Wither & Wound

by Demitria Lunetta

  “My grandmother,” I prompt her, grabbing her wrists. “You were speaking in her voice.”

  “Yes,” Cassie nods, her eyes clouding, not with the opaque white of a trance, but with regular, human worry. “I saw her too. I saw it all.”

  “Tell me,” I urge her. I’ve long suspected Grandma’s elevator falling that day wasn’t connected to the tidal wave. There’s just no way it was a coincidence. Not with all the secrets I’ve learned since then.

  Cassie is crying now, tears spilling over her lashes. “He instigated Levi to take out your dad. Then he went after your grandma,” she says. “She was trying to protect you, trying to keep him from coming for you. She knew that if you didn’t have anyone left in your life—you’d take the invitation. You’d go with him and you’d come to MOA. And once here, you’d be in danger.”

  Cassie falls forward, clearly exhausted.

  “Who killed my grandmother?” I ask desperately. “Who did you see?”

  Cassie looks up at me, circles already under her eyes. “It was Hermes.”

  “Hermes?!” But even as I say his name, I realize how much sense it makes. I should’ve figured it out on my own a long time ago. “Hermes,” I say again, this time accepting it.

  Cassie nods once and mouths the words, I’m sorry.

  “Not as sorry as Hermes will be.”

  When I get back to my room, I don’t feel like explaining to Tina how I just found out the god who brought me to MOA in the first place wasn’t doing so out of the kindness of his heart—if gods even have those. No, Hermes was keeping tabs on me, and had been for who knows how long. What did he suspect? Did he know I was Mr. Zee’s child?

  There are a million questions in my head, and more in my heart, and Tina can immediately see that something is troubling me.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks when I walk in, wiping tears from my eyes. “You know what? Never mind. I really don’t care. I’ve got bigger problems. Like a dead Stymphalian bird.”

  “Right,” I say, eyeing the feathery corpse, which she’d propped it up in the window, more to have it out of the way than anything else, but the sunlight isn’t doing it any favors. A few feathers fall out even while we’re talking.

  “What am I going to do?” Tina wails. “I can’t go to class without a bird. And I already missed breakfast.”

  “And you can’t report him dead, either,” I remind her. “We talked about this. He kicked the bucket right after drinking from the ambrosia Hepa was about to deliver to Mr. Zee. She’s helping Themis to poison him, and we can’t blow her cover because of your stupid bird.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Tina counters. “Mr. Zee is the head of the gods, you know. It could have just been undiluted ambrosia. It might have knocked us dead too, if the bird hadn’t downed it all first.”

  “I guess that’s true,” I say, but inwardly, I don’t agree. I’ve seen Hepa coming and going from Themis’s office too many times to buy into Tina’s simpler explanation. “Regardless, how would we explain a dead Stymphalian bird? Do you want to tell Themis we’ve been stealing ambrosia on the sly? Or face Artemis after she finds out one of her beloved pets is dead?”

  Tina goes a shade paler than she already is, which is saying a lot for a vampire. “No way,” she says. “Themis has no tolerance for drinking on campus. And Artemis...”

  “Is an unforgiving battle ax,” I finish for her. “They’ll just issue you a new bird, anyway,” I say, as I join her on her bed.

  We both look at the dead bird as a fly settles on its beak, then crawls into its mouth.

  “Ugh,” Tina says. “I bet it’s laying maggots in there.”

  “More food for Vee,” I say, trying to find the bright side.

  The Venus fly trap turns its head towards me when it hears its name. It’s bizarre how life-like it is. Even when Tina’s bird was alive, I think Vee was the more sentient of the two. And now…

  I go still, my mind churning. Vee tilting her head, studies me almost like she can read my thoughts.

  “Tina,” I say. “I have an idea. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “I can try,” Fern says. “But I can’t promise excellent results. Life is an incredibly difficult thing to mimic. That level of magic is way above my abilities.”

  “But you can try,” Tina repeats. “Right?”

  Fern looks at me, unsure.

