She started describing the crime scene and the attack in the park. The more she told him, the faster his hands worked. By the time she described the flying man calling his leader “Pater,” the Smith had finished his basketball-sized sphere. He grabbed a pencil-width rod of aluminum from a cubby and bent it into the shape of a small arrow. Before she could finish her story, Flint stuck the metal rod onto the top of his orb and held it up for her. The entire structure now formed a circle with an arrow on top. She stared uncomprehending for a moment before its import finally sank in: the universal sign for “male.” More important, the astronomical symbol for the planet named for the bloodthirstiest and most untrustworthy god in the entire pantheon: Mars.
“Oh.” She felt a sudden tingling of dread as the clues coalesced. Mars, the God of War, was arrogant enough to conduct a sacrifice outdoors in the middle of Wall Street; he’d slain the dog with all the sadistic brutality he was best known for; and one of his attributes was a poisonous serpent. The god she’d known first as Ares—before he’d adopted his Latin name amid the slavish devotion of the Roman legions—had no loyalty, no honor. Hephaestus was his brother, yet he’d stolen Aphrodite from him without a shred of compunction.
Selene could still remember the look of agonized betrayal on the Smith’s face as he watched his wife and her lover struggling to escape the golden net he’d fashioned to trap them in their illicit union. Aphrodite had buried her face in her hands, humiliation flushing her naked skin a brilliant red. But Ares roared his defiance. The sculpted muscles of his body strained in vain against threads of gold as thin as spider’s silk and stronger than iron. His parents, mighty Zeus and terrible Hera, stared down at him with disgust. But Ares merely cursed his brother, his father, even his mother, for not giving him what he wanted. How dare they let the most beautiful goddess in the universe marry a cripple, when he, boldest and bravest of the gods, deserved her more? “I’ll kill you all if I get the chance,” he’d cried, reaching through the net for his spear. With an angry gesture from Hephaestus, the threads of gold tightened around Ares’ bulging forearm, threatening to slice it from his body. Ares screamed, his voice like the blaring of war horns. “I’m the Man-Slayer, but I could be the God-Slayer if I wished!” Madness filled his rolling eyes, and even Aphrodite looked away in fear.
While the other Olympians cowered, Artemis, the Virgin Huntress, had laughed. “I’d put a golden arrow through your heart the moment you tried.”
She no longer felt so confident. Mars, she suspected, maintained much of his divine strength. War was the one constant in mankind’s existence—and the conflicts of the modern age had grown only larger and bloodier. He would grow stronger right alongside.
“Are you sure it’s him?” she asked Flint, desperately hoping he was wrong.
Without warning, the Smith hurled the ball across the room with a grunt; it bounced off a bank of computers and rolled back toward him. Then he grabbed a large pipe wrench off the workbench and raised it over his head. Selene covered her head with her hands as he slammed the tool into the ground, opening a great hole in the floor. She dared not raise a hand to stop him—he might have faded, but his legendary strength still matched her own. She backed up, looking toward the exit.
Then, as suddenly as it began, Flint’s wrath subsided. He fell awkwardly against the side of his workbench and dropped the wrench. His cheeks burned above the thicket of his beard.
“Mars isn’t here, you know,” she said. “Who the hell are you so angry at?”
His voice was a low rumble of anger. “Myself.”
“You told your brother about the power of sacrificing a god?”
He glared at her. “Of course not. My wife did.” He spat out the word as if it were too bitter to swallow.
“And who told her?” Selene demanded. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Erotic Love, ranked high on her very short list of reasons to be thankful for the Diaspora. The thought of her throaty chuckle and creamy skin made Selene nauseous all over again.
Flint pulled a metal crate down from a shelf and started filling it with various tools and electronics—most of which she couldn’t begin to identify. Some looked purely utilitarian; others were covered in intricate Bronze Age engraving, shaped into graceful art deco curves, or crafted from delicate Victorian clockwork. “I didn’t tell her. But she’s …” He tossed dozens of neat coils of wire and tubing into his crate.
“She’s what? Irresistible? Is that what you were going to say?”
“She gets what she wants,” he said shortly.
