"If Ti's timeline portrays events accurately—"
Ah, that's what the scribbling was.
"—and I believe it does, then there are other hands in this. Zagreus, I have things to tell you that you will not wish to hear."
"Dad, please. Just spit it out." Zack unclenched his fists, willing his hands to relax. The knot in his chest, he couldn't do much about. "Anything you can tell me. I have to help Michael."
Hades locked his hands behind his back, a granite statue glaring out the window. "I've known several of the fallen. They don't all descend into evil. Some retain the larger part of their compassion. But they all change. Soon, late. All of them change."
"Almost twenty-five years since his fall, Dad. That's a hell of a delay of symptom onset."
"True." Hades nodded without turning around. "Michael's nature, his relationship with you, I believe impeded the process. This is why I suspect interference. On his own, Michael may have changed soon, but most likely gradually, in increments he could have tolerated."
"What are you saying? That someone sped it up?"
"Someone wasn't willing to wait. In order to accelerate Michael's metamorphosis, this interfering hand rewove the fabric of time itself."
Zack dropped his aching head into his hands. "Could you stop the mysterious pronouncements and just say what you're thinking?"
"What he's trying to say—" Ti reached over and put a hand on his knee. "— is someone's been shoving Michael back and forth through time. Think about it, right? The thing you saw in the garden was Michael, but future Michael. Not the one that was in the house at the time. The one who came into your study, same thing, different bit of the timeline. Someone messed with his timeline enough, yanked him back and forth enough, they made this happen before Michael was ready, before he could process it and deal with it."
"How the fuck, excuse my language, do you know all this?" Zack yanked his knee out of Ti's grip, furious for no reason.
Ti flicked a glance toward the window. "We talked about it before you came. He suspected. The things you said just firmed it up."
"Great. Of course he has all the answers." Zack hurled himself to his feet to pace, a frenzied mirror of his father's actions. "Of course. So tell me, Dad, who is it? Who's the piece of shit screwing around with my Michael?"
Again, Hades began with a non-answer. "Sometimes, when a god no longer has a place in human minds and begins to fade, he does not do so quietly. Some go mad. Gods of fate and time are more apt to become unstable."
"Fate and time? You mean grandfather's not dead?"
"Cronos is quite dead, never fear. No, the way in which this was done, the chaotic cruelty of it, I suspect it was Mammetun."
Zack stopped his pacing to scrub both hands over his face. "And who in all creation's pantheons is that?"
"She was… is the Sumerian goddess of fate. Reduced to a Wikipedia reference and a single line in the Epic of Gilgamesh. I can't imagine she would be pleased with that."
"Great. Fantastic. So I have to find Fading Angry Sumerian Bitch Goddess?"
Hades finally turned from the window and strode over to wrap his arms around Zack. "I doubt you need to. She has a purpose and will most likely find you."
"What purpose? What the fuck, Dad?"
"I can't even begin to imagine. She will come to you, though. I have no doubt. Stay with us, Zagreus. We have the extra room. Walk the banks of the river, the streets. Wait for her to come to you. More likely here, since she was a deity of cities."
"I can't just wait." Zack shivered, and finally returned the embrace, needing his father's solid warmth. "Michael… who knows what's happening to him?"
"It's already happened," Ti said softly from his chair. "And you can't fix anything without more intel, right? Know what's behind it so you can figure out how to fix it?"
"I guess." Zack rested his head on his father's shoulder. "No enemy but time, right?"
"What's that?"
"Sorry. Poem that Michael liked. I always thought it was too damn sad. The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time. Something like that."
"Time is only the enemy of the unwary." Hades backed up to take Zack by the shoulders. "You have been ever vigilant."
Zack swallowed hard but he nodded. His father was, after all, the first to have killed time.
Chapter Four
"This is bullshit," Zack muttered to himself, and took another sip of his beer. They didn't have anything great on draught, which only made him think about how funny Michael would have thought this place was. A place that was trying to be casual upscale and yet listed Blue Moon as a "craft brew" on the menu. Incredible.
