“She was never like that to me. She was always sweet and kind.”
“Of course she was. You’re a boy.”
“And you’re not?”
Athena snorted. He was right. There was no reason for Aphrodite to dislike her. She wasn’t beautiful like Aphrodite, and she didn’t fall in love. There should’ve been no contention between them. But they’d disliked one another anyway. Even before the debacle with the damned golden apple.
“She told me once that she could make me fall in love with the Minotaur if she wanted.” Athena smiled, thinking back to that day, when some slight too small to remember had brought them nose to nose yet again. “She said I’d have ugly little Minotaur babies and suckle them at my breast. Then she’d looked at my bronze breastplate and said the poor things would probably starve.” And then she’d gone, in a flash of gold gauze and white skirts. She could say awful, childish things, but no one thought less of her. Certainly not any of the gods. Even Hera would go to Aphrodite when she needed something beautiful.
But I wouldn’t. Her ways were never my ways.
“See, now that sounds more like her. Petty and pouty, but harmless.” Hermes grinned. “I mean, you never did have little Minotaur babies, did you?” He laughed at the look on her face. “When you said Aphrodite was with them, I thought she’d only be along for the ride. That she went to Hera for shelter, because she was afraid.”
“I’m sure she is afraid. Like you were afraid.”
Hermes looked away, but she hadn’t meant to shame him. They were all afraid in varying degrees.
“I wasn’t sure I’d find you here. I thought you might hide the witches and go. Or maybe…” She shook her head.
“Maybe join up with Stepmommy and Uncle?” Hermes’ smile faded fast. “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind. But after what she did to Circe’s coven…” His hands tightened around the pillow on his lap. “I don’t have a lot of loyalty to mortals anymore. But they were our people. Or as close to it as we’ve got. And she killed them. I want to live forever, but not as a monster.”
Athena smiled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Right, right, right. But enough about my temporary cowardice. If you’re sure it was Aphrodite, then I believe you.”
“I’m sure. The boy she sent was mad for her. She wanted me out of the way and Odysseus brought to them.”
Hermes nodded toward the bathroom and the running shower. “What do they want with him, anyway?”
“It’s just like before. He knows where their weapon is. They’re looking for Achilles.”
“Achilles, huh?” Hermes said with a lift of his eyebrows. He took in the information somberly, which was difficult. His entire existence had been apathetic and light. Now everything was a long struggle. Sometimes Athena could see him fight to keep his shoulders still, to keep from trying to shrug the gravity off.
“Well?” Athena asked. “You’re thinking something.”
Beside her, the bathroom door opened and Odysseus walked out without a shirt on. He tossed his towel underneath the sink and carried his bag to the bed, rifling through it for something to wear.
“Thinking something about what?” he asked. The gauze on his back and neck had been removed; large, puckered scabs disturbed the skin near his shoulder and down his spine. Circe’s witches had healed him well, after the Cyclops attack. The scabs were a lot smaller than they could have been and there was no infection. But he would still carry the scars for the rest of his life.
Athena’s eyes moved over the cuts with strange regret. They were no worse than the spear wounds he had taken in Troy. But in her mind they were a portent; she saw them widening, cracking open and bearing him down to the ground. They were a taste of what was to come, and she would survive just long enough to see him torn apart and dragged to Hades. When Odysseus looked back, she turned away.
That’s my imagination. It’s my fear playing tricks. Odysseus always finds ways to survive.
She put her hand to her head. It was cloudy with stupid shit and she needed to focus. The prophetess, the girl they sought, was only miles away now, and Athena couldn’t even begin to remember where she’d tossed her game face.
Hermes sucked on his cheeks.
“I’m thinking the Fates have a hand in this,” he said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they’re looking for Achilles,” Hermes reasoned. “And we just found Hector. At least I think so. Why don’t you hit the showers and then I’ll tell you everything.”
* * *
Hector. He was Cassandra’s brother, the crown prince of Troy, who would have become king had Athena and Hera not helped the Greeks to raze his city to the ground. He was Troy’s greatest hero, the only one who could stand against Achilles for more than two minutes. Of course, in the end, Achilles had been greater. Hector was outlasted and ended up with a spear through his chest and his body desecrated, dragged behind the wheels of Achilles’ chariot.
Athena reached up and cut through the vapor on the bathroom mirror. Her eyes stared back at her in the streak of silver.
I’m the one who lured him onto the battlefield that day. It was me who lied to him, who convinced him to face that madman. He never had a chance. I destroyed their world and now I’m going to ask them to save mine.
But that wasn’t quite right either. She wasn’t going to ask them. She was going to make them, whether they liked it or not.
She rolled her tongue against the roof of her mouth, which was already mostly healed. It hadn’t turned into a sore after all. She felt only slight relief. More feathers would come. They would keep coming, until they filled up her lungs or twisted into her heart. They wouldn’t stop until they killed her. It would be the end of a goddess. The end of a monster.
