by Nicole Thorn
She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes locking on Hermes like a snake catching scent of a mouse nearby. She put her hands on her hips, those eyes never wavering. “Who the hell are you and why are you in my house?”
Hermes cocked his head at my mother. “Who are you?”
“I’m Roseanne Gibson, and this is my home that you’re standing in. That’s my son you’re talking to, and I demand to know what the hell you’re doing here.”
Hermes cocked his head the other way. Suddenly, I thought about puppies doing that when you talked to them and they didn’t know how to understand the gobbledygook that came out of your mouth. “You know, I wondered for years what the hell Apollo saw in you. But a few years younger, a little less viciously mean, and I could see it. You’d have spark, sass, as opposed to this cruel streak that you have now.”
Mom’s eyes widened, and she stepped back from Hermes. “Apollo?”
I cleared my throat, stepping between my mother and Hermes. I figured she was about to get viciously murdered, and I had a better chance of surviving than she did. “Mom, this is Hermes. Hermes, this is my mother, who hasn’t done anything worthy of being killed.”
Yet.
Mom still hadn’t recovered from hearing my father’s name, though. She shifted on her feet. “Aster, what’s going on?”
Hermes frowned. “Aster . . . isn’t that a girl’s name?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I haven’t heard that enough times in my life.”
“I had a very good reason for picking that name,” Mom rushed to say, drawing Hermes attention back onto herself. She offered a stiff smile, putting her hands on her hips again. I understood that she wanted to appear strong in front of Hermes, but I thought that dropping to her knees and sending up a little prayer would have been smarter. Gods always listened to trembling fear and awe.
“I’m sure you did,” Hermes said, patting my mother on the head like a dog.
Mom’s eyes flashed. Now her stance didn’t look quite so stiff. She glowered at Hermes with loathing. She grabbed my arm and hauled me over to her side. I stumbled into her, almost making us both fall. Mom pushed me aside, grumbling something about me being a klutz under her breath. Then she turned back to Hermes, her hands going back to her hips. “You need to leave.”
“Mmm, sorry, but I can’t,” Hermes said. “See, I came here for a very good reason.”
“Which you haven’t told me,” I said, feeling pretty certain that he would kill me if I said it one more time.
“Which I’m going to get to now, actually,” Hermes said, rubbing his hands together. He looked particularly evil when he did that, which made me feel so safe and protected. Not at all like I would die a painful, agonizing death. At least I had gotten used to that prospect from dealing with Apollo so many times in my life. He liked to make my life a living hell, too. All the gods did.
“I don’t think so,” my mother said.
Hermes sighed. “You’re starting to get on my nerves.”
Mom stepped toward him, a clear threat in her eyes.
“Um, Mom,” I started. “Maybe you should let me handle this one.”
She ignored me, poking Hermes in the chest hard enough that I winced. “Listen to me, I didn’t invite you into my house, and I don’t intend on letting you stay here for even a second. You’re going to leave my son alone, and you’re going to listen to me, and you’re going to leave right this second. If you don’t—”
Hermes touched my mother’s forehead.
She fell to the ground like a sack of rocks. I shouted in surprise, jumping forward. I rolled her over, wincing when I saw her forehead. It would have a huge bruise before the day ended, the size of a tennis ball in all likelihood. But her chest still rose and fell, her heart still beat, and she still felt warm. I breathed out.
“She’s fine,” Hermes said, waving his hand. “I don’t care much about what happens to her, but Apollo has made it clear that if anyone touches her without his permission, he’s going to get very unhappy. He can create so much chaos if he wants to, and we’ve just don’t have the energy or the time to deal with it right now.”
“What did you do?” I asked, picking my mother off the floor. I moved her over to the couch and laid her down.
Hermes sighed as I pulled a blanket over her. “She’s fine, I told you.”
“That’s not answering my question.”
“She’s just asleep.”
