Top of the day to you! Welcome to the 11th installment of Written in Stone!

As always I'd like to thank my awe inspiring reviewers and my lovely readers alike! It's your reviews and input that makes this such an amazing experience!

A special thanks also goes to the greatest Beta reader ever, tinianiatt!

At this point I should probably warn you about shocking plot developments and the like. But seriously, if you've read the previous one you'll know that a pillow and lots of sweet candy is needed to protect against unexpected plot twists. Like Gareth's SECRET! :)

Also: I don't think anyone will ever believe that a bespectacled South African can own 'Class of the Titans' so I'm not even going to say that I don't... OK I don't own it! :)


His feet smashed the rain swept streets as he ran back to the Brownstone. He could hear them running after him, like a pack of lions closing in on their prey. His breath came out in rasping gasps, but they didn't seem to have any. A howling scream ahead of him grabbed his attention. Somehow a large pack of the creatures had moved around the buildings and were now streaming out of the alley on the left of the street.

A large office building to his right caught Gareth's attention, and he immediately stormed towards it. The car park was dark and his footfalls echoed thunderously off the walls. He smashed into the elevator on the other side of the car park and repeatedly pressed his thumb into the call button. It took him only one hysteric second to remember that the entire city was in the grip of a blackout and that the elevator wouldn't come.

He quickly moved to the stairs next to the elevator, knowing full well that a security gate would block them. But miraculously the lock was broken. He ripped open the gate and slammed it shut behind him smashing it into the face of one of the monsters that had caught up with him.

The spiral stairs were completely dark and grimy, rectangular windows stretched along the walls at regular intervals. Every now and then Gareth would come across a door, which he would try to open. But all of them were locked, and he found that he was now being herded onto the roof.

He was prepared for the feel of rainwater on his skin this time. Gareth slammed the door shut behind him and ran to the edge of the roof. He could not see through the darkness but he knew that it was too high for him to get away. He was trapped.

The door blew of its hinges behind him and an entire pack of the beasts crowded onto the roof. Angry snarls jumped from their mouths and ripped at the dark night air. Their leader, the one he had smashed the gate into earlier, snarled angrily and jumped in Gareth's direction. Instinctively he lifted his hands to defend himself. And just like another dangerous night not so long ago, he felt power surge through his body. A blast of blindingly white light burst from his hands with spectacular force, and sent the charging beast flying. This attack aggravated the others to a dangerous level and their murderous howls pierced the darkness.

Gareth looked at his hands, which were blindingly luminescent in the unnatural darkness. So this was his power of illumination! He stared from his hands to the monster that they had just felled. Not bad.

His joy was, however, short-lived as the pack of monsters now moved warily around the edge of the rooftop. Gareth had to move away from the edge as they came too near for comfort. Soon he found himself surrounded. Fear licked at him like flames and he spun around in the centre of the roof, trying to keep his hunters at bay.

Every now and then, they would jump forward and snap at him only to be driven away by the bright light. He was becoming more and more panicky, as he could see no way to escape. His foot bumped into something. He looked down into the face of the monster he had blasted earlier. The blast of searing light had burnt angry blisters all over its skin and a dangerous growl was now rising from its chest.

The moment's lapse in concentration was all they needed. Gareth looked up a moment too late. There wasn't enough time for him to lift his hands before the creatures were on top of him. He lifted his hands and punched and kicked, but even though the light burnt them they still grabbed hold of every part of his body they could reach, overwhelming him with the sheer mass of their numbers. His arms were pinned uselessly to his sides, and the light in his hands flickered feebly before dying out. The absolute darkness came so quickly after the intense light that he was left completely blind. Thus he couldn't see the fist that slammed with clumsy force into the side of his head. It wouldn't have helped either, for he could not move and was rendered unconscious instantly.


