With every step, the horrible gods drew their helpless followers closer to an inevitable clash. Even Matt and Claire, who were making a conscious effort to control their reactions, felt more crazed as the gods drew near. Finally, like a cork blasting out of a shaken champagne bottle, the group surrounding Terror met with the bedlam around Eris, and a full-blown stampede began. In the midst of it all, Matt saw Eris laughing and her misshapen nephew sneering with satisfaction at her side.
Terrified people clashed with rioters in cost
umes, tearing each other apart in a frenzy of destruction and fear. There was nothing Matt and Claire could do but get out of the way. Gripping Claire’s hand tightly, Matt pulled her behind a parked car, ducked down, and used his body to shield her from the flying glass and debris.
The two of them held on to each other, trying to control their emotions so that they didn’t join in the fray. The air stank with the smell of rotten milk and burning plastic, and Matt noticed that the scents seemed to play on people’s emotions—the more intense the scent, the greater the swell of feeling both in himself and in the crowd.
The glow from the streetlight above them dimmed and then disappeared as a dark pall fell over the intersection. Matt found he couldn’t see more than two feet in front of his face.
“What are you two doing here?” growled a voice from inside the nexus of darkness.
Lucas’s voice, Matt realized with a jolt.
“Come on,” Lucas said, holding his hand out to them from the billowing folds of his cloak of shadows, motioning for them to follow him. “I’ll hide you in here until I can get you someplace safe.”
Matt and Claire hesitated, neither of them wanting to go near him. As they balked, the shadows broke up and moved away from Lucas. There was something menacing about the sound of his voice and the way the tattered ends of darkness clung to him. His blue eyes were black and he seemed so angry.
“Ah, Lucas?” Claire asked in an uncharacteristically timid way. “Are you, like, a Shadowmaster?”
Lucas’s face fell and he nodded sadly.
“Just how many secrets have you been keeping from the rest of us?” Matt asked, stunned to a hush.
Lucas opened his mouth and looked back and forth from Matt to Claire pleadingly, but whatever he was going to say got interrupted. Moving faster than Matt could focus his eyes, Jason and Ariadne appeared next to them, already asking a dozen questions at once. Lucas held up his hands and tried to explain that he had only recently discovered his talent as a Shadowmaster, when they were all interrupted a second time.
“Kids! Where’s Helen?” Kate shouted frantically. They all spun around to see Kate, half running, half limping back toward the vandalized News Store. Her clothes were torn, her hair was disheveled, and she was covered in dirt and flour like she’d been rolling around on the ground, fighting.
Hector was next to her, carrying Jerry who was unconscious and bleeding badly from a head injury.
Hector’s eyes were wide and his mouth was parted in surprise. Matt turned back around and saw Lucas, Ariadne, and Jason bristling with tension. He couldn’t hear what they heard, but Matt knew from the looks on their faces that all of the Scions were being taken over by the Furies.
“Jason, no!” Claire screamed, throwing herself in front of him before he could attack his brother.
“I’ve got Ari!” Matt yelled as he tackled her.
Ariadne hissed at him and scratched at his neck and chest, but quickly stopped herself when she saw Matt’s blood begin to flow. Ignoring his injuries, Matt covered her eyes with his hand and tucked her close to him as she shook with rage. Glancing up, Matt saw Lucas tilt his head like a lion on the hunt and take a step toward Hector.
No one was left to restrain him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Helen’s eyes opened and she saw the icy pillow next to her, so she knew she had to be back in her room. It was dark, but it was the navy-blue dark of evening, not the pitch black of late night. She was lying facedown on top of something uneven and warm—something that definitely wasn’t her mattress.
Propping herself up on her elbows, Helen looked down on Orion’s sleeping face. She told herself to get off him, but hesitated. He was frowning slightly in his sleep and for some reason Helen found that adorable.
In the Underworld, his face had been merely gorgeous, but back in the real world, it was downright hypnotic. Everything about the way he looked worked together in harmonious balance, like a visual symphony. The curve of his cheek played off the length of his neck, which led to the sweeping swell of his chest. He was a son of Aphrodite, and as much as Helen knew that irresistible attraction was one of his Scion gifts, knowing that fact didn’t make him any less magnetic. He still needed a haircut, but even so, he was truly an Adonis, the pinnacle of male beauty. He always had been, she realized, and the longer she looked at him, the harder it was for her to even think about looking away.
Unable to stop herself, Helen ran a curious finger across his lower lip. She only wanted to see if it was as soft as she remembered it, as soft as Morpheus had played it.
Orion’s body spasmed underneath her, and his eyes flew open in reaction to her touch. Before he was fully aware of his surroundings, he grabbed Helen and nearly chucked her off him.
“It’s me!” Helen squeaked, clinging to his shoulders so he didn’t send her sailing through the nearest wall.
Scrambling up onto his knees, Orion glanced around for a moment with a shocked and slightly bewildered look on his face. He released his tight grip on her and reached out with his fingertips to touch the melting ice that lay on top of the bed. An amused smile tugged at his lips as he rubbed the last of the dissolving crystals between his fingers.
Helen could tell just by looking at him that he was making the connection in his mind between the rapidly diminishing cold in her room and the constant, unearthly cold of the portal cave. She was amazed that she was so familiar with Orion’s expressions that she could practically read his thoughts. It was like she’d known him her whole life. Or longer, she thought with a little shiver.
“This is your bedroom?” he asked. Helen smiled and nodded. He gave her a dubious look. “So . . . what’s with the bed-wetter sheets?”