“You would like it. It’s monstrous. But it isn’t yours.”
Ares squeezed the handle one last time, and blood ran down his wrist. Then he tossed it back into the arena before pulling the door shut behind them. One glance at his hand turned Athena’s stomach; it didn’t resemble fingers and palm so much as a pile of julienned tomatoes. They’d have to wrap it. She reached for Odysseus’ sword and cut a strip off the back of his shirt.
“Hey, my shirt,” Odysseus protested, but he looked as green as she did, watching Ares tie the bandage.
Athena took a breath. All that stood between them and the living world now was a leisurely walk up smooth stone steps. She started up, and stopped. A familiar sound was coming from somewhere farther up.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?” Ares asked. But it wasn’t her imagination. The wolves stood at attention, ears pricked forward. They heard it, too. “Hear what?” Ares asked again.
Athena leapt forward with a shout.
“Hermes!”
16
THE MOTHER COUNTRY
Despite the fact that Thanatos had sprung for a suite, the room felt cramped. Cassandra had been on the road for too long, on the run for too long, on the hunt for so long that she couldn’t remember sometimes what was more important, the hunting or the running. She was tired of crappy water pressure and shampoo that never lathered enough. She was tired of the way Calypso hummed through every task she performed. And she was tired of Thanatos. Of the way he looked at her sometimes. Like he could see through her skin, all the way down.
He probably can. He’s the god of death, for Pete’s sake.
Cassandra looked out the window. They’d been in Athens for two days. Down on the streets, mopeds slipped easily through late-afternoon traffic. Up on the hill, the lights surrounding the Acropolis were on, and the ruin glowed. Athens was beautiful like she’d always thought it would be, back when she daydreamed about going someday with Aidan, when she thought it was just an ancient city. Before she knew the bitch it was named after.
Thanatos called it “the Mother Country.” It wasn’t. Not really. But it was all they had left. The last trappings of lost glory, a handful of crumbling buildings mostly poached of marble. And somewhere in the midst of it, the god of the dead lived out his final days.
There hadn’t been a plague. No rash of illnesses or packed hospitals. No hastily dug graves or backed-up crematoriums. No deaths that could be called out of the ordinary for a city of Athens’ size. They’d checked when they arrived, and found not so much as a fish kill. Cassandra should have been relieved. But she’d been so sure there would be traces of Hades and his illness that the lack made her pause. In her mind, he’d been a moldy black spot on the map.
Thanatos was out there now, scouting, determining where Hades was and what paths they should take. Looking down at the crowds of pedestrians, she thought she might catch a glimpse of him maneuvering through the shadows, but there was no sign, not of him nor of Calypso, either. Cassandra was alone, a princess in an ivory tower, waiting patiently to slay her dragon.
The door to the suite opened and Calypso entered, carrying a large plastic bag of food with her good arm. Souvlaki stuffed with French fries. It smelled good, but it looked as though she’d bought enough to feed Hermes.
“Is he back yet?” Calypso asked.
“No.”
Calypso set the bag down on the table and Cassandra rifled through it.
“Lamb and chicken both,” Calypso said. “But no way to tell which is which without unwrapping.” She flicked a lock of Cassandra’s hair over her shoulder. It was a familiar, affectionate touch—Odysseus used to do it, and suddenly the weight of his absence hit Cassandra square in the chest. It must have hit Calypso, too, because her fingers lingered on Cassandra’s shirt. Cassandra grasped them, to squeeze and comfort, but what she felt made her jerk away. Calypso’s fingers were half-rotten bone, and left wet streaks on her skin.
That’s just my imagination.
Imagination and not imagination. Since the vision after the Fury attack, a shadow stretched across Calypso’s face like a caul. Sometimes her hair fell out. Sometimes her teeth. What was seen couldn’t be unseen. Cassandra’s eyes re-created it from all angles, and when she slept her brain re-created it, too, turning it over in dreams a hundred times worse. They enhanced it with smell, and sound, and left her woozy and uneasy after waking.
