Pantheon - Book Two:
The Fourth House
Chapter 1
Gaia, again
“I can’t just leave them.” Ethan pleaded “They're my parents. They’ll die of worry. They’ll think I’ve been kidnapped or something.”
“You are being kidnapped.”
“I could never do that to them, Black” Ethan's blonde hair was stringy, his scalp sweaty and his glasses smudged. He wore plaid shorts and an overly large t-shirt bearing the name, release date and tagline of the most recent mmo. He imagined his pale image on the side of a milk carton, the wondered why people still used that expression now that all milk comes in plastic bottles with only pictures of cows on them.
“You don’t have a choice. Jim and Diane will learn to cope. Unless you just disappear they are in danger. No goodbyes. Hurry up and get your stuff. I shouldn’t even be allowing you that much. Technically it’s illegal to bring anything with you.”
Black decided for Ethan what, in his bedroom, his most valuable possessions were. He helped himself to portable game devices and other electronic goodies. He raided the candy drawer but left Ethan's nerd themed wallet and a few stray bills on the desk. Confused Ethan finished collecting some clothes and other essentials. He stuffed them haphazardly into an overnighter.
Black grabbed the duffel bag from him, tossed it into a corner and pushed him out of the second story window.
In shock, Ethan rolled down the short portion of roof that hung over the side porch and fell to the ground. Black landed catlike on his feet behind him.
“Are you insane? You could have killed me.”
“Hey Ika, where were you on that one?” Black whispered as loudly as he possibly could, tossing the broken window screen into the neighbor’s yard.
“Apologies.” A thin airy voice with a slight hint of accent came from around the corner.
“But you said that he would be falling from the south window.”
“Hurry, there’s no time."
The sound of nos and a turbo engine roared over skidding tires.
"Fly!” Black urged the girl as an unmarked sports car sped down the street toward the house.
“Grab him and fly. I’ll meet you back in the castle. I’m going to find out what gate they’re using.”
“But you’re not-“
“Fly!”
By this time Ethan was so bewildered that he didn’t notice the white haired girl spread a large pair of wings out from under an overcoat and lift him off his feet. His mind was somehow still back in his bedroom trying to sort out having been kidnapped by his former foster brother. Black had reasoned he had to kidnap him in order to prevent him from being kidnapped. It made as much sense as the threat of being killed by a vile fairy with quicksilver eyes.
Ika beat her wings furiously as she carried Ethan as low to the ground as possible. Sometimes drooping close enough to the ground to run for a few feet, she effortlessly hurdled tall vinyl fences and leaped over the entire lengths of swimming pools.
Only moments ago Black had suddenly appeared in Ethan’s room, interrupted his game, got his character killed and told him to shut up. What did he mean when he said “I’m taking you to the real thing”?
A few blocks later Ika rocketed high above the two story suburban sprawl. She hurled herself, Ethan tight in her grip toward the bright sparkle of the Las Vegas strip.
Somewhere far below Black ducked behind a bush, listening intently, praying to the gods that the only foster parents he slightly liked wouldn’t be harmed.
He heard shouting, crying and pleading, but no crashes or screams, a good sign that his instructions were being followed. Black had burst into their home without knocking or pressing the bell. Jim and Diane greeted him excitedly.
“Good to see you guys. Here.” He shoved an unusually rough bit of folded paper into Jim’s hand.
“What-” the sandy haired man started to ask.
“Please do NOT read this till after they come.”
“Who comes,” Diane questioned.
“I’m sorry. Stay downstairs or Ethan will die.”
As their expressions contorted Black yelled at them to stay once more and almost surprisingly they did so.
“Don’t read that yet," he called from the top of the stairs. "Your life depends on it!”
Closing in on the mess of highway on ramps, exits and interchanges, Ika and Ethan spiraled down toward bright orange flickering lights of construction barriers.
Strangely they landed on the side of the road, next to a 'low shoulder.' She led him down into the ditch, unwary of resident scorpions and snakes. Ethan didn't know where to start with all that crowded his mind.
The tallish valkyrie, several years his senior retrieved a long halberd from its fastenings behind her back. To Ethan's astonishment and relief she was using it not on him but rather to pry open a rusty metal grating in the bottom of the ditch.
"Don't worry its safe, but I have to make you go first. Orders you know.”
Ethan couldn’t place her thin accent but that was hardly what gave it away that she wasn’t from around here. Her wingspan was more intimidating than her pole arm and it sure seemed real to Ethan. Of course it was real, how would some comicon cosplay costume actually fly? What was this girl?
He was too excitable to protest and slowly let himself crawl down into the storm drain. Feet dangling into the darkness he turned and held himself waist deep into the sewers. Ethan dropped. The unknown timing of his landing brought him to his side. The angel called Ika had already tucked her wings in and replaced the grating by the time he got to his feet. She was floating near the ceiling.
”Listen very, very carefully, yes?” she continued in her Viking dialect. “We’ll go into a room with bright light. On the long side of that room is a gate that leads to another room, completely identical just reverse, like you see into a mirror. Once we enter that room you have to pretend like you have, um…” she paused. “When you think that what is now happening has already happened before. What do you call that?”
“Déjà vou,” Ethan guessed timidly. As he noticed a small round craft that she held to her lips as she spoke. It looked somewhat like a Native American dream catcher, except it gave off a sort of shimmer as she spoke. It looked blurry, like it was in constant motion, vibrating in and out of visibility.
“Yes, that’s it! It’s at that moment that your entire memory is supposed to be erased-”
“What?”
“Tyst!” she insisted forgetting to speak with the translator device.
“I said supposed to be erased, I’m not going to, Black said not to, but that’s a serious crime. So promise you’ll pretend you know nothing of this world”
“I, I uh-” Ethan stammered.
“Just trust me. Say you promise.”
“I promise.”
“Good, come on.”
Ethan’s inspection under the aegis oculi proved much less remarkable for the guards than Black’s had been. This time they had worked properly showing only white light as Ethan stepped beneath them. To Ethan however this experience further mystified him as he thought he might be dreaming.
He pinched himself. It hurt. Ethan concluded that he indeed must be dreaming as he had done this several times before in his dreams with the same effect. He thought under full cognition the prospect of pinching himself this hard was absurd and therefore he must be out of it.
He was mildly aware of his passage topside into a city-less expanse. No lights, no streets, no sound of anything but a far off coyote howling at the full moon. Although he would never have guessed it was actually a werewolf.
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