The Valkyrie

by Charlotte Vassell

  Drowning In The Bath Tub

  Glory heard everyone get in. She heard Honour cackle as she stormed up the stairs to change her shoes. She heard Liberty yell for more shots and Bea ask whether she wanted tequila or turpentine. She heard Aphrodite demand that she be taken home and she heard Ares sigh loudly at this. They were going to fight in the car back to Olympus. She heard Dionysius request that they all go to a night club called Savage that his maenads had already carried on to. She heard Hermes on his phone bellowing about Japanese government bonds. She heard Apollo say that he was tired after the gig and that he was just going to go to bed in Liberty’s room. Then she heard the door slam and everyone else leave. Glory had run a bath. The water was cold and she hadn’t taken any of her clothes off bar her Doc Martins which hid under the sink. She hadn’t turned the light on, nor had she locked the door. She lay under the water with her eyes closed tight so that when she cried the tears could flee her cheeks and leave no trace.

  “I forget that you’re a sea goddess at heart. You know, you really should reply to my text messages. We’ve been mutually ignoring each other for the last thousand years out of necessity, but that isn’t how it’s going to be in the future. Stop ignoring me please. Why are you ignoring me now? How do you think I feel about that?” Apollo asked as he turned the light on and then sat down on the loo seat lid. He sat there for five minutes watching her. Glory looked so serene. He leaned over and stroked her submarine cheek. Glory opened her eyes and looked at him through her haze. She sat up, got out of the bath and stood on the mat. Water clung to her sodden clothes. Apollo pulled the plug and then went and found towels from the airing cupboard. He peeled off her damp clothes piece by piece and hung them on the shower rail to dry. He wrapped her body in a big yellow towel and her hair in another.

  “Let’s go to your room. They won’t be back until tomorrow lunchtime if Dionysius has his wicked way.” Glory didn’t move, so he picked her up, carried her into her room and set her down on the chaise longue. He found a brush on her vanity table and sat beside her teasing the knots out of her hair. He went to stroke her cheek again but saw a tear roll down her face. He’d never seen a goddess cry before. The tear slid down her cheek and fell to floor as a little pearl. It bounced along the carpet and rolled into his foot. Apollo picked it up and inspected it. He put it in his wallet for safe keeping.

  “Bed time now.” Apollo took off his jeans and t-shirt before getting into Glory’s bed. She followed him leaving her towel on the chaise longue. “What happened?”

  “Hermes said that Valour’s dead. I know she’s dead, she had to be. She wouldn’t go off grid like that for a few days. Liberty doesn’t know. She’s had a new blind spot appear. She could only predict me having the phone call with Val when she handed her notice in.”

  “You can’t just develop blind spots like that.” Apollo said stroking her hair. Glory curled into him and sobbed.

  “How did I let that happen? I should have had her back.”

  “It was probably a fixed point in time that you couldn’t do anything about. I can’t see what happened either.”

  “How did Hermes know then?”

  “Hermes can find anyone anywhere. If he can’t find you then you no longer exist on this plane. There’s something very strange afoot. Don’t let on that you know anything. I’ll speak to Hermes too.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. If the old man finds out he’ll be furious.”

  “Don’t worry about him in the slightest. I’ve got it all covered.” Apollo said kissing Glory on the forehead. This was a bolder Apollo, an Apollo who also knew that the tide was turning.

  “What about Liberty?” Glory knew that Liberty would neither care nor be back in time tomorrow for work let alone to catch Apollo in her bed.

  “She’s screwing the new girl Bea right?”

  “Yes.” Glory said, not one hundred per cent sure how Apollo would take it. She hadn’t asked the reason for why he was trying to marry her best friend and nor was she going to. He had asked her to trust him, and she did against her better judgement.

  “Who is Bea?” Apollo had realised that he could turn Liberty’s affair to his advantage, but he first needed to get her down the aisle to make the whole plan work.

  “I don’t have a clue? She’s one of us though and she’s utterly terrifying.” Glory thought of Bea’s subtle magic yesterday in Olympus.

  “By the way where did that vase in the kitchen come from?” Apollo kissed her shoulder.

  “Liberty found it in a Save The Children charity shop.” Glory said curling into him.

