Olympus Drive Book 3: According to Plan

Chapter 4

Thyme

I follow the map to the big house, a sprawling house with sprawling grounds. The doors stand open and there are dozens of cars in the drive. I can hear music playing. Typical. I look at my phone, though. Still no reply from Anna. Nothing, that isn't like her. We talk to each other damn it. That's why I'm home. Because if she's not answering, that might mean she needs me. If she doesn't then, whatever. I don't care that's fine. But if she needs me I need to be here.

"Dean? Where are you, you prick? Anna?" I walk in the big oak door, to find the house mostly trashed, people lay on the stairs and floor, and dancing to music only they can hear. The whole place stinks of weed.

"Dean?" I walk out the large glass doors onto the expansive patio. Dozens of people are dancing, drinking, and sunbathing despite the crisp fall morning.

Predictably, Dean is lying on a deck chair, dark sunglasses on, wearing a white robe that's open in the front, and swim shorts. His head is tipped back and he has headphones on. The temptation to tip his dumb ass into the pool is terrible. In fact it's impossible to resist.

"What the hell----oh hey, Thyme!!" he says, upon surfacing, not overly surprised it's me. I'm standing on the edge of the pool, needless to say I'm out of place here, splattered with other people's blood, a gun strapped to my back, half in my uniform. I came straight home.

"Where's Anna?" I ask, folding my arms, "Last she talked to me she said that she's staying with you—but she's not taking my calls."

"Um---didn't she tell you?" he says, very weakly, as he wades out of the pool.

"Tell me what?"

"DADDY!!!!!!!!!!"

"How are my devils??" I ask as my sons launch themselves into my arms. "Sweet Lucifer you're getting so big." I scoop them up easily, one strong little boy in each arm. They are lovely like their mother, far handsomer than I ever was. But they are wild like me. I adore them. I kiss both of their sweet faces as they cling to my neck. They are identical, to everyone but me and their mother. I know Jupiter's soft temper so much like his mother's, and then Phineas as wild and fierce as I. I've never confused one for the other, nor has Anna even when we dress them identically to scare people.

"See? Here are your sons, healthy, happy, well, not in the Underworld---,"

"What?" I ask, looking up at Dean who is slinking out of the pool to get a towel.

"Nothing, greet the kids; we'll talk."

"Phineas, Jupiter, my sons, my everything, where is your mother?" I ask, them, putting my face in Jupiter's coarse hair and smelling chlorine lingering with blood. What I always smell of, their mother says. Harsh, metallic, blood.

"Mommy had to leave for a while."

"She said she'd come back," Phineas finishes, "We took good care of her daddy."

"Of course you did--- Dean. Where is Anna?" I ask, looking at him suspiciously.

"She went to find her mother," Dean says, sighing.

"Her mother was condemned to the Underworld," I say, flatly.

"I know. She's had a rough time of it since the baby was born---she told me she was---"

"Baby?" I ask, my stomach dropping.  She had a child?

"Not yours she said---she didn't tell you?" He asks, frowning.

"No," all this time she's had another child? Why wouldn't she tell me?

"Here the child is with one of the women," he speaks quickly to one of the cultists lazing about.

"Mommy was sad."

"Yeah she left."

"She was depressed, after the child was born. I offered to send for you but she refused. Last week she said she was going to find her mother, and she left the children in my care," Dean says, "I'm sorry Thyme I---"

"So to be clear when I said 'look out for her' and you said 'sure thing' what part was confusing?" I ask, dangerously he's well aware he's lucky I've got my children in my arms right now.

"It was her choice---Thyme I couldn't stop her---this is the child," he says, as a woman in a bikini comes to him. The woman is quite pretty, and in the mid stages of a pregnancy based off of her round stomach. She's carrying a child not a few months old, the child itself is quite beautiful, as lovely as its mother. The child goes readily to Dean's arms, nuzzling his bare chest and patting the edge of the now soaking robe. It's barely a few weeks old.

"Is it yours?" I ask, flatly.

"She—we don't know. Anna wasn't doing well as I said," Dean says.

"But it may be your child?" I ask, quietly, looking at the baby. It does look quite like it's mother, soft and gentle eyes and dark haired, unlike Dean who is quite fair. But it is beautiful like him.

"Yes," he says, quietly, holding the child a bit closer to him, "The other women have been nursing her----I haven't named her, I thought Anna would want to do that. Once she was home. You—you're not angry with me?"

"I am a man. I do not base that fact on the actions of a woman I have the privilege of loving," I say, flatly.

He nods a little, "She missed you, you know."

"You understand why I cannot stay?" I ask.

He nods, "It isn't what you are. She understood that too."

"I need to go to her," I say, taking a breath and setting down the twins, but keeping hold of their hands. "I am going to go find her---mind that one."

"I can watch the boys too—"

"No, that's fine go back to your orgy," I say, shaking my head. Anna what were you thinking? Okay I know what she was thinking. She was thinking the aphrodisiac aura of that place and Dean's presence calms down my violent children, something she needed with another on the way.

"We're going to mommy?"

"Daddy is. You two are going to stay with your grammy, okay?" I ask, holding their hands firmly, keeping my tone light as I can.

"But you just got home!"

"Yeah we want to go home."

"We will—we will," we had better.

"How are you going to find mommy?" Jupiter asks as I load him into my rental car. There aren't any car seats, but I honestly wasn't expecting to pick up the kids without their mother.

"Um---good question," I say. I don't know how to get to the Underworld how did she get to the Underworld? Damn it Anna, you had better have a plan.