“Hermes and I have proven we can walk through a group of Titans and Olympians without being noticed, so it is time to go to the house in Eastover,” I said.

“But, didn’t you also say,” Bill asked from the foot of the table, “that Phobos is stronger at night?”

“Yes, I did, but I don’t think that will make a difference with our stealth mission.”

“I should be going with you,” Eli said. There was an audible pout in his voice.

“No, you shouldn’t. If something goes wrong, I need to transport the whole kit and caboodle to the house. In other words, dearest, I will rely on you to rescue me so I won’t have to spend another night in the house as Phobos’s guest.”

“But, last time, you couldn’t contact me,” Eli protested.

“I am much stronger now because I have all of you to share power with. Also, you all will be much closer to the house when we go in,” I said.

“Brute force?” Aaron asked from the doorway. “If brute force is what you had in mind, then why not all of us just storm the house at the same time.”

“Because you know as well as I do, that Phobos and his group would scatter across the planet and we would have no hope of stopping him,” I said.

“Remind me, again, why are we doing this? To firmly establish your power base?” he put an emphasis on the word, ‘your.’

“The original goal still stands, Aaron. Phobos is killing people from a distance and I am going to stop him.”

“I think that Zeus formally announcing you as his heir has gone to your head. You have never been reckless, so why start now? You are drunk with power. It is a very dangerous thing and you haven’t had nearly enough time to deal with what you have. You don’t even understand it.”

“The fact remains, Aaron, that I have to do something to stop Phobos,” I said.

“The great Athena, charging in to save the day.” The derision in his voice was enough to make everyone in the room uncomfortable. “Always the heroine. Always on the side of the right.”

“Listen, Ares,” I said, falling back into an old habit because the man leaning a shoulder against the door frame was so very much like the Ares I knew of old, the Ares I didn’t like, at all. “Either contribute or shut up. I am already tired of your whining.”

“Ares, is it? Not Aaron?” he asked. He closed his mouth, but the anger in his eyes made them glow like an ice-cold black fire.

Hermes asked me, “How do you want to do this?” I tore my eyes away from Ares and forced myself to concentrate on the rest of the room.

“All right. We all transport to the woods near the house and then you and I go in, Hermes. I will endeavor to stay in contact with Eli.”

Hermes nodded and then said, “I can stay in psychic contact with Bill. He is human and the wards around the house are meant to keep out our kind. Not his. Humans are welcome and all that.” The two exchanged a glance and there was the barest trace of a smile on Bill’s face. He liked the idea of being in constant contact with Hermes. Interesting turn, I must say.

Bill felt my eyes on him so he asked, “Mind if I take a gun or two?”

“Not at all. There are plenty of humans there to shoot at if things go badly for us.”

“If things go badly,” Nike asked. “What is our primary duty, then?”

I took a deep breath and then said, “Rescue, of course. We aren’t going to start the real battle just yet. This is reconnaissance. Hermes and I are going to sketch the house’s interior and try to get a sense of where things and people are. Also, we may hear what Phobos’s plans are.”

She nodded.

I felt Ares in the doorway like a burning ember. “You have anything to add?” I asked him.

“Me? No. You have everything planned down to the finest detail.”

“Are you coming?” I asked him.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

After everyone gathered sweaters, jackets, shoes, weapons, a sketch pad, and some pencils, we assembled in the living room. I gave Eli the honor of transporting us. It was a little disconcerting to see Demi, Nike, Jason, Dion, Ariadne, and even Ares with a sword in their hands. But, swords were weapons they were used to. The handguns and shotgun Bill carried were from a much later century. Most of us had not been involved in any kind of martial action in many years and while some proficiency with automatic weapons was normal, it seemed everyone fell back to the weapon they were most comfortable with.

For my part, I dressed in a neutral gray sweatshirt and a pair of slightly darker gray denim jeans. Gray is the color of shadows and the color would help me appear more shadow-like. I noted that Hermes did the same, donning a gray tee shirt and charcoal jeans. I had strapped on a sheath that would hold what amounted to a large knife. The sheath rested along my spine and would be out of the way if things got dodgy. It gave me a full range of motion, so that when I started to run away, I wouldn’t be hampered by a weapon banging against my thigh. But, I was armed and, I hoped, dangerous.

The landing spot for us was a small clearing in the forest near the house. As a group, we began walking toward the north, after Eli pointed the way. The night was far from cold, so that was an added annoyance we didn’t have to deal with. A few stars were visible through the trees that steadily dropped leaves on us. The waning moon cast shadows through the trees that moved as the wind tossed the branches over our heads.

