I entered a scuzzy alleyway that looked very reminiscent of the one in which we had fought the dogs, with Alexei, Nico and Christoph beside me. There was no one else there and I turned around to ask the guys if we were in the right place, and found that Remi was standing there with them.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm always with you," he replied, and that seemed to satisfy me.

"Look out!" Alexei pointed and I spun back to find the alley was no longer empty. And no longer an alley. As I turned, I found that we were now in a cave. Stalactites hung from the roof, the walls were scarred and rough, and piles of bones, some still red with blood, lay on the floor. Standing before us was a bum I had never seen before and yet now remembered was the man we were here to see, because one of us - me? Alexei? - had recalled a one-eyed homeless man who would be a good substitute for a Cyclops.

"What do you want?" he asked in a booming voice, wholly disproportionate to his size.

I opened my mouth to say “I don't know”, but no sound came out and I stood there in front of him, mouthing like a goldfish.

The man peered at me with his single black eye, then threw back his head and roared like an animal, his voice echoing around the cave, which suddenly seemed far larger, expanded to a vast cavern stretching for miles. As he roared, the bum grew, larger and larger, filling the cavern. I didn't see his clothes tear or his face change, but when I looked, I saw those clothes were gone, only a ragged loincloth shrouding his thickly haired body, while his single eye seemed to have moved to the center of his forehead, more like the traditional Cyclops.

"Get back!" I heard Nico yell as he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me behind him. It was only then I realized that the Cyclops had been grabbing for me and now its massive hand closed about Nico. I heard the crunch of his bones and saw him spit blood. I shrieked his name, but he was past hearing.

As Alexei and Christoph raced forward to avenge their friend, I looked about for Remi, desperate to keep my brother, who had no part in this, from harm. But he was gone. Perhaps he had run. Which was just as well.

Looking back, I saw Alexei and Christoph drawing swords, which I now remembered that they had had all along. They struck at the giant Cyclops, but it batted away their stabs and slashes as if they were no more than insects. With a careless swipe of its clawed hand, it sent Christoph flying into the rock wall of the cavern. I heard his body break, and saw it drop to the floor, limp and lifeless. Finally, Alexei managed to get a good hit in, his sword drawing blood that bubbled thick and dark green from the gash he had cut in the creature's leg.

But all he had done was anger it. With a snarl of fury, the Cyclops grabbed Alexei, sweeping him off the ground then, holding him by one leg, it dangled him down into its mouth, filled with dirty yellow teeth. I howled as I saw it bite Alexei in half. I buried my face in my hands as hot tears rushed down my cheeks.

Then I felt the heat - all around me and pressing in. I looked up and found the cavern wreathed in flames, the bare walls burning, the piles of bones turned to bonfires. I turned to run and there behind me was Remi again, staring at me in horror.

"Help me," was all he said before he burst into flames.

I shrieked afresh and tried to run to him, but my feet refused to move. I was forced to stand and watch as my brother burned, holding his arms out to me, pleading through his anguish for a help I could not give. I screamed my throat raw as the flames blazed - yet never touched me - and cried my eyes dry.

Now, the smoke was so thick I could barely see, the cavern choked with it. I breathed in ash, tasting blood in it and somehow knowing that it was that of my brother and my friends. My feet would move now and I ran, but met only fire whichever way I turned. I coughed through the smoke and now tasted my own blood, coughed up from my raw throat. Then, through the smoke and flame, a shadow moved. It was nothing definite, and certainly nothing I could focus on as my eyes watered. It was a presence - something I was more aware of than something I saw.

But I did hear it. Or what I assumed was its voice, a voice that arrived in my head without going through my ears. A soft voice, androgynous and anonymous. It could have been man or woman, god or mortal, but it spoke with a biting irony.

“So, this is humanity's hero? The great hope of mankind? You have failed. How does it feel to know that your incompetence has doomed your race? How does it feel to have the blood of so many on your clumsy hands? The blood of your friends, your brother, your mother. All will burn because of you. The earth will be a scorched and scarred ball of rock, floating in the heavens with but one inhabitant. You. So you can know the depths of your failure. You will live as long as the earth, and in your isolation, you will learn the true meaning of insanity."