Selene wanted to scream at him about the frailties of men. To punish him for betraying her trust. But something about the ferocity of his scowl made her think he was already punishing himself enough. She picked up her bow and slung it over her shoulder, turning to go.
“I’m not done packing,” Flint rumbled, loading his overflowing crate into a larger trunk.
“Don’t bother,” she said shortly.
“The Man-Slayer is Hera’s son,” the Smith went on, pulling down a second crate. “He inherited all her worst qualities: jealousy, fury, arrogance, capriciousness. To confront him, you’ll need me.”
Selene bristled. Yet another man in my life telling me that I need him, she thought. Great. But could she face the Man-Slayer alone? It would be foolish not to accept any help the Smith was willing to give. So she said nothing, merely watched him add a series of smaller boxes to his crate. Then, with what seemed an unnecessary amount of force, he unfastened his space-age titanium leg braces, lashed them to the trunk, and picked up a pair of simple aluminum crutches.
He’s the “Lame One,” she remembered. Just as I cling to virginity, he must remain crippled to hang on to some semblance of his divinity. But at least I got to pick my own attributes—he had no choice at all. Yet now, she realized, they were both hobbled by the very traits that defined them.
The Smith walked haltingly across the room to retrieve the wire orb he’d made. With a single calm gesture, he bent the “male” arrow straight, then folded it into a carrying handle. Now, instead of a Mars symbol, it was just a basket. “I don’t know where my brother is now, and neither will Dash,” he said, his voice dark. “But I know who does.”
He tossed a last roll of copper tubing into his trunk more violently than was strictly necessary. He’s going to call Aphrodite, Selene thought with a barely stifled groan. Hard enough dealing with the gods in her life. The goddesses were even more complex. “Do what you have to,” she said with a sigh.
Flint looked up, surprised. “I always do.”
He opened the furnace door and pulled out the rabbit, its skin perfectly crisped. Selene nearly drooled at the odor of sizzling fat. Flint placed the rabbit in the spherical wire basket and handed it to her.
“For the road,” he said.
Then, for the first time since she’d entered his domain, the hint of a smile cracked his grizzled beard. And Selene, to her surprise, found herself smiling back.
Introduction to Classical Mythology. Final Exam Question 1: Choose two of the four works we’ve studied this semester: The Iliad, Theogony, Oedipus Rex, or Ovid’s Metamorphoses. How does the work define “humanness”? How does it define “divinity”? Make sure to address systems of obligation, homage, and protection, while also considering issues of gender and—
Theo’s laptop battery finally died, thrusting him into darkness. He glanced at the gas gauge on the car. He couldn’t keep running the engine indefinitely, but he was pretty sure his own impatient anger wouldn’t be enough to keep the car warm without the heat on.
He realized he’d written an impossible assignment anyway. “Every student who gets handed this test is going to burst into tears,” he said aloud. “How would I even answer it? How about: A human is the one with the obligation to wait in the car, while the divinity offers protection by doing all the cool things without him. And as for issues of gender …”
The roar of an engine interrupted him. A single blinding headlamp barreled toward th
e car, then came to a squealing halt in the adjacent parking space. A souped-up Harley dragging a large cargo trailer, Hephaestus the Smith at the handlebars. Theo’s excitement at the chance to interact with another Olympian was immediately tempered by the sight of Artemis the Huntress sitting behind her stepbrother, clasping his broad, leather-clad chest. In her own leather jacket, she fit right into the tableau—a biker’s girlfriend, enjoying the roar of power between her thighs. The Smith lent her an unnecessary hand to dismount. Even in the dark, Theo could see the way his touch lingered on hers. He shook the image from his head, put aside his useless laptop, and tried to look as manly as possible despite his visible shivering.
New answer, he decided. Being human means knowing you’ll never be as strong, as cool, or as competent as a god. Being divine means loving the human anyway. I hope.
Chapter 15
LAUGHTER-LOVING
Selene awoke to a light rap on the door of the hotel suite. She squinted at the silk-padded walls and panoramic windows that surrounded her. When they’d gotten in from the Catskills around dawn, she’d been so weary she’d barely noticed the absurd opulence of Dash’s chosen hideaway: the Four Seasons. Too exhausted by her many brothers’ many absurdities to argue, she’d fallen asleep on one of several plush couches.
