Oh.My.Gods. 02 - Goddess Boot Camp

  Tera Lynn Childs

  Oh.My.Gods. 02 - Goddess Boot Camp

  Chapter 1

  ___________________________________________________________________________________________

  HYDRO­KI­NE­SIS

  SO­UR­CE: PO­SE­IDON

  The abi­lity to cont­rol and mo­ve li­qu­ids. Den­sity of li­qu­id af­fects le­vel of cont­rol. Wa­ter is the easi­est li­qu­id to ma­ni­pu­la­te be­ca­use, with the ex­cep­ti­on of dra­ma­ti­cal­ly dry en­vi­ron­ments (ie. Las Ve­gas, Sa­ha­ra De­sert, Aust­ra­li­an Out­back), it is al­ways pre­sent in the sur­ro­un­ding air.

  DYNA­MOT­HE­OS STUDY GU­IDE * Stel­la Pet­ro­las

  ___________________________________________________________________________________________

  I.

  Am.

  A.

  God­dess.

  An ho­nest-to-go­od­ness god­dess.

  With su­per­po­wers and everyt­hing.

  Okay, so I'm just a mi­nor, mi­nor, mi­nor god­dess. Tech­ni­cal­ly, I'm sup­po­sed to say he­mat­he­os, which me­ans godly blo­od, or part god, but god­dess so­unds much mo­re imp­res­si­ve (to the li­ke ten pe­op­le I'm al­lo­wed to tell). The­re's no per­cen­ta­ge re­qu­ire­ment or anyt­hing- all that mat­ters is ha­ving a god or god­dess so­mew­he­re up the li­ne, and my gre­at-grand­mot­her, it turns out, is Ni­ke. The god­dess: not the shoe, that ma­kes me a tiny le­af on a nar­row branch of the mas­si­ve and an­ci­ent fa­mily tree of the gods.

  So I can say with only mi­nor he­si­ta­ti­on that I, Pho­ebe Cast­ro, am a god­dess. The thing is, I only le­ar­ned this abo­ut myself a few months ago-when my mom mar­ri­ed a Gre­ek guy and transp­lan­ted me half­way aro­und the world to the tiny is­land of Ser­fo­po­ula.

  I spent the first se­ven­te­en ye­ars of my li­fe be­li­eving I was a per­fectly nor­mal girl from a se­mi­func­ti­onal fa­mily with a de­ce­ased dad and a wor­ka­ho­lic mom. Then wham-o, I find out Dad's de­ad be­ca­use he di­so­be­yed so­me su­per­na­tu­ral edict and got smo­ted to Ha­des and I am, in fact, part of the fully dysfunc­ti­onal fa­mily of Gre­ek gods. Talk abo­ut yo­ur is­su­es.

  Be­ing part god­dess co­mes with so­me se­ri­o­us perks, tho­ugh. Na­mely po­wers. 1 can pretty much do wha­te­ver I want whe­ne­ver I want so long as I don't bre­ak any of tho­se afo­re­men­ti­oned su­per­na­tu­ral edicts. The­se inc­lu­de, but are not li­mi­ted to: no brin­ging pe­op­le back from the de­ad (not a prob­lem be­ca­use, even tho­ugh I'm dying to see my dad aga­in, I don't ac­tu­al­ly want to die to do it. I ha­ve a lot to li­ve for-li­ke my fa­bu­lo­us boyf­ri­end Grif­fin Bla­ke), no tra­ve­ling thro­ugh ti­me in eit­her di­rec­ti­on, and no using yo­ur po­wers to suc­ce­ed in the not­bos- the nor­mal hu­man-world.

  The­se se­em li­ke no big de­al, right? Well, they wo­uldn't be… if I co­uld ke­ep my po­wers un­der cont­rol. But that is way har­der than I ever ima­gi­ned.

  My step­dad, Da­mi­an Pet­ro­las-part god him­self-says it's go­ing to ta­ke ti­me and tra­ining. Ever­yo­ne el­se at the Aca­demy-the ult­ra-pri­va­te scho­ol for the des­cen­dants of Gre­ek gods whe­re he hap­pens to be the he­ad­mas­ter-has known abo­ut the­ir po­wers al­most sin­ce birth. They star­ted le­ar­ning how to use them pro­perly be­fo­re they co­uld walk. But even they so­me­ti­mes ha­ve tro­ub­le ke­eping the­ir po­wers un­der cont­rol, li­ke last Sep­tem­ber when my not-yet-boyf­ri­end Grif­fin ac­ci­den­tal­ly knot­ted my Ni­kes to­get­her du­ring cross-co­untry try outs.