Since they’d been in Athens, Calypso seemed happier. She laughed more, and left the hotel for hours at a time to wander. She came back smelling of stray dogs she’d found and fed. And when they crossed over the sea, she’d stared at the stunning blue so intensely that Cassandra knew she was remembering a time from before, when she’d used to swim in it.
It was one last turn on the carousel. The last act in Calypso’s long goodbye.
Or so she thinks.
After the gods were dead, Calypso wouldn’t want to join them. Enough time would pass for her to see she had things to stay for. Friends who cared. Cassandra’s brain laid these ropes of reason around her vision of Calypso’s death, around and around in a slow, quiet noose. And always the vision lashed back. You can’t change fate.
But I can. I’ll learn.
“We’re not really so far from Ithaca,” Calypso said. She sat near the window picking fries out of her pita and dipping them in tzatziki. Ithaca. Odysseus’ island. “I hated that island,” she went on, “for taking him away from me. And now I’d give anything to go and find him there.”
Cassandra said nothing. Anything she said would come out wrong, or hollow, or just plain stupid. She knew. She’d heard enough from other people after Aidan died.
“If I turn my ear the right way into the wind,” Calypso said, “I can almost hear him. A memory on the air. Ithaca must remember him even after all this time. Or at least I’d like to think so.” Calypso looked down. “Can you feel Aidan? In this ancient city?”
“I haven’t been listening.”
Calypso nodded. “Too busy sniffing out Hades.”
“Yes. But not only that. The Aidan who would haunt Athens wouldn’t be Aidan. He’d be Apollo.”
“They’re one and the same.”
No. They weren’t. But Calypso needed to think so. Because she needed to believe that Odysseus was the same boy who had loved her beside the sea.
“Yeah, well,” said Cassandra. “I hate him as many days as I love him, anyway. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to kill myself now that he’s gone.”
Calypso stopped chewing.
“I didn’t mean it to come out that way,” Cassandra said. “I get … pissed off at the drop of a hat, these days.”
“I know. I understand.”
“I didn’t mean to make you sound—” What? Pathetic? Go ahead, idiot, stick your foot farther down your throat.
“It’s all right, I said.” Calypso pushed a piece of meat into her mouth and went back to looking out the window. Conversation over. They ate the rest of their lunch in silence.
By the time Thanatos returned, Cassandra had fallen asleep on the couch watching a European version of MTV. She woke to the sound of the shower turning off. The rest of the suite was empty. Calypso had taken enough of her crap and fled.
The bathroom door opened. Thanatos poked his head out and peered at her.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“Where’s Calypso?”
“Don’t know.” Cassandra shrugged. “Did you find him?”
He pulled the towel off his shoulders and ran it through his hair.
“I found his house. Without him in it.”
Acid churned in Cassandra’s gut and heat flooded her fingertips. They’d come all that way to find an empty house. On another continent. Across an ocean. She was up and pacing before she knew it, back and forth, back and forth.
“So where did he go? Ant-fricking-arctica?”
“He didn’t go anywhere, really. He went underground. Off the map underg
round.”
To the underworld. Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Had someone tipped him off? Had he run?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Thanatos said. “And yes, he probably knows you’re coming. But he wouldn’t run from you. Hades wouldn’t run from anything.”
“So he’ll be back?”
“He’ll be back.”
“Good. We’ll go to the house, then, and wait. He might not expect that. What? What’s that look for?” She narrowed her eyes, and he looked away.
“You don’t think I can kill him,” she said.
He threw his towel over the back of a chair.
“Can I?” she asked. “Or is he like you? Have you known this was impossible the whole time?”
“He’s not like me,” Thanatos said. “He’s the god of the dead, not death himself. You can kill him. What I’m beginning to wonder is if he can kill you.” He closed the distance between them in a few slow steps. Not sad or worried, but curious.
