Helen’s eyes flared wide. “Shoosh.”

  “Yes!” Henry said, understanding what she was trying to say.

  “Did she just shush you?”

  Henry grinned. “She said, ‘Zeus.’”

  “Our mothers…had sex…with Zeus. The god…” Sarah’s stare was blank. They’d experienced a lot of insane crap over the past day. Finding out her father was not just a god, but the king of gods, might be more than she could handle.

  Henry reached out. Took her hand. “Sarah, you’re my sister.”

  That broke through. Sarah’s eyes locked on his. “Your sister…” A lopsided smile slipped onto her face. “I have a brother…”

  Helen fought to get free, mumbling into her gag, eyes wide.

  Henry chuckled. “Uh-huh, she figured out what that means.” He took hold of the metal cable binding her legs. Pulled hard, the metal stretched enough to tug free. He repeated it with her hands. The moment Helen was free, she took hold of the gag and tore it away.

  “I guess I could have done that,” Sarah said.

  Helen stretched her mouth and her neck, and then faced them. She looked choked up. Tears in her eyes. “You can tell her,” she said to him.

  “Tell me what?” Sarah was growing impatient. “Memnon is getting away, you know.”

  “This is important,” Helen said.

  “What could be more important than—”

  “Zeus was Helen’s father, too,” he said. “She’s our sister, too.”

  Sarah blinked in silence. And then, “Whoa…but—”

  “She’s still our grandmother, too.” He laughed. “See, I told you. That’s some backwoods bayou shit, right? Grandmother and sister.”

  “But why would Zeus—”

  “Because Zeus sleeps with whoever he wants,” Helen said. “It’s one of his worst traits.”

  “He straight takes on the form of an animal and seduces them,” Henry said. “I mean, sissy-grandma here was hatched out of an egg after Zeus did the deed with her mom…also our great, great infinity great grandmother…as a swan.”

  Sarah shook her head. “That can’t be true.” Looked to Helen for an answer.

  Helen shrugged. “That’s how the story goes, but I don’t remember my birth any better than you do yours.”

  “It’s totes messed up,” Henry said. “But he seemed like an okay guy to me.”

  “You met him?” Sarah and Helen said at the same time, followed by Helen on her own saying, “He hasn’t been seen since—”

  “He did the deed with our moms?” Henry said.

  “Long before that…”

  “I think he’s been living here. Hidden as a human.”

  “What did he look like?” Helen asked.

  Henry grinned in anticipation of Sarah’s reaction. It was the best joke in the world, and only he knew the punchline.

  “In the underworld, he kind of looked, I don’t know…like you. Greek. Tan skin. Black hair. Younger than how he’s depicted. I didn’t really get a good look. Everything was kind of surreal. Energy distorted everything. You know how the underworld is. Anywho, I couldn’t talk because of the sword in my throat. I was there with Hermes and Charon. They were making a deal for my soul. Standard stuff. Until a hand reached out and plucked the coin from the air. Then there was thunder…and I was back in my body. He pulled the sword out, and I saw him—” Henry pointed to the platform. “—right there…”

  Henry got lost in the memory for a moment.

  Sarah backhanded his arm. “Henry.”

  “Right, sorry. It was…” He smiled. “It was Linda.”

  Sarah sagged like she’d been wounded. “Linda… Nice Linda? Old lady, Linda, who we left passed out in the Duck truck?”

  “She’s the only Linda I know. Yeah. What’s wrong with that?” He asked. “I thought you’d be excited.”

  “Our father is alive, Henry. We were with him. And he didn’t tell us the truth about ourselves. He could have let us know who we were. Probably could have stopped all this, too.”

  “To be fair,” Henry said. “Helen wasn’t up front with us, either.”

  Sarah looked to her for an answer. Helen shrugged. “We’re Greeks. We don’t do things the easy way. And everything I told you was true. I just didn’t know who you really were…” She turned to Henry. “…or what you could do. For generations, I told my descendants the truth about who they were. None of them accepted it. Some of them were driven mad by the possibility. The few who realized some of their potential were soldiers fighting wars. None survived, but all were heroes. Trials and war unlock and prime some of a demigod’s powers, but immortality only comes with my blessing.”

  “Or Memnon’s,” Henry said, motioning to the destroyed syringes. “Blessed be.”

  Helen nodded. “I had to let Memnon’s plans play out, to prime you. It was the only way. I was as honest as I could be, but I was wrong. Not even I knew what you really were.”

  “Bullshit.” Sarah punched the stone floor. It cracked beneath her fist. “You knew we were demigods.”

  Henry put his hand atop her fist. “We’re not demigods.”

  “Then what the hell are we?”

  “There’s not…I don’t think there’s a word for it,” Henry said. “Our father was Zeus. Our mothers were demigods, descended from Helen…and ultimately from Zeus.”

  Sarah scrunched up her nose. “Eww.”

  “I know, right?” Henry said. “So we got fifty percent from dad, and twenty-five percent from mom.”

  “Seventy-five percent,” Sarah said, but she looked more confused than excited.

  Henry didn’t get it. How could she be upset about being mostly a god? “I’m going with ‘quasigods.’ The first of a new kind of—”

  Sarah shook her head. “No…”

  “What?” Henry said, growing frustrated. “Why would you not want—” He clamped his mouth shut when Helen chuckled. “What?”

  “You did the math wrong,” Sarah said, standing up. “The fifty percent passed on by Helen isn’t diluted by time, right? We got fifty percent from her and fifty percent from Zeus…”

  Helen stood beside Sarah. Offered her hand to Henry. “You’re not demigods, or even quasigods.”

  Henry looked up at them, tears in his eyes. His whole life he’d been nothing. A nobody. People who passed him on the streets didn’t even see him. And all that time, he was a…

  “Why did he wait? Why didn’t he tell us?”

  “Why does Zeus do anything?” Helen shrugged. “Maybe it was to build character. Or to put you on a path that brought you to this moment. To connect with me. To defeat Memnon. He did kill your mothers, something Zeus would not take lightly. But your father does what he pleases. Honestly, I thought he was dead. Aside from those bound to the underworld, I thought they were all dead. No one has heard from the gods in a very long time.”

  “Until now.” Henry took Helen’s hand. She pulled him to his feet. “Because we’re here, I mean. You know, because…we’re gods.” Henry chuckled.

  “Memnon is so screwed.”

  51

  “How did you get here?” Sarah asked. Henry was eager to pursue Memnon, and she was, too, but the question had been gnawing at her since she saw Helen strung up. Helen was the personification of strength and cunning. How had she been captured?

  Helen sagged a bit, then she looked annoyed. “He used children. I didn’t know about them. I thought I was helping. But they were—”

  “Strong,” Sarah said. “Demigods.”

  “And so annoying,” Henry added.

  Confused, Helen asked, “You know them?”

  Sarah nodded. “Phoebe and Deimos. Memnon killed our mothers, but not before harvesting their eggs and making a brood of demigods. Most died in his experiments. The twins did not.”

  “BT-Dubs,” Henry said, “They’re tied up in a supply closet.”

  “They’re here?” Sarah was surprised, but she wasn’t sure why. Until the Culus had taken the divinity serum, the twins were Memnon’s most powerful weapon, aside from himself.

  “I know, right?” Henry said. “You’d think one beat down would have been enough.”

  “You didn’t kill them?” Sarah asked, hoping Henry hadn’t gone too far.

  “You didn’t kill them?” Helen asked, voice steeped in disappointment. She either had no qualms about murdering children, or she understood the threat posed by the twins better than they did. Probably both.

  “No and no,” Henry said, eyes lingering on Helen. “Should I have?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” Helen picked up Sarah’s Dory and handed it to her. “Next time, don’t miss.”

  Sarah took the weapon. Had a pithy comeback queued up. But then—

  A groan turned them around. One of the charred Culus was pushing himself off the floor. Black sheets of burnt skin flaked away as his body flexed. The skin beneath was bright red, but healthy.

  The new demigods had survived.

  Sarah felt a pang of mercy. They’d lived through being struck by lightning. Or maybe they had reached the River Styx and struck a bargain. Hell, maybe Memnon had done it for them. There was clearly a way to reach the underworld without actually dying. Helen had done it for the both of them.

  “What about them?” she asked, when a woman stirred.

  Helen picked up Memnon’s hooked sword. She looked tired, but determined. “I’ll make sure they never walk the land of the living again.”

  “That’s…dramatic,” Sarah said.

  Helen stood tall. Strength renewed. Eyes burning. “Embrace who you are. Shed your doubt. Be bold. The things you can do…” She shook her head. “Not even I know the full extent of it. Now go, find Memnon. End this here. Tonight. I’ll take care of these charlatans.”

  With surprising speed for someone who’d been strung up for who knows how long, Helen threw the curved sword like a boomerang. The blade swung around, striking the back of the man’s neck. With a ching of metal on bone, it severed the man’s head, dropping him in two pieces.

  “Go,” Helen said to Sarah, stepping down from the platform. And then to Henry, she said, “Silence Memnon forever.” She picked up the sword and didn’t bother wiping off the decapitated man’s blood. Before Helen could step toward the recovering woman, a hand grabbed her ankle. Another man, rising from the dead.

  Helen swiped the blade down, cutting the man’s hand off. “Go. Now! I’ll handle this!” She punctuated the statement by hacking off the man’s head like a lumberjack. Then she stalked toward the woman again, ignoring them.

  Henry tugged on Sarah’s arm. “Dude. C’mon. She’s got this.”

  Sarah lingered. How many Culus were divine? What if they all came back at once. “What if she doesn’t? She’s our sister. We can’t just—”

  “She’s a Spartan,” Henry said. “She would rather die in battle than accept our help. Being captured? The humility of that… She’s got rage to spare right now.”

  When the woman’s head hit the floor and Helen stalked toward a fresh pair of Culus, rising from the floor, shedding their burned skin, Sarah relented.

  “He went this way,” Henry said, leading her to the back right of the sanctuary, where a second set of metal doors led outside the temple, which was still contained in column-framed glass and visible to anyone on the street.

  A pair of human Culus slid out from behind the columns. Unlike those in the temple, they were fully dressed in police uniforms.

  “These are two of the assholes who took me down,” Henry said.

  “Piece of cake.” The officer drew his sidearm. The other did the same.

  “Can’t kill us,” Henry said.

  “Just need to slow you down.”

  “You don’t need to die,” Sarah said, figuring it was worth a try. “Honestly, I don’t want to see you die.”

  The man’s brows furrowed.

  “Have you seen what happened in there?” Sarah asked. “Because gross.”

  Both officers glanced toward the door. When they looked back, Henry’s eyes flickered with electricity.

  A flash of abject fear snapped across both men’s faces. Sarah was sure they were going to relent. Then they raised their weapons.

  Both officers were practiced, fast draws. But their weapons were still pointed downward when, moving at the speed of light, bright blue bolts sprang out of Henry’s hands. Both men quivered. Screaming. Their clothing smoldered. Caught fire. The flickering light added to the torchlight, but smoked black. The acrid cloud rose up, triggering a fire alarm and sprinklers.

  Hidden lights strobed. A whooping alarm sounded.

  How long until fire trucks rolled up? Minutes? Or would they move slow after a long night of rushing around Boston, cleaning up the chaos Henry and Sarah had left in their wake?

  Sarah pushed past the scene as the flames were extinguished. She was soaked by the time she reached the next set of doors, which led to a hallway and into the Art of the Ancient World exhibit.

  Eyes blurred by water, light strobing in the darkness, the alarm blaring, Sarah was disoriented when she entered the gallery. She almost didn’t see the man waiting for them.

  Almost.

  Instinct guided her leap, shield cocked back, ready to strike.

  “Gah!” Henry shouted in surprise.

  Arcs of blue light tore through the air. Some streaked beneath Sarah, striking the tall man, and the rest of it painlessly flowed through her, infusing the shield with crackling energy. Her eyes widened when she closed in and saw the man’s one-eyed face.

  Cyclops, she thought, and then she swung the shield as hard as she could. Electric bolts exploded as she struck, decapitating the man-thing. The head launched across the gallery, pounded through a line of glass encased pots featuring Greek athletes, and came to rest at the feet of a statue of Demeter.

  Sarah landed beside the headless body.

  The still-standing headless body.

  Henry chuckled.

  Then laughed.

  “We killed a statue!” He doubled over, hands on knees, laughing his ass off.

  Sarah saw the humor in it, but she didn’t share the laugh. She thought she’d decapitated someone with a single blow—because she might actually be that strong. Even worse, she didn’t doubt, not for a second, that it really was a cyclops. That’s how screwed up her life had become. Henry saw everything as a blessing. But she just wanted a normal life. Not the shit life she had. But normal. A husband. Kids. A job.

  Now…she didn’t know what she was. ‘God’ was a term she was uncomfortable with. She knew it was a small ‘g,’ that the Greek gods weren’t all-powerful, all-seeing creators of the universe. They didn’t have that kind of power, even as a collective.

  So what are they? she wondered.

  What am I?

  From what little she knew about Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, and the rest of the gang, she gathered that they were petty, meddling, vindictive bullies who didn’t really love people at all. She didn’t want to be like that. She wasn’t like that.

  Maybe that’s why Linda revealed her true identity to Henry and not me?

  She pushed her endless questions from her mind and focused on Memnon. The confusing mess that her life had become could wait until the man who threatened not just her family, but the world, was dead.

  One more body, she told herself. Please don’t let there be any more guards…

  They worked their way through the gallery. The flashing strobe shut off and the alarm fell silent. With the fire extinguished, the alarm could be shut down, along with the emergency service response. And that was good. There was no way to know who was loyal to Memnon, or Helen, or just a normal dude doing his best to help people.

  They crept into the mummy gallery. She’d seen it dozens of times. Felt at home in the museum. But now she expected the dead to rise again. To hunt her down. How many other ancient gods existed? How many of them were still kicking around? Would they be offended by the birth of new gods? If so, could she defend herself? “How do you do it? The lightning.”

  Henry’s eyes crackled with light. He shrugged. “I just think it. When I found out who Linda was… Who we are… I believed I could do it. I mean, Helen has a little juice running through her veins, but we’re the real deal, right? So I figured…Why not give it a try?”

  Sarah thrust her hand out at an empty wall.

  Nothing happened.

  “Maybe you really have to feel it the first time, you know? Like really need it? I don’t know.”

  Sarah read between the lines. Smiled at the hidden message. “Like your sister getting a beat down?”

  “I thought they might…”

  “Kill me?”

  “Yeah. It sucks. I mean, I’d go to hell to get you back, but better if you never make that journey.”

  “Thanks…little bro.” She mussed his shaggy hair.

  He frowned and fixed his hair. Grinned and pointed at her. “Never again.”

  Her growing smile shrank at the sound of a distant sing-song voice. “Helllloooo.”

  It was Pheobe.

  “Come on, bitches! We don’t have all night.”

  Deimos.

  And then laughter. Deep and resonant. It echoed through the museum’s hallways and galleries.

  Memnon.

  “They’re waiting for us,” Henry said, rushing ahead.

  “Hold up,” Sarah said, clutching his arm. “Use your brain for a moment. Think it through.”

  Henry looked confused, then irritated, and then surprised.

  “There you go,” Sarah said.

  His expression turned into a wicked smile. “So, this is what thinking first feels like…”

  “What are you thinking?” Sarah asked.

  “Right. So, first, we’ll run in. Lightning everywhere. The twins go down. Then you chuck your spear, right between Memnon’s eyes. Splat.”

  “Wait, what? That’s your plan?”

  “You got a better one?”

  “Hell, freekin’ yes,” Sarah said. “Mahatma Gandhi could come up with a better plan.”

  “Who’s Mahatma Gandhi?”

  Sarah pinched her nose, collected her thoughts, and filled him in on the plan that would end in Memnon’s death.