Mortal Gods (18 page)

By the time she made it to the clearing, she was panting, bloodied, and pissed. But Achilles hadn’t lost them. The look on his face as she walked toward him was somewhere between surprised and disappointed.

“You’re not afraid,” she called.

“Not then and not now,” he called back. So he remembered the old days, and who he was. Achilles. Manslayer. That should have made it easier. But Odysseus’ voice rang through her ears.
He’s my friend, Athena. He’s just a kid, caught up in your mess.

“How did you die?” she asked curiously. “How did you get your old memories?”

“An accident,” he said. “A fall. A long time ago. I was seven.”

Seven. He would’ve been a skinny towheaded kid with big green eyes. Dirt on his nose. Maybe a lizard in his pocket. A boy she would’ve liked. Damn it.

But the traps. He knew why she’d come. He was no deer in the headlights.

Odysseus grabbed her arm.

“I found him last year in Brisbane. I don’t know how. I just knew where he was. He took one look at me and laughed. Hugged me like we’d never been apart. When I told him about the war, he wanted to hide. So just … let him stay hidden.”

Her maimed shoulder and foot throbbed dully, like beacons on a far-off shore, and she’d be hurt worse before it was done.
Let him stay hidden.
But if she did, they would pay for it. Cassandra would pay for it. Hermes. Weapons like Achilles never stayed quiet. And the regret of that wasn’t something she could live with.

She pushed Odysseus away gently. Achilles wouldn’t die easy. Not the best of the Greeks. He held something in his hand. A hammer.

He ran at her and swung. The end of the hammer breezed inches shy of her cheek as she turned her head. He brought it back fast, and it caught her in the shoulder. The already dislocated bone cracked.

A mortal, cracking my bones. Am I getting weaker, or was he always so strong?

She wasn’t sure. She’d never fought him. But she’d watched him cut down men like wheat in a field. The hammer pulled back, and she could have grabbed it. Should have grabbed it and made him face her hand to hand. But he was still a mortal. Letting him keep his weapon felt fair.

She dodged the next strike, meant to bust into her rib cage, and kicked out, but what should have dropped him only knocked him backward. Not even off-balance. And he still wasn’t afraid. The light in his eyes was the same mad light she’d seen on the battlefield in Troy. Hector must’ve been terrified, looking into them.

She caught Achilles by the arm and threw him around her in a circle. He rolled to his feet unharmed, and so damned fast. He sprang forward and struck, his fist against her jaw. The clack of her teeth was loud and embarrassing. But he’d overplayed his hand. She reached around the back of his head and threw him to the ground, on him before he could regain his feet, her one good arm wrapped around his head. With brutal grace, she snapped his neck.

The body slumped to the side and rolled onto its back. Odysseus shouted, and the clearing went silent. It was over. Athena rose and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the body, or Odysseus’ face. But when he tried to go past her, she caught him across the chest.

“I knew you would do it,” he said. “I knew. But I didn’t believe it.” He threw her arm off and turned back the way they’d come.

“Where are you going?”

“To get a shovel. To bury him.”

“I don’t have any shovels, actually.”

Athena spun around at the impossible voice. Achilles’ head rolled toward her and smiled.

“I broke the last one digging that bloody pit,” he said. “Haven’t made it down to buy any replacements.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows and twisted his neck. Broken bones popped back together with a hideous sound. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“I broke your neck,” Athena said.

He shrugged. “Been broken before.”

She looked at Odysseus, but he hadn’t known. His eyes were round as one of her owls’. Achilles stood up and dusted himself off, none the worse for wear. He didn’t even seem angry. The way his green eyes flickered from Athena to Odysseus, he seemed mostly embarrassed to have been killed. Except he hadn’t died.

“You still are what you were,” Athena said softly.

Invincible.

14

WEAPONS

Odysseus checked Achilles over as if he were assessing a horse. He lifted the boy’s arms and moved his chin back and forth. Another minute, and he’d open his mouth and look at his teeth.

“I don’t believe it,” Odysseus muttered. “You bloody can’t be killed. Unless”—he cocked his head—“what about your heel? Did your mum really dip you headfirst in the Styx and miss that part? If I cut it, would you die?”

Achilles smiled. “The legend’s not that literal. Not quite.”

“So you can be killed,” Athena said. “You’re not immortal.”

