Alex Anderson The Last Son of Zeus (5 page)

Fiona slung the backpack back on her shoulder and walked away. "
Okey-dokey
."

BOOK SIX

FOUR DUECES

Bos pulled his 1969 Plymouth Satellite into Alex's driveway and looked at his friend. "
Okey-dokey
? OKEY-DOKEY?"

"That's what she said," Alex said.

Bos shoved the transmission in park and shoved in the headlight switch. The headlights stayed on. "What the ..."

Alex shook his head. "I don't know. She hasn't been right since wrapping her car around that tree last year."

Bos slammed his hand on the dash. The headlights stayed on. "Alex, if Fiona had some sort of-of post-tree crash syndrome, she would be like, 'Hey, no thanks, I don't
wanna
get in your car
cause
it scares me.' Not be some freaky 'I don't care about my parents dying kinda chick. She's
goth
, but not that
goth.
"
Bos
slammed his hand on the dash again. The headlights still stayed on.

Alex climbed out and slammed the car door. It reopened slightly. He looked at the oak in the neighbor's yard. The gashes from Fiona's crash looked just as fresh as they did the day she walked away from it. "
You going
to the funeral?"

Bos' door squeaked open, and he rolled out of the seat. His shirt shifted to the side, showing his pale and pudgy belly. Alex rubbed his own. He wasn't in great shape, but his constant comic reading, video game playing and TV watching certainly could've produced a worse physique than the average one he had.

"Definitely." Bos walked to the front of his car and adjusted his shirt. "I don't know, maybe." He slammed both hands on the hood. The car rocked, but the lights stayed on. "You?"

"Yeah, I guess I'll go. I knew her mom and dad pretty well."

"Well, there's 'know well," then there's 'go-to-their-funeral know well.' I didn't think you hung around 'em that much."

"I don't. I didn't. But Fiona's a friend."

"Fiona's a freaky friend."

"But she's still a friend, so--"

Bos screamed and did haymaker onto the car hood. The hood bounced him into the brick wall of Alex's house and onto the ground. He yelled in pain.

"Oh God..." Bos rolled onto his back, cradling his elbow. "...so much pain...why, Jesus...Why?"

Alex bent over and looked in Bos' eyes. "You're an idiot, you know that? An absolute idiot."

Bos pointed at his headlights which were finally off. "But I...I am an idiot without a dead battery, Alex!"

Alex unlocked the front door and stepped in. His vomit smelling shirt, the constant stares from
Augie
, and the weirdness that was Fiona Avery had made the long bus ride from Nashville back to Athens even longer. He couldn't wait to take a shower, eat some supper and numb his brain with sub-quality television programming.

Alex poked his head into the hallway. He saw his reflection in the glass picture frames of him and his mother. "Mom?"

No answer. "Great. Wonderful. Looks like mac and cheese again."

Alex walked into his room and threw his shirt at the
Optimus
Prime poster. It bounced off and fell into the hamper. "I'm
gonna
turn into a macaroni noodle one day." He slid his
Chacos
off and kicked them against his dresser. They hit the scuffed area and shook his Justice League bobble heads that sat on top. "One big, cheese-covered macaroni noodle."

He heard the bathroom door shut. "Mom?"

He walked back into the hallway and saw a light shinning from under the bathroom door. He heard the dull roar of the ventilation fan. "Mom?"

Bos answered in a bad female voice. "Yes dear, mommy will be out as soon as she's through dropping a deuce." Alex heard a fart followed by a splash.

"Goddammit, Bos, why didn't--why didn't you use the other bathroom,
y'know
? The one without a shower. You could've used that one."

"Can't hear you, dear." Alex heard another splash. He hit the door with his fist and walked into the kitchen. He caught another whiff of vomit.
Christ, is it coming from my face?
He rubbed his face and looked at his hand. He smelled it and jerked his head away.

"Bos, hurry up. I'm freaking dying out here!" Alex saw a ray of light shinning into the foyer and shook his head. His dumbass friend didn't even shut the door all the way. He walked to the door, pushed it shut . . .

Only to have it
bounce off
a black boot.

Alex's gaze followed the foot up a black pant leg and matching trench coat. A very short, bald man stood in the doorway. "Alex Anderson?"

"Uh, Yeah?"

Baldy pulled a shotgun out of his trench coat, leveled it Alex's face and pulled the trigger.

~ * ~

Bos looked at the magazine rack touching his leg. "What sort of potty periodicals do we have here?"

He thumbed through and found two issues of
Cosmo
and one
Maxim
. He settled on the
Cosmo
for two reasons. One, he'd already read the
Maxim
issue,
and two...

"Jessica Alba bares her soul," he read off the cover. "Sweet. Totally sweet."

He dropped his third piece of cargo and flipped through the magazine. He was considering ripping several pages out--

And then he heard a shotgun blast from the living room.