The cave had gone, burned or vanished from around me, and I stood alone in a charred, desolate wasteland, nothing as far as the eye could see. This was what was left of earth. This was what my failure had meant.

This was my home until the end of time.

I awoke with a start, gasping for breath and feeling the tears still wet on my face. For a moment, I could not understand or believe where I was. It had been so real. Even with all the impossibilities and the stuff that had made no sense, it had still felt so very, very real. It was with a choking relief that my terrified brain finally allowed me to believe that it had been just a dream, and I gulped out guttural sobs, which dissolved into silent weeping in my hands as I sat in bed shaking.

When the tears and terror had passed, I looked about the room again, perhaps still needing some sign that this was indeed real. That assurance came in the comfortingly massive shape of Nico, curled under the covers beside me, his mighty chest rising and falling in time with his soft breaths as he slept. He was alive. They were all alive and the earth still lived.

My panic had failed to wake Nico but he had earned a good night's sleep. We had made love long into the night, up to and beyond the point of delicious exhaustion. Even so, there was no way I was going to be able to go back to sleep now. Careful not to wake him, I swung my feet to the floor and tiptoed across the room to grab some clothes.

Minutes later, and with a robe over my pajamas and wooly socks on my feet, I entered the lounge and made for the coffee table. Perhaps it was no more than anxiety, but I needed to check the scroll now. I was still very aware that yesterday's task had been a bit of a Hail Mary and there was a chance that Zeus hadn't allowed it. Maybe that was what had caused that dream.

Either way, I needed to check so I at least knew what I was facing.

I could have woken the guys and told them what had happened - they wouldn’t have complained and would probably have insisted on checking with me. But this time, I needed to do it alone. If I’d failed, I was going to need some time to recover and get my confidence back.

With trembling fingers, I picked up the scroll and unrolled it. The sound of the paper crackling seemed abnormally loud in my nervous state. It was dark in the lounge and I had to flick on a lamp on a side table to be able to read the words on the scroll.

For the second time in the past hour, I was overcome with an almost physical sense of relief pouring through me; there was a new task. I found myself reading it out loud, albeit whispering to myself.

"I am known as the murderer of the sea, and only the bravest swim beside me, but our numbers dwindle, another dying breed, swim by my side if you wish to succeed."

What the fuck?

Much as I liked the guys, not having them here now, adding to the pressure I already felt, unintentionally or not, was a relief. It allowed me to think in the peace and quiet of the night.

I sat back on the couch and let the words play through my head. There's a reason that I don't do the New York Times crossword every week, and it's not just that I kind of think it's for dorks.

“Murderer of the sea”.

That had to be a great white shark, didn't it? I'd seen Jaws, and the sequels - 2 is okay, 3D is awful, and the one with Michael Caine is one of the worst films I've ever seen. But I'd also seen documentaries that tried to show how great whites weren't as bad as films like Jaws suggested - they were just animals trying to eat, and “murderer” was a very emotive word. In fact, if there was a “murderer of the sea” then it was arguably mankind - that was certainly how Poseidon would see it. But that explanation didn't really square with the rest of the task “only the bravest swim with me”, “our numbers dwindle”, “dying breed”; none of those were phrases that applied to humanity, with the possible exception of “dying breed”, if the gods had their way.

So how else could I interpret “murderer”? Half the sea's population killed the other half - that wasn't murder, it was just Mother Nature.

Killed.

I sat up and looked at the task again, heart beating a little faster.

Murderer of the sea.

A killer whale. They were a dying breed with dwindling numbers. It made perfect sense.

"What are you doing up?"

I started and looked up to see Alexei strolling in, wearing the sweat pants he slept in. As always in these situations, my eyes dwelt too long on the contoured muscles of his torso, which seemed to gleam in the moonlight as he passed the window.