  Li­ke I sa­id, I've only known abo­ut the­se po­wers for a few months and the­se things aren't exactly easy to cont­rol. On­ce, I slept thro­ugh my alarm and tri­ed to zap myself to class be­fo­re the bell-my first-pe­ri­od te­ac­her, "Ms.Tyrant" Tyro­vo­las, has a ze­ro-to­le­ran­ce tardy po­licy-and wo­und up cras­hing a pa­rent-he­ad­mas­ter con­fe­ren­ce in Da­mi­an's of­fi­ce. Can you say de­ten­ti­on?

  Cle­arly it's go­ing to ta­ke a whi­le to fi­gu­re this out.

  So I co­uld spend mo­re ti­me on my po­wers tra­ining. Da­mi­an ban­ned me from run­ning mo­re than fi­ve mi­les a day un­til scho­ol let out (last we­ek, thank Ni­ke!). Even my cross-co­untry co­ach at the Aca­demy, Co­ach Lenny, sup­por­ted the re­du­ced run­ning ti­me. He says I can ne­ver ra­ce in the Olym­pics if the­re's a chan­ce I might ac­ci­den­tal­ly turn my com­pe­ti­tors in­to mo­las­ses or so­met­hing. Only the lu­re of the Olym­pics co­uld con­vin­ce me to cut back on run­ning. That and the fe­ar of ac­ci­den­tal­ly get­ting myself smo­ted by the gods. Eter­nity in the un­der­world is a pretty big de­ter­rent.

  All the ti­me I used to spend on cross-co­untry I had to spend on le­ar­ning to cont­rol my po­wers. Not that all the ext­ra tra­ining hel­ped much. Co­unt­less af­ter-scho­ol ses­si­ons and we­ekend les­sons-with Da­mi­an, Grif­fin, my fri­ends Ni­co­le Ma­ti­os and Troy Tra­va­tas, va­ri­o­us Aca­demy te­ac­hers, or, on days when the Fa­tes we­re fe­eling ven­ge­ful, my evil step­sis­ter, Stel­la-and I'm still a me­na­ce. No mat­ter how many ti­mes I clo­se my eyes and con­cent­ra­te on mo­ving the bo­ok ac­ross the tab­le, sen­sing my inst­ruc­tor du jo­ur's tho­ughts, or ma­ni­fes­ting an ap­ple from thin air, it ine­vi­tably back­fi­res. Hi­de­o­usly.

  Su­re, with Grif­fin's help I fi­gu­red out how to turn Stel­la's ha­ir gre­en for Mom and Da­mi­an's wed­ding, but my at­tempt at zap­ping myself so­me new Ni­kes en­ded very, very badly. Let's just say I li­ke my to­es and I'm thank­ful every day that I ha­ve all ten of them.

  Now it's sum­mer bre­ak and I still ha­ve only li­mi­ted cont­rol.

  I'm back to my re­gu­lar run­ning sche­du­le, tra­ining for the Pythi­an Ga­mes tri­als, which are just two we­eks away, and won­de­ring whet­her my next po­wers scre­wup will be the one that lands me in Ha­des.

  So­me days I wish I'd ne­ver le­ar­ned the truth. Li­fe wo­uld be so much less comp­li­ca­ted if Mom had ne­ver met Da­mi­an. Right now, I'd be back in LA. with No­la and Ces­ca, enj­oying my last sum­mer be­fo­re col­le­ge by spen­ding ho­urs on the be­ach. May­be fi­nal­ly le­ar­ning how to surf from so­me hot­tie sur­fer boy who wo­uld to­tal­ly fall in lo­ve with No­la and-

  "Pho­ebe!"

  I shud­der at the so­und of Da­mi­an's vo­ice ec­ho­ing thro­ugh the ho­use. He so­unds re­al­ly, re­al­ly, re­al­ly up­set.

  "Yes?" I ans­wer as swe­etly as pos­sib­le from the re­la­ti­ve sa­fety of my bed­ro­om. Not that walls hin­der his abi­lity to re­ad minds-or sen­se fe­ar.

  I watch the do­or ner­vo­usly. I know it's a bad sign when I see wa­ter stre­aming un­der the crack, flo­wing in­to the gro­ut li­nes bet­we­en each ti­le and po­oling in the dep­res­si­ons of the age-worn ce­ra­mic sur­fa­ces.

