Mortal Gods (6 page)

“I’m ashamed,” she said, “of what I’m becoming.”

He kissed her hair. “Let’s go.” His poor Aphrodite. It was difficult to keep his touch gentle when he wanted something to break. Something to cut. Something to crush.

The urge subsided when they reached the mouth of the cave, a modest opening dug into a rock wall and grown over with ferns and moss. They’d have to bend their heads to go inside.

“It isn’t much,” he said. The wind from inside was cold, and spoke of large, black caverns.

Aphrodite squeezed his hand, and they went in.

*   *   *

Ares knew exactly when it was that they left the cave on earth and entered the cave on Olympus. He felt the gravity change. The rock walls increased in luster and somehow in boldness, like a blurry curtain had suddenly been drawn back. It was hard and sharp and beautiful. It felt like home.

“How can this be?” he asked, and it was Hera who answered from somewhere in the shadows.

“It exists because we remade it,” she said. “It exists because we have need.”

“Mother.” Ares couldn’t see her. Even with immortal eyes, the dark was too complete. When he strained forward, he could barely make out her shape. She stood tall and proud, shoulders back, the curve of one hip thrust out, forming the perfect silhouette.

“My son.”

Aphrodite stepped away to let them have their reunion.

“It’s true then,” he said. “You live.”

“Is that disappointment I hear?”

“No,” he said, but he heard something in his mother’s voice: a soft grinding, like a heel twisting against gravel. “I thought Athena and the girl killed you.”

“Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.” Hera paused. “Well. Perhaps not greatly. I’ve missed you, Ares. The child of my husband.” As she spoke she came into the light. It took everything he had to keep from shrinking back, not to recoil when she put her hands on his shoulders, her right fist heavy stone and the left warm flesh with fingers that squeezed him.

The perfect silhouette in the dark was a lie. It hid the awkward way her legs moved to compensate for the weight of stone across her shoulder and right side. Her body was a wreck of rock and fused flesh. But her face was the worst. Hera’s beautiful ivory cheeks were all but gone. Most of her jaw and lower lip had turned to mottled stone. It ground against her teeth when she spoke. Bits of cracked marble and granite rolled in her cheek like joints or cogs in a grotesque clockwork.

“It’s not so bad,” she said, and tried to smile. “It barely hurts.” The stone pulled at the edges of her skin until Ares thought her lip would tear away and bleed.

“And how are you?” Hera touched her stone hand to his bandage. “Are you weak from lack of blood?”

“No. It’s not bad. Not yet.”

“He’s strong,” said Aphrodite. “Still strong. And I found him.”

“You did,” Hera said. Her eyes rested on Aphrodite and lost focus. “Death robs her of her mind, and me of my beauty.” She shrugged. “We’re lucky that it isn’t the other way around.”

“Don’t be cruel,” said Ares.

“I won’t be. Not ever.” Her expression softened as much as was possible. “For all of our past differences, I love her now. As much as if she really were my daughter.”

Aphrodite wasn’t listening anyway. She swayed slowly back and forth to unheard music.

“You sent her to find me,” said Ares. “Why?”

“We’re all we have left,” Hera replied. “And Athena would see us dead.”

“From what I understood, Athena was just protecting mortals.”

“She places mortals above us,” Hera said. “Above her family. Even though there are so few of us left, and billions of them.”

“We’re dying,” Ares said. “And it doesn’t surprise me that Athena’d spend her last days playing protector. It was always her favorite cape to wear.”

“So you’ll let her win?” Hera asked. “I thought you would fight.”

“We’re dying,” he said. “What’s the point?”

“Such a defeatist attitude,” Hera clucked. “You’re the god of war. If you’re going to bleed to death, wouldn’t you rather it be all at once?” Her jaw worked, and small stones clacked together like dice in a palm. “Wouldn’t you rather not die at all?”

“What are you talking about?” Ares asked.

Hera turned away. Her movements were rough and crippled. Ashamed.

“That girl really did kill me,” she said. “That day by that lake. When they killed your uncle Poseidon, they killed me, too. The rock crept over my lungs and into my heart. It felt like…” She paused and laughed. “It felt like turning to stone from the inside out. I saw the granite spread over my eye. I was inches away from death. Moments.”

“But you’re not dead.”

“I didn’t tell him,” Aphrodite sang from the corner. “You said not to tell him, and I didn’t.”

