Volcanoes

Volcanoes

Written by Nicole Hamlett

Cover Art by Jin Yu

This book is dedicated to my son Alex. He is my sunshine and my life would be so incomplete without him to orbit around. Thank you bubby for being so intrinsically amazing, funny, and full of win!  Also
–
Big Stuff!

Volcanoes - A Grace Murphy N
ovel
Text copyright ©
2012, Nicole Hamlett
Cover illustration by Jin Yu. ©
2012, Nicole Hamlett
GRACE MURPHY, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and ©
Nicole Hamlett.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resembla
n
ce to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.

Published by Nicole Hamlett.
Song quote on
page
4
from the song "Volcano" by Damien Rice.
 
NO part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of publisher. For information regarding permission, write to:
78 Entertainment, 9648 Odessa Avenue, Suite 301, Los Angele
s
, CA 91343
[email protected]
1st Edition, 2012.
Produced in the U.S.A.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
b
y any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

Volcanoes melt you down
–
"Volcano" by Damien Rice

So here I was, with my hand placed gently on our hero's face, watching as a Tsunami barreled toward the coastline. Just an average day caught up in the middle of yet another catastrophic situation where still another country was about to be rip
ped apart.
  Honestly, I didn
’
t even know where we were.

Let me recap the situation for you.  When we last saw our Heroine (that
’
s me), she was fighting her new best friend to save her son
’
s life. Said best friend (that
’
s Athena) consequently had her head
ripped off by her brother and the father of my kid (that would be Drew) and my dog Scooter (who is actually a mercury golem). The kid got
‘
ported to safety and then the whole place started rising from the depths of the ocean. 

Said place being Atlantis, o
f course.  The reasoning?  Well yeah
–
I wasn
’
t the only person who loved her mummy.  Nyx
’
s kids had discovered that Zeus had trapped her in stasis when he sank Atlantis and they wanted her back.  How did they find out? What do I look like? Dick Tracy? Ho
w
the hell did I know how they found out? All I knew was that shit had just gotten real.

So, back to the present.  Here I sat with my hand on Drew
’
s face, waiting for this wave of epic proportions to wash over us
–
possibly drowning me in the process.  I di
dn
’
t like that thought.  Actually
–
I didn
’
t like any of this at all.

"So what
’
s the plan?" It seemed like a reasonable question for me to ask.

I don
’
t know what I was expecting to hear in return. It certainly wasn
’
t
–
"Well we
’
re going to wait for this
wave to pass, then we
’
re going to go back and see if we can keep Atlantis from rising from the bottom of the ocean."

"Really?" I asked. "That
’
s your plan? Not
–
Let
’
s
‘
port out of here to avoid possible drowning, then gather up the troops and go in there t
o kick some ass?"

"Hmm," he muttered. "I hadn
’
t thought of that."

I stared at him - completely perplexed - and asked myself for possibly the thousandth time why in hell I
’
d ever thought this man was my soul-mate. Because, let
’
s face it, I was a girl who ne
eded a man with ambition, smarts, and a plan. 

It occurred to me then and there that Adonis was not much more than a pretty face and a drone. He was a fighter. He was a soldier. He wasn
’
t a commander and he never would be.

"I can hear what you
’
re thinkin
g, Grace and it
’
s not very charitable," he growled.

"Really?" My voice rose in pitch with my utter disbelief.  I was about to tell him exactly what he could do with his stupid plan
and
with his reaction to my uncharitable thoughts when a short bark of lau
ghter interrupted my mental tirade.

"So are you going to stand there gazing longingly at Captain Awesome, or are you going to actually do something about this wave?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Of course he would be the one to catch me with m
y proverbial pants down. It seemed that every time I was in a position to look stupid, he was there to see me become even more idiotic.

"And what do you suggest I do, Hephaestus?" It came out as a cross between a groan and an exasperated sigh.  Mentally I
rolled my eyes at myself. I wasn
’
t the most mature woman when it came to dealing with Heph. Well, any of the men really. It's a miracle I'd stayed married so long.

"First, I want you to disengage yourself from Adonis. I know it will be hard
–
but we all m
ust make sacrifices," he lifted an eyebrow in challenge. 

Everything in me wanted to engage in this battle, but the reality of the situation was that the wave wasn
’
t slowing down.  We had minutes - at the most - to take care of this. I shot a murderous lo
ok in his direction and stepped back from Drew. "Jealous much?" I muttered.

He grinned and looked up and down the coast line. "How about you throw up a wall here? At the very least, we can break the momentum of the wave."

Okay, that was a good plan. I co
uld do that.  I gave the coast-line an assessing once over before dropping to my knees and digging my fingers into the sand.  "Let
’
s show the lady what we have behind door number one." I smirked and pushed power into the Earth below me, visualizing a thic
k
impenetrable wall.

It looked like the Great Wall of China in my imagination. I
’
d seen pictures but hadn
’
t had a chance to get there. You
’
d think that with the new teleportation powers, I
’
d have taken a jaunt.  Yeah
–
not so much. Between fending
off Hope (my long lost sister and Drew
’
s long lost wife), training to be a Hunter and nearly getting myself killed no less than four times -

"Six," Heph interrupted.

"Hey!  Unless you want to narrate this story, shut up!" 

