“Drop the knife and kneel or I will declare war on Troy,” Minos said evenly. “I will execute your brother, burn your father’s grubby little city to the ground, and chain your mother at my feet for a handmaiden. And I’ll leave you alive to watch it all.”
Ganymede’s fingers clutched the leather hilt of his knife even tighter. Minos was bluffing. He had to be. He wouldn’t declare war over a single person, would he? It was too idiotic, too fucking stupid.
“You’re making history, boy,” Minos said, his hand resting on the head of a wet dog. “Thousands of Trojans will live or die, depending on what you do in the next few seconds, and they don’t even know it. They’re living their small, insignificant lives, eating meals and washing clothes and raising children, completely unaware that you are about to decide their fates. What’s it to be, my pretty prince? I will count to three before I declare war. One … two …”
Ganymede dropped the knife and fell to one knee. He kept his eyes down, partly because he couldn’t stand to look at Minos and partly because he didn’t want Minos to see his face. The gods had abandoned him. Ganymede wanted to scream and cry and run and hurl all at once. The dog bite on his arm and the blow to his head began to hurt. His shin ached where he had banged it on the rock.
A hand landed on his shoulder. Ganymede took a shaky breath that turned into a terrified gasp as a sword blade touched to his throat with a lover’s delicate care.
“I’m still going to mark you,” Minos said in a cold voice. “Stand up. Keep your hands outward.”
Ganymede obeyed. He didn’t think his heart could pound any harder. The sword pressed against his throat and he backed up an involuntary step. Minos moved forward and Ganymede backed up again. He found himself against the rough bark of the oak tree. Nowhere else to go. The rain had almost stopped. Minos faced him over the sword blade. Water dripped from his hair and nose.
“Here’s a last lesson in diplomacy, boy,” Minos hissed. “No one defies Minos and lives. I’m going to use you, then I’m going to kill you and throw your body down that cliff. Poor Ganymede—dead in a hunting accident.”
The words turned Ganymede cold. All fear left him. He didn’t think. He just reacted. He brought his knee up and caught Minos in the balls. Minos made a choking noise and his sword jerked. It sliced Ganymede’s neck, but only a little. Ganymede twisted away and knocked the weapon out of Minos’s hand, but Minos recovered faster than Ganymede would have thought possible. In a flash, he had his hands around Ganymede’s throat. All the air vanished from the world. A small part of him was aware that the hair on his arms and the back of his neck was standing up, and the faint breeze felt choked and heavy. He tried to break free, but Minos was too strong. He tried another kick, but Minos easily dodged. The dogs barked, excited at the new game their master was playing.
“Little fucker!” Minos snarled. Spittle flew from his mouth and spattered Ganymede’s face. The universe grew dim around the edges, and Ganymede wanted nothing more than a single breath, a spoonful of air. “I’ll watch the birds feast on your dead eyes! I’ll cut off your balls and fry them for breakfast! I’ll slice—”
The biggest lightning bolt in whole damn world struck the oak tree and split it in half. The explosion knocked Minos and Ganymede apart. The noise smashed through Ganymede’s head like the end of time, then left everything completely silent. He couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat. He lay gasping on the grass, barely aware that Minos had gone tumbling down the gentle side of the hill. The dogs lay stunned not far from Ganymede.
Ganymede got to hands and knees, amazed he was still alive. At least he could breathe again. He stared down at his hands, looking at the half moons of his fingernails. A cut scored the back of one hand and blood oozed like a fresh signature. Where had he picked that up? The world was still completely silent. He moved his left hand in a sort of trance, and the grass didn’t rustle beneath his palm. He snapped his fingers and felt the resistance but heard nothing. Heavy smells of ozone and burned wood hung on the air.
One of the dogs staggered to its feet and walked around like it was drunk. It shook its head and Ganymede saw its ears flop, but it made no noise. Ganymede clapped his hands. No sound. He got to his feet, weaving slightly, and touched his ears. His fingers came away streaked with blood. Far below at the bottom of the slope, Minos lay unmoving. Was he dead? Ganymede was too dazed to care. The other dog rose. Its mouth moved in a bark, but Ganymede couldn’t hear it.
