Prophecy of the Setting Sunrise (Oracle of Delphi #2), page 1
Prophecy of the Setting Sunrise
Book Two in the Oracle of Delphi Series
By Diantha Jones
Published by Diantha Jones
Copyright 2012 Diantha Jones
This book is a work of fiction. The names, character, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Dedication
Dedicated to my loving family and friends who said I had to be crazy to write a book like Prophecy of the Most Beautiful. Guess this confirms it.
Mommy and Papa Bear. You two are the BEST.
To my lil' "Sissy"...What's up?
To Mark Lee, the Indie promo king, and Mia Darien, my fabulously snarky editor. Without you guys...I'd be what I was before I met you.
To all of the bloggers, authors, and readers who have been so cyber-supportive, and to family/friends that didn't say I was crazy, THANK YOU.
I love you all.
The Great Unknown Prophecy
From the birth of a young nation shall rise, a Pythia,
with hair like fire and sapphire eyes,
with mind and instrument to bring to Olympus great power as one,
maybe earth, maybe water, maybe sky, maybe sun.
And the story continues...
I. Chloe
On top of hating to be stared at, Chloe hated to cry in front of people, so she tried to make sure no one ever saw her doing it. This time was no exception. She was too angry to cry anyway, too busy thinking about the best ways to end lives without getting blood all over her designer clothes. Even now, she was slipping her huge Onyx gem set in Empyrean bronze ring on and off her finger, fuming with her homicidal thoughts. Strafford Law, her boyfriend, sat beside her in his own funky gear, and from his impatient scowl, she knew he was plotting ways to escape the police precinct her house had become without having to kill anybody.
Cops were everywhere, and in the twenty-four hours she had been back, they had almost tripled in number and so had her level of irritation. The local news station in Adel, Georgia had set up camp right outside of her house and had been badgering the officers that were keeping them from pitching tents on her front lawn, for a chance to interview her. The Adel News Tribune had made her that morning's headline: Missing Local Teen Returns, Younger Brother Disappears. She had ripped the paper to shreds and trashed it, not wanting to read any more.
Every person in town that she had ever said as little as 'hello' to had driven, biked or walked past her house in the past few hours and from her living room window, and with astonishment, she had witnessed many of them taking pictures in front of it like it was a tourist attraction. The house phone had been unplugged hours ago, and if there had been a cell phone tower nearby, she would have gathered all the explosives she could find and blown it to bits. Every cop in her house had a cell phone and every thirty seconds, one of them rang. Her nerves teetered on their last go-round and she was counting down the seconds until she lost it completely.
"For the last time, I didn' bloody kidnap her," Strafford growled at the detective sitting across from them.
Detective Lockhart had replaced the first detective on the scene, Detective Pierson, whose arm was being casted at the hospital. Strafford had been amply justified in breaking it during a stand-off between him and the police the day before, and her interference was the only reason they hadn't tried to arrest him yet, as if they could.
But that was neither here nor there.
Only out of concern for her mother Beth's welfare, and the fact that she didn't want anyone to die trying to put Strafford behind bars, had she allowed Lockhart to interrogate them for the last six hours. But for the sake of Strafford's short range of patience and Lockhart's nicely arranged face, she hoped it wouldn't be much longer before the detective realized he was wasting his time.
"So you say you didn't kidnap Miss Clever and she says she didn't run away. Somebody is lying. I'd say, it's probably you." Lockhart was giving them his best intimidating glare and trying to pretend that Strafford's glare wasn't kicking his glare's butt.
"Neither of us is lying," she snapped. "I already told you. He didn't kidnap me. And how many times do I have to say it? You should be out there looking for my brother instead of sitting here interrogating me." She really only wanted them out of the way. If they were out searching for Benjy, then she could be too.
He'd been "missing" for three days, but everyone knew he'd been kidnapped. Eight-year-old boys didn't just up and run away from loving homes in the middle of the night. Yet, there was no real proof that he'd been taken. At least, none that the authorities were aware of.
"We've got plenty of local officers and neighboring county sheriffs out looking for your brother," Lockhart replied.
Waste of time, she thought. "And why aren't you out there too? The more eyes that are out there, the better chance you stand of finding him."
You don't stand a chance in hades of finding him.
"The sooner you tell me where you've been for the last four months, the sooner I can join the search for Benjamin. We think your little teenaged runaway act has something to do with his disappearance."
Do you now? "I didn't run away," ...exactly... "and where I was doesn't matter. All that matters now is finding Benjy."
"Tell me what you know about the events that took place on April nineteenth."
She frowned. That was a week ago. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play the ignorant card with me. Something happened here. In your backyard. There was some kind of fight or struggle involving a lot of bodies. I have a feeling you know who."
She swallowed. She could guess...and probably correctly... "I don't know anything about it."
Lockhart forced a smile, pushed his glasses up to sit on top of his salt-and-pepper hair, folded his hands on top of the table and leaned forward.
