Mortal Gods (21 page)

“Plane sleep isn’t good sleep,” he said, and got in beside her. After fluffing the pillows, he leaned back and yawned. So much for not being tired. “What’s on the docket for tomorrow?” he asked.

“I want to see what Achilles can do. He broke my bone easy as looking at it. That impresses me. And he was so fast.…”

Odysseus narrowed his eyes. “Right. He’s a real wunderkind. Oughtn’t you better pay attention to the norms instead? You know, the ones who might actually get their heads cracked?”

“You and Andie and Henry will be ready,” she said.

“I wasn’t talking about me. I’m no weapon of fate, but I know how to handle myself.”

“Fine. Andie and Henry, then. I think they’ll be all right. Between me, Achilles, Hermes, and Calypso, we should be able to keep them covered. Maybe I’ll put them on Ares’ mutts and let them get a little payback.”

“You’re not the slightest bit worried?”

“What good does it do?” she asked. “Mostly I’m looking forward to setting Cassandra on Hera. Helping her drown Aphrodite for good measure. I wish Hermes had brought me something to drink with that pizza.”

“Want me to go get something?”

“No. It’s all right. It’s not like I need it. Godly constitution and all.” She laced her fingers behind her head. Underneath them, the house felt full to bursting with power. Gods and heroes, stuffed inside. And she lay atop it, ready to wield them.

“Did you know there’s a desert mouse that produces its own water internally?” she asked. “Never has to drink a drop.”

“Fascinating,” Odysseus said. “Do they call it the God Mouse?”

“I don’t think so. But they should.” They sat quietly for a few moments. “I thought you were going to stay with Calypso.”

“Why?” he asked. “Because you told me to? You can’t tell me who to be with, Athena. Come to think of it, you can’t tell me how to feel, either. But it was right godly of you to try.”

“You’re so difficult. Ever since you thought of that stupid Trojan Horse and became convinced of your own cleverness.”

“Yeah, well. I am clever.”

“Pride goeth before the fall, hero,” she said. His eyes closed, and she let hers close, too.

“Where will you go, after the war is over?” she asked. “Back to London? I’d give you money, if you wanted to open a pub or buy Manchester United or something.”

“Try Arsenal,” he muttered. “I don’t know. Thought I’d see what you were up to. We could wander the world again. Odysseus and gray-eyed Athene. Like old times.”

Old times. Good times.

“I’d like that,” she said.

“And sooner or later,” he whispered, “I’ll wear you down.”

She let him drift off to sleep, and she lay there for a long time before going out onto the widow’s walk. The night air was good and cold on her cheeks as she looked at him through the windows of her French doors.

“You’ll never wear me down, Odysseus,” she said. But as long as they were together, he would try. He would have no other love, and no other life. It was a nice dream to have, wandering the world with her favorite hero. But it couldn’t be.

After the war was over, she would have to disappear.

16

THE DAYS OF HEROES

Athena twisted in front of the bathroom mirror and prodded the dark, reddening spot under her ribs. The feather buried inside hurt like an open wound. She pressed, and the quill rolled beneath her finger, down deep. It itched.

“You’ll take your time, too, won’t you, fucker.”

She could cut it out and sew the hole closed. It would heal faster that way than letting it emerge on its own. But there was another, fluttering against the back of her tongue, and there’d be another after that. If she started plucking and cutting, she might never stop.

She wiped fog from the mirror and toweled her hair. Somewhere in the backyard, Achilles had already started training with Hermes and Calypso. Andie, Henry, and Odysseus would join them after school. Athena slipped her shirt over her head and gave the dark spot one last look. Would it turn into a disgusting, weeping sore? Probably. She only hoped it wouldn’t hinder her in the fight to come.

When she went downstairs, Calypso was in the kitchen drinking a glass of lemonade. A long, black bruise marred her right cheek. Achilles’ work. She smiled at Athena through a cracked lip, and the blemishes didn’t make her any less beautiful. How irritating.

“Taking a break?” Athena asked.

“I needed one. Achilles is quick, and stronger than me. How are you healing?”

“Fast.”

Calypso raised her glass. “Can I get you something to drink before you start?”

“You’re the guest here,” Athena said. She ducked into the refrigerator and grabbed the milk. “Can I get
you
anything before I start?”

