The Curse of the King (9 page)

I ran over and grabbed an extra-large vest. Tucking the Loculus under my arm, I ripped a long shred of leather as if it were paper. “Stay calm,” I said, approaching Zeus with caution. “This isn't going to hurt.”

I grabbed his arms. I couldn't believe I was actually
wrestling them into position. As I tied them together tightly, Zeus cried out,
“I'LL GET YOU, YOU SKWEWY WABBIT!”

As I backed away, Aly was laughing.

“What's so funny?” Cass said. “Did you see what Jack just did?”

“Sorry . . . sorry,” Aly said. “It's just . . . Elmer Fudd?”

“Yeah, well, he doesn't look so godlike,” I said, “but he'll break loose. Trust me, he's not going to stop until he gets his Loculus back. And I don't want us to be near him when that happens.” I glanced over my shoulder. In the moonlight, the steep foothills of the Peloponnesian mountains looked to be about a mile or so away. They were dotted with trees and small black holes.

Caves.

“Let's book,” I said.

We ran up the alley and wound through the streets away from the center of town, leaving Zeus's anguished cries behind.

Just behind a shack at the edge of town, I stopped. “Wait a second.”

“Jack, we have to keep moving,” Cass said. “We can't stay here. That thing is going to get loose and kill us.”

“He turned into Zeus because we got close to him—we activated him,” I said. “The same way that the other Select did, centuries ago. I'm hoping he goes back to being
a statue once we're far enough away.”

“Yeah, but he
killed
that guy, like, centuries ago,” Cass said. “What if he doesn't turn back into a statue until he gets the Loculus back—and
then
kills us?”

“I say we call your dad,” Aly suggested. “He can get us out of here. This was a bad choice. We need to put an ocean between us and him.”

I thought a moment. Leaving Routhouni now, when I knew the Massa had spotted us, didn't seem like the best idea. We didn't have time before one of us had another episode and we used up the last of the shard. “We'll hide for a while up in the mountains,” I said. “That way, if Zeus escapes, we'll see him coming. There's a chance the Massa will come after us there; you know they're going to want to get this Loculus. But at least we'll be safe. For a little while.”

“If Zeus comes after us, we're going to need more than the Loculus of Strength,” Cass said.

“I'll text Dad on the way,” I said. “Maybe he'll have some ideas.”

We turned and ran, leaving Zeus hanging.

I
MANAGED TO
strap my flashlight to my head by making a kind of cap with leather strips. Holding the Loculus in one hand, I used the other hand to scrabble up the side of a rocky cliff. The Loculus was making this as easy as walking.

By the time I reached the first broad ledge, Cass and Aly were way behind me. “Show-off,” Cass called up. His flashlight beam surfed up and down the scrubby mountainside.

“Take your time, mortals,” I said.

I sat, unhooked my pack, and took a look at the text Dad sent me as we were leaving Routhouni. Just as I figured, he did have some ideas about what we should do:

I didn't know what was in the package. I hadn't had time to ask. But already I heard an engine roar overhead.

From the direction of the airport came a helicopter. I stood, waving. As it hovered overhead, a bay opened in its keel. A sack, tied to the end of a sturdy rope, lowered toward me.

He was sending us the Loculi!

“Honey, we're home,” Aly announced, her arm appearing over the rim of the ledge.

I reached down and hauled her into the air and onto the ledge with one hand—as if I were lifting a rag doll. She sprawled in the dust.

“Curb your enthusiasm, Superboy,” she said.

“Sorry, I'll try a different method.” I sat on the ledge, dangling my legs just over Cass's head. “Grab on!”

“What?” Cass said.

“My ankle,” I said. “Go ahead.”

When I felt his hand clutching my ankle, I rolled onto my back. Curling my legs upward, I lifted Cass high. With a scream, he sailed clear over my head and came down onto the ledge near Aly. “Welcome,” I said. “You're just in time for Santa.”

Cass dusted himself off and looked upward. “What the—? Why is your dad giving us those?”

The sack was just over our heads now. I reached up and untied it. “He thinks that we're going to change our minds. Like, we'll take one look at the Loculi and say, ‘Hey, let's go invisible and fly back to the airport!'”

“Actually, not a bad idea,” Cass said.

“We're going to stay put and wait,” I said.

We untied the rope and then I gave it a sharp tug, to indicate we were done. The rope rose back up into the bay. In moments, the helicopter was disappearing into the night, toward Kalamata.

Dad had attached a handwritten note to the sack:
Good luck and hurry back!

I quickly stuffed the note into my pocket and shone the flashlight around the ledge. Behind me, in the mountain face, was a cave about four feet high. It was empty, its rear wall maybe twenty feet deep and covered with Greek graffiti. “If we need to, we can hide the Loculi in here,” I said. “I'll try to text Dad to pick them up, after the Massa find
us. I wish he hadn't sent those things to us.”

Aly was scanning the countryside. Routhouni was a distant cluster of dim lights in the darkness. The only other building between here and there was a tiny white house with a cross on its roof, in a field farther down the base of the mountains. “I don't see any headlights yet,” I said.

“Do monks drive?” Cass asked.

“Of course they drive!” Aly said. “How else would they travel?”

“Sandals?” Cass said. “Camels? I don't know. We're just sitting ducks here.”

I wanted to face the Massa. I wanted that badly. I don't know if it was the Loculus of Strength, or just the incredible rush of feeling that the hunt for the Seven Loculi was still alive. “We can't count on the Massa following us,” I said. “Let's wait out the night here. If nothing happens, then we can get back to Routhouni in the daylight.”

Cass was pacing now, squinting into the distance. “What about the lightning?” he said.

“What lightning? It's a clear night,” Aly pointed out.

“He's
Zeus
, right?” Cass said. “What if he throws lightning bolts at us?”

“Zeus is mythological,” I said.

“Oh,
that's
a relief!” Cass shot back. “I mean, whew, myths aren't real. That's as ridiculous as, like, I don't know . . . statues coming to life!”

“Easy, Cass,” I said.

“He has a point,” Aly piped up. “We're in the middle of nowhere. We saw a bunch of monks and we're assuming they're the Massa. Maybe the real Massa know enough not to be anywhere near this place.”

Cass threw up his hands. “Yeah, well, maybe this whole thing was just a dumb idea.”

“Whoa, what happened to our team?” I said. “We came up with this idea together. We can't just give it up. Not only that, we found another Loculus—so the way I see it, we're one step ahead. Plus, I just saved our lives and hung Zeus on a nail, and no one even said thanks. You guys want to call my dad and be picked up? Fine. But I'm going to finish this quest or die trying. I'll do what we're supposed to do, by myself.”

I walked to the far end of the ledge and leaned against the rock face. I could hear Aly and Cass mumbling to each other. As far as I was concerned, I'd go back to the island alone. I had nothing to lose.

After a quiet moment I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Hey,” Aly said.

“I don't know what's bothering you, Aly,” I said. “You and Cass.”

She was silent for a long moment. “When I came so close to death, Jack, it changed me. I'm not as afraid of it anymore, I guess. Part of me just wants to go home and be
with Mom and my friends.”

“I don't want you to die,” I said. “Or Cass. Or me. Fourteen is too early.”

Aly nodded. “Yeah. I think you're right. Thank you for nailing Zeus, Jack. You came through for us. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we are in this together. To the end.”

“Bad choice of words,” I said.

Aly laughed. “Sorry.”

We sat, dangling our legs over the cliff. Cass joined us, leaning his head against Aly's shoulder. “I'm tired. And don't say, ‘Hi, Tired. I'm Jack.'”

“I'm tired, too,” Aly said. “We're twins.”

“You guys get some sleep,” I said. “I'll keep a lookout.”

“How do we know you won't sleep, too?” Aly asked.

I grabbed the Loculus. “Popeye had spinach. Superman had the power of Krypton. I, Jack, have the Loculus of Strength.”

Cass's eyes fluttered shut. A few seconds later, Aly's did, too. I was worried about both of them. I wasn't Popeye and I wasn't Superman. I needed them both, and I could feel them pulling away.

Overhead another military plane zoomed by, but neither of them stirred. I held tight to the Loculus and cast a wide glance over the barren countryside from left to right and back again.

And again.

By the fourth time, my eyes were heavy, too. There would be no fifth time until daybreak.

The “Strength” in the Loculus of Strength did not include staying awake.

H
E HAS FOUND
me.

Again.

I thought I'd lost him in Halicarnassus. But here he is in Olympia, standing before me in the shop. Standing before a great, massive lump of marble that has traveled here by the work of twenty slaves over three months.

He has that look in his eyes. The Betrayed Commander. The look that caused troops to quake in their sandals. The look that made me cry when I was a coddled little princeling. But now, after all I've been through—after all my land has been through—he annoys me.

“You would do this to your own flesh and blood, Massarym?” are his first words. “This trickery? This disloyalty?”

I look deeply into his gray, stern eyes, trying to find the man I once adored and respected. “I would ask the same of you,” I say. “As the king, your people are as your own flesh and blood. And you have allowed them to die. The ultimate disloyalty.”

“The queen is at fault,” he shouts, “and you, ungrateful wretch—”

“You cast a blind eye to Mother's actions then—but now you protest,” I say. “You did not protest while she disturbed the balance of Atlantean energy. While she dissected and analyzed the power like some curious experiment. When she trapped it away from the earth itself into seven spheres—”