And then in the distance, he saw a black speck in the white clouds. The speck rushed closer, moving like a shooting star, except it was black on white instead of white on black. It was an eagle. As Ganymede stared, the eagle rushed closer. It was big, bigger than any eagle had a right to be. It was the size of a horse, a cart, a cottage. And it was diving straight for Ganymede.
Ganymede couldn’t understand what was happening. After everything else that had happened, this was too strange, too bizarre to take in. The lightning bolt must have knocked him stupid. So he just stood there, mouth open like a slack-jawed yokel as the huge brown eagle plunged toward him. He could see its talons, even smell the feathers. Its shadow blotted out the sky. Ganymede threw up his hands and shouted, but he couldn’t hear himself.
He felt an abrupt wrench and his feet left the ground. Wind tore through his hair. Two sets of impossibly huge talons firmly gripped his shoulders, and feathers brushed the top of his head. The grass receded, and on the ground far below, he saw the dogs barking silently at the sky.
BOOK 8
PART IV
I got paranoid in Aquapura. It’s a medium-sized town on the eastern side of Florida, a ways north of Fort Lauderdale. I know all this because I looked at a map on the wall of the bus station. It took us another 24 fucking hours to get this far from Dumpster Denny’s in West Virginia. We went through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and finally crossed into Florida. In a podunky place called Minerva Sands, a cop hopped on the bus just as we were about to pull out of the station. I about had a heart attack. But he just showed everyone a picture of some loser, asking if we’d seen him. I glanced at the picture and shook my head. So did Eryx.
After the cop left, though, I started thinking. I left my bike at the bus station. I sort of hid it, but if anyone really looked for it, they’d find it. Eryx must’ve ridden his bike there, too, and I don’t know if he bothered to hide his. I never asked. And it wouldn’t be a big stretch for anyone who was looking for us to think of checking the bus station. The ticket lady might remember me and Eryx and she might tell them that we bought tickets for Miami. A couple of phone calls, and yoink! Me and Eryx get hoiked from our seats and hauled back to Michigan for a life of fucking servitude—or maybe it’s a life of servitude fucking.
Wow, look at that—I can make jokes about it.
Anyway, the longer we stayed on the bus, the more nervous I got. When we pulled into Aquapura, the bus passed a cop car, and suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. I told Eryx what I was thinking.
“We don’t need to go all the way to Miami,” I said. “Let’s get off here, now. It’ll throw them off our trail, especially if they don’t start looking for us until after the bus hits Miami.”
“Smart idea,” he said, and we were off the bus before the doors had completely opened. We ran from the station, packs bouncing on our backs. I didn’t know where to run to, so I turned random corners until my lungs tried to climb into my brain and I had to stop.
It was early evening, and the sun was going down. Shadows from the buildings made dark, distorted boxes in the street. The air was hot and still, as if the sky was holding its nose. We were on a street of shops and stuff, but a lot of them were boarded up. Even the surviving shops were closed for the day. Most had those metal gates pulled across the doors like iron warnings. When I was little, I used to think they were electrified and would kill you if you touched them.
No people on the street except us. A few cars passed. No cops in sight. Sweat made my T-shirt stick to my
skin underneath my backpack. I took my pack off to let some air circulate, and my stomach growled. It seemed like I was always hungry. Before, I could get food just about whenever I wanted it. Shit, I was surrounded by it. There was food in the refrigerator, food in the cupboards, food in my room, food in the school cafeteria, food in my locker, and food at the other end of a phone line, but I can’t count the number of times I stared at all that wonderful, filling food and shouted, “Mom! There’s nothing to eat!”
The food was everywhere, which made it invisible. Now that I don’t have any, I see it everywhere. The skeletal bus driver unwraps a smooth, chocolate-coated candy bar, eats it like he’s giving someone a blowjob, then dreamily unwraps a second one. Passengers bring Subway sandwiches onto the bus and devour them with grease and mayonnaise running down their chins. People with big asses lumber out of Mickey D’s sucking down milk shakes and dropping fries on the sidewalk like Hansel’s trail of crumbs. A little kid starts in on ice cream cones the size of a baby’s head and can’t finish it, so his mother tosses it melting into a sidewalk wastebasket. And in the middle of all this bounty, Eryx and I have to dive into trash bins, hoping to find something that isn’t too gross. The warm weather makes it harder because stuff spoils faster. I don’t feel sorry any more for that fat guy I saw.
