by Paul Neuhaus
“As opposed to...?”
“A vision implanted in your head by my mother the demigoddess to throw you off the scent.”
I threw back my head and yelled, “Fuck!” No doubt the Furies high above us were badly startled. I know everyone on the ground sure was—even some of the dead. “You gotta be fucking kidding me! You mean Addie was never headed here?”
Keri shrugged. “I mean do I know that’s what happened? No. I don’t know anything at this point.”
I lowered my voice and my brain raced. “No, no. You’re probably right. I mean the scenario you just laid out... It’s so Addie. But where the fuck could she’ve gone?”
Amanda turned and headed back through a secondary gate that led to the various “neighborhoods” of the Underworld. “I’ll put on some coffee,” she said.
Constantinides shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “I wish I could help, but I don’t know much about this... 'Adrestia', did you call her? Which is weird because I consider myself an armchair scholar on all things ancient Greece.”
“Adrestia is Hermes’ daughter. A tertiary character. Barely a footnote. She’s the goddess of minor affronts and disproportionate rage.”
“Yeesh,” he replied.
“I know, right?”
Keri was wearing a pained expression and her eyes were far away. “Do you think the Kraken will kill Pegasus when he’s done with him?” she said.
“Gods, I hope not,” I said.
“Wait,” Constantinides chimed in. “There’s a Kraken?”
“I told you it was a long story.”
“Just so I understand: Pegasus isn’t Pegasus, he’s Pegasus with a Kraken inside.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Wow. Don’t take this the wrong way, but things sure have gotten weird since you decided to stop being a hermit.”
I reflexively kicked him in the shin. “What’s the right way to take that, Connie? ‘Cause it sure as hell implies all of this is my fault!”
He took two steps back and raised his hands. “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right,” he said. “It was a stupid thing to say.”
Amanda reappeared carrying a tray full of coffee mugs. “What stupid thing did you say now?” she asked Connie.
The man took his coffee. “Nothing. I misspoke. I already apologized.”
As I took my own mug, Venables said to me, “Yesterday, he said he wished I was taller and had bigger tits.”
Keri and I both threw back our heads and made exasperated sounds. “What is wrong with you?!” Keri said.
Connie’s voice was barely audible. “I said I was sorry for that too.”
I sipped my coffee. It was terrible. Keri did the same and came to the same conclusion. She shot me a pained glance, but we both smiled at Amanda. Then it occurred to me I hadn’t done the obvious. “Hope, can you draw a bead on Addie and Pegasus?”
“No, not from down here. Maybe if we go back to the surface...”
I sighed. It looked like the detour into the Underworld had been a waste of time.
We put our cups back on Amanda’s tray, and I started to ask for an express trip back to the land of the living.
“You know,” Wiener said. “Addie never talked about anything too deep. I was happy when I got more than a monosyllabic response. One thing she did tell me about—more than once—was how she’d lost her mother. About how she’d never gotten to know her. I never heard about any of the bruises to the ego or the follow-up revenges. But I did hear about her mom. I don’t know why I mention that. Maybe because it stands out. Little islands of humanity in a sea of nothing.”
I smiled, but without humor. “Did you appreciate the irony of an absentee mother talking about how her own mother was absent?”
“Not at the time, but I did, later.”
I sighed. “Well, I can appreciate Addie’s melancholy. I told you Zeus turned her mom into a slug, didn’t I?”
“Say what?”
“Yeah. Your gramma—her name was Rhene—went into stalker mode. She gave your grandpa a helluva time. Hermes was moping around about it, Zeus got sick of seeing him be all drag-ass, so he sluggified her.”
The teenager took a moment to digest that. “Wow,” she said. “That’s some cold shit.”
“I know. Even Hermes thought so.”
“No wonder my mom is the way she is.”
“Hold up,” I replied, cautioning the girl. “Let’s not overlook the fact Addie’d have bad wiring regardless of the whole slug-mommy thing. But, yeah, the slug-mommy thing didn’t help.”
