Read Online The Blood of Athens by Amy Leigh Strickland - Free Book Online Page A

to come see this.
Really.”
    Jason frowned.
“Alright. Uh... let me call the sitter. It might take me a while.
Is this an emergency?”
    “ Uh,”
Devon hesitated.
    “ You know
what, don’t tell me over the phone,” Jason warned.
    “ Okay,”
Devon said. “You’ll see when you get here.”

    Jason pulled
up outside the Guerrero home forty minutes later. The house was owned
by Frank's aunt, but his aunt and his mother worked days, leaving
Frank and Devon alone with their new baby. Devon had only been
released from the hospital the morning before, and Xander had been
given a clean bill of health. What could have changed in twenty-four
hours?
    Frank came to
the door when Jason knocked and cracked it only an inch to look
outside. When he saw Jason, he rushed him inside with a very
conspiratorial wave.
    “ What's
going on?” Jason asked. “Is it... horns or something?”
    Frank walked
silently towards his bedroom; Jason followed.
    Until a few
months ago, Frank's room had been sparse with a few posters, basic
furniture, and the occasional dirty sock on the floor. Devon had
taken over since moving in. The walls had been repainted a sea-foam
green and, mounted on the wall, was Frank's football jersey from
Olympia Heights Senior High. It was framed with a photo of their
team, the Olympia Thunder, gathered around the state championship
photo from December of this year. Devon had thrown out Frank's
tattered comforter and replaced it with the red quilt from her old
bedroom. Most noticeably, the once bare room was now filled with baby
toys, baby clothes, and baby books. The cheerleading team had gone
overboard hosting her baby shower.
    Jason crossed
the room to Xander's crib. He looked down. Just Sunday morning, the
infant had had thick, dark hair. Jason's own daughter, Haley, had
come out of the womb with almost black hair, only to sprout blonde
curls by her first birthday. But this had been three days, and what
he saw now was not natural at all. Xander's hair, once thin, black,
and straight, was now a thick mass of springy curls, as tight as
fleece. That wasn't the extraordinary part, however. What Jason saw
was impossible. The hair on that baby's head was the color of pure
gold.
    Xander looked
up, and Jason looked back into his green-blue eyes, the same color as
Devon's. “That's not normal, right?” Devon asked.
    Jason shook
his head. Xander smiled. “No,” he said. “That's not normal.
Devon, pull the blinds. Frank... do you have an electric razor?”
    “ You're
going to shave his head?” Devon asked, alarm evident in her voice.
“Is that really necessary?”
    Jason
tore his eyes from the infant and nodded at Devon. “It is,” he
said. He took a deep breath. “I've got something to tell you both.
We have a new friend... Mr. Spade.”

“ It is of
the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for
the gratification of it.”
    -Aristotle

    xiii.

    Zeus
was not the only god known for his lust.
The god of the sea had as
many affairs.
His desire was not confined to his marriage.
This
is one such tale:

    When
Poseidon set his mind to seducing
Demeter, the true goddess of
the harvest,
she did not reciprocate his interest,
so she fled
from him.

    The
goddess took the form of a dappled mare,
and so Poseidon turned
into a stallion,
and in like form he chased her across the
earth
and overtook her.

    Demeter
bore an offspring from his conquest.
As they had both taken the
form of horses,
their new child was a stallion, a hero's
mount
they named Areion.

“ Our sins
are more easily remembered than our good deeds.”
    -Democritus

    XIII.

    The escapades
of the night before hadn't done much to hinder the waking hours for
The Pantheon. Their bodies still weren't used to the time difference
between Florida and Athens anyway, and there was plenty of time to
sleep on buses. They had spent the morning sleep-walking through the
National Archaeological Museum, but a nap on the bus followed by the
discovery of a