  "Trust me," Da­mi­an says from the ot­her si­de of my do­or, "you do not wish to ma­ke me open this do­or myself."

  I le­ap up from my desk cha­ir and, ne­atly avo­iding the ri­vu­lets la­cing ac­ross my flo­or, pull open the do­or. "Da­mi­an, I'm-"

  My mo­uth drops open and my apo­logy sticks in my thro­at.

  Nor­mal­ly im­pec­cably-dres­sed-in-a-su­it-and-tie Da­mi­an is stan­ding the­re we­aring bo­ard shorts, Bir­kens­tocks, and a shark's-to­oth neck­la­ce. Oh, and he's so­aking wet.

  "Omi­gods, Da­mi­an," I blurt, sta­ring ins­tantly at the flo­or-I do not ne­ed to see my step­dad's ba­re chest, thank you very much. "I'm so sorry. I didn't me­an
to um…" I wa­ve my hand up and down in his di­rec­ti­on, still aver­ting my eyes. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was just thin­king abo­ut how much I miss LA. and that I've ne­ver le­ar­ned how to surf and now that scho­ol's out I co­uld go if 1 didn't ha­ve the Pythi­an tri­als and my stu­pid po­wers we­ren't-"

  Da­mi­an holds up his hand and ta­kes a de­ep, de­ep bre­ath. He lets it out su­per slow, with a lit­tle bit of a growl from the back of his thro­at. And then he ta­kes anot­her. And anot­her.

  I've re­al­ly do­ne it this ti­me. I me­an, the palm tree in the li­ving ro­om had be­en bad eno­ugh, but he is cle­arly be­yond fu­ri­o­us at the mo­ment.

  Instinc­ti­vely I inch back a step… right in­to a gro­wing pud­dle. The slos­hing so­und of me smac­king in­to the wa­ter bre­aks his de­ep bre­at­hing.

  "I am not angry with you," he says, ca­re­ful­ly enun­ci­ating each word. "Truly."

  I'm not con­vin­ced.

  He runs a hand thro­ugh his wet ha­ir, sen­ding a fresh spray of wa­ter drop­lets everyw­he­re.

  "Oh for He­ra's sa­ke," he mut­ters. For a se­cond I'm ne­arly blin­ded by a bright glow, and when I open my eyes aga­in, Da­mi­an is back to his dry, fully clot­hed self. The pud­dles are still the­re. "Let us spe­ak in my of­fi­ce, shall we?"

  I hang my he­ad and fol­low Da­mi­an thro­ugh the ho­use. Why do the­se things ke­ep hap­pe­ning to me? I me­an, you'd think af­ter all the­se months I'd ha­ve imp­ro­ved a lit­tle. At le­ast eno­ugh so that things wo­uldn't go hay­wi­re when I'm just ran­domly thin­king abo­ut comp­le­tely non-po­wers-re­la­ted stuff.

  "Ple­ase," Da­mi­an ges­tu­res at a cha­ir in front of his desk. "Ha­ve a se­at."

  Sin­king in­to the soft le­at­her-hard-co­re-hip­pie No­la wo­uld ha­ve a fi­eld day with the cru­el and un­ne­ces­sary use of ani­mal hi­de-I try to cle­ar my mind of all tho­ughts. It's thin­king that gets me in­to tro­ub­le. If I co­uld go the rest of my li­fe wit­ho­ut thin­king, then-

  "I know you are using yo­ur po­wers ne­it­her ca­re­les­sly nor in­ten­ti­onal­ly," Da­mi­an says as he lo­wers in­to his cha­ir. "But in the se­ve­ral months sin­ce yo­ur po­wers first ma­ni­fes­ted, yo­ur cont­rol has not imp­ro­ved. In fact"-he pinc­hes the brid­ge of his no­se li­ke the idea of my un­cont­rol­led po­wers gi­ves him a he­adac­he-"it may ha­ve got­ten wor­se."

  Wor­se? My he­art sinks. I've be­en spen­ding ho­urs upon ho­urs wor­king on cont­rol­ling my po­wers. All right, so­me of tho­se ho­urs-okay, many of tho­se ho­urs-we­re spent with Grif­fin. And may­be we don't al­ways spend every se­cond on my tra­ining, but hey, a girl can't fo­cus on work all the ti­me when in the pre­sen­ce of such a god. Can she?