“I know, my darling,” Hera said. “We couldn’t tell him until we knew whose side he would be on. But he’s my son. And he’s your lover. We can trust him.”

“You can trust me, Mother. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if it hadn’t been for them, I would be dead.”

“If it hadn’t been for whom?” he asked.

“They healed me. And if I please them, they’ll heal me more. Until all this rock is gone.”

“Who?” he asked. “Who could do that?”

Aphrodite slid behind Hera and wrapped bruised arms around her ribs. Her cheek pressed against Hera’s stone shoulder.

“The Fates,” Hera said. “The Moirae. The three sisters.”

Ares stood aghast. He hoped wildly that she spoke in metaphor. That she spoke of miracles.

But she didn’t. Hera meant the Moirae. Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The sisters of Life, Destiny, and Death. The gods of the gods.

“What have you done?” he asked. “Not even Zeus would dare.”

“It’s not what I have done,” she said, and fear quickened her eyes. “Come now. Don’t be afraid. It will be fun. Don’t you want to fight Athena one last time? Don’t you want to find out which god of war will be left standing?”

“You’re mad. You’ve called down the Fates—”

“I didn’t call them,” Hera hissed. “As if such a thing were even possible. They came to us. They sent us out to fight.” Her voice dropped low. “They heal us and give us strength. And we serve them.”

Aphrodite stuck a fingernail into her mouth and hugged Hera tighter.

“In the beginning, it seemed like a choice,” Hera said. “They seemed like allies. But then I fell, and they dragged me back through worse pain than any god can imagine. They left me like this.”

“Why did you send for me?”

“Because I’m a fallen soldier,” Hera said. “I failed.
You,
my son, are my chance at redemption. I’ll send you out in my place. You’ll get what they want. And then they’ll heal me.”

Ares wanted to run. The Moirae had to be near, somewhere in Olympus. They could come crashing through the doors at any minute. He pointed at his mother.

“You put me under their eye,” he said.

“They are the Fates, Ares. You were always under their eye. At least now you know. So make the most of it.”

He looked at Aphrodite, sucking on her fingernail and hugging Hera tightly with her other arm. He had no choice.

“Don’t be so glum,” she said. “Aren’t you happy to live? Aren’t you happy to fight? Won’t you enjoy putting that bitch in her place?”

That part, at least, truly was appealing. But the Moirae struck icicles of fear through his back.

“I’ll—” he said, and swallowed. “I’ll want to see them.”

“Soon,” Hera promised. “Once you have something to please them. Something they want.”

“And what do they want?”

“They want their weapon,” she said. “They want Achilles found.”

5

GODS FLUNG TO THE FAR CORNERS

“I don’t even think it’s legal to bring this much food into a country. You’re going to get us stopped at customs.”

“So eat most of it on the way to the airport.” Athena tossed Hermes a box of granola bars. She’d packed half his bag with protein mixes and canned meat. It hardly seemed enough. His shoulder blades stuck out of his back like wings. He was so very thin. At least the fever had abated, and he seemed strong. But questions filled Athena’s lungs every time she took a breath.
Are you sure you’re okay to go? Do you really know your way around? Do you know what to do? Maybe I should go instead.

But he was a god, not some mortal to be babied. And Odysseus was right. She’d been away from Cassandra for too long, and you didn’t leave your primary weapon unguarded.

“Why not send me to the airport with a dozen pizzas? I could make a pretty good dent in them by the time we hit security,” Hermes said. “Or maybe a Crave Case from White Castle.”

Athena smiled. He was disgusting. Her little brother. Until the gods had started dying, she hadn’t seen him for hundreds of years. Now she sent him off to Malaysia to look for their dying sister, into the jungles where beasts chased her with razor teeth and lolling tongues.

“Tell me you can still outrun anything,” she said.

“I can still outrun anything.”

“This isn’t all for nothing, Hermes. Cassandra’s finger struck that map for a reason. Artemis is alive.”

“If you say so,” he said. “But if I get there and find some beasties sleeping off a full belly of goddess in a shady spot, what should we do? Kill them?”

Athena sighed.

“What?” Hermes asked.

“Nothing.”

She coughed, and Hermes looked at her sharply. Her right lung had ached when she’d woken up that morning. A new feather, and a large one from the pain of it. She’d wanted to keep from coughing until Hermes and Odysseus had gone.

