Page 65 of Releasing the Gods
I hadn’t even realized tears were tracking down my cheeks until I tasted the salt on my lips. I was too devastated to wipe them away, and there was no time.
“You can’t be infected by Sickness twice,” Cronus told me. “You’ll have to touch him to channel his essence into the necklace. We’ll lend you power. You’re not strong enough on your own.”
Sickness stood a full head above me. I could see his eyes shifting as the energy Rhea used to hold him wore off. He was not going to go easily.
But what he didn’t know was that I was the most stubborn woman on Earth and he’d just pissed me off.
“Time to go back into your prison, motherfucker,” I growled, reaching out to grasp his shoulders.
Rhea scoffed. “Very ladylike.”
“Oh shut up and help us,” Cronus barked at his ex-wife.
The moment my hands landed on Sickness’s shoulders, a dark sickly energy slammed into me, making my stomach churn. Cronus placed a hand on my left shoulder and Hyperion on my right. Their blast of power channeled through my back and outward from my palms, causing Sickness to break from his frozen state and scream into my face.
The putrid smell of bile and death blasted over me and I had to fight not to vomit.
“Rhea!” Cronus shouted.
“Oh, all right!” She placed her hands on my back as well and her icy power trickled down my entire spine and then up into my arms and out through my fingers. The necklace at my throat began to vibrate, feeling like it was shaking my entire skull. Sickness fell to his knees as this triumvirate of power coursed through me and I started to feel…
“I feel sick,” I blurted.
“His power is going into the necklace … just hang on,” Cronus murmured.
Sickness looked up at me with such malice, so close to my face, it was terrifying. “It’s too late. You’ll never get us all in time,” he rasped, before his entire body started to break apart. He went from god to blobs of black inky liquid in seconds. When he fell away from my hands, I pulled them back, instinctively knowing not to touch the blobs.
“Alright, let's carefully set him inside the necklace,” Cronus called out. “Rhea, protect Maisey or I’ll kill you myself.”
She growled, shifting her position to stand in front of me and guide the black blobs into the necklace. Suddenly, my chest felt ice cold, so cold it hurt.
“I’m having a heart attack!” I shouted, clutching my chest just under the necklace.
Rhea rolled her eyes. “I’m just freezing the skin around the necklace so Sickness can’t attach to your form.”
Attach to my form?#WTF.Was that possible? We really needed to have a chat about the side-effects of this shit before we were halfway through.
“And he’d better not or I’ll hold you responsible,” Cronus told her, his tone hard.
Hyperion laughed. “Brother, I haven’t seen you this enamored since Rhea—before she slept with half the pantheon of course.”
“Shut up!” Both Cronus and Rhea called out at the same time.
I was dying. My chest was so cold that I knew I would meet Thanatos and my mother soon. I didn’t even have time to process Hyperion’s claim that Cronus might be enamored with me.
Suddenly the necklace felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The black blobs were gone and I stared down at the crystal at my throat, looking for signs of the darkness it held. All I could see were icy frost tendrils around my heart.
“That’s enough, Rhea,” Cronus growled.
With a grin, she thawed the ice and I felt like I could breathe again, rubbing at my frozen chest.
“That was fun. Who’s next?” Hyperion rubbed his hands together, his long blond hair shaking around his shoulders.
“Yes, Cronie, where are we needed next?”
Cronus glared at his ex-wife. “Sickness was your responsibility. You clean this mess up and make sure it doesn’t spread.” He pointed to the heaps of dead bodies.
She scoffed, looking offended. “Who put you in charge?”
