“Our work is to find our sisters,” he said.
“Your sisters will find their ways home. Your job is to still be alive when they get there.” Her eye narrowed again. “Do you not dream, Messenger? Do you not sleep and see the shears shining in the dark? Can’t you hear the sound they make when they cut down through your skin and bones?” She sighed. “That is all I dream of, now. Atropos and her blood-ringed eyes.”
“Atropos?” Andie asked.
“Atropos,” Hermes replied. “The Moirae in the middle. The black-haired one, sucking life from her shriveling sisters. The Moirae of death.” He brushed pebbles and grit from Demeter’s skin. “I wouldn’t be afraid of those shears, if I were you, Aunt. I’ve seen the Fates, and as they are, they’re not much of a threat to anyone. Joined at the legs, their limbs grown together like a pile of melted plastic dolls. It’s one sad-looking potato-sack race. They could certainly never catch me.”
“Your own blood will catch you. It races through your veins and feeds on every tissue it touches. It’s the water of a riverbed, carrying away sand and wearing down rock.” She let her eye move over his chest. “If you took off that shirt, I’d be able to see your organs.”
He pushed back on his haunches. “You could not.” He looked at Andie and Henry, who were trying to learn X-ray vision. “You can not.”
“And who will save Hector and Andromache, when you’re dead?” Demeter went on. “You have to do it now. While you have the strength.”
“You want me to lead a fight against the Moirae, when Athena couldn’t?”
It was more than ridiculous. It was impossible.
“You must want me to end up with a pair of shears in each eye.”
“Athena didn’t know what she fought,” Demeter said. “You will.”
“I’m not a leader. I’m the god of thieves.”
“Hermes. There’s no one else. There’s no one left.”
Just him. Only him, until Athena made it back. If she ever made it back.
“Hold on,” Henry said. “Why don’t we just wait for Athena? And my sister, if they’re coming back?”
Demeter regarded the boy warily.
“This is how a warrior speaks?”
“Yes,” Henry said, eyes dark. “If he wants to win. If waiting is smarter, then we wait. And if running is smarter, we do that, too.”
“Stop.” Hermes closed his eyes. The flat plane of the desert seemed to tilt. They’d come for solutions and instead found another fight. Another set of odds. And bad ones at that.
This isn’t real. The Moirae are a puddle of twisted bodies. I haven’t dreamed about them, and even if I had, they can’t come through my dreams and shear me in my sleep.
“You’re trying to push me into something,” he said. “Something where there’s no winning.”
Demeter chuckled, and her eye scrunched up. Somewhere in the distance, what remained of her mouth was smiling.
“I can’t fight the Moirae,” Hermes said. “Nobody can. Not Athena. Not anybody. Definitely not me.”
“Why not?” Demeter asked.
“Because you just don’t. Because you can’t.”
“Because my brother Zeus said you couldn’t?”
Hermes pursed his lips. Zeus deferred to the Moirae. They all deferred to the Moirae. It was how a god learned to bow his head. Their only hard limit.
The very idea of fighting them seemed mad.
“I can’t win,” he said quietly.
Demeter lifted, and flopped back into the dirt: the rug’s equivalent of a shrug.
“You might not,” she said. “But sometimes you don’t fight to win. Sometimes you fight to fight.”
6
OUT OF THE BLACK
Athena knelt beside Odysseus, watching his chest rise and fall around the blade that still protruded from his chest and back. In the strange red-orange light of the underworld, the blood around the wound was visible, and still wet. He’d bled no more once they’d landed in Hades. It was the same blood in the same pattern, the same rhythm to his breath. Nothing changed, and he never spoke. She couldn’t remember why she’d thought he would.
Sometimes she whispered to him, mostly nonsense and foolish promises, apologies for slights and mistakes she made thousands of years ago. But the words died inches from her lips. The air ate the sound so quickly she wasn’t sure if it ever reached his ears.
Athena brushed his dark hair gently away from his eyes and paused at the sight of her fingers. Three of her nails were cracked. The one on her index finger had split down the middle, a casualty of an unlucky grab. It had slid against some water-bound creature’s scales. Slid, and then scraped and then split.
“But no feathers.” She fluttered the wounds before Odysseus’ closed lids. The feathers were fewer, if there were any at all. Being in the bounds of the underworld seemed to slow them.
“We should have come here from the start,” she said. “We should’ve come here, all of us, and left you alone.” But they hadn’t, and Achilles had put a sword through Odysseus’ chest.
That was my decision. My choice to bring Achilles back with us. My plan to force Hera into a fight. And now my choice to hide from everything that happened.
More often, her thoughts turned to the others. To Cassandra, and Hermes. Andie and Henry. She’d left them. But they survived. Somehow she knew that. Persephone would have been quick to gloat if they hadn’t.
Athena stretched herself out on the cold sand and rested her head against Odysseus’ shoulder. His warmth flowed into her, and she felt his heart thumping. But it wouldn’t forever. She couldn’t let him linger between worlds.
You’re already dead. And no matter how stubborn I am, or how many monsters I fight, I can’t change that. You were dead when I put my arms around you on Olympus. You’re dead now, with your heart beating against my cheek.