Didn't I have any self-control? It was only a few hours ago that I'd been having sex with Nico. I had a problem.

"Couldn't sleep," I said, dragging my gaze away and gesturing to the scroll. "Thought I might as well get a start on this. And, good news, the siren thing worked."

“That’s great news, but once I heard her sing, I was pretty sure you had it down. She had to be part siren, no doubt.”

I shoved back an unwanted sizzle of jealousy and nodded. “Yeah, I think so, too. What are you doing up, anyway?”

“Came to get a glass of water," Alexei replied, as he wandered through to the kitchen and I heard the tap. "So, what's the task?"

I read it out to him and he considered it as he reentered the lounge and sipped his water.

"Any thoughts?"

"Yeah," I hedged. "But it's going to be tough."

Alexei shrugged. "Hasn't stopped you so far."

"I guess."

"Guess, nothing. You're killing it, Cat." He grinned and let his eyes slide lower, leaving a trail of heat behind. "I'm going back to bed, if you get tired and want to join me.”

“Noted,” I said, resisting the urge to follow him. I was still all twisted up about my time with Nico and the things we’d said to one another. Adding more to that pile of complications right now seemed foolhardy at best. Besides, I needed more time to work through the logistics of this new task.

Once he was gone, I went online and began looking up aquariums in the area. Keeping orcas in captivity has gone right out of fashion with the rise of environmentalism – though, I guess there's still an argument for breeding them in captivity as long as people keep killing them in the wild. No wonder Poseidon hated us. But there are a few bucking the trend, which, right now, was very convenient to me. The closest I could find was a place in Connecticut called Ocean World - no one sprained anything coming up with that name - which housed an orca called Porthos. As I dug a little deeper, I found numerous petitions circulating and demonstrations being organized to free Porthos, which was fine with me, just as long as they didn't free him until I'd saved the world.

Now, I just needed a way to get in.

 

A few hours later, I was still chewing on that problem.

”I don't like it."

The guys had joined me in the lounge one by one, meandering in to make breakfast. I caught Nico's eye as he entered, but if he had any ill feelings about waking up in my bed alone, then he didn't show it. Did any of them know that I had slept with the others? My father's apartment was big enough that a person could have quite noisy sex without other people in the apartment knowing about it, so it was entirely plausible that they were all still in ignorance.

On the one hand, I worried, feeling like I was sitting on a ticking time bomb that could go off any moment with a single loose word. They had all said initially that it wouldn't matter to them, but at that time it had been just theoretical, they might feel very different in practice. Was I being arrogant in assuming that all these gorgeous guys would be jealous of each other over little old me? Or was I being incredibly selfish in jeopardizing the future of the human race just because I was a bit horny?

On the other hand, concerned though I was, I was also tremendously impressed with myself. I tried not to be, but looking at the impossible perfection of the three male specimens I was breakfasting with, and knowing that I had had them all, it was hard not to feel that the impending demise of mankind had a serious upside, as it had brought them into my life.

"I don't like it at all," Nico stressed. "It's dangerous."

"More dangerous than Zeus wiping out the human race?" I asked.

"I'm just saying, there must be another way."

"Not that I can think of."

"Swimming with a killer whale." Alexei's tone was dubious as he shook his head.

"It could cut you in half with one bite," said Christoph. Like Alexei, he wasn’t saying I should or shouldn't do this, just pointing out the facts to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into.

"There are worse things."

My mind still dwelled on the horrors of last night's dream. Fun with the guys was all well and good, but there was a point to me being here, and that dream had underlined how important it was. Of course, it was risky, but the consequences didn't bear thinking about. If I didn't swim with Porthos, then the world would burn, and everyone I loved with it.

"How?" asked Alexei.

"Yeah, it's not like they just let people jump in with the exhibits," pointed out Nico, still hoping I would reconsider.

I grinned. "I think this is a job for Tony the Tiger."

"Another of your aliases?" asked Alexei.

"Not this time."