Chapter 34

Chapter

Thirty-Four

ATHENA

After breakfast, we all pile into Perseus’s car. I figured his is the safest. No one is fucking with his mechanics. And we head to Paris’s family estate. It’s only about a five-minute drive, and from the outside, it looks beautiful. But the second we pass the gate, you can tell something is off. The lawn hasn’t been tended. The house has a few windows boarded up, and paint is flaking off the Roman columns on the porch.

This estate is in worse shape than my mother’s was. There is an excuse for that. They were waiting for the funds to be unfrozen to pay staff. But what is the excuse here? This is clearly years of neglect.

Perseus is the first on the porch, and he rings the doorbell. There is nothing. I don’t mean that no one answers. No bell sounds.

He tries again and nothing, so he knocks, and the front door just opens. It isn’t locked. It isn’t even closed all the way.

“This isn’t terrifying at all,” Eros says under his breath before wrapping his arm around me and pulling me into his body.

I’m not sure if he is trying to keep me close because he wants to protect me or use me as a human shield. Either way, I’m not having it. I shrug him off and enter the house, calling out for Paris.

There is nothing. No staff, no Paris, no furniture, nothing.

“What the fuck is with this place?” Eros says behind me.

“When was the last time you guys were here?” I ask.

The fixtures all have a thick layer of dust, and when I try a light switch, nothing happens. Thankfully, all the window dressings have been removed, so there is enough light.

“It’s been a while. Paris usually comes to us. His mother doesn’t like company,” Heph says, taking a few more steps in.

A creaking comes from above us, and the hair on my arms rises, sending shivers down my spine. “Which one of you strong sexy men are brave enough to go see what that was?”

“Not it.” All three of them say at the same time.

“Pussies,” I say under my breath, rolling my eyes as I make my way up the stairs.

The upstairs hallway is in the same dusty, barren condition. Dust motes float in the few beams of sunlight intruding from outside. All the doors are open, the rooms all empty except for the last one at the end of the hallway. That door is closed, with light peeking out from underneath and a constant creaking coming from the other side of the door. All kinds of gruesome images flash through my mind as I think of what could be in there.

Decaying animals and a crazy person chained to a radiator.

Pet demon pacing in a trap.

Serial killer having already taken care of Paris, just waiting for us to look for him.

The ghost of my dead mother coming to haunt us for what happened last night.

Paris’s body hanging from the light fixture with a note saying this was my fault.

When I reach for the door, my hand is shaking. I grip it and pull, it swings open and inside is a woman in her mid to late fifties smoking a cigarette wearing a satin housecoat that is so old it has lost its luster and is threadbare in many places. Her silver hair is in curlers, and she is sitting in a rocking chair watching reruns of Dark Shadows on a TV that looks old enough to have aired the black-and-white show when it premiered.

“Oh, hello. You must be a friend of my son,” she says, smiling at me. She looks a little off, her skin a slight graying hue, and her eyes don’t quite focus.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Athena Godwin. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m actually looking for Paris. Have you seen him?”

“Oh, him.” She waves her hand in the air, the long ash on the cigarette falling in a pile of ash on the floor. “He came home all in a tizzy last night. Something about the goddess of war all up on her throne casting down hellfire.”

This woman is bat-shit crazy.

“But goddesses are known for their tempers. He went away to the cabin in the woods. It’s important for men to do that, you know. Have a place to go to think. There is so much pressure to be a god that they must work and work and work, and it’s so much stress. Sometimes, they need to go back to the old ways. Back to the cabin in the woods, back to living off the land. Like his father taught him before he left. Left for his new life, for his new family. My husband was supposed to be loyal. He was not. He lied.”

The woman is rambling, and I am having a really hard time following what she is saying.

“That boy of mine. I love him, I do, but sometimes he is too much like his father,” she rattles more, rocking in her chair. “He forgot about me. Like his father. He brings my breakfast every morning, but not this morning. My breakfast and my medication. It makes me strong, it makes me clear. Clear as water, clear as air. It makes the world clear.”