Jay jumped through the sapphire portal with determined speed. He was flanked by four members of his team, their eyes mirroring his steely resolve. He could see the shocked expressions on the gods' faces as the procession of teens walked through the Titan wing, but he didn't stop to talk to them. They didn't have time…

"Jay?" Hera asked worriedly. "What is going on?"

"Gareth's been captured," he said, not breaking his determined stride for even a second.

As expected, a shocked ripple of whispering went up from the gods. Apollo in particular looked worried. For some reason he had seemed closer to Gareth than most of the other gods.

"What?" Ares gasped. "Cronus has the boy… What are you going to do?"

Jay stopped abruptly at Ares' critical tone. He didn't have time for this. "Yes, Cronus has captured Gareth." His voice turned to an uncharacteristic growl. "As for what I'm going to do… I'm going to get my team ready. We're going to find Cronus. We're going to save our friend. And I personally will make sure that Cronus regrets capturing Gareth."

Without another glance in his direction Jay turned away from Ares and led the way into the armoury. He knew that he wasn't behaving like himself. He preferred to be the stoic leader. But ever since he had nearly lost Theresa to her dark side that one time, he had felt an anxiety inside him that just intensified every time one of his team mates were in danger.

Like the rest of the building, the armoury was bathed in candle light. Jay heard the gods' hurried footsteps behind him, but ignored them. He was in full leader mode now and his mind was churning under the weight of the endless scenarios it presented to him. He looked over at Odie who had been typing on his laptop non-stop ever since the terrifying PMR conversation with Gareth.

"Found anything yet?" he asked the wiry genius.

"Yep, there's definitely something going down at the Herculean plaza. Look at this." Odie put the laptop on the floor and five pale faces stared at the satellite picture on the screen. "You see that giant rectangle between the two tallest towers?" Jay nodded. "Well it suddenly appeared a few hours ago." Odie pressed a few buttons and the picture moved so they could see a side-view of the buildings. The long rectangular structure connected the two tallest skyscrapers from the top floor, like a horrifyingly high runway. "This structure just popped into existence. Strangely nobody knows about it yet."

"Cronus," Jay said to himself.

The god of time must have weaved some kind of magic to keep the structure away from public attention. There was no doubt in his mind that this was where Gareth was being held.

The squeak of wet shoes on linoleum alerted them to the fact that Atlanta and Archie had returned from their mission. Both looked like exceptionally wet dogs. Archie looked quite strange with his wet hair matted to his head. In his hands were the broken pieces of Gareth's PMR.

"This was all we could find," he said.

"There were a lot of tracks in the area. We were very lucky that the rain didn't wipe all of the traces away," Atlanta added. "It looks like he was attacked by a large group. Jay…they weren't giants. It looks like whatever attacked him is headed for the business district. Towards the Herc-"

"The Herculean plaza; we know." Jay was in complete control now. His plan was already taking shape in his mind.

He walked over to a large drawer in the wall and pressed a button. Nothing happened. Jay sighed in frustration. They didn't have time for this!

Herry, seeing his leader's frustration, stepped forward and tried to pull the drawer out by force. This didn't end well since Herry not only pulled the drawer open, but pulled it out of the wall completely. Weapons and shields scattered across the floor and scratched the hyper clean surface.

"Oops," Herry said, chuckling nervously. Ares did not look pleased.

"Good," Jay said. "Everybody grab a weapon." Immediately his team mates surged forward. Jay was now giving orders. He knew what had to be done. "Odie we're gonna need you to be our eyes and ears in the fight. Can you manage?" Odie nodded solemnly, his lion's heart roaring to help. "Good. Archie, Herry, Neil and I will take the brunt of the fight in the plaza. We don't know what we're up against, so remember: we stick together!"

The boys assembled before him nodded their assent. Behind them Jay could see Neil toying with a stun baton. A faint crackle sounded and Neil threw the baton to the ground with a high pitched squeal. Jay stepped to the pile of weapons and took a large gun from the pile. The tag that was tied to the trigger read 'Muscular Disruption Laser'.