Finally, we looked over at Amanda and Connie and both of them wore sour, bored expressions. “Do we even need to be here for this?”
I made a mental note to have that meeting with Amanda when and if the Adrestia situation got resolved. I started to make a request but Hope interrupted. “Dora... A thought just occurs to me.”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t choose Vasquez Rocks by accident. It’s a nexus point. A place of power where natural—one might say magical—energies converge and overlap.”
My jaw dropped. What Hope told me and what Keri told me snapped together in my head like Lego bricks. “Fuck!” I said aloud. I turned to our hosts. “Can you guys send us to Vasquez Rocks? With the hole in the ground thing? Like now?”
One of Connie’s eyebrows went up. “So, what, you’re all like, ‘Hey, hate to cause a panic and leave, but...?’”
“Yes. Exactly.”
The lord of the Underworld snapped his fingers and a pulsating hole appeared in the ground behind Keri and I. Keri was confused and wanted to ask questions, but I hustled her along. Before we stepped into the hole, I said to Amanda. “Coffee next week?”
Venables brightened. “Tuesday?”
“Tuesday.” Then my pint-sized sidekick and I stepped into the hole and disappeared. As we faded out, I could still hear them speaking.
“Oh! I was going to offer her some real clothes,” Amanda said.
“How?” Connie replied. “She’s tall and you’re not.”
“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
8
Mothers and Daughters
We reappeared outside the ranger station at Vasquez Rocks, and I had an instant deja vu. The place was deserted again, the sky was dark, and the wind was whipping. Keri had to shout above the din. “Wait... Are you saying my mother came here to resurrect my grandmother?!”
“Sure, looks that way,” I said. I put my hand flat above my eyes, so I could see the rock formation in the middle distance. Sure enough, there was activity at the top. I could see a small, bipedal shadow standing next to a big, quadrupedal shadow. Pegasus (AKA the Kraken) unfurled then furled his wings to cement the identification. “Come on,” I shouted. “We gotta get up there.”
I ran left along the path, over the scrubby terrain toward the Rocks. Keri pulled at me, was unsuccessful at first due to the difference in our sizes but won out finally when she dug in her heels. “Wait! Wait goddammit!”
I turned toward Wiener reluctantly. “We really gotta haul ass, I’m not kidding!”
“Why?” the teenager said. “Why do we gotta stop her? I mean I guess bringing back the dead does violate all the laws of nature, but isn’t this a whole lot better than releasing a bunch of moldy old gods and destroying humanity?”
I pulled at her, forcing her to get moving again before I answered. “It is, technically. I guess. But, to perform the ritual she’s attempting, she’ll need blood. Powerful blood. My guess is she was gonna bring the Kraken here under false pretenses and sacrifice him. Now, unfortunately, the Kraken’s inside Pegasus, so the blood at stake here belongs to our friend!”
Keri allowed herself to be pulled along. “What is it with you Greeks and your blood magic? It’s fucking grim!”
“No argument,” I muttered. By that point, we were almost at the bottom of the geological formation. I shouted to Hope over the roar of the winds. “Do you think
we can yank the Kraken out of Pegasus from here?”
“No, the distance is too great,” Hope shouted in return. “Plus, these winds will monkey with the physics.”
I turned to my teen companion. “Looks like we’re climbing,” I said.
Keri nodded. “Stay behind me,” she said, and she forged on ahead.
I grinned as I followed her. “Why do I gotta stay behind you?” I asked.
“Because I’m a demigoddess and you’re not.”
Okay, well, she had me there. In any event, Addie hadn’t noticed us yet because her back was to us and she couldn’t hear us over the howling of the wind.
“Do we even have a plan?” Hope said, barely at the level of audibility.
That jarred something loose in my head. “Can you talk to the Kraken? Telepathically? Over short distances?”
“I guess so. Why do I wanna talk to the Kraken?”
“Tell him he’s in danger. Tell him Addie lured him here under false pretenses. (Gods know what she told him.) Tell him he’s about to get a knife to the throat.”