“I’m not a guest.”

The urge to drink from the carton was strong. But that was stupid. She wouldn’t mark her territory with milk drinking. She grabbed a glass from the cabinet.

“Your name’s not on the mortgage, and you’re not family.”

“But if you asked me to leave, I wouldn’t,” said Calypso.

“So you’re a squatter.”

Calypso shook her head. “Why do I try to argue? I remember that day, on my island, when Hermes came and ordered me to give up Odysseus. Never mind that it was
my
island. Never mind that I loved him.”

“He wasn’t yours, Calypso. He had to go home.”

“Excuses, excuses. You hate me even though I’m on your side. There’s no winning with you.”

“I don’t hate you,” Athena said. “I resent you. It’s completely different.” She drained her glass and wondered why she’d said that. Why she’d let Calypso bait her.

“You resent me,” Calypso said quietly. “Because of Odysseus. Because I found him. Because I was with him.” She paused, and her voice slipped lower. “Because you can’t be.”

What was that tone? Compassion? Or pity? Athena looked into Calypso’s eyes, ready to knock them through the back of her pretty head. But she saw no malice. Had there ever been any there? She glanced over the nymph’s brown, braided waves, her narrow waist and feminine curves. She was more beautiful than most goddesses, certainly more beautiful than Athena. But more miserable, too. She’d come so far for a boy who had left her with embraces, maybe with promises. And when she’d found him, he’d turned her away for someone else.

None of it was Calypso’s fault. It hadn’t been on the island, and it wasn’t now. She only loved him, and try as she might, Athena couldn’t despise her for that.

“I don’t have any right to Odysseus,” Athena said. “Do what you want.” She walked past Calypso, gently, and that was it. The words hadn’t choked her after all.

*   *   *

As Henry had predicted, the school held Odysseus back. The principal called him down to the office in the middle of first period and explained that he’d missed too many days to graduate. It was not, they made clear, an expulsion. They even offered to let him audit the rest of his classes.

“At least I can still keep an eye on you,” Odysseus said. “Which was the whole point anyway.” He tucked the official letter into his shirt pocket. “I can’t believe they expelled me! Did you see this coming? With your—” He whirled his hand around at Cassandra’s head.

“They didn’t expel you,” she said. “And no, I didn’t foresee it. I didn’t have to. But I did know you were going to wear that shirt today.” She crunched through an apple on their way to her last class, Algebra III.

“Damned good thing I already finished school in London,” he grumbled as they pulled up next to the door. “You coming along tonight? To watch Achilles train?”

“I want to see him,” she said through her teeth. “And I never want to see him.”

Odysseus flashed his most charming smile.

“Give it a month,” he said. “You’ll love him. And even if you don’t, at least you can watch Hermes punch him in the face a bunch of times.”

“I’ll never love him.”

“Come on. He might save your life.” Odysseus touched her shoulder, and she shrugged away. No need for him to feel the hate-filled heat coursing all the way up her arms.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “But remember. He died in the war, too.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “But he liked it. It made him a legend.”

Odysseus looked at her funny. Sort of cockeyed. “Huh,” he said. “You just reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“You. The old you.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes.

“You’re just pissed because I don’t automatically take your word for it like everyone else does,” she said.

“No, that’s not it,” he said, and peered at her close. “You haven’t been quite right since that day in the jungle with Ares. It got to you, didn’t it? All that blood under your fingers.”

“I had to do it,” she said.

He glanced down at her hands. She hadn’t realized they were clenched into fists.

“And maybe it felt a little good, too,” he said softly. “For all that anger to finally have somewhere to go.”

Cassandra stared past him, at the wall. She didn’t dare move, or make a face. Not in front of Odysseus, who always saw the truth behind her eyes.

“You been to see Aidan lately?” he asked.

“He’s not really there.”

“Where do you think he is, then?” Odysseus asked.

The question made her blink, too fast, wondering if Cally had told him about their conversation in Abbott Park.

“Gone,” she said in a flat voice. “Timbuktu. The other side of the rainbow. Maybe he’s not dead at all and living in Cleveland under an assumed name.”

“Why Cleveland?”

“Because Cleveland rocks.”

“Is that a joke? If it is I don’t get it.”

