The Key of Apollo (The Gates of Artemis Book 1) Read online

  The Gates of Artemis

  Book One: The Key of Apollo

  Riley D. Brady

  Copyright © 2018 by Riley D. Brady

  The Key of Apollo: Book One of the Gates of Artemis

  Published by Scottish Seoul Publishing, LLC, Dewitt, NY

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  To the three greatest additions to my life,

  My world got so much better when each of you joined it.

  I love you forever and always, no matter what.

  Love, Mom

  Contents

  1. Hi! I’m Lucy. Nice to Meet You!

  2. What Is Wrong With My Subconscious?

  3. It All Starts Getting Weird

  4. The Gods Are Dead … Let It Go

  5. Yes, You’re All Fabulous. Can I Go Home Now?

  6. And By Some Miracle, The Day Gets Worse

  7. Um, That’s Not Normal, Right?

  8. What’s A Few Hallucinations Amongst Friends?

  9. The World’s Bravest Peacock

  10. Surprise! Things Go Horribly Wrong

  11. I Am So Dead

  12. I Screamed, The Lion Screamed, Everybody Screamed

  13. A Really Scary Surfer Dude Lion

  14. Gnobly the Cranky

  15. That Just Happened, Right?

  16. My Peacock is Stranger Than Your Peacock

  17. Am I Still Asleep?

  18. Am I Too Young for a Heart Attack?

  19. Um, Aren’t Those Extinct?

  20. Hey, Guess Who’s Back?

  21. So You’re An Actual Superhero?

  22. Scottish is Not the Same as Irish!

  23. Flying Nuts and Other New Dangers

  24. Superhero Lucy, Reporting for Training!

  25. The Universe Thinks I Like Cranky People

  26. It’s Official: The Universe Does Not Like Me Happy

  27. I’m Not Going to Worry … And Other Lies I Tell Myself

  28. I’m Totally Worrying

  29. I Have a Plan … Sort Of

  30. Yet Again, Things Do Not Go As Planned

  31. A Baby With Superpowers?

  32. Gnobly Is Not My Favorite Person

  33. Aubrey Betcalf is the World’s Worst Human

  34. Exploding Yogurt Machines and Tuna Surprise

  35. I Am A Lousy Witness

  36. Aubrey Betcalf is the Second Worst Human

  37. Let The Crazy Lady Smile

  38. Seriously, Who Threatens a Peacock?

  39. I Am A Lousy Friend

  40. Anybody? Anybody At All?

  41. We Can Do This … Right?

  42. Team Nightmare All the Way!

  43. Gnobly Is, Well, Gnobly

  44. No, No, Absolutely Not. And Ten Other Gnobly Ways of Saying No

  45. Uh, What?

  46. Are You Sure You Two Are Related?

  47. The Gods Weren’t Very Nice People

  48. Right Out of a Fairy Tale

  49. The Once-In-A-Lifetime Grand Gathering

  50. You Say No, I Say No

  51. That’s Going to Leave a Mark

  52. Under The Sea—And Not A Singing Crab in Sight

  53. Watch Out for the Falling Mammals!

  54. So That Happened

  55. TARDIS is Not the Same as Tartarus

  56. Three Little Humans Praying for a Miracle

  57. There’s a Nice Way to Die?

  58. Um, How’d We End Up at Sidney’s House?

  59. Now That’s More Like a Titan!

  60. Say What You Will About Titans, They’re Really Good Listeners

  61. Feet, Don’t Fail Me Now

  62. Crius Is My Least-Favorite Titan

  63. Partying with the Titans

  64. Hera Makes Brice Gelfry Look Good

  65. You Have Got to be Kidding Me!

  66. So That’s What a Hecatoncheir Looks Like

  67. Bad News: Tartarus is a Circle

  68. Three Versus 150 = Not Great Odds

  69. Maximus, The Coolest Minotaur Ever

  70. Um, Birds?

  71. Are You Sure It’s Not the Birds?

  72. I Prefer Gideon’s Idea

  73. What’s in a Name?

  74. Break Time! … Or Not

  75. No Rest for the Wicked … Or Me

  76. An Uninvited Hitchhiker

  77. The Cave of Death—That’s Encouraging

  78. Is There a Giant Rock I Can Crawl Under?

  79. I Feel Like … Roadkill

  80. The Once-in-a-Lifetime Grand Gathering … Again

  81. On To The Key! … After a Brief Message From Betty

  82. Gnobly Is the Worst Cheerleader Ever

  83. So, That’s A No on the Marshmallows?

  84. Gnobly Doesn’t Like Dragons

  85. Down the Big, Creepy Staircase We Go!

  86. We Really Are All Going to Die

  87. Guess What? There’s Something Worse Than Dragons!

  88. Hey, It Smells Like Pancakes!

  89. Something Goes Our Way!

  90. It Can’t End Like This

  91. One Small Side Trip … What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

  92. Please Don’t Charbroil Me!

  93. Up, Up, and Away!

  94. Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig

  95. Showtime!

  96. Why Do All the Villains Have Creepy Rooms?

  97. Sitting On A Pegasus With A Gnome/Peacock Is Sooooo Yesterday

  98. Butter Statue, Meet Torch

  99. A Really Angry Peacock

  100. Time to Relax With Some Friends

  A Note From the Author

  About the Author

  Books by R.D. Brady

  Hi! I’m Lucy. Nice to Meet You!