As we neared the house, the air seemed to grow heavier and everywhere a subtle awareness told us all to go away because we were in the wrong spot. This was not magic I was used to dealing with on a day-to-day basis, but something else. Something dark. As if unseen black forces were at work.

Like all other things under heaven, there are two sides to metaphysics. What I am most familiar with is the kind of magic that operates within the existing laws of physics. Some may call it white magic, but it is really natural magic, instead. Herbalists, acupuncturists, and telepaths are among the natural magicians.

An unnatural blackness that made us afraid of the dark surrounded the house. It was magic that was designed to harm people, scare people, and damage the environment by creating a state that allowed predatory creatures to thrive, both plant and animal, and the docile creatures sicken and die.

As we stepped closer and closer to the house, the change in the forest became more evident. Many of the trees were dead and no birds sang in the darkness. However, insects seemed to proliferate and I found myself swatting at flies and mosquitoes. Spider’s webs laced through the trees and hung like Spanish moss from the branches. The depictions of the haunted forests in horror movies were too close to accurate as if the movie makers had first-hand knowledge. Maybe they did know the darker side of magic. Maybe they understood what crept through the forest. Malevolent. Wicked.

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Moving forward grew harder and harder as if the air was made of something thicker than water. Breathing the stuff was hard, too. Ares led us through the wood, using his sword to brush spider webs out of our path, but he acted like his sword weighed a hundred pounds. Hercules had an easier time and Ares relinquished his sword to the larger man.

“This magic is completely incompatible with us,” Demi said, gasping for air and sweating profusely. She was one of the oldest among us, besides Eli, so she likely understood more about the metaphysical properties at work than we did. “This magic feels like something Thanatos or Hecate would use.” I nodded, understanding her. She spent half of her time with Hades in the land of the dead and the other half in the sunlight. She would recognize dark magic quicker than any of the rest of us.

“What can we do about it?” I asked her.

“It won’t kill you. It will simply make you very uncomfortable. But, because it is not a metaphysical property that you recognize and understand, you cannot do anything about it.” She gave me a small, crooked smile. “I recognize it, but I cannot help, either. It is not my magic.”

Great. Wonderful.

Suddenly, the house appeared between the trees and we paused. The moon’s light on the weathered once-white surface made the house appear to glow, adding to the overall feeling of anxiety and dread. I moved close to Eli and asked, “Can you feel anyone inside?”

He shook his head in the negative and then said, “It’s as if they are all on a holiday. Looks that way, too. No lights are on.”

The house resembled an abandoned ruin. I knew there was no electricity, but the candlelight should have shown in the windows.

Dawdling wasn’t going to get us anywhere, so I caught Hermes’s eyes and said, “Let’s do it. Just remember to keep your hand on me during our excursion because if you let go, I won’t be able to see you.”

He nodded and reached a hand toward me. In an instant, we stood in the middle of the living room. Several people sat in chairs, and Achos, Eris’s daughter, leaned against the fireplace intent on her conversation with a lesser nymph whose name eluded me. Burning candles stood on nearly every horizontal surface. Heavy curtains of black velvet covered the windows, effectively blocking any light from showing outside explaining why the house had an appearance of desertion. The owners allowed weeds to grow right up to the front door and made certain the bordering bushes were well overgrown. The entire house said, “Go away. Nobody’s home”

The conversation in the room bordered on unremarkable and once Hermes and I oriented ourselves, we passed out of the main room and into a corridor that ran lengthwise across the house. No one waited in the dark, dark passage and Hermes paused for a moment.

I reached out with my mind and could touch Eli, although he seemed very far away. In the barest of whispers, I asked Hermes if he could feel Bill and Hermes nodded. Time to be about our task. I removed the sketch pad from a shoulder bag that hung across my body and drew a quick sketch of the living room from the main entrance to the positions of the windows to the exits from the room. We crossed the hallway and entered the dining room which was empty. Either it was too early for any festivities or they had nothing planned for the evening.

I glanced up and saw the chains hanging from the ceiling that had secured me on my last visit to Phobos’s lair. A chill crossed my skin that even the heaviest coat wouldn’t keep out. It had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. In the deep shadows in the dining hall, I could only just see the tables and chairs. The heavy scent of something coppery and heavy still hung in the air. Whether memory or a real scent, I didn’t want to know. This is a room I could have sketched from my memory. We didn’t get out of there soon enough for me.

