by S W Clarke
I crossed into the bathroom, retrieved a towel for Justin and knelt by him. “Here, take this. How’s the pain?”
He accepted the towel, dabbed at the blood. “My nose might be broken.”
“It’s not, peon,” Hercules returned, still exploring the wonders of the tissue box. He’d already extracted about half of them, which were littered around him on the floor.
I lifted my eyes to the demigod. “It’s not what?”
“His nose.” He turned—the arrow disappearing behind him—with a clump of tissues in one hand. “It’s not broken.”
“How do you know that?”
He drew in a long breath, his green eyes shifting to Justin. When they did, a deep loathing colored his expression—but thankfully not a desire for murder. “I know that because my fate is now bound to that frail human’s.”
We all stared at him a moment, until Cupid finally piped up with, “What?”
Hercules tried to lower himself into the armchair by the window, but the arrow caught on the backrest. “What hinders me?” He attempted to reach around, but his body was too large, and his arms too short to reach the arrow.
“I gotcha.” Cupid flew over, snatching the arrow and hiding it in his quiver in one quick, furtive motion.
Hercules made a face, flaring on him. “Did you just … pinch me, Cupid of Eros?”
“Nope.” Cupid shot to the other side of the room, away from Hercules’s anger. “You just had a little something stuck to you.”
Justin rose from the floor, the towel set to his face. “What do you mean about our fates being bound?”
With a growl, Hercules lowered himself into the armchair. “Listen, and listen well. Twelve labors were given to me by King Eurystheus to atone for murdering my wife and children.” He raised his eyes to Justin. “One of my labors was to rid the world of the scourge of the stymphalian birds, and so I slew them some time ago. But Hera could not bear to see her creations wiped from the Earth, so she created another flock and placed them in a cage.”
“A cage?” he asked. “Where?”
His eyes unfocused. “One of the greatest structures the gods ever made—the Museum of All.”
Justin and I exchanged a glance. The name didn’t register at all.
Hercules shifted, the armchair giving a cry with his weight. “Their reappearance, my resurrection—it can only mean that they escaped.” His green eyes went hard on Justin, his hands folding until his knuckles pressed against the skin. “And this scoundrel killing them means that my destiny was denied me.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Cupid reaching over his shoulder toward his quiver. I put out a staying hand and stepped forward to redirect Hercules’s attention. “What do you mean by ‘resurrection?’ ”
Hercules’s fists relaxed a little as he gazed at me. “I awoke in a field, the whole swath of the heavens above me. I recognized the constellations, and I knew I was home, in Greece. I lay on the very spot where my funeral pyre had burned. And I knew I had one purpose: to finish my labors. And so I began walking.”
“You walked from Greece to Vermont?” I met eyes with Cupid, who lifted his palms in confusion. How had Hercules crossed the ocean? He didn’t look like the type of guy who carried his credit cards in his back pocket. “How long have you been walking?”
“Sixty-five days.”
I angled my head around to see his feet. “Barefoot?”
“Foot coverings slow me, make me less agile.”
“And what does me slaying the birds have to do with your fate?” Justin pressed.
In the armchair—which already looked like a doll’s chair with Hercules in it—the Other seemed to bristle, growing in size as he gazed at my boyfriend.
I exchanged a glance with Cupid. Better not to test the uber-powerful demigod. “My boyfriend meant that in the politest way.”
“The most diplomatic way,” Cupid added.
Hercules gestured to Justin. “My fate is now bound to yours. When my fist connected with your face, I took the blow myself. Which means, in the simplest terms, that if you die, I die.”
↔
If you die, I die. If you die, I die.
The words kept ringing inside me, but they didn’t register until the third ring. If you die, I die.
This night just kept getting worse.
“Wild,” Cupid breathed.
“Hold up.” Justin lowered the towel. “Who are you, anyway? The Terminator?”
Hercules again made to rise from the chair, but Cupid flew between the two of them, his wings now flitting as fast as a hummingbird’s to keep him aloft.“This is Hercules.” He cupped a hand at the side of his mouth to whisper to Justin, “And he’s under the effect of one of my arrows, which is why he isn’t trying to kill you right now. So try to smile when you talk to him.”
Justin’s eyebrows went up. “And who are you?”
I cleared my throat. “That’s, um …”
“Cupid of Eros,” the demigod sang. He folded both chubby hands to make peace signs at either side of his face. “Not to be mistaken for Cupid of Philia or Cupid of Agape, my inferior, far less interesting brothers. Don’t tell them I said that.”
Justin leaned toward me. “Who are they really?” he whispered in my ear.
“They’re Hercules and Cupid,” I whispered back.
“Of Eros,” Cupid added in the same whisper.
Across the room, Hercules was now inspecting his nails. I cleared my throat to get his attention. “So what you’re saying is, Justin completing your labor bound his fate with yours in such a way that if he takes a punch, you take it, too.”
A tiny smile played on Hercules’s lips. “Well perceived.”
“Does that include death?” I asked in a smaller voice.
“I presume so.”
Justin sighed. “OK, Hercules and Cupid of Eros. What brought you from ancient Greece to …” His hands went out, and he surveyed the space we were in. “To this motel room in Vermont?” I could tell he wasn’t totally buying that this was the real Cupid, and that was the real Hercules.
