We appeared in a clearing in the forest near the house and I realized instantly that Hermes was correct in his assessment. The new wards were strong and powerful, but not so powerful we couldn’t move through them. The air in the night seemed to shimmer like waves of heat before us. I took a step toward the metaphysical wall that seemed as solid as lead. But, it was metaphysical and maybe I could do something about it.

Just as I had done when I leveled the valley in the Caucasus, I forced my energy into the wards. At first, nothing happened, but I felt a slight tearing in the fabric of the spell. The wall attempted to heal itself, so I pushed more energy into it. The magic came alive and I felt it crawling across my skin in small waves that rapidly built to ripples. The air crackled with sound and the hair stood up on my arms. This magic didn’t like to be disturbed.

Overhead, I felt the presence of bats, squealing in the ultrasonic range, just out of hearing. Their leathery wings beat against the invisible wall of power. Their echo sensory perception told them nothing was there, but the wall was stronger than steel. Even they couldn’t get through.

I pushed into the wall again, trying to find a weakness, a place where the energy was slightly less. It was similar to finding a chink in a suit of armor. While the energy wall wasn’t equally strong all over, the weaker parts moved and swirled, so finding one would be difficult. I decided I needed a different strategy. The forward approach wasn’t working. I dropped my spear, gathered all my energy and what energy I could borrow from my followers, and sliced the ward down the middle just as if it were a cabbage and I held a metaphysical sword with the sharpest of blades.

Hacking away at this particular cabbage was not easy and I ended up making coleslaw rather than opening a hole in the ward. I tried to focus my energy into a tighter beam. Again, I felt the wall tear and it, once again, tried to heal the rent. I pushed more power into the tiny hole, but all I accomplished was not allowing it to heal rather than making it bigger. The muscles in my arms and legs quivered from the effort. All my planning was for naught if we couldn’t get through the wall that someone put up to do precisely what it was doing—keeping us out.

Sensing what I was doing, Ares stepped up beside me and said, “With your permission?”

“Just give me a hand, Ares. Don’t ask if it is all right.” It took me several breaths to get the words out. I swore aloud and then renewed my efforts. Sweat beads started to form on my forehead and I knew I was using a lot of power to break down the wards. Ares added his energy to mine and together we forged ahead, forcing a crack in the wall that barred our way to the house. It wasn’t enough. Ares took a deep breath and the two of us started again. Ares let out a yell from the effort he was expending or maybe it was me who yelled. My brother and I were metaphysically bound together in this action.

Then, we had a hole. It was small but usable. We finally countered the power with our greater power and the hole felt like it was made of spaghetti instead of impenetrable metal.

“Now! Go, now,” I said in my most commanding voice because I wasn’t sure how long Ares and I could hold the door open. One at a time, my followers scrambled through the hole I created with Ares’s help.

Ares looked at me and asked, “How are we going to get through?”

“Take my hand and we will go in together.”

He nodded and put his hand in mine. We inched along the opening, keeping it pushed aside with our backs. I still couldn’t see the wall, but I could feel it. It was cold to the touch and felt icy along my bare arms. Or maybe I should say it felt like ice. Our striving was akin to holding back a moving iceberg. As we moved through the opening, I could feel the ice start to crumble.

“Hurry,” Ares said.

“We need to jump,” I said. “On three.” I did the short count and when I reached three we jumped out of the restraining wall. I hit the ground, pulling Ares with me. The opening snapped like a giant rubber band and whipped out towards Ares and me. Had we not been on the ground, the band of power would have knocked us down, or maybe even worse.

Ares rose first and pulled me to my feet. “Whoever put up that wall wanted to make certain that no one got through. They probably didn’t count on your... motivation.”

“Let’s hope they continue to underestimate me,” I said.

I wiped the dew off my legs and arm, looked toward the setting moon to get my direction to the house, put it at my back, and headed east. The night wasn’t bright, although the sky was nearly cloudless and millions of stars winked at us and our efforts. The moon was too low on the horizon to offer much assistance.

I pulled the sword from its sheath with that whisper of metal on leather that is unmistakable. I drew the gun with my right hand and walked forward, the front door of the house directly in front of me. My spear was still on the other side of the wall. I hoped I wouldn’t need it.

The house was enshrouded in darkness. No light peeked out from any window. That didn’t mean the house was deserted. It meant the drapes were proof against the gloom.

“So what do we do when we get to the front door? Knock?” Dion asked me. I heard the faintest trace of sarcasm in his voice. Now, what was his problem? Was everyone from my old stomping ground a drama queen? Suddenly, I didn’t envy Zeus his job.

