“Yes” Astrid said. That yes was a blunt instrument uttered whilst she stared Bea down. “You look familiar.”
“Do I?” Bea asked.
“Yes. Mind you all you water nymphs look pretty damned similar.” Astrid said pausing for a moment “Well I’ve got to be off I’m getting a new helmet fitted. Toodles.”
“Bye” Honour said.
“What a bitch.” Bea said as Astrid walked into the showers and out of earshot.
“Never could stand the cow. ‘All you water nymphs look pretty damned similar.’ Sylphs are always snooty cows. Maybe she’s colour blind?” Honour said sarcasm spitting out of her mouth.
“Great arse though.”
“Yes it’s not fair is it? Mean girls have great arses. Liberty has dubbed it ‘Aphrodite’s Disorder’”
The pair of them finished getting ready to leave in relative silence. Honour was too busy thinking about what she had seen that day to ask Bea any further questions. She was sure that both Glory and Liberty were both equally capable of such an exhibition as Bea had made but neither of them freely admitted to being that talented. It was dangerous to be outstanding. Gods are particularly prone to tall poppy syndrome. It was better to keep your head down and keep quiet than to be a shining light. There would always be someone there at the dimmer switch ready to turn you down or off entirely. Valkyrie Unit 401 had a reputation as exceptional but no one other than a select few really knew all the details and that was how they kept it. No one needed to know how much of the show they ran. The girls had all seen what could happen when you were just too damned good: Liberty’s father Prometheus being a pertinent example.
Sweet Charity
Liberty was fascinated by shopping. She loved watching the mortals going out of their way to acquire goods that they certainly had no need for. She also rather enjoyed public transport as humanity is at its worst and best when confined in small metal tins with their fellow passengers. Getting on the bus to the high street was her favourite thing to do bar redheads and cocaine. Liberty sat pride of place in the seat – according to the sticker anyway – reserved for the elderly or those people with small children on their persons at the front of the bus. From there she could see all of the highs and lows of limited human emotion upon their faces as they got on the bus, tapping their adorable little oyster cards as they went.
A woman with straggly hair and baggy purple parka with a fur trimmed hood was on her way to Morrison’s. Liberty looked at her and using her abilities saw her trouble. Susannah, the purple parka person, was in the process of divorcing her husband Mitch. Mitch had met a dental hygienist in a Wetherspoon’s – on curry night incidentally – six months earlier and had left her. This had unsettled Susannah and Mitch’s only child Dan, who was studying for his GCSEs. As things stood Liberty could tell that this would set the lad off on a spiral of destructive behaviour, but this was not yet set in stone and Liberty could influence the situation and set him on the straight and narrow. She looked again at Susannah and decided that what was really necessary in this situation was for Susannah to get a bloody good haircut. A nice bob wouldn’t rectify the situation but it would make things more aesthetically pleasing for Liberty’s third eye. Susannah, Mitch and Dan all had the freedom to fuck up if they wanted to and that was how Liberty left them: with only themselves to blame for the whole mess. There was no divine intervention on the bus that day, well apart from Tony & Guy’s Sergio and his deft hand later that afternoon. That man was very talented with a pair of scissors and a can of hairspray, it was a goddess-given gift, and everyone knows that a good haircut will make almost anything seem a little less awful. Besides all the mortals ever begged for was the liberty of choosing their own destinies.
Liberty rang the bell. The bus pulled into the stop right at the bottom of the high street and she scampered off, not waiting for the woman with a buggy to take the break off the back wheels, as any good soul who suffers from queue anxiety would have done. Liberty always got off a stop earlier than she needed to. She walked past the shops taking in the changes that had happened over the past fifty years. Gone were the greengrocers, the fishmongers and the butchers, wholesome scenes that would have been at least recognisable to a mortal from two thousand years ago and here were the bookies, the chicken shops and the pound shops. She kept walking for a few more minutes before she reached her usual destination, a Save The Children charity shop. Liberty found charity shops bewildering. Here was a store filled with things that people had bought and hadn’t used or no longer wanted being sold to raise money for a cause. Did the mortals not realise that if they did not over consume on these bits of crap and instead redistributed the wealth they would have wasted, then they could have eradicated the disease that the child in the poster was suffering from decades ago? Did they not see the humour in it all?