  I sigh. “Look, I know we’re asking a lot. And I know that I just took your face earlier today, so it’s a big ask on top of a big ask.”

  “Um, her face?” Tina asks, but I wave it away.

  “But we don’t have a good explanation for a dead Stympahlian bird that doesn’t get everybody into a lot of trouble.”

  “So if you’d take a swing at it, we’d really appreciate it,” Tina finishes for me. Unfortunately, she allows her fangs to erupt as she speaks, which makes it come off more like a threat than a favor.

  “Okay,” Fern nods. “Shut the door. This could get loud. And possibly very smelly.”

  She isn’t kidding. It takes most of an hour, three rune stones, five very fresh piles of Stymphalian poop (happily donated by Val’s bird), a little of Tina’s blood, one of Vee’s leaves, some fire and enough chanting that Fern nearly loses her voice.

  “Well,” she says hoarsely, lifting her hair off her neck as the smoke clears. “What do you think?”

  “Um…” Tina watches as her bird performs a bizarre, lurching walk around the room. It runs into her bed, then falls over onto its back, legs still valiantly moving. It’s like a weird mix of a wind-up toy with low batteries and a drunk turtle stuck on its back.

  Fern picks it up, rights it, and the bird takes off again, this time marching into the closed door. It keeps walking in place as its beak repeatedly bounces against the door.

  Thunk.

  “Guys,” Tina says.

  Thunk.

  “I don’t think—”

  Thunk.

  “This will work.”

  Thunk.

  “Oh sons of Zeus, will someone please stop that thing?!”

  Fern goes to the befuddled bird and picks him up, lovingly cradling her new creation in her arms.

  “He can’t help it,” she says. “It’s not his fault I’m not good at this yet. It’s complicated magic. I put a spell on him that should keep him from rotting for a good long while, and you won’t have to worry about him eating—”

  “Or pooping?” Tina asks, hopefully.

  “No, he won’t do that either,” Fern says. “He is dead. I can’t resurrect him—that’s seriously dark magic. All I did was make him seem alive.”

  “Kind of,” Tina says, eyeing the bundle in Fern’s arms as his neck goes completely limp, and he stares at her upside down, unblinking.

  I squint at him. “I don’t know, now that’s he’s not pooping, he’s kind of cute.”

  “Cute?” Tina looks at me like I’m crazy.

  “I think we should name him,” I add, reaching to pet his feathers. They’re slick beneath my fingers and the body beneath them is cold. Even colder than Tina and Val. “Hey, he’s kinda like a vampire,” I say with a grin.

  Tina’s fangs come out for real this time. “I have killed people for lesser insults.”

  I ignore this. Tina threatening to kill me just doesn’t have an effect on me anymore. “I think we should call him Bernie.”

  “Ugh,” Tina sighs. “First of all, we’re not naming him. Second of all, he’s my dead bird and if anyone’s naming him, it will be me. Third, just because you have an old person name, doesn’t mean everyone else should too.”

  I laugh and it feels good to know that I still can...even as Hermes’s name nibbles at the back of my mind. “I actually picked Bernie because of this old movie. My dad loved it and made me and Mavis watch it. This old guy named Bernie—”

  “Ha,” Tina interrupts. “I told you it was an old man name.”

  “Not the point. Anyway, Bernie dies and these two young guys—for rea
sons—spend a weekend propping him up between them so people think he’s still alive.”

  “That’s horrible,” Fern says. “Why would your father make you watch this horror story?”

  “No, it was a comedy,” I correct.

  “I’m naming him David Bowie. Bowie for short,” Tina declares in a ‘subject closed’ tone. “’Cause I wish Fern could’ve reanimated him instead.”

  “Yeah, I’m definitely not reanimating anyone else,” Fern says. “But I think this one went pretty well, all things considered.” Fern crosses the room to sit next to Tina on her bed. “The good news is that muscle memory is very strong, even in animals. And the anti-decomposition spell means that his muscles will be in good working order for quite some time.”

  “Uh-huh…” Tina eyes Fern warily as she settles in next to her and then raises the bird to Tina’s shoulder. Bowie moves over to Tina with a shuddering step and latches on.

