Free Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) by Lucienne Diver Page B

could be swayed in its own self-interest. Thanatos was far more frightening, because it didn’t look like a wrecking ball could move him, let alone little ol’ me.
    “Um, hey, you sure you’ve got the right girl?” I asked, just in case. “I’m only house sitting.”
    He nodded. Once. And advanced on me—straight through the bed, floating more than walking. I didn’t actually see legs move beneath that cloak, nothing so mundane.
    Fear tore through me like a flash flood, instinctive and primal. The myths had no stories I knew about cheating death—not successfully, anyway. Achilles, Orpheus and Eurydice—cautionary tales for incautious children.
    Desperate, I yelled “ Freeze !” and tried to whammy him with the gorgon glare, but I couldn’t even see his eyes, let alone meet them, and he kept advancing as inexorably as, well, death.
    If he could move through furniture, I doubted my pitiful roundhouse kick was going to do much good against him. I didn’t have room for a running start, but I lurched around the corner of the bed, set to make a dash for the door. Only to be blocked by the same figure that had reduced even Ebenezer Scrooge to a quivering apologetic heap.  
    I was the one who froze. Time warped, and everything happened in slow motion and yet too fast to report. His sword came up. My eyes widened, unable to look away from the glistening blade. It flashed as it arced down at me with a terrible beauty, like silver-struck moonlight. The very movement was grace and beauty and terror, and then…nothing.
     
     
    “Ares’s hairy arse, what on earth was he thinking? Her time isn’t up!”
    There was a voice. Faint, but compelling…
    “Besides, we were just getting to the good part. Who will win—the divine Apollo or the dreamy detective? It can’t end on a cliffhanger,” someone else said.
    “Lachesis! You’re as bad as these mortals, getting caught up in their soap opera lives.”
    “I can’t help it. I mean, it’s better than Lost . If you’d put down your clippers every once in a while, Atropos, you’d see. You need to lighten up.”
    Lachesis? Atropos? The Fates ? I drifted closer, certain I couldn’t be hearing right. Couldn’t be hearing anything at all.
    “Girls, focus,” the first speaker—Clotho?—chimed in again. “We need a decision. Thanatos has usurped our authority, cutting a cord that had yet to reach its terminus.”
    “Not acting alone, I’d wager.”
    “Be that as it may, do we sever the cord or rethread? If Thanatos is doing Hades’s bidding and his plot succeeds, it might behoove us to be in his good graces.”
    “No!” The voice, crusty and deeper than others— Atropos? —was implacable. “We don’t cede him our authority. Even Hades must bow before us.”
    “Good luck with that,” Lachesis put in.
    “Lachesis!” Crusty scolded.
    She hmphed. “Look, I vote no, okay? Tori’s life is way too interesting to cancel mid-season.”
    “Addict,” Atropos accused.
    “Sister, I share Lachesis’s view,” Clotho said. “The thread is intriguing. It strengthens the weave.”
    “Fine,” Atropos grumbled, “then we’re agreed?”  
    “Yes. Besides, we’ve got to get back to work on these those costumes. Full dress rehearsal is tonight.”
     
     
    I gasped in a breath that felt like a chainsaw unleashed in my chest. My eyes snapped open. I expected to see a bright light or a dark and desolate hell, depending on whether I’d been judged naughty or nice, but my own room swam in front of me. At least, I thought so. I’d never seen it from this angle before—an unlovely view of the dust bunnies and dried, boxed sea life beneath Lau’s bed.
    I was alive . Like Scrooge, I wanted to throw open my window and shout it out to the world. I had some vague retreating memory of the Fates discussing my life or death as if I was some sitcom they’d be sorry to see canceled. It seemed I’d been picked up for another season. Either that or I was in some bizarre