Bos jumped off the toilet and looked at the bathroom door. The magazine fumbled onto the floor. His head made quick, jerking motions between the window, the turds floating in the toilet, and the pants around his ankles.

Something hit the bathroom door so hard it buckled in.

Bos yelped and fell beside the toilet. His heart raced and sweat started to mix with the stink of shit in the bathroom. He looked at the window again, wondering how difficult it would be to climb through it.

Then he heard his friend scream, in pain.

Jessica Alba stared at him from the bathroom floor. Bos defiantly stood up from behind the toilet. The determined look on his face contrasted the vine sausage-shaped object poking out from under the front of his shirt.

He grabbed a fistful of toilet paper.

~ * ~

Alex froze when the guy pulled the shotgun. He tried to ask shotgun-guy what he wanted, but all that came out was a type of stuttering sound.

A shotgun blast to the face answered his poorly articulated question.

The pellets hit Alex in the face. The force of the blast sent him into the coffee table, breaking it into several pieces.

Alex waited...waited for blackness to take him. Panic seized in his chest. He only had a couple of seconds to live at best. He winced and rolled over.

Shotgun pellets slid off his face.

Alex caught several pellets before they all slid to the hardwood floor. All he could do was
stare
at them.

"
Sonofabitch
," Baldy said.

Alex looked up. At some point, Baldy had walked into the house. "Would you look at that? Finally found you, you little prick."

He pumped the shotgun several times, ejecting unspent shells. He pulled one bright blue shell out his pocket and loaded it. "Say hi to Uncle Hades, asshole." He pumped the gun and leveled it at Alex's face. Alex starred at him, the pellets still in his hand...

And snapped.

Alex smacked the gun barrel away and picked Baldy up by the crotch. The tiny man yelled and squeezed the trigger, sending chucks of plaster everywhere.

He let loose a shrilly scream, but Alex didn't really hear it. Something had taken control of his body. His arms, which seemed to be guided by an unknown force, flung Shotgun Guy through the living room wall and into the bathroom door.

Alex stumbled backward, spun around and looked at his hands.
I-I just threw him through-through a fucking wall! A FUCKING WALL! How did--how could...what--

Baldy rushed him.

It was absurd. Baldy seemed too small to lift Alex off the ground, and he was definitely too small to squeeze Alex so hard he couldn't breathe. Nevertheless, his actions completely contradicted the physical laws of the universe, and he did just that.

Alex gasped for air and stared helplessly at the ceiling. Plaster dust enveloped the room, black spots crept into his vision, and panic flooded his mind. Whatever happened...whatever had come over Alex earlier was gone now. The force that guided his limbs and drove the fear from his mind completely deserted him and left nothing but confusion and weakness in its wake. His oxygen-starved mind meandered:
Mom'll
be, pissed. How--
how
can--how will she fix all this?

Bos jumped out of the plaster dust--screaming like a hero out of a John Woo flick--and forced
Baldy's
neck into a headlock.

Alex fell to the floor, inhaling air and coughing on clouds of plaster dust. He looked up and saw Bos riding on the four-foot dude's back. Bos screamed and furiously rubbed a brown-covered wad of toilet paper in
Baldy's
face.

Baldy grabbed Bos by the hair and flipped the teenager over his shoulder. He landed on the floor next to Alex.

Baldy stepped out of the dust and retrieved his weapon. "Jesus Christ, look at me, Getting beaten by you two losers! Can't fucking believe
this.
" He spit something that looked like a brown peanut out of his mouth. He rubbed his lips then a large portion of his face. He smelled his hand and jerked his head away.

"FUCK! You, miserable little fucks! You rubbed shit in my face goddammit! I'm
gonna
fuckin
' kill--"

A bolt of lightning crashed through the ceiling and struck the center of Alex's living room. Alex and Bos screamed as pieces of the ceiling fell and windows exploded around them. Baldy fell backward into the loveseat.

An old man halfway dressed in a business suit stood in the room. He kicked the remaining piece of coffee table out of his way. He looked at Alex then his gaze slowly fell back to Baldy. "You dare?"

Baldy's
eyes darted from Alex to the ceiling then back to the old man. "I-I- was told--"

"YOU DARE?"

Alex covered his ears. The man's voice vibrated his entire body. He heard other windows shatter throughout the house.

Baldy backpedaled on his hands and feet.

"LEAVE!" The old man pointed to the door. Car alarms wailed in the distance.

Baldy ran out the door, just as fast as his little legs would carry him.

Alex and Bos stared at the old man, who was now shaking his head and tucking in his shirt. He straightened his grey hair back into place then smoothed the hairs of his beard.

"
Wh
-
who...what..."Alex started.

The old man smiled and extended his hand. He wore lightning bolt cufflinks. "My name is Zeus, but you can call me daddy."

Bos dropped another deuce.