  “How interesting. It was Rupert Everett not Ben Affleck who played Kit Marlowe.”

  “Oh shit it was wasn’t it. I killed my mother.”

  “My brave girl.”

  “Are you still mad about Byron?”

  “A little bit, yes.”

  “I keep dreaming of ships even more than I used to. I can feel the North Sea in my bones.”

  “That’s only natural, you’re mother’s powers have passed on to you now.” It had been a very long time since he had been able to be this close to Glory in private and for her to be so very candid with him. Matricide was evidently attractive to all Olympians. Glory and Apollo normally met infrequently in overcrowded public places where Glory would be very rude to him. He thought that was her way of coping/flirting. He kissed her hard.

  “Do you have a condom?” Glory asked.

  “Of course I do. I love you.” Apollo said.

  Battle Report: Day Three, Seoul

  Glory was in Gangnam watching sculpted women wander around with oversized handbags. They had no idea what they were in for. She was waiting for Ares and he was five minutes late. Glory wasn’t in a good mood, she had woken up that morning to just a damp patch in the middle of the bed and none of the other Valkyries were in a fit state to be anywhere near a warzone. She found Bea and Liberty passed out on the sofa in the living room with TOWIE blaring. She could also hear Honour and probably Dionysius and there was no way she was going to open that door, so she just put her uniform on and walked out. She checked her phone and there were no messages that the marriage was off. Glory didn’t like that she was just going to have to sit there and watch while everyone else played their cards, although this was probably safer for her. Ares’s car pulled up and he got out.

  “Good morning.” Glory said.

  “Good morning to you too.” Ares said. “Is this business or pleasure?”

  “Business.”

  “Poor me.”

  “I’d give up on me if I were you. I’m a head case and you can do better.” Glory switched to work mode. “I thought I’d do you the courtesy of walking you through the next week’s events.”

  “How very polite of you.”

  “Right now I decided that I’d take you around the bombsites.” Glory said. The prospect of bombsites excited her to no end.

  “Is this a date? Because I’m a war god and bombsites really do it for me.”

  “Nope.” Glory said. “There will be massive casualties on this side of the city. I can’t wait for the UN statements. There should be some great photos of wounded orphans and such. They always make great headlines.”

  “What did you do to Aphrodite last night?” Ares asked. “She hasn’t been alright since she followed Liberty into the loos last night.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Glory bent down to tie her boot lace up.

  “Are you sure? She started talking gibberish in the car about how beautiful you are. Not that I disagree but it was like watching a smack head ramble about their first high. I was tremendously annoyed that she came at all to the gig and then I was even more annoyed when she demanded that I drive her home.”

  “Your missus is finally losing it then.” Glory led Ares around the corner.

  “She’s not my missus. What happened to you by the way, you were with Hermes and then you left?” Ares took a map from Glory.

  “I got bored. Right now you see thos
e three tower blocks on the other side of the road all the way across to that building there, well these will be in the first wave of aerial bombardment.”

  “I wanted to talk to you last night”

  “You’re talking to me right now.”

  “So I am. I want to talk to you about many things” Ares said moving closer.

  “Did you like the plans for Tokyo that Freya crafted?” Glory asked, she had to try and remember not to be too obvious that Unit 401 were in charge here. She felt a pair of eyes watch her. She saw a flash of Artemis on top of one of the nearby buildings. Apollo must have sent her to spy on Ares and Glory. That was kind of weird.

  “Oh yes very much. Is she undecided about nuclear war still?” Ares said as they turned around a corner. “That won’t be her decision in the end it’ll have to be decided on across the pantheons. Personally, I am all for it. There are too many bloody mortals if you ask me they need another cull.”

  Glory pretended to check the time on her phone “I’m afraid I’ve got to go and organise extra Valkyrie support for the next few weeks. So we’ve got to end it there for today. Plus I’ve got to chase Hades and Osiris and all the other death gods to make sure they have extra capacity for their portion of the dead, which I’m sure they do, but they like to kick up a fuss. I need to show my face with the Shinto lot too. Fortunately there are another few hours of escalating cyber warfare before I have to do anything on the ground.”