Liberty entered the charity shop and mooched around the paperbacks. There were seventeen copies of Fifty Shades of Grey on the bottom shelf. She thought they should send them to the orphans in Syria and they could use them for kindling. That was the most practical application for them. She then prodded around the clothes, glanced at the bric-a-brac before she started trying on those hats that mortal women buy for weddings that obscure views and act as a safety barrier against leering best men. She was wearing one particularly ugly monstrosity, when she saw the real purpose of her visit enter from pricing up figurines of shepherdesses out back: Nora.
Nora was a small lady who moved with grace. “Hello dear, nice to see you again. We got given some history books on Thursday that I kept out back in case you fancied any. Quite a nice selection there was.” Nora was pleased to see Liberty.
“That was very kind of you Nora. Did you enjoy the biscuits I bought last week?” Liberty asked. She earnestly cared whether or not she liked the biscuits.
“Oh yes thank you, that was very sweet of you dear. I’ll go out back and fetch those books for you love.” Whilst Nora toddled into the back Liberty turned to look at the bric-a-brac shelves again. All the usual culprits were assembled: conch shell paperweights, painted fans, old teapots and a vase. The vase startled Liberty. More than startled, it scared her. She went over and picked it up practically shoving a man over en route. Liberty was adrift at sea clinging to the vase like a life raft.
Nora came back into the shop with six books. “Right let us have a look, now we’ve got one on Napoleon, two on The British Empire, one on The Battle of Jenkins’s Ear, one on The Zulus, forty four volumes on Hitler, oh and one on Troy. I left the Hitler books out back, as there were too many to carry.”
“Troy it is then as I had nothing to do with it. I know everything there is to know about the others, I helped orchestrate them.” Liberty said without thinking.
“Oh Liberty you do have a wicked sense of humour. You’re only about twenty two love.”
“Well I am wicked. I’m in a shock Nora. What do you think of this vase?”
“Well it’s a bit of holiday tat someone bought back from Corfu. I suppose you know more about it, you always do.”
“It depicts Daphne, a virgin nymph who turned herself into a laurel tree to escape the Olympian god Apollo’s attentions, only for him to wear her leaves as a crown. It’s a genuine antiquity from the Hellenic golden age itself. So pristine.” Liberty said before distracting herself “How’s your hip doing?”
“Not too bad love, I can’t complain.”
“No I suppose you can’t, not when none of your fellow intelligence officers made it out of Berlin alive whilst you got a mere shrapnel wound to your right side. The resulting chronic pain of which threw your posture marginally off kilter leading to the said excessive wear on your left hip.” Liberty said anxiously.
“I signed the Official Secrets Act.”
“I told you, I started the war. I invaded Poland. Nora this vase is it a real sign or is someone messing with my head? Who brought this in? Nora? Nora? Oh it’s no use asking for your opinion. You’re only ninety six.”
Nora st
ood there and didn’t know what to do. The beautiful and kind girl who popped in every now and then had appeared to have had some sort of breakdown and had guessed at Nora’s greatest secret that she would otherwise have carried with her in her casket.
“Nora, do you know why I’ve come here every week for the past three years? On the odd occasion I take pity on a mortal. I took pity on your father at The Somme, and I promised on the river Styx that I’d come and check on you every now and then. I have been demonstrably crap, bar Berlin, and I am making up for lost time before Styx yells at me for not keeping my promise as I am bound to.” Liberty paused for a moment. “I bought you some ginger snaps this week. I know they’re your favourite.”
“Ginger snaps, how lovely. Would you like a cup of tea dear? The book is £2.50 by the way.” Nora said. She really wasn’t sure what to do other than offer the poor girl a cuppa before she did herself any harm.