Don’t be stupid. He’s a god. And death, besides. It doesn’t matter how many times he’s kind, or if he’s saved my life. Death is what’s underneath. He’s not wondering if Hades can kill me. He’s wondering if he could do it himself.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here because a girl with a broken heart came looking. And I have a soft spot for girls with broken hearts.” He reached out to touch her hair. His face was so charming and harmless when he smiled, like a pinup in a girls’ magazine. You could take the god of death home to meet your parents, as long as he was smiling when you did it.
“Maybe I looked into your eyes and couldn’t say no,” he said. She knocked his hand away, and he chuckled. “Maybe I like being with you, moody as you are. Maybe you’re the first living girl I’ve ever met who I’d like to stay living.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
He smiled again.
“Or maybe I just want to know what you are.”
* * *
Hades’ house looked more like an abandoned building: a great, dirty slab of white, with windows spotted with fly dirt. Half of it had been torn down, or had fallen in. At any rate, the top three floors of the eastern side were missing, the hole covered over with black tarps and drop cloths.
“This is it?” Cassandra asked doubtfully. “I expected columns. Maybe some gold and gilding.”
“You’ll find that inside. Richness abounds.” Thanatos stood beside her, and Calypso behind. They had armed themselves lightly with knives bought in one of the flea markets. The one Calypso carried was purely ornamental, not even sharpened. But if she pushed hard enough, it would do the job.
On the doorstep before them lay three dead rats. The cat that might have eaten them lay dead in a nearby planter box. Except for the flies and squirming maggots under their fur, they looked as though they had fallen asleep, a happy ending to a quaint fairy tale of dancing predators and prey.
“How did you get in before?” Cassandra asked. Thanatos nodded toward the side of the building.
“There’s a broken window. It was cracked when I arrived, but I smashed it clean through. You’ll be able to climb in.”
He led them to it, and they picked their way through the slivers of glass. Thanatos went first, jumping up and through with all the grace and balance Cassandra knew she didn’t have. It took her almost two minutes to navigate the window and stay clear of the glass edges.
Once her head was inside the house, it was all shadows and stale air, and she suddenly wanted to ask what had killed the cat and the rats. But then Thanatos held out his hand, and she took it.
When her eyes adjusted to the dimness, they still weren’t much use. They’d come into an interior hallway and, except for the white shaft of window light behind them, it was completely black. Nobody home, Thanatos had said. No servants or watchdogs.
No dogs because you wouldn’t need them. Who would think to rob the place?
Her foot crunched something as she edged down the hall, and she twisted her toe hard into the floorboards in case it was a cockroach stuck to her shoe.
“You didn’t see any squatters here, either?” she asked.
“None,” Thanatos replied. “There’s a body on the third floor, but it’s stuffed.”
“Stuffed?”
“Stuffed. You know. Taxidermied.”
Cassandra’s hand went to her mouth. Almost instantly, her nose invented the smell of that taxidermied corpse, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t really know what it would smell like. At least if I throw up here the vomit will be right at home.
She peered in every door she passed. Each room was filled with enough knickknacks to stock several gift shops. Many of them shone silver and gold in the scant light from the windows. Expensive knickknacks. Museum-gift-shop quality.
Silver and gold. Hades loved them well. No wonder so many kings tried to buy their way out of the underworld. She wondered if Hades might try to buy his way clear of her.
He could offer me every jewel in this house. The contents of every bank account. It wouldn’t be enough.
Ahead of them, the hallway ended and opened on a large central room, cut through by a winding staircase. Silhouettes of dense oak tables and lamps stood like sentries. It was difficult to reconcile the finery inside with the desolate façade of the building outside. She expected dust and got oiled wood. Expected cobwebs and found polished marble. And there wasn’t a single roach or rat to be seen.
But don’t forget the stuffed body upstairs.
Cassandra glanced at a gold candelabrum with white candles. If only it would sing, and dance, and talk in a French accent to lighten the mood. Disney enchantments were never around when you needed them.
“There’s no one here,” she said suddenly, and loudly. “So why are we creeping? Can’t we get some light?”