I scowled in his direction, tri
ed to tamp down the ire
–
failed - and startled the bejesus out of myself when I realized that we were all standing on a wall fifty feet high that stretched as far as the eye could see. 

"Shit," I breathed.  I'd blinked and suddenly the wall was there. I
expected resistance. Maybe a groaning noise?  I didn
’
t expect a mini Great Wall to appear out of nowhere in the middle of my whining session. It had just happened.

"Shit, indeed." Heph repeated.

"Ohhh-kay. So now what?" If it was going to be this easy, an
d I was on a roll
–
I wasn
’
t stopping here.

"I got this part," a booming voice answered out of nowhere.

I looked up into the sky and asked, "God is that you?"  I was feeling good about my luck and since I
’
d been praying like a mother f'er about this
–
it
stood to reason that he
’
d answer me.

Heph snickered and Drew turned away abruptly.  I threw them both the nastiest look I could possibly twist my face into and turned back toward the water.

"Not God," the voice answered. "But I wouldn
’
t say no to some b
lind worship."

I wish I could explain to you what happened next with the detail it deserves.  All I can say is that a liquid avatar of gigantic proportions rose from the waves and towered over my little group.  Marisol was going to kick my ass when she re
ad this because it
’
s obvious that I
’
m rusty with the writing. Let me just say, I
’
ve been to Olympus and I
’
ve seen miraculous things happen in the last year
–
but this was perhaps, the most beautiful thing yet. 

It looked like
–
well it looked like a giant
aqua blue King Triton from the
Little Mermaid
.  I know. You just groaned. I would have too, but honestly
–
that
’
s the closest I could possibly get to describing what I saw without gushing on the light reflecting off the droplets of water blinding me with
their magnificence.  Listen, I mocked those sparkly vampires. I wasn
’
t about to create another twinkling hero. But honestly, the details were perfect in that I could see veins running along the arms and legs. It was phenomenal. If I were an artist I
’
d nev
e
r be able to paint the beauty of what I was looking at.

"Poseidon stop showing off and just do your thing. She gets distracted by pretty men too much already."

"Hey," I growled. "Pot
–
meet kettle."

Satisfaction washed through me as he flushed an unattrac
tive mottled red. "Heph, you
’
re really not that pretty when you blush," I taunted before turning back to the water.

Poseidon
’
s avatar ran a hand across the water, pushing back against the giant wave roaring toward us. I felt like I was watching a kid in a
pool playing a game of splashy - splashy.  It just didn
’
t seem like it should have been that easy.  I mean, I would have dropped the floor of the ocean or maybe created a sink hole, sucking the water down like a flushing toilet. But no…
he just created a
wave flowing back against the original, dispersing the momentum. 

It looked fun and briefly I wondered if I would be able to do something that cool someday.

"Well now I have this big
‘
ol wall here and no Mongolian horde to storm it.  Kinda feel like I bl
ew my load a little too early." I kicked at a loose pebble near my feet and it
’
s possible that I may have pouted a little. I admit to nothing.

The avatar bent over the wall and smiled at me. "It
’
s a gorgeous wall, Grace. A beauty. I couldn
’
t have done bet
ter myself.  They
’
ll be talking about this miraculous wall for years to come. Really."

"Quit pandering to me you old flatterer." I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling when I said it.  "Okay, I
’
m dropping this bad boy down if we
’
re good to go."

Checking for t
he go ahead from Hephaestus, Poseidon and Drew
–
I waited a moment before letting the mud and sand sink slowly back into itself.  It had been a beautiful wall.  Perhaps I was an artist after all.

Hands on hips, I surveyed the beach looking for any tell-ta
le signs that I
’
d just sunk a giant wall back into the sand.  Nope, things looked good. "Hey, you were with my mother and Zachary." I turned and looked at Poseidon. "What the hell happened there? Atlantis was supposed to stay sunk." I paused a moment and
t
ook a deep breath.  "Are they dead?"

It took an immeasurable amount of courage to look into Poseidon
’
s face in that moment. He could have said anything other than
–
‘
No your parents are alive
’
and it would have broken me. I mean it.  I didn
’
t have the for
titude after seeing what Athena did to my son to face yet more bad news.

Our eyes met and my breath left me with a whoosh of relief. It was a good thing. I
’
d expected to throw up.  Actually no
–
I
’
d expected to have a full blown panic attack.  I still wan
ted to throw up. 

Then it hit me. I'd just called Zeus my parent. At what point had I gone from thinking of him as a man to be feared - because of the torture - to a father figure?

"When I left them, they were alive.  However, our job isn
’
t done, Grace. W
e need to stop Atlantis
’
ascent.  Whatever it takes to keep Nyx buried in the water is what we have to do.  Her children cannot be given access to her tomb or this world is lost." Anxiety etched his face.  "She
’
s been trapped down there in sort of a stasi
s
for thousands of years. She was on the verge of madness before.  Only the gods will know if she
’
s kept any semblance of sanity."

I
’
ve met some of Nyx
’
s kids. They aren
’
t creatures of fairy tales. They
’
re creatures of your darkest nightmares.  Lyssa hangs
onto sanity by a thread and Hypnos was just mean.  I could only imagine what kind of person their mother was. I certainly didn
’
t want to find out what the consequences would be if she were allowed to walk this Earth again.