"I've been doing this job for twenty-three years now, Miss Clever. I know when I'm being had. I've seen this a million times before. Smart, young, well-bred girls lying to the authorities to protect their low-class criminal boyfriends." He tossed an unimportant look at Strafford.
Chloe had to stop herself from laughing out loud. The tall, handsome young man sitting beside her was anything but low-class.
At his worst, Strafford Law was gorgeous beyond reason. He was Irish-bred with perfectly unkept carbon black hair that drove her wild, intense gray eyes that could melt glaciers, and the most unflawed olive skin she had ever seen on a guy. His gladiator physique gave her chills every time she laid eyes on it and he had a hypnotic smile that could make women twice his age blush like schoolgirls. The bottom lip of his sexy mouth was pierced with a tiny hoop and he had a fiercely bad ass dragon tattooed around his muscular right arm. He was about as dazzling as dazzling could get, and she had yet to comprehend how a romance had actually managed to blossom between them.
Before Chloe had gone "missing", she had been awkward, psychotic, and practically friendless, that included boyfriend-less. But just that fast, things had changed. Her head was still spinning from how fast things had changed.
Sure, she was still pretty awkward, and some might even say a little psycho, but she wasn't the total loose cannon she had been. In fact, she had found out that she wasn't the diagnosed schizophrenic she thought she was, that all of her earlier hallucinations and delusions were symptoms of something much more extraordinary.
She was the Oracle of Delphi, the teller of the future, and from what she had discovered, she was the most powerful one there had been in centuries.
She hadn't believed it at first, but the Greek deity Apollo, the god of the Sun, had managed to convince her and had introduced her into a world that she hadn't known existed: The World of Greek Myth.
She had quickly learned that none of it was really mythology and that it was all as real as she was. The Greek gods, the Olympians; their kingdom, the Heavens of Myth; and their half-human children, the demigods. That's what Strafford was— half mortal, half god. A hero.
Apollo was his father, but he hated him for reasons he wouldn't disclose to her. However, his hatred of Apollo hadn't kept him from accepting the job of protecting her when Apollo, as the god of Prophecy as well, had appointed him and a few of his siblings as her guardians, the Quad Fraternity. Apollo chose him for good reason, too. Strafford was his Sun child, the strongest of all of his children and one of the most powerful demigods there was.
Being a Sun child also made him a Prince. So low class? Ha! The detective was sitting in the presence of royalty and didn't even know it.
Lockhart was still talking and she had no idea why. "I know about young infatuation, Miss Clever. I was young and handsome once, too. I know how what you perceive to be love can control you and have you doing things that you wouldn't do otherwise. Unfortunately, I also know how boys lie. I don't say these things to hurt you. I'm on your side here, Miss Clever, despite what you may think. No m
atter what this boy has told you or forced you to do, I can help."
He waited for a reaction from her and got squat. He grunted impatiently. "You're a smart girl. What are you doing dating this chump? Do you even know who he really is? I'll have you know that my men have been looking pretty damn hard and can't find a record of any Strafford Law even being born, nationally or internationally. By his way of talk, we know he's not from this country, but that's irrelevant."
He turned threatening eyes on Strafford. "The only reason you're still free even though you assaulted a detective is because I thought it'd be easier to get your girlfriend here to talk with you not behind bars. But believe me, it's only a matter of time before we know everything there is to know about you and then it'll be my pleasure to lock you in a cell to rot."
Strafford gave her a look as if to say, Is this guy for real? She shrugged. It was pretty laughable, searching databases for a demigod. They hadn't bothered making up a fake name for Strafford and the authorities were convinced the Olympian omega tattooed on the back of his neck proved that he was in some kind of international gang.
In reality, it proved he was a hero. A declared son of a god. So Lockhart's men could search every record in every police database in existence and wouldn't find anything on Strafford. He was a Prince of Myth who had been declared as a son of Apollo at birth. On Earth, he'd never even existed. At least, that's what she assumed.
"Time's running out here, Miss Clever," Lockhart continued, jerking on the knot of his tie to loosen it. "Do the right thing—turn him in and save yourself." He waited, but she said nothing. Strafford sat back, arms folded, enjoying this. Lockhart noticed and it ticked him off.
"Has this little punk threatened you, Miss Clever?"
"No."
"Has he threatened to harm your family?"
"Never."
"Are you pregnant then, and feel trapped?"
She gasped. "What? No!" She really needed Lockhart to believe that. If such a rumor ever got back to her mother, she would probably be forced to take a test to prove it wasn't true. Total humiliation.
It was weird enough that her mother had been giving them funny looks all day through her puffy, unrested eyes, wondering where in the world he had even come from. Chloe had finally suggested she go lie down for a bit. Her mother had refused at first, adamantly, and with lots of shouting. She had only just gotten Chloe back. She would never let her out of her sight again. But Chloe had insisted, assuring her mother as she had the night before that she would be there when she woke up, and she meant it.