Thanatos and Calypso moved to light candles. They might have tried the light switch. It wouldn’t have surprised Cassandra to find the electricity on. But she supposed the candles attracted less attention.
“Where is the best place to wait?” she asked as they walked up the stairs.
“No telling how he’ll return. Through which door he’ll come,” Calypso mused. “Perhaps we should just squat. Make ourselves at home. As long as we avoid the tarp-covered wing, it should be as comfortable as the hotel.”
She swept the candles across a dark shadow and Cassandra winced when the light shone on the oily eyes and bared fangs of a stuffed wolverine.
“I don’t know what hotel you’ve been staying in,” Thanatos said. He brushed passed them to recheck the hallway, and Cassandra headed for the windows. She craved the light. The natural light of the sun, to remind her that outside still existed.
It’s only a building.
But that was a lie. It was Hades’ house. Death and decadence around every corner, and the idea of staying more than an hour, let alone sleeping there, made her stomach clench and flutter.
Maybe if we knocked all the windows out. Let air move through the place.
She took a deep breath against the cool pane of glass and abruptly spat it back out again. No less than two dozen dead flies and moths lay in piles on the exterior sill. Dead when they came too close. Like the cat and the three rats.
Like the three of us.
But not exactly. Thanatos couldn’t die, and Cassandra suspected that Hades’ death wouldn’t rebound on her. Even if he was a ticking time bomb of bubonic plague, of Ebola and smallpox, cholera and Spanish flu. But Calypso—Cassandra looked over at her, where she stood studying a tapestry of a unicorn woven with gold thread. Calypso should go. As soon as they caught a glimpse of him, they’d send her away, just to be safe.
“Clear,” Thanatos said, emerging from the hallway. “Plenty more floors. If you don’t want to see the stuffed doorman, hang by the stairs for this next one.”
Cassandra didn’t need to be told twice. She and Calypso stayed close together and made small talk with their eyes until h
e finished his sweep. Thanatos didn’t ask if Cassandra was all right. He didn’t put his arm around her, or walk two protective steps ahead. And she didn’t know why she wanted him to, when she could take care of herself.
They passed so many floors that by the time they made it to the last she’d lost count. But she’d begun to feel better about being inside. The air on the upper three floors was fresher, thanks to the missing walls. Now that they could see under the tarps, it was clear that a cave-in had occurred. Large chunks of plaster blocked the hallway. Hades hadn’t bothered to clear the damage.
“Top floor,” Cassandra said. She stepped off the stairs into a wide open space. No hallways here. Only the shadows of what looked like rows and rows of shelves and cases. Calypso leaned forward and her candlelight flickered feebly in the dark. Heavy curtains had been drawn shut against the sun.
“May I?” Cassandra asked, and Calypso handed the candles over. They walked past the first row of shelves together, heading toward the windows to let in some light. But when the flame illuminated a severed head floating inside a jar of cloudy liquid, Cassandra squeaked and dropped the candles. The wax extinguished the flames at once, leaving them in complete darkness.
With a head. A severed head in a jar. Cassandra bit her tongue and cheek hard to keep from screaming.
What does it matter if I scream? It’s not like I can wake it.
She bit her cheek harder to shut her brain up. She’d had less than a second to look at the face behind the glass, but her imagination filled in the blanks: waxy skin around the mouth, and eyes like pickled onions behind half-closed lids. A tongue as gray as a storm cloud.
“It’s all right.” Thanatos threw the curtains back from one set of windows and then another until cold white light ruled the room.
They stood in the center of a row of shelves. Each shelf held six jars. Each jar held a head. Cassandra wasn’t well-versed in plagues and disease, but Thanatos said that the head she’d glimpsed in the candlelight had belonged to someone who died of the Spanish flu. Another face covered with blisterlike pustules appeared to have succumbed to smallpox. And in the center, a bloated, twisted skull floated in an oversized jar, the victim of whatever disease had taken down the Elephant Man.
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