I got the distinct feeling that he had lied to me, but she did appear to be asleep. Her eyes closed, flickering behind her lids. I hoped that meant she wouldn’t be asleep until Hermes had mercy on her. Or that she would wake up a different person. Or . . . well, the gods could do pretty much anything, and I had the good sense to be terrified of that realization.
Shaking my head, I stood up. “All right, I’m not sure what you’ve got going on right now, but I’m not putting up with it anymore.”
Hermes rolled his eyes. “So difficult. One of these days, you kids are going to learn that just because you’re the children of gods doesn’t mean you get to act however you want.”
I doubted it, actually. I’d known a lot of demigods that thought they couldn’t be touched. Most I’d met through Apollo, if I wanted to be honest. He dragged me to all sorts of places, and every demigod that I came across liked to act untouchable. They seemed to forget that they could easily be killed by the gods or giants or any of the monsters in the world.
However, I didn’t plan on fighting with Hermes, so that shouldn’t have been a problem. I had a better plan.
Walking into the kitchen, I pulled out a metal bucket from under the sink. The bucket clinked on the counter when I threw it down. Hermes watched me, his eyebrow raised, as I walked over to one of the smaller drawings that I had done. It still looked elaborate, but it hadn’t taken me all that long to do it. I threw the drawing into the bucket, then went looking for a match.
“Oh no!” Hermes said. The bucket zoomed across the room, right into his hands.
“Hey!”
“You are not summoning your father,” Hermes said.
“Dad!” I shouted at the ceiling.
Someone knocked on the door. Relieved, I went to let my father into the apartment. Unfortunately, I found a little girl there instead. She looked about thirteen, maybe. She had blond hair and piercing blue eyes, which looked familiar. The girl walked into my apartment without a word to me, glaring at Hermes immediately. “Really, Hermes? I give you one task, and this is how you handle it.”
“Buyer beware,” Hermes said.
“Are you joking!” Artemis yelled at him, throwing her hands into the air. “I didn’t hire you for a job. You owed me one. Or do I have to tell Poseidon about—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Hermes said, holding his hands up. “Let’s not get into that right now, okay?”
Artemis shook her head, still glaring at him.
I’d never met my aunt before, but I had heard plenty about her. Apollo liked to go on about how uptight she could be and how boring she was. I took everything he said with a grain of salt and assumed that the two of them had gotten into a fight, hence the insults. The only thing I really knew about her was that she liked to take the form of a child and that she got into arguments with Aphrodite a lot.
Artemis turned to me, offering a bright smile. “Hello, Aster. It’s nice to meet you, finally.”
“Um . . . hi,” I said.
“Sorry about Hermes. He seems to be in a mood today, but I hoped that he hasn’t done any permanent damage.”
I glanced at my mother, who hadn’t moved since I put her on the couch. I cleared my throat. “Well . . . ”
Artemis followed my line of sight. “Oh, don’t worry about her. She’ll wake up in a couple of days, probably.”
Yeah, that certainly took care of my worry. Didn’t make it worse, or anything, and it certainly didn’t make me wonder what the hell I would do if she didn’t wake up. Could Apollo wake her up? I didn’t know if he had the
kind of magic that would work against Hermes’ magic.
If Apollo would even try, which seemed unlikely. Apollo had been trying to take me away from Mom for ten years. When my eighteenth birthday came around, I suspected that he would buy me a house in the hopes that it would get me away from her. Mom not being able to wake up offered the perfect excuse for him to do that.
I shoved all of that aside. I had too many things to worry about right then, and I thought starting with why two gods stood in my living room took precedence over everything else. I waved my hands. “What are you two doing here? No offense. I’m happy to see you both—” Lies like that should have consequences. “—But I’m really confused right now.”
Artemis patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry so much. You’ll go gray. That’s not easy for a demigod.”
Hermes shook his head. “I’ve got this under control.”