Over the last three days, he'd taken his father's advice. He had wandered the city, through lunchtime crowds and deserted two-in-the-morning streets, through the parks and the riverfront district. So far, Mammetun hadn't showed.
Even a grieving, angry minor god got hungry eventually, though. Today he'd picked one of the riverfront restaurants with a patio so he could stay outside and still feel like he could breathe. While the beer selection was sub-par, the hummus wasn't bad.
He felt her before he saw her, a sharp, brittle presence. Such a strange, alien feeling—saltines with malice, flaking paint chips dipped in uneasy viciousness. For the second time that month, he wished he'd thought to go armed, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to whip out a forearm-long hunting knife in a crowded restaurant.
No stealth, no dissembling as she approached him. She wanted him to see her, and she smiled, lifting her oversized sunglasses from violet eyes when he spotted her. Perhaps she was fading as a goddess, but among humans? She was still incredibly beautiful. Thick, black hair tumbled in ringlets down her back, copper skin smooth and flawless. Regal assurance infused every step, aloof and serenely confident that men would worship her with their eyes as she passed.
Most did, poor fools, some practically falling out of their chairs to follow her passage. They couldn't see what Zack saw, his eyes locked with hers. Those eyes were more than a little crazy. He fought a shiver and rose to greet her.
"Mammetun."
"You know me," she said in a voice of honey and dark raspberry wine. "Of course my hunter knows me."
"Where's Michael?"
She slid into the seat across from him, the dove gray of her sundress somehow bright in the patio's shade. "My first Enkidu was a terrible mistake."
"Pardon?"
"But you… you are magnificent. Intelligence and strength, a hunter who can both think and act."
"Great. I'm not really up to flirting right now. Can we get to Michael?"
"He was to have destroyed Gilgamesh, the defiler, the arrogant blasphemer. He was my instrument. Brutish and stupid, he failed. He had no understanding of the winds of destiny and, instead, fell in love."
"Um, I think I remember the story. But Enkidu died horribly, right? And Gilgamesh eventually figured out he was mortal and had to accept it. What does this have to do with Michael?"
"I have stirred the winds of time. A new Gilgamesh arises in your kingdom, my hunter. Walls of stone and walls of contempt. You will be my Enkidu this time. You will bring down this Gilgamesh in all his contemptuous vanity."
"Don't think I want to be your anything, honestly. Why should I do anything for you?"
She smiled, a crooked slash of full lips as she rose from her chair. "He will give you no choice. In Arcadia, you will be my Enkidu because you will have no choice."
"Wait… what?" Zack took a step after her, but she was gone. He sank back down in his chair, shaking. "Well, that was bizarre. And unhelpful. But mostly bizarre."
When he returned to the condo, Charon was there as well. All three of them sat waiting in the living room with variations of expectant expressions as if they knew. Hell, they probably did. His dad felt things that happened around him, especially in a place where he felt grounded. He probably had sensed Mammetun's appearance in his chosen city.
Charon got up to offer him the
recliner. "Good hunting, my young lord?"
Towering and cadaverously thin, sharp-toothed and sharp-tongued, most beings, mortal or otherwise, found Charon creepy. To Zack, he was the one who had taught him, twice, the names of the Underworld rivers, had shown him the wonders of the deepest caverns and had patiently taught him how to row. Eccentric, but not creepy.
"She found me. But you guys know that already."
"Your dad thought so," Ti confirmed, pulling his gangly legs up to his chest. "Did she tell you anything? I mean anything useful?"
Zack took the offered chair, suddenly exhausted and depressed. "She's nuts. Completely, bug-fuck nuts."
Hades leaned forward in his chair throne, arms on his knees. "Word for word, Zagreus. What was said?" Head down, eyes closed, he listened to Zack's careful recounting as he tried to remember every phrase, every word.
There hadn't been much. They waited, focused silently on Hades until he finally raised his head.
"You'll find Michael in Arcadia. What seed she planted in his mind, I can't tell you. But he will be there."
Zack rose slowly, heart picking up speed. "Dad, you're sure?"
