The Pantheon Read Online Free Page A

she’s in danger. You are too.” He put his hand on Penelope’s shoulder. Peter wished, for her sake, that she could feel it.
    “ How are we in trouble?” Now that Peter was part of this equation and not just an interpreter, the stakes were higher. He stepped closer. Penny stepped away.
    “ You’re all in danger. They’re already here and when they realize that they need you, they’ll change their plan. You need to stop them before they use your own tricks against you.”
    “ That’s not very specific!” Peter snapped.
    “ It’s fire this time,” he said calmly. There was never much urgency for the dead. “But the others will follow. Forethought and afterthought are already here.”
    “ Fire?”
    “ Tell Pooh Bear I miss her.” Mr. Davis was gone.
    “ Shit.” Peter wished he’d gotten more.
    “ Okay, so what? Is he still here?”
    Peter shook his head, “He had to warn us. Me. You. He said ‘all of you’.”
    Penny didn’t want to believe him but she couldn’t help it. She was so little when her father had died and part of her had always wished he’d just walk through the door one day, coming home from a long trip, and everything would be normal again.
    “ About what?” she asked.
    “ I don’t know. Fire. He wants you to know he misses you.”
    There was a long silence, a pause that stretched for eternity. She wasn’t kicking him out and he wasn’t leaving.
    “ You believe me?” he asked after the quiet had gone on too long.
    “ I shouldn’t.”
    “ No, you shouldn’t.” Why did he suddenly resent her? He had never told anyone and he’d been seeing them for a year. Why did she tear down his guard without even trying?
    “ But I do,” she said.
    He was shocked. “Why?”
    The doorknob turned before she had to answer that. Peter’s head snapped to look down the hall. Dr. Davis was home.
    “ Penny,” she looked from her daughter to the boy. The sight of them alone together made her uncomfortable and Penny looked distressed. “Hello, Peter.”
    “ Peter was just walking me home. There was... well I tripped and hurt my wrist so he carried my books.” She should have told Peter to get out. She shouldn’t have covered for him.
    “ Are you okay?” Celene set her purse on the floor and examined Penelope’s wrist. It looked red, but from the struggle, not from falling. “We should get some ice on that and get it checked out.”
    “ It’s fine, mom, it’s just a little sore.” She pulled her arm away. Penelope hoped it wouldn’t bruise. Even more she hoped that if it did, it wouldn’t look like Peter-sized finger marks. “Thanks Pete.”
    Pete. There was a nickname that made him grit his teeth. “Yeah, no problem.” He couldn’t leave it alone. “And just Peter. Bye, Dr. Davis.”
    Peter left the apartment as fast as he could without looking suspicious. Now he’d spoken to her. Now he knew it was real, the way his blood pounded in his ears when he saw her. Even more distressing was the warning. It wasn’t so much a warning as a riddle. Peter was kicking himself for not being able to find out.
    Someone wanted to hurt them. Someone was going to use fire and their own tricks to hurt them. That could have meant a thousand things. All Peter knew was that it had to be serious for a ghost who had passed so many years ago to make the trip back to warn them. Who was trying to hurt them? And who were the others?

“ Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than of war.”
    -Homer

    iii.

    The rich earth sucked up the flowing stream of blood.
    Sun burnt bodies lay all around their feet,
    each as unrecognizable as the next.
    Arrows pierced their flesh.

    It was like a thousand troops had fired at once
    and called down a rain of arrows upon them,
    but there were two left standing over the scene
    with blood on their hands.

    She wiped the splash of hot blood from her white face.
    She could taste a hint of copper on her lips.
    She placed the notched arrow back in her