  “I’m already enjoying it.” Ares said as he walked Glory back to her car.

  “Yes I think we all will, there’s more information in the map document I just gave you, but you can look at that at your leisure.” Glory felt a familiar pair of blue eyes watching her.

  “Well…” Ares said as he held the driver’s door open to Glory’s car “You do know that I’m very serious about you?”

  “No you’re not. You’re very gentlemanly, I’ll give you that but you aren’t serious.” Glory said before Ares closed the door.

  Glory sat in her car and turned the radio up. She pulled out her phone and saw a text from Apollo: ‘So Ares? Don’t cheat on me. I don’t know what I’d do if you did.’ She wasn’t going to call him back. He could stew for a bit for leaving without saying goodbye. He’d probably woke up and rolled around in Liberty’s bed a bit to make it look like he’d slept there that night and then buggered off to make sure the sodding sun rose. That was a relatively new job for him. Helios faded away during the roman era and he’d taken it on, it suited Apollo though.

  ***

  Glory got back to Hackney to find Honour, Liberty and Bea all slumped over the kitchen table. Honour was faring better than the other two but she was looking a little bit peaky as she sat there guzzling ambrosia. Liberty had her head in her hands and Bea was staring into the middle distance.

  “Nice to see you all looking so bright this morning.” Glory said as she poured herself a glass of ambrosia. No one responded to her. “So Honour...”

  “I’m not prepared to talk about it.” Honour groaned.

  “Alright then.” Glory said “Liberty you’ve got some calls to make later. Honour can you write a few different scenarios for potential Chinese nuclear strikes on San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vladivostok, Tokyo and Kyoto please, and run Bea through what you’re doing.”

  “How much later?” Liberty said.

  “Sometime this afternoon would be fine.” Glory said.

  “Ok. I’m going to bed.” Liberty said as she went to crawl up the stairs.

  “Me too.” Bea said leaving the room.

  Honour paused for a moment before beginning “So my drunk logic was that if I just shagged him he’d get bored and go away.” Honour put her feet on Liberty’s chair.

  “That’s quite reasonable drunk logic. I can only add don’t fall in love with him and don’t get knocked up.” Glory said.

  “Why is that ugly vase still here?” Honour asked looking at Liberty’s charity shop find.

  “I don’t know. I should probably return it to its rightful owner. Liberty won’t miss it.” Glory said.

  Interlewd: A Splitting Headache

  Zeus’s first wife would always be his favourite. Metis was his purest love, his greatest ally and the one that he was most deeply scared of. She was the titan daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and pure mischief. She was also tremendously clever as most sea nymphs were.

  The story of Metis and Zeus began before Zeus had killed his father Cronus and even before Zeus was born. Cronus had also killed his father Uranus becoming king of the gods. During the fight Cronus chopped off daddy’s cock and when it fell from the heavens into the sea Aphrodite subsequently sprang forth. There was a prophecy that Cronus would be killed by one of his children who would usurp his throne in the same way that he had grabbed power from his father. Cronus was terrified of the blighters. If you thought new fathers in mortal maternity wards who don’t even know how to hold their new-borns were out of their depth, then Cronus was the archetype of terrible parenting. Every time Rhea gave birth he swallowed the baby god whole. Why she stuck with him has been debated in hushed tones for millennia. Although it does make you wonder how a titan who publically treated his kids that way would privately treat his wife. Eventually Rhea had enough, so she turned to cunning Metis for help. Metis suggested that the next time Rhea gave birth they should switch the baby for a rock and then hide the baby elsewhere in a cave so they could grow up without Cronus realising the dupe. This of course was an excellent plan, so when Rhea gave birth to Zeus she gave her husband a rock to swallow and the infant to a nymph foster mother on earth to be raised to full godhood.

  When the time came for Zeus to challenge his father Metis was again the titan to turn to. She provided Zeus with an iffy potion that made Cronus chunder the rest of his now fully grown kids back up. Up they came one by one covered in bile and filled with hatred. What followed was a fuckoff war called the Titanomachy that tore Cronus’s oppressive regime down and replaced it with the comparatively light and airy Olympus. On one side was Zeus and his siblings Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera and Hestia and on the other were all the titans bar one, Prometheus. Prometheus knew which horse to back. The war lasted ten years and the victorious Olympians threw their aunts, uncles and cousins (not the cute ones like Leto) into Tartarus the immortal prison in the underworld.