“The whole world knows my name,” he said, and shrugged. “If I’m not immortal, I’m damn close.”

“What if I pulled you apart?” she asked.

“What if you could?” He nodded toward her ruined shoulder and foot, then turned back to Odysseus. “What’re you doing here, anyway? Why’s she all … after my hide?”

“Haven’t you heard? You’re the weapon of the gods. Or at least, you’re one of them.” Athena waited while Odysseus filled him in.

“Mm,” Achilles said. “Well, since killing me is out, why don’t I come back with you? Then you’d have both weapons instead of one.” He cocked his eyebrow at Athena. “Might’ve saved us all a broken neck if you’d just asked that in the first place.”

Athena glowered. Since killing him was out. What a thing to assume. But she was in no condition to try again. And the idea of Achilles dying and popping up over and over like some macabre prairie dog was just too awful.

Her eyes took in his wild blond hair and gray-blue t-shirt. He was built sort of like Henry, with broad, muscular shoulders and fast, narrow hips. But he was taller. And much more lethal.

“I would have been content to stay on the mountain,” said Achilles. “But you found me. And this is what I was made for. So make your choice, goddess. The side who has me lives forever.”

“He’ll be a help, I promise,” said Odysseus.

Athena sighed. “Shit.” Was he going to promise to feed and walk him next? “Fine. Never let it be said I’m not flexible.” He would come back to Kincade. And they could use Hera’s own weapon to cut her throat.

*   *   *

“Do you know how much alcohol it takes to get a god good and drunk?” Hermes swallowed beer from a red plastic cup. “Not as much as you’d think.”

But still, a lot. It was his twentieth cup.

“I’m out,” he said, and eyeballed the plastic bottom.

“Take mine.” Cassandra handed him her cup. The mortals, it seemed, didn’t feel like drinking. Not even amidst the whoops and laughter of what seemed to be half the school. An impromptu party jammed the bonfires at Abbott Park to near capacity, celebrating the suddenly rising temperatures. The mercury had risen above sixty that day, and the forecast said it would go as high as seventy for the remainder of the week. A strawberry spring. One little glimpse of paradise before winter’s fist closed back up.

The air smelled of warming dirt, wet leaves, and smoke. Organic smells. Nostalgic smells of past fires where Aidan had kept her warm. Now she stood by herself, watching Hermes laugh with Sam and Megan, both of them smitten with him to varying degrees. He told them stories about his fictitious dorm at his fictitious college. Or maybe it wasn’t so fictitious. He’d been alive a long time. He’d probably gone to lots of colleges.

Behind him, Calypso spoke when spoken to. Hermes seemed annoyed to have her there and ignored her. Most of the girls were too intimidated to say hello, and the boys just stared. She looked alone. Alone, but not lonely. There was a difference.

“Should Hermes really be getting drunk?” Henry asked. “When he’s supposed to be watching out for Ares?”

Cassandra smiled. Maybe not, but who had the heart to tell him so?

“Don’t worry.” Andie gestured toward Calypso. “She’s here. If those wolves come back, she’ll just sing them stupid, like last time. Do you need anything?” She tugged at Henry’s jacket, carefully arranging it around his sling. The shoulder was healing well. The sling would be off soon, and he’d start to train. Start to use a sword. Start to learn how to kill.

“It’s going to be a hell of a scar,” Andie said.

“Yeah,” Henry replied. The scar on his face was brutal and ugly, a red, stitched stripe just below his cheekbone. “The docs did a real Frankenstein job of it.”

“Makes you look like a warrior,” Andie said.

“Don’t say that,” Cassandra said. “You wouldn’t say that if you remembered what it was like to watch a spear go through his chest. And stop … touching him all the time.”

“What? Gross, I’m not touching him all the time,” Andie protested, but Cassandra turned and walked away.

“It will all happen again,” she muttered. “They’ll get together. Henry will die. I’ll swallow an axe, and Andie might live just long enough to wish she hadn’t.”

“That’s no prophecy. That’s only your fear.”

Cassandra turned. Calypso blinked innocently and sipped from her cup.

“How do you know?” Cassandra asked.

“I don’t. It was just a guess.”

Just a guess. But it did make Cassandra feel better somehow.