“I rather thought we would allow Ariadne to blow a hole where the handle should be,” I said, actually adding to Dion’s sarcasm.

“Wait,” Ares said. “We make a ruckus like that and the bad guys will transport out before we can rescue Eli and Bill.”

“Right,” I agreed. I wasn’t completely serious with my suggestion, anyway. Then, I walked quietly toward the right side of the house and crouched down beside the bushes. I leaned against the camellia with its broad, waxy leaves. Camellias didn’t bloom in fall, so they were just a hedge beside the house. The bushes were tall and leggy and badly in need of a trim, but they served our purpose.

Everyone watched me as I probed inside the house to find Eli. He was in the basement and I wasn’t certain how to get there. We neglected to add the basement to our clandestine tour of the house. In silence, I cursed myself because Phobos transported me to the basement when I was his guest. I should have remembered to find the way down to it.

“Okay, listen. Ares, Hermes, and I will transport to where Eli is. Nike, I will contact you mentally when it is time for you to storm the house inside and start killing everyone you see.”

Ares shook his head in the negative. “I will contact Nike. After our... encounter... I am in direct contact with her as much as I am with you.” What? That was news to me. Was that why he was so angry? Ares didn’t like others enough to have them probing his mind.

I simply nodded and looked toward Nike. “I’m sorry,” I told her.

“Don’t be,” she said. “We have the battle to win and we are outnumbered by about eight to one. Think about that. My problem is minor in comparison.” Ah, so that was it! Nike didn’t appreciate the intrusion of Ares into her mind and Ares resented that she didn’t welcome him. I felt a pang of guilt, but Nike was right. I needed to concentrate on the job before us. Ares’s girl problems could wait.

“If you don’t hear from Ares within ten minutes, then I will rely on you to rescue us,” I said to all of them. “Wait that long before you start your show. Nike, you are in charge of the second group.” I looked at Ares and Hermes and said, “Gentlemen, let’s do this.”

In an instant, we stood in a dank cellar that smelled of earth, dampness, and death. The overwhelming stench of something dead stuck in my nose and I almost sneezed. I closed my nose tightly with my fingers and breathed through my mouth until the urge passed. I didn’t want to prematurely attract attention.

The basement of the house was a twisting maze and I couldn’t even begin to understand its original use. Chambers and corridors wound around in apparent disorganization and I suddenly knew slaves lived down here. Pre-civil war slaves died down here, too. Their restless spirits fluttered near my head as they sought to know who walked among them. But ghosts only had power when you acknowledged them. I said in a low whisper, “We don’t have much time.”

I trusted Hermes to lead us to the correct place. He used his caduceus like a divining rod to lead us to our companions. I kept my hand on his shoulder and I felt Ares’s hand on mine. We moved in total darkness, inching slowly ahead. I ignored the whispers of ghosts and demons we disturbed as we walked through their domain. Their voices sounded like leaves blowing in the wind, but no wind ever blew in the underground tunnels.

Somewhere up ahead I heard muffled voices, real voices, and then a scream that made the hair on my neck stand up. Eli was a strong man, and it would have to be something terrible happening to make him scream in agony. Ares’s fingers gripped my shoulder tighter. Whether he reacted to the scream or if he was warning me not to be reckless, I don’t know. I forced myself to follow Hermes instead of charging blindly forward.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Desperately, I sought Eli’s mind. I couldn’t feel him and I feared he died. When I heard him scream again, I knew he shielded me from anything happening to him. Tears traced their way down my cheeks. He knew I came for him; still, he didn’t want me to suffer what he suffered. But, he used his screams to guide us. I felt better knowing that. The screams pleased the two women with him and they helped us. He allowed me to see only that much, so we would know how to proceed. Oh, Eli, my love. I am close. I will be there soon.

Hermes stopped. We stood just outside of the pool of light that came from a single burning torch. I didn’t immediately charge into the room. We needed to know what was going on there, first. Eli and Bill hung from the ceiling, naked as newborns. Bill’s head hung low, but he wasn’t dead. He struggled for breath. Hanging from your wrists put a lot of pressure on the diaphragm. Like being crucified. Christians always portrayed the crucifixion as people hung from a cross, arms spread wide. But, that isn’t the way it happened. They were hung from a stake, nails in their hands or wrists to hold them up and nails in their feet to keep them from thrashing around enough to free themselves. If the victim didn’t die within three or four hours, the tormentors would break their legs with a large hammer, forcing the victim to hang from just their arms. The victim slowly suffocated. Just like Bill at that moment. I witnessed crucifixions, myself. Put away your crosses, Christians, because they are not the symbol you think they are.

