I don’t know how long I slept, but it felt like I barely closed my eyes before Tychon gently shook my shoulder. He said, “I have some bread and cheese and fresh water for you to drink. Then, I must take you back to your room.”

I felt drowsy and nodded through the fog in my brain. My body still ached and, periodically, a sharp pain lanced through my side caused by damage I couldn’t even imagine. I just wanted to go back to sleep until I felt better. Stoically, I ate cheese and bread torn from a fresh loaf. After my meal, I did feel slightly better. At least I felt like improvement was possible.

“Come, I must get you back to your room. Fortunately, Phobos normally sleeps well into the afternoon and the sun is just up. You will have time to sleep and heal,” Tychon said to me.

“And what about tonight? Is there an orgy every night?” I asked him, trying to keep the tremulous tone from my voice.

“Not every night, no. I don’t know what Phobos has planned for you tonight. He likes people to be afraid of him. Part of that is worrying about what he will do. So, I would suggest not worrying.” It sounded so simple to say it that way. Just don’t worry. Yeah, right.

Only one candle burned in Tychon’s room and the heavy drapes hid any indication of morning. I thought about Eli, standing naked and presenting himself to the morning sun as if the sun gave him his energy. My heart ached to see him, to be held by him. I shook my head to shake away the memories of him. I was afraid if I thought too closely about him, I would break down. Not yet. Not yet.

I nodded at the man who was not as tall as Eli, probably only about six feet tall, and whose golden curls fell about his shoulders in soft ringlets. His so-not-sexy white terry cloth bathrobe was non-threatening and hid his manly distortions. When we lived in Athens, Tychon would often wander the streets day and night, with his erect member uncovered, naked from the waist down. Many women wanted to try him because of the novelty of his size, but I was never so tempted. I was happy he hid himself under the robe. The sight of it still made me very uncomfortable.

Tychon opened the door to the bedroom and surreptitiously peered down the hall. He motioned to me and I followed him out of the room. In his left hand, he grasped the one burning candle, but there was enough light in the corridor that I could see without running into something. Although I was sore in indescribable places, I managed to run to my room. Tychon held the door open for me and made no effort to enter. I motioned to him and when he didn’t come into my room, I pulled him inside, closing the door quickly and quietly behind him. “Tychon, listen. You can help me get out of here.”

He shook his head and said, “No, I can’t.”

“Please. I can’t stay here. I have to leave.”

“I agree, but I can’t help you. You don’t know what Phobos would do to me if I helped you escape. I am taking a big risk, as it is, just bringing you here and leaving you alone, but that is something I can talk my way out of. I want to stay here because... because it suits my tastes, but this is no place for you. I have no desire to leave, not even to help you, Great Goddess.”

“Why did you help me this much?”

“As much as I may fear Phobos, I fear Zeus even more. If any harm came to you, he would not hesitate to exercise his authority over us and kill us all. A real death from which there is no recovery. I don’t want to die a real death, Athena.”

“Okay. I will escape, myself. Can you at least tell me which direction my car is in?”

Tychon pointed toward what I assumed was the front of the house.

I nodded and then said, “I don’t have any clothes. All I have is my boots.”

Tychon looked irritated for a moment and then said, “I will be right back.” He probably felt like I was asking too much of him. Maybe I was, but I had to leave this place and get far enough away that I could transport away. I wanted to be in my own bed in my own apartment. I didn’t want Eli and Aaron and Bill to worry about me or to try something foolish like storming the place before we were really ready to do it. I had to get to them as soon as I possibly could.

I listened to every sound in the house. Somewhere close, I heard a cough and farther away, a giggle. Not everyone slept. I would have to be very careful.

Tychon pushed the door open, shoved a pile of clothes into my hands, and quickly closed the door before I could thank him. Tychon would do nothing more for me.

I dropped the clothes on the bed and then retrieved my boots from the closet floor where Eris had carelessly tossed them. Tychon took the candle with him, but enough pearl light streamed into the windows that I could see what I was doing, after pulling the curtains open.

The clothes in the bundle were as out of date as the rest of the house. The pants were black velvet and tied at the fly. Men’s pants and I suspected they belonged to Tychon. The shirt was stiff linen and much wrinkled. In ages past, men added a lace collar and lace cuffs to shirts such as those. This was no shirt for a peasant or person of ordinary stature because despite wrinkles, the fabric was fine. At that moment, I didn’t care. I pulled the linen over my head. I rolled up the pants legs up enough so I wouldn’t fall over them. I stuffed the tails of the too-big shirt inside the pants and cinched them up at the waist. The tan doublet swallowed me, but I suspected I would appreciate its warmth.

