Broken God (4 page)

It’s while I’m
hunting, Artie’s voice a silver song in my ears and the dead at our feet.

I hear a tiny mew.
Something so soft that it’s almost lost as Artie skips away from the latest
corpse, already looking for the next victim.

The noise comes
again, and I glance at my sister before I crouch down and stare at the tiny
ball of fluff.

It’s as black as
night, with bright blue eyes. Its mouth opens in a silent
mew,
and my heart trips over and squeezes.

Del’s eyes.

I move without
thinking, scooping it up and cuddling the kitten against my chest. It’s so tiny
that my hands swallow it, and its sharp little teeth sink down into the meat of
my thumb. I laugh, and it blinks at me, hissing weakly.

Under my skin, my
raven shifts. I can feel it scowling, glaring at the black bundle of fur in my
hand. I hum softly, a soothing kind of noise that rumbles through me, more felt
than heard.

My raven shifts,
and the kitten snarls, all weak and harmless fury and I smile. The power that’s
been thundering through my veins slows to a steady patter, and the kitten
blinks up at me, eyes shining and familiar.

“Hello, Del,” I
murmur and it mews, curious.

Under my skin, my
raven huffs in displeasure and resignation. I cluck softly at it and the newly
named kitten and turn away from where my sister is flirting and hunting, and
let my feet wander, the kitten clutched close to my chest.

Within minutes,
it’s purring softly. And that shouldn’t make
me
as happy as it does.

Too few things make
me happy, these days. I pet Del’s little head, and I roam.

“
You
need to love things,” she whispered against my skin.

I glance down at her, and twisted her hair—black this
time—around my finger, tugging tight until she swats my chest, a sharp tap to
remind me that I am Apollo, but she is Del.

She is mine, but I am hers.

“Don’t need anything,” I argue. “I’ve got you and Artemis. Don’t
have time to love more than that.”

She raises an eyebrow, not bothering to argue with words. I know
who she’s thinking about. The same person I am. But she’s gone, gone and gone
and her city is so much rubble, and she never loved me, anyway.

I wonder sometimes, if what I did to Cass was a horrible thing.

It was, but it’s too late to change.

“You can’t always love me, Father,” she whispers and I frown.

Because yes. I can. I am Apollo, god of the sun and prophecy and
music and if I wanted to worship at the altar of my Del until the world stopped
spinning and the sun fell from the sky, I damn well would. I scowl at her, and
she rolls, a lithe movement as she straddles me, rocking against my body. My
hands tighten on her hips, But I don’t
lift
her. Don’t shift her. Not yet.

“You won’t always have me, Father,” she murmurs, and her eyes
open, blank and unseeing as she writhes against me. Her hands are on my chest,
digging into my skin, tiny crescent half-moons, as her breathing goes soft and
fluffy. Her eyes close and she smiles, a kind of twisted thing that stings
because I only see that when she isn’t
here
.
When she’s caught up in the grip of her power, and drifting.

I shift her and her eyes fly open as I fill her, and the words
fall like a whispered prayer, and I don’t understand.

My eyes. Midnight
black. Tame panther. Fierce baby.

I thrust into her as she gasps the words, and I store them away
and push them aside, pull her to me and kiss her, until the power lays dormant
and she is mine, gasping my name and weeping into my neck as I let her ride me.

After, she sleeps in my arms, and I pet her hair and let the
words play over me.

Del doesn’t speak, not the future, unless it’s important.

The curse of it is that she doesn’t see enough to speak sense.
It’s all snatches and possibilities and shifting futures. A helpless black
panther with Del’s eyes.

I wonder, briefly, what that means.

But then I yawn against her skin, and she sighs, snuggling
closer, and her voice is sleepy sweet and muffled as she whispers. “Love the
tiny tiger.”

I stare at the girl who gave her sanity for mine, and whisper
into her hair. “
Okay
, sweetheart.
Okay
.”

She smiles and twists herself around me even closer, and I let
the scent of her, sandalwood and smoke and opiates and sex, sooth me and lure
me to sleep.

Chapter 6.

I find myself at a
vet’s office.

I’m not sure where
I’ve been, or where the hours since I left the club have gone. I can feel the
swell of my power, rising with every second as the sun rises, and the fading
echo of my sister.

Two sides of the
same coin. Always. I smile and in my hand, Del shifts. Blinks sleepily at me.

She’s wary,
watching me with tired eyes, her entire body tight and worried in my hand. I
keep hoping she’ll relax, but she hasn’t.