Looking around, I can see several orange pill bottles, some empty on the floor, knocked over on the counter, and one that appears as if it has a few in it.

Okay, we need to get this woman some food and then get her medicated. Maybe then I can get some answers. I peek back out the door. The three men are all standing there staring wide-eyed.

“I’m going to stay here and try to figure out what is happening. Can you please run and grab some food for Paris’s mom?”

Heph nods, and he and Eros head out.

Perseus enters the room. “Hello, ma’am.”

She ignores him.

“Is there anything particular you would like for breakfast?” I ask, thinking I can text Eros and Heph.

“Who are you? Why are you in my house?” she shrieks, gripping her housecoat to her chest. Note to self: keep her engaged.

“I’m Athena, a friend of?—”

“Oh! Athena, the woman who is marrying my son. Yes, of course he has told me all about the golden angel who will bring this family back to its rightful status. Yes, yes, yes, sit dear. I am Ellen, but you may call me Mother. Now, where is my son?”

Okay then. I exchange a look with Perseus. He is as lost as I am.

“I am actually looking for him. Do you know where he is? ”

“Oh, yes, how silly of me, the cabin in the woods. So very, very far. But he must, you see, he must go into the cabin in the woods to plan his revenge. He must get revenge on the evil hag who has so much when he now has so little. She took it, you see. She did not come from power. She should not have power. Power is for those who are born to power.” Ellen is rocking faster now, her arms waving in the air and her voice becoming louder and higher pitched. “Yes, yes, yes, he will kill the witch and take her power, and her snakes. This Medusa has so many snakes, all slithering and striking. She took my son with her power and made him a snake. She ensnared him, but he broke free when he saw the truth. He broke from her spell. She must suffer. He must save the others and take the power back.”

“How do we reach Paris?” I ask.

She calms down, and her rocking slows again.

“As long as the witch is dead and the snakes are set free, he will marry the angel, and he will return to me. Return to me whole again. Make our family whole again. We will get it all back, you’ll see. My son, the hero, he will save me, and return what was taken from me.”

She is speaking in circles. She is clearly very ill and requires round-the-clock care. I can’t leave her like this. And I can’t shake the terrible sinking suspicion I know who the hag is in this story, and it breaks my heart.

It isn’t Ellen’s fault, though, whatever her son did. Ellen needs help, and I need to find Paris.

Eros was right about Paris. I hate to admit it, but there is no telling what Paris is going to do next.

Ellen sits in her rocker, her eyes glazing over as she stares at her TV. I’m pretty sure she isn’t paying attention to the old soap opera, but if it comforts her, who am I to stop it?

“Text Heph and tell them to bring something simple, like chicken soup and fresh bread. She needs some protein, but I don’t know what her body can handle,” I whisper to Perseus, who just stares at Ellen. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. Waving my hand in front of his face doesn’t get his attention, so I punch him in the arm.

That does it.

“Ow.” He rubs his arm, and I smirk.

“Text the others, tell them chicken soup and fresh bread. Now.”

He steps out of the room, and I look around. The curtains are tightly drawn, and a rickety bed stands in the corner. Calling it a bed is generous. It’s really more of a metal frame with rusted springs holding up a thin mattress pad with a flat pillow. Ellen is one bad night away from tetanus. I pick up the pill bottles that are strewn all over the floor. They are all for Clozapine. A quick google search on my phone tells me it’s an antipsychotic and a very high dosage.

That explains a lot.

I tidy up her room as best I can. When I go downstairs in search of a broom, dustpan, and something to dust with, I find Perseus sitting on the floor in what I assume used to be a living room.

“Are you okay?” I ask, sitting next to him.

“How did I not know?” He is staring at a knot in the wood floor. “How did I not know he needed help? He was drowning and sold off everything. How could I not have seen it?”

“Because he didn’t want you to.” This is the only plausible explanation I can give him. “You know Paris better than I do. So, I’m not going to sit here and guess what his motives are, but I know that whatever he did or didn’t do, his mother needs help.”

“Why should I help her if he took Freya from me? I know she was your mother by blood, but she was mine by choice.”