Neil took the weapon from Jay with greedy haste and immediately struck a dashing pose. He might well have been posing for the poster of an action movie.

"Yeah, baby!" he cried delightedly.

Jay turned back to Atlanta and Theresa. "You girls will have to handle the aerial assault. Think you can handle it?"

Atlanta armed her laser wrist crossbow in answer. "No problem," she said with steely determination in her eyes.

Jay took Theresa's arm and pulled her away from the rest of the group. He could see that she was as worried about Gareth as he was. He knew that their lives would be in more danger in the fight to come than they had ever been.

"Theresa," he whispered. "You remember Cronus' accomplice? The woman Hera believes is a vampire? I hate asking you this, but you're the only one powerful enough to fight her. Listen, I've been talking to Hera and we both think that she might have some magical abilities as well. Can you handle her? Can you keep her occupied while we take on Cronus?"

Jay touched his hand to her face and looked into her mesmerizing eyes. He was struggling with the need to protect her and the logic that said she should take on the vampire woman. He wanted to send her away, to send her to a place of safety, but he knew she'd never abandon her friends just because their death seemed imminent.

Theresa placed both her hands on his. "Of course I can, Jay. Don't worry about me. Persephone and I will get everything I need to face her."

She kissed him lightly before taking his hand and leading the way back to the group. Jay looked at his friends as they prepared themselves. They were more than just friends, more than family. They were heroes; the bravest he had ever known and tonight they would face death with their heads held high.


He had been awake for a while now, but nothing made sense to Gareth. He could hear the rain and the wind and occasionally the grumbling thunder, but nothing touched his skin. He was laying on a hard surface, and vaguely registered that his hands were tied together and that he was only wearing a very soggy pair of jeans. The surface of the floor stung his naked back coldly. His bare feet were already going numb.

He dared to open his eyes a crack and instantly a horrific face came to rest over his.

"That was fast," she said, as if speaking to herself. "I was prepared to wait a bit longer for you to wake up."

Gareth felt dazed. He could see her quite clearly, even though his head was throbbing as if it was the size of a beach ball. She was an extremely old, extremely wrinkled woman. White tufts of hair clung messily to the top of her head. She looked like the horror movie version of a grandmother. The most disturbing part of her appearance however was by far the hip-length nightgown she was wearing. It was pitch black and barely covered her body. The silky material moved with a graceful swirl that did not match its brittle wearer.

"He's awake?" asked an unpleasantly familiar male voice from somewhere to the side. "Good. Then we can begin immediately!"

"Patience, Cronus," the old woman said sternly. "We have to make a few last minute preparations. But maybe we should put him in place?"

She didn't wait for him to answer before grabbing hold of the rope that bound Gareth's wrists. He was dragged across the cold surface with surprising speed. This woman was definitely too strong to be just an old lady. Gareth looked around for something to help him, but could only make out a few desks and chairs. It seemed like he was in a particularly messy office. A sting in his back alerted him to the fact that there were multiple sharp objects on the floor. A flash of lightning lit up the office, revealing a vast expanse of glittering glass shards. A grunt of pain came from his lips as she dragged him through the glass.

She laughed. "A few pieces of glass are the last thing you should be worried about now!" she said joyously. "But I daresay we'll get to that soon enough."

Gareth tilted his head back to look at her. Her wrinkled feet came in and out of view as she easily traversed the office floor. The glass didn't even leave a mark on her bare feet. Suddenly a large hole came into view, framing her body as she walked closer to it. Gareth looked quickly to either side and saw that a vast expanse of wall-length windows had been smashed apart, making room for a terrible gaping hole. They were obviously in an office building. Gareth twisted his body to see how far up they were, which he instantly regretted. The fact that he could now see that they were up high enough for the ground to be invisible, was not helpful.

