The Forest Gods' Fight Read online

  “I knew it!” she exclaimed loudly. When out of curiosity Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo glanced back at us, I quickly shushed her. But upon seeing my dark expression, Aphrodite questioned, “Do you know what your fatal flaw is? Because I do.”

  I shot her an annoyed glare with my stone-cold gray eyes and protested, “Of course I do. I’m the freaking goddess of wisdom and—”

  “Well, then let me remind you.” Aphrodite smirked somewhat evilly as she interrupted me and I groaned, thinking that I really did not need a lecture right then, especially not one from her. I stood up to join the rest of the Monster Watch, but she wrapped her fingers around my wrist and dug her long fingernails into my skin, preventing me from leaving her side.

  “Let go, Aphrodite.”

  “Oh, please. You know that your infinite wisdom and skill won’t fix everything, yet you pretend like they will and you throw yourself into this Greek life, into being a goddess, just because something comes up that you don’t want to deal with. Like the fact that Alec is totally and completely in love with you.” She finished without even taking a breath and then sighed, looking at me like I was pathetic.

  Ouch. She hit that one right on the nail. I was starting to regret coming over to cheer her up.

  But, apparently, Aphrodite wasn’t finished yet, because she also added, “You know it’s true. You didn’t have to come all the way back from the Knowing base camp in Kentucky to save me. You could have easily gone to the nearest pay phone and called Zeus to tell him the whole story. He obviously knows the forest well enough to have been able to figure out your message. But no, you had to leave Alec behind.” She took a short pause, letting my guilt settle in, then continued, “Trust me, I know it’s sometimes easier to deal with guys when they’re on the other side of the country, the world, or even the Underworld, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to deal with them.”

  I couldn’t help but admit her advice was good; she really knew the ins and outs of relationships. But then again, I wasn’t that heartless and her short-sighted little idea wasn’t the only reason I had ditched Alec at his place of birth. Glaring at her, I explained in a raised voice, “You don’t think I know that? I left Alec there because I knew he could handle it and this was his chance to prove it. He’s a hero now, Aphrodite. I carried out the ceremony.” Aphrodite raised her eyebrows; that was news to her.

  Still not done with my own lecture, however, I stood up again and crossed my arms. “For the record, fatal flaws aren’t always blinding. Mine isn’t, but yours could be,” I warned her, fatigued, but with a ruthless edge to my voice. “You like to think that everyone can and should fall in love, even when you don’t know half the truth about someone. Can’t you see? I’m supposed to be the rational one here! Love may be powerful, but it’s also a distraction that could end up killing us all. So please, use your powers wisely and you can just forget about Alec and me.” Fuming quietly, I turned on my heel to walk away from Aphrodite who now looked more than slightly offended, though I couldn’t say I really cared.

  “Something wrong?” Apollo inquired nervously.

  “Let’s just go,” I muttered to the boys and together we started the long walk east back to Main Street. Hopefully, I still had all afternoon to avoid going to my house to face the wrath of my father.

  Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo placed their weapons back in the hollow logs by the edge of the trees while I picked up my backpack from where I had dropped it earlier. As Aphrodite bid us farewell and headed off to her house, the three guys and I—the Monster Watch—just strode out of the dense forest and crossed the street toward the Fire Pit, not even bothering to check for cars. We opened the creaking door and, immediately, I smiled at the familiar warmth of the small restaurant and the wonderful smell of food while sounds of friendly chatter and the clanging of dishes filled my ears.

  The four of us sat down in the back of the room at our usual booth and I glanced around at the rest of the tables to see that none of the other gods were there. I turned back to face the boys just as Zeus and Poseidon’s—Zach and Luke’s—human mother walked up, her thin eyebrows arched in surprise at seeing me.

  “Ashley! You’re back early,” Martha exclaimed. “Didn’t get kicked out of camp, I hope?”

  Ashley? Oh, right, that’s me, I reminded myself, shocked at how slow my reaction time was. The past few days had obviously taken a bigger toll on me than I originally thought.