“We won’t find anything to eat here,” Eryx said, and I knew that he thought a lot about food, too. “Come on.”
We wandered around for a while, exploring Aquapura. It kind of reminds me of Lake Trick. There are lots of motels and cottage courts and souvenir stores and craft shops (“crap shops” Mom always calls them) and shit like that. The place is run-down, though. A whole lot of everything is closed. Weeds grow through cracks in parking lots, and a weird-looking ivy covers some of the buildings, turning them into jungle boxes. Eryx says it’s kudzu. I’ve heard of it but never seen it. Same goes for palm trees—I’ve never seen them for real in Michigan, but down here they grow all over. In my mind, only rich people live with palm trees, but here I am living homeless among them.
Anyway, Aquapura feels half abandoned. The bad economy, I guess. Lake Trick’s like that, too. Uncle Zack always said when people lose their jobs—or think they might lose their jobs—the first thing to go is the family vacation.
We found a clump of restaurants and cafes. Food smells made both of us hungrier, but we couldn’t find anything to eat. Some of the bins didn’t have anything edible in them, and Eryx said he could tell someone had already gone through them. Some of the bins were locked, and Eryx said some places did this to keep animals—or people—out. And some of the bins were so disgusting that we didn’t want to touch them, let alone eat what might be inside. We weren’t that hungry yet.
The shadows got longer and darker. I felt like a rat slinking through the alleys, always watching out for cats and bigger rats. We emerged onto the cracked streets, still hungry. Everything was closed now. We didn’t even see a grocery store.
“We need to find a place to sleep,” Eryx said.
I could smell salt water, or what I figured salt water smelled like, and I thought about how cool it would be to sleep on the beach. Trouble was, I couldn’t figure out what direction the sea smell was coming from. Neither could Eryx, and there was no one around to ask. By now, it was almost completely dark. A few mercury lamps came on, dropping unnatural pale pools onto an ocean of black ink. The air felt heavy and dense. My stomach growled, and I tried to ignore it as something I’d have to get used to.
“This way,” I said, picking a direction at random.
We walked in a straight line, and eventually passed a little church. Behind it was a little graveyard surrounded by a low wrought-iron fence.
“Perfect!” Eryx said. “Come on.”
He grabbed my arm and towed me toward the graveyard. I balked like a baseball pitcher having a bad day.
“You’re shitting me, right?” I said. “You want to sleep in a graveyard?”
“It’s quiet, no one will bug us, and there’s lots of cover in case a cop drives by,” Eryx replied reasonably. “You don’t really believe in ghosts and vampires, do you?”
“No.” The word came out slowly, on the end of a long piece of string. “It’s just … I’m not …”
“What?” Eryx said.
“What if it rains?” I said, sounding more desperate than I wanted to.
“Look, we don’t have a lot of choice right now. We don’t know the town yet, and we can’t hunt for a better place when it’s dark like this. If cops see us wandering around, they might ask questions. Let’s go.”
He leaped the fence and landed in a silent crouch on the other side. I sort of caught my breath. Eryx can really move. He has this special kind of … grace. I don’t know how else to put it. Every muscle is under his control, every move is on purpose. Crisp. It wasn’t something I’d noticed before. Or admired.
I followed him over the fence, but more slowly. I don’t really believe in ghosts and vampires and zombies. I don’t. Except it’s a lot harder to tell myself this when I’m not in a creepy dark cemetery, walking over old graves and leaving footprints on fresh ones. Eryx was fearless. He made straight for a little stone building the size of a toolshed in the middle of the graveyard. It was slow going. The moon wasn’t much help, and trees leaned inward, trying to block out its light. I whanged myself good on a couple of tombstones. The whole time I kept telling myself nothing was going to jump out—or up—and bite my neck.