Apparently, their extreme height and the fact that they were walking to the edge of a very long drop didn't faze the old woman. She just kept moving. For one horrible moment Gareth watched as she moved out of the gaping hole in the windows and thought that, surely, she would fall to her death. He was, however, dumbfounded by the fact that she just kept moving.

A moment later Gareth felt the rough scrape of wood on his back. They were apparently moving on some kind of wooden floor outside the window. Gareth looked to his side and immediately wished he would stop making such stupid decisions. They weren't just high up in the air. NO, that would be an understatement. They were Big Ben high. No. Scratch that. They were Eiffel Tower high! He could see the tops of skyscrapers for miles. If those buildings were scraping the sky, then surely they were scraping space. He hated heights, he really did and now he found himself outside the tallest building in the entire city of New Olympia.

They stopped abruptly and immediately two inhumanly powerful hands took his own and tied them to a wooden figure above his head. Gareth stole a glance to his left and right. He was definitely in the plaza he had seen in his memory. The four giant towers encased it perfectly. They were on a strange makeshift deck constructed between the two tallest towers. The windows on either side of the glassy office buildings had been smashed apart to make room for the strange platform.

The old woman finished tying him to the figure and stepped back in seeming admiration of her handiwork.

"My goodness! You have been working out. You're not so chubby anymore." She laughed derisively. "Do you like the view? I wanted to take you somewhere nice… Oh, wait. It's too dark."

She clapped her hands together and immediately four shrouded figure emerged from the towers and dipped the burning torches they held into four braziers that stood on each corner of the wooden deck. The fires flashed into life brilliantly; lighting up the night sky. Quite strangely, the heavy downpour didn't faze the enormous flames at all.

"There we are," she said pleasantly.

Gareth's stomach took a nasty turn. He was suddenly able to see the ant-sized cars parked in the streets below. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed the terrible dizziness to go away. A girlish giggle of enjoyment bubbled from the old woman.

"I knew you'd like it!" she said in her strangely pleasant voice. "You must, of course, be quite surprised to see me! I know I've been waiting for months to see you again."

Gareth swallowed hard at the lump in his throat. "Who are you?"

He could hear the affronted tone in her voice. "Come now, Gareth! Surely you can remember me? Think of everything we've meant to each other, our strong bond." Gareth could feel her eyes burning down on him, but still he shook his head. She sighed. "I'm sure it will come back to you. You must have a million questions! Why are you here? What am I going to do to you? Why don't I just-"

"You're going to use me to lure the others here!" Gareth said through gritted teeth. "Then you're going to use me to somehow make Cronus stronger. But I won't help you! I won't! I hope they destroy you both!"

She giggled again and her fingers pinched his cheeks painfully. "So cute!" she squealed. "But surely you must know that that's only the story I fed Cronus to keep him off my back. The fool is convinced that I'm a dying witch who wants to see him in power! Besides, what makes you think you'll have any choice in the matter? As for your friends, they're almost as inept as that idiot who calls himself a time-god. How any one of them couldn't manage to beat him is beyond me. They don't worry me in the least."

The sound of footsteps on the wooden surface announced Cronus' approach. "I see they've lit the braziers," he said coldly. "Does that mean we can begin now?"

"Almost, I'm just preparing our little friend here. By the way Cronus, nice robe! How very…last millennium of you!" She snorted derisively.

Gareth's curious nature won over his fear and he decided to open his eyes a fraction. The dizziness was easy to keep at bay this time. Although, looking at Cronus too long was sure to bring it back. Cronus was wearing an ancient purple robe with a pair of golden sandals. He looked very much like a man heading to a religious sacrifice in ancient Greece. Then again…maybe he was.

Cronus looked down on him with smile of mock pity. "You should have joined me when I gave you the chance."

"I'd rather swallow razor blades," Gareth spat.

"That's my boy!" the witch said proudly. She pinched Gareth's cheek again. "He has so much potential!"

It was hard to say who was more affronted: Gareth, whose cheeks were being brutalized by a woman who looked like she had helped to construct Noah's Ark or Cronus who wanted to kill both.