I looked out of the window and no one was around. I wondered if I could raise the windows without raising the alarm. Old windows often made the devil’s own racket when opened. Only one way to find out. I gripped the edge and pushed up. Surprisingly, it didn’t scream as much as I thought it should. Rather than investigating whether anyone heard the window opening, I swung a leg over the sill.

My room was on the second floor in a house that had sixteen foot ceilings. That meant I was more than twenty feet from the ground. A human may hesitate to jump from that height, but the height didn’t worry me. I was far less likely to break a bone than a human and I had a strong motivation to be away. I jumped without thinking about it. I landed outside of a window, did a small roll, and stayed close to the ground. I listened for long moments. No shouts. No yelling. No one grabbed me.

Nothing stirred in the early dawn. I didn’t wait any longer. I started to run toward the barely discernible break in the trees that should be the road that leads up to the house. The unadorned, weedy lawn stretched in front of me and all it would take was a glance out of a window for me to be discovered. I sprinted, not looking back.

My Blazer waited, just as I had left it. I pulled the driver’s side door open, jerked my purse from between the seats, left the door open, and ran down the road as if my life depended on it... as it may have.

I didn’t try to rummage for my cell phone. My intent was to get far enough away from the house to try to transport to safety. I would use my cell phone only if transporting failed. I tried once and only felt a slight stirring in the fabric of the earth. A few more steps and I tried again.

Because I was still moving when I transported, I landed in my apartment at a dead run and momentum carried me into the back door before I stopped. I hit the French door with enough force to break the glass and several of the mullions that held the window panels in place.

Eli caught me before I fell through the hole I had made in the door. Aaron and Bill stood up from the table where they sat. “What the hell?” Bill asked no one in particular.

I heard Aaron say, “Nice of you to join us. Care for some breakfast?”

And Eli asked, “Do you have any idea how worried we have been? What the hell were you thinking? You used to be smarter than this. Why did you go there, alone, you daft female?” His anger was born from the worry he felt. He kept his arms around me and held me close. “By Zeus, Athena, I could have lost you. I could have lost you.” I felt his sob that reached the innermost parts of his soul. It tore at my heart to hear him so anguished.

“I’m all right,” I told him around my heavy panting. His arms closed around me, even tighter, making breathing more difficult.

Aaron moved closer to Eli and said, gently, “Let her breathe, Cousin. She is safe, now.” A pause then, “Eli, she is safe.”

Eli relaxed his grip on me and Aaron guided me to the table. Bill placed a cup of coffee in front of me. None of the three men said anything while I took several sips of the hot black coffee. Finally, I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Bill took charge of the investigation, just like I knew he would. “Interesting attire,” he said. “You didn’t have those clothes on yesterday.” I simply looked in his direction. He seemed to understand what I was thinking at that moment. “Okay, so I don’t need a bunch of small talk with you to get you to relax and open up.” Old habits die hard. I watched his face soften. “Tell us what happened.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

And I did. There was no way to hide any of it from them, anyway. The three men were part of me and my power. We were like four parts of the same whole. I told the story, omitting nothing, from the Blazer getting stuck in the sand to the run for my life down the same road ten hours later.

At the end of the tale, Eli looked stricken, Aaron looked angry and Bill looked thoughtful. Of the three, Bill was the least emotionally involved. Maybe it was his years of being a cop that gave him objectivity and allowed him to see beyond the intense emotions in the room.

“It wasn’t planned for you to be there, but you have some very valuable information inside your head. You saw a lot.”

“Can’t this wait?” Eli asked.

“No,” Bill and I said at the same time. Bill continued, “Phobos either knows she escaped or will know very shortly. Aaron, he is your son and you know him better than we do. What is his reaction likely to be?”

“Yes, Phobos is my son,” Aaron said, “But, that doesn’t mean I know much about him. At a guess, he will just let it go, or he may attempt retaliation.”

“Aaron, those are two extremes,” Bill said.

“Exactly.”

“OK. Athena, who lives in that house?” Bill asked me.

