Dreamless
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.”
His body relaxed and his eyes emptied, and Helen knew he was dead.
“See, Eris, I didn’t double-cross him—the Myrmidon got his wish,” tittered a voice that made Helen’s heart stop for a moment. “He is reunited with Achilles. Just not on Earth, where he would have liked it!”
“At least his slave will be there to care for him in the Underworld,” hissed a woman’s voice.
Helen closed Zach’s eyes, promising silently that she would make sure Zach made it the Elysian Fields, drank from the River of Joy, and never had to serve anyone again. Then she turned to look at what she could already smell.
Ares stood on the other side of the chasm, flanked on either side by his sister Eris and his son Terror. Helen dropped her head and panted, knowing it was true. The Olympians were free. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Lucas and
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