  “See?” Fern exclaims. “Muscle memory!”

  The bird utters a half-hearted squawk and falls forward, claws still embedded in Tina’s shoulder as he does a faceplant into her boobs.

  “Hooray for muscle memory,” she says, dryly.

  14

  I’m surprised when Fern offers to walk with us to Kratos’s class. “Are you the healer today?” I ask. Kratos’s classes always have a healer on hand since he likes to keep his student demonstrations very realistic.

  “Yep,” she nods, patting the satchel at her side. “Got everything I need in case you set someone on fire again. They actually assigned two of us here for today,” she says, nodding toward another girl.

  “But you permanently fire-proofed Val,” I remind her, smiling to myself at the memory of my first class here at the Academy…and the first time I saw Val.

  “Not everyone here is so lucky,” Fern says, her gaze sweeping the classroom. “I’ll make you a list if you want any recommendations on who you should smoke next.”

  Wow. The anger on campus is bad enough that even kind-hearted Fern has a kill list.

  Fern and I slide into seats on either side of Cassie. On my other side, a Stymphalian bird hovers over his prey—the healer Fern nodded to earlier, whose face is bright red as she tries to act like it’s not there. It’s an attitude that is impossible to maintain, especially when it settles onto her shoulder, talons digging in. She cries out in pain, which only makes some of our classmates titter in amusement.

  “Those absolute a-holes,” I mutter under my breath to Cassie, who nods in agreement. A familiar fire burns in my gut, and I want to let it reach full force, let it erupt from my throat as I shift into a dragon, burn all the birds, and carry the Moggies somewhere they won’t be persecuted simply for having the wrong parents.

  But my heroic daydream is interrupted when Hermes blows through the double doors, sending the four Stymphalian birds in the classrooms into a flutter. Since the Stymphalian response to any sort of stimuli is to shit, they of course, immediately drop most of their lunch onto the students below them.

  All except for Tina’s bird, who tries to take off, but lands unceremoniously on the floor instead. “Easy there, Bowie,” she mutters, picking the bird up and dusting him off.

  “Hello beautiful students,” Hermes croons as he strides into the room. He eyes all of us before him in the usual way—like he’s undressing us and likes what he sees.

  Funny, the first time I met him, I found it almost flattering. He’s so handsome and was so obviously interested in me. Then, later, when it became clear Hermes would bag anyone or anything, it became more of an annoyance. The kind I’ve learned to roll my eyes at along with everybody else.

  But now it pisses me off. The entitlement of this jerk. The way he goes through life using his power to just take and take and take.

  He took me here, to Mount Olympus Academy, feeding me a bunch of lies on the way.

  He took Mavis’s mother and then let her die giving birth to his child. I bet he never even gave her a second thought.

  And he took my grandmother. A badass harpy who disguised herself in human form so she could help raise me.

  “Alright, class,” Hermes says. “I know you’re all expecting Kratos to be your teacher for Torture: The Transition from Lies to Truth class, but he’s been reassigned elsewhere for the time being.”

  There’s some shuffling in the classroom, and Cassie leans into me. “Fern says Kratos has been assigned to guard Mavis in her cell. Apparently, the guards there haven’t been doing a great job. I guess Zeus found out Mavis had paper and pencil, and he threw a hissy fit.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I sputter, furious with despair.

  Without pencil and paper, our notes will be at an end. They were the only thing keeping me from going crazy with worry. And for Mavis...I can only imagine they were an important lifeline for her as well.

  “She’s got a magical collar that keeps her from shifting,” I add. “And she’s locked inside a cell that has multiple spells reinforcing the bars. Why does she also need a completely ripped jailor?”

  Cassie shrugs. “I think Mr. Zee is super scared, Edie.”

  “Good,” I say quietly, the fire in my belly reigniting as I think of the burns I saw on my sister. “He should be.”

  “So,” Hermes says, glancing around. “Who can tell me what this class is about?”

  We all look at each other, blankly. A vampire slowly raises his hand. “Um…torture?”

