chapter 8

Richard Ryder was a big man who reminded Harry quite strongly of Riddick from the movie 'Pitch Black' and the following sequels.

He was heavily muscled, bald, darkly tanned and with intense violet eyes the colour of flowers of the same name.

Harry was under the impression that many people, humans and monsters both, mistook him for a bruiser or brawler. He probably could be those things, but he was by no means slow or stupid. He was actually very fast and intelligent, with a talent for stealth and evasion.

Another assumption was that he was a child of Aries or Mars, or possibly one of their godly progeny.

Richard was actually a son of Dionysus.

That startled the heck out of Harry when he heard from Eris, who appeared to be quite fond of the man. As a side note, Harry would be very unsurprised if Richard was seen wandering around with a baby-harness in a year or so, since he was sometimes seen chatting up the Primordial Goddess.

Aside from his obvious survival skills and combat capability, Richard had all the basic demi-god abilities like seeing through the Mist and being both stronger and faster than normal humans, as well as a strong inclination towards the 'Wilderness' aspect of Dionysus' powerbase and the ability to inflict temporary insanity on anything he could touch skin-to-skin with a disorder of his choice.

Asher, who stood beside him, was a complete opposite of the taller male, and not just because he was pale-haired and -eyed.

Asher was beautifully androgynous as opposed to Richard's strongly male attractiveness, with a tumble of almost cream-coloured blond hair in loosely curling waves to the small of his back as opposed to the other man's baldness.

He was smooth ivory-skin, long dark eyelashes, elegant eyebrows and kissable lips. He was elegant, long-fingered hands, legs that went for miles, a voice like sunlight and bedroom eyes of black-ringed gold. He was, to all appearances, the epitome of what it meant to be a child of Cupid.

On the inside, however, he took strongly after his demi-god mother, who happened to be a daughter of a Makhai and an assassin, and so he was more than a little morally ambiguous and knew who to kill or sabotage to get the maximum amount of chaos in exactly the right way to go along with his agenda. And he delighted in it.

He had been so bad as an adolescent that he was thrown out of Camp Jupiter and Cupid had been told that if he didn't control his spawn that Jupiter would personally smite the boy. The last thing Cupid had done before washing his hands of his son was point Discordia in Asher's direction.

And he had been Her devoted High Priest and Champion ever since.

Asher was also one of the rare demi-gods who, while still mortal, was just Immortal enough to cease aging at adulthood and not die of old age. Most with the potential never made it that far, so Asher, being nearly five hundred, was a testament to how powerful, intelligent and tenacious he was.

And his gold-tipped black wings were rather aesthetically pleasing to Harry's artistic eye.

"So… will you do it?" Harry inquired.Asher's mouth curved into a vicious smile that was far too wide and showed far too many teeth. "And miss the chance to cause chaos for the orderly Romans and stick it to the Ju-jus? Of course I'll do it."

Richard chortled. "Ju-jus?"

Asher quirked a smile back. "Well, they are married and do have names starting with 'Ju'."

"Fair enough." The bigger man nodded agreeably. He flashed a grin that had Asher responding with a genuine, though mischievous, smile. "When do we start?"

Harry had the horrible feeling that an unholy alliance was in the works.

(space)

Hips, dubbed so by his sister Daphne, hovered in the shadows of an overhang in a hillside, his bright hair, eyes and markings shimmering much more dimly in the gloom than if he were out in the moonlight, which would have lit him up in a luminous white haze.

Distantly, he could hear the racket of the wolves of Lupa and the raucous laughter of Discordia's Priest.

Hips wasn't very old, but, like all his siblings, he had an inherited understanding of the world, so he knew why he was without genitalia and why he was created, and, though he was more that capable (even encouraged) to his own opinions, he was inclined to agree that stealing a child from their family as 'payment' was especially cruel, even more so in that the child was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Hips found the idea of any sentient being considered 'property' repugnant.

He hadn't had any problem with this rescue mission, seeing as he had met Thalia and her small group with whom she lived, and found her to be a truly motherly girl, despite her young age. He had already offered his assistance as a babysitter to Thalia for Jason and Danny, as well as for the twins of Triton and so many other young demi-gods and legacies in the crèche and while parents or siblings were working to better Home in the fields or trades or classes slowly taking form.

It gave Hips a warm feeling when Father smiled at him with affection and pride for how he applied the life Father had given him.

He knew Father had made him to be a Guardian and Protector of the Moon Gate, but he never made any attempt to deter his only humanoid son from his parental tendencies.

Feeling a nudge from his Fawn extension, Hips viewed through its eyes and found that the Fawn was in the presence of a golden doe, who was attempting to mother it.