I wince as his words cut into me, but he is right. Whether she chose to leave me, she chose to raise Perseus, and her love for him was laced throughout her journals.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like?—”

“It’s okay,” I interrupt him. “You aren’t wrong, but Ellen isn’t the one who may or may not have betrayed all of you. And she is clearly unwell. We don’t know how much of what she is saying is true.” I take a deep breath. “In her diary, my mother said she and her boys were a family. Is that true?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t even hesitate.

“Then Paris is family.”

“But he betrayed us.”

“He might have. We still don’t know that for a fact,” I reason, not really believing my own words, but we don’t have solid proof yet. “Does he deserve the benefit of a doubt?”

“He does,” Perseus says with a sigh.

“So, is he still family?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I stand. “Then that makes Ellen family, and right now she needs our help.” I offer Perseus a hand and pull him to his feet.

“What do you need me to do? ”

“Find out why her room is the only one with electricity. See if you can find any sign of Paris, and I need some cleaning supplies.”

Twenty minutes later, Perseus comes back upstairs with the supplies I asked for. He says the breakers were flipped to intentionally turn off the electricity to the rest of the house, probably to limit the electric bill. I get to work on cleaning Ellen’s living space while she chatters about the snakes and the hag and hidden families. It’s another twenty minutes before the others return with food. I help Ellen eat and take her meds. She then insists on taking a nap. While she does that, I go downstairs to see what the others are doing.

“I figured out which room he was sleeping in,” Perseus says when he sees me. “But there is no sign of him now.”

“I figured he left last night.” I sit down, leaning against the wall. “Do we have any idea where he could have gone?”

The boys keep brainstorming, talking everything out while my eyes slide shut, and I try to process everything. Seeing Ellen like that after hearing Paris tell me stories about his mother, the strong woman who raised him, who would take on the world for him. He clearly loves her, and yet look at what she has become, a shell of her former self talking nonsense, living in between reality and an old black-and-white TV show.

My eyes are still closed when I hear Perseus’s phone chirp, and he says, “What the actual fuck.”

“What?” Heph asks, and I pry open my eyes.

“An automatic payment on my card was declined for insufficient funds.”

“Okay… and?” I ask.

“There should be a few hundred thousand in that account.” He taps off his phone screen for a few moments, his brows drawn down over his eyes in confusion.

“Is it a banking error?” Heph asks.

“I don’t think so. It looks like this account has had several smaller transfers in the last few months, then a massive one of almost seventy grand last night.”

I am about to say something about calling the bank and seeing if his card info was stolen when the creaking of the rocking chair starts again above us.

“Do any of you have access to my mother’s bank accounts?” I ask.

“I can get it. Why?” Perseus asks.

“Because I have a hunch, and I am praying I am wrong. Can you look through my mom’s account to see if there are any transfers to that same account?”

“Yeah… Why?”

“Something Ellen said. I want to see if it’s true. Just look into all of that, and if you can follow the money and see where it goes.”

“What are you going to be doing?” Eros asks, taking my hand in his and lacing our fingers together.

“I’m going to stay here with Ellen. I don’t want to leave her alone. I’m hoping her meds have cleared her head a little, and I can get some real info from her. Either way, I am also going to look into getting her into a care facility. She needs round-the-clock care.”

“I’m staying here.” Eros places a kiss on the back of my hand. “I don’t want you alone in case Paris comes back, and he isn’t right in the head or something.”

“I need your help with the bank stuff, man.” Perseus shakes his head. “Aside from Paris, you are the best with the computer.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Heph volunteers, making all of us stop and stare at him for a moment.

“Are you sure?” Eros narrows his eyes like he is trying to look through Heph to see his real motives.

“I’m sure. Aside from our security system, I am completely useless on the computer.” He shrugs. “But I can help Athena with Ellen and keep both women safe, if I have to.”

“Then it’s settled.” I stand up and brush the dust and dirt from my jeans. “You two head out. Call us if you find anything, and we will do the same.” I head back to Helen’s room to see if she is more lucid.