Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  Lore pulled the dead hunter’s dagger out from where she’d tied it to her thigh with a strip of fabric. She switched off the flashlight and passed her phone back to Miles. He nodded in understanding when she pressed a finger to her lips, but ignored her when she motioned for him to stay back as she approached the door and nudged it open.

  Paintings had been stored on sliding walls of thin metal fencing, all lined up like stacks in a library. Beyond them, the dark walkway continued to the left. Lore stuck her head around the corner, only to quickly pull back at the next splintering crash.

  Miles shot her a questioning look, but Athena urged her on with a nod.

  Lore approached the door at the end of the hall. It had been left ajar, and if she kept close to the wall, she had a view of what was waiting for them inside.

  A titan of a man careered around the storage room, moving between the shelf-lined walls, all brimming with boxes, clocks, and smaller figurines. Stone busts and bronze statues watched the man with lidless eyes from a platform at the center of the room, and narrowly survived an angry sweep of his arm.

  He dragged one of the storage boxes off a nearby shelf and threw it to the ground with a grunt. It broke apart in an instant, leaving him to rummage through the padding. He kicked the remains of a broken vase aside. It skidded through the shards of glass and tufts of packing material littering the floor.

  Iason Herakliou. The new god still wore his sky-blue tunic and sandals, both filthy with grass and dark grime.

  The photograph had shown a middle-aged man who, while fit, was still balding and showing other signs of age. Yet this man—this new god—looked as if he had been carved from sun-warmed sandstone. His hair was nearly the same shade as Athena’s dark gold, and his skin was a deep olive but was caked with dirt and dried blood.

  The Reveler reached for a handle of whiskey he’d left on one of the shelves, sucking down a long draw of the burning liquid. Then he upended the bottle, pouring the rest of the contents over a massive gash in his thigh. He growled and snarled through the pain, beating a fist against the cinder-block wall until it passed.

  Lore reached behind her, and, without looking, grabbed Miles by the shirt. She pushed him back, then pointed down the hall, to safety.

  Which, of course, was the exact moment Miles’s phone let out an earsplitting ring from inside his pocket.

  “Shit—” He fumbled for it, hitting buttons as he did. His mother’s voice poured through the device. “Miles, I need your help with something—”

  Lore stared at him.

  He hung the call up, breathing hard as he switched it to silent and pressed the device against his chest.

  The storage vault’s door slammed shut in front of them, the sound echoing through the terrifying silence that followed. Lore gripped her knife, straining her ears to try to track the new god’s steps, but heard nothing.

  Where is he? she thought, sweat beading her upper lip. Where the hell did he go?

  A torrent of plaster and shards of cement exploded out of the wall to her right. Lore was thrown by the force of it, momentarily stunned by a blow to the head—only to be caught by a hand that reached through the jagged hole and locked around her throat.

  LORE CLAWED AT THE hand choking her, head throbbing and half-blinded by the veil of dust choking the air.

  His fingers tightened, and as her vision began to go dark, Lore felt her spine compress, ready to crack. She thrust her dagger up again and again until it finally stabbed through the Reveler’s forearm. He howled in pain, his grip loosening just enough for her to drop down onto her knees and roll away, coughing.

  The Reveler retracted his arm through the wall. The hole it left revealed the rest of the room, the way a section of it extended to nearly the exact spot she’d chosen to stand.

  Lore grimaced. Great job as always.

  Athena glowered and moved Lore out of her way. She tore at the damaged wall with her hand and dory, widening the hole until it was large enough to step through.

  “Reveler! We’re not here to kill you!” Lore got out, her voice raw. A bestial snarl answered. Inside the room, shelves fell in an earsplitting cacophony.

  Athena ripped one last cinder block away and ducked into the vault. Lore scrambled after her, turning to face Miles through the fractured wall. “Go get Castor!”

  She didn’t wait to hear if he actually listened.