  Quickly recovering from my mental clumsiness, I returned her smile and replied shortly, “It’s a long story. But I’m happy to be home again.”

  Their mom only nodded and retreated into the kitchen to make us some fresh lemonade and sandwiches. I couldn’t help but notice that the other parents having lunch in the Fire Pit kept checking us out. Within five minutes, I knew that for better or for worse the entire town would be alerted that I was home early.

  “So,” Zach started in English, but quietly so no one could overhear. “How was the Knowing camp?” The three guys leaned in toward me, eager to hear every word about our new-found Sighted allies.

  I just shrugged and told them, “Don’t get too excited. They’re almost completely corrupt.”

  When the boys raised their eyebrows in unison, waiting for me to continue, I realized I would have to start from the very beginning. Apparently, Alec had never told them everything he had confessed to me.

  “Well, it turns out that no one in the Knowing base camp had had a vision from the gods or the Oracle in decades. They worshipped the gods less and less over time and now they very rarely even leave the camp out of fear of monsters and possibly facing the new gods’ wrath. Furthermore, in order to maintain control and eliminate outside influence, they purposely haven’t kept in touch with the other, smaller Knowing camps. So when Alec had his vision about us, no one believed his story. His entire family was ridiculed. At the beginning of summer, their leader, Jason, actually forbade Alec from leaving the camp and he had to sneak out to come find us. Naturally, the Knowing people weren’t happy when Alec showed up with an outsider, but they imprisoned me and whipped him as punishment before I could even get out a word,” I finished angrily.

  “Are you serious? What did you do then?” Zach asked, his tone low and angry, while Luke and Connor—aka Apollo—cursed in Greek beside him.

  I then summarized for them how I broke out from my imprisonment to stop the whipping and reveal my true identity. How the Knowing immediately apologized and acted like nothing was wrong, but later challenged my authority when a small group ambushed Alec after his hero ceremony. How Alec won the fight anyway. And lastly, I told them how Alec and I at least temporarily restored contact between Knowing camps and abolished the minimum age for warrior training in order to increase the size of our army. I mentioned only briefly the party the Knowing threw in my honor right before I had the vision of the dead Aphrodite, the vision that had led me back home.

  When I finally finished outlining every minute of my past two days in Kentucky, I leaned back in my seat and took a deep breath while the rest of the Monster Watch collected their thoughts. “So Alec and the Knowing are meeting us in the forest in two weeks?” Luke clarified, and I nodded.

  “Well, part of the Knowing. We’ll be fighting a war on two fronts. Some of them have to stay at home and protect their camp. Since the day Alec and I showed up there, they’ve spotted way more monsters lurking around their territory than usual.”

  “That only leaves us about two weeks to defeat Hades and his army before school starts,” Connor pointed out, running his fingers through his blond hair, but he stopped when he glanced toward the door. Josh, aka Hermes, had just walked in with Cole, a Sightless classmate who didn’t know our true identities as gods, and they were heading our way.

  Cole and Josh, who was covered in sweat from running to notify all the other gods about what had happened to Aphrodite, waved as they walked up to our booth. “Is Becca all right?” Josh asked us casually, but a slight tinge of concern was woven into his w
ords.

  I was opening my mouth to answer him when a confused Cole cut in, “What happened to Becca?”

  “Nothing,” we replied in unison and Cole gave us a dubious look with his soft, brown eyes. Sometimes I felt bad that Cole was one of the only kids in the entire town who was out of the loop, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

  With a sigh, Cole sat down with Josh at our table even though we didn’t invite them to. Since we couldn’t exactly discuss battle plans with Cole right there, the conversation turned to regular human topics—school, TV shows, music, et cetera. Much less interesting in my opinion, not to mention unimportant.

