and emerged from just beneath his ribs.
Memnon’s curved blade slipped out and then turned upward. The tip of the long sword hooked up and impaled Henry a second time, skewering his throat—a worm on a hook.
At the back of the room, Sarah gasped, unprepared for Memnon to kill another one of his followers.
Frozen in pain, Henry stood still, bowl still held aloft.
Memnon stepped up beside him. Took the bowl from his hands.
“Behold the last child of Helen.” Memnon raised his hands toward Henry, who attempted to reply, but could only gurgle. “Misguided and deluded. The old will make way for the new. The children of Helen faced our trials and were given a choice—join the new pantheon or go the way of the Titans. They chose to follow those doomed gods into the abyss.”
Despite the pain, Henry finally understood some of what had taken place over the past night. The Culus wanted to capture Helen—and they did. They wanted Sarah’s awakened demigod blood, and they got it. But they had also been putting him and Sarah through the modern-day equivalent of Hercules’s trials. He really was offering them a spot in their new world order, but only because they had passed his trials…until now, when despite the power he was offering, they resisted.
Henry had a lot to say, but the blade in his throat and the blood in his mouth kept him quiet.
Memnon took hold of the mask concealing Henry’s identity.
Sarah’s face twisted in worry. She already suspected the truth, but hadn’t seen it yet. For all she knew, it was a ruse.
Then Memnon tugged the hood up.
Sarah staggered back. “Henry…”
He wanted to apologize for being an idiot. For thinking he could fool Memnon. For putting her in a place of weakness.
All he could do was meet Sarah’s gaze with no trace of fear in his eyes. Let her know that it was okay, that no matter what happened to him, she should fight.
Her face twisted from fear to rage, even as tears flowed from her cheeks. “Henry!”
The cult turned toward her. Closed in.
She swung a backhanded shield strike into them, sending two men and one woman careening through the air. The men struck the wall and slumped to the floor. The woman bent the wrong way around a column, her back snapping. Sarah flinched at the sound, but then she threw a punch at a man charging her, knocking him unconscious with a single blow.
“Brothers and sisters, come!” Memnon motioned to the open case of divinity elixir. “Partake in the divination, and kill the false gods!”
Helen struggled now, but she couldn’t break free.
While the cult members at the back of the sanctuary sacrificed their lives by attacking an enraged Sarah, those at the front climbed the steps, took the syringes, and injected themselves with liquid godhood.
Memnon sidled up beside Henry. Whispered, “Do you know the secret to killing a demigod?”
Henry glared, angry and fearless, despite the fact that he could feel the life draining out of him.
“You take their voice,” Memnon said. “Without that, no bargain can be struck. No mercy granted. Charon is pliable and has more of an affinity for the old gods and their children than he does for his silly coins. But if you cannot speak… If you cannot plead your case… Well, there is no return from that journey.”
Memnon shoved his curved sword. It slid up through Henry’s torso, shoved through his throat, and entered the base of his skull.