We continued sketching downstairs with its smaller parlors and what was probably originally an office and a library. With the exception of the dining room, all the rooms had at least one or two people in there, in quiet discussions. I was distressed to see several of Eli’s offspring including the witches Circe, Pasiphae, and Eli’s former wife, Perseis. All were adept in the dark arts of necromancy. Of course, creatures such as they would congregate with creatures such as Phobos, Deimos, Eris, and Enyo, the ones who delighted in blood and were attracted to bloodshed with an insatiable thirst.

When we entered the room where Circe and her mother, Perseis, engaged in a deep conversation, they stopped talking. Circe looked around, stared directly at me, but said nothing. I don’t know if she actually saw me or if she just felt something out of place in the room. Whichever, she continually glanced in my direction. Even after Hermes and I left the room, she stepped into the corridor and watched us as we entered the next room. When we exited, she was no longer in the hallway. I assume she didn’t see us because she didn’t raise the alarm.

I wondered what Eli would think of having to destroy some of his children and I realized that he didn’t like what they had become and never did. Destruction was the only way.

After sketching the entire downstairs, Hermes and I moved toward the stairs in the foyer. We paused about halfway up as Phobos and Deimos came down. For an instant, I was startled. Phobos looked so much like his father, it was frightening. He wore his hair long and loose, just like Ares’s hair had been when I looked at him a few minutes before. Both brothers were dressed in their inevitable black.

I motioned to Hermes and we followed them into the small parlor where Circe had been only moments before. She and Perseis were no longer present when Phobos and Deimos stepped into the room. Phobos closed the door. Hermes and I would have to transport out of the room.

“They are trouble, I’m telling you,” Deimos was saying.

“Yes, I agree, but what can we do?” Phobos replied. He paced across the room, clearly agitated about something. “You know what they did and everyone is blaming us.” He uttered a curse in ancient Greek and then switched back to English. “I have no idea how to rein them in.”

“Would Dad help us?” Deimos asked.

“That milksop has thrown in with Athena. All good and pure. Just when I could use his counsel the most.” Phobos paced again. “Deimos, this is falling apart. Maybe it’s time to cut and run.”

“We have to see it through, you know that. You don’t want them getting the upper hand, do you?”

“Brother, what good is the upper hand if we are really dead? They are powerful.”

The door burst open and Enyo entered. She fell into Phobos’s arms and he caressed her dark hair, almost absently. “Don’t worry, pet. It will be alright. We will think of something.” She left the door open, making it much easier for Hermes and me to leave. Enyo was dressed in a flowing gown of red silk that plunged low enough in the back that I knew she wore no bra and only red thong underwear. Her feet were bare.

She looked into Phobos’s dark, dark eyes. “Your plan worked too well. They aren’t going to leave are they?”

“I don’t know,” he said, irritably. He pushed her away from his embrace and began pacing, again. “Stupid, stupid. They are so stupid. And we will pay for their stupidity.”

Deimos sat heavily in a dark burgundy brocade wing chair. Enyo hovered near Phobos, her face a mask of fear. Phobos’s dark eyes mirrored hers, filled with deep, deep terror, not of his own making. What creature was so terrifying that it could frighten the god of fear, of phobias?

The three fell into a brooding silence and I knew we would learn nothing new. Hermes and I continued our journey to the second floor. Nothing remarkable upstairs. We moved from bedroom to bedroom, finding a few people. Most were elsewhere in the house and those who lingered upstairs were either sleeping or engaged in sex.

We found and notated the stairs to the third floor. The topmost floor of the house was where the servants would have originally resided, but now, it was home to many of Phobos’s guests. Above the third floor an attic that was filled with normal attic items, most left over from long past eras.

The house was a relic of a grander time, a more genteel time when gentleman farmers put up their families and their wives’ families in opulence while they conducted business to further their own interests and companies. But, those days were long past and what remained was a house in general disrepair and desolation. Even though people lived in the house, it lacked that feeling of home. It felt cold and distant, like an unfriendly hotel. Furniture was threadbare and Persian rugs were tattered and worn. The wallpaper was faded and a patina of age covered everything.

The people inside the house weren’t a united front as one would expect. It was apparently a gathering place for those who were like-minded in their love of blood and destruction. This was a place where they could pursue their dark hobbies without censure. A place where everything was permitted and even encouraged.

But, these were not battle-ready individuals. They would scatter like rats if we attempted a direct assault on the place. None would stand and fight. The only way to destroy the house and those in it was utter destruction, like the valley in the Caucasus.

Hermes and I left the house from the attic and landed where our compatriots waited. Without a word, Eli transported us to Bill’s house.