  “I knew you’d come for me eventually, you big, hateful bitch!” The Reveler gnashed his teeth at them. Athena had backed him into a corner, and all he had to defend himself was Lore’s dagger, pulled from his arm, and a crate’s lid for a shield.

  Athena watched, stone-faced, as his body heaved with his hatred.

  “No one is here to kill you,” Lore said again, holding out her hands to show him she was unarmed, and to placate him.

  “I may yet alter course,” Athena said coolly.

  The Reveler’s face screwed up, twisting with rage and disgust. The sight of him, drunken and stripped down to the chaos of fear and self-preservation, might have stirred a trace of pity in Lore, if he hadn’t just savagely murdered six innocent people upstairs.

  “My name is Melora Perseous,” Lore began.

  The Reveler let out a dark laugh. “Of course. Gods damn it all. Don’t know why I expected anyone else, given how shit this cycle has been.”

  She wasn’t sure what to do with that, so she continued. “I appeal to you, a descendant of mighty Herakles, himself the most famous and renowned of the ancient Perseides—”

  “That shit doesn’t work on me, idiot child,” the Reveler snapped. “I don’t give a flying feck, and even if I did, Eurystheus of the Perseides attempted to destroy all the children of Herakles before the Agon was ever born.”

  “Okay,” Lore choked out, having forgotten that dark bit of history. “Fair point. But we’re just here to talk.”

  “Unless you would prefer to fight?” Athena said. “We will have answers from you either way.”

  “You think I don’t know that you and the psychotic huntress aren’t out to collect all the new gods’ heads?” he growled. “Try it. Dare you.”

  “If that truly were the case,” Lore said, “then why would she be working with the new Apollo?”

  The Reveler turned the dagger toward Lore. “Liar.”

  “She’s not lying,” came Castor’s voice from behind them. He stepped through the opening in the wall, his gaze darting once to Lore before turning to the other new god.

  “Then you’re the biggest damn fool in the room,” the Reveler said, staggering forward a step. “Whatever your plans are, hers are ten leagues ahead. You—you have no idea. The things he would tell me about her—”

  He, Lore thought. Hermes.

  “Be that as it may,” Castor said, coming to stand beside Lore. “Wrath is the one killing new gods, not her.”

  The Reveler scoffed.

  “Wrath didn’t just kill Hermes,” Castor continued. “He took out Tidebringer and Heartkeeper, and tried to come after me. We’re trying to stop him—”

  “I’m going to kill him.” The Reveler growled, swiping the sweat from his paling face. “Me. Not anyone else. I’ll kill any little shit who tries to get in my way.”

  “It won’t happen if Wrath gets you first,” Lore said.

  “You think I don’t know that?” he sneered. “I knew what it would cost me to escape him.”

  “Hermes—” Lore began.

  “Do not say his name!” he snarled. “You—don’t you dare!”

  “Me?” Lore pressed. What the hell does that mean?

  The Reveler swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and said nothing.

  “You’re alone,” she reminded him. “You need help. If you’re just going

  to bleed out down here, then what’s the point? What’s the point of any of this?”

  “I have an alliance with the imposter Apollo,” Athena said. “I will temporarily extend this to you, so long as you agree to serve as our mean
s of drawing out Wrath.”

  “Bait? Is that what I’m reduced to?” The Reveler shook his head with a sardonic laugh, struggling to stay upright without the support of the wall behind him. Lore wasn’t sure that he knew he was making such a low, mournful sound. The wound in his leg was far worse than the one she had given him. It was already turning red as infection set in.

  “I’d rather you just stick a knife in my gut and kill me instead,” the Reveler hissed. “End this farce of an existence. This is—all of this, this bullshit—it means nothing. Even the supposedly great Apollo knew. He knew.”

  “What does that mean?” Castor demanded, unable to hide his surprise and eagerness. “What do you know about Apollo’s death?”

  The air seemed to evaporate from the Reveler’s chest. He slumped forward, sliding down the wall.

  “I know nothing,” the Reveler said, his turmoil and drunkenness sinking into exhaustion. “Just that the hunt is long, and there’s only so much anyone can take.”

