“You’re going to need five more,” Gabi said quickly. “Minh may be helping you figure out the notes and whatever, but when it comes time to open your ‘dimensional portal’ or ‘wormhole’—or, as I like to call it, ‘vortex to certain death’—we’ll be visiting my aunt in the Bronx. No, screw that, we’ll go all the way to my cousin’s house in Jersey.”
“Gabi—” Minh began with her usual eye roll.
“No! I will not lose you, Minh. Not after I spent my whole life looking for you!”
Minh’s face crumpled. Then Gabi’s did too. They fell into each other’s arms, laughing and crying at the same time.
Theo looked for Selene and found her already looking at him.
Minh and Gabi moved off to huddle together at the edge of the walkway, their intense voices too hushed for Theo to hear.
Selene cocked her head in a listening pose, but Theo decided he didn’t need to eavesdrop on his friends. Either they’d help or they wouldn’t; he respected them enough to leave the decision to them.
Maryam pulled his attention back to the task at hand. “We have a bigger problem than finding enough people to strike the chord. We don’t have Saturn to control where—or when—the portal will lead.”
“Damn,” Theo said. “We could wind up in Paleolithic Manhattan instead of classical Athens.”
“I don’t think so,” Selene said slowly. “When we were leaving the Underworld, Apollo was drawn back to Delphi. Maybe because it was the place he loved best.”
“That’s not the same thing—” Maryam interjected.
“All of this is unknown territory,” Selene said, talking over her. “There’s no way Saturn had the scientific knowledge necessary to control space and time. Yet something beyond science, something tied to his role as Kronos, God of Time, let him do it anyway. Well, just like Apollo’s love for Delphi drew him there, the link between the other Athanatoi and me transcends anything you can measure or quantify or run through your software programs. Hermes may be the Messenger of the Gods, but I’m the Huntress. I’ll track them down, no matter what universe they’re in.”
Maryam looked dubious. “They didn’t exactly leave scat along the trail for you to sniff out.”
Selene’s chin lifted in disdain. “That’s not what I meant. My twin understood the power of music—his songs opened the door from Delphi and led Theo to us in the Underworld. Now, with Apollo gone, it falls to me to sing the hymns that will bring me to my family.”
Theo thought Maryam might protest. The plan was anything but practical. But Selene spoke with such force that even the Goddess of Wisdom seemed convinced.
“Then let’s assume we get to the right place,” Maryam said after a moment. “How do we actually crack open Tartarus once we get back to the field? Father has taken Poseidon’s trident, and we have no other weapon that can shake the earth as effectively. I’ve considered trying to bring modern construction equipment through. Perhaps get hold of Flint’s drilling machines left on Olympus—”
“You forget that once we cross the portal, we’ll truly be Athanatoi once more,” Selene said impatiently. “Possessing impossible power and strength.”
“Impossible,” Maryam agreed. “But not unlimited. My spear won’t crack the earth. Nor will your bow or the professor’s sword.”
Selene nodded grimly. “But Hephaestus’s hammer will.”
Chapter 53
HOLDER OF THE BOUNDS OF THE WORLD
Three days had passed since they’d heard the bridge’s voice. Three days of planning, preparing, and—most of all—waiting.
Waiting for Saturday night, when the bridge would be closed for repairs. For Esme to make up her mind and bring them the hammer Flint had left with Philippe—or not. For Maryam to finish whatever she’d been banging away on in Selene’s basement for fourteen hours a day.
Selene felt herself going slowly mad. Time, she was sure, passed differently on the other side of the portal, just as it had in Delphi. How long had her family endured the torments of Tartarus? Every time she fell asleep, she dreamed of them besieged by the monsters and giants they’d cast into the pit in the time before time. Hephaestus still had her necklace in his pocket. Since he’d given Philippe his hammer, the golden javelin would be his only weapon. Would that be enough to defend so many Olympians from their ancient enemies?
The nightmares would rip her from sleep, shouting with rage and fear, only to find herself safe and warm in Theo’s arms. For all the solace of his touch, she couldn’t help feeling guilty. How dare she enjoy such comforts while her family suffered? She longed for the waiting to end.
