chapter 5

When Harry woke the next morning, he was left wondering why he was sleeping in the back patio hammock with a toddler sprawled on his chest.

A glance out at the grey beach said it was still pre-dawn, so he was curious as to what it was that had woken him since the toddler, Danny if he recalled correctly, was dead asleep as only small children could be, and the birds were only just beginning to chatter over the shh-shh of the waves.

His glasses were still on, and he was still wondering how long it would take someone to ask about that, as he looked around, having not moved at all upon waking.

Moving his head a little like a sleeper shifting, he cast his gaze around the patio and caught sight of a tall man with green skin emerging from the water near the jetti, the Mist curling around to shield him from the scrutiny of normal humans.

His hair was dark, probably black, and he had a small beard. He was attractive in an old-style, ship's captain kind of way, and Harry could see that they shared the same jaw and cheek bones, even from this distance.

The god, presumably Triton, stopped at the edge of the house wards, frowning at the second floor, but not appearing to be willing to back down as he began gathering power to open a hole in the wards.

Frowning, Harry opened a hole in front of the god before one could be forced.

Warily, the god entered and approached the patio, watching Harry, obviously uncertain as to whether he was awake or not.

Harry, for his part, continued playing sleeper while watching the god creep up the stairs and across the patio, past the hammock and into the kitchen. It was only as Triton was passing the counter that Harry spoke.

"Here to see Callie and the twins?" Triton froze. "Upstairs, third door on the right. Remember to knock as the demi-gods they're rooming with are a little highly strung at the moment."

When it became apparent Harry was saying no more, Triton moved just a tint faster than before down the hall.

And Harry just smirked to himself. He did so love trolling people, but the chances to do so were so rare these days.

(space)

Harry was baby-sitting, having migrated onto the patio once again after everyone had woken.

Triton and Callie were still fooling around upstairs in the spa bath (which he was NOT cleaning, thank you very much), Luke, Nathan and Daniel were firmly locked in the library with its game console and various shoot-'em-up games, while the girls were all firmly camped out in the lounge room with a few of the Nereids who'd popped in again, watching chick flicks and sharing girl-talk.

He also wouldn't be surprised if the demi-gods had gotten together at some point in the night and traded experiences.Danny was playing quietly with some large leggo blocks on the rug beside Harry, while Julien and Adrian were swimming around in a big plastic wading pool that came up to Harry's waist and was about eight feet across. Apparently, when they came into contact with water, they turned into little green merboys with two tails and patches of fish scales around their joints and curves.

They were playing what Harry could only assume was a childish rendition of 'Jaws' with the boats and rubber ducks he'd transfigured from junk in his garage and claimed he'd had in boxes.

Some of the duckies already had puncture wounds.

Tilting his head as a tingle went down his spine, Harry stood and looked in the direction of the people passing through his wards, despite knowing that they wouldn't arrive for another half hour.

Then he picked up Danny and went to do what he'd been putting off for most of the morning: transfiguring beds and futons in the garage.

It's not like the twins needed much chaperoning since they couldn't drown.

(space)

Harry let out a pathetic warbling sound into his couch cushion a week later, at least two small children sprawled across his back and a few more curled around him.

He didn't know what it was, but pre-adolescent demi-gods adored him. They left their beds in the night and came to cuddle up with him where he was bedded down on the third night on the lounge-room floor. To the distress of the highly strung demi-gods and parents with whom they should have been sleeping.

And Harry had decided that he really, really hated satyrs and their rampant incompetence.

There were forty-two demi-gods, twelve mortal parents and seventy-six legacies somehow camped out in his house, backyard and boathouse, and there were more than a hundred on their way from out of state.

The good news was that a large piece of land had been purchased from Canada, complete with a ghost town that was currently being fixed up and technologically updated. The delicate and complicated process of creating a Reality Marble of the size Harry wanted had begun and was partway through.

The bad news was that it wouldn't be done for another week, even with every goblin with experience with Reality Marbles being pulled from what they were doing to work on the project. Apparently the goblins really wanted those materials and that statue he'd put on offer.

Harry groaned again as he felt the tingle of three demi-gods crossing the boundary.

At least he'd managed to keep everyone out of his work room. Maybe he should invest in some more cabins and see if the Neraids would let some of the newcomers use the cabin he rented out to them.The day before the Marble Reality of the place called Home was finished, Harry got his act together and departed to a vacant property in Greece for his Petitioning of Goddesses.

The first he chose to call was his great grandmother, Eris, Primordial Goddess of Discord and Strife.

The circle had arrows extending from the outer edge and pointing outwards in various directions. In the centre was a golden apple, a slinky and the little bronze idol of Eris around a bronze bowl, which he proceeded to bleed into and set on fire. It went multi-coloured.

The air was suddenly filled with the feel of the sound of laughter that only occurs when someone gets hurt in a humorous manner. Or they think is a humorous manner (Harry knew it hadn't been that funny, but watching Jackass had him in stitches to the point he had passed out from lack of oxygen).

