“Keep your eyes and ears open, wife,” Tantalus warned, his tone grim. “Or I won’t be alive long enough to give you the Scion baby you need to get your throne back.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Halloween morning was overcast and gloomy, just like it should be. The menacing storm clouds overhead added just the right shade of pearl gray to the air, making the autumn colors pop like smears of oil paint on a perfectly primed canvass. It was cold out. Not so cold that being outdoors was intolerable, but just cold enough to make everyone want soup for lunch and candy for dinner.
Helen sent the Greek Geeks a mass text, telling them that Hades had agreed to let her back into the Underworld and that she was out of danger. She didn’t mention Lucas’s obol and she didn’t give any of the details of her meeting with Morpheus. She wanted to let Lucas decide what they were going to tell the family.
She got a few texts back, asking her to explain how she managed to descend after being banished, but she ignored them and posed a question of her own. She wanted to know where the Shadowmaster talent came from.
It developed in the medieval times, and it’s been a part of the House of Thebes ever since, Cassandra replied.
That meant the talent was only about a thousand years old. A thousand years was a long time, but not to Scions who traced their ancestors back almost four times as long as that. Okay. But where’d it come from? Helen persisted.
No one had an answer.
Helen dressed and got ready for school, then went downstairs to cook breakfast for her father, the witch. Having spent the previous day in a dress, Jerry had quickly learned that the only shame in his costume was that it wasn’t elaborate enough. After fielding multiple suggestions from customers for how he could improve his holiday spirit, he had decided to pull out all the stops. He had added a corset to the dress, and wore blue lipstick, clip-on earrings, and pointy-toed boots to add some extra oomph.
“Dad. I think you and I need to have a little chat about your cross-dressing,” Helen said in a mock-serious tone as she poured some coffee. “Just because all the other kids are doing it . . .”
“I know, I know,” he said, grinning into his bacon. “I just can’t get beat by Mr. Tanis at the hardware store. He’s a pirate this year, and you should see his wig! He must have spent a fortune on it! And don’t even get me started on the movie theater around the corner. They’re handing out thirty bags of candied popcorn for one of the night showings. Kate’s is much better, of course, but we have to charge.”
Helen ate her pumpkin pancakes—the last batch of the year—and sipped her coffee, listening to her father complain, even though she knew he was loving every minute of it. She felt almost good. Her head wasn’t throbbing, her eyes weren’t watering, and for the first time in weeks she wasn’t sore all over. While she wasn’t exactly happy, she did feel a sense of peace.
This feeling was partly to do with the fact that Helen was convinced there was another presence in the room. It didn’t scare her or freak her out anymore. In fact, it soothed her. She had forgotten to ask Morpheus if he was the “invisible sun” she had been feeling, but the last time she’d felt this presence she had also heard his voice, so who else could it be?
“Helen?” Jerry said, looking at her expectantly.
“Yeah, Dad?” She’d spaced out again.
“Can you work at the store after school today?” he asked again. “It’s okay if you can’t, it’s just that Luis really wanted to take Juan and little Marivi trick-or-treating. It’ll be her first time . . .”
“Sure! No problem!” Helen replied guiltily. “Tell Luis to have fun with his kids. I’ll be there.”
She had been daydreaming about Morpheus. Or was she just thinking about him as Lucas . . . or Orion? Her cheeks throbbed with a blush, and she stood up abruptly and started to gather her things for school.
“Are you sure you feel better?” Jerry asked doubtfully as he watched her stuff books
in a bag and check her phone. Claire had left her a text.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Helen replied distractedly, reading. Claire wasn’t coming to get her, as she’d been roped into going to school early to decorate for Halloween. “Damn it. I’ll have to take my stupid bike.” Helen moaned as she did an about-face and headed for the back door.
“Are you sure you can—”
“Yes! I’ll be there,” Helen cut him off peevishly. She reluctantly wheeled her ancient rig out of the garage, noticing that it had grown more rust over the past month than was scientifically possible.
“Have a good day,” her father called after her.
Helen rolled her eyes, thinking yeah, right, and pedaled off. She wasn’t more than a block away from school when she was nearly run off the road by a speeding driver. She had to veer off the shoulder, bump across the unpaved ground, and splash through the grandmother of all muddy puddles to avoid getting hit.
Great gouts of oily, turgid water splashed up onto her legs and soaked her from the waist down. Helen hit the brakes, and had to take a moment to let the catastrophe sink in, stunned that so much freezing-cold yuck had spewed all over her.
She looked back at the puddle. There was a dead animal floating in it. She smelled her clothes, and sure enough, they smelled vaguely of putrefying squirrel.
“Unbelievable,” Helen mumbled to herself. She wasn’t usually a clumsy person, at least not when she had a full night of dreaming behind her, and she couldn’t believe this had happened.
She read the time on her phone, and saw that she couldn’t go home and change. If she did, she’d get a detention from Hergie for being late for sure, and she had already promised that she would work for Luis right after school. Helen decided that spending a day smelling like dead squirrel was better than spending the rest of her life knowing she had robbed two impressionable children of their father on Halloween. Besides, she really liked Luis’s kids. They were so tiny, and Juan had the most adorable husky, little-boy voice.
Sighing at her rotten luck, Helen got ready to pedal to school, only to find that she couldn’t. Her front tire had gone flat. She swung her leg over to get off her bike, and heard a ripping noise.