The mirror fogged up again, slowly blotting out her face. She pulled a dark gray t-shirt over her head, some designer thing with black swirling from the shoulder to the hip. Toweling her hair dry, she still saw traces of the purple she had dyed into it a year earlier. She was the commander of the apocalypse, and she had purple streaks growing out in her hair.
Her eyes blinked hard. There was no time for a bitching and moaning identity crisis, no matter how well deserved. She pulled open the bathroom door and walked out into the room, where Hermes and Odysseus were watching a rebroadcast of Spartacus on Starz. They were stretched out, one on each of the double beds, their hands behind their heads. When she came in, Hermes reluctantly turned the TV off.
“The witches are all right?” she asked.
“Hidden safe as houses,” he replied. He flashed a winning smile. He was covering something up.
“What is it?” Athena asked.
“You’re going to be pissed,” Hermes said. “But trust me, you’re lucky that I did it.”
“Did what? You did something? I told you not to do anything until we got here.” Her voice rose, and she talked more and more, aware that she was only filling space, trying to delay his delivery of yet another hiccup in their plans, another complication, another setback.
“Apollo is here.”
The room went silent. Hermes and Odysseus waited, tense, for her reaction.
Apollo. Their half brother. God of the sun, god of prophecy. He’d fought against them in the Trojan War, but he was strong and smart. And unless something had changed drastically, he would never bow to Hera.
“Good,” she said.
“Not exactly,” said Hermes. “He’s here protecting Cassandra. Apparently, from us.” He let the rest of the story fall out of his mouth in a jumble, making sure to emphasize the fact that Apollo had tried to dye the cellar floor red with his innards. As he spoke Athena’s eyes turned darker and darker.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked.
“Yes, but—”
Hermes and Odysseus exchanged looks and grabbed their jackets. They bolted through the door of the motel room after Athena, who was already halfway down the sidewalk.
* * *
Keep it together. He feels guilty enough as it is.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not.” He kept his hands forcibly in his pockets. “I wish there was more time. Or something else we could do.”
“I know.” It wasn’t easy for him, either. She’d seen the deep breath he took before they left his house. One last breath of the Tide that clung to his blankets and clothes, the rose hip potpourri that Gloria put in bowls all over the upstairs.
“I should’ve left a different note.” He’d left it under the glass of bamboo shoots in the middle of the kitchen table. Gloria would see it as soon as she came home. And her son would be gone. Cassandra slipped her hand through his arm, rested her chin on his shoulder.
“They’re your parents. They’ll understand.” But they won’t. Because they won’t really know. No more than mine will.
“It didn’t say anything I wanted to say. It didn’t even say good-bye. It just said lies.”
“I know.” And she was sorry that she’d ever thought they weren’t really his parents. “We’ll come back someday and explain.” She rested her head against him. “Don’t we have to believe that?”
“Yeah. We do.”
They walked slowly through a light mist that threatened to turn into light snow. Cassandra looked out through the trees. She’d come this way so many times. The deadfall stretched out on their left, a long, downhill path of grass where a tornado had gone through years before. It cut through the middle of the forest and no one had bothered to clear it, so the bones of downed trees lay across the ground, grown over with moss, fallen over at various angles. Cassandra always thought it looked too precise. Almost deliberate. But it was strangely beautiful. Another thing about Kincade to miss.
“Wait.” Aidan stopped and put his hand over hers.
“What?” He didn’t answer, but his grip tightened. Goose bumps worked their way up the back of her neck.
“Aidan, what is it?” He stared down into the deadfall and she followed his gaze. An owl sat quietly on a low branch. Another sat in the tree beside it. And another in the one after that.
Owls in the daytime. Shouldn’t they be asleep?
She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the feathers of the first owl began to seethe. Blood showed beneath the down, between the quills, and the bird started to shed feathers and skin in a grotesque waterfall.
Cassandra shut her eyes tight. When she opened them again, the owl was just an owl. Healthy, watching her with wide yellow eyes.
“Aidan?”
“She’s here. And Hermes is with her. There’s no point running.”
* * *
The clearing flickered into view, the fallen trunks sketched across the ground like long hash marks in the mostly dead grass. Apollo and Cassandra stood on the other side, as if by magic, as if they’d been waiting. Athena put a cautious hand over Odysseus’ chest.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t run headfirst into anything.”
Athena took a deep breath, trying very hard not to be annoyed with Apollo before he even opened his mouth. It felt something like a snake trying to swallow an egg.
When she reached the tree line she walked past it without pausing, and her legs struck the cold earth confident and fast. Just fast enough to be threatening, to see whether he would twitch or give ground.
He didn’t. He stood silent, his hands balled into fists at his sides, wearing jeans and a navy blue hooded sweatshirt. The hood covered most of his hair, but it was still visible across his forehead, bright gold. Steel blue eyes regarded her without blinking.
Athena almost smiled. Did they all look so handsome at first sight? She didn’t think so. It was just him, beautiful even by a god’s standards, forever the lord of the sun. He was apprehensive; she could see that in the way he stood, tense and ready for anything. But he was confident too. He thought he had the edge.