  About an hour later, the Monster Watch boys and I had finished our lemonades and grilled cheese sandwiches so we bid farewell to Josh and Cole then headed outside into the cool evening air. The four of us agreed that we had had enough of the woods for one day and slowly walked back to our houses instead, kicking little rocks along the way just to kill time because, for once, we seemed to have plenty of it.

  A sudden loud thud interrupted the quietness of the empty road. I jerked my head up in the direction of the sound, the direction of my house, a sad-looking gray one that was sinking slightly on its ancient foundation. I didn’t even have to walk inside and look at him to know my father was drunk. “You have got to be kidding me,” I groaned, more to myself than any of the guys.

  “Your dad?” Zach guessed and I nodded with an exasperated sigh.

  “I may have seen or heard him on my way out of the airport . . . and possibly ditched him there,” I explained sheepishly, and Connor and Zach erupted with laughter.

  “Of course you did,” Luke said with a smirk.

  Another deafening crash came from inside the lit-up house and the boys exchanged indifferent glances before looking back to me. “Scary movies at our house later tonight,” Zach added, gesturing to Luke and himself. “If you can manage to sneak out, you should come.”

  “I’ll be there,” I promised, eager to do something fun for once. Lately, all I had been thinking about was saving the world from Hades and his monster army. His mysterious motive for wanting to extend his rule outside of the Underworld kept me up at night more than I cared to admit to any of the Monster Watch.

  I sighed and slowly made my way up the porch steps then waved to the boys as they disappeared into Zach and Luke’s house, a dwelling slightly larger and much friendlier than mine. I slammed the screen door as I stepped over the threshold, letting my father know I was there. Sure enough, the grumbling monster of a man poked his head out from the lighted kitchen and his dark eyes grew even colder when they focused on me. I didn’t say a word to him as I started up the stairs toward my room and he just stared at me, an almost empty beer bottle in his pale, shaking hand.

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of shattering glass behind me and whirled around and grabbed my pocketknife, which I had hidden in my black leather combat boot in case a monster decided to venture out of the woods and barge into my house. You can never be too sure of these things in a time of war, after all, and since it would have looked awfully strange to my father if I had turned a small rock into a shining sword, my tiny pocketknife had to do.

  But the good news was that the noise wasn’t made by a mythical Greek monster and, to my relief, my father had turned away from me and retreated back into the kitchen. The only evidence that there had actually been a sound was the broken shards of brown glass from the beer bottle that lay at the base of the wall. At times like these, I wished I had the ability to read minds like Hera, to see what was going on in my father’s messed-up head.

  “I’m not cleaning that up,” I told him defiantly, looking up from the drops of dark liquid staining the white tiled floor and tightened my grip on the black pocketknife even more. It had been a very long time since he had actually thrown something at me.

  “You’re grounded,” he shouted up at me in a gravelly voice, and I smiled to myself. He really was too predictable.

  I turned around and raced into my room, swiftly pulling my sleek laptop out of a drawer in the corner. For the next couple of hours, I looked away from the screen only to check my watch, wondering when my father would make some dinner. If I sneaked out too early, he would know. In the meantime, I quickly worked to catch up on my college homework since I had nothing better to do while I was stuck in the house. Plus, I’d never really minded the advanced summer classes because they were challenging and allowed me to stay behind in high school with the rest of the gods.

  Finally, my father’s angry call came and I ran downstairs. I scarfed down the macaroni as quickly as I could without throwing it back up then returned upstairs to my room. I paced the room for a few minutes until I was certain that my father wouldn’t come to check on me; I was pretty sure that my mom was still cowering in the antique shop. Not waiting any longer, I simply picked up my old cell phone from my desk before opening the glass doors to my balcony from which I quietly climbed down to the soft grass. I smiled and took a deep breath, ready to let go of my worries for a while.

  Connor jogged up behind me just as I left my yard. “Hey,” he said with his usual mischievous smile. “I see that you managed to sneak out.” I grinned back at him and together we walked up to the porch.

