Helen saw Automedon smile and felt a panicky thrill radiate out from her belly and shoot down her arms and legs. This what exactly what Automedon wanted. He was counting on them to be brave and selfless. That would be their downfall. Her skin crackled with desperate static, but she didn’t have enough strength to generate a bolt. Ignoring the fiery pain it caused her, Helen managed to flop over onto her broken forearms and began to drag herself toward them.
“Helen, don’t!” Zach said in surprise. He tried to stop her, but as soon as he touched her he jumped back, getting a mild shock.
“Stop fighting him!” she tried to yell as she crawled, but even though she was healing fast, her vocal cords were still severed. The only sound she could make was a harsh, grating whisper. Automedon hefted his sword confidently and swung it over his head.
“Brace yourself,” Orion warned Lucas, and before Automedon could bring his sword down on them, the ground shook violently.
A booming noise sounded out through the dark, and a giant chasm opened up between Automedon and Lucas as Orion yanked the earth apart. Automedon fell to his knees and scrambled frantically as the ground beneath him gave way. Lucas disengaged gravity and floated, while Automedon seemed to magically regain his footing. His sense of balance was so good he could ride an earthquake like a surfer riding a big wave. Seeing this, Orion’s and Lucas’s hopes flagged.
When the shaking subsided, Lucas landed in front of Orion, adjusted his grip on the sword, and faced Automedon grimly. They both seemed to know that they couldn’t win this fight, but neither of them would quit. Automedon faced Lucas and Orion in turn, and then bowed to them courteously.
“Clearly, you are the Three I’ve waited thousands of years for,” Automedon said across the ten-foot-wide rip in the ground. “I thank Ares I’ve had thousands of years of battles to prepare myself for you or I would not have been ready. But the time is here, and I am ready.”
Automedon leapt easily over the gap, landed, and turned to face Lucas and Orion. In three moves, he had disarmed Lucas. In two more moves, he had Lucas on his knees, shielding Orion with his body and bleeding from a deep cut in his shoulder.
Helen heard Lucas scream and her pain vanished. She stood up, her skin glowing blue and coursing with power.
“Don’t you touch him!” she whispered hoarsely, her lips curling with rage. She held out her left hand and a blinding white bolt arced out of her palm and connected with Automedon. He crumpled to the ground, convulsing in agony. Helen dropped her arm and staggered to the side.
Finally able to get to his feet again after Orion’s earthquake, Zach stumbled after Helen and managed to prop her up as she tipped over, nearly fainting with the effort of generating a bolt. He got another nasty shock, but he gritted his teeth and held on to her as they staggered their way toward Lucas.
She fell down next to him, reaching out and pressing on his shoulder as if she could hold him together with her bare hands. She was vaguely aware of thunder rolling and she knew that his blood was mixing with hers, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop herself from touching him. All she had to do was get him away from Orion before their blood mixed, and the ritual would be stopped.
Helen felt something grab her bare ankle, and looked back to see Automedon as he yanked her toward him across the ground to keep her from interfering.
“It’s too late, Princess,” he said calmly.
Helen looked and saw Orion holding Lucas up as both of them reached out to her, trying to snatch her away from Automedon. Orion’s wounded chest was pressed against Lucas’s bleeding shoulder. Thunder rolled across the sky for the third and final time.
“It is done,” Automedon said, closing his eyes for a moment in relief.
Helen looked at Lucas and Orion. From their searching, confused expressions, she could tell that they could feel something had happened to them all—they just didn’t know the name for it yet.
“And now to deal with you, slave,” Automedon said as he jumped dexterously to his feet, completely recovered from Helen’s bolt. “You swore on this dagger to serve or die. And in the end you did not serve.”
He took a bejeweled bronze dagger out of its sheath on his belt. Before Helen could haul her broken body up onto her knees to shield him, Automedon threw the blade right into Zach’s chest.
Helen caught Zach as he fell down next to her on the ground. She had a memory flash of a time in second grade when Zach fell off the monkey bars and sprained his ankle. He’d had the same wide-eyed and baffled look on his face, and for a moment he looked like he was seven again and they were pals, trading treats out of their lunch boxes.
“Oh no, Zach,” Helen whispered, laying him down as gently as she could. Automedon turned away from the carnage he had caused and raised his hands to the blue beginnings of the dawn on the horizon.
“I have fulfilled my end of the bargain, Ares,” he said rapturously. “Now give me what I ask. Reunite me with my brother.”
“Helen,” Zach wheezed urgently, while Automedon was addressing the sky. “His blood brother . . . wasn’t a god, like Matt thought.” He grabbed the blade still sticking out of his chest and started yanking on it, hurting himself more and more.
“No, leave it in. You could bleed to death!” she tried to argue with her cracking, whisper of a voice, but Zach wouldn’t quit until Helen helped him pull it out. He wrapped her hands around the small blade meaningfully.
“It was Achilles.”
Zach let his head fall back and turned his face to Automedon’s feet, which were just inches away from his dying eyes. Without giving it another thought, Helen flipped the blade over in her hand, grabbed the hilt firmly, and stabbed it into Automedon’s heel.
His head snapped around to look down at Helen. Utter shock and disbelief froze his face in a blank O. In mere seconds, he hardened into a stone statue that began to crack, then crumble, and then disintegrate into a pile of ash. Helen looked down at Zach and saw that he was smiling.
“Hold on,” Helen croaked as she looked around for something to put on Zach’s wound. She saw his bloody shirt lying a few yards away and began to scramble toward it.
“Don’t go,” Zach begged, holding on to Helen’
s arm. With his other hand, he reached into the pile of dust that had been Automedon, and pulled out the pretty dagger, handing it to Helen. “Tell Matt I said he was a great friend.”