CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Broken Prophecies, Part 1

“Sam,” Thunder’s voice cut through the din of silence that had lain between them since the Uber ride began, “do you remember your Blessing Day?”

This was a deeply personal question to ask someone for it was a very private moment in a gifted’s life. But Sam didn’t mind giving an answer to the woman who’d basically changed his world and made it possible for him to grow as a hero.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I remember it… I was eight years old, a year late compared to most kids that get the gift.”

For Sam, the memory of his Blessing Day might as well have been just yesterday. He expected this was true for all gifted. After all, how could anyone forget the day they met a god?

It was the warmth on his skin that he remembered best. Like a hot summer day on the beach basking in the glow of extra-warm sunlight, as if the sun itself had moved closer to Earth just to pay Sam a visit — and it did.

The Temple of Apollo in New York City’s Upper East Side was a monument of glass and bronze-plated steel, and not at all like its closest neighbor, the Temple of Athena, which mirrored the look of the ancient Parthenon in Greece.

Sam remembered walking through those glass doors that had automatically opened for him and his parents. He remembered stepping into a marble-floored lobby full of sculptures and paintings of the Olympian sun god, testaments to Apollo’s vanity. He also remembered that they were not the only supplicants who visited that day. There were plenty of the sick or injured who sought the divine healing that only Apollo’s chosen could provide.

The clerics had taken Sam from his parents and brought him up to the inner temple at the top of the ten-story building. Inside this hallowed hall — which was a rectangular space with an interior that was more ancient Greek in style; Corinthian columns, white-washed walls, and lit bronze braziers — he met the current High Priestess, Daphne, seventh of her name. It was she the god possessed when he revealed himself to Sam after he had been left alone in that hall with the high priestess who sat on Apollo’s Sunbeam Throne.

“Yo, kiddo,” Apollo had said through Daphne’s lips. It was a pretty casual tone for a god to have. “So you’re one of mine, huh?”

He’d ruffled the top of Sam’s hair with Daphne’s hand, and Sam remembered how warm his touch was. It was like standing underneath a blow dryer.

“As a special treat for not peeing your pants at the sight of me,” Apollo had chuckled in that way people do when they’ve said an inside joke out loud, “I’m going to give you a hint about your future… you ready?”

Sam remembered looking up at Apollo all bright-eyed and nodding enthusiastically.

“Aren’t you an eager satyr,” Apollo had said just before Daphne’s eyes exchanged their divine glow for the pure white irises of a seer in the grips of a vision. “Looks like you’re in for some extra-hard times, kiddo. Not to worry though. That’s the kind of thing heroes go through before we name constellations after them.”

Daphne blinked three times, and then her eyes reverted to the divine glow of godly possession.

“You’re lucky…most of my descendants don’t get the spotlight. It’s usually down to one of Zeus’ or Poseidon’s progenies to save the world…” Apollo leaned in close to whisper into Sam’s ear. “Usually to clean up a mess made by one of Hades’ brats, mind you.”

He straightened up and then placed a heavy hand on Sam’s left shoulder.

“When you get the chance, go meet the sisters…this generation’s of fate’s avatars are even weirder than their predecessors, and that’s saying something, mind you…but they can help you find clarity,” Apollo winked at Sam. “Alright, now it’s time for the blessing, kiddo…and I sure hope your gift is up to snuff for what I’ve seen in your future…otherwise…”

He slid a finger across his throat, but seeing the shock appear on Sam’s face caused the god to raise his hands up and shine pearly white teeth down on the boy.

“I’m kidding,” Apollo chuckled nervously. “I’m kidding…”

Now that Sam was thinking about it once more, he imagined yet again that Apollo must have been picking on him that day. After all, why tell a bright-eyed young boy he was going to change the world when you were saddling him with the buggiest gift ever.

Life force for power… Yeah, right, Sam thought. As if Hercules ever had to worry about dying just to punch things into the stratosphere.

“Suck it up, Sam.” Thunder elbowed him in the arm probably because she noticed the deep frown on his face. “We’ve all been played with by the gods at one point or another…”

Sam gave Thunder a disbelieving look. “The gods messed with you?”

He found that very hard to believe as she was so strong and assertive. She really didn’t seem like someone anyone would mess with. Not even a god.

“Zeus never paid much attention to me until I got stronger. But, recently, he’s been making me jump through all sorts of hoops to see if I still have what it takes to be one of his heroes,” Thunder stated matter-of-factly. “Also, Aries once offered to make me his mortal lover.”

Sam glanced at Thunder and did a double-take. “Wh-what? When? How?”

“It was right after I made top seven in the national rankings,” Thunder answered nonchalantly as if she hadn’t just dropped a giant bomb on Sam’s lap. “One of his red priests dropped by during the party my team threw for me and gave me the god of war’s proposal.”

To become a lover of a god was a big deal, and not as rare as one might think. And any mortal given that status was basically untouchable and provided every comfort imaginable. It was pretty much the definition of hitting the jackpot. Also, a bigger concern for Sam was that crushing on someone who was already taken by a god meant you were risking incurring said god’s wrath.

Sam gulped. “And, um, what did you say?”

“What do you think I said, lame-brain?” she said while raising an eyebrow at him. “Of course, I turned him down. Do I look like one of those floozies who just want to look pretty for some alpha-male jacked up on steroids?”

Sam couldn’t help but glance up after Thunder’s comment. He almost expected Aries to blow their Uber up for that bit of blasphemy. Hell, he’d probably blow them up just out of spite for a mortal who rejected him. Luckily, that didn’t happen—this time.

“Can you please cut it with the blasphemy?” Sam sighed. “We’ve got enough problems…”

While Sam worried about divine retaliation, Thunder picked up on where their conversation left off as she didn’t seem to care at all that she might anger THE god of war.

Perhaps it was because she already had the Blight inside her, and what punishment could be worse than that? Sam thought.

“So, Apollo told you to visit the sisters?” Thunder asked.

“Ah, yeah,” Sam replied.

He spared a sideways glance at her and noticed how she was pointedly staring back at him.

“And you never did?” she confirmed.

“I, um, didn’t really know who he was talking about before,” Sam answered.

This was obviously a lie as the Fated Sisters was a hero team recognized around the globe, and not just because they were all pre-cogs too. Time magazine had once labeled them the real-life version of Charlie’s Angels. Thunder was aware of this, and it was obvious from the way Sam couldn’t look her in the eye that he knew this too.

“Satyr-shit,” she said. “You knew who they were… you were just afraid of getting a crappy prophecy from them, right?”

Sam wondered how was it that someone he’d met only a month ago could read him so easily as if he were an open book to her.

“Wouldn’t you?” Sam replied after a moment of hesitation. “If you had a shitty power like mine was, would you want to tempt fate into piling more shit on your plate?”

Sam’s brain flashed on the great tragedy that happened only a year after Apollo’s prediction of his future—to that time when his little sister’s own Blessing Day had gone so terribly wrong. It was an ending that was so messed up his mother never got over what happened, eventually leading to her transforming into the horror that murdered Sam’s father.

Of course, he didn’t tell Thunder any of this. There were just some memories too terrible to voice out loud.

“I guess…I would be afraid…marginally,” Thunder admitted although she placed a heavy emphasis on that last word. “But Sam, Chiron’s taught you lesson number eight, right?”

“Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It is the will to step forward despite the quaking in your boots,” Sam recited.

He almost expected the master to react to him perfectly memorizing a lesson’s words, but all was silent on the disembodied front. That’s when he remembered that the master would be out of his head for the rest of the day as Chiron said he had other business to attend to. What that business was, Sam didn’t have a clue.

“We’re here, ma’am,” the Uber driver announced.

They had just pulled into a wide residential street whose trees on either side of the street were a mixture of browns and reds, many of which were falling on the ground in that charming scenery witnessed only in late fall.

“270 Hicks Street,” the driver added as he parked his car in front of a three-story gothic mansion that was the only standout in a lane of uniform brownstone houses. “Hey, don’t I know this place?”

“You’ve probably seen it on TV,” Thunder answered just before she dropped two drachmas onto the driver’s palm. “Keep the change.”

After they got out of the car, Thunder led the way up the stone steps and onto the landing of the mansion’s arch entrance.

Sam noticed the door knocker Thunder’s hand reached out for had a spider design to it.

“What if she isn’t home?” Sam asked.

“Oh, she’s home,” Thunder answered. “She hasn’t left her mansion since the Fated Sisters broke up half a year ago…”

However, before Thunder could use the knocker the wooden door swung open on its own.

“It’s too early in the morning for you to cause a racket on my street, Sarah,” said the woman who’d appeared on the other side of the door.

She was dark-skinned, brown-haired, and very curvy in her black sports bra, leggings, and white trainers. Her skin glistened with sweat almost like she’d just finished working out.

“You saw us coming, Maeve?” Thunder guessed.

“Obviously…” The woman who looked like she was in her mid-thirties trained her gray-eyed gaze on Sam, “and I see you brought trouble with you…”