"Now get lost, will you Cronus? Go play with your giants while I finish the preparations."

Cronus' fists clenched and unclenched rapidly as he slumped away angrily while Gareth looked back at the 'witch' in confusion. It was hard to pin down her mood exactly, since it fluctuated so dramatically. One moment she's be joyously happy only to turn dark and evil the next. She had obviously lapsed back into one of her more sullen dispositions.

"Such a pity…" she said while looking down on him. Her surprisingly strong hand grabbed hold of his neck and forced him to face her. Gareth tried to struggle but her grip only tightened. "Hold still," she ordered.

With her free hand she picked up a small, brush-like object from the ground. Slowly, rhythmically she danced the prickly object over his forehead, as if painting. The points it touched burned hot in comparison to the rest of his cold skin. Gareth wondered how cold you had to be to get hypothermia.

She leaned towards him, and in that, small instant Gareth was able to see a familiar golden chain around her neck. It was a pendant key, his pendant. Immediately he recalled the faint memory of dropping something in his crazed race to stop Neil from exposing his secrets. He did not know how much she knew about the key and what it could do, but nevertheless, this new development didn't bode well.

She dropped the tiny brush and stepped back. Her head turned to the robed figures standing in the shadows of the building and a rasping hiss jumped from her lips. If Gareth had been unable to see her, he would have thought that she was choking instead of communicating. Immediately, as if following orders, one of the robed figures extricated a long metallic rod from behind a brazier and dipped its rounded tip into the flames.

The witch turned back to Gareth and sighed impatiently. A few moments passed in silence before she locked her eyes on his again. There was an inquiring smile on her face.

"You still don't recognize me?" she asked.

Gareth quickly shook his head. He didn't know what would happen next, but he could sense that it would involve pain; pain that he would rather delay for as long as possible.

The witch went down on her knees in front of him, her face close to his. She had to look up a little, since she was a bit shorter than he was. Her milky eyes were disturbingly close to his.

"How about now? Does my face ring any bells?"

Gareth racked his brains, but still she remained as unfamiliar as ever. He shook his head once more. Another sigh of impatience emanated from her mouth.

Suddenly her hand shot up and stroked the side of his face. Gareth tried to pull away, but her grip was as freakishly strong as ever. Her hand gripped the back of his neck, and slowly but surely her mouth came closer to his. There was one horrible moment in which Gareth fought futilely to stop the inevitable, but her lips locked onto his with terrible force.

Gareth's stomach lurched as their lips met. He had never been as disgusted before in his entire life. Then a new sensation came over him. His tongue felt swollen and pressed sickeningly against the roof of his mouth. His lips were prickling painfully and he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. All the while her eyes were locked on his.

Then he saw it. Her eyes had changed. They were no longer milky white, but a pale shade of blue like his. She broke the kiss and pulled away from him, a devious smile on her youthful face.

Youthful! Where had the wrinkled face gone? Gareth drank in her exquisite face as a strange ripple went across her skin and smoothed out the wrinkles. Terror rose in him as he recognized the smooth complexion; recognized the long, silky blonde hair that was now replacing the white tufts; recognized the somewhat elongated canines that touched her luscious lips. She was indecently beautiful…

"Lilith?" Her name was a barely audible whisper on his lips.

She smiled seductively and brought her beautiful face close to his. Her voice was eerily melodious when she spoke.

"Hello daddy."


Phew! We've reached the end of number 11! Hope you enjoyed as much as I did writing it!

As always I would like to ask that you press that aluring little blue button to the bottom left and leave me a little comment! Any constructive criticism, thoughts on the characters, their secrets or relationships is more than welcome! I LOVE to hear from you guys and will totally appreciate the input! Remember that anonymous reviews are allowed, so EVERYONE can raise their opinions!

Thank you SO much for taking the time to read!

Have a wonderful day/night! :)