"What do you think of that, Mr. Jacobs?" Zeus said, having emptied his bourbon bottle. "Will this tale do for the day?"

"Master Zeus, I've got to say that you keep surprising me at every turn," the old man said. "Never in a million years would I have expected to find out that the god Hephaestus was never actually disfigured."

"Yeah. We found a way to make those followers count on his behalf eventually, so we didn't have to start from scratch after all."

"And the whole thing with the titans and the Norse," Jacob said. "I mean, of course I've heard of the Titanomachy, but did you also get involved in wars with the Norse gods?"

"Those are long tales that might be fit for telling sometime in the future," Zeus said, and stood up.

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"You're right, Master Zeus," said Jacob, and he stood up as well, placing his notebook on the chair he'd been sitting on. "Some other time. I still need to hear all about how you defeated the king of titans."

"And you will," Zeus said. He started walking toward the bedroom the old man had provided him with. "But first you'll find out about the great siege that Cronus brought upon our city on Mount Olympus, the crafting of the titan-killer, and the ultimate confrontation with my father."

"I think we'll be needing more bourbon tomorrow," Jacob said.

Zeus closed the door behind him and threw himself, face-first, onto the hard mattress. It had been a long day but Zeus needed to tell this story--if not to the world, at least to himself. The final deity who had marked his life in such a profound way would finally be revealed to everyone. And he couldn't wait to tell the old man how he'd managed to avenge the death of his siblings.

<<<<>>>>

End of Book 2