“You clearly don’t,” Artemis said. “You’ve gotten into so much trouble over the years, and you owe me so many favors, but the second I cash them in, you act like an idiot. I’m really bothered by this. I’m going to head down to the water, call Poseidon—”
“Again, with Poseidon!” Hermes said. “Why do you always bring him up?”
“Because you—”
“Let’s not get into it,” Hermes said.
“You asked!”
I watched them going back and forth like a tennis match. Each word they hurled at each other had my head pounding even worse, until I wanted to duck under the table and hide from them. I took a deep, deep breath, and stepped away. If I could find a way to get that bucket out of Hermes’ grasp, then I could summon Apollo. I’d been using my pictures to summon him since I was nine. He told me that he put them all up on his fridge. To be honest, I spent so much time wondering what a god’s fridge looked like, I’d never managed to decide if he had been serious about that or not.
Either way, I just needed to summon him, so that he could sort this entire thing out and get my apartment degodified.
I’d barely managed to take a single step back before Artemis looked fed up. “I’m not having another argument with you. Shut up!”
Hermes opened his mouth.
A bow and arrow magically appeared in Artemis’ hands, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I pictured the gods having a fight in my tiny apartment, breaking everything that they came in contact with. The entire apartment building would collapse, I’d end up on the news, and I still wouldn’t have the answers that I wanted.
“Hey!” I shouted.
They both looked at me. Hermes’ feet hovered about six inches off the ground, and he had his arm up, as if he hoped that he could punch Artemis in the face. I stood off to the side, eyes wide, picturing my demise. I always thought I’d die at a god’s hands, but I assumed Apollo would be the one to do me in. I never thought it would be someone that I’d never met before.
“Could we not?” I asked. “Please.”
Artemis sniffed. “The boy’s right. We’re being childish.”
“I’m not being childish, you’re being childish,” Hermes said, landing softly on his feet. “I had everything under control. I was just about to tell, um . . . Asteroid here that we had to head out to get Callie before I could explain anything.”
Artemis rolled her eyes. “Aster, first of all. Second of all, you were not about to tell him any such thing. You wanted to drag this out for as long as possible, to ensure that all your favors had been cashed in.”
Hermes wrapped his arm around my shoulders, hauling me in against his chest. I almost tripped over my feet trying to stay steady. He patted my shoulder, and I had to keep in mind that the god wouldn’t end up killing me on accident. Hopefully.
“C’mon kid. We’ve got to get your little friend.”
“I feel like Callie wouldn’t want to be referred to in such a way,” Artemis said, putting her finger on her chin. “Certainly, my brother would be offended on her behalf, and you don’t want Apollo to get too angry with you. Remember what happened the last time Poseidon angered him?”
Hermes winced. “Remember it? We still haven’t gotten the scorch marks off the marble.”
Artemis shook her head. “Such a temper. Well, come on, Aster.”
“Wait, what?”
I didn’t get another chance to argue. Before I knew it, I’d been stuffed into the back of another magnificent car that I’d never get to the drive. This one, much like Apollo’s, didn’t have a make or model. It was much bigger, though. The truck had a squarish frame, giant wheels that ate up the ground, and it was forest green in color. The inside had upholstery instead of leather, but it felt so soft and divine, I could fall asleep right there.
I might’ve, if not for the way Hermes and Artemis argued with each other constantly. They snapped and sniped.
I tried to send Callie a warning text, but when I pulled my phone out, I found it didn’t work. One look outside, and I notice that the world had started to shift by at a much faster speed. I could barely blink without the streets changing, the people moving by at a blur.
My stomach rolled when I saw that, and again, I wished that Apollo could have appeared. Somehow, even though he’d almost gotten me killed a thousand times, I still trusted him more than either of the gods currently bothering me.
We screeched to a halt outside of Callie’s house. The sudden stop threw me into the seat hard enough that I might’ve had a bruise to match my mother’s.
“See!” Hermes yelled at Artemis. “I got us here just fine.”
