Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

being wrapped up in a throw rug and stomped on. Vertebrae popped and my wounded back sent me an outraged query, wondering what the hell I thought I was doing,allowing myself to be crushed like that. “Atticus! Is good to see you. Why does Flidais bring me here?”
    “We need you to appear big and intimidating.”
    “Ah, you need to scare peoples with face of rage?”
    “That’s it.”
    He smiled at me. “I can do this. Will be fun. Look.” He crossed his arms and the atmosphere darkened around him. His eyebrows drew together and his eyes, normally blue, flickered with the blue and white of lightning as he glowered down at us. He flexed everything and grew bigger.
    
    I didn’t do anything, Oberon. This is performance art
.
    
    Perun’s visual promise of doom relaxed, and he grinned. The sky brightened immediately. “Is good, yes?”
    I nodded enthusiastically. “That’s perfect.”
    Perun had moved on to greeting Herne, and I was reminded again that he was one of the nicer gods I’d ever met—at least, when he wasn’t stirred to anger. He was going to provide me a bit of an edge in the coming psychological warfare. When they arrived, Zeus and Jupiter wouldn’t be able to intimidate us with muscles and thunder when we had plenty of that on our side. And I thought it would be important for the Greco–Romans to see that we had a thunder god throwing in his lot with us. They’d accord Perun some respect and perhaps pause long enough to give me a serious hearing. Without him, I’d expect the Olympians to pummel us into submission without bothering to talk.
    The current popular image of Zeus as a cheerful, avuncular type perplexes me. I know it comes from a silly kids’ movie, but I’m not sure they could have gotten it more wrong. Zeus was never avuncular. He killed his father, raped his sister, and then married her, calculatingthat sanctified incest was marginally better than the unsanctified kind. After that he conducted a series of what are generously called “affairs” with mortal women, though sometimes tales will admit he “ravished” them, which is to say he raped them. He turned into a swan once for a girl with an avian fetish, and another time he manifested as a golden shower over a woman imprisoned in a hole in the ground. His actions clearly paint him as skeevy to the max and the most despicable of examples. He’s not the kind of god that belongs in kids’ films. He’s the kind that releases the kraken.
    Thunderclouds condensed and roiled above us, signaling that the gods of the sky had heard my words fall from the lips of Hermes. The messenger god rocketed out of the southern sky and hovered six feet above us, safely out of our reach.
    “Zeus and Jupiter approach,” he said, then darted sideways like a hummingbird.
    The Olympians knew how to make an entrance. A deafening thunderclap boomed in our ears, causing Oberon to yipe, and two lightning bolts struck the ground not ten yards away. Zeus and Jupiter stood in their place. Lightning continued to rain down around us and clouds boiled directly above, which was odd since we could see blue sky not all that far away.
    By now I’d grown used to the differences between the Greeks and Romans and could immediately tell the two apart. Zeus, the uncredited god of sexual deviancy, had wrapped a thin sheet of polyester material around his waist, like a towel, but was otherwise naked—and was visibly aroused by the opportunity to confront us. His beard, oiled and entirely white, was tied underneath the chin and fell to his sternum. His hair still had a dash of pepper in it here and there, and this fell in oiled waves down his back. Jupiter was dressed (or undressed) in much the same way, but his white beard was croppedclose and oil-free. His hair seemed unnaturally black by comparison, with some graying only at the temples. Perhaps he’d been using Just For Gods hair cream.
    Their eyes glowed with menace, and both sets locked on me.
    “Enough of this, Druid,” Jupiter growled. “Release Bacchus and the others now.”
    The Olympians, I had noticed, were not the sort for small talk or pleasantries. They just showed up and demanded that you jump to serve them.
    “Thanks for coming to talk, Zeus and Jupiter. Look, I’m not the bad guy here.”
    “You have imprisoned members of our pantheon, have you not?”
    “Yes, but that’s only because they were behaving