Theo, she suspected, hadn’t slept at all. He’d disappeared into the bedroom to work on the final exam he was due to administer later that day. He must’ve already gone up to Columbia and back, because she could hear the shower running in the marble bathroom.
Still prone on the couch, she peered blearily out the window at the glittering skyline before giving up on telling time by the moon and checking the digital clock on the cable box. Five in the evening. She’d slept for nearly ten hours. Another tap on the door, slightly more insistent. Then a warm coo like a dove’s trill, at once sensuous and playful.
Selene sat up with a curse. She remembered that sound. Laughter-Loving Aphrodite must be standing in the hall. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and ran a hand over her tousled hair, wishing she’d woken up early enough to follow Theo’s example and wash some of the soot and sweat from her body. She’d never cared what her brothers and uncles thought of her appearance, but she couldn’t stand seeing the ever-glamorous, ever-youthful Aphrodite gloat at her decline. As another warm chuckle floated through the door, Selene picked up the phone on the end table and rang Flint’s room down the hall. “She’s here,” she said. “Don’t you dare leave me alone to deal with her.” She didn’t wait for his response.
She opened the door to a young man with bleached blond hair staring at his cell phone, chuckling at something on his screen. On the ground beside him sat a massive Louis Vuitton suitcase. He looked up after a moment, caught her staring, and gave her a frank grin. “Don’t feel bad, Huntress,” he said, his accent faintly French. “No one recognizes me without the …” He gestured to his conspicuously wingless shoulder blades with his thumb, then held out his hand to her. “Call me Philippe.”
Last time she’d seen Aphrodite’s son, Eros, he’d been a winged child, carrying around a tiny bow and shooting love-arrows at anyone who looked at him wrong. This tall, slender young man looked no older than sixteen and exuded a coy sensuality far more delicate than Aphrodite’s blatant eroticism. But he had his mother’s soft pink cheeks and—of course—a cupid’s bow mouth. If he’d inherited anything from his father, Mars, it was the gleam in his gray eyes—not violent or brutal, but piercing nonetheless. Defying the winter weather, he wore sky blue pegged trousers and a tailored jacket over a pinstriped shirt of pink and yellow. In the hall behind him, a large window looked out onto Park Avenue’s sparkling wreaths and twinkling trees, making Philippe look like an Easter pixie who’d stumbled into a Christmas diorama. His only concession to the season was a voluminous cashmere scarf looped multiple times around his neck.
Selene wondered what had happened to his feathered rainbow-hued wings. None of the possibilities were pleasant. She ushered him inside the suite just as Flint appeared from the room next door, hobbling on a single crutch. He saw Philippe’s large suitcase, lifted it in one massive fist, and followed them inside without a word.
She found herself standing awkwardly between Aphrodite’s bastard son and her oft-cuckolded husband. Flint dropped the suitcase unceremoniously. She took one look at his lowering gaze and steeled herself for some sort of volcanic outburst. Instead, he opened his arms; Philippe brushed right past her and into his stepfather’s embrace.
“Bonjour, Papa,” he murmured. Flint returned the hug with a brief, fierce squeeze. Philippe laughed and broke away. “I get it! You’re still strong!”
“Don’t you forget it.” Flint clapped Philippe so soundly on the back that the slight youth stumbled forward a step.
“And where is the rest of the family?” he asked. “You promised me une grande réunion!”
“Who can keep track of Dash?” Flint asked grumpily. “I think he’s flitting around with some movie bigwigs.”
“And Paul has some all-important recording session with his band,” Selene said, trying to reconcile this new, affectionate Flint with the surly stepbrother she’d returned with from the Catskills. “But we can get started without them.”
Philippe sprawled across a sofa like a sheik in a seraglio. “How about we get started on some snacks first? The flight from Paris was unbearably long and the food in first class gets worse every decade, have you noticed?” He paused as if actually waiting for an answer.
“No,” Selene said finally. “I hadn’t.”