  Castor approached him slowly, taking the dagger from the other god’s slack hand and passing it back to Lore. He looked at the Reveler with sympathy the god didn’t deserve.

  “Why did you come to this place?” Athena asked. Disgust settled into her countenance as she took in the destroyed art around her. “What is it that you seek so desperately?”

  “Thought he left something for me. That he hid it,” the Reveler said, looking between Athena and Lore.

  Lore drew in an unsteady breath, her free hand curling into a fist at her side.

  “Why did you decide to work with Wrath after the last Agon?” Lore pressed. “Why did you agree when Hermes didn’t?”

  The new god didn’t respond. Lore wiped a hand against the place the shards of cement had cut the side of her head, sending an uncertain look in Castor’s direction. He crouched down in front of the Reveler.

  “Swear to me that you won’t kill anyone in my party and that you will answer our questions,” Castor told him, “and I’ll heal you.”

  The Reveler scoffed.

  Lore’s temper immediately sparked, but Castor never lost his easy, reasonable tone. “You’ll have a better chance of surviving if you can run from the hunters, Iason, and an even better one if you help us.”

  The Reveler looked up at his mortal name, his nostrils flaring. Lore was sure he would say no—that ichor, power, and unending violence had carved out every last trace of his humanity. Instead, the feral look faded from his features.

  “You see the logic in a temporary partnership,” Athena noted. “Perhaps there is hope for your survival yet.”

  The Reveler sneered at her. “Superior to the last.”

  “Do we have a deal or not?” Castor pressed.

  The last traces of amusement faded from the Reveler. He stared at Castor, at all of them, and Lore could practically feel the strain of his mind searching for another option.

  Finally, he said, “I will answer two of your questions, but I won’t help you kill Wrath, and I won’t be your fecking bait.”

  Athena rested a cold, heavy hand on Lore’s shoulder. The touch stilled both her thoughts and her outrage. “Two answers will suffice.”

  “Working with mortals,” the Reveler said, his smirk turning his perfect features hideous again. “You poor old dear. You once ruled civilizations, and now you’re nothing more than a story that fades with every generation. You must long to rip out these mortals’ hearts with every miserable beat.”

  Athena took a hard step forward, buckling the cement beneath her foot.

  “Ah, there she is,” the Reveler taunted.

  “I would shut up before I let her kill you,” Lore said coldly. “She’s what she’s always been. But for someone who used to be mortal yourself, you had no issue murdering six people upstairs who had nothing to do with the Agon.”

  The Reveler rose slowly, his eyebrows drawing down in confusion.

  “What the hell are you on about, kid? I haven’t killed anyone since the Awakening,” he said. “If there are dead in this building, it wasn’t my blade that did them in.”

  CASTOR HEALED THE REVELER’S leg well enough for him to walk out of the storage room on his own two feet. The new Dionysus had been anxious to see the bodies, but was visibly repulsed at the thought of being supported by anyone else on the journey upstairs.

  Athena walked at the front of the group, searching the dark hallways and rooms. Lore brought up the rear, her eyes shifting between the dark shapes of the others as they walked a few feet ahead, one hand resting lightly against the knife she’d strapped to her thigh again.

  Miles met them near the stairs, clutching at his arms.

  “Okay?” Lore mouthed.

  He nodded, but there was no color left in his face.

  “Imposter,” Athena began, keeping her voice low. “How is it possible the killers did not find you and that you know nothing of their identities?”

  Lore had been wondering that herself. It had been hunters—the only question was which house they belonged to.

  “I hid myself in one of the crates and stayed there until things got quiet upstairs and the security guards stopped doing rounds— Shit!” The Reveler stumbled as his injured leg buckled. Castor’s hands flew out to catch him, but the other new god twisted away, growling.

  “Let me finish healing you,” Castor tried again. “I’d prefer if you didn’t pass out or die before you give us the answers you oh-so-generously promised.”