“Her love story.” Cupid pointed at me.
“My labor,” Hercules said simply.
“Well,” Justin said, “I guess that means you can leave now, Hercules.”
Hercules shook his head, steepling his hands. “I wish I could. Unfortunately, our fates being bound complicates the circumstances. You’re clearly quite weak, and I can’t possibly allow you to die—at least, not before I complete my last undone labor.”
Ouch. Without realizing it, Hercules had touched on the open nerve that was Justin’s biggest insecurity. Being weak. Helpless. Incapable. The irony was that the World Army messing with his genes had led to just that.
“So unbind our fates,” Justin said with clenched teeth. “And then we’ll never have to see each other again.”
Hercules raised his hands helplessly. “If I could, feeble human, I would. But I cannot.”
This time it was Justin who bristled, and I had to set my hand on his arm to keep him from lashing out. “You said last labor,” I said. “There’s another?”
“Yes, another labor which has been undone. It is not far from here, and when it has been completed, I suspect our fates will come unbound.”
“Because you’ll die afterward,” Justin said. “For good.”
Hercules narrowed his eyes at Justin. “And I will rest once more.”
“What is that labor?” I asked.
Hercules straightened, one arm folding in front of his chest. “I must steal the apples from the Hesperides in Hera’s garden.” He canted his head. “Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t mind thieving from Hera’s garden. She did attempt to kill me over a hundred times, that malicious wench.”
“Baaaa-ad blood,” Cupid murmured.
“Who are the Hesperides?” I asked.
“The Daughters of the Evening, the Nymphs of the West,” Hercules said with a flourish of his hand. “They dance. They sin
g. They guard the garden.”
“And where are these Hesperides?” Justin asked.
“Where else,” Hercules said, “but the city known as the Big Apple?”
Chapter 7
An hour later, Justin and I stood by the bumper of the Mustang. He cringed as he inspected the damage. “You said it had three horns?”
“We can talk about that later,” I murmured, standing close to him. Some twenty feet away, Cupid was teaching Hercules how to manipulate a TV remote through the open door of his motel room. The dulcet notes of a soap opera issued through the door. “Right now, we need to decide what to do.”
Justin straightened. “What do you mean, ‘do?’ We need to find the resistance.”
I pointed at the pair sitting on the edge of the bed. “What about those two?”
“If they’re who they say they are, then they should have no trouble fending for themselves.”
I turned on him. “You sound like you disbelieve.”
Justin shrugged. “I mean, come on. Hercules? Hercules of legend was like”—his arms went out and up—”huge. Godly.”
I glanced again at Hercules. “That guy is pretty huge. You didn’t see what he did last night. We were being chased by an odontotyrannos, and he brought it down with two blows from his club.”
“An odonto-what?”
“It’s like a cross between a horse and an elephant. Don’t you remember it chasing us last night?”
“To be honest, I don’t remember much after you shifted into this form.” His eyes flitted over my dark hair and new face.
“Anyway, that’s not the point,” I insisted. “You saw what happened when he punched you.”
Justin pointed at his nose, which was crusted with blood and bruising around the sides. “Yeah, I sure did ‘see’ it.”
“So how do you explain that?”
Justin’s mouth opened, then closed a few seconds later. He clearly had no explanation, but he didn’t want to accept the truth, either.
“Listen,” I said, “Hercules said his fate is bound to yours, but he thinks we can change that by stealing these apples. He needs to go to New York City. We’re going to New York City. I’ve been alive long enough to know that’s no coincidence. I believe him when he says your fates are bound together.”
“Stealing the apples from the Hesperides? What does that even mean?”
I lifted my hand with my phone in it. “I looked up the myth about his labors. It’s just like he said: they’re nymphs who guard an apple tree.”
Justin groaned. “So he thinks ‘the Big Apple’ means he’ll find apples there.”
“He can’t be that dense.” I glanced at Hercules and Cupid in the motel room. Cupid was sitting on the only chair the motel room provided, swinging his legs like a toddler patiently waiting for a treat. Meanwhile, Hercules appeared to be attempting to use the remote upside-down. Deep down—I mean, so far down I couldn’t have even acknowledged it in my mind—I knew we needed to keep Hercules around. “I think if we just take him to the city, he’ll understand for himself what the expression means. Regardless, I think he could be helpful to us. He’s strong, and self-preservation means keeping you alive, too.”
When I looked back at Justin, I could see the frustration in his eyes. Every time he had to be saved, taken care of, it brought him back to the dybbuk. Before we’d met, Justin had been possessed by a dybbuk demon. It had done a number on him, to the point where he’d allowed Serena Russo to combine his genes with various Other DNA in order to be more powerful.
But he was a guinea pig, and the side effects were terrible. But he seemed all right now, or maybe he was just good at hiding the pain.
“Please,” I said.
“All right,” Justin said. “Just to the city to steal the ‘apples.’ Then it’s you and me.”
“And we’re bringing Cupid,” I added. “He saved our lives.”