She hadn't had the where-the-hell-have-you-been-for-the-last-four-months talk with her mother yet, even though every chance she got, Beth interrogated her for answers. For a whole day, she had managed to avoid it. Coming up with enough lies to explain everything would be hard—her disappearance, her new look, her new boyfriend. She knew there was a big question mark where he was concerned and she just didn't have the right answers to explain him yet.
"I'm not pregnant," she told Lockhart again in case he hadn't heard her the first time. He opened his mouth to respond.
"Detective Lockhart!"
They all looked at the young female officer standing in the entrance to the dining room. Lockhart instantly became agitated.
"What is it?" he snapped. The young woman hurried forward and shoved a folder into his hand.
"New development, sir. Madison Campbell," she introduced herself, reaching out to shake with Chloe, "Welcome back."
"Thanks," she mumbled, ignoring the fact that this Madison had let her brown hair out of its unsightly ponytail the instant she had seen Strafford.
She looked to see if he had noticed and found him staring right at her. She blushed as those gray eyes raked over her, and as if to make something very clear to her (and probably to Madison), he leaned over, slid his hand into her thick, red hair, cupped the back of her head and planted a freaking moon-shattering kiss on her lips, lots of tongue.
Lockhart was not amused.
"That'll be the last time that happens while I'm sitting here," he huffed.
"So if I kiss her again, will you do us a favor and disappear?" Strafford retorted.
Lockhart glared and jerked the folder open so hard, he ripped it. Madison bit her lip, trying not to laugh.
"You're not helping the situation at all," Chloe whispered to Strafford, though fighting back a smile.
The corner of his lip raised in a who-the-hell-cares sort of half-grin. "Tha's 'cause I'm only thinkin' abou' helpin' myself. To you." And he kissed her again before making a big show of moving his chair several feet away from her. She waited all of three seconds and moved hers next to his, making him laugh.
"I think you should leave now, son," Lockhart snarled, dismissing Madison with a jerk of his head. With one last longing look at Strafford, she scampered off.
"How abou' you leave instead?" Strafford snarled in return, "'cause I'm not going anywhere without Chloe."
"Tell your punk boyfriend to get out of here, Miss Clever!"
She frowned. Lockhart sounded serious. Whatever was in that folder had drained any tolerance he had left. His eyes flashed something real and she knew he was done playing around.
"What's going on?" she asked, feeling a squeeze on her heart that made it skip a few beats. "What's wrong?"
"Get this punk out of here and I'll tell you."
She looked at Strafford and met his rebellious stare. Can't you just do me this one favor? she asked with her eyes.
Can't I just kill him instead? he replied.
No, you can't, she said. "It's okay, really. You can go. I'll be fine."
"No."
"Please, Strafford? It might be about Benjy."
Strafford narrowed suspicious eyes at the Detective, reading him. "Wha'ever." Then he abruptly got up and exited the room.
She returned her chair to its original position. "So," she began, "what is it? What's going on?"
Lockhart still had the folder open but it was tilted up so she couldn't see its contents. His expression had yet to soften. "I'm going to give you one more chance to tell me how you're connected to your brother's disappearance, Miss Clever. Just one. Now, shoot."
She shook her head. "I have nothing to tell you."
Lockhart laughed, cold and withdrawn. He glanced toward the living room. "Oh, I beg to differ, Miss Clever. I think you have plenty to tell me."
He was standing beside her before she could come up with a protest. He leaned over her, one hand on the table, the other on the back of her chair. He brought himself down to eye-level.
"Last chance," he growled, barely audible over the chorus of ringing cell phones. "What are you hiding?"
She found herself suddenly very afraid of him, but not understanding why. "I-I'm not hiding anyth-thing!" she stammered.
Lockhart slammed his fist down on the table and the wood splintered around his hand. "We've wasted enough of my time now, Pythia," he growled. "The mortals already know too much."
She stopped breathing. Pythia was her celestial name. No mortal person would have known to call her that.
She noticed then that all the noise and chaos in her house had come to an abrupt end.
"You are the Oracle of the Great Unknown Prophecy," he snapped. Frozen in her chair, she watched him change before her eyes. "You know much more than you are aware of."
His salt-and-pepper hair grew long and straight, his body slimmed and he grew at least two inches. His face lost its hard edge and became smooth and relaxed and a thin mustache grew across his upper lip. His stiff shirt and tie were exchanged for an expensive suit and trench coat just as a silver-tipped cane appeared in his other hand.
He glared down at her, and still, she couldn't move. Or breathe.
"I am Hypnos," he snarled, "the god of Sleep. Listen to me closely, Pythia, or suffer knowing that your brother died because you did not."
II. Chloe
She should have been more surprised by this situation. But she wasn't. It was the first thing she had learned as the Oracle. Nothing is ever as it seems. Expect the unexpected. La-di-da and all that.
"You know who took my brother?" she questioned, her words exiting her mouth on a breath. A bit of hope mixed with anger toiled around in her chest. She already wasn't liking this situation.