“How much is the vase?”
“It’s nine pounds love because it’s quite a big one.”
“Alright” Liberty said as she magicked some money and walked out of the shop without saying another word.
Forgive Me Father For I Have Sinned
Liberty walked in a stupor for some time. Under her left arm she had the book on Helen of Troy (Liberty had met her and had never understood what all the fuss was about) and in her right hand she held the offending vase. After some time she stopped and sat on some steps. A familiar presence was at her side seconds later. There was no one else who she would rather see at that moment than her father Prometheus. He stood over her looking as distinguished, composed and collected as you would expect from a titan. He wore an impeccably tailored three piece suit that had a double breasted jacket with leather buttons. It was made out of tweed that could have almost been heather. Prometheus’s tie and pocket square had been selected perfectly, as had the cufflinks in his crisp white shirt. He was pulled together. His dark eyes and furrowed brow were those of a godly titan who had seen too much and had felt the need to overthink it too. Prometheus thought and saw three steps ahead of nearly everyone else. Prometheus’s wife and Liberty’s mother, Asia was a river nymph. There wasn’t a particularly large amount of love between the pair, they had little in common. They had met many years ago when Prometheus had been chained to a rock by Zeus to have his liver pecked out daily by his giant pet eagle for “challenging his rule”, or light sarcasm to everyone else. Asia used to go and chat to Prometheus at least once a day. She had a captive audience after all, and over time he grew affection for her or rather he was worn down by a not so ill looking nymph.
“Child, stop and breathe.” Prometheus said.
Liberty looked around her and recognised the place she had wandered to. It was the Hawksmoor in Spitalfields Market. She couldn’t remember which bloody saint it was supposed to be dedicated to. Liberty rose from her seat and followed her father into the church before they sat side by side in a pew facing the altar.
“Forgive me father for I have sinned.” Liberty said.
“When haven’t you? I’m never going to tire of that joke.”
“How are you old man?” Liberty was still very much distracted.
“Not too shabby child of mine. I have just been here waiting for you. Oh your mother says hello.”
“Oh right, hello back to her. Dad, my sight is messed up; I’ve developed a blind spot where I’ve never had one before. I can no longer see Valour.”
“Now that you mention it I cannot either. She’s the fae girl in your unit right, one of Oberon’s kids?” Prometheus said as he tried to use his vision again “This should be impossible. Someone must have entered into the equation that has always been a blind spot but never a factor before, blocking your friend from a clear view. That’s an impressive amount of power to shield her from both of us like that. This is not good, not good at all. Metis used to be able to pull a trick like that but she is long gone.”
“I think the world just started to end. You can feel it in the air right? Yesterday was the start of another era.”
“I can, but I don’t think anyone else can feel it. Nothing unusual came out of Olympus today. We need to tread carefully until we can predict the outcome safely.” Prometheus looked around at the church’s interior for a moment “Oh, Apollo asked whether he could marry you again. I said it wasn’t my business to be so involved in your affairs. Please don’t do it, although I’m not sure how you’re going to get out of it in one piece. He has wonderful taste in jewellery, if that is any consolation. That’s a very topical vase.”
“Yes, I found it in Save The Children.”
“Really? How odd. I’ve heard you can get bargains at those sorts of places but an Andokides original never out of the box. Be careful child.”
“I cannot conceive whether it is a friendly warning or not.” Liberty said to which Prometheus furrowed his brow and pursed his lips but gave no judgement.
“It would seem that there is something afoot in Olympus.”
“Why do we always meet in churches?”
“Because the irony is too delicious.”
“I like Hawksmoor. Does it annoy you that this God with a capital G gets the credit for creating mankind?”