  “Then ask your questions, you stupid ass,” the Reveler said, drawing himself up to his full height again. His eyes flashed. “And let me be done with you all.”

  Castor gazed back at him, unimpressed. But he was silent for the same reason Lore was—neither one of them wanted to waste an answer by asking the wrong question.

  Even Athena seemed to be preoccupied by whatever strategy she was inwardly developing. Her posture was so rigid that Lore was beginning to fear that one more snide word from the Reveler would be answered with a dory driven into his gut.

  “Okay, well, I’ll start,” Miles began. Lore opened her mouth to stop him, but it was already too late. “Why did you agree to work with Wrath while Hermes didn’t?”

  “Because I saw potential in his vision,” the Reveler spat. “Hermes neither liked nor believed him.”

  Lore was about to ask what, exactly, that vision was beyond Wrath killing his rivals and searching for the poem, but Miles spoke again.

  “That must have really stung, him effectively calling you a fool and turning his back on you,” he said. “But you didn’t bail until the Awakening, even though you had to have known that Wrath would kill his enemies, which included Hermes—I’m assuming that means that part of your agreement was that Wrath couldn’t kill him.”

  Even in the darkness, Lore could still see the way the Reveler’s top lip curled, baring his teeth.

  “And if you’re so sure that Hermes hid something here, in a place that’s meaningful to you,” Miles continued, “it means you were in contact with Hermes before the start of the Agon and knew what he was doing in the years between the Agon. Unless you’re just guessing he left something for you and didn’t abandon you, which is obviously also a possibility.”

  “He didn’t abandon me.” The Reveler lunged forward, only to be blocked by

  a shove of Castor’s hand. Lore gripped Miles by the arm and drew him back behind her, but she suddenly understood what he was doing—getting answers by testing assumptions, not by asking questions.

  Lore clucked her tongue. “So, in the end, Hermes wanted nothing to do with you. He didn’t leave you anything. He probably didn’t even say good-bye.”

  The Reveler lurched toward her. “You stupid—!”

  Castor shoved him again, this time up against the wall. He pushed his forearm into the god’s exposed throat. “Don’t touch her.”

  Athena slashed the dory down between them, breaking Castor’s hold. “Enough.”

  But she, too, had figured out Miles
and Lore’s game. A frisson of satisfaction worked its way down Lore’s spine as the goddess gave her a small smile.

  Hermes had disappeared, not necessarily to hide himself from Wrath, but to hide something—something that the Reveler now assumed Hermes had left for him to find. To use.

  Lore was about to ask for clarification on Wrath’s plans when Athena spoke first.

  “What is Melora’s involvement in all of this?”

  “Wait—what?” Lore began.

  Athena held up her hand, silencing her.

  The Reveler’s eyes were defiant. But when he spoke again, his tone was more measured. “All of you are fools. Wrath’s plans stretch back decades. He plans to end the Agon, but he needs one last thing to put it all into play.”

  “The other origin poem,” Lore said. “We know.”

  The new god hesitated, clenching his jaw.

  “You are not nearly as hopeless about the hunt as you would have us believe, imposter,” Athena said. “Otherwise you would end yourself or invite a mortal to do it. You want to survive. I see it in your eyes. That longing, that need to feel the ichor burning through you once more.”

  The Reveler glared at her, but didn’t deny it.

  “You have given answers you know we want, yet not the one to the question I have asked,” Athena said. “What role does Melora Perseous play in all of this?”

  “Don’t you already know?” the Reveler asked her.

  “Answer her question,” Castor said.

  The Reveler spat out blood at his feet. “Fine. Wrath needed me for one thing and one thing alone. And before any of you brainless gnats ask, I don’t know the rest of his plans. I just want to find the deepest crevice in this fecked-up world to try to wait it all out.”

  “Still not an answer,” Castor said, this time with a new warning in his tone.

  “I made a promise, and I’m not going to break it for you assholes,” the Reveler said. “I can only tell you, girl. That’s what he said. Come with me if you want to know, or don’t. I don’t care.”