The front door opened; Odysseus and Cassandra tramped into the house loudly, in boots and coats. The change from the frigid winter of Kincade, New York, to the humid sweatbox of a Malaysian rain forest would be extreme. She hoped Odysseus wouldn’t get sick.

“Athena?”

“We’re in here,” she called, and in moments they crowded into Hermes’ bedroom.

“I thought we were packing light,” said Odysseus. Hermes’ black duffel bag was filled to the brim, stuffed with the odd shapes of boxes and cans.

“We were, until the grocery Nazi got back.”

Athena gave in. “You’re right. Lighter is better.” She upended the bag and let half the contents spill out, along with several of Hermes’ meticulously folded shirts and boxer shorts. He threw up his hands and made a “pth” sound with his tongue, even as she stuffed the clothes back in. “Just remember to buy plenty of food when you get there.”

“You do know that we know how to hunt, right?” Odysseus asked.

Cassandra looked appalled. “You’ll be in a rain forest. Most of those animals are endangered.”

“
We’re
endangered,” Hermes said, and zipped up his bag before Athena could do any more damage.

The flight to Kuala Lumpur was booked, and Hermes had set up a guide for when they arrived. A car would take them as far as Kuala Tembeling, and then they’d plunge into Taman Negara on their own.

The room fell quiet. Athena hadn’t said much to Odysseus since they’d spoken about Achilles. Odysseus said it wasn’t fair. That it wasn’t Achilles’ fault. And it wasn’t. Achilles didn’t ask to be Achilles. But he was too dangerous to be allowed to run free. Some things were like that. The atom bomb. Ebola. And Achilles, son of Peleus.

In the drawn-out silence, Athena and Cassandra finally looked at each other.

“How was your trip?” Cassandra asked.

“No word on Aphrodite,” Athena replied.

“No surprise there,” said Cassandra.

“I’m sorry.” For the thousandth time, Athena wished her weapon weren’t a small, mortal girl. It would have been so much easier, so much simpler, if the primary weapon had been a god.

“You told them where to go? Exactly where to go?” Athena asked.

Cassandra shrugged. “There isn’t really an ‘exactly’ in a rain forest. I gave them as good a starting point as I could. There’s a lot of ground to cover.” She glanced at Odysseus. “Maybe they’ll get lucky.”

“How did you know? Could you see it? Could you see Artemis?”

“No. I didn’t even think it would work. But then they put the maps out, and I just knew.”

“Have you seen anything else?”

“If I had, I would have told you.”

“What about your other power? Have you felt anything?”

Cassandra rubbed her hands along her legs. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you want me to demonstrate?” Cassandra snapped, but if it was a threat, Athena didn’t take it as one.

“Maybe. I think that’s what we should do while Hermes and Odysseus are gone.”

“No,” said Odysseus, and moved between them. “Cassandra, don’t.”

Athena picked up Hermes’ duffel and strode from the room. If they kept yakking for much longer they’d miss their flight.

“She can’t go up against Aphrodite untested. She’s got to learn sometime.”

“Not on you.” Odysseus walked as close to her shoulder as possible in the narrow hallway. “She’s not ready.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything. Now you’ll worry.”

Odysseus gritted his teeth. “Don’t make it sound like I’m worrying over nothing.”

“I’m not.” Athena knew what could happen. That one misplaced or careless touch from Cassandra could make feathers bloom in an instant, filling her heart and slicing through her blood vessels.

“If something goes wrong…” he said. “They need you.”

Athena stopped. He meant that he needed her. But that wasn’t true. He’d always been more than fine on his own.

“She won’t hurt me. Will you, Cassandra?”

Cassandra looked at Odysseus. “I won’t. If I can help it.”

“You’re both really pissing me off,” Odysseus said.

“Would you rather I use her map trick to find Achilles, then?” Athena asked, and he scowled. She would, if it came to that. If he wouldn’t tell her.

“Hermes, did you call the cab?”

He nodded. “Should be here—” An impatient honk sounded in the driveway. “Right now. So, table whatever argument this is, and let’s go. I’ve got a goddess to find.”

They stopped in the living room. Hermes took his bag from Athena and grasped the back of her head, pulling her forehead quickly to his.

“See you when I get back, big sister,” he said, and let her go, leaving her more than a little surprised. “And when I get back, our little family will have grown.” He winked at Cassandra and headed for the door, grabbing Odysseus’ worn leather bag from the entryway as he went.