  Hi there. I’m Lucy Cole, a completely normal freshman in high school ... or at least I thought until I learned I’m a Daughter of Artemis.

  I know what you’re thinking: Wait a minute, Artemis didn’t have any kids! True … sort of. But I’ll get to that a little later.

  So what is a Daughter of Artemis? A Daughter of Artemis is a guardian of the animals of this world, both present and past.

  It sounds pretty impressive. But my start was anything but impressive. In fact, most of my early life wouldn’t even make a good movie of the week—it would be too depressing. But then a really great thing happened to me: I got arrested … again.

  Actually, that part was pretty lousy. But after that, it got good, especially with the peacock that wasn’t a peacock, the glowing eyes, and the zebra that wasn’t a zebra. That’s where all the current stuff really started. If you wanted to get really philosophical, I guess it all really began with the gods and the society they created for us and then disappeared from.

  But I’m getting way in the weeds there. So there’s only one place to really begin this story: my arrest and the world’s worst foster mother, Petunia Lansdowne.

  Two years ago

  The bench in front of the juvenile court was comfortingly warm, which meant someone else had been sitting here before I plopped down. Maybe it was someone whose life was just as lousy as mine was right now. I appreciated the warmth of the seat because I knew the rest of the day was going to give some of the other completely horrible days in my life a run for their money.

  Petunia Lansdowne, or Petty, as I thought of her, paced in front of me. She wobbled in her heels, her dar
k hair pulled up into a bun that was slowly coming undone, her fists clenching and unclenching. I knew she was dying for a cigarette. She was the one person who I really didn’t mind smoking.

  Shortening her life, I was okay with.

  Petunia glared at the clock before spinning back to me. Spittle had gathered at the corner of her mouth. “I hope they throw the book at you. After all I’ve done for you, for you to humiliate me this way. I do not deserve to be treated like this. By the gods, I should get a medal for keeping you this long.”

  Yes, Petty, once again, my life is all about you, I thought while saying nothing. After all, I was in enough trouble. But Petty hadn’t expected a response. She just needed to rant and have me take it.

  Stopping her frenetic hand clenching, she put her hands on her hips and glared down at me. “Look at me.”

  Keeping my face expressionless, my gaze shifted to her. With a nod, she began to pace. “I took you in when no one else would. I am the one …”

  I tuned her out, shifting my gaze to behind her, which I knew made her think I was still listening to her. At the end of hall stood a seven-foot-tall statue of Lady Justice. Blindfolded, she held a balance aloft in one hand to demonstrate that justice was blind, with each side given equal weight. According to the inscription at the base of the statue, which I read almost every time I was here, she was created to honor our system in the likeness of a daughter of Zeus, named Dike, whose very name meant justice.

  But even that statue was not just. The true first goddess of justice was Themis, one of the original Titans. And while the Greek gods were continually honored, the Titans had been all but wiped from history. So placing a statue of the goddess of justice who’d replaced the original goddess of justice, whom no one ever spoke of, never really assured me that I would be treated fairly within these walls.

  Petty patted her hair. “And the stress! Why, if people only knew how …”

  My gaze drifted down to the floor. As a foster kid, the halls of the juvenile justice system were pretty familiar to me. I’d been in this particular building at least a dozen times over the last eight years. There was a new dark streak ten tiles from the end of the bench. That made six.

  Whenever I showed up, there was always a long wait. I tried to pass the time by finding any new scuff marks on the gray tiles. This new dark streak was distracting me. What had caused it? Scuff of a show? Edge of a chair? Maybe someone had—

  “Lucy, look at me!”

  Trying not to sigh dramatically, I looked up.

  She had her hands on her hips. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Petty demanded.

  For a moment I thought of telling her what I actually thought. After living with her for three years, I’d built up a lot of comments. But I also knew that it would not help. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing.” She sneered the word back at me. “Miss ‘I’m so tough’ has nothing to say?”