Yet when she hopped the construction barricades and walked to the center of the Brooklyn Bridge just before midnight on Saturday, she wished she had more time.
I am not prepared, she worried, even though she’d done nothing else for three days. Desperate for divine weapons, she’d brought her twin’s three plague arrows, along with her last two unerring golden shafts, but they seemed paltry tools for opening a portal between worlds and facing her father on the other side. Her heart tripped; she could feel the pulse of the blood in her veins, even as the city loomed eerily calm around her.
The office buildings of downtown Manhattan crowded so thickly that she couldn’t tell one from the other, their windows like mosaic tiles of light dumped across the sky. Only the Municipal Building remained distinct, a forty-story wedding cake topped with a round Roman temple of Corinthian columns, too lofty by far for any but the gods to enter. To the north, the spires of Midtown emerged like fairy-tale palaces: the Chrysler Building with its white and chrome crown, the Empire State piercing the clouds with a spire of red and gold, the Bank of America building’s antenna a blue lance.
Surrounding the bridge, the black river glimmered with white, reflecting not the moon or stars, but the lights of construction sites and ferryboats. In the distance, the Statue of Liberty glowed on her island retreat, a grim reminder of the last time Selene had sought to battle another Athanatos in her city. I barely survived. Theo barely survived.
Ahead of her, the wooden walkway sloped gently up toward the Brooklyn Bridge’s first stone tower. On either side, the suspension cables soared heavenward, crisscrossed by slanting cantilever wires to create a massive metal net. Selene felt like a fly walking into a spider’s web.
“I don’t believe it,” Theo murmured at her side.
She turned to follow his gaze to where Esme stood at the far end of the bridge. “You didn’t think she’d come?”
“I thought it was a long shot. Esme doesn’t strike me as the altruistic type. What does she care if the husband she barely admits exists—or half her family, for that matter—is trapped in Tartarus?”
“The bonds between us all are old and deep, even when we try to forget them.”
“Yeah …” Theo said skeptically. “Or Philippe just insisted.”
The God of Love appeared beside his mother. He carried his stepfather’s hammer in one hand and his own myrtle bow in the other. His usually spiky hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his cupid’s bow of a mouth was pressed in a flat line of pain. He walked stiffly, as if unable to bend his torso. But whatever medical attention Esme had found in Athens—along with the god’s own undoubtedly excellent healing powers—had clearly worked.
“Speaking of old bonds,” Theo went on, “I’m still uncomfortable with Gabi and Minh being here.” He glanced over at his friends. For all of Gabi’s protective bluster, Minh wasn’t about to let a portal to another universe open without her. There’d been some very specific negotiations about how much Minh would be allowed to report to the scientific community when it was all over; Selene and Maryam didn’t want mortals tampering with realms best left to gods, but they allowed that Minh’s contribution gave her the right to continue pursuing her research.
“You said they could make their own choices. They’ll be fine,” she assured him, although their safety was far from guaranteed. The women had strict instructions to ge
t off the bridge as soon as they struck their cables. If they were still in place when the portal opened, they’d likely find themselves in classical Athens—and they might never get out again.
Shoulders thrown back, chin high, Maryam strode forward to meet Philippe and Esme. All sign of the diffident nun has been beaten out of her, Selene noted. Perhaps that’s what she was hammering away on in the basement for the last three days.
The Goddess of Justified War carried her spear in one hand and an enormous duffel bag over one shoulder. “You have come,” she pronounced.
Philippe pursed his lips. “Of course. I’ll make sure Papa’s own hammer sets him free.”
Gabi piped up. “What good will that do without Flint to swing it? No one else can tap into its divine mojo, right?”
Philippe’s glance slid to Theo. “The Makarites can.”
Gabi crossed her arms over her chest, glaring from the god to her friend. “That means Theo has to be inside the portal to crack open Tartarus, right? I thought you were getting to safety with the rest of us mere mortals.”
Theo didn’t answer her directly. “None of that’s going to matter if we don’t find another person. Eight notes, eight people.”
