Death Trace by Cannon Zoe

Author:Cannon, Zoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“The collapse, which taxpayers will be feeling the impact of for years to come, revealed the existence of what appears to be an artifact of an ancient society,” a too-perky newscaster was saying as a camera panned across what remained of the temple. “A team of archaeologists is flying in from Los Angeles to see if they can make sense of this shocking and extraordinary find.”

Those archaeologists were in for a disappointment—that temple only dated back twenty years, to when Hades had first taken control of the city. And no doubt the Marked belonging to Hades’s allies had already been in to clear out anything incriminating, if the people who had destroyed the temple hadn’t gotten there first. Still, this would be hard to explain away. It would take a bunch of very powerful and very quick Guardians to do something about the statue and the carvings before anyone else got a good look at them, and without that, there was no hiding that this temple had belonged to Hades. And once that team of archaeologists determined that this was a temple to an ancient Greek god and had been built no earlier than the turn of the century, civilians would start asking questions.

Whoever had done this hadn’t just damaged Hades and his allies; the blow they had struck would have an impact on all the gods, including their own. It’s always been in the gods’ best interests to keep their struggles for power hidden from the mortal world. The more scared people get, the more dangerous they become, and what’s scarier than knowing your world is full of insanely powerful deities who care more about defeating each other than whether you live or die? Not to mention, human worship strengthens the gods, and finding out about the war is likely to turn off potential followers. Sure, some people have an unreasonable capacity for devotion; they’re the ones who become Guardians. But it when it comes to your ordinary, everyday humans, they don’t want to worship a god who might someday be defeated by the god next door. They turn to their gods to feel secure, and nothing makes someone feel less secure than a god who can’t hold their own territory.

Never mind that most of the people around here were worshipping a god who lost his marbles before their great-great-great-grandparents were born. But they didn’t know that, and that was the key.

But other people could think about public relations. I had more urgent problems to worry about. I let my gaze drop from the TV to the man on the couch watching the broadcast. He had his back to me; he hadn’t heard me come in.

“Did you know?” I asked.

Bastian didn’t jump. He turned his head to look at me without surprise. Maybe I had been wrong about him not hearing me come in—or maybe he had just been expecting me.

He shook his head. “I didn’t know. I swear.”

I wished he didn’t sound so subdued. I wished his face didn’t look so pale.

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