“Phobos, you know about, and Deimos, Enyo, and Eris. The rest are all minor nymphs, Naiads, and Satyrs. None of consequence,” I said. Another memory tugged at the edges of my brain. I had seen her for only an instant. Circe was not a minor nymph or someone of no consequence. She may even be more powerful than Phobos.

“Consequence?” Bill asked me.

Eli answered, “She means there are no really powerful Olympians or Titans in that house.” He busied himself with sweeping up the broken glass from the door. Eli swept the shards with a broom and put them in a paper bag. Ordinary tasks helped him stay focused and not become overly emotional. Eli was struggling to not storm the house, single-handed, right then. I concentrated on Bill. Eli and I would talk soon. I needed to talk to him.

Bill nodded, absently and then asked, “How many?”

“I only saw about thirty Olympians,” I said. “There may be more. The real disadvantage is they are not easy to kill. Of the humans, there were six servants that I saw and six people who were hung from the ceiling.”

Bill said, “Now we know where the blood comes from. All of them in that house are guilty of murder. Every last one of them and I am going to bring them all in. Even if the guys hanging from the ceiling are willing, I bet they didn’t know they were going to be bled to death when they woke up that morning. Even if they did know, it is still murder.”

“There is something else you have to know,” I said, wanting to tell Eli about Circe, his daughter.

Before I could speak, Aaron grabbed my arm and asked suddenly, “Why did he let you go?”

“Tychon?” I asked.

“Phobos,” he said. “Why did Phobos let you go?”

“I don’t think he did...” I started. It all came back to me, in a rush. Aaron was right. “Oh my gosh...” I said and my voice trailed off.

Bill was obviously puzzled. “Why do you think he allowed her to escape?” he asked Aaron.

“Listen, Bill, I know these people. First, Tychon didn’t rape her... I mean rape her a second time in the bedroom. He is a Satyr and they are all about sex. If they are not having intercourse with a woman or a man for that matter, they are masturbating. It is something beyond obsession. He wouldn’t be nice to her when it came to sex. A woman in the bed would be just the thing he was looking for. He may even still be enamored with her, but for a Satyr, a woman alone with him is like an open invitation. If he didn’t have sex with her in the bedroom, it is because he had a very powerful motivation not to.”

“Aaron’s right,” Eli said. He paced across the kitchen, broom still in his hand. “Satyrs think only of sex all the time. That is why they have a perpetually erect penis. Phobos either promised him a reward to leave her alone or threatened him.”

“Wait,” I said. “He said, ‘I must take you back to your room.’ He didn’t say he wanted to. He said he must.”

Bill nodded and then said, “Makes sense. Phobos threatened him with something more important to him than the pleasure of raping Athena.”

I winched at the term but said nothing. Aaron added, “Probably castration.”

Bill asked, “Would he regenerate if he were castrated?”

Eli answered. “After a few years. But to a Satyr, it would be worse than death to not have a penis.”

Bill nodded again and began making notes in his omnipresent notebook. “So, Phobos has a strong hold on this Tychon and he tells him to make nice to Athena, here, and then after befriending her, makes her think he is helping her escape. Or at least not raising the alarm when she helps herself to escape. Athena, you did get out of there pretty easyily. If Phobos wanted to keep you there, he would have let Tychon have his way and kept you chained to the ceiling. They both let you run free. I bet Phobos was looking out of the window when you ran away, watching every move, and being very pleased with himself that you hadn’t guessed his secret plan with Tychon.”

I felt the anger start to rise in me. “So, all that I suffered was to attract someone else.” I looked at Aaron. “He actually said it. He wants you.”

“Great,” Aaron said, voicing his sarcasm. .

“This is easy,” Bill said. “Phobos wants him, so we don’t let him have him.”

I nodded with Eli and Aaron, agreeing with Bill. Then, Bill said, “Athena, you said something...” he consulted his notebook. “You said you may have been summoned to the house.”

“I didn’t think it important at the time, but yes, I could have been, once I got close enough.”

Bill said. “They tried to find Phobos and were blocked.” Bill motioned toward Aaron and Eli who now stood behind him. “What you don’t know is, we tried several times last night to contact you through that veil around the house. We knew you were there, but we couldn’t get inside. It was only when you were with us, Athena that we got inside the veil. Maybe Phobos felt you with them and allowed you in. Maybe he summoned you at that moment. Maybe he is using you and you just don’t know it.”

“But, why me?”

