Age of Heroes (47 page)

Wilson and Valente followed suit, as did Roy and Jeanne.

A scream from Hélène brought the attention of all five Myrmidons back to the fight.

Sasha had managed, in spite of her useless arm, to turn the tables. Hélène was on the ground. The point of the scythe had pierced her hand. The battle-axe lay beside her, just out of her reach.

Hélène writhed, hissing in agony, struggling to free her impaled hand.

Sasha simply leaned on the scythe handle with her good arm, increasing the pressure, driving the blade further through Hélène’s hand and into the soil beneath.

Hélène lashed out with her feet, but Sasha seemed impervious to the kicks.

“How do you like that, you pampered whore?” Sasha jeered. “Rosalind and Melina were each worth a dozen of you. You preyed on their trust. You betrayed them.”

“And I’d do it again, in a heartbeat,” Hélène gasped. “Know why? Because they don’t matter.
We’re
the ones who matter. We’re the ones
they
should be fighting over, dying for. It’s what they’re there for.”

“They? Mortals?”

“Of course, mortals! There was a time when they’d go to war because of us.”

“Because of you, you mean.”

“Thousands and thousands of men, slaughtering and suffering, all in my name. All for
me
.”

Sasha’s lip curled. “You can’t be serious. Is that it? You miss the Trojan War? After all this time, you haven’t moved on? This whole little stunt of yours was what – nostalgia? To bring back that feeling again?”

Hélène gave up struggling. A weird serenity settled over her.

“Why not? I could, so I did. I was bored. Life is boring. Sometimes you crave a bit of excitement. Something to liven up the endless days. When I came across those cylinders in the cellar at Evander’s Scottish castle...”

“The list,” said a man, emerging onto the path from the direction of the main house. He was rotund and double-chinned, and even though he seemed to have got dressed in a hurry – shirt misbuttoned, a pair of wrinkled, baggy slacks that were probably the first thing that came to hand – there was an air of authority about him.

Roy would have bet good money this was yet another demigod. He was beginning to recognise them; they had a certain look in common, an agelessness they exuded from every part of them – except the eyes.

“Help me, Evander,” said Hélène. “Look what they’ve done to me.”

Evander. Her husband. Who, if Roy remembered rightly, had once been King Minos.

“From what I’ve been hearing, my dear,” Evander Arlington said, “you’ve brought it on yourself.”

“But don’t you see how I’ve been injured? Damaged? You can’t let them get away with it.”

“Stop wheedling for a moment, Hélène, and give me an honest answer. You found the list by accident and you used it. Is that right?”

“I’m not ashamed.”

“No, you don’t know the meaning of the word, do you?”

“Evander...”

“You hired people – these people in uniforms – and sent them to murder our own kind. All for your entertainment.”

“Evander, don’t speak to me like that. You’re my husband. Haven’t I been good to you all these years? Haven’t I been the perfect wife? Given you everything that you could ever want from a woman?”

Arlington squatted beside her on his haunches. “You have, and more. But this?”

“It was something for myself. Something to prove I was more than just Mrs Evander Arlington. I didn’t think you’d mind. You were once a great king! Your word was law, men bowed before you. Don’t you hanker for those times again?”

“I am still great,” Arlington said. “But the world has changed. Kings take different guises now.”

“You can’t begrudge me my fun, though.”

“My darling Hélène, you know I could never refuse you anything.”

“And to cap it all, I brought Theo Stannard here. Your oldest enemy, the thorn in your side. The man who humiliated you.”

Arlington shook his head sadly. “I’m over it.”

“You still talk about him with anger in your voice. I’ve heard you.”

“Hardly. I think you’re confusing your contempt for him with mine. In a way, Theo did me a favour. The Minotaur was an embarrassment, a stain on my reputation.”

“You have a statue of it on the island. I assumed...”