“It would annoy me if he was real but he isn’t.” Prometheus mused over this idea for a few moments “God isn’t even the fascinating element of Christianity or even Christ who quite frankly sounds like a two-bit demigod, Satan or rather Lucifer is. Have you ever read the Bible? He’s not even really in there and yet in the last five hundred years a belief in him has grown exponentially, whilst no single deity actually considers him to exist. Lucifer just means ‘light bringer’ in Latin, and there are plenty of candidates for that role.” “The devil’s greatest trick is convincing the world that he does not exist.” Liberty was sure she had heard that said somewhere before from a mortal.
“Or perhaps it is convincing the world that God exists and we do not.”
“I think we have the beginnings of a conspiracy theory.”
“This is mere postulation. Even Osiris has no idea about this God and he was in Egypt during the whole Old Testament.” Prometheus said, before asking “How’s work?”
“I hate it, a bit. I just stick around because of the girls. I used to find it amusing telling the mortals about The Ragnarok being the war that ends the war, and now I’m starting to feel guilty about it.” Liberty said, confessing the one thing that she would never say to Glory.
“Of course you do, it’s make believe. The Ragnarok is a total fabrication. We both know that if the world is going to end, it will be far more complicated than that. These stories that all the family pantheons propagate all conflict, if one of them goes the others will most likely go too, and yet Asgard believes in The Ragnarok wholeheartedly? You spent a goodly amount of time collecting mortals to form a standing army; a standing army for what purpose or rather for whose? You need to grow up. It may have been a ‘fun’ way of escaping any real responsibility for a time and no doubt Glory is a charismatic, walking death wish, but Liberty the time has come for you to accept more of a role in the universe.”
“I enjoy the order of being a Valkyrie. Wake up, fill your quota, do a bit of combat training, have a drink with Freya and Odin. It’s quite perverse in its predictability. It has been a good cover for quite some time. Everyone just saw the job without giving me too much scrutiny, ignoring of course that stupid statue in New York.” Liberty said, feeling the need to defend her choices to her father like a tipsy sixteen year old school girl after a house party that she wasn’t supposed to go to.
“Everyone apart from Apollo, he’s far more intelligent than he looks and he also has the sight like us, but to a lesser extent. He has your number. Darling Liberty, you’re a being of pure chaos. Is there anything more disordered than true freedom, anything that provokes radical change more than the unshackled?”
“No. No there isn’t.”
“Is there anything that the Norse, or the Olympians or any
other established pantheon despise more than change?”
“No.”
“Yet here we are on the very cusp of what they fear most. Be good, if not be safe.” Prometheus said kissing Liberty on the forehead, and with that he was gone.
Liberty sat and thought for a moment whilst looking at a crucified Christ on the wall. As she was leaving, still holding the vase and the book, she stopped and looked at the flower arrangements (sweet williams, daisies, roses and lilies) and decides to rearrange them before finally setting off for home.
Interlewd: Prometheus Bound, Sealed and Delivered
Prometheus was smarter than your average Titan. He knew exactly where his bread was buttered. As the Titan of foresight he was a dab hand at winning board games, respect and wars. He had defected to Zeus’s side in The Titanomachy, the conflict that put Zeus in power. Prometheus had been a grand ally to the Olympian cause and had gotten on swimmingly with Zeus until eventually Prometheus went a little too far. He committed two crimes that he was never really forgiven for.
***
Prometheus was pushing his luck already. Back in the days when the mortals had the sense to worship the Olympians they used to make animals offerings. Now this wasn’t necessarily a good thing for the mortals as they kept going hungry as a result, so Prometheus decided to fix it for his favourite creations.
“What have you bloody gone and done this time?” Zeus said, thunder rattling through the skies.
“What the meat thing?” Prometheus asked.
“Yes the bloody meat thing. You bloody tricked me you shit. What the heck do we want with skin, fat and bone as offerings. We want the meat. That’s where the power is.”
“Well the mortals need it or they will all start getting deficiency diseases and die. They’ve no concept of vegetarianism yet. We’ve got quite some time until that appears on their developmental timeline.”
“Reverse it now.”
The Valkyrie Page 4