Maryam lifted one long arm and pointed to the end of the bridge. A small figure, no more than a silhouette in the darkness, appeared. Theo squinted in that direction. But Selene’s keen eyes had already identified the narrow shoulders and wispy hair of their new volunteer. Theo wasn’t going to like this.
“Ruth?” he breathed as she stepped into the light of a lamppost. “What are you doing here?”
“Maryam asked me to come. As backup.”
“And you … said yes?” He looked completely shocked.
“She said you were conducting an experiment, and you needed as many scientists as you could muster.”
Theo rounded on Maryam. “Ruth’s a biologist, not an astronomer or a physicist. You shouldn’t be putting more of my friends in danger.”
Maryam looked at him steadily. “From what I’ve read of her research, your friend is a very intelligent woman. Intelligent enough to choose for herself.”
Theo threw up his hands. “She doesn’t want any part of this.”
“Yes, I do,” Ruth said, her voice quiet but firm. “I’m already in it too deep. I’ve spent the last three days wondering what on earth you were planning. Gabriela told me about the portal—it does sound dangerous, but it also sounds like a miracle. As a scientist, we don’t see a lot of those.”
“So you’re here to satisfy your intellectual curiosity?” he demanded.
“I’m here because you need me,” she replied calmly. “And because I need you.” She took a step closer to Theo and reached for his hands. Selene could see the tension in his shoulders and had to stop herself from intervening. Theo had stood by and let her deal with Flint in her own way. The least she could do was let him do the same with Ruth.
Ruth looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I know I can never be the only woman in your life. But we’ve been through too much to throw our friendship away now. Let me do this, Theo. For the love we share.”
Selene felt a stab of jealousy—not because of the warmth in Theo’s eyes as he looked down at his friend, but because of the loyalty in Ruth’s. Flint had been so hurt by Selene’s rejection that he’d walked into the unknown of the portal rather than staying with her and the rest of his family. If he couldn’t have all of her, he didn’t want any of her. So it had always been for Athanatoi, even ones as human as Flint. Either catch the maiden and have your way, or turn her into a laurel tree. There’s never been much gray in our black-and-white world.
Theo wrapped his arms around Ruth, who pressed her cheek into his chest. He kissed the top of her head lightly.
Maryam opened her large duffel and passed out small mallets. They looked like jeweler’s tools compared to the massive hammer Philippe handed to Theo.
Unlike the intricately carved ornaments and weapons that the Smith usually made, his hammer was a practical tool. Millennia of use had polished the ash-wood shaft to a silken shine. The head, as big around as a coffee can and twice as long, was dark iron, its blunt front and tapered tail mirroring the meteorite from which it had been forged.
Next, Maryam drew out a stack of what looked like very thin manhole covers. In fact, Selene realized, noting the NYC SEWER faintly visible on the surface, they were manhole covers. Or at least they had been before the Goddess of Crafts hammered them into shields and coated them in gleaming metal.
“Where’d you get the bronze?” Selene asked.
“Tin from some cans in your basement. Copper from your country’s inappropriately named nickels.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of nickels.”
Maryam shrugged. “I supplemented with the copper tubing from your pipes.”
“My pipes?”
Maryam looked at her sternly. “You have more bathrooms than you need.”
Selene frowned, but she had to admire her half sister’s resourcefulness. In three days of work, she’d turned the basement into her own personal forge and created a total of seven shields. She offered the first one to Gabriela, who held both hands up in protest.
“If you think I need that, this whole idea is way too dangerous.”
“It’s wiser to be safe, is it not?” Maryam asked, her brow furrowed. “My Father must know we’ll try to rescue our family. He’ll be prepared for us. We need to be prepared for him.”
Gabriela opened her mouth to refuse, then shut it with a snap when she looked down at the front of the shield. “You made this … for me?” She sounded completely nonplussed for the first time since Selene had known her. The front of the shield, she saw now, was embossed with the geometric figure of a Navajo eagle.