“Okay. Hold on,” Hope replied. We were about halfway up Vasquez Rocks and we descended into silence. Finally, Hope’s voice returned. “I told him. I talked to him in pictures. Showed him Addie stabbing him.”
“What’d he say?”
“‘Die, Brony, Die!’”
“Man,” I said to Keri. “The Kraken really hates bronies.”
The teenager sighed, looking fatigued from the climb. “I’m kind of on his side,” she said.
After I noticed how tired the girl was, I suddenly felt even more tired myself. If a teenager in relatively good shape (and with divine blood) was getting fatigued, what chance did I have? I tried to push it out of my mind and trudge onward. The stitch I was getting in my side wasn’t helping.
Then, all of a sudden, the wind stopped and the area surrounding the stone formation grew quiet. The sky was overcast still, and the lack of a din made the place more ominous. I stopped (grabbing Wiener and stopping her too) and looked up.
Addie and the Kraken-slash-Pegasus were looking down at us. So much for a stealthy approach.
The weird thing was they weren’t looking down at us in a way that said they were about to unleash an attack. Adrestia’s eyes were narrowed and her muscles were tense, but she seemed content to wait until we got to the top.
We got to the top. I felt like a bucket of reheated shit, but I had to ignore that until our business was handled. “Hi,” I said. “What’re you guys up to?”
Addie held Clytemnestra’s dagger in her right hand. It caught the weird light and looked really, really deadly. “Based on the fact you’re here,” she replied. “I’d say you know what I’m up to.”
“Right, sure, of course. Does the Kraken know what you’re up to?” I asked.
“Die, Brony, die!” the Kraken replied—which was not at all helpful. (It was weird hearing the monster’s voice come out of Pegasus’ mouth. It was also weird seeing Pegasus talk exactly like Mr. Ed.)
Addie shrugged. “Now that you’re here, I don’t think it matters one way or the other. You’re gonna suck him up into your jug no matter what body he vacates. As a matter of fact, as a peace offering between us, you can go ahead and do that now if you want.”
My reaction was decisive. Like an Old West gunslinger, I brought up the pithos and unstoppered it. I ghostbustered the Kraken even before he could finish saying another pointless “Die, Brony, Die!” The job was done, and my jug was resealed in an instant. “Go, Pegasus! Go!” I shouted. Pegasus wasn’t quite reacclimatized to being himself again, but that didn’t stop him from trying to leap into the air.
Unfortunately, he didn’t make it far.
Adrestia said, “Stay, Pegasus! Stay!” and, as she said it, four glowing chains appeared. Each one stretched between one of the horse’s hooves and the top of the Rocks. The sacred animal strained against his bonds, but they were too strong. Addie raised her dagger and tried to bring it down on Pegasus’ throat. The knife was stopped midway and sparks shot off of it.
Faster than I could see, Keri had picked up the gladius I’d dropped on top of the Rocks a day or two before and used it to parry her mother’s stroke. The two women strained against one another, with neither giving ground.
“Alright, Addie,” I said. “This is bullshit and you know it. You’re just as eligible for imprisonment in the pithos as the Kraken. Don’t make me do my thing.”
Addie laughed. But she didn’t just laugh, she shot a burst of super-chilled air and encased my hands in ice. I couldn’t work the pithos. “Why would you even say that to me?” she said. “I wouldn’t say it if I were in your position. I would just do it, and I wouldn’t lose an ounce of sleep. Is that why my father preferred you to me? Because you have a moral center and I have none?”
Keri was breaking out into a sweat. “You have no moral center?” she said. “So, it won’t do me any good to point out you’re my mother and you’re acting crazy?”
Adrestia smirked. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try?”
I gotta hand it to her—Keri sounded sincere when she said, “You’re my mother and you’re acting crazy.”
Before her daughter finished speaking, Adrestia had transformed outwardly from her native appearance to her guise as Addie. “Do you know how many children I’ve had over the centuries? How many children I’ve had in the service of punishing people who’ve done me wrong? Hermes died without knowing how much of his blood was out in the world. It’s sad, really. What’s even more sad is you expecting me to have feelings toward you.”