Sighing, Hips called it back, and reached out to the silver Lurcher, who was sitting by the path that Richard and Jackie would be coming down with the six-to-seven year old stolen child.

He was not expecting seven children and four teenagers to be following the two older demi-gods.

Hips called his Gate, the waves crashing and the grass swaying in the mural as the moonflowers bloomed in glowing silvery light.

The Fawn tottered into the clearing with the golden doe behind it.

Clicking his tongue, Hips opened the gate and sent the Fawn and its mothering celestial doe through it. He just didn't have the time to chase off Artemis' deer at this point with the group of demi-gods less than a minute away.

The small group bound up the trail after the Lurcher and Richard shuffle the group through after Jackie, only to stay with Hips as they waited quietly for the mischievous demi-god to catch up.

Richard was moving before Hips even noticed the incoming body falling from above.

There was an 'oof!' and then Richard was dashing past through the Gate in a flurry of pale hair and feathers.The Gate closed and began fading just in time to avoid the wolves slamming into the rock-face the door had melted into.

(space)

Discordia hovered over Her Champion as the children of Apollo moved around him as they healed the damage done by the wolves of Lupa.

To be honest, he looked more like he'd been mauled by werewolves than by the divine protectors of the Roman demi-gods. And She would be getting revenge on the mongrels for this. They knew Asher was Her Priest and that he was forbidden from doing anything more than harmless pranks on Wolf House and its inhabitants.

Seething, She sent one of her Makhai to enlist the assistance of Nemesis, and another to lodge a complaint with Pluto since Jupiter didn't care about the Darker Gods and Goddesses.

Perhaps Her cute little serpent would help Her since he had asked Her Asher to assist his operation. And dear Richard deserved a reward for acting so quickly to save her Priest. Had Asher hit the ground, his already devastating injuries would have been worsened by at least threefold.

(space)

"Because I'm weak! The wolves would have killed me within the week if Richard hadn't come when he did!"

Harry sighed and moved away from where Xion was questioning the eldest of the Roman demi-gods Richard had brought back.

The son of Venus was saying nothing that Harry hadn't heard from the other teenaged Romans, and all of the adult Romans had horror stories of their time at Wolf House and later at Camp Jupiter. Stories about callous loss of life during war games and 'euthanizing' demi-gods who were crippled during training. Many lost siblings, and one, an identical triplet, had lost his first brother to the wolves and the other to the first wargame they were commanded to take part in within the first week there with minimal training. Bother were senseless deaths and he was punished for grieving for 'the weak'. He'd left after that, saying he'd rather take his chances with the monsters who looked like monsters than the ones who claimed a false safe haven.

That Roman demi-god was the eight-six year old Nova Jones, son of Jupiter, who was now teaching Thalia how to use her powers.

There was something really fucked up about the Romans, but just the Romans that made it to Wolf House and Camp Jupiter, the others were strongly inclined to orderly structure and patterns of behaviour bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder, but otherwise normal.

The Greek demi-gods, though infinitely more humane, were mostly blinded to normal humans and tended to obsess about status and popularity. They were more unstructured and preferred small groups and pair as opposed to the larger groups of their counterparts.Even now, groups who had travelled together for years tended to split off into Greek and Roman groups now they were in a bigger whole. They could work together in small groups with minimal problems, but drifted apart again when outside the groups.

Harry had a sinking feeling that he'd have to do something before the segregation became something to worry about.

(space)

It was five months after Home set up that the first satyr came sniffing around.

Five. Months.

Harry beat the adult satyr with a shovel and told him and his to keep out of his territory, that the demi-gods entering his territory were none of his business and if the satyrs really cared, then why were there adult demi-gods still running around, having never met a satyr in their lives.

According to Hestia, it was brought before the Olympians and, with a quick audit of births and deaths of demi-gods, a discrepancy of more than a thousand demi-gods popped up.

The number of incoming demi-gods had ebbed off in the last two months, but some were still wandering in, and his children had begun wandering into Canada and Middle America when they couldn't find any more in the USA.

Funnily enough, there were even a few Norse, Shinto, Indian and Celtic demi-gods wandering in. All of these demi-gods were knowledgeable of their powers and had good relationships with their godly parents.

Harry sighed and continued working on the obsidian stag with golden, antlers, hooves and eyes. That golden doe was just so lonely, so he had made another two does to keep her company.

One was made from silver and sapphire, and another from gold and emerald. The doe was happier already and had resisted all attempts to be chased out a Gate.

Hips still didn't have his Fawn back, though.