She did scramble up
my arm, her little claws digging into my raven tattoo, and he seethed, furious
under my skin, as she settled on my shoulder, tail wrapped around my neck.

I wonder how
strange an image we made. A blond god, and a black kitten and an angry raven.

They couldn’t see
the raven.

They thought it was
only a mortal adornment.

Mortals are such
strange and silly creatures. Even Del knows that there is life and power in
that ink.

“Let’s see if you
need any shots,” I murmur, stepping into the office. I don’t expect her to.
She’s mine, and I can already feel her little body, bright and full of life and
a conduit.

“Stay with me,
Del,” I order, and she stiffens on my shoulder, her claws sinking deeper,
enough that I wince as she turns her head away. But she doesn’t jump down,
doesn’t even flinch as we step into the noisy office crowded with dogs and cats
in carriers and a host of humans speaking loudly and softly and one who is
rocking in a corner. For a heartbeat, watching them, all of the world spins
out, all the
choices
they’ve made and could make and a single glittering thread of
future sings for each, and I shudder.

Del’s claws dig
into my shoulder and she hisses, softly.

Pulls me from the
vision that is beginning, to the moment that is
now
. I
breathe
and she shifts, her tail a comforting tight collar around my
throat. I stroke her ears and she doesn’t hiss at me, which I feel like is
progress.

“All pets should be
on a leash or in a cage,” the receptionist says, giving me and Del a very flat
look.

I smile, even as I
feel my raven cackle and Del gives the girl an unimpressed look.

“She’s better where
she is,” I say, mildly, and the girl’s eyes narrow just a touch. Del makes a
low rumbling noise, deep in her body, and I smile. “Maybe just give us a room
and we’ll wait until the doctor can see us.”

The girl glares a
little harder, but she does what I suggest. The alternative is letting me and
Del sit here in a crowded waiting room and causing havoc.

Once, this girl
would have been falling all over herself to make me happy. Now she gives me
attitude and glares, and I’m left alone with the stale smell of piss and disinfectant
to keep me company as my kitten leaps on the counter and my raven ignores us
entirely. Or as much as a raven that lives under my skin
can
ignore me.

I sigh, and lean my
head back.

I knew leaving my
family and power behind came with a steep price, but fuck. Days like today
makes me wonder why the fuck I ever thought it was a good idea.

It ends up being a
waste of time.

Del is fine, the
fucking picture of health and she purrs softly for the vet as he coos over her.

When I scoop her up
and return her to my shoulder, she goes still and silent, a glowering presence.

So I leave the vet
behind and retreat to my apartment. Artemis is there, sleeping, curled in my
bed like she belongs there. Del hisses softly when she sees her, and I run a
finger down the length of her tiny body before she shakes my touch and jumps to
the ground. She sniffs haughtily before stalking through the apartment and
finding the one sun
-
soaked
spot. It’s a leather chair, butter soft and overstuffed. It sits in a sunbeam
most of the day—and it’s my favorite place to sit. Sometimes, I sit here for
weeks. Basking in the sun and listening to music that only I can hear.

Artie doesn’t know
that when I listen to the music mortals make, it’s easy for me to see their
futures, all spun out and glittering. Easy to lose myself in the dizzying spin
of power that even I can’t control.

I once sat here for
a month, before I blinked back to myself, my raven screaming against my skin. I
went to stay with Artie for three years, after that. I scared myself and my
raven, and anything that can do that is worth being very careful around.

Artie knew I had
done something to scare myself, but she didn’t press. Just let me hide from the
world in her virgin forests, tucked in the cozy cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Del circles the
cushion twice, and then curls up in a tiny ball, the tip of her tail curled
over her nose. She blinks narrowed eyes at me, as if warning me to let her
sleep, before she closes them and dismisses me completely.

I grin.

Del, it seems,
lives up well to her namesake.

I’m strumming a
guitar, when Artemis wakes. She yawns and I hear the soft scratch of bone and
skin, her stag stretching and waking with her.

She stops short
when she sees me, sitting on the couch instead of my leather chair, here
instead of wandering the city.

“Where the hell did
you go last night?” she asks, coming to curl against my side, her head dropping
against my shoulder. Despite our hours in the bars and bloody alleys, she still
smells sweet and clean.

She doesn’t sound
angry, which is a pleasant surprise. She doesn’t always take it well when I
wander off and leave her in the middle of a hunt. But she’s pensive and quiet
next to me, more worried than angry and I heave a sigh.

“You worry too
much,” I murmur, setting the guitar aside and tugging her closer.