I tried moving my hands under the ice encasing them. I couldn’t move them at all.
Keri pushed back against her mother. Hard. Some distance appeared between the two women and the teenager slashed with her sword. A gash appeared across Addie’s shoulders and chest. “What makes you think Rhene will love you?” The girl shouted. “From what I hear you’re birds of a feather, so driven by obsession you don’t know what love is.”
Adrestia dabbed her fingers in the blood above her left breast and wiped it across Clytemnestra’s dagger. “It’s not Pegasus’ blood or the Kraken’s blood, but it’s still the blood of a Greek immortal.” The dagger burst into red fire and the winds whipped up again without preamble. In less than a second, we were back in a whirlpool of oppressive sound. Above us, a miniature black hole formed and grew. Pegasus saw it and his eyes grew huge. He kicked at the air and whinnied as if Death himself were coming. As I watched, I saw a form appear in the black hole. The form of a woman, her hair blown by the wind. I could make out no details, only a silhouette. Its arms were at its sides and it raised its head slowly. I’d never seen the like of it before. I’d walked the earth for centuries and this was my first resurrection. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and on my arms. This was a violation and it needed to be stopped.
Keri was the one who stopped it.
The girl did a series of actions that, I’ll be frank, reminded me of myself in my younger days. Quickly and cleanly, threw a bolt of super-heated air my way and melted the ice around my hands. Then she dropped the gladius, drove forward, turned Addie’s hands in and slid Clytemnestra’s dagger through her own mother’s heart. Adrestia made a gurgle and then fell back.
The black hole still turned around itself. The silhouette took on a more tangible form. I couldn’t allow it to continue birthing itself. I pointed the pithos, yanked off the lid and sucked it in. Quickly and cleanly.
Then I turned and yanked Addie’s spirit out of her body so that it wouldn’t linger, find new flesh and cause further mischief. With its animating spark gone, the body went white and slid to the ground.
Keri was left holding the dagger.
The wind dropped away, and it went from being scary-cloudy to just cloudy-cloudy. Both Keri and I sat down on little boulders, nearly spent. Pegasus was free of his chains and he nudged each of with his nose to make sure we were okay. I gotta say, as horses go, he was good people.
“You know,” Keri said at last. “That wasn’t especially satisfying.”
“What do you mean?” I had a feeling the girl was badly conflicted what with murdering her own mother, but I didn’t want to lead the witness.
“I mean like end-of-the-movie satisfying. Like when the Avengers beat Loki and they’re tired, but there’s a feeling of closure and accomplishment. I don’t have that.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised. What happened here was a little more complicated than an Avengers movie. Mostly because, in this case, Loki was your own mother.”
She looked over at me. Her face was dirty and her expression ambiguous. “Can you tell me what I’m supposed to feel?”
I shook my head. “Fuck no. I wouldn’t presume.”
She nodded, looked down at her feet and then began to cry. Softly at first, but then with wracking sobs. I went over to her, scootched her over and took her in my arms.
We sat like that for a long time.
We were out in the middle of nowhere, sitting on top of a big funky rock, but we had one thing going for us. We had us a Pegasus. Before midday, we decided it was time to get back to Acadine. To let Elijah and the others know we were okay.
Once we’d been airborne for a minute or two, Keri noticed something I hadn’t. “Huh,” she said.
“What?”
“The golden bridle is gone. He’s letting you ride him without your magic doodad.”
I smiled, taking the detail in. “Huh,” I said. “I don’t mind telling you: That makes me proud."
We landed in the paddock at Acadine and slid wearily off of Pegasus’ back. Obviously, time had passed and not everyone was outside still. Most of our friends and new acquaintances came out of the buildings as soon as we arrived. The bronies came out of the farmhouse with Elijah at the front. When he saw his daughter, his face melted, and tears streamed down his face. The girl ran off toward El. He scooped her up into his arms and held her for a long time. The other bronies kept a respectful distance but all of them looked relieved.
