The Dark Prophecy

“Leo Valdez, in four thousand years, no one has ever dared to kick me in the crotch. If you mean I looked slightly shocked, that’s because I knew Hemithea when she was a young princess in ancient Greece. We were never an item. However, I’m the one who made her immortal.”

Leo’s eyes drifted toward the workshop, where Josephine had begun to weld again. “I thought all Hunters became immortal once they took the pledge to Artemis.”

“You misunderstand,” I said. “I made Hemithea immortal before she became a Hunter. In fact, I turned her into a god.”

Tell you a story?

Or I could just, like, pass out

And twitch on the couch

THIS WAS LEO’S CUE to sit at my feet and listen, enraptured, as I told him the story.

Instead, he waved vaguely toward the workshop. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna check out the forges.”

He left me by myself.

Demigods today. I blame social media for their short attention spans. When you can’t even take the time to listen to a god hold forth, that’s just sad.

Unfortunately, the story insisted on being remembered. Voices, faces, and emotions from three thousand years ago flooded my mind, taking control of my senses with such force that I almost crumpled.

Over the past few weeks, during our travels west, these waking visions had been happening with alarming frequency. Perhaps they were the result of my faulty human neurons trying to process godly memories. Perhaps Zeus was punishing me with vivid flashbacks of my most spectacular failures. Or perhaps my time as a mortal was simply driving me crazy.

Whatever the case, I barely managed to reach the nearest couch before collapsing.

I was dimly aware of Leo and Josephine standing at the welding station, Josephine in her welder’s gear and Leo in his boxer shorts, chatting about whatever project Josephine was working on. They didn’t seem to notice my distress.

Then the memories swallowed me.

I found myself hovering above the ancient Mediterranean. Sparkling blue water stretched to the horizon. A warm, salty wind buoyed me up. Directly below, the white cliffs of Naxos rose from the surf like the baleen ridge of a whale’s mouth.

From a town about three hundred yards inland, two teenage girls ran for their lives—making their way toward the edge of the cliff with an armed mob close behind them. The girls’ white dresses billowed, and their long dark hair whipped in the wind. Despite their bare feet, the rocky terrain did not slow them down. Bronzed and lithe, they were clearly used to racing outdoors, but they were running toward a dead end.

At the head of the mob, a portly man in red robes screamed and waved the handle of a broken ceramic jar. A gold crown glinted on his brow. Streaks of wine had crusted in his gray beard.

His name came to me: Staphylus, king of Naxos. A demigod son of Dionysus, Staphylus had inherited all of his father’s worst traits and none of his party-dude chill. Now in a drunken rage, he was yelling something about his daughters breaking his finest amphora of wine, and so, naturally, they had to die.

“I’ll kill you both!” he screamed. “I will tear you apart!”

I mean…if the girls had broken a Stradivarius violin or gold-plated harmonica, I might have understood his rage. But a jar of wine?

The girls ran on, crying to the gods for help.

Normally, this sort of thing would not have been my problem. People cried to the gods for help all the time. They almost never offered anything interesting in return. I probably would have just hovered over the scene, thinking Oh, dear, what a shame. Ouch. That must have hurt! and then gone about my normal business.

This particular day, however, I was not flying over Naxos merely by chance. I was on my way to see the drop-dead gorgeous Rhoeo—the king’s eldest daughter—with whom I happened to be in love.

Neither of the girls below was Rhoeo. I recognized them as her younger sisters Parthenos and Hemithea. Nevertheless, I doubted Rhoeo would appreciate it if I failed to help her sisters on my way to our big date. Hey, babe. I just saw your sisters get chased off a cliff and plummet to their deaths. You want to catch a movie or something?

But if I helped her sisters, against the wishes of their homicidal father and in front of a crowd of witnesses—that would require divine intervention. There would be forms to fill out, and the Three Fates would demand everything in triplicate.

While I was deliberating, Parthenos and Hemithea charged toward the precipice. They must have realized they had nowhere to go, but they didn’t even slow down.

“Help us, Apollo!” Hemithea cried. “Our fate rests with you!”

Then, holding hands, the two sisters leaped into the void.

Such a show of faith—it took my breath away!

I couldn’t very well let them go SPLAT after they’d entrusted me with their lives. Now Hermes? Sure, he might have let them die. He would’ve found that hilarious. Hermes is a twisted little scamp. But Apollo? No. I had to honor such courage and panache!

Parthenos and Hemithea never hit the surface of the water. I stretched out my hands and zapped the girls with a mighty zap—imparting some of my own divine life force into them. Oh, how you should envy those girls! Shimmering and disappearing with a golden flash, filled with tingly warmth and newfound power, they floated upward in a cloud of Tinker Bell–quality glitter.

It is no small thing to make someone a god. The general rule is that power trickles down, so any god can theoretically make a new god of lesser power than him or herself. But this requires sacrificing some of one’s own divinity, a small amount of what makes you you—so gods don’t grant such a favor often. When we do, we usually create only the most minor of gods, as I did with Parthenos and Hemithea: just the basic immortality package with few bells and whistles. (Although I threw in the extended warranty, because I’m a nice guy.)

Beaming with gratitude, Parthenos and Hemithea flew up to meet me.

“Thank you, Lord Apollo!” Parthenos said. “Did Artemis send you?”

My smile faltered. “Artemis?”

“She must have!” Hemithea said. “As we fell, I prayed, ‘Help us, Artemis!’”

“No,” I said. “You cried out, ‘Help us, Apollo!’”

The girls looked at each other.

“Er…no, my lord,” said Hemithea.

I was sure she had said my name. In retrospect, however, I wondered if I had been assuming rather than listening. The three of us stared at one another. That moment when you turn two girls immortal and then find out they didn’t call on you to do so…Awkward.

“Well, it doesn’t matter!” Hemithea said cheerfully. “We owe you a great debt, and now we are free to follow our hearts’ desires!”

I was hoping she would say To serve Apollo for all eternity and bring him a warm lemon-scented towel before every meal!

Instead, Parthenos said, “Yes, we will join the Hunters of Artemis! Thank you, Apollo!”

They used their new powers to vaporize, leaving me alone with an angry mob of Naxoans screaming and shaking their fists at the sea.

The worst thing? The girls’ sister Rhoeo broke up with me like a week later.

Over the centuries, I saw Hemithea and Parthenos from time to time in Artemis’s retinue. Mostly we avoided each other. Making them minor gods was one of those benevolent mistakes I didn’t want to write any songs about.