“I worry with
reason. You vanished, last night. I couldn’t feel you,” she says, frowning.

And
okay
, that is a little
concerning. We’re too close,
too
twisted around each other to not feel each
other, especially when we’re hunting together.

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs, moving
against my shoulder restlessly. “I mean I couldn’t feel you. I still can’t.”

I glance at Del,
still sleeping on my chair and her gaze tracks mine.

And she goes very
still.

“Apollo, what the
hell is that?”
she
asks, softly.

“A cat,” I say,
being deliberately obtuse. She twists to look at me, and my raven ruffles its
feathers, shifting nervously under her steely gaze.

She used to
stare
like that when she
found men in her forest, back in Greece, before the Trojan war and Father left
the Earth.

Most of those men
died screaming.

I grin, and lean
forward to kiss her nose.

“Del mentioned a
cat, didn’t she?”

I knew the question
was coming. If I hadn’t, I might have stumbled, standing up and walking to
where the kitten is sleeping. As it is, I managed to keep her from seeing a
reaction merely because my back is to her, and I school my face as I scoop Del
up and turn to my sister.

“She did.”

Artemis frowns at
me, at the kitten who still isn’t curled against me. She didn’t hiss when I
picked her up, so I suppose that’s something.

“Following that
witch’s prophecy will kill us all.”

I bristle. “
My
witch, sister. Remember your place.”

Her eyebrow raises,
and she uncurls. The smell of dead things and moss floods the apartment, a sure
taste of her fury. “My place? I am a
goddess
and that little whore stripped you of your power. She
broke
you, Pollo. You want me to forget that?”

“I want you to
remember that Del was my handmaiden, my chosen. She did nothing I didn’t demand
from her.”

Artemis snarls, and
she takes a step forward, but both my raven and Del are stiffening, and power
crackles, a live wire between them.

My power.

Arrayed against my
twin.

She goes still, and
her eyes are wide and hurt when she looks at me.

“You would strike
me?” she whispers.

I don’t respond.
Because no. I would never hurt my sister. It’s like stabbing myself.

Two sides of the
same coin.

She laughs, and the
noise is shaky and hurt. Uncertain.

Things that my
sister has never been. That hurts
,
too.

“I should go,” she
whispers.

“Artie,” I say,
pleading.

“No, Pollo. It’s
fine. It’s
—.” She
shakes her head, and the stag on her back shifts under skin,
swelling in her. It steadies her a little. Enough.

“You worry me,
Apollo. But I can’t save you if you don’t want to be saved.”

I smile at her.
Somewhere, music is swelling, and it almost drowns out her sorrow. Almost
drowns out my own. A golden thread is fraying, and I wonder if it’s time.

Finally.

“Artemis, you can’t
save me
even
if I want you to,”
I tell her, my voice a whisper.

Leaving home is surprisingly easy. It’s something I had
considered and not done for so long that to finally be doing it—it was almost
anticlimactic.
For a time
I’m alone, both sister and cousin held to Olympus by our father and Hades. But
they come to me, after a few decades, find me, mad and alone, and happy.

I
 
wasn’t always alone. I found Del’s daughters, her granddaughters, and
lived near them for a time.

When the last of them dies, I chase
the sun.

Artemis and Hermes drifted by my side, held there by loyalty or
curiosity. I couldn’t tell which, and was tired of attempting to figure it out.

I spent the first century lost in madness, the future spilling
from me like an unending torrent, and I hated it almost as much as I needed it.

Del didn’t tell me this, and I had spent so many years free of
this particular power, that having it again was startling and painful.

Artemis tried, for years, to draw me out of the maze of golden
threads. Sometimes, I was lucid enough to see her staring at me.

I was lucid enough to see the hate in her eyes, and the way it
fought with the love.

She was easier, though.

Hermes tried to solve my madness by seducing me with an almost
endless parade of nubile village girls.

We would fall in bed, him and I and the girl pressed between us
and he’d tug at me, at my power, until it hovered there, just beyond reach,
just waiting for the girl to take.

She never did.

Hermes didn’t realize that Del was not a random girl I fucked in
a temple, once.

She was brilliant and bright and willing.

She took her curse willingly. Eyes wide and watching.

I knew.

How worried they were, and how they conspired together, to keep
me lucid but unaware, to keep my power bound but still useful.

I would sit in the sun-soaked glades of Artemis’ forests, and
listen to them plan and plot.

I was a mad god, a broken god, but I was still, after all, a
god.