Chapter 15
Herry burst through the front door and bolted for the kitchen when he heard laughter. There he found Theresa, Neil and Odie, but no Jay. He turned to head back to his initial trajectory for the stairs, but was stopped by his friends in the kitchen.
"Herry, where have you been?" Odie asked in good nature, "Dude, I've been waiting for like an hour for you to get home."
"Ah, I went to the beach," he said simply, coming back to look through the doorway, "Listen I need to –"
"What, by yourself?" Neil cut him off to ask in slight confusion.
"No, my partner for an English project, I gave her a ride home and she invited me over," he responded with a polite evenness in his voice, "but I really need to –"
"A girl?" Theresa exclaimed pushing out from her chair so fast it clanged back on the floor tiles, "Do I know her, is she cute?"
"Ah, I really need to find Jay," Herry stated.
"You can find him later," she waved a hand off through the air, "Tell me about this 'project partner.'"
"Theresa we're just working on an English project together," he shrugged in irritation as he answered her, "Can I go get Jay now?"
"No," she tugged him over to the table and picked up her chair from the floor, offering it to him, but he didn't take it, "Is she nice, is she cute? Do you like her?"
"Sure I like her, she's nice," he said.
Theresa groaned and specified, "Do you like her, like her?"
He opened his mouth to deny, but hesitated for a moment as a dopey smile tugging at the corner of his lips, "Yeah? Actually yeah, pretty sure."
"Oh my gods," she slapped her hands on her cheeks, "what's her name?"
"Opal," he said.
"Doesn't ring any bells," she shook her head.
"Whoa, wait, is that the Orpheus descendent?" Odie piped.
"Yeah," Herry replied sheepishly, looking away when he sent him an unimpressed look.
"Herry," he said warningly.
"I know, I know," he held out his hands, "Alright, that's why this is not going further than project partners."
"Neil you need to go get last year's yearbook," Theresa pointed to the blond and he happily obliged.
"Come on guys," Herry held out his hands in exasperation, "Did you not hear what I just told Odie?"
"Doesn't mean we can't look her up in the yearbook," Theresa concluded smugly.
"Right," he rolled his eyes and backed away for the door again, "I need to go talk to Jay."
"Herry," Theresa whined and latched onto his wrist like a bloodsucking leach. She pulled him back over and ordered him to sit in her vacant chair. He obliged in irritation. She bombarded him with questions that he answered in his overwhelmed state, trying every couple of minutes to escape to find Jay. He let out a sigh of relief when their leader came down the stairs to send a curios look into the kitchen.
"What is all the squealing about?" he asked. Herry and Odie looked to Theresa who just smiled innocently over at Jay.
"Herry has a girlfriend," she told him simply.
"Theresa," he jerked in surprise and wacked his knee off one of the table legs, "Dammit ouch, I do not have a girlfriend."
"But you want to make her your girlfriend," she told him tauntingly.
"Pretty sure I've said like seven times already that I don't," he shot back and then looked over to Jay, "Man, I need to talk to you."
"What's up?" he decided to come further into the kitchen then, walking over to the counter to toss on the kettle and fish out a bag of tea from the cabinet.
"Well I met this lovely gentleman that pulled a knife on me today," he stated casually, Jay's spoon clattered into his empty mug and he shot over a wide eyed face. Herry reached into his pocket and pulled out his pendent, letting the neck chain dangle off his finger he said, "He had one of these."
"What?" tea preparation forgotten Jay rushed over to pull out a chair at the kitchen table. The whole table fell silent as they expectantly looked to Herry. Quickly he told them the story, and once he was finished Jay leaned back in his chair to yell for Athena. The goddess padded up the stairs and leaned against the frame of the kitchen doorway, sending Jay a raised eyebrow as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Herry met someone named Percival today," Jay said simply.
Odie piped up to add, "He has a bike he named Pegasus. Who was it again that owned Pegasus, Perseus wasn't it?"
Athena gasped and straightened, sending a shocked look back at four grave ones, "I guess I have some explaining to do."
"Oh, you guess," Odie muttered.
"There's been a great number of groups like yours, heroes," she said, "The last one was a group of three, probably about fifty years ago, descendents of Precious, Bellerophon and Orpheus. Bill and Percival are still alive, Oriole passed when she was only twenty-seven in an accident with a minotaur. She left behind a tree year old at the time, I believe."
"Have you always used the same pendent keys?" Jay asked sternly.
"Yes," the goddess nodded.