She took a deep breath. Her head felt heavy as lead when she tried to lift it from him, but she did it.
“I could deny this forever,” she whispered. “And I might, if it wasn’t for my brother and the others. I’ll never really know if I would’ve been strong enough to do this if not for them.” Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword.
I’m sorry.
The sword dragged free in one long, slow motion. It yanked him toward her and fresh blood splashed across his skin. He screamed. She hadn’t thought he would scream, and by the end Athena’s face was soaked in sweat and tears, and she was screaming, too. Odysseus gulped air and stiffened. His hands hooked into claws, and she pressed him back into the sand, shushing him with the blade raised over her head.
His eyes fluttered open.
“Remember this,” Athena said. “He didn’t kill you. Do you understand? It was me. It was my fault, and I let you go.”
Her arm swung down, ready to strike clean, and she held her eyes wide open. But the blade never hit. A hand grabbed her wrist and jerked it back.
“You’ll thank me for this later,” Ares said, and struck Athena hard across the face.
7
THANATOS
“I don’t want him to come. He can’t come.” Cassandra pushed wisps of brown hair away from her face. The beach wind kept blowing it into her eyes and into her mouth when she talked. What people loved so much about the beach she’d never understand. The sand burned her feet when it rose past the edges of her sandals, and the sun made her squint. Every time the wind changed, it smelled like fish. She missed home, and mild silver light with maybe the trees and ditches starting to green. Beside her, Calypso didn’t feel the same. She looked like a girl in a ’90s music video, traipsing along the surf as though she’d just been borne of it.
“You want to find Hades, don’t you?” Calypso said. “Thanatos can help. And besides, he isn’t giving us a choice.” She cocked her head and kicked sea spray toward Cassandra with her toes. “And you have no power over him, so…”
Cassandra winced from the water.
“Stop doing that.” She crossed her
arms. “I didn’t start this quest to kill gods to make another one my ally. And the god of death, no less.”
“But since you can’t kill him…”
“Yet. I get stronger every day.” But probably not strong enough to kill fricken death.
“We can go home if you want,” Calypso said gently. “To Kincade.”
A tempting idea. The urges to throw her arms around her mother’s neck, to kiss her father’s cheek, and to punch Henry were starting to weigh heavy. The urge to see them all, somewhere other than in her memory.
She shook it off.
“None of them are safe,” she said, “until the gods are dead.”
Calypso sighed and whispered something disapproving. Cassandra turned on her.
“How can you not want them dead?” Cassandra shouted. “After what happened to Odysseus!”
Calypso grew still. Her eyes darkened. It was the closest she’d ever come to looking truly dangerous.
“Don’t speak to me of Odysseus,” she said, “when you have not shed one tear for him.”
They stared at each other a long time. But it was Cassandra’s shoulders that slumped first, and her feet that awkwardly kicked the sand.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Cassandra said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Calypso. “I know that you can’t cry. That the anger is a mask for tears. The anger will carry you through.”
“The anger will carry me through. And when it’s over, when they’re all safe, then I’ll weep for Odysseus. I’ll weep buckets, for him and for everyone that I’ve lost.”
“For him and for yourself, then?” Calypso asked.
“Calypso,” she said, and turned away to scan the beach, and the depths of the water besides. Thanatos was coming, and she wasn’t going to allow him to snake his way up to her again undetected. “There’s no going back now.”
Calypso raised her chin.
“There he is.” She nodded toward the sloping path from the parking lot.
He looked different than he had at the club. With his black hair blowing lightly back from his face and the sun lending color to his cheeks, he looked younger. Almost her age. Cassandra bristled, and felt fire rush to her palms. But her power couldn’t do anything to him. The heat in her hands, the tingling, was embarrassing. She tried to make it go away, discreetly flexing her fingers.
“You look younger today,” he said. “Without the makeup and your leopard-skin dress.” He looked at the white shirt she wore and she wished she hadn’t chosen such an innocent color.
“I was thinking something similar about you,” she said. “It made me want to punch you in the face.”
He laughed. “This trip we’re taking … it’s going to be interesting.”
“You invited yourself along. I never said you could come.”
Calypso cleared her throat. “This day of sea salt puts me in mind for a fish taco. There’s a stand across the street. I’ll bring some back.” She brushed past them, her skirt gathered in one hand and her sandals hanging from her fingers.
“She has excellent ideas,” said Thanatos. “Do you like fish tacos? I can’t help getting the impression you’re not from around here.”
“We’re not going to stand around and talk about fish tacos,” Cassandra said, glaring. “Though for the record, I’ve never had one and they sound disgusting.”
“All right. Should we take a walk then, or go up that hill and get a table?” He pointed toward tables and chairs in the distance. Both options sounded too congenial, but she stalked toward the tables. As she went, she felt his eyes on every inch of her as clearly as if they were his hands. But when she snapped her head back to look, he was staring serenely out at the ocean.
Maybe I was imagining it. Or maybe he was groping me with his death brain tentacles.
That thought was dumb enough to make her stumble. He caught her by the arm and pulled her back to her feet.
“Your hand,” she said. “Get it off me.”