“To remind me of my fallibility. Mine and Pasiphaë’s. I was supposed to sacrifice that bull, the one she slept with, but in my greed I kept it. The Minotaur was punishment for my hubris. So, in his way, was Theseus, but he taught me a lesson also. Thanks to him I ceased to take my kingship for granted. I learned to value the approval of my subjects. I owe him for that, although I’ve never told him so.”

“You... don’t hate him?” Hélène’s brow furrowed in perplexity.

“He may not be my favourite person,” said Arlington, “but no, I don’t hate him.”

“You don’t want him dead?”

“Not him, nor any of the others you ordered killed. Hélène, Hélène, Hélène... It’s like you don’t know me at all. Forty years together...”

“Fifty.”

“Fifty, and am I still such a mystery to you? Or have you seen in me only what you wanted to see? The complacent, compliant husband with the ever-open chequebook, the bottomless credit card?”

“I hate to interrupt this touching marital moment,” said Sasha, “but I
am
about to kill your wife, Evander. Just thought you should know.”

“No, you’re not.”

“She deserves to die, and I very much doubt you’re man enough to prevent me.”

“You are quite correct on that front,” said Arlington. “I am nowhere near swift enough, nor strong enough, to stand in your way. It would be unwise of me even to try.”

He reached for the battle-axe.

“I ask instead,” he said, “to be permitted to do the job myself.”

Hélène gaped. “Evander?”

“Kindly hold her still, Sasha.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Sasha planted a foot on Hélène’s chest, pinning her down.

“Evander, please...”

“Hélène, I love you dearly, but I cannot ignore the trouble you’ve caused, the deaths you are responsible for. I cannot turn a blind eye. The account must be balanced; debts must be settled.”

He straightened up, axe in hand.

“You have brought disgrace on my household and on my name,” he said. “You have shamed me as much as Pasiphaë did, if not more. I cannot condone or forgive your actions.”

The axe rose, bloodstained twin blades glinting in the brightening daylight.

Hélène’s expression switched from disbelief to defiance.

“Go on, then, you bastard,” she said. “If you’ve got the balls.”

Up until the very last instant, she never thought Arlington would go through with it.

Neither did Roy.

And then the axe came down, severing Hélène’s head from her neck in a single clean chop.

FORTY-THREE

Kardionisi

T
HEO AND
C
HASE
drew apart, both bloodied, wounded, breathing hard.

“One final time,” Theo said. “Let’s stop this.”

“We both know it’s gone too far for that,” said Chase. “You won’t let me live, and I don’t want to die.”

“Maybe there’s a compromise. A middle way.”

“Don’t kid yourself, cuz. I knew all along there was a good chance we’d wind up exactly this way. You were going to figure out sooner or later that I was dicking you around, and you wouldn’t take it well.”

“What I still don’t get is what was in it for you. You must have had a motive of your own for siding with Hélène. I don’t believe you went along with her scheme just because of a bad case of nostalgia. There has to be more to it.”

“Okay. Yeah. You’ve got me. It’s... complicated.”

“Try me.”

Chase let out a heavy sigh. “The gods.”

“The gods?”

“They don’t notice us. They don’t care.”

“That’s because they aren’t there,” Theo said impatiently. “The gods are gone. Dead or – or dispersed, or I don’t know what. But they aren’t up in Olympus, keeping an eye on us. Not anymore. They’ve moved on. To Elysium, perhaps.”

“And left us all alone.” There was a plaintive note in Chase’s voice, something like the despair of a lost child. A touch of petulance. “They’re our parents. They should be looking out for us. Every time I kill a monster, I pray. Did you know that?”

“You never said.”

“It’s an offering. I call on Hermes and Athena, but mostly I call on my father. I let Zeus know that I’ve hunted and killed this beast on his behalf. For
him
. And what do I get back?”

“Nothing.”

“Zilch. Nada.”

“Why would you expect anything else?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“The gods are our parents, sure,” Theo said. “But parents aren’t expected to raise their kids forever. Comes a point when the next generation have grown into adults and are supposed to be making their own way in the world.”