“Let’s think about this for a moment.” It was Bill’s turn to rise to his feet and pace across the room several times. “What does Phobos want most? He wants to be worshiped again like he was before. Like all of you were worshiped before. I think we are looking at the wrong target. I think he is after someone bigger than Aaron.”

“Zeus?” I asked him. “You think he really is after Zeus?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? Phobos has created a strong power base. He said they have grown in their power. That is a very important clue. I think he may want Aaron, here, as part of his power base, but I think he is going after the big piece of the pie. I mean, he even bragged about being able to do some of the things Zeus can do. With Zeus out of the way, what’s to stop him?” Bill paused and then asked, almost reverently, “How powerful is Zeus?”

“Coups have been attempted before this and no one was able to pull it off,” Aaron said. “Zeus’s power is stronger than all of the Olympians’ and Titans' power combined.”

Bill nodded again and then asked, “Athena is one of Zeus’s favorite kids, right?” We all nodded. “What about Aaron?”

“I wasn’t Daddy’s favorite son, no. Heracles and Perseus both were more highly favored than I,” Aaron said with the bitterness of the ages sounding in his words.

“But, you were one of the twelve Great Olympians. How do you get that job?” Bill asked.

“Essentially, you were appointed by Zeus. Assigned a seat,” Aaron said.

“Assigned a seat?” Bill asked.

I suddenly understood what Bill was asking. “I sat on his right and Hera sat on Zeus’s left. Aaron was right next to Hera and Dionysus next to me.”

“One seat away from the throne and you don’t think you were very important to your father?” Bill asked Aaron. “How could you think that?”

“Zeus seemed to always be pissed at me,” Aaron said.

“Think about this,” Bill said. “What do Dads do with their favorite sons? They push them harder than any of the other kids. They push them to be better. A lot of times, the kid starts to resent it, starts to hate the Dad, but he always tries to please Dad.”

Aaron shook his head in the negative. “Not true here. Zeus never did anything for me.”

“Yes, he did,” I countered. “Every time you asked, he helped. You just didn’t ask very often. Way too proud to seek help from the most powerful being on this planet.”

Aaron had flopped in a chair and glared at me, again. I remembered that glare from past ages. Aaron had made armies quiver in fear with that glare, but I suddenly recognized it for what it was. Aaron didn’t like being proved wrong on any level. The look on his face said, ‘I hate it that she knows that and I didn’t.’

I continued, “Aaron, Zeus loved you, and still loves you. Don’t you know that? You were the oldest of his and Hera’s children. The first son of his favorite wife and you think Zeus hates you? You couldn’t be more wrong.”

Eli, who had been silent during most of the conversation, finally added, “You think he had me watching you all those years because he didn’t like you? He wanted to know what you were doing because, on many levels, he thought it was cool. You did things he wanted to do, but couldn’t because of his status as King. When you’re a king, you can’t help one city in favor of another. You can’t choose sides among all your subjects. He had to remain openly neutral. Being a king comes with a huge responsibility. It is not all about being able to do what you want when you want. A king rarely does what he wants, when he wants. His charges must always come first. And with Zeus, they did.”

“Zeus is a terrible king,” Aaron said, still pouting.

“No, he isn’t,” Eli countered. “Zeus is actually a very good king. He is firm, unwavering in his ideals, fair, and just. He keeps order among the Olympians and Titans and we are not an easy bunch to govern.” Eli put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, again. Maybe Aaron would never believe that Zeus cared more about him than almost any other.

Aaron still argued, “But look at the things he did to Hera...”

I said, “Hera is a jealous bitch. She didn’t want Zeus to do anything beyond doting on her. She never understood his responsibilities. Zeus was running a kingdom of Olympians and Titans and Humans. She nagged and complained continually, and felt slighted if he so much as glanced at another female, even if it wasn’t sexual. I know Hera is your mother, but she wasn’t fair to him. He loved her so much and she made his life a complete misery.”

“Besides,” Eli added, “Having sex with others he wasn’t married to doesn’t make him a bad king. It makes him a bad husband.” Eli smiled at Aaron. “When we have more time, take a look at Zeus through my eyes and through Athena’s eyes.”

Bill shook his head and then said, “Crap! For a minute, I forgot what we are doing, which is catching a killer. I mean, I could listen to you talk about this stuff all day long.”

“Bill,” Helios said, with a kindly tone. “We are doing much, much more than catching a killer. All of a sudden, we are protecting Zeus’s realm.”

Eli was correct.

That is when I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I forgot to mention Circe, again.