"Athena," he exclaimed, leaning back in his chair and hunching his shoulders, "How many are out there? How many that Cronus could get his hands on?"
She puckered her lips and looked away, "I'll speak to Hera on the matter, Jay you have a valid concern."
"Please do," he sighed and pushed out of his chair to reset the kettle.
"Found it!" came a pitched scream from the top of the stairs, moments later Neil came running into the kitchen with an open yearbook. He plunked it down in front of Theresa with a finger on a girl playing a violin in the school's courtyard.
"She really needs to do something with her hair," he mulled out loud, oblivious to the tension that had settled in the room during his absence.
Looking over his shoulder, Athena gasped and said, "She looks just like Oriole, that must be her granddaughter."
"And right there is why I cannot date her," Herry tugged the book away and shut it, "Cool, so can we drop it now?"
"She is kind of cute though," Jay piped in, receiving a glare from the redhead across the room, "Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm just saying, I've only met her briefly, but I think she would be a nice match for you Herry."
"Mmm," he smiled and nodded in absentminded agreement, "She is pretty damned hot in a bikini."
"That's what I like to hear my friend," he laughed and scooted back to the table with a mug of tea, he set it down on the tabletop and smacked his palm down on his friend's shoulder.
Odie flipping the book open again to get a closer look, after a second of mulling over the image he said, "Her boobs are kinda small."
"But her ass makes up for it," Herry replied, Odie laughed and nodded.
"Pigs," Theresa pushed up from her chair to slam her hands down on the table. She sent Jay a scowl and turned to storm out of the room.
"Ooo, who's in trouble now?" Neil taunted with a crooked smile. Jay sent the model a glare and then rose out of his chair to pursue Theresa, calling her name. Neil cracked an imaginary whip and the other two boys at the table crumbled into laughter.
The colours shifting on the white surface of the motorcycle were stunning in the setting sun. It zoomed through traffic, darting in and out of the continuous flow of verticals towards the high school. Percival puttered into the parked in the back. Knocking down the kickstand he hopped off and set his helmet on the seat. His cowboy boots tapped across the pavement to a pair of double doors to the school. He let himself into the abandoned after hour halls, he navigated them with old memory to the back hallway. He stopped in front of the old janitor's closet and from his pocket pulled a golden pendent, a P engraved on the back. He placed it into the panel and the door jarred open. He stepped inside and pulled the string to open the portal.
Walking through the swirls and into the gods' domain he smirked, it hadn't changed a bit. He navigated his way through the halls on quick feet to Hera's solarium and didn't give the courtesy of knocking. The Queen of the Gods looked over with an irritated glare, but it dropped to shock in an instant.
"Hera," he said in a harsh demand, "What is going on?"
"Percival," she gave him a small smile, "how have you been?"
"What's going on Hera," he repeated firmly, "I met one of your heroes, Herry."
"Sorry?" she said and raised a cool eyebrow.
"I have to give you kudos, he denied it to a fault," he said, "Now tell me, what is going on?"
"Cronus has escaped Tartarus," she sighed and dropped her head.
"Hera, why didn't you contact me?" he threw up his arms, "I can help."
"You've already done your time," she said.
"Hera," he said, tossing a finger down to point at the ground as he stepped one foot forward, "I am helping."
"Have you seen Bill recently?" she asked, ignoring his statement.
"Not in years, last I heard he moved into a home with his wife," he said.
"Where's your wife?" Hera asked and raised an eyebrow.
"Hera, you know plenty well, I never married, don't do this to me," he tossed over a warning glare.
"You need to let this place go," she said.
"It's been forty-seven years, I can't let this place go," he said, a sneer contorting his face, "I never will, I am helping."
Hera sighed and leaned her head down, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and fingers. She looked at this man now, nomadic, touring the continent on a mission that should have ended long ago. She knew the troublesome monsters left over from a time far forgotten were slowly being snuffed of her radar by him. At first his activity was slow, but then his sweetheart married another man. Where Percival embraced his past, Oriole tried to forget it the second she was out. When she passed his activities hit their spike, took a drop as he helped raise her daughter and then had been steady in the last twenty years.
She looked at this man now and was afraid that it would be Jay standing in front of her fifty years down the road like this. They were so similar, the leaders of their groups, the ones that pushed themselves the hardest, could never call a job done. She saw what could become and prayed Jay was stronger, that he could return to a normal life once this was over.
"I know I can't stop you," she said as she looked up with sunken eyes, mind heavy. He gave a solid nod and turned to leave. He still held himself the same, tall and proud, a stride just like Jay's.