The Cult of Kronos by Amy Leigh Strickland Page A

strength.”
    -Aesop

    VIII.

    Zach skipped furniture
shopping and drove back to Olympia Heights the next morning. Jason's
tone had sounded urgent. June stayed behind to pick out a sofa,
coffee table, and end table for their little apartment in
Gainesville. Zach sped along the Florida Turnpike, only slowing for
tolls, and made it home in four and a half hours.
    Just after lunch, The
Pantheon—minus June and Minnie—sat down in Jason's living room.
Zach paced around in jeans and a plain white undershirt. He needed to
shave and his hair was messy from tugging at it during the drive.
Devon, Frank, and baby Xander took the sofa, and Penny sat next to
them, admiring the infant's golden hair. Teddy and Lewis sat on the
step to the sunken living room, hoarding the pizza rolls that Jason
had set out. Diana and Evan took the loveseat, and Nick perched on
the arm. Valerie sat on a folding chair that Jason had put out for
the gathering, and Astin lounged on the floor. Peter and Celene
waited in the kitchen.
    “ So what's up?” Zach
asked. “What did I risk a ticket to get down here for?”
    Jason pointed to an empty
chair.
    “ Sit down.”
    Zach sat down and leaned
forward, bridging his fingertips. “Alright. Shoot.”
    “ I had a surprise visit last
night,” Jason began.
    “ Was it Kronos?” Lewis
interrupted.
    “ No. No, thank God.” Jason
paused. “Celene and Peter showed up on my doorstep.”
    “ Say what now?” Lewis
said.
    “ But, Doc, they're dead,”
Teddy Wexler said. “Are you sure?”
    “ We're sure,” Penny said.
    Jason looked back towards the
kitchen. “You can come out now,” he called.
    Celene walked out first. She
was dressed in a dark-green wrap blouse, tied with a sash, and a
long, brown skirt. Peter followed close behind her, dressed in his
black shirt with the leather shoulders and gray trousers. He carried
the water skin from the underworld on a strap around his shoulder.
They stopped a few feet behind the spot where Lewis and Teddy sat and
waited for the murmurs to die down.
    “ Wait,” Nick said, holding
his hand to signal Celene to stay put. “Menoetius could change
shape. How can we be sure?”
    “ It's my mom,” Penny said,
unconsciously scratching at the edges of the cast on her right arm.
“I know my mom. She hasn't been gone that long.”
    “ And nobody but Hades could
have escorted me out of the underworld,” Celene said. “But thank
you, Nick, for thinking clearly. Safety should come first.”
    Zach got up from his seat and
hugged Celene. “It's good to have you back,” he said. He then
turned to Peter. Peter looked startled, but Zach pulled him into a
hug before he could back away. “You too,” he said. “You went
out like a badass, but we prefer you alive.”
    Zach's display of affection
sparked a round of hugs that took ten minutes to resolve itself. The
group had always felt like a family, but that had been in the
bickering, teasing sense. It took the deaths of two of their members
to make them express the love part of their family dynamic.
    When everyone settled down,
Penny was wiping tears from her eyes and Frank was smiling like a
toddler with a new toy. Lewis did a little excited spin that looked
something like a tornado and sent the papers on Jason's coffee table
flying about the room.
    “ Oh man, we have to call
Minnie,” Astin said.
    “ No!” Zach snapped. “After
that nosy P.D., Spade, with all the murders we've been around, we
can't be sure we're not on some NSA watch list. From now on, we don't
discuss anything supernatural on the phone or internet. That includes
email.”
    “ I can work on our own
special encryption program,” Evan said. “We can't have you in
Gainesville and Minnie in Massachusetts without some way to
communicate. She can't just drive down to Miami whenever we have news
to share, especially if we're in danger.”
    “ Get on that this
afternoon,” Zach said. “You can sneak a thumb drive into a care
package to Minnie with the