He shrugged and let her go, then led the way to a table and pulled out a chair for her. She almost snubbed him and pulled one out for herself, but sat down instead. Defiance had its limits. He sat across from her and began to spin a coin like a child’s top. The same fat gold coin he’d made her call the night before. His eyes followed it thoughtfully. Downcast, they lost their arrogant, mirthful squint. Downcast, they looked almost sad.
“Why do you want to come with us?” she asked.
He didn’t look up when he answered.
“Because though I’ve never had much fondness for the other gods, or them for me, I’m the god of death. If their time has come, I should be there.”
“You don’t want to save them? Sabotage me? Kill me?”
He slapped the coin down on the table and smiled. “That’s a lot of questions. But the answer to all is no.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“You’re forgiven. But I like you, Cassandra. Can’t decide yet if I like you better in heels and skintight leopard or like this, brown hair loose, beach clothes, eyes shooting daggers at my face.”
She swallowed. Where the hell was Calypso? The way he looked at her, it was impossible to keep color from creeping into her cheeks.
“You don’t even know me,” she said.
He shrugged.
“I will. And besides, I can tell already that you’re not like most of the girls who seek me out. All they want is to know about death.”
“You did not just make fun of suicidal girls.”
“You misunderstand. Suicidal girls don’t need me. Except for, perhaps, poor Calypso.” He raised his brow and she narrowed her eyes. “The truth is, lots of people are curious about death. They want to know it without knowing it. I can only keep it up for so long. The dance gets old.”
“So you don’t … kill them?”
His black eyes sparkled, and for the tenth time she wished she could tell whether they were dishonest or charming.
“No. I don’t kill them. Except on those rare occasions when it really is their time. I’m Thanatos, not Jeffrey Dahmer.”
“But you’re the god of death. Death embodied. Don’t you need to be killing things?”
He leaned back in his chair and laughed.
“I’m killing things right now. Things die, and are dying, all the time. Everywhere. Plants. Fish. Someone in an apartment twelve blocks from here. I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to choke the life out of them. Atropos, the Fate of death, decrees, and I am her hand, but the phrase ‘the touch of death’ is still just an expression.”
Cassandra’s eyes moved over nearby buildings. Someone dying in an apartment twelve blocks away? The thought filled her with dread and a spike of adrenaline.
“But you have,” she said. “Killed with your hands before.”
He looked into her eyes.
“I have. I won’t make excuses for what I am. Not even for a pretty girl.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, but didn’t have to, as Calypso finally returned with several tacos wrapped in brown paper. They ate in relative silence, and Cassandra was pleasantly surprised to find that she liked the food. Lots of salsa, and the fish was fresh. She watched Thanatos exchange godly small talk with Calypso. Maybe it was the daylight playing tricks with her eyes and mind, but he didn’t seem so bad. Certainly not as coldly menacing as he had in the club and in the serial killer’s pad he kept.
I’ve come this far. And I knew it was going to be dangerous anyway.
“Thanatos,” she said, and the laughter at the table died off. “I’ve made up my mind. You can come.”
* * *
After lunch, they checked out of their hotel and took their scant belongings to Thanatos’ house in the hills. The second she dropped her bags in one of his guest rooms, which was just as neutral and sparely decorated as the rest of the house, she felt like a fly beginning to notice bits of web sticking to her feet. But when he said it would
be easier to make their plans if they were all together, she couldn’t think of a single reasonable objection.
She studied the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the guest bath, and the oversized claw-foot bathtub. She walked the long hardwood hallways and let her eyes crawl up the walls to the vaulted ceiling. When she got back to the kitchen, he’d poured them glasses of sparkling water.
“What story do you tell?” she asked. “People must wonder who you are, to have all this. And they must notice you have no job besides … seducing girls with slightly self-destructive tendencies.”
“Lots of people have the same,” he replied. “I think it helps that no one can really tell how old I am. Everyone in this town can play from sixteen to thirty-five.” He shrugged. Standing behind the counter cutting limes, he looked not only human, but domestic. “Cassandra?”
“Yes?”
“How long are you going to study me like that?”
Her mouth dropped open, but he didn’t look up to see.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I sort of like it. At least when you’re not doing it with your eyes narrowed.”
“You can stop that any time,” she said. “I’m never going to smile at you.”
Calypso chuckled into her glass, and moved to the living room to sit. Thanatos went after her.
“You haven’t told us where we’re going,” Cassandra said. “Where Hades is.”
He and Calypso exchanged a look, and Cassandra ground her teeth. Their little god-moments were starting to get on her nerves. Oh, listen to the little mortal. Isn’t she cute? Isn’t she just precious, now that she can’t kill us?
But there had to be some way to kill him. Every god in the world was showing their underbelly. The god of death had to have one, too.
And I’ll find it. I might not be able to kill him with my hands, but I’ll kill him with something.
“Come and sit down for a few minutes,” he said. “Rest.”
“I don’t want to rest. I want to kill Hades, and all the gods I can find, so I can go home.” But not only that. Who knew what condition Hades was in. If he was already spreading disease wherever he went, then she didn’t have time to waste. Certainly not time to spend sipping sparkling lime water in Death’s living room.
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