They were almost close enough to shake hands. In the electricity of the moment, the slight form of Cassandra was almost forgotten, behind and a few steps back.
Athena shifted her weight onto her hip.
“Apollo.”
“It’s Aidan now.”
She snorted. “No, it isn’t. And it never will be, no matter how many years you spend playing human house.”
His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t how she’d meant to start things. Confrontation was counterproductive, but angry words backed up in her throat. What was he doing here? Why was he, one of her favorite brothers, standing in her way?
Aidan took a deep breath. “Still the same, Athena, after all this time. Guess it was too much to hope that a few thousand years would’ve humanized you a little.” His eyes flickered to her jeans, to her tattoos. She lifted her wrist to give him a better view.
“They’re just costumes we wear. Like that sweatshirt of yours.” She raised her chin. “Take off that hood. You look like a punk.”
He smiled and shook his head, but he pushed it back. “Better?”
“It’s a start.”
“I hear you’re dying,” he said. “I can see what’s happening to him”—he nodded toward Hermes, several feet behind her with Odysseus—“but what’s your story?”
Athena glanced at the owls sitting all around them in the trees. Two more drifted in while they spoke.
“The owls. Their feathers. Choking me, worming through my guts.” She shrugged. “What about you?”
He smiled. It was a smile of triumph. Her knee moved to take a step, whether forward or back she didn’t know. She wanted to touch his face. She wanted to inspect him. She wanted to tear a branch off of one of the fallen trees and beat him until the blood flew.
“He’s not dying.” Athena felt Hermes and Odysseus move closer, crowding against her back for a better view.
It could be a bluff.
But it wasn’t. Apollo was perfect, unblemished. She looked him over carefully, assessing him like a horse. How was it possible? How had he escaped? And then the darker questions: Could it be duplicated? Could it be taken from him?
“I know why you’re here,” he said. “And the answer is no. So I want you to go, before you bring worse trouble.”
“Worse trouble?” Athena studied him. He was no natural-born liar. His eyes told her everything in the space of a second. “You’ve been hermit-crabbing in the mortal world for too long. You don’t know anything.”
Certainly not as much as he wanted her to think he did. He knew they were dying. He knew she wanted Cassandra.
But he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know about Poseidon, or Hera, or Aphrodite. He probably doesn’t even know about the war.
“Brother. The worse trouble will come knocking, with or without me.”
“I said no, Athena.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You don’t get to say no.” She looked at Cassandra. “And neither does she.”
At the mention of her, he stepped in front of Cassandra, blocking her from view, and stared at Athena, hard as nails.
“Neither one of us is going to give,” he said.
Athena smiled, but didn’t mean it. She knew what was going to happen.
I don’t want to hurt you. She looked at his shoulders, at the strength of his arms. And I’d rather you not hurt me.
“I suppose compromise, for a god, is a very dirty word.”
“Cassandra,” he said softly. “Run home.”
His attack was fast enough to impress even Hermes. He sprang without thinking, without tensing, without giving any clues, and the lunge caught her by surprise. He plowed into her rib cage and threw both of them halfway down the deadfall before Hermes and Odysseus even had time to shout.
When th
ey struck the ground, he broke away and rolled quickly onto his feet.
Athena was up a second later. She was getting tired of acts of desperation. It felt like they were all they had left.
“What are you trying to do? Do you really think you can beat me? You never could before.”
He bared his teeth. “That was before you started spitting up owl pellets.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I don’t want to. Just turn around and go.”
“I can’t. Cassandra is the key.”
“The key to what? She doesn’t have anything you can use. She can call a coin and tell you the weather.”
“You’re lying again. You really suck at it.”
“She’s just an ordinary girl.”
“Never. She’s a prophet. Thanks to you.”
He lunged, but this time she was ready; her hands caught hold of his head and twisted him around. He was no human, and no Nereid; his neck was strong and close to unbreakable. But she did manage to pull him off balance and brought a knee up into his back. She felt his grimace between her palms before he jerked loose.
Up the deadfall, Hermes and Odysseus moved closer, and Cassandra moved beside them like they’d forgotten all about one another. Athena took a deep breath, careful not to wince. A swelling bruise had already bloomed up around her ribs from their trip down the trees. When Apollo circled, she backed off. There was something in his eyes she didn’t like.
“How far are you willing to take this?” she asked.
“Until you go, or one of us is in pieces.”
She frowned. Dying was one thing. Spending the rest of her time alive with her legs and torso in different time zones was another.
He charged again and reached into the grass for a large stone. It struck the top right side of her head with a sickening, dull crack, and hot blood flowed into her hair. She fell to the ground.
She heard Odysseus scream and Hermes yell at him to stay back, but she couldn’t reply. She lay frozen with shock, watching the rock rise and fall, feeling it strike with sharp thuds against her skull.
He’s killing me.
Odysseus would see her head crushed into the grass, unrecognizable. Just a wet, red mess.
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