Untitled chapter
Prologue
August 18, 2000
4:00am
Nash, California
“How are we supposed to keep this away from Hera? Or Dad? King and Queen of the Gods and you they have no idea a new baby has just been born.” Hermes asked in a panic as he paced back and forth through the living room, hearing a baby’s cry from the other room as it started to storm outside.
“Well, first of all, stop freaking out. If you didn’t want to be involved in this you should have minded your own business.” Athena replied looking at her brother from the couch.
Ares came out from the back with worry on his face as he approached his brother and sister,
“Well, good news, Artemis is okay and the baby is a girl. The bad news is that we have a huge ass problem.”
“Oh! You mean besides just another demigod baby being born without our parents’ knowledge?” Hermes inserted as he flopped down on the couch.
“Demigod? Ha! No brother, the baby is pure blood” Ares said, clapping his hands together.
“Another goddess? That’s not possible. Who the hell is the father?” Athena asked standing up, stepping closer to her brother.
Ares took a deep breath and sighed long, looking down at the ground,
“Kita thinks it’s Amun-Ra’s baby”
Athena and Hermes both slowly sunk down into their seats in disbelief with their mouths wide open,
“You can’t be serious. This isn’t a real situation right now” Athena replied in shock.
Ares started pacing back and forth waiting for his daughter to come into the living room so she could explain the story that she received from her aunt just a few hours earlier. When she finally came in, lightning was lighting up the sky and it was pouring down rain outside,
“I see my grandfather is throwing a fit up there. Might as well tell you guys all I know”
She responded as she made her father sit down and stood in front of the three of them wiping her hands in a towel.
“Aunt Artemis called me a couple hours before i called you guys, she said she needed my help so of course I allowed her to come over. She was bleeding a lot when I opened the door a few minutes later. I put her in the room and she began screaming. I realized her pain was coming from two places, her vaginal area and her stomach. Her stomach started to glow from the inside, so I called my father. By the time you all hurried down here, she’d grown 9 months pregnant. As I prepared to deliver the baby, her insides started to glow again, the baby came out and the symbol of Amun-Ra appeared on her forehead.”
When Kita finished everyone in the room was frozen in shock and worry. Ares hands started turning red as he started to get angry. He stormed out of the living room and into the bedroom where Artemis lay with her eyes open as if she were in a daze.
“Artemis?” He said softly as he approached the bedside.
Kita came in followed by her aunt and uncle as she walked to the other side with a wet towel wiping Artemis’ head.
“She went into shock after the baby came out, I haven’t been able to get her out of it.” She explained as she walked over to the crib to check on the baby.
“Artemis, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you to tell me what happened. I need to know who the father of this baby is.” Ares pleaded as he held his sister’s hand as Athena and Hermes walked over.
She slowly turned her head towards him and a scarab beetle fell out of her mouth. She then sat up quickly grabbing her throat as she coughed up more scarabs. Ares jumped up as scarabs fell on the floor, Athena moved Artemis’ hands from her throat and the glowing symbol of Ra appeared on her neck as her eyes turned completely black and she passed out in the bed.
The four of them looked at each other with concern in their eyes and then looked in the crib at the beautiful baby girl sleeping soundly, as if she heard none of the commotion next to her as the same symbol that was just on her mother illuminated on her forehead.