For some reason, I hesitated telling Justin about what Cupid had said—that I had a powerful love story. Maybe it embarrassed me to talk to Justin—whom I loved—about it, or maybe I didn’t really believe it was true, so it wasn’t worth mentioning.
Justin eyed Cupid in the room. “Can’t he put on some clothes? Can’t either of them, for that matter?”
I shrugged. “I’ll try.” But I had a feeling their egos were bound up in their aesthetics. Hercules’s especially.
Ten minutes later, the four of us piled into the Mustang. Justin insisted on driving, and Cupid called shotgun—he complained of motion sickness in the back seat—and Hercules and I were crammed into the back. I did my best not to touch Hercules, but he didn’t seem to mind that we were thigh to thigh, or that his massive arm brushed up alongside mine.
It didn’t hurt that he smelled divine. GoneGods know how a man who’d woken up in a field and spent sixty-five (presumably showerless) days walking could smell so good, but I assumed it had something to do with being a demigod.
A lighter clicked, and Cupid’s head appeared between the seats, a cigarette poised between two fingers. “Anyone mind if I smoke?”
I was too stunned to say anything. Was that even legal? I mean, he was over two thousand years old, so I was technically younger than him.
“Just roll the window down,” Justin said, pulling us out of the motel’s lot. Which Cupid did, one hand resting on the sill as the smoke flew by outside.
I turned, stared behind us as we got onto the highway. The people chasing us were somewhere down that long length of road. We just needed to find the resistance before the World Army found us.
↔
We hadn’t driven a mile before Hercules angled to face me. “Tell me, Isabella. What are you?”
Seated this close, if I turned toward him I might melt from the intensity of his gaze. So I just stared ahead as Justin drove. “I’m a biologist.”
Hercules laughed, a melodic sound that sent tingles through my stomach. He was one of those easily amused types whose laughter inspired your own. I found myself wanting to laugh with him, but resisted. “Ah, a woman of the mind—I respect that. This modern world seems ripe with opportunities for women. Tell me what you do as a biologist, Isabella. Surely you’ve eclipsed Aristotle’s research.”
Hercules the feminist? I thought. I nodded as I processed this. Hercules the feminist. “I’m a geneticist, which means …” I tried to think of how to put it. “It means I study the traits that are passed down from parents to children.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “And what about your magical nature?”
Now I couldn’t resist looking at him. Those green eyes were indeed on me, and I swallowed. “My magical nature?”
“He’s a demigod,” Cupid chimed in from the front seat. “Those of us born of gods can sense these things pretty easily.”
Well, Hercules was protecting Justin, in a way. The least I could do was repay him with honesty. “I’m an encantado,” I said, “from the rainforests of Brazil.” Not that Hercules was likely to know what Brazil was, or where.
But he took it all in with patient eyes. “Surely encantado are enchantresses. I sensed as much from you as soon as I entered your presence.”
Every seductive instinct in me fired off. I knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to angle my face and pronounce my words to the end my body wanted. And that end was with me underneath Hercules … and maybe by intervals atop him.
My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, where Justin and I met gazes. Don’t flirt, Isabella. Don’t flirt.
I took a deep breath, allowed my quivering insides to settle. Then, I rattled off like a biologist: “Encantado are shapeshifters, able to take on the appearance of any human. Our true form isn’t of a human at all, but a creature of the water. We are all female, and before the gods left, we were immortal, free to mingle with humans throughout the millennia.”
There, nice and non-suggestive.
“So you’re seductresses,” Cupid said from the front seat.
I made a face. “It is in our natu
re, yes.”
“Are the rest of your kind so thoughtful?” Hercules asked. He lifted two fingers, pointed them at my eyes (and also pinned me to the spot). “I can see every thought percolating in your mind.”
By the GoneGods, why did Hercules have to be so charming?
The engine roared as Justin accelerated us, and we blew down the highway. Anything I might have said to Hercules would have been lost under the roar, and that wasn’t an accident.
Justin, as I was learning, was a tad possessive.
I took this as my cue to disengage. I glanced outside; more trees, intermittent fields. We had already crossed the state line into New York, and would be into the city by the evening. The plan was to get to Times Square, ditch the car, and wait for the resistance like Egya had instructed.
“I, too, find that nature helps me articulate my thoughts,” Hercules said, apparently still observing me.
Right now, I was having a hard time concentrating on the plan. As the engine’s roar fell away to a purr, I carefully met Hercules’s eyes, thinking of how to formulate a response that wasn’t seductive.
But Cupid saved me. “Look,” he said, shifting to boyish excitement. His fist knocked the window, which he’d rolled up after finishing his cigarette. “That’s where I found my first job after the gods left.”
We were coming up to a strip mall alongside the highway. Half a dozen shops populated the little lot. “Number 1 Wok?” I asked.
“No,” he said irritably, pointing at an auto-repair shop. “Jimmy’s.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You were a mechanic?”
“Apprentice,” Cupid corrected.
“What happened?”
He shrugged, stared wistfully out the window at the fields. “I have commitment issues.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “But you’re Cupid!”
He flared on me, blue eyes meeting mine through the slot between the seat and the headrest. “Yeah, and what do you think Cupid does?”