Then She was there.

His first thought was that he had inherited Her killer's grin-smile-smirk. It was a fierce, joyous expression that conveyed glee and passion and teeth and you-just-gave-me-a-reason-you-twit.

Then his gaze expanded to Her dark red-wine-garnet eyes, Her pale-stone-chalk skin and sharp face, Her long black hair that flowed like water-cloud-Mist and with the texture soft, soft fur.

Her nihility-black toga was broached at the shoulders with tarnished silver and jet broaches and a girdle of similar make and style wrapped around Her slim waist. The toga itself was ankle length and slit all the way up the left side to the hip. The bottom was edged in silver and jet beads and filigree. The small sandals were black leather.

He mirrored Her smile back and She let out a ringing laugh like a civil brawl and alarm bells, pleased.

"Well met, My Legacy!" She chortled with the glee of a child wrapping cling-film over a toilet bowl. "What can I do you for, little catalyst?"

Holding back a sympathetic snigger, he responded. "I'm making a safe place for the children and descendants of gods and goddesses, since most are just left out to die. There are currently more than a hundred camping out on one of my properties and I only started looking a little less than a fortnight ago."

Her lips curled in a moue of disgusted resignation, murmurs of unrest in the background. "Some people should never breed." She wiggled Her nose. "Not that I don't appreciate the chance to visit my cutest little great grandbaby, but why me?"

Harry did a small, half-shrug. "Aside from being my closest godly relative, who would honestly want to go against a deity who could cause a twenty-year-war just by tossing a fruit at just the right moment, or ruin a supply train by removing a pebble from a landslide, causing that side to lose the war? You could be a very dangerous enemy or a coveted ally."

Eris was suddenly right up beside him, pressed against his side and playing with one of his 'braids'. "And what is in it for me, my precocious little catalyst?"Harry leant away from Her slightly chill, lighter than the usual woman, body. "Worship? Adoration? Respect? More babies to seduce out of your choice of demi-gods? And you can stay in close contact with them since it will be outside the Olympian's purview?"

She narrowed Her eyes and pursed Her lips while in the background, there was the scream/chant of 'Revolution! Revolution!'. "Agreed."

She slipped away from Her descendant like Mist. "My siblings have, on occasion, called me disgustingly maternal." She gave Her killer's smile. "Call me when your 'Home' is complete."

Eris was gone in a whiff of greyish smoke.

And Harry realised he hadn't told Her what he had named the sanctuary.

His smile was a little sappy when he realised that maybe Eris really had been keeping an eye on Her children and descendants.

(space)

Hestia was over fast and pleasantly.

She was there and seated beside him as soon as the bonfire took; a little girl with glossy brown curls, a sweet smile and glowing eyes that reminded him of Vashti.

"Hello, Harry."

The young immortal blushed slightly under her gaze, feeling just a little like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Lady Hestia."

Her smile was fond. "Of course I agree to patron this sanctuary, Harry-dear. You've put a lot of thought and effort into this when you could have ignored the plights of my nieces and nephews, but you took it upon yourself at great personal cost."

His smile was bashful and pleased under her regard. "It's nothing. It should have been done long ago."

Hestia nodded, still smiling at him but her gaze distant. "Yes." She agreed. "It will be a Home they will never have to abandon or be pushed from. As the Last Olympian, what better place for me to patron than a place called 'Home'."

Harry's smile widened. "It probably helps that there is going to be a permanent bonfire at the centre of town the size of a caravan."

Hestia's happy laugh warmed him like he'd soaked in a steaming hot bath on a cold day.

(space)

Looking into Katie's smiling face, Harry felt just a little bit slow.

Katie was short for Hecate. Via was short for Trivia. And Enodia was one of the triple-goddess' more obscure names. And as for Hecate's Attic? It sat on a crossroads, frogs were one of her sacred animals and she was often depicted as carrying a torch.

"You make me feel slow." Harry informed her, pouting.

She laughed so hard she fell over backward, but ended up agreeing readily enough, promising to send all her mortal children his way, regardless of age or if they were in a Camp.All ninety-two of them. Of both Greek and Roman persuasion.

(space)

To tempt Persephone, Harry had made a living metal plant of shimmering leaves and gem-dappled flowers. The flowers and leaves and even the stems would change depending on what metals it had been given to 'eat'. And if a flower was picked and planted, it would become a new plant.

The plant had just enough sentience to be incredibly vain and want to be 'pretty'. Like a fairy. It was able to mimic the shapes of flowers it could 'see' and wouldn't tolerate looking the same as others of its kind.

It currently had the appearance of a Stygian Iron rose bush with bright sapphire and amethyst roses, Celestial Bronze thorns and Imperial Gold-shot leaves. It was about waist high and in a shallow, blue-glazed pot packed with metal and gems.