A woman’s voice: “You ruined my life!” She shrieked the accusation. “Because of you, Aphrodite cursed me. And I now curse you, dearest Daddy.” I couldn’t see her face, but she narrowed the field with that statement. Her shining golden red hair hung below her waist, free and flowing like a maiden’s.

Eli’s groin was a ruined mess and she brought the knife close again. The silver glinted in the torchlight. I didn’t wait another second. I darted forward and jerked her backward by the hair. Circe fell to the floor, the knife skittering across the uneven dirt surface.

She yelled, “Bitch!” At the same time, Eli said, “Behind you!”

I whirled, blade ready. Perseis held a sword, too. The two clanged together, sounding loud in the enclosed space. I hacked at her sword, trying to find an opening, a slight mistake. She retreated a step, and I pressed harder, knowing I had the upper hand. A contest ensued behind me, but I didn’t spare any attention to it. The witch in front of me was determined to kill me. I saw it in her glowing yellow eyes. Helios’s eyes. The only way I could stop her was to kill her, instead.

Perseis was one of Helios’s daughters as much as Circe. She was also an ex-wife. His daughter/wife. Circe and Perseis practiced necromancy, the darkest of the dark arts. They communed with demons and worked spells of evil. The witches crawled out of nightmares and imagination to work their kind of magic and it wasn’t pretty magic. Regardless of how brightly they shined with their hair of spun copper and their eyes of glowing sunrise, they represented the worse kind of evil.

As I forced her back another step, her form began to change. She metamorphosed into a lizard with snake-like fangs and a whippy tail. But, her hand still held a sword. I didn’t know if Perseis was really a lizard because she was a master of illusion and could have chosen that form to frighten me. She lashed at me with her tail and I side-stepped it. She wasted precious time with that maneuver. My blade found its home in her chest. It should have been a killing blow, but I missed her heart.

And then, the damned blade got stuck on a rib and I couldn’t pull the sword free for a second blow. I pulled my gun and fired, thinking only to kill her. The noise rang round and round the room, hurting my ears. But, Perseis’s head was nearly missing. The left side was gone except for the eye that hung from a thread like a balloon. Most of her brain was gone and the remaining half of her mouth worked like she was trying to speak.

I forced magic into her and she shattered in front of me, just as Demeter had shattered in Bill’s dining room. For the second time that evening, I was covered in blood and thicker things.

I turned to the conflict behind me and found Circe standing over two pigs. She transformed Ares and Hermes into swine, just as she had done to Odysseus’s men when they happened onto her islands after the Trojan War.

Eli still hung from the ceiling. He shouted to me in the language of Sonara, “Kill her quickly.” He felt sure that Circe didn’t know the language of his planet or he wouldn’t have used it. Helios likely never used that language with any of his offspring.

Circe looked at him in confusion and asked, “What language is this that you don’t want me to understand? Do not fear, Father. I will not kill her... yet. I want her to feel the full impact of my magic, first. I want her to know who she is dealing with.”

“I just killed your mother, Circe,” I said.

“Perseis was weak. She was a marginally talented student, at best.”

“Kill her,” Eli said in Sonaran, his voice coming out in ragged gasps.

“She has to change Ares and Hermes back to humans,” I replied in the same language.

“Zeus can do that,” Eli shouted. “She will kill you.”

Eli wasn’t terrified for himself. He feared Circe would, indeed, kill me.

“No, she won’t,” I replied and quickly put a ward around all of us so she couldn’t kill us with magic. It was big and sloppy, but it would force her into a physical fight.

I raised my gun and it flew out of my hand. I anticipated that so I dropped to the dirt and rolled towards the remains of Perseis. When I blew her apart, the action released my sword from its prison in her rib cage. The handle was slick with blood, but I could still hold it firmly in my hand.

Then, my sword changed to a snake that hissed and threatened to bite me. It was an illusion because the cobra didn’t strike. Circe didn’t realize that snakes didn’t scare me. I swung the snake toward her and sliced a bit of her copper hair away. The curl floated to the floor of the cavern, almost in slow motion.

Ares, the swine, wasn’t finished fighting. He bit Circe’s calf and she whirled around to kick him in the side. The kick was vicious and painful. Ares squealed in a pig’s voice but didn’t shy away from the witch. In pig form, two lethal tusks protruded from either side of his bottom jaw. He thrust his head forward to tear a hole in her other leg. Her blood spilled onto the floor and was immediately sucked up by the dry dirt.