“Zeus
never
gave a shit about me. He knocked up my mom – as a shower of golden rain, for fuck’s sake – then disappeared.”

“You’re upset because you have a deadbeat dad? Join the club. Most demigods are semi-orphans from the get-go. It’s par for the course. But you didn’t have to rope the rest of us into your misery. You didn’t have to get people killed, just because you’re acting out your resentment.”

“Acting out my – ? Screw you, you sanctimonious asshole! Just because
you’ve
let the world neuter you, doesn’t mean it has to happen to all of us. Some of us can still be heroes.”

“That’s how you see yourself? Funny. From where I’m standing, you look like a villain.”

Face contorting with rage, Chase flung himself at Theo. A flurry of sickle blows rained down. Theo parried with the bident, bracing it in front of him double-handed like a quarterstaff, until all at once he was holding two pieces of it. Chase had cut through the haft with a particularly powerful strike.

Theo retreated, dropping the bisected bident and drawing Dionysus’s club from his belt.

Chase pressed forward, hacking relentlessly with the sickle, his eyes clouded with bloodlust. Theo wondered if his cousin was seeing him or some sort of beast he felt it was his sacred duty to eradicate.

He realised he was being backed into a corner. He couldn’t afford to be pinned down; club or no club, it would be the end of him.

He barged past Chase, side-swiping him with the club as he went and narrowly missing. He darted across the lawn, aiming for the exit, the route he had entered by. There was greater safety in the maze, surely.

Chase caught up with him halfway there. Theo jinked to the left and a moment later the sickle cleaved through the air where his spine had been. Chase was between him and the nearer exit; Theo diverted towards the other, his cousin hot on his heels.

In the shadow of the Minotaur statue, Chase at last made contact. Theo felt an abrupt spike of agony in his flank. The sickle had dug between two of his ribs, deep into the intercostal muscle, snagging him, pulling him up short.

He twisted like a fish on the hook, feeling flesh rip as he tore himself free. He stumbled woozily for a few steps before his legs caved under him and he fell prone.

Chase strode over and straddled him, a foot either side. Theo began crawling, trying to stand upright. Every time he made it to his hands and knees, however, the pain in his side overwhelmed him and he sagged. He could hear himself making urgent grunting noises in the back of his throat. He clawed his way across the dewy grass. Chase stayed with him. At any moment, the coup de grâce would come. The sickle would slice through his neck or sink into his heart and that would be that.

Finally he could go no further. With the last of his ebbing strength he rolled over onto his back.

His gaze met Chase’s.

“You don’t have to,” he croaked. “This isn’t you. You’re better than this.”

“I wish I was, cuz,” Chase said with a rueful grimace. “Truly I do.”

He readied the sickle for the killing blow with an almost solemn air – dutifully, like finishing off a badly wounded beast.

He glanced up at the pristine dawn sky, as though looking for a sign.

Then, steeling himself, he tensed his arm.

Blinding whiteness. A deafening
bang
.

Is this is?
Theo thought.
Is this what death feels like?

His vision cleared, his ears still ringing.

Chase was frozen in position, just as startled as Theo was.

Behind him, the Minotaur statue seemed to have come alive. It was trembling, teetering. Tiny crackles of electricity coruscated over its bronze surface. Its lower legs were charred, blackened. Its feet, on the plinth, were more or less destroyed.

The statue creaked resoundingly.

“Chase! Move!”

Even as Theo spluttered out the warning, he himself was moving. Somehow he found the energy to rise to a crouch, to scramble away on all fours.

The statue bowed forward, tumbling towards where Chase stood. Chase either hadn’t heard what Theo said or was too startled to do anything about it. He only turned round.

The bronze Minotaur seemed almost to pounce on him. The tortured groan of twisting, rending metal reminded Theo, for a moment, of the beast himself.