BOOK SEVEN

THE GODESS OF LOVE AND LOATHING

Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and CEO of Goddess Adult Film Industries, stared out the thirtieth floor window of her outrageously expensive office building. She loved the way the setting sun cast its golden and red colors over all that was downtown Los Angeles. Even more, she loved the glowing effect it had on her long blonde hair. What she didn't love, and in fact downright despised, was the mob of fifty or so angry protestors gathered around the entrance to her building.

"So, "she said as she turned from the window and stared at Pastor William Hood seated on the other side of her marble desk, "are we at an understanding here, padre?" She pulled her hair away from her breasts and wished the temperature had been a few degrees cooler.

"Let me get this straight." Hood leaned back in his seat. The large leather chair engulfed the frail man and his fifty-dollar suit. "You want me to disband the Brotherhood, effectively ignoring all of the hard work that we've done exposing you and your kind for the-the vile filth that you are...in return for," Hood squinted his eyes as if he were in pain, "sex?"

Aphrodite smiled. She and the rest of the porn industry had been receiving flak from Hood and his merry band of protestors for the past three months. By himself, Hood somehow managed to gather over nine hundred supporters. Supporters who, in turn, gained interest from lonely men and sexually deprived housewives wherever they went. Support that was ultimately starting to take its toll on her DVD sales.

Support Aphrodite had to put a screeching halt to.

"Not just sex, Padre," She circled the marble desk. "But carnal sex. Beastly even. I'm talking about sex the likes you've never seen or even heard of. I'm talking about sex that will leave your man muscle manly long after were through. I'm talking about sex that will leave you hurting in places you didn't even know you had. I'm talking about sex. With. Me."

Padre didn't say anything. He looked at Aphrodite...looked at her in ways his wife probably would not approve of.

Her foot was working its way to Hood's crotch when there was a knock at her office door. She looked at his crotch then back at him. "Hold that pose, preacher-man, I'll be right back."

Aphrodite's secretary, Brandi Ludlum, waited at her desk along with a very upset Cupid. He looked like he had had the crap kicked out of him.

Repeatedly.

Aphrodite folded her arms. "What?"

"He was there," Cupid shrilled.

Aphrodite blew air between pursed lips and leaned against Brandi's desk. "Oh please do not make me go through this. You say he was there, I ask 'Who, the kid?' and you say yeah, then I ask what happened, and the conversation goes back and forth and back and forth like on of the worst
friggin
' novels I've ever read. It'd be much quicker if
ya
just skip to the good stuff and tell me what the heck happened."

Cupid closed his eyes and scratched the back of his head. Brandi pulled a nail file out of her desk and went to work on a hangnail.

"I found the goddamn kid. The one you sent me to find. The one I didn't
wanna
find. The one that…"

Aphrodite crossed the room in an eye blink and came face to face with Cupid. "What makes you think I won't just kill
ya
, cook
ya
, and
eat'cha
right here,
hon
? Is it
cause'a
our past? Well, allow me to alleviate your delusions."

Aphrodite picked Cupid up by the throat and slammed him into the wall behind her. She then pulled him out of the hole in the drywall and brought his face to hers. He gritted his teeth and very little air escaped his mouth.

"Let's try this again, all respectful like.
Whata'ya
say
?

Cupid's eyes told Aphrodite he wanted to say a lot of things. She loosened her grip.

"Zeus. Zeus was there. He stopped us from killing…'"

She dropped him and turned.

"Crap. Crap. Crap.
Crappety
crap
crap
."

The phone rang. Brandi blew dust off her nails and answered it. "
Aphie
Dite's
office."

"Well, we
gotta
take this up a notch. We got no choice. Come on, let's go downstairs and see the big guy. I need a favor." She walked to the elevator. Cupid followed.

"Ms.
Dite
?"

The elevator door opened and Aphrodite placed her hand on it. "What?"

"Marketing's calling about the new movie. They're saying the title
Space Nuts
is already taken. They're wondering if they can do
Nuts in Space
instead."

Aphrodite waved her hand. "Sure, fine. Whatever. No wait!" She placed her hand back on the door. "What about something alliterate? Those are way cooler. How 'bout...
Space Sluts
?" She looked at Cupid. "That's good, right?"

Cupid rubbed his gold collar and shrugged.

"
Space Sluts
it is. And tell them not to get crazy with the advertising this time."

Brandi relayed the instructions into the telephone and Aphrodite released the elevator door. She smoothed nonexistent wrinkles out of her dress. "Why do I have to be the one to clean up this mess? I mean am I really the only one who could lose everything over some snot-nosed kid? Well,
that's
not
gonna
happen. I've worked too hard. Sacrificed too much. If anybody--
ANYBODY
--thinks they got the
cahoonas
to take it from me,
let'em
freaking try.
Cause
I'm here to stay." Aphrodite pressed the "H" button. "I'll kill who I've
gotta
kill and I'll--CRAP!" She slapped her forehead and barely slid her hand between the doors before they closed. The elevator dinged and reopened.

"Wait right here," she told Cupid. "I
gotta
go sex this Preacher-Guy."