  “Yes,” Hermes agrees. “Torture. And when do we employ these techniques?”

  “As sparingly as possible,” Fern cries out, coming to her feet. “Testimony given under torture is highly questionable. A victim will say anything to stop their pain. That doesn’t make those statements reliable!”

  Quite a few applaud her words, but this is an assassin class. Most of the students boo her back down into her seat.

  “Torture is a tried and true method,” Nico says, standing behind his desk. “Believe me. I would know.” There’s a collective gasp as Nico raises his shirt to show off a crisscrossing of silvery, scarred skin.

  There’s also a really decent set of abs under that, so I’m not sure that all of the gasps are purely sympathetic in nature.

  “Wait!” Cassie jumps into the argument. “I was there when the monsters hurt you, Nico. You didn’t share any information. You stood firm against the pain and said nothing. That means torture doesn’t work.”

  “It only means that it doesn’t work on the son of Maddox Tralano,” Nico says, his eyes sweeping the room. Quite a few vampires stare back with equal amounts of antagonism.

  Hermes clears his throat. “I think that’s enough debating about whether or not torture is a viable—”

  “No!” Fern says, coming to her feet again. “Torture is wrong, period. It doesn’t gain any information from our enemies. If anything, it encourages them to make up something, just to end the pain. Then we chase down false leads, all because some bloodthirsty torturers wanted to get their rocks off.”

  Hermes immediately brightens. “On the subject of getting your rocks off, I can certainly say that—”

  “Oh gods,” Cassie says. “I don’t think Kratos gave him any lesson plans.”

  Around us the rest of the class seems to have come to the same conclusion. Hermes has no idea what he’s doing and no idea how to control us.

  Students at my old non-magical high school were the same way when a clueless substitute teacher walked into the room. Once it’s clear that the old rules won’t be enforced—anarchy rules.

  Suddenly the torture discussion gets a lot more heated. Nico and a few shifter friends begin exchanging angry words with vampires. They’re threatening to use each other as a torture example.

  We’re seconds away from a full out brawl and Hermes is sorta half-heartedly calling for everyone to, “Settle down. Nobody is going to be used as an example right now.”

  Suddenly, I have an idea. It comes straight from the churning in my gut. Which probably means it’s the kind of ide
a best ignored.

  Hermes laughs. “Okay, if you guys are gonna fight each other. I think we should put some money on it, to make things really interesting. It will be like a math lesson too.”

  I stand up so fast my chair falls to the floor.

  “Hermes?” I say, walking over to him with a big wide fake smile. “I have an idea for a project that will take up the entire class period.”

  “You do?” he asks. His gaze swings toward the students ready to fight, then back to me, clearly torn.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “And I’d hate for Kratos to be annoyed if we strayed too far from the lesson plan.”

  This gets Hermes’s attention. I’m not surprised. He’s the silver-tongued type, who’s gotten through his centuries of life floating by on his charm. Kratos, on the other hand, is a man of few words. He’d rather use his fists to express himself. And if he decides that Hermes messed up his class, he will happily communicate that by temporarily separating Hermes’s head from his body.

  “What are you thinking, my pretty girl?” he asks.

  I bite my tongue to keep from telling him I’m not his girl. Instead, I blink up at him as if I’m the Edie of old. A girl who has no idea she has a dragon inside of her. “Well, the other students gave me an idea. Kratos really does like us to have hands-on activities. But in a controlled way, of course. So, I have an idea for us to settle the argument as to whether or not torture is effective.”

  “By all means,” Hermes says, pressing me forward with a hand on my lower—much lower—back. “Please, share with the rest of the class.”

  I make my way to the front of the room and lift a pair of manacles from the wall.

  “May I?” I ask Hermes, one eyebrow raised suggestively.

  “Oh, please do,” he says, giving my legs a sweeping look as I close the first manacle around his wrist. “Is this in relation to getting my rocks off?”

  I only smile and take him by his chained hands, leading him to an empty desk. He takes a seat, looking up at me expectantly.