Artemis snorted, looking out the window. “I could have made it happen much easier. I don’t know why I thought I could trust you to handle this without me. Honestly.”
She started to slide out of the car.
I sent a quick prayer up to my father, asking for strength to get through this.
CHAPTER SIX:
I Didn’t Ask for This
Callie
I SCRIBBLED OUT some notes I got from Ares, hearing him whisper about his weapons. Normally, I would have ignored it. This time, I didn’t even know who he spoke to, but it seemed important. Ares wanted new, stronger weapons on the ready.
Staring at my wall, I saw so many pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t been able to solve yet. It felt like something was on the tip of my tongue, yet I still couldn’t taste it. Nothing made sense, and I wanted to scream the world into silence. There wasn’t even anyone I could ask for help.
I needed a breath, so I stood from my desk and took a look out the window. It looked cloudy, but it hadn’t rained yet. I could go outside and relax for a little while before the voices started to flood in again.
I headed down the stairs, seeing only my mother on the couch. Dad had gone work already, leaving her with little to do on her day off. She looked bored with the book on her lap.
“Afternoon,” she said when she saw me. “Do you want me to make you lunch?”
“I already ate,” I said. “I had some snacks while I finished my essay. I should get an email telling me I’m all finished with the year soon.”
“That’s great,” she said with a smile. “It sounds like everything is all sorted out.”
“Pretty much.”
After a beat of silence, Mom said, “So . . . have you thought more about what your dad and I were suggesting before? I think it would be really good for you.”
It had been stupid to think I could get away with never having to talk about a therapist again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out a way to explain to my parents that no medication would make the voices go away.
“I don’t want a doctor,” I said.
Mom set her book down, straightening out her dress as she walked to me. “It would be good for you. I wouldn’t force you into anything, but I can tell you’re stressed out of your mind. You don’t have to live like this.”
“But I do,” I said. “I made this choice when I accepted the gifts of the original Oracle of Delphi.”
“Don’t talk like that. You aren’t magic.�
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“Yes I am. It’s in our family. I was only presented with the chance because I’m descended from Pythia. That’s on Dad’s side of the family.”
Mom crossed her arms, clearly trying to hold back anger. “You can’t keep thinking like this. Look at what it’s doing to you. You’re tired all the time, trying to keep up with something that isn’t real. I won’t force meds on you, but you have to accept that this is all in your head.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, attempting to keep myself from crying. After a cleansing breath, I said, “You’ll understand one day. What I do is important. It’s hard, but important. I’m the only one of my kind, and I can’t stop.”
I saw the frustration in her eyes and how lost she must have felt. I was her only child. When she did finally understand, I hoped that it would put her mind at ease.
I heard a knock at the door. Mom went to answer it with me on her heels, worried that it might have been my friends. If they needed me, then I wanted to be there for them.
I saw Aster first, when the door opened, and I grinned wide. Then I realized he had worry in his eyes, and two people stood behind him. One was a little girl, and I knew her in an instant. I knew the man too. I hadn’t seen him in person, but I felt their magic tickling my brain.
“Hi!” I chirped happily. “What are you guys doing here?”
Artemis held her hand out to me. “Nice to meet you, Callie. I’m—”
I nodded, assuring her that I knew. “Oh, I know both of you. Your voice sounds the same in person as it does when I hear you yelling about stupid hunters in the woods. Very nice to meet you, Artemis.”
She smiled kindly at me. “You too.”
“And Hermes,” I added. “I see you don’t have flying shoes today.”
Mom buried her face in her hands, sighing.
“Who are these people?” she whispered to me.
“Gods,” I whispered back. “Come in!”
Aster stepped inside first, so I gave him a big hug to welcome him back. He didn’t touch me, or even pat my back as I gripped him. I would have to teach him how to hug properly if he intended on coming to the house more. The gods followed him, Hermes taking a look around the house.