  "I don't bla­me you, Pho­ebe. We both know that, sin­ce you are the third ge­ne­ra­ti­on re­mo­ved from Ni­ke, yo­ur po­wers are stron­ger than most. It is not surp­ri­sing that you are ha­ving dif­fi­culty cont­rol­ling them." He smi­les kindly and my sto­mach kind of clenc­hes.

  I don't ne­ed pity… I ne­ed help.

  "I don't know what el­se to do," I say, trying not to whi­ne. I am so not a whi­ner. "I'm sorry. I've be­en wor­king hard. May­be I just ne­ed a lit­tle mo­re ti­me."

  "Unfor­tu­na­tely," he says, "we ha­ve lit­tle ti­me left."

  Lit­tle ti­me left? What is that sup­po­sed to me­an? No one ever sa­id anyt­hing abo­ut a ti­me li­mit. No le­arn-to-use-yo­ur-po­wers-by-sum­mer-or-else spe­ech. Sud­denly I ha­ve an ima­ge of myself, cha­ined to the wall in the scho­ol dun­ge­on-not that they ha­ve one, but this is my night­ma­re and I can be as cre­ati­ve as I want-be­ing temp­ted by che­esy, yummy bo­ugat­ta I'm not al­lo­wed to eat un­til I le­arn to-

  "Pho­ebe." Da­mi­an says, in­ter­rup­ting my fan­tasy of tor­tu­re and brin­ging my at­ten­ti­on back to his desk-which is, I re­ali­ze with sad re­sig­na­ti­on, now co­ve­red in the che­esy pastry tre­at. Da­mi­an wa­ves his hand over the bo­ugat­ta, era­sing it as qu­ickly as it ca­me, and says, "Ple­ase, try to rest­ra­in yo­ur ram­pant ima­gi­na­ti­on. No one is go­ing to tor­tu­re you for yo­ur lack of cont­rol."

  "Sorry," I say for li­ke the mil­li­onth ti­me. I don't me­an it any less, but it's star­ting to fe­el li­ke the only thing I know how to say.

  I sha­ke off the self-pity. Fe­eling sorry for myself is not go­ing to sol­ve the prob­lem.

  Da­mi­an le­ans for­ward, res­ting his el­bows on his pastry-free desk. "I was ho­ping this wo­uld not be an is­sue. That you wo­uld har­ness yo­ur po­wers in yo­ur own ti­me wit­ho­ut in­ter­ven­ti­on from the gods, but-"

  "Whoa!" I jump for­ward to the ed­ge of my se­at and wa­ve my hands in front of me. "The gods?"

  Da­mi­an smi­les tightly and tugs at the knot in his tie.

  Oh no. In the ni­ne months sin­ce Mom and I mo­ved in, I've le­ar­ned that an un­com­for­tab­le Da­mi­an is ne­ver a go­od sign.

  "Sin­ce we dis­co­ve­red yo­ur he­ri­ta­ge, the gods ha­ve be­en clo­sely mo­ni­to­ring yo­ur dyna­mot­he­os prog­ress."

  "My dyno-what?"

  "Dyna­mot­be­os," he re­pe­ats. "The of­fi­ci­al term for the po­wers de­ri­ved from the gods. They've be­en ob­ser­ving you-"

  "Obser­ving me?" My te­eth clench. "Li­ke how?"

  I ima­gi­ne the sne­aky gods spying on me in the sho­wer or the loc­ker ro­om or when I'm "stud­ying" with Grif­fin.

  "Cir­cums­pectly, I as­su­re you."

  I am not as­su­red.

  Da­mi­an shuf­fles pa­pers on his desk. "In any event, they are… ab-hem…. con­cer­ned abo­ut yo­ur prog­ress."

  Not the ab-hem. I ha­ve a fe­eling I'm in big tro­ub­le.

  "The gods ha­ve dec­re­ed that you must… ab-hem … pass a test of the­ir de­sign be­fo­re the up­co­ming sum­mer sols­ti­ce."

  "And what exactly do­es this test en­ta­il?'" I ask, al­re­ady fe­aring the ans­wer. Whe­ne­ver Da­mi­an bre­aks in­to ah-hems and ner­vo­us shuf­fling, it al­ways spells bad news for me.

  My int­ro­duc­ti­on to this ner­vo­us Da­mi­an was last ye­ar when he told me the Gre­ek gods-you know, Ze­us, Her­mes, Aph­ro­di­te… tho­se gods-we­re re­al, not myth. So the­re's pro­bably so­met­hing ma­j­or-and ma­j­orly unp­le­asant-co­ming my way.