Maryam’s lips tightened, rather than smiled, but Selene could see she was pleased with herself. “Your mother was Navajo, no? I’ve given you the warrior’s symbol of your people, to bring out the warrior within.”
“I’m not a—” Gabriela stopped herself, her eyes still on the shield.
“You mortals do not have defining attributes, as we do. And perhaps that gives you more flexibility to craft your own identity. But sometimes, when you are lost, overwhelmed, confused, an attribute can also remind you of your most essential self.”
Gabriela swallowed whatever she was about to say. She slipped the shield over her left arm.
Maryam passed the next shield to Minh. Overlapping starbursts of pressed tin covered its face. “I don’t get a constellation?” Minh asked.
“The gods put the constellations in the heavens,” Maryam answered. “Or perhaps men just gave the stars names and stories to make the heavens seem a little less vast. But you, Miss Loi, see the universe as it is—infinite, unknowable, full of mystery. You have no need of constellations.”
A pair of wide, feathered wings adorned Philippe’s shield. His eyes filled with tears when he took it, recognizing the wings that had once grown from his own back before he’d sliced them off in a fit of self-loathing long ago.
“I cannot give you your wings again,” Maryam said, “but if you wear this shield on your back, perhaps it can protect you as they once did.”
Selene wondered what Maryam had put on Esme’s shield. Flowers? Doves? Hearts? Instead, she’d simply polished its face to a mirror-bright shine. Aphrodite’s hand mirror had always been her defining attribute, but not much of a weapon.
“When you turn it on others,” Maryam explained, “they will either be blinded by its light or see themselves more clearly than before. Such is the power of falling in love, is it not?”
Esme gazed at her own reflection as if she barely heard Maryam’s words. She looked like a midcentury Hollywood action heroine: high-waisted shorts that just brushed the top of her thighs, a button-down shirt with its tails tied in a neat bow below her ribs, and strappy stiletto heels. She wore her golden hair in a loose chignon. Esme stared for a moment longer at the shield before bending down to remove her
shoes. She flexed manicured toes against the wooden planks of the walkway, as if listening to the vibrations of the bridge through the soles of her feet.
Ruth’s shield carried two fish circling each other in a graceful yin-yang. She studied such fish as part of her microbiology research, but Selene immediately knew they symbolized more than just her scientific interests. They were a perfect pair, a symbol of the balance that Ruth provided to the friends in her life. How Maryam had read the young woman so accurately after only having seen her once, Selene couldn’t begin to know. Probably something to do with the Internet.
Theo’s shield, on the other hand, was blank. Faint disappointment etched his brow. “I was hoping for a pair of spectacles under a raised sword or something.”
“You carry a sword meant for the hunter Orion and a helm crafted for Hades. They are not your attributes, but theirs. I thought to give you Selene’s animal on your shield, since she protects you and you protect her with the force of a wide-antlered stag. But you need an attribute of your own. I’m just not sure what it is yet.”
Selene was surprised to hear her half sister confess her own limitations. But Athena had always been careful: She wouldn’t act unless she knew it was right.
She had no shield for Selene.
“You have a bow and arrows to hold,” Maryam said. “You can’t also carry a shield.”
“Uh-huh. What about that one?” Selene asked, pointing to the last saucer in the pile.
Maryam hefted it on her own arm in answer. It was a foot wider than the others, thicker too. It must have weighed at least fifty pounds. The wild snakes of a Gorgon’s hair decorated the front—but no Medusa face. Maryam didn’t need to explain the symbolism: Athena had turned Medusa into a monster. Now she cut the serpents from the woman’s head and set her free. That’s Athena’s defining attribute now, Selene thought. Mercy. Mercy for herself and for others. She learned that lesson as Mary, for all that I reviled her false piety.
Maryam raised her spear, bracing the butt against the walkway so the tip gleamed a full foot above the black cap of her shorn hair. She held her shield over one arm. She wore no tactical armor this time, but rather a long white tank top and wide-legged white sweatpants raided from Selene’s closet. In the dim light of the bridge, she looked like Athena once more, missing only her shining helm and tasseled aegis.
Olympus Bound Page 41