Already the roses were beginning to develop ruby dew-like beading on their petals from the fist-sized ruby-veined rock he'd put in twenty minutes ago.

Persephone, Goddess of Spring, appeared in a suddenly grown patch of gold-green grass and a multitude of small wild-flowers.

Her eyes were the colour of every flower that ever existed, constantly shifting as they bloomed over one another in her irises. Her hair was long and gold-sheened black, warm, and in a massive braid woven with flowers and sprigs to her feet. Her long sundress was a pale green backdrop done over with blooming flowers of all species and genus', and her jewellery were blooming vines that shifted and bloomed like anemones. A wrap of painted silk hung over her arms and behind her back.

She looked at him, then at the potted metal plant.

Then she was beside the bush, fluttering around it like a large colourful butterfly.

Harry opened his mouth but was cut off. "Yes. I know. Hecate mentioned you might call upon me for your little 'Home' project. Give me this plant and a pretty shrine for offerings and you've got yourself a deal."

Harry shut his mouth and thought for a moment. "Do you want the shrine in metal, organics or a mix?"

The Spring Goddess stood, mouth twisting in thought and plant resting on her hip. "I'd have to see more of your work, but at the moment I'm leaning towards a mix."

The gorgon nodded understandingly, mind already flicking through what he'd already made and new designs, "Do you need my address and a time or do you want to wait until we've begun moving into Home?"

"Home should be fine." She paused and looked at her new (fabulous!) plant as it bloomed a particularly large rose of marbled ruby, sapphire and amethyst edged in bright, silvery Stygian Iron just for Persephone.

She plucked it with no problem and arranged the bloom at place of pride at the top fold of her massive braid. "Do you mind if I tell my husband?"

"Go for it, but please reframe from mentioning anything to anyone outside the Underworld Pantheon. They can be over-the-top prima donnas and I don't particularly want either myself or those under my care to be smited."Eyebrows went up and lips quirked. "True that. I've always liked how reasonable Hades can be compared to his siblings."

"Well, he is the eldest brother. I've found that Lady Hestia is similarly reasonable."

Persephone smiled. "She is my favourite aunt."

Harry and Persephone smiled at one another, in complete understanding.

It was the beginning of a reasonably pleasant friendship.

(Though it probably helped that Harry reminded her of her husband in both looks and smile.)

(space)

The gorgon tilted his head, trying to identify the face looking back at him, surrounded by blue-black curls. He failed.

Nemesis pulled a drag of smoke from her cigarette, unbothered as she leans against a motorbike in jeans and a bright red leather jacket, observing him with the face of an overweight man with sallow skin, large teeth and squinty, rat-like eyes.

It was a little odd on top of a curvaceous woman's body.

Her face shifted again to the eighth face in the last five minutes.

Harry tilted his head curiously. He didn't know this face either.

"So?"

The voice was low and a little rough, but still obviously a woman's.

"Hmmm. Sorry. It's just that I don't know who the faces you're showing me belong to. Are they people I want revenge upon, or do they want revenge upon me?"

Nemesis blinked and blew a stream of smoke out the side of her mouth in thought. "People upon whom you want vengeance. You may not know who they are, or even their names, but they have done you wrong, you know that they have done you wrong, and you want them to pay for the wrong they have done you."

She drew a puff again and gave him a lazy stink-eye. "I had such high hopes for you, too. All those people you could have destroyed in my name, and you ran off and abandoned them, instead." Puff, blow. "Though, I suppose that could be a kind of revenge."

Harry just shrugged non-committedly.

The Goddess of Revenge eyed him dispassionately for a few more moments, not appearing to be in much of a hurry. "So… What do you want?"

"Have you heard about this sanctuary I'm setting up, yet?"

She shrugged and puffed. "There are whispers amongst the Lesser Gods and Primordials. Something about a place for demi-gods outside the machinations of the Olympians."

Harry nodded agreeably. "You are one of five Goddesses outside of the Olympians I chose to ask for patronage. Someone to oversee the justice system would be nice. And you would have your own shrine or temple made to your specifications"And I wouldn't already rule revenge there, why?"

Harry quirked a half-smile. "Reality Marble."

Nemesis nodded. "That'd do it."

(space)

On the way home, the young gorgon swung by a shopping centre and did his best to ignore the stares he was getting for the two dozen loafs of bread, five kilos of shaved ham, five kilos of corned beef and fifteen packets of frozen chips. Two dozen bottle of various soft drinks and a 24-pack of assorted yogurts for the toddlers and babies were added just in case.

It was only as he was going through the check-out that he noticed the tall, dark man in the black suit waiting for him on a bench, people flowing around him without noticing.

The man appeared to have similar cheek bones, lips and eyebrows to Harry, so Harry had to wonder…

What exactly did Lord Hades want?

Or was it Pluto? He could never tell which aspect he was talking to until they introduced themselves