ton of other things to worry about first. So I didn’t push it.
Best to just focus on one thing at a time.
Sickness was going back in the prison. Today.
Chapter 18
Panacea helped Rhea up. She was as gray as Cronus had been. Thankfully, his color had returned to a nice normal bronze; clearly the gods didn’t do well with power loss. One day I’d figure out where their power came from—was it worship, or something more?—but for now I’d just be grateful they had some, and that it was able to transport us to where Sickness was frozen in the middle of a town.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Lynmouth, England,” Rhea mumbled, her head falling forward.
The town itself was beautiful beyond anything I’d ever seen back home, with cobbled paths, and buildings clearly filled with history and life, all of which was shadowed by the bodies lying in the street. Bodies surrounded in vomit and … other bodily fluids. Bodies that were bloated with death and disease.
I coughed, covering my mouth, my eyes filling with tears at the horror of what I was seeing. “Sickness did this?” I choked out. “In … a few days?”
And we’d wasted time. With me almost dying, and with the hotel, and … #Arghhhhh
I wanted to throw my head back and scream, but that wouldn’t help anyone. It was too late now to save this small town, but we could save the rest of the world.
“Sickness is this way,” Rhea said, pointing beyond a large, ornately carved fountain that seemed to make up the center of the city. It hid the sin from sight, but as we crossed around, I let out a gasp to see how many bodies were piled at his feet. He stood tall, arms held aloft, like a statue greeting his people. His dead people. No doubt he had been spreading his disease when Rhea froze him, but it was too late for those close by.
“Sickness first and then we burn this town,” Cronus said, face steely. “Otherwise it will spread far and wide until there’s no hope for the rest of the world. This is ground zero.”
None of the gods showed any outward reaction to the death surrounding us. They moved through the bodies, not sparing them a second glance. Meanwhile, my heart was trying to shatter from my chest. Old and young, children held in the arms of their parents … no one was spared. No one! I wanted to rip Sickness into a million pieces, break his skin, and tear into whatever lay below.
All of this for power. Power!
A sob formed in my throat, and then a hand wrapped around mine, and I stared at Cronus. He wasn’t looking at me, but somehow he knew the agony coursing through me. These were my people, and their lives had been ripped away. I had opened the box. Whether it would have opened on its own, we’ll never know. As far as I was concerned, this was all on me. My fault.
“Stop,” Cronus said softly. “Stop looking and stop feeling guilt. The sins are the only ones to blame here. They made choices to be what they are, just like they did when they were first manifesting. You didn't do this.”
I hadn’t even realized tears were tracking down my cheeks until I tasted the salt on my lips. I was too devastated to wipe them away, and there was no time.
“You can’t be infected by Sickness twice,” Cronus told me. “You’ll have to touch him to channel his essence into the necklace. We’ll lend you power. You’re not strong enough on your own.”
Sickness stood a full head above me. I could see his eyes shifting as the energy Rhea used to hold him wore off. He was not going to go easily.
But what he didn’t know was that I was the most stubborn woman on Earth and he’d just pissed me off.
“Time to go back into your prison, motherfucker,” I growled, reaching out to grasp his shoulders.
Rhea scoffed. “Very ladylike.”
“Oh shut up and help us,” Cronus barked at his ex-wife.
The moment my hands landed on Sickness’s shoulders, a dark sickly energy slammed into me, making my stomach churn. Cronus placed a hand on my left shoulder and Hyperion on my right. Their blast of power channeled through my back and outward from my palms, causing Sickness to break from his frozen state and scream into my face.
The putrid smell of bile and death blasted over me and I had to fight not