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be glorious;
he had planned to go to parties, pick up women, and bask in all the
attention that came with his new role as the UM swim team's secret
weapon. He credited his mood to paranoia: Kronos was coming to get
them. Clearly that was
the reason for his funk. Besides, why should he grieve Dr. Davis? She
had never liked him. None of them had ever liked Nick. They just
tolerated him because they had to. Because thousands of years ago
they were family.
    But what kind of family were
they? Nick stood up and slammed the locker door open. It knocked into
the next locker and set the whole row rattling. June Herald had asked
Minnie, right on the front steps of the church, to call when she got
to Cambridge. Evan had even remembered to offer Valerie his services
in rigging a security system for her car, as she was living with her
parents and commuting to school. The ones who weren't going off to
college yet—Penny, Astin, Diana, Evan, Lewis, Teddy—had agreed to
meet regularly and continue their Sunday Pantheon meetings without
their older peers. Had anyone asked where Nick was going? No.
    It had been that way since
kindergarten. Nick remembered the first day on the playground at his
new school. He was five; his mother had kept him home until then. All
of the other kids knew each other from their fancy private preschool.
Nick had been dragged from a summer of cookouts and swimming pools,
stuffed into an itchy collared shirt, and sent away from his parents.
He had cried when his mother left him at school. It was only a day,
but to a boy who had never been without his parents or grandparents,
it was a century. When recess came, Nick had made a solid effort to
join in an unstructured game of soccer, but one of the boys had
pushed him down. “Crybaby needs his mommy.” The other kids
laughed. Nick had never forgotten that day, and he made his
reputation on pushing that boy down, calling him “lard-ass”, and
looking completely innocent when the teachers came around. Now Nick
was at a new school again, and picking on the fat kid wouldn't
guarantee him success. He had to impress his team mates. He had to be
number one so that everyone would want to be part of his entourage.
    The coach's office door opened
and he stepped out. Coach Cruz was a tall man with sandy brown hair
and skin that was wrinkled not from age, but from sun. He had a
strong swimmer's body, with the unfortunate addition of a few extra
pounds right above the belt.
    Nick grabbed a towel out of
his locker and vigorously rubbed his hair. When he hung the towel
back on the hook, the coach was standing right next to him. Nick
jumped.
    “ Oh, hey…I uh, just wanted
to get a little more practice on the breast stroke,” he said,
feeling like he had to explain why he was here so long after practice
had ended.
    Nick turned and looked into
his coach's eyes. Something was wrong. The locker room, lined with
neat rows of orange and green lockers, was brightly lit, yet the
coach's pupils were wide and dark like the new moon. Was he high?
    “ Dude…” Nick started to
say, but the coach clapped his hand around Nick's shoulder.
    “ Poseidon,” he said.
    Nick scrambled backward and
fell into the lockers. The clasp on one of the lockers dug into his
bare back, and Nick cursed quietly. His coach was a Titan? What were
the odds?
    The coach just smiled and then
continued to speak.
    “ It's good to see you, my
son.”
    “ Are you here to kill me?”
    The coach laughed. “No. No,
that would be wasteful. I'm here to make you an offer.”
    He held out his hand and Nick
took it, letting Cruz pull him to his feet. Coach Cruz looked around
the locker room and nodded before looking back at Nick. “How are
the others treating you?”
    “ The Pantheon?”
    “ Yes, The Pantheon.”
    “ Like…like Valerie. Like
I'm invisible.”
    “ You know who I am?”
    “ Kronos,” Nick said. “You
killed Dr. Davis.”
    “ I killed Demeter,” he
nodded. “because I knew that getting to her