“Look,” she said, “he’s gone. I know he’s gone.” She stood her ground, and looked straight into Odysseus’ eyes. After a moment, he stepped aside and let her into the classroom.

*   *   *

Hermes breathed hard, bent over with his hands on his knees. Sweat sparkled on his brow and dripped onto the thawing ground. He’d sparred with Achilles for an hour, about fifty-eight minutes too long for his liking. The boy was too fast and brutally strong. His reflexes and his balance were impossibly good, and not just for a mortal. The kid still stood, arms flexed. Small patches of sweat showed through his borrowed hooded sweatshirt, but that was it. He could go another ten rounds. Another twenty.

Of course, Hermes hadn’t hit him. He hadn’t even tried.

“I forget,” Hermes said as he plunked down on the patio furniture opposite Athena, “is breaking this kid’s arms or killing him on the menu? Because short of that, I’m not going to be able to put him down.”

“I’m not sure,” Athena said. “I guess you can if you want to. It’s not like it would stick.”

“Oi,” Achilles shouted. “What are you two clucking about?”

“Breaking your arms and dismembering you,” Hermes shouted back. “Got a problem with that?”

Achilles shrugged. “Won’t be pleasant.”

Hermes groaned and mimed choking him. “Care to tag in, big sister?”

“My foot and shoulder are only at eighty percent,” she said. The foot and shoulder were an easy excuse. Really, she wasn’t ready to tangle with Achilles again. “What are you bellyaching about anyway, Hermes? He hasn’t even managed to hit you yet.”

“Yeah, but if he does you’ll be picking pieces of my pretty cheekbones out of the fence.”

“It’s only the first day.” She supposed it wasn’t fair, him out there dodging and walloping while she sat comfortably on patio furniture. She nodded at Calypso. “Help my poor brother out, would you?”

“Of course.” Calypso stood and brushed dirt from her lap. On her last turn, Achilles had tossed her into the bare flower beds where she had landed on her belly. “But I don’t know why you think two of us are going to fare any better.”

“No,” Hermes said. “No, no, no, no, NO! I need a break, and food.” He stripped his sweatshirt off over his head and let his t-shirt ride up just far enough to give Athena a glimpse of his prominent ribs. She didn’t say a word when he went inside to order.

The sun was high and bright in the sky that day; Aidan was helping them along by warming the joint into the low seventies. The strawberry spring threatened to become not so strawberry at all. Every last bit of snow had melted, even in the shadows at the corners of the privacy fence, and the thawed dirt made a nice soft place for Achilles to throw Calypso around. She made a grab for him and yipped like a surprised pooch when he tossed her through the air. Athena didn’t stop smiling until Calypso landed and skidded into the side of the house.

“Nice one, Calypso,” Athena said. She got up and hobbled exaggeratedly to the sliding door. “Keep at it.”

“No doubt why Hera wanted him now, is there?” she said to Hermes after she closed the glass. “So strong, and he can’t be killed—”

“He can probably be killed.”

“No easier than we could be. And maybe he can’t. Maybe if you tore off his head he’d sprout a new one. Or his body would resurrect itself and join the stumps back together.”

Hermes lowered his phone in the middle of dialing Stanley’s Wok. “You’re disgusting. How many orders of chicken wings should I get?”

“Four. And get extra egg rolls for Cassandra. Sesame beef sounds good. Maybe pork skewers with lemon and vegetables.”

“Got it.” Hermes dialed. “The left half of the menu and extra egg rolls.”

Athena listened to the first few minutes of the order before zoning out. Stanley’s Wok would be in a rough spot in a few weeks, after Hermes was healed and had no more use for double orders of Double Happiness. Oh well. All good things came to an end. She glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. Almost time for the others to arrive.

“Keep them apart,” she said.

“Keep who apart?” Hermes asked, clicking off with Mr. Hong.

“You know who. Achilles and Henry. I don’t want them fighting each other. Not ever.”

Hermes glanced out the window at the beast in the backyard. “It wouldn’t be much of a fight.”

By the time Odysseus, Cassandra, Andie, and Henry arrived, the food had been delivered. Of the four, only Odysseus filled his plate. The others picked at chicken wings and took tiny scoops of rice, afraid to train on full stomachs.

Across the table, Achilles ate most of the sesame beef.