“Really?” he asked earnestly. “What are you flying?”
“I’m not flying anything. I don’t travel much,” she replied stiffly.
Philippe made a face and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. “Don’t you get bored after centuries in the same city?”
“My city’s never boring.” She felt her customary scowl grow even deeper.
“Oho!” he exclaimed around the cigarette clenched in his lips. “You’re saying Paris is?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Ah! You must come visit.” He lit up, inhaled. “The cafés, the art—”
“I’ve got plenty of cafés and art. I’m the patron goddess of New York.” She’d never actually called herself that before. In fact, she often felt that the city itself was the deity and she just one more lowly worshiper among many. Yet since she’d defeated Orion’s cult, she’d seen it as her duty to protect the inhabitants of New York from the supernatural forces that threatened it. Her neighbors might not pay her homage, but that didn’t make her role as their protector any less real.
Philippe just laughed his mother’s trilling laugh. “You can love two cities at once, you know!” He spread his arms expansively, smoke trailing from his cigarette as if to underline his point. “Love is infinite, whether it be for cities, or people, or—”
“Enough,” Flint grunted. “We know how you feel about it, Phil.” But the Smith seemed more amused than annoyed, and Selene had the distinct impression he’d only stifled his stepson for her sake.
“But Selene doesn’t.” Philippe pulled out his phone and waved it merrily. “Does she even know about my website?”
“Phil works at a dating site,” Flint said, sounding deeply unimpressed.
Philippe pouted prettily. “I own the best dating site in the world. So trust me when I say I know about love.” At that, he turned his attention to his phone and became as instantly absorbed as any other teenager.
Selene glared at Flint. They’d wasted a whole day waiting for someone who could lead them to Mars. She had little faith that this flighty kid would be any use at all in taking down his mighty father. He didn’t look strong enough to lift his own luggage.
Theo emerged from the bathroom, a towel around his waist and his chest still glistening with water. “Oh. I didn’t know we had company,” he said, glancing warily from the young man on the couch to Selene. “And isn’t this a nonsmoking room?”
Philippe craned his neck to peer over the back of the sofa. When he saw Theo, he instantly sat up. Selene didn’t like the way he stared at Theo’s bare torso. She could just imagine the God of Love’s lascivious thoughts. Philippe cocked an eyebrow, looked from Theo to Selene and back, and said, “I don’t live by the rules. And nice to meet you too … Makarites.”
Theo blushed, the color traveling down his throat. “How did you know what I am?”
“I don’t always understand mortals—none of us do—but I understand l’amour. And my lovely aunt here”—he glanced at Selene—“if that’s what you want to call our rather confused genealogical relationship—would never reveal her divinity to anyone unworthy. You must be …” He circled his cigarette as if searching for the right word in English, although Selene suspected his occasional French was purely for effect. His eyes moved back to Theo’s torso before he finally came up with, “Exceptionnel.”
Theo only blushed harder and tucked his towel more firmly around his waist before holding out his hand.
“Theodore Schultz.”
“Theodore means ‘Beloved of God.’ So appropriate.” The corner of his lips curled slowly. Selene wasn’t sure whether he referred to her feelings for Theo or his own. Either way, she wanted to fling the smug smile off his face with a well-placed fist. This, she decided, is going to be a very long night.
You wanted to meet other gods, remember? Theo chided himself as he retreated to the bedroom to get dressed. He yanked on a pair of corduroys and a buttery-soft pine green cashmere sweater that he’d found hanging in the closet. Compliments, no doubt, of Dash Mercer.
He wasn’t used to seeing Selene surrounded by so many men—immortal or otherwise. Of course I want her to reach out to her family, but do they all have to be so damn attractive and charismatic and powerful? Paul could woo an entire audience with a single guitar chord. Flint, who had a frustrating habit of pretending Theo didn’t exist, looked like he could break a man in half just by staring at him. Dash preferred to treat him like a mannequin. Although he does have amazing taste in clothes, Theo thought, catching sight of himself in the mirror. And Philippe … well, there’s one god who’s paying attention to me, Theo admitted. And I sort of wish he wouldn’t.
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