Hands held out, Hades spoke softly as if he addressed a frightened dog. "Zagreus, listen to me. She manipulates you both for her own designs, using you to restage what she sees as her greatest failure. Michael as the Gilgamesh to your Enkidu."
"But that's good, right? They loved each other."
"Um, yeah." Ti shifted restlessly. "But, see, they weren't supposed to. Enkidu was supposed to kill Gilgamesh 'cause he pissed off the gods."
Right. Maybe I better read up. "I'm not killing Michael. Really doesn't matter what crazy-eye goddess wants. I'm just going to find him and bring him home."
"He may be changed, Zack," Charon added, pointing a claw in Zack's direction. "More than you thought possible. He may not want to come home. He is fallen. Maybe this was inevitable."
Zack fought back all the childish things that wanted out—from none of you ever liked him, to bunch of bigots, you think the fallen are all the same. "It's Michael. I can't just leave him out there and hope he comes home. He lost his wings because I kissed him, because I love him. We fought through his dark moods then. We can do it again. He's depending on me. He needs me."
"The guardian's guardian." Charon shook his head, his long, white hair throwing bright sparks from the sunset. "Want help? Me, your dad, half a dozen cousins just a phone call away. For once, tough guy?"
"Love you guys for offering, but no." Zack held up his hand at his father's growl. "We all descend on Arcadia like an army and we'll freak him out. He'll fly away and I'd never find him again."
A small twitch under Hades's left eye made Zack flinch in response. He'd managed to hurt his father, again. The last time had been in nineteen thirty-one, when he told his father he was moving out on his own. Living in the Underworld was too dreary and confining for him. The stupid things young gods said.
Yes, Hades had known his son needed to rule over his own dominion at some point. Not that Zack, in his third life, was the powerful god he had been in his second, when he had actual worshippers. The Reborn God, the Tamer of Wild Things, he had cults all his own in the ancient world, for all the holies' sakes. But he still had enough humans who remembered him to retain his power and sanity, enough that he couldn't live under his father's dark, protective wing.
But I have to get better at saying shit like that to him.
"Dad, I know you'd be careful. Diplomatic. But if it's anyone but me, I'm scared to death Michael's going to run."
The barest lift of a silver eyebrow let Zack know he'd hit that just right. He wondered how Ti dealt with all the non-expressions or if Hades was miraculously more open in private moments with his lover.
"Do what you must. Though what you wish and what you must may well collide."
Zack gave his father a nod, the lead ball in his stomach telling him it was true, and strode for the door.
"Hey!" Ti called after him. "Don't you need to pack up your stuff?"
"Won't need it where I'm going." Zack stopped by the front door to retrieve his bow from the hall closet. Not that he would ever shoot Michael, but the weapon proved useful at the oddest times. "Keep everything here for when I bring him back."
High clouds drifted overhead, the bird chorus echoing off the hills. He strode down the near bank of the Brandywine and walked out of the human world into the forests of Arcadia.
Chapter Five
Green so bright it blinded and pierced the heart, green so overwhelming and joyous it plunged without regard over hurt and sorrow—this was Arcadia. Zack dropped his head back, drinking in the machine absence and the exuberant life racket of his own realm, regrouping, recharging, and reconnecting with this half of his soul.
He opened his eyes to the forest, his forest with ash, oak, cedar, and pine murmuring in recognition. Deer poked their heads from a nearby thicket. Several squirrels ran toward him with crazy abandon, along the branch highways high above. If he stood still, every moving creature within the sound of his voice would come to greet him, the returning forest lord. Michael had always called it the Disney Moment.
"Is he here?" Zack whispered to the trees. "Have you seen him?"
Branches swayed, leaves murmuring a song of sorrow. Yes, Michael had come. He was here. The younger pines whispered of anger and dismay. Something had happened here that even the trees censured. Unlike certain Disney characters, though, Zack couldn't really talk to the creatures of his forest, not in human words. He would have to feel his way through his domain, find the disturbance on his own. In such a peaceful, unspoiled place, this would be absurdly easy.