She held out her hand and suddenly Ares was Ares again. The ribs she broke with her kick pained him enough to bring him to his knees.

She was distracted enough that I swung the snake blade again, this time compensating for the illusion of length. The blade sliced through her middle and nearly to her spine. She looked down at the wound and then laughed. Underneath the tear in her white gown, I could see the wound healing. A glance at her leg showed me that she had already healed Ares’s bite and the tusk wound was almost healed.

Our race heals very fast, but she took the prize.

Ares would be out of commission for a few more minutes. I was on my own, still. Or so I thought. Hermes was still a pig and he attacked Circe as he saw Ares do, giving me my opportunity.

The blade swung around again and this time, her head fell to the floor. I expected her to simply lie there as a good dead person should, but both parts faded away.

Circe could wait. Eli was no longer in immediate danger. Bill was, however.

Bill could barely draw a breath. The chain that held him was attached to the ceiling through a huge ring embedded in the plaster. The chain’s other end was attached to a large wooden wheel so that people could do exactly what Circe had done... hang someone from the ceiling. I found and released the locking mechanism and slowly lowered him to the floor. I didn’t have the key to unlock the manacles around his wrists, but, at least he was no longer suffocating from his own body weight. Hermes, the pig, trotted over to him and nuzzled Bill’s cheek with his blunt snout.

I rose to lower Eli to the floor, but Ares was standing next to Eli’s large wooden wheel. He turned the wheel and the squeaking chains and creaking wood set my teeth on edge. When Eli’s feet touched the floor, he breathed a sigh of relief. I put my arms around him before his arms were released from the pressure of the chains.

“I’m all right,” he said, over and over.

“What did she do to you?” I asked him.

“Nothing permanent. Mostly she bragged about how easy it was to steal me away from you and then she lamented her state as a result of Aphrodite’s curse. It seems Aphrodite removed her sex organs and enhanced her desire for sex. She has been trying to reverse the effects of the curse for over two thousand years. Apparently, that’s why she has conspired with demons.”

Eli finally stood on the floor, in the mud marinated with his blood. I looked around and couldn’t see his clothes and I knew he had no weapons with him.

I glanced at Bill and he looked remarkably better, but when he moved, he winced from pain. “My left shoulder is dislocated,” he said. “But, otherwise I am fine.” Then, in true Bill fashion, he added, “Freaking witch.”

“You are still chained up and I can’t undo chains with the wave of a hand.”

“I can,” Ares said. He stood on shaky feet and waved open the manacles around Bill’s wrists. Then, he did the same for Eli.

“Eli, as soon as you can, transport the four of you back to Bill’s house. I have to finish this,” I told him. “I can’t worry about the injured while I am trying to kill Phobos.”

“I’m going with you,” Ares said.

“So, am I,” Eli said.

I argued, “Neither one of you can stand upright. How are you going to be able to fight?”

“I can fight,” Ares said, picking up his own sword and Hermes’s caduceus. He handed the caduceus to Eli. “You know how to use that thing?”

“Yes,” was Eli’s simple reply.

“All right, then,” I said and then I turned to Bill and his pig. “Hermes, can you transport Bill to his house in that form?” The pig nodded his head and then the two of them vanished.

I transported us to the living room of the house over our heads. The signs of fighting were clear, but it had moved to other parts of the house. Chairs were up-ended, tables and candelabras broken, plus a large blood stain marred the surface of the Persian rug.

No! They were fighting outside. I heard shouts and clanking metal outside the front door.

A large magic moved the air in the room and I had a fraction of a second to transport all of us out of the house before it flew apart like it was bombed.

Well, crap! I wanted to destroy the house, but Phobos did it first. The aftermath of the explosion pushed me into the grass and weeds of the unkempt front yard. We landed farther away than I anticipated when I transported Eli, Ares, and myself, so I must have brought some of the energy from the blast with me. I picked myself up off the ground and faced the battle that looked as if we were winning.

Phobos stood amid his followers, shouting orders. Beside me, Ares shouted, “Phobos! Phobos!”

The latter looked our way and held up a hand. Without thinking about it, I threw a wall up to stop his metaphysical blow that would have killed us. The wall I built was large and clumsy, but it did the trick. The energy Phobos threw at us leaked around the wall and stung my exposed skin like the sting of a thousand bees. At least we didn’t die.

I glanced at Eli and Ares, one at a time. “Are we ready?” I asked.

“Hell, yes,” Ares said.