Eryx disappeared around the corner of the building, and I realized we were sneaking around a mausoleum. How many dead people were stacked inside it? I didn’t want to know.
“Eryx!” I whisper-shouted. “Eryx! Wait up!” I hurried around the corner after him.
Two cold hands grabbed my shoulders and a terrible creature roared in my face. I whimpered and almost wet myself. My knees went weak. My insides loosened into jello. Then the creature started laughing. A split second passed, and I realized the creature was just Eryx. He collapsed to the ground, holding his stomach.
“Oh my god!” he gasped. “Oh shit! You looked ready to die!”
I recovered as fast as I could and put a sneer in my voice, but I knew my face was pale as a terrified full moon. “You fuckwad. You are so fucking dead.”
He wiped tears from his face. “Oh man. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’d be lying.”
I sat down beside him and thumped him on the arm, more for form’s sake than anything else while I got my heart started again. “Fuckwad.” At least the graveyard didn’t seem so scary anymore. “You tired?”
He sobered up a little. “Sort of. I’m also all wound up, you know?”
“Yeah. Me too.” I paused. “You think they’re looking for us?”
Eryx shrugged, then split his head with a yawn. “No fucking clue. I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? They aren’t going to find us. Ever.”
For some reason, those words brought everything crashing down around me. Home was gone. Mom was gone. My life was gone. I would never see any of it ever again. My throat started to close up and I felt my eyes fill with warm water. I think Eryx noticed because he said, “Shit, I gotta take a leak. Be right back.”
He vanished around the corner of the mausoleum and I sat there in the darkness. Crickets chirped and other insects I couldn’t identify made weird noises of their own. In the distance I heard the ocean grumble to itself. Graveyard grass tickled my ankles. And yeah, I was crying. I sat there with my back against cold, uncaring stone, my knees pulled up under my chin, and I fucking cried. I felt like an asshole for it, but I couldn’t hold it in, and then I realized I’d been holding it in ever since Mom slapped me in the Moose Place, and that made it even worse. I cried until my nose ran.
After a while, I took some deep breaths and wiped my eyes with my fingers, but Eryx didn’t come back. Now I was getting worried, so I got up, edged to the corner of the mausoleum, and peeked around it, ready for Eryx to jump out and scare me again.
Eryx was sitting on
the ground a few feet away, back against cold, uncaring stone, his knees pulled up under his chin. And he was fucking crying.
Then I felt something weird. It still feels weird, even when all I’m doing is writing about it, dropping it on paper for the water to swallow. Here it is:
I kind of wanted to run to Eryx and put my arms around him and stroke his golden hair and tell him everything was going to be okay.
That was weird enough, but then I felt angry that he was crying. Not angry at him, but angry at all the shit that had happened to make him cry. And then I felt like crying again because he was crying. I started to move toward him, then stopped, hovering like a vampire held off by a crucifix. If Eryx had wanted me there, he would have asked for me. I snuck back to my original place and let him cry in solitude like he had done for me. I sniffled a little, too.
So there we were, a couple of emos, bawling our fucking heads off, separated by darkness and a rocky corner that I refused to turn.
After a long time, Eryx came back. I looked up at him and pretended to be irritated. “Were you leaking or dumping, dude?”
“Walking,” Eryx lied. And here’s the thing. I knew he was lying. And he knew I knew he was lying. But we were good with that. I yawned hard, suddenly exhausted. The air was still warm as bathwater.
“I’m gonna conk,” I said. “I’m wiped.”
“Same,” Eryx said.
We both curled up on the tickly grass behind the mausoleum, using our backpacks as lumpy pillows. I was still hungry, but now I was too tired to care, and it didn’t take long to fall asleep.
A soft noise pulled me awake. I didn’t shoot upright or anything. Sleep still wrapped my brain in partial fog, and I just cracked my eyes open a little. The moon had cleared the trees, pouring liquid silver all over the back of the mausoleum, and bright as day I saw Eryx lying on his back on the grass next to me. He was squirming a little and breathing funny. His breathing was the sound that had woken me up. I looked at him through half-open eyes, and it finally got through my heavy head that Eryx was beating off.
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