  I practically bit my tongue clean off. Petty didn’t like when people spoke back to her, especially me. She might have been my legal guardian, but she was not my mom. And I was not her child, as she reminded me every chance she got. No, I was a ward of the state. And according her, I was lucky she took me in because no one else wanted me, certainly not my biological parents. As far as she was concerned, the gods had cursed me from the moment I was born.

  Yeah, she’d actually said that to me. Like I mentioned, she’s not a nice person.

  I once made the mistake of reminding her that it wasn’t an act of the kindness on her part that made her take me in but the check the state sent her each month. That little statement got me moved to a lovely little basement apartment. And by basement apartment, I mean a basement with a dirt floor. And by lovely, I mean I get to sleep on a mattress next to a noisy old boiler.

  I could have told my social worker about where I really slept when she came for one of her visits, but the next step for me after twelve foster homes was a state-run home, and nobody ever wanted to go there.

  Besides, that move would force me away from my current school, and that was the one thing I really couldn’t live without. Well, I could live without the school, but not my two best friends who went to it.

  The elevator dinged at the end of the hall. A short, slim woman, not even five feet tall, with what I determined to be a perpetual tan, stepped from the elevator—Badeeha Ilahi, known to one and all as Nani. Lines creased her forehead as she scanned the hallway.

  Gurriya Ilahi, a younger version of her grandmother, stepped out behind her, the same look of concern on her face. Riya caught sight of Petty first and blanched before giving me a small smile. She tapped Nani on the shoulder, and she also smiled at me. The last member of the group and my other best friend, Gideon Grimaldi, joined them, managing to squeak out of the elevator before the doors slammed shut on him. He gave me a huge grin and a thumbs-up before pushing his oversized glasses up his nose.

  They started down the hall toward me, but I gave them a quick shake of my head. Petty was in no mood to be nice, and I didn’t want any of them on the receiving end of her not-even-a-little-subtle insults.

  Riya tugged Nani and Gideon to a stop. Nani gave me a look of concern before leading them inside the courtroom.

  A short blonde woman in a pantsuit hustled down the hall toward us from the other elevator. Briefcase looped over her arm, manila folders in her arms, she came to a quick stop in front of us. “Lucy Colt?”

  “Cole,” I corrected.

  She glanced at the file with a frown. “Oh, right. Well, I am your state-appointed lawyer. Are you her mother?”

  Petty balked. “Certainly not. I am her legal guardian. Gods know who her mother was. Or her father, for that matter.”

  I curled my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms. Petty never let an opportunity to insult my parents go by.

  It was true, though, that I didn’t know who they were. I was born in China. A missionary couple adopted me and brought me back to the States. They knew a girl with my background wouldn’t do well in the small village where they found me. You see, while I didn’t know exactly who my parents were, I did know one was black and one was Asian—my skin tone and eye shape gave that away immediately—but that was all I knew about them.

  The missionary couple, Bob and Sheila Cole, settled back in the States. They must have been pretty decent because they got me American citizenship when I was three. But then they died in a car accident a year later. I was in the car too, but my car seat was thrown clear. The police hadn’t been able to track down any family, so into the system I went.

  The lawyer, who had yet to offer her name, continued to flip through the file. “Hm, yes, okay. Well, you seem to have quite the record.”

  There was no good answer to that because it was true.

  The bailiff stepped out. “Cole case.”

  The lawyer started for the door. “Let’s go.”

  If I had not been familiar with the system, I might have been a little shocked at being represented by someone who hadn’t fully read my file and who’d somehow managed to get a last name as simple as “Cole” wrong. But like I said, I’d been around the system for eight years, so I just sighed and followed.

  State-run home, here I come.

  The judge shuffled into the courtroom only a few seconds after my lawyer and I sat behind our table. I didn’t even get a chance to glance back at my support team, who sat three rows back, before I jumped back to my feet.

  “The Honorable Judge Abe Isaac presiding.”

  Never met him before. Maybe he’s new. But one look at his bald dome and paper-thin skin demonstrated why assumptions were a bad thing. He couldn’t have been younger than eighty-five. His glasses looked even thicker than Gideon’s.

  The judge waved everyone down into their seats without a word. Then he took a seat, flipping through the papers in front of him. I shifted, trying to get more comfortable in the stiff wooden chair, darting a glance back at my support team. Unfortunately, Petty had taken a seat
right behind me, blocking my view of them.

  I turned back with a sigh just as the judge looked up, peering above his glasses at me. “Now, young lady, I hope you realize violence is never a good option.” He glanced down at his notes. “According to the report, you attacked…” He frowned. “Wait, no, this can’t be right.”

  The prosecutor cleared his throat as he stood. “Your file is correct, Your Honor. She assaulted three sixteen-year-old individuals.”

  The judge’s bushy eyebrows disappeared into his white hair. “And she is twelve? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Were they … small … sixteen-year-olds?”