  "I co­uldn't say, exactly. In my ti­me as he­ad­mas­ter, they ha­ve only de­man­ded such a test from one ot­her stu­dent." His mo­uth tigh­tens a lit­tle aro­und the ed­ges. "It will be de­sig­ned with yo­ur per­so­nal strengths and we­ak­nes­ses in mind. I can tell you, ho­we­ver, that it will put yo­ur po­wers-and yo­ur cont­rol of yo­ur po­wers-to the ul­ti­ma­te test. That is why I wo­uld li­ke to ac­ce­le­ra­te yo­ur tra­ining."

  "Why?" I shift ner­vo­usly in my se­at. "When exactly is sum­mer sols­ti­ce?"

  "The pre­ci­se da­te is… ah-hem… the twenty-first." He re­adj­usts his tie. Aga­in. "Of June."

  "The twenty-first of June?" I le­ap out of my cha­ir and start pa­cing. "That's only…" I co­unt down on my fin­gers. "Six­te­en days away."

  "The gods do not pri­ze pa­ti­en­ce as a gre­at vir­tue."

  "You think?" I ask, pul­ling out my best sar­casm.

  I am not even pa­ci­fi­ed by the fact that he lo­oks em­bar­ras­sed.

  He sho­uld be em­bar­ras­sed. Even if this isn't his fa­ult.

  Why do­es this stuff hap­pen to me? I me­an, I ba­rely ma­ke it thro­ugh what sho­uld ha­ve be­en my ska­te-thro­ugh se­ni­or ye­ar with a B ave­ra­ge. Now, af­ter de­ci­ding to stick aro­und an ext­ra ye­ar to work on my po­wers-and to spend anot­her ye­ar with the pre­vi­o­usly men­ti­oned ama­zing boyf­ri­end, Grif­fin-I find out I ha­ve to pass a test that pro­ves I know how to cont­rol my po­wers first. Talk abo­ut a cont­ra­dic­ti­on.

>   "What hap­pens if I fa­il?" I ask. "Do I ha­ve to re­pe­at Le­vel 12, or what?"

  "You will not fa­il," he says, way too eagerly. "You ha­ve my word."

  "Okay," I ag­ree. "But what if I do?"

  "If you do?" Mo­re pa­per shuf­fling. "You will be pla­ced in a kind of… re­me­di­al prog­ram."

  The­re is so­met­hing mo­re he's not sa­ying, I can tell. I've le­ar­ned to re­ad him pretty well sin­ce he be­ca­me my step­dad. But, at this po­int, I'm not pre­pa­red to dwell. I ha­ve an ext­re­me ima­gi­na­ti­on for co­ming up with all kinds of crazy pu­nish­ment sce­na­ri­os, but in this world-the world of myths and gods and dyna­mot­he­os po­wers- so­me­ti­mes even my worst fe­ars pa­le in com­pa­ri­son. Pro­met­he­us get­ting his li­ver pec­ked out da­ily by a gi­ant eag­le co­mes to mind. I don't want to know what he's not tel­ling me.

  "I will not al­low you to fa­il," he says aga­in.

  "How exactly are you go­ing to ma­ke su­re I don't? Do you ha­ve so­me kind of ma­gi­cal get-out-of-Ha­des-free card?" I pa­ce back and forth in front of his desk. "You and Mom are le­aving in the mor­ning for yo­ur ho­ney­mo­on. You can't exactly work with me from Tha­iland, can you?"

  "Of co­ur­se not," he ans­wers smo­othly. "I ha­ve al­re­ady ar­ran­ged for an al­ter­na­ti­ve tra­ining prog­ram."

  I si­lently ho­pe this me­ans even mo­re pri­va­te les­sons from Grif­fin, but I know I'm not that lucky. And Da­mi­an's not that con­si­de­ra­te of my lo­ve li­fe.

  "No, not pri­va­te les­sons," he says, pro­ving aga­in that he can re­ad minds. "I ha­ve en­rol­led you in Dyna­mot­he­os De­ve­lop­ment Camp. You be­gin in the mor­ning."

  * * *

  "Now I ha­ve to pass this myste­ri­o­us test be­fo­re sum­mer sols­ti­ce or I'll get held back a ye­ar." I flop back next to Ni­co­le on my bed, sta­ring at the whi­te plas­ter ce­iling whi­le my fe­et dang­le off the ed­ge. "Or loc­ked in the scho­ol dun­ge­on or cha­ined to a mo­un­ta­in­si­de-"