But this would be on his terms, at his pace—
"Hunter."
Or not. "Mammetun." Zack turned to face her. "Quite a change of clothes."
She stood barefoot, artfully posed on a mossy hillock in the clearing, her curves sheathed in a dress of shining black feathers that almost seemed to sprout from her skin. "Gilgamesh waits behind his walls. He defiles this sacred place, as he has ever defiled the sacred beauty in his reach."
"Walls."
"He builds a new city, my Enkidu, in defiance of holy law, in defiance of you."
"Let's be clear on something. I'm not your anything." Zack yanked off his boots and socks, letting his toes curl in the grass and leaves of his home. "And what the hell are we talking about here? What's the city a metaphor for?"
Her smile turned predatory, both condescending and threatening. "Come, hunter. Sometimes a wall is simply a wall." She walked away, toward the heart of the forest, her ebony and ink ringlets floating behind her despite the still air.
Zack stripped off his shirt, slung his bow across his body, and followed her. Naked would have been better to feel the flow of life energy around him, but somehow he wasn't comfortable stripping in front of Mammetun. Her creepy-crazy eyes made him feel exposed enough.
The forest had grown silent around them, birds and insects alike hiding in hushed silence from what they felt as an unwelcome presence. Mammetun strode on, undisturbed by the eerie hush, her twisted half smile not at all comforting. At a screen of junipers, she stopped and plunged her hands into the branches preparing to part them.
"Behold, Enkidu," she announced in a gloating purr. "The new city of Uruk."
Anger and horror slammed into him as he stared at the abomination in front of him. Rough-hewn granite blocks rose in a storm-gray wall in front of him, four stories high. Here was the source of all the trees' anger and dismay, dozens of trees ripped from the soil, thrown carelessly about the artificial clearing to make room for this monstrosity. Bits of smaller bushes and understory plants littered the carcasses of old-growth trees, uprooted saplings tossed onto the piles.
My beautiful trees, how could anyone do this?
"He will not cease in his destruction," Mammetun whispered in his ear. "It will continue until your domain is in ruins. You must end it."
"Fuck, yes. Who the hel
l would do this?"
A figure appeared at the top of the wall, peering down, the face horrifyingly familiar.
No. Please… no.
"Zagreus!" Michael called down from the wall in the chill voice Zack recalled from the strange garden visitation. "You've come!"
Zack rounded on Mammetun, prepared to ask what the hell she had done, but she had vanished again. "Convenient. Damn it." It's not Michael's fault. He's been manipulated every step of the way. Breathe. Calm. Calm. When he felt he could speak without snarling or breaking down, Zack tilted his head back and bellowed, "Michael, come down here! Talk to me! What in the name of all the rivers is this?"
"This?" Michael perched atop his ugly-ass granite wall, feet swinging over the edge. "My city, sweetheart. Where we'll live when you finally realize the truth."
"What truth? That you've murdered my trees and erected this abomination in my domain?" So much for staying reasonable. Crap.
Michael's laugh chilled him, tarnished silver falling on cold stone. "Your domain? Oh, no, no. You're a weak minor godling. You hit your peak a couple thousand years ago. But it's all right. I'll take care of you, as I always said I would. My domain, my love. Not yours anymore."
"I don't get it, Michael." Zack took a step back so he didn't have to tilt his head quite so far back. "You've always been welcome here. I never closed Arcadia to you. And you've always loved the trees so much. Why build this… fucking monstrosity?"
He didn't ask how Michael had done it in less than four days. That was an indication of power, of the terrible surge of it Michael must have experienced.
Michael tipped his head with a frown. "It's my city. My fortress. To keep us safe from the world. Some day, someone's going to try to kill you again. I have to keep you safe. And I certainly won't destroy all the trees. You'll have plenty of space to play with your animal friends, still."
The condescension, the arrogance in those words made Zack swallow hard against the knot of rage and anguish in his throat. "I love you, Michael, but when you slice into my domain, you stab at me. No more."
No Enemy But Time (A Brandywine Investigations Universe Story) Page 4
