Here is the first sneak peek of The Return, which is available Monday Feb 16, 2015!
“But these sons whom be begot himself great Heaven used to call Titans in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards.” (ll. 207-210)
The Theogony of Hesiod
translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-Whi
Chapter 1
The mansion was as silent as I wished the inside of my head could be. No noise—not even a ragged inhale of breath or a whispered word. Truly blissful.
Peaceful.
The scenery was a whole different story.
From my vantage point at the top of the grand staircase, the opulent, open-floor design of the first level looked like a truck had backed up to the bronze double doors and dumped a load of SpaghettiOs all over the floor. Everything was splattered with red and gunk, like a fleet of cannons had shot an endless stream of beef ravioli against the walls and ceilings—lots of chunks of lots of different types of matter that usually belonged inside a body.
I’d never look at a can of Chef Boyardee the same way again.
However, there wasn’t a drop of blood on me. My black boots were shiny; the black tactical pants and Under Armour shirt, the standard uniform of a Sentinel, were free of the gore. I had skillz—major skillz.
My gaze flickered over the room below. This had to be, by far, one of my best Remediations—as in, search out hideouts and destroy the traitors who over a year ago had supported Ares when he'd attempted to take over the mortal world.
Their sorry asses didn’t have a chance in Hades.
Good old, average mortals who’d gotten mixed up in the wrong thing lay dead among the offspring of the Olympians. But most of those who littered the floor below were pure-bloods. Their official name was Hematoi. I rolled my eyes. They were as pompous as their name suggested. They were the products of two demigods getting it on. Their blood was considered pure compared to their counterparts, the half-bloods, which was what happened when a pure and a mortal got together. By simple genetics, halfs were weaker than the pures. They had less aether in them, the substance that surrounded Olympus and was also the very life force that flowed in the blood of the gods and all their creations. The aether was what enabled us to sense each other. The pures had more aether in them than halfs, which was why pures could wield control over the elements, just like the gods, but the halfs couldn’t. Our society had been stratified for thousands of years, because the pures always held themselves higher than the halfs, virtually enslaving them up until a year ago, all because they genetically carried more aether.
But in death, they were all the same, which was stinky, messy, and dead.
My gaze shifted back to the gaping double doors. Sentinels were here. I could feel their wariness to enter the building, taste their anxiety on the tip of my tongue. A slight smile lifted the corners of my lips. They knew I was here. They could feel me, too, but I was something far different than them.
I was a half-blood, but I was also the Apollyon, a child of a pure and a half, a union that had been forbidden for thousands of years because an Apollyon was more powerful than any pure or half could ever hope to be.
And I always got to the traitors’ hideouts before they did, so the Sentinels were usually left with the cleanup, which I was sure absolutely thrilled them.