“You’re thinking about him,” said Calypso. “Your Aidan.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’ve seen that face on lots of girls. And in the mirror, when Odysseus is gone, and I’d give anything for him to walk through my door.” She shook her head, and pretty braids fell across her shoulder. “It must be difficult to believe. That someone eternal as Aidan could be truly dead and gone forever.”

“I don’t believe it,” Cassandra said. “But no one knows where he went. Not even Athena.”

“Athena doesn’t know everything. I’ve guided my share of mortals to the underworld. Almost as many as she.”

Cassandra stared at Calypso intently. With the fire reflected in her sea-glass eyes, she appeared entranced.

“Is that where he is? Is there a way to get there?”

Calypso blinked away the fire and turned her face to the shadows.

“I don’t want to give you false hope,” she said. “The way to the underworld has been closed for more than a thousand years. And I don’t know if your Aidan is there. But if he is, it doesn’t matter. Because we can’t reach him.”

“False hope,” Cassandra whispered. But if it was false, it didn’t stop her head from filling with possibilities.

*   *   *

Athena sat on Achilles’ lonely cot while Odysseus knelt on the floor, tending her crushed ankle. The shack was extremely well fortified. Shelves warped beneath the weight of canned food and bottles of water. He had plenty of first aid supplies, too. And, of course, weapons. Nothing so rudimentary as his hammer, either. He had blades of all kinds. He had a longsword, for Pete’s sake.

“The boot’s ruined,” Odysseus said. The steel trap had bitten all the way through the leather. It flopped sadly when he pulled it off her foot. “Might as well cut it down and make a bootie.”

“As if I’d ever wear a bootie.” Under the boot, Athena’s sock was all blood from lower leg to heel. When Odysseus plucked the fabric away and rolled it down, dark holes in her ankle and foot were plainly visible.

“Sheesh,” he said. “You should probably have stitches.”

“Do you know how to stitch?”

“Not really.”

“Then just bind it up. Either they’ll close, or feathers will pop out of them.”

Odysseus turned slightly pale at that.

“Hey.” She toed him. “No time to get queasy.” She glanced out the door at Achilles, who had put all the clothes he owned in a rucksack, along with a couple of his favorite books, and waited for them in the yard. “Are you sure about him?”

“As sure as I was the first twenty times I told you to leave him alone,” Odysseus snapped, and tugged the bandage just a bit too tight.

“If you’re waiting for me to say you were right—”

“I’d never wait for that.”

“I’m still not sure that you
were
right,” she snapped back. “What about Henry? How can we bring Achilles face-to-face with Hector?”

“Henry isn’t Hector,” Odysseus said. “But I’ll talk to him about it. Make sure he understands that Henry isn’t the enemy.”

Athena chewed her lip and watched the progress on her foot.

“Make sure you use enough bandage so the blood won’t show through at the airport.”

“You’re the boss.” Odysseus poured water into a bowl and sponged most of the blood off, but the wounds still bled, and in no time the water was thick and crimson. “I’m going to clean it a bit, all right? I know you don’t have to worry about infection, but—it’s nice to be tidy.”

He lifted and turned her foot with gentle fingers, dabbing the gaping holes with iodine. It stung like hell, but it was the kind of pain she could take. The kind she knew she’d heal from. Not like the feathers.

“Odysseus?”

“Yeah?”

“That thing you said—that you kept saying. Being a kid caught up in our shit,” she said. “I never believed you meant it. I didn’t see how you could. You were always
my
Odysseus.”

“I am your Odysseus.”

Only he wasn’t. Despite the same wavy dark hair and mischievous eyes, the same crooked smile, this Odysseus wasn’t
that
Odysseus. This Odysseus had a future and choices the other hadn’t had.

“I think oaths expire when you die,” she said softly.

“Then you don’t know much about oaths. There.” He set her ankle on the ground and reached for the padding and bandage. “Hold this.” She bent and pressed the white pad to her foot. Where her fingers touched, blood seeped through immediately. “I didn’t mean it, right?” He wrapped gauze round and round. “I mean, not for me. It was just something to say to keep you from killing Achilles. Not one of my most successful lies.”

“Well,” Athena said. “Not everyone’s as stupid as a Cyclops.”

“Not everyone’s as hardheaded as you.” He rubbed his hands together and eyed the sheets of the cot. “Now, how to get that shoulder back in the socket? Maybe we can tie off some of those sheets.”