  Once the war was over Zeus felt that as king he should have a queen and Metis was so damned sexy. Now Metis wasn’t having any of this, she was far too clever for marriage but Zeus was tremendously persistent/rapey. She would be bathing in a stream and feel him approaching so she’d shape shift into a fish but then he’d jump in and shift into a fish too, so then she’d shift into bear and so would he. It continued like that for quite some time until Metis just thought it sod it, it would just be easier to get it over and done with. Zeus and Metis were sort of happy for quite a while, that was until the morning sickness set in. Any sentient being the universe over would question the parenting skills of a god like Zeus when the only example he’d really seen was based on a paranoid nutter who swallowed his own kids out of fear. Zeus was just like his dad, he made the same mistakes. Metis, like Prometheus, could see the future even if she didn’t always let on that she could. She had started to get a little fat around the middle.

  “So I’m pregnant.” Metis said.

  “That’s nice.” Zeus said.

  “A girl then a boy”

  “A boy huh.”

  “Yes.”

  “A little thunderbolt eh?”

  “Yup, lord of the skies.” Metis said, and with that Zeus’s mind shut down rather than going into overdrive.

  “Let’s play a game.”

  “Must we really, I’ve got morning sickness.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh go on then.”

  “Alright, I bet you that you can’t turn yourself into a fly.”

  “What a silly game.” Metis said. Unfortunately for her Scrabble had yet to be invented.

  “Oh come on,
it’ll be fun.” Zeus’s eyes were wild.

  “Fine.” Metis said and duly shape shifted into a fly. Panicking Zeus swallowed her whole. Afterwards when someone asked him where Metis had gotten to he’d simply reply that she was in his digestive tract. Everyone thought he was joking for the first couple of weeks, until the blasted hammering began. It wouldn’t bloody stop. The clanging in his head would not end. He still had managed to force Hera down the aisle mind. Zeus moved fast. Eventually the noise got so bad that Zeus turned to Prometheus for help.

  “I think the only thing we can do is to split your head open.” Prometheus already had an axe in hand.

  “Alright I’ll try anything after the leeches didn’t work.” Zeus said and with that Prometheus struck Zeus on the head. Out jumped Athena clad in the armour that her mother had been crafting away at for all those hours on end inside of Zeus. She gave everyone a bit of a fright. Metis remained in Zeus’s tummy thereafter and he frequently asked her for advice on serious matters. No one ever talked about Metis ever again. They all said that Athena had only one parent: Zeus.

  ***

  Prometheus had always wondered why Metis had surrendered like that. She was fiercely intelligent and independent. First of all why would she tell Zeus that her son would overthrow him? The daft bugger probably misheard. Secondly why would she allow herself the indignation of being swallowed whole like that? Metis also had the ability to look into the future so Prometheus silently assumed that there was some tactical advantage to her actions and that she was playing a long game. The whole episode was the first of many that kept on lowering Zeus in Prometheus’s estimations.

  Elgin

  Glory put the sodding vase in a Sainsbury’s bag for life that Honour normally used for carting port around and drove over to The British Museum. It was coming up to closing time and the effing tourists were beginning to leave. Although not until they had bought rulers with all the kings and queens of England since the Saxons listed on them and taken pictures of themselves using selfie sticks in front of thousands of years’ worth of history that Glory had pillaged over her career and shoved in a room in tribute to her dear late mother. Honour was right all tourists needed to die. Glory liked The British Museum, it was a little memory jog for her. She couldn’t help remember that time she and Liberty had invaded [insert any country here], what japes they had before the UN. Glory walked through the Egyptian monuments and into the Greco-Roman world. She passed through the roman statues and a mausoleum they’d dragged back from Turkey and found herself in the room with the Elgin Marbles. The security guard was ushering the tourists out of the room with a brusqueness that Glory couldn’t help but admire. As the last few were being shoved out the guard turned to look at Glory who had sat down on the steps at the other end of the hall.