  But strangely enough, the screen door opened for us and out stepped Zach and Luke’s parents. Their dad was wearing a tuxedo while their mother wore a nice black evening gown, so I assumed they were going out somewhere very fancy, probably to the steak restaurant in the next county over. After catering to other people all day every day, they often preferred other people to cater to them for a meal. They never tired of the restaurant scene.

  “Hi, Mom,” Connor and I greeted our second mother in unison and she smiled along with her husband, a tall distinguished-looking man named Marshall whose short, dark hair was just starting to get a few gray hairs.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure why we haven’t adopted you yet,” Marshall joked. “You and the twins are all as good as siblings.”

  “Oh, hush, honey,” Martha said quickly to her husband, stealing a nervous glance at me. I’d always gotten the sense that she was holding out for the moment Zach and I professed love for one another. She didn’t know that had already happened six years ago during an overnight trip into the forest, and it wasn’t the soul-mate kind of love for which she hoped.

  “Have fun, you two,” she continued. “We will be back quite late so, Ashley, please make sure the boys don’t destroy the house.” I gave a short laugh then Connor and I bid the pair farewell as they climbed into their silver SUV.

  As soon as Zach and Luke’s parents disappeared down the road, Connor and I ran up the steps and burst into the open house. We then walked straight into the living room where Zach sat on his old, green couch with his strong arms around the small shoulders of none other than Becca. Both of them turned around to face us at the exact same moment and Zach said, as if we couldn’t tell, “Hey, Becca’s here too. I figured she could use some company after this morning’s adventures.”

  Yeah, very good company, I thought, but held my tongue. Connor did not hold his, however.

  “Does Alicia know that you’re here?” Connor asked her pointedly, knowing that Alicia would be very angry with both Zach and Becca if she found out what was going on between the two of them.

  “Does Alicia know that Ash is here?” Becca retorted, leaning into Zach even further just to bug Connor.

  “I’m no threat to her and, besides, I’m over here practically all of the time anyway,” I responded, rolling my eyes, and headed into the kitchen to grab myself a drink of water. When I returned to the living room, Zach was putting Frankenstein into the DVD player and Connor had taken a seat on the other side of Becca.

  “So where’s Luke?” Connor asked Zach.

  “He’s upstairs sulking because we’re not watching an Indiana Jones movie. I thought about going up there and frying his computer just for fun, but I wouldn’t want him to shake the house to ruins.” Z
ach chuckled and Connor joined in as I collapsed into an ancient rocking chair I recognized from my mother’s antique shop.

  Becca groaned as she tied her long, blonde hair up in a loose bun. “Why do we have to watch a scary movie anyway? Can’t we just watch the news again?”

  I just laughed. “We fight real monsters for a living. I think we can all handle an old horror film about a fake one.” Becca simply stuck out her lower lip in a pout and passed me a bowl of popcorn. I took a big handful before passing it along to Zach, and the TV screen lit up in black and white as the movie began.

  Luke had finally joined us downstairs and every one of us except Becca was laughing hysterically because a little girl had just fallen into a lake when my cell phone rang. “Hey, Alec,” I said in Greek without even bothering to look at the caller ID. I had been expecting a check-in call from him all day. “Isn’t it almost eleven there?” I questioned him, knowing he needed to rest and Becca smirked. She shot me a look with raised eyebrows that I read as something along the lines of See, he loves you! I can’t believe you won’t do anything about it. I didn’t bother to respond to that.

  “Yeah,” Alec whispered into the phone, also in Greek. “Technically, I’m breaking the curfew rules, but who the hell cares? Anyway, I’m assuming that Aphrodite is okay?”

  “Well, she almost got strangled to death by the Minotaur, but she’s fine,” I confirmed positively as if this sort of thing happened often. I heard Alec sigh in relief on the other end of the phone while Luke, Connor, Zach, and Becca watched me with great interest. “How did training go today?”

  “Oh, it was so much fun,” Alec muttered sarcastically. “The Warriors-in-training almost killed me three times today, but other than that it was just brilliant.” I hoped he was exaggerating.