Mortal Gods (8 page)

Odysseus’ eyes widened. “Believe me, mate. If boys were my fancy, I would be the luckiest bloke on earth.”

Hermes waved him off. “Straight or gay, I’m irresistible. We both know why you and I won’t be tumbling through the leaves. It’s the same reason that we’re here, in the middle of a sweltering, rotten jungle. The same reason I won’t see the piazza ever again.”

“What’s that?” Odysseus asked, even though he knew.

“We both love my sister.”

6

CIVILIAN RELATIONS

Andie and Cassandra cut a slow, straight, limping path through the crowded halls on the way to Algebra. Faster students edged around them like rocks in a stream, grumbling as they passed. But Andie could go no faster. She’d trained with Athena almost every day for a week. There wasn’t much left of her besides a patchwork of bruises, held tenuously together by frayed muscles.

“I play hockey year round,” Andie said. “Dry land practice, calisthenics, three ice practices a day during summer camp. And I’ve never felt this much like shit.”

“It’s because they’re muscles you don’t normally use.” Cassandra shifted their books in her arms as a frustrated freshman pushed by and knocked them loose.

“Muscles I don’t normally use,” Andie repeated. “Yeah. For like two thousand years.”

“You’re overdoing it. She’s going to injure you.”

“She knows what she’s doing.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Athena probably did know what she was doing. But that didn’t mean she had any consideration for Andie’s well-being while doing it.

“Look at you,” she said. “Look how you’re walking. You’re like the Tin Man after a good bout of weeping.”

“Jerk,” Andie said. “She has a plan, okay? And I think that plan is to use up my body’s entire reserve of lactic acid.”

Cassandra sighed. “Brace yourself. Here come the stairs.”

“I want to take the ramp.”

“We don’t have time to take the ramp.” She let Andie put a hand on her shoulder like an old woman and listened to her bitch and moan her way up the first flight.

“You could take the heat off me, you know, if you’d let her train you, too.”

“Not a chance.”

“It wouldn’t even be hard for you,” said Andie. “You have all your memories already. It would be like riding a bike. It would all come back.”

Cassandra shook her head. There was still another long flight of stairs to go, and then two long hallways to the classroom.

“You and I had very different past lives, Andie. You were an Amazon married to a warrior. I was a crazy princess they locked in a basket.”

“You mean you don’t remember anything useful? You can’t shoot an arrow, or drive a chariot?”

Cassandra’s memories of Troy sat in the back of her mind like something she’d done in childhood rather than thousands of years ago. She didn’t like to think about it. Not only because of how it ended, in blood and despair. But because it felt normal to think about it, when it should’ve felt strange.

She shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure I can work a loom,” she said.

“Yuck. Boring.”

“Just be glad Athena didn’t choke you, too. You used to do it with me. We’d sit all day in a room and weave, talking about the menfolk. They were riveting times.”

“Hey. You guys are going to be late.” Henry walked toward them from the direction of his locker, looking strangely naked without a notebook in his hand.

“We’re late already,” said Andie. “Aren’t you?”

“I’ve got a free study hall period. I told Coach Baker I’d go clean up the weight room.” He nodded at Andie. “You look like hell. You’ve got to rub out the lactic acid. Strip the muscle.” He moved toward her, and she growled. “Fine. Later maybe. So are you learning anything, or just getting your ass kicked?”

“I’m learning everything,” Andie replied. “I could kill you with my pinkie finger. If only I could bend it.” She told him what she and Athena were working on, and the excitement in her voice was plain. And something else, too, that Cassandra didn’t like: eyes like stars when she said Athena’s name. The goddess’ glamour, getting to her. Henry didn’t like it, either. But there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

“You should let her train you, too,” Andie said.

“No.” Henry was firm.

“Is it just because it’s her? If Aidan was here, would you let him?”

“No,” said Henry. “I just want them all to die.” He looked sheepishly at Cassandra, but she knew what he meant. He hit Cassandra in the shoulder and walked away.

“How can he say that?” Andie asked. “How can he mean it? I know you guys blame Athena for Aidan dying, and frankly, that’s twisted, but what about Hermes? He’s our friend. And Aidan was. It’s not all of them.”

Cassandra stared after Henry. He looked more like Hector now, even without his memories. One life bled onto the other. Why? Out of necessity? Because he was needed? She’d often wondered why fate had chosen to plant the three of them in Kincade and no others from Troy. Where were Paris and Helen? Where were Troilus and beastly Agamemnon? Were they waiting somewhere? Would she see them again? Or had the Fates finally finished with them?

If they have, they should count themselves lucky.

“It’s not all of them,” Cassandra said to Andie quietly. “But their problems become our problems. Their problems are going to change our lives.”

*   *   *

Cassandra had been standing in front of Aidan’s headstone for an hour. Another Friday in front of his grave, not knowing what to say. Her throat hurt from the urge to cry, from backed-up tears and stopped-up words. If she opened her mouth, she would only scream.

He couldn’t be dead. Not really. He was a god. But Cassandra looked at the ground and felt nothing. No lingering spirit. No connection.

If only he were there. If only she could speak to him and have him speak back.

“Where do gods go?” she wondered aloud. To Hades? To the underworld? Or somewhere else entirely?

Behind her, Athena stood in the trees, feeding owls or something and waiting to take her home. Cassandra turned to see her guardian at her post, but Athena didn’t seem to be guarding. She was restless, pacing and kicking her toes into the snow like a deer after grass. Maybe she was missing Odysseus.

Cassandra walked quietly out of the cemetery, and waited for Athena’s head to rise, for her to notice. But she didn’t. She didn’t notice until Cