Chapter 38

Kara

I was sitting in my throne. Most of the others were sitting in theirs as well. We were sitting but not talking. Deon had called this meeting initially. He was freaking out, like he was trying not to panic. Despite this he was adamant about not telling us the reason for this meeting until he was 'Sure.' I don't know what he needed to be sure about, but we had giving up asking him about it.

Probably something got worse with Adele. I had noticed that she wasn't here, along with Albany. But it didn't seem like Deon would have kept us waiting for news like that. Maybe Adele had recovered. Maybe we were waiting for her to show up! Yeah that was probably it.

"How much longer are we going to wait here?" Zack asked looking at me. "I have things to do!"

Back before all this, back when I worked so hard just to have Zack look at me, the fact that I was sitting next to him and talking to him would've killed me. Now it annoyed me. I had grown to rather dislike Zack. I mean really dislike. The more time I spent around him, the more times I wanted to spit in HIS face. And it wasn't just Zack either. From what I learned about the OLD Zeus, he wasn't much better apparently.

"You're the king, you can do what you want." I told him. I had found that reminding Zack of this fact was the perfect way to get him to leave me alone. Every time I said this to him, he would puff out his chest and walk away proudly. For some reason that made him not want to talk anymore. Remind him he was king and he would go and strut around reminding people.

"You're right!" He exclaimed, puffing out his chest right on cue. "I AM king. King of the GODS! I can do what I want!" he stood up.

Just then Albany appeared with Gaia right behind her. Both headed straight for the middle of the throne room and stopped by the hearth.

"Everybody out!" Gaia ordered. As usual there were several lesser gods and goddess gathered around the throne room. These people came to hear the news and watch us decide their future. Kind of like those seats in Congress on the upper balcony that allows tourist to sit in on a session.

Grumbling and complaining the others left. They knew they had just missed some juicy gossip. Why else would Gaia expel them, this must be important. I now had my doubts about this being about Adele.

"Not you!" Gaia shouted. Looking up I realized that Zack was also trying to leave.

"I'm king of the gods!" he said proudly. "I can do what I want. And right now I want to go and spar with Chiron."

Gaia walked up to the kill of the gods. "Sit down." She hissed.

"Are you giving ME orders?" Zack whispered back. He laughed in Gaia's face and tried to continue leaving.

TRIED to continue leaving. Gaia didn't move, but I could tell he was controlling it.

"HEY! Stop this right now!" Zack shouted at the top of his lungs. Gaia was frowning in concentration as Zack was dragged back to his throne. Looking at his feet showed me what was dragging him. The ground had seized Zack's ankles, just swallowed his feet up. The ground was now moving him back to his seat. Zack's feet were drug to the foot of his throne, but he refused to sit down.

"How dare you?" Zack muttered furiously. "You dare to assault the king of the gods? He looked at the rest of us sitting in our thrones watching. "I command you to attack. She is a traitor!"

"Shut up, and sit down." Gaia said punching Zack in the face. The hit knocked him into his seat.

He was too stunned to speak. All the other gods wore faces of dumbfounded silence. No one knew what had just happened. Then I began to worry. Blade had spit in Zack's face, and had died for it. What would he do to Gaia?

Mars stood up, drew his weapon and began walking towards Gaia. Gaia turned and pointed at him with a finger. Mars paused, and Gaia spoke.

"You've seen what I can do." She warned him. "Turn around and sit down. I am Mother freaking Earth. I will bury you in a hole deeper than Hell."

For once, Mars walked away from a fight. I couldn't believe it what was happening.

Gaia turned to Albany. "Can you handle this? If I stay I might kill someone."

"Go ahead." Albany told the Titaness. Gaia exited the throne room and closed the curtain that concealed our closed sessions. I had never seen the curtain appear any of the times that we used it. I only ever noticed it after it was down.

"Was I right?" Deon asked Albany.

She nodded. Deon looked like he wanted to punch someone, which was the last thing we needed right now.

"Someone get me out of this thing!" Zack shouted trying to pull his feet out of Gaia's bonds. "I'll kill her!"

"Blade isn't dead." Albany shouted suddenly.

Complete silence. All eyes were on her. Even Zack was frozen still, his feet forgotten. I mean you could have heard a pin drop from a mile away. No one was breathing, moving, or doing anything else except staring blankly at Albany.

"Isn't dead?" Paula asked. "How?"

"I killed him!" Zack said. "I watched him die? He has to be dead!"

"I carried his body." Mars said.

"I helped." Herman added.

"He's dead." Mars muttered. "Come on, I'll show you the body."

"The body is gone." Deon said. "I went to see it, and it wasn't there."

"Wasn't there?" Artie asked. "Where was it?"

"So he's immortal and he can turn invisible?" Sid asked.

"That wasn't a smart comment." Hector said to him.

"How do you know that Blade isn't dead?" I asked. "Maybe Thanatos just stole the body and buried it somewhere. He was begging us to let him do the burial wasn't he?"

"Thanatos was locked up with the others." Artie pointed out. "Me and Paula would've known if he had left.

"Well Herman and Mars didn't know that Blade was alive when they carried him off." Zack shouted pointing accusing at the war god. Like all of this was Herman and Mars' fault. "Maybe Thanatos snuck off on you guys too."

"Impossible, we were always in the room with them." Paula said backing up her brother. "He couldn't have left."

"Why aren't you there now?" Zack shouted. "He's probably escaping with Blade right now!" he shouted, rather crazed.

"No, we left Pan in charge of the prisoners." Artie said.

"I don't think Blade's body exists anymore." Albany muttered."

"Immortal, invisible, and a ghost." Sid said.

"Ghosts are invisible!" Herman shouted at him.

"Shut up!" I shouted. "What do you mean?" I asked Albany.

"I went to see the Oracle with Gaia." Albany admitted.

"THE Oracle?" Paula asked. "Like the one in Greece?"

"Yeah the Oracle of Delphi." Albany said.

"When did you do this, and why wasn't I invited?" Zack asked.

"Does that really matter?" Artie asked.

"Anyways, the Oracle told me that Dionysus traded two humans to Hades, so that he could bring his wife and mother back to life."

"You can do that?" Hector asked. "Shouldn't there be, like, rules against that?"

"You!" Zack shouted pointing at Deon. "I knew you were trouble when you walked in!" He tried to get up, but failed. "How dare to trade with Blade!"

"OLD Dionysus did this, not me." Deon informed the council. "Right?"

"That's right." Albany answered. "The Oracle said that those bodies were like spare tires. She seems to think that Blade would become one of the bodies if he died."

"That should definitely be against the rules!" Hector complained.

"So, we just have to kill him two more times." Mars shrugged. "I could do it tomorrow if you want." He offered.

"Why don't we just have Gaia put him in a hole?" Paula asked pointedly. She was looking right at Mars when she said it, and she held him in her gaze for a while afterwards.

Mars frowned, but surprisingly didn't retaliate.

"No, not twice." Albany corrected. "The Oracle also said that she thought only one of the spares was for Blade."

"So that means that someone else is going to use the other body?" Deon asked a look of horror on his face.

"Nobody else is dead." Artie said. "Blade was the only person who died, besides those already dead skeletons."

"Maybe he didn't want to bring back someone from the battle." I said. "Maybe there is someone else, someone that was dead before all this?"

"Who?" Herman asked. "Godzilla?"

"Godzilla was never alive!" Hector shouted. "We need to be serious here!"

"It's probably some fearsome monster from way back when the other Olympians were ruling. Anybody know anything like that?" I asked. I had little hope. Adele was the best as mythology and she was out of commission right now. The rest of us barely knew about the gods we WERE, let alone all the obscure monsters and creatures of Greek Mythology.

"Medusa?" Deon offered.

"Wasn't there some giant snake thing that Hercules killed?" Artie said snapping his fingers. "What was its name?"

"The Hydra." Herman muttered.

"I doubt it's any of them." Sid said. "Why would Blade bring back something that had already been killed once? We could just kill it the same way as before."

"To bring something back from the dead, it would have to have been killed at least once before." Paula pointed out. "So anything he brings back will have died before. If he brings anything back. I think that other body will be his backup's backup. You know, third times the charm."

"No, the Oracle was pretty certain that the other body wasn't for Blade." Albany said. "She believed that it was saved for another."

"But who?" Herman asked.

"We're not going to find out by sitting here talking." Mars shouted. "Why don't we take the fight to him? We should march down there and kill Blade and this other person right now!"

"Are you stupid?" Albany asked.

"You're willing to walk into the Underworld blind?" Paula asked incredulously. "That's Hades home court! There's no way we could win a fight like that."

"Is there any hope that Blade learned his lesson, and that maybe this time around he will be a good boy down there?" Hector asked. "I mean if I were him, I would try to avoid a rematch at all costs."

"Unless you had a super powerful mysterious ally on your team." Albany reminded him. "That is probably what this second chance will be banking on."

"We don't even know who the second body is for, let alone if there IS a second body." Artie said. "Maybe he wants to bring back a beloved grandmother. What about that? What if he just misses some great aunt and wants to spend some more time with her?"

I was growing quite tired of all this bickering. We had achieved nothing since Gaia had left, and we were showing no signs of getting any work done anytime soon. It annoyed me, but that's how things went up on Olympus. Gods arguing constantly with no peace in between fights. Terrible way to run things.

"Everybody shut up!" I finally shouted, sick of just hearing their voices. The room quieted down immediately, just one of the perks of being queen of the gods. "Why don't we ask Thanatos, shouldn't he know? I mean, he was Blade's right hand man, wasn't he?"

They all agreed with my logic and we sent the twins to go and fetch Thanatos and Persephone, since she was Hades wife and may also know something. Within minutes they appeared before me in the throne room.

"Thanatos." Zack said. "Do you know where Blade is?"

"No." Thanatos answered. Zack nodded and looked to Persephone. Without be asked she answered as well.

"How should I know where he is? You're the one who killed him!" She shouted.

"Why did you want to bury him?" Zack asked. I suppose he thought he was being a good detective, but we didn't have time for him to beat around the bush. So I jumped in.

"What can you tell us about the old Hades?" I asked.

Thanatos looked and me and returned my question with one of his own. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know. Just anything that sticks out in your memory about him. Was he like Blade at all?" I clarified.

Persephone laughed. "I hated him for kidnapping me and forcing me to be his wife. I tried to avoid him. I spent as much time as possible with my mother Demeter." At the mention of her name, Demi looked up. She had been sitting so quietly by herself that I had forgotten she was here. "It's strange how my mother is now a mere child." Persephone said.

"So you can't tell us anything?" I asked again.

"Hades hated you." Thanatos said. "All of you. But he was smarter than Blade, he knew he couldn't win in a battle against the eleven of you combined. So he swallowed his anger." Thanatos looked around at us all. "He suppressed it, but never got rid of it."

"We kind of already knew that." Paula said.

"Yes that part was abundantly clear." Deon agreed.

"When will you replace him?" Thanatos asked. "I will offer to select the new Hades, like I did before. But this time you must treat him differently. This mistake cannot be made again."

"We don't see any reason to replace Blade yet." I said, rather vaguely. I wasn't sure if Thanatos was on our side now or what.

His face changed. Not like transformed, but his expression. Before he had just looked serious and solemn, but after I spoke for a few seconds he looked truly panicked. Like he was scared for his life. But he covered it and played it off.

"What do you mean?" he asked slowly, like he was trying to control his voice.

Red flags were popping up all over my head, and I could tell some of the others were reaching the same conclusions. Thanatos knew something, but he was holding on to it.

Albany stood up and walked to Thanatos, she looked him in the eyes and said. "We know he isn't dead."

Thanatos' face resumed its look of terror. He turned to Paula and Artie. "I told you to let me bury him! I could've stopped all this!"

"Stopped all what?" Deon demanded standing up. "What are you talking about?"

"This is all your faults!" he shouted at us. "We're all going to die because of you!" Thanatos fell to his knees, like the life had drained out of him. "Evacuate Olympus. Run! Run and hide in the deepest holes you can find!" He snorted. "Then at least you'll live to see tomorrow."