Mortal Gods (34 page)

The voices were so strong she stepped back toward the edge and half expected her heel to land on nothing but air. Her stomach tumbled up into her throat, and the mountain tilted like a horse bucking.

“Athena!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Laughter rang through her head. She could barely hear Athena through the racket.

(AWAY FROM THE EDGE, CASSANDRA, AND WALK QUICKLY. ONE FOOT THEN ANOTHER FOOT THROUGH THE DOOR AND TO OUR CHAMBER. WE WISH TO SEE YOU, OUR CHILD: THE CURVE OF YOUR CHEEKS, THE FALL OF YOUR HAIR. WE WOULD HAVE A WORD WE WOULD HAVE MANY SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE)

Cassandra pressed her hands against her ears.

“Who are you? Stop talking!”

Athena tried to take her arm. But through her nausea, Cassandra lumbered past her, lurching like a drunk, trying to get to the wooden door and through to the other side. Hoping that then the voices would stop.

*   *   *

Something was in Cassandra’s head. Something Athena couldn’t see or hear. She followed close on the girl’s heels as she stumbled into walls and dragged herself forward. It was the Furies. It had to be. One more little trick Hera had managed to keep up her sleeve.

“What are they saying to you?” she asked. “Don’t listen, Cassandra. They’ll try to drive you mad.” Cassandra didn’t answer. There was nothing Athena could do besides make sure the Furies died first, when they got to where they were going.

Cassandra moaned painfully.

“It’ll be a hell of a thing if we have to do this alone,” Athena whispered. “Just us, and you half-mad. You’d better hope the others aren’t far behind.”

Lights lit up in Athena’s chest. They were close. The halls grew warmer and smelled sharply of herbs and smoke. Her pulse quickened, and her muscles coiled. Any door might be the last door.

“Cassandra, you should get behind me now,” she said, too late. Cassandra turned a knob and pushed through.

Athena burst in behind her and put her arm out across Cassandra’s chest. Athena’s eyes swiveled to take in everything, and came up short. Hera was there. The braziers burned and skittered orange against her stone cheek, all but healed. She smiled, and she could almost use her whole mouth to do it. But Hera wasn’t the most important thing in the room.

“What are you?” Cassandra asked.

“Who are you talking to?” Athena blinked. Something blurred her eyes and made her head swim. The room was lit only by firelight and the setting sun, but it was too bright. The air was too thick to breathe even though the far wall was open air, cut rock and columns, looking out over the sea. Her eyes watered. She barely made out the dark shape of Ares, standing on the opposite side of the room.

(WE SEE YOU, GODDESS OF BATTLE. NOW SEE US)

Athena’s grogginess disappeared, wiped clean like a hand swept across a fogged mirror.

There they stood. Or sat. With the tricolor silk laid over them she couldn’t tell. Three disfigured women, raised up on a platform of marble. Three crumbling, withered monoliths of women, twisted together. Athena’s eyes traveled from their red, black, and silver hair, to their arms, grown into each other’s stomachs.

“The Moirae,” she whispered.

Atropos, the black-haired one in the center, and the only one still beautiful, took her eyes off Cassandra. Her gaze made Athena want to crawl into a hole.

(KNEEL)

Athena didn’t think. She knelt with reverence and haste. Anyone watching would have thought she wanted to. That doing it was her decision.

She couldn’t look at Hera. Couldn’t stand to see her smug expression of triumph.

The Moirae were here, and they stood with her enemies. Fate had never been with her at all. It was too late to warn the others.

Too late to tell them that she’d been wrong.

*   *   *

Cassandra stood still in the center, between Athena and the Moirae. They ordered the goddess onto her knees, and Athena’s kneecaps struck marble as she obeyed.

They made Athena obey. It almost made Cassandra like them.

“I’ve heard of you,” Cassandra said. “The Moirae. The Fates. They Who Must Not Be Named. Is it true? Are you the gods of the gods?”

She didn’t really need to ask. Invisible leashes wound around the necks of every god in the room, from Hera to Ares, tethering them to the sisters. And the dark one in the middle had thrown a rope around Athena easy as roping a lame calf. It could be good. Leashed gods were easy targets.

(COME CLOSER, CHILD)

The words pulled her, but their voices were softer in her head. Whispering instead of ringing like cathedral bells.

(COME, AND BE GRATEFUL FOR THE GIFT WE GAVE YOU)

“What gift?”

(PROPHECY)

“That wasn’t your gift. It was Aidan’s, and it was a curse.”

(COME KNEEL)

“No.” The leash wouldn’t go around her, she realized. And now that she had her eyes on them, they could bombard her brain all they wanted. It would be no different than if they screamed in her face.

(NO?)

“That’s what I said. I don’t take orders from a Frankenstein monster in patchwork silk.” She looked back at Athena as the burning in her hands spread up her arms and into her shoulders. Soon, she’d be able to taste the fire in her throat. “I don’t take orders from anyone.”

(YOU ARE OURS)

“It would seem not,” she said, her eyes on Aphrodite’s deliciously terrified face, hiding behind a pillar. Time would stop while she watched it melt. So many gods, ripe for the picking.

“Athena, stand up,” she said, and willed Athena’s legs to move. Athena trembled and started to sweat.

(YOU WILL NOT)

“I will,” said Cassandra.

A door she hadn’t noticed flew open on the other side of the room, to the rear of Ares and Aphrodite. Achilles and the others spilled through.

*   *   *

The weight of the Moirae disappeared from Athena’s shoulders when the others burst into the room, and she slipped her foot under her and tensed, ready to spring. For the time being, no one moved. Hermes and the rest fanned out into the back, their arms out as if to ward off evil, their weapons raised. Cassandra lifted her arms, too. Even Ares. The two groups looked between each other, held in limbo, a Mexican standoff with no guns. Athena was very aware of the heart in her chest, and how the Moirae would explode it if she tried to move against them. But she would. The distraction might be their only chance.

“Finally found you,” Achilles said. “Orders or a plan might be good about now.”

“You think I have one for this?” Athena asked through clenched teeth.

(ACHILLES) The Moirae strained toward him. Atropos extended her lovely hand. (IMMORTAL ACHILLES)

“The Moirae,” Hermes whispered. His eyes were wide and rimmed with tears. Shame kicked Athena straight in the gut.

Achilles held his sword out, pointed at Atropos.

“Cut them!” Athena shouted. “Kill them!” If Cassandra could disobey, Achilles could, too.

Clotho and Lachesis shivered in their husks. Atropos ignored her. She was too busy admiring her weapon. Achilles. The other weapon of fate.

(YOU ARE OURS. AS CASSANDRA IS OURS. WITH YOU, WE WILL DEVOUR THE GODS)

Across the room, a nervous wave passed through Hera, to Ares and Aphrodite.

“Don’t listen to them, Achilles,” said Cassandra. “We’re not theirs.”

But they were. The Moirae were the gods of the gods. Nothing could stand against them. And Achilles only fought for the winning side. He would never charge the cannons believing he would lose. He just wasn’t the type.

“Get away from them, mate,” Odysseus said, and walked slowly closer. “They don’t have anything good in mind for you.”

(COME, ACHILLES. COME TO US, AND RISE AS AN IMMORTAL. AS A TRUE GOD)

“A true god?” Achilles asked.

Athena closed her eyes.

(YOU ARE WHAT YOU ALWAYS WERE. KILLER OF MEN. KILLER OF HEROES. SHOW US. SHOW US)

Achilles looked down, dazed, at the sword in his hand. Athena didn’t even have time to scream before he turned and threw it.

But Cassandra did. Cassandra, and Andie, and Hermes, they all screamed and moved toward Henry. Only Henry wasn’t the target.

Athena’s heart beat once. The sword caught Odysseus in the chest, and came out his back.

*   *   *

Calypso screamed. Everyone screamed. Blood soaked into Odysseus’ hands and dripped from his lips.

Inside Athena’s head, the world slowed to a crawl. Wolves snarled. Calypso fell to her knees and tore at her cheeks. Someone shouted Athena’s name.

“No,” she said.

Odysseus slid to his knees, and something inside of her snapped. Everything else fell away: Hermes crouching low and fighting off attacking wolves with Andie and Henry stabbing spears beside him, Cassandra turning her murderous eyes back on the gods. None of it meant anything. Only Odysseus’ blood, and his fading heartbeat, mattered.

Athena sprang away from Hera, away from Cassandra. She crossed the room in three strides and pulled him into her arms.

“Odysseus.”

I love you.

“Athena!” Hermes shouted, and for an instant the world returned: a vulgar clash of metal and claws, screams and hateful laughter. She pressed Odysseus tightly to her chest.

“No,” she said.

Athena ran to the open wall of columns and leaped out. She dove and took him with her, straight down the sheer face of Olympus.

*   *   *

Athena jumped. She jumped.

It was all Hermes could think. He stared with his mouth hanging open at the empty space where his sister had just been. Then Andie screamed, as Oblivion raked its claws down her back.

“Andie,” he whispered. He turned and kicked, and Oblivion crashed into a wall. The Moirae screeched in his head, in all their heads. Ares moved toward Henry, and Hermes flashed forward and punched him in the face. It wasn’t much, but it gave him enough time to yank Henry out of the way.

It wouldn’t work for long. Hermes had to get them out of the mountain. Out of this horrible trap.

“Cassandra!” he shouted, but she paid no attention. She was murderous, furious over Odysseus, screaming that she’d kill Achilles, too, for what he’d done. But she crept closer and closer to Hera.

“Ares!” Hera screamed. “Atropos, please! Keep her from me!”

Ares turned, but Cassandra was already too close. Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis did nothing, safe behind their Achilles shield.

“Get away from me!” Hera shouted and clambered backward. “Ares! Aphrodite!”

“Mother!” Aphrodite shrieked, but Ares held her by the arm.

“It’s too late,” he said.

He was right. It was too late. Hermes felt heat off Cassandra all the way across the room, and Hera started to stiffen and shudder before the girl even touched her. Ares shoved Aphrodite against a wall and started forward, calling to his mother.

Henry stepped bravely and stupidly into his path.

“Hurry, Cassandra!” he yelled. “Do it!”

“No, damn it!” Hermes hissed. “Henry, you idiot!” He moved to tug the boy back, but Panic leaped for Andie, making him grab her and spin her out of the way. The wetness of the blood soaking her shirt made his stomach lurch, but she landed solidly and thrust her spear through Pain as it came for her hamstrings. The weight of its falling body pulled the spear from her hands, but it didn’t matter. Pain was down and dying in a stinking heap.

Hermes’ eyes twitched from scene to scene: one more dead wolf, Ares seconds away from turning Henry into a splat on the wall, and Calypso on her knees, weeping, oblivious to Aphrodite, who drew closer with an eager expression.

“Too much, too fast, even for me,” he muttered. He grabbed a brazier and threw it at Aphrodite. Hot metal and orange coals bashed into her chest. She screamed, and her dress caught fire. Ares forgot all about Henry and ran to her rescue.

“Two birds with one brazier. Finally, some progress.”

But not enough. They had to go.

“Cassandra, we have to get out of here! Cassandra!”

“No! Not yet. Not now.” She dodged Hera’s arm, and Hermes winced. Even a glancing blow would turn Cassandra’s head to pudding. But Cassandra ducked low. One of her hands trailed along the underside of Hera’s arm, and it hit the floor with a solid thump, granite clear up to the shoulder.

“My god,” he breathed. It was so fast. So incredibly lethal.

Hera screamed, and the sound only brought Cassandra on faster. A touch here, a shove there, murdering a goddess in bits, and the whole room paused to watch as Hera trembled and jerked. As she cried for Ares and Aphrodite, telling them to get the head, the head, whatever that meant. As she tried to protect her own head, putting her stiff, stone arms in front of her face.

Her pleas to Ares and the Moirae unheeded, Hera finally looked at Hermes.

“Stop her, please!” she begged.

The fear in her eyes was terrible.

“I can’t,” he said.

Hera strained under Cassandra’s touch, and then, all at once, her screaming stopped. Hera was dead. Past the point of recovery or miracles. A stone statue, her face forever frozen in a twisted howl of pain.

“No,” Aphrodite keened, and reached behind a column. What she pulled out was something Hermes never thought he’d see again. Poseidon’s head.

It was severed and ragged at the neck, but remarkably well preserved. His uncle’s dead jaw hung slack, ringed with swollen, purple lips. The eyes remained intact but had no color. Just white orbs, not so dissimilar to Hera’s marble eyes. Aphrodite lifted the bloated, still-wet thing to her mouth and whispered into its ear.

“Shit,” he whispered, and called to the others. “Come on, move! She’s calling the sea!”

Water rushed up the sides of the mountain like thunder, ready to serve the last of Poseidon, to crush them and drown them. Hermes looked between Andie, Henry, Calypso, and Cassandra. He’d never get them all out in time.

“Cassandra, now!” he shouted.

“No!”

He darted to Calypso. “Come on. Get up!” But she wept and remained slack. He couldn’t get them all out. He could only carry two. The first wave crested and broke into the room, cold and frothy and furious. He cursed and made his choice, going for the ones he wouldn’t have to drag kicking and screaming. He grabbed Andie and Henry, and fled Olympus.