The Gatekeeper's Secret: Gatekeeper's Saga, Book Five (The Gatekeeper's Saga) (23 page)

“I know you were only trying to help,”
Tizzie said fondly. “Unlike some, who want to display their power to intimidate others, you have a kind heart.”

Hip wasn’t used to hearing his fierce sister speak in reassuring compliments.

“So why am I here?” Pete asked.

Hypnos stepped inside. “It’s my fault. I should never have explained to you what seers can do. I should have known the temptation would be too great.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Hip,” Tizzie said, standing from her rock.

Okay, since when did
Tizzie not cast blame where it clearly belonged?

“
Tizzie, what’s wrong with you?” Hip asked. He was beginning to worry that she might be an imposter.

“I don’t blame you,” Pete said. “I take responsibility for my actions.”

Tizzie turned to Pete and cooed.

Cooed? What was going on here? Hip wondered.

“I really like that about you,” Tizzie said. She took Pete’s hand. “I have a feeling you and I are going to be great friends.”

Pete stood. “I guess I’m ready for that tour, then.”

“Tour?” Hip asked.

“I’m going to show him around Tartarus,”
Tizzie said. “Introduce him to people.”

“Oh.” Like that wasn’t odd, he thought. Nope.
Not at all.

Chapter Seventeen: Escape

Therese followed Than back to their rooms where Clifford and Jewels greeted them.

“I have a question for you,” Therese said to
Than after she had spent a few minutes with her pets. “When you told Richard we were married, did you mean it? Are we really married? Because I don’t recall Zeus making any pronouncements.”

She held her breath as she waited for
Than to answer.

“We said our vows before our family and friends and all the gods.” Than circled his arms around her waist. “We don’t need Zeus to pronounce anything to make it official, do we?”

She gazed into his eyes as joy spread through her. A lump rose to her throat. Her voice cracked when she said, “I guess not.”

“So, my dear wife.”
Than traced her jaw with his index finger, and her entire body responded to the word, “wife.” His blue eyes smoldered. “You still have a few hours before morning in Colorado.”

A smile broke across her face as a little nervous shiver worked down her back and she took her cue. “Whatever shall we do?”

He gathered her up in his arms and carried her off to bed. As he crossed the threshold of their bedroom, her heart pounded against her ribs. Tonight was full of so many firsts: it was the first time Zeus had been successfully bound, the first time Athena had gazed upon her mother since the day she had sprung from Zeus’s head, and it was the first time Therese and Than would spend the night as husband and wife.

***

Hypnos had just lain
down on his feathery soft bed for the first time in weeks when he heard a shrill cry resound throughout the Underworld. He sprang from his bed and prayed to his father.

Has something happened?

That was Hera,
Hades replied.

Hip god travelled to Hera’s room to find her weeping.

Zeus is gone!
Hades warned.

Hera glared up at Hip from her chains. “He left me behind!”

Hip disintegrated and dispatched to the chamber where Zeus had been chained to find several members of the Athena Alliance in shock. Metis was among them.

“I’m sorry,” Metis said to Athena. “I thought he would take me with him.”

Hip wondered if Metis’s supposed wisdom had been corrupted inside Zeus’s belly.

Than entered. “Hermes, Hestia, and Ares are gone, too.”

Hades and Poseidon exploded in rage.

“What have you done?” Poseidon shouted to Metis. “Now we are all doomed!”

“Prepare for battle!” Hades commanded.

Athena stood before her mother. “Will you fight with us or against us?”

“I am with you, daughter,” Metis said through tears. “Please forgive me and let me fight with you.”

“Hera is with us, too!” Artemis cried as she entered. “When I told her that Zeus had left her behind but had freed his sons and sister, she swore an oath on the River Styx to serve the Athena Alliance!”

“Wonderful!” Athena cried.

“Free her!” Persephone said with glee.

“Why haven’t the thunderbolts rained down upon us yet?” Dione wondered out loud.

“Because Zeus has gone after Therese,” Apollo said, giving
Than a sympathetic look.

Than
stepped forward on trembling knees. He’d
never
been so frightened in his life. “We have to help her. He’s going to swallow her.”

***

Therese pulled the apple pies from the oven and set them on the granite countertop. Although her aunt and uncle had already taken food over to the Holts this morning—wedding food the Graces had prepared for nearly a hundred guests—
Therese had wanted to do something special. She hadn’t baked an apple pie since her parents were alive as mortals, but she hadn’t forgotten how to do it, and she knew it was Jen’s favorite dessert. Despite her sadness over Pete, she was full of joy as she hummed around the kitchen with what she supposed was the glow of a newlywed.

“That smells wonderful,”
Nanna Bradshaw said from across the room.

“Thanks,
Nanna,” Therese replied. “I made one for you and Paw-Paw, too.”

Richard’s mother smiled.
“How nice of you.”

“Girl, are we proud of you,” Paw-Paw said from Richard’s recliner. “After all the misfortune that’s happened here, you’re holding yourself together, and baking pies to boot. You are a strong girl, Therese, darling.”

Therese removed the oven mitts and crossed the room to her adopted grandparents. “Thanks, Paw-Paw. I’m just thinking of my blessings.”

“We are the ones who are blessed,”
Nanna said. “To have you and your sister in our lives. Ain’t that right, Lynn? You a blessing!”

Lynn wriggled from
Nanna’s lap and tottered over to Therese. “Horsies, Terry. Lynn wanna see horsies.”

A few minutes later, Therese carefully laid one of the pies on the passenger seat of the Lamborghini and then buckled Lynn into the backseat.

“Let’s go see the horsies,” Therese said cheerfully.

“
Horsies!”

When Therese pulled into the gravel drive, she couldn’t believe her eyes: Jen, Bobby, Mrs. Holt, and Mr. Stern were in the pen fitting some of the horses with tack. Were they really going to give their usual trail rides today, the day after Pete’s death? They hadn’t even had his funeral yet.

Therese and Lynn had barely climbed from the car when Jen’s prayers came flying toward her like darts.

I thought I asked you to stay away from me? Whatever you do, don’t talk to me. I don’t want to talk to you.

Therese held Lynn’s hand with one hand and the pie with the other as she made her way toward the pen.

“Well, howdy, Therese,” Mrs. Holt said. “What have you got there? Your aunt already brought a ton of food from the wedding. Good stuff, too.” Although her voice was pleasant, the dark rings around her swollen eyes made her face look like a skull.

“I baked you an apple pie,” Therese said.

“Jen’s favorite. Why don’t you take that on inside and put it on the kitchen table for me?”

“Sure will. Can Lynn see the horses?”

“
Horsies!”

“Come on over here, Lynn,” Mrs. Holt said.

Therese let go of Lynn’s hand and headed toward the house. She hadn’t gotten very far when the sky above her darkened and a flash of lighting bolted toward her.

Therese looked up and dropped the pie.

***

Than disintegrated and dispatched to Colorado, warning Therese of Zeus’s escape as he god travelled to her aunt and uncle’s house. Back in the Underworld, he had just asked for the help of the others when Metis jumped up from her chair with a finger raised in the air.

“I have an idea!” Metis cried.

“What, Mother?”

“I know where Zeus has hidden Cybele. We can rescue her, and she can then help us to overpower Zeus.”

Of course Metis would know, Than thought. She’d been in Zeus’s belly all this time and heard all that had transpired between Zeus and Cybele.

Poseidon leaned against his trident. “You think highly of her powers.”

“She is more powerful than you know,” Metis said.

“She didn’t show it as my prisoner last year.” Hades picked his beard doubtfully.

That was true, Than thought. Cybele had sat in this very room cuffed and helpless when she sought asylum from Zeus.

“That’s because she wanted to gain your trust,” Metis explained. “But I suspect you aren’t aware of Cybele’s alter ego.”

Than narrowed his eyes and waited to hear what Metis had to say.

“Alter ego?” Artemis repeated.

“What do you mean?” Apollo asked.

Metis folded her arms across her chest. “None of you recognized her. I suppose I’m not surprised.”

“Enough riddles!” Poseidon shouted. “Tell us who she is!”

Than was growing impatient, too.

“She’s your mother,” Metis said. “The mother of all the Olympian gods.”

***

Therese leapt into the sky to dodge the thunderbolt, but another one was fast on the heels of the first. The edge of it grazed her foot and sent a numbing sensation through her leg. Before she could react, a sheep fell through the air. And then another.
And another. They bleated with terror as they fell toward the ground below. Therese swooped down to catch them. Although she was afraid the contact would cause the thunderbolts to go off, she had to try. It was her job as goddess of animal companions to save the friendly sheep.

She caught each sheep by a leg and delivered them safely to a San Juan mountain peak before charging toward Cyclopes Island with her arrows of love.

Zeus swore to swallow you
, Than warned.
I’m closing in on him, disintegrated into a massive army.

Wait! If he succeeds in striking even one of you with a direct hit, you’ll fall from the sky! Retreat, Than! Please! I have another idea!

I can’t afford to lose you, Therese!

I won’t let him swallow me. Trust me!

Therese turned herself into a beautiful eagle, and as soon as she was in sight of Zeus, who hovered over the island flinging sheep left and right, she struck him in the heart.

“Clever girl!” he shouted as he reached for another sheep. “You know how I love eagles. And now you’ve made me care too much for you to harm you. But that doesn’t mean I won’t get my revenge on the others!”

She returned to her normal form and sent an arsenal of arrows into his heart so that each time he reached for a sheep, he moved it aside and reached for another. Soon, he loved every animal on the island. And all of his thunderbolts were deep inside their bellies.

Although she had not been able to save every sheep, Therese felt relieved to see so many grazing along the hills of Cyclopes Island. A few others wandered the San Juan Mountains behind her aunt and uncle’s home. Satisfied, she returned to the
shape of an eagle and descended on a nearby mountain peak in Greenland to catch her breath and to alert the others of Zeus’s whereabouts when, to her horror, Zeus transformed her from the eagle back into her normal form, and, by the look on his face, the love her arrow had inspired in him did not hold after the transformation. He lunged for her.

***

Hip, accompanied by
Alecto and Apollo, followed Than in Apollo’s chariot to Colorado to help his brother protect Therese from the clutches of Zeus, but he also disintegrated and flew in his father’s chariot with other members of the Athena Alliance toward the belt of Orion, where Metis had told them Cybele hung.

Hypnos was still in shock over Cybele’s identity. She was Rhea, the mother of all the Olympian gods. He had once heard rumors about it, but he’d never taken them seriously. According to Metis, after Rhea, the daughter of Earth and Sky (Gaia and Uranus), had saved Zeus from being swallowed by her husband, Kronos, Zeus had grown up hidden away in Mount Ida, where Cybele, or Rhea’s,
Curetes had protected him from notice. Hip recalled the dancing men of the mountain who had helped to save Than and Therese and Hecate’s familiars. Once Zeus had reached manhood, he overthrew his father to become the supreme ruler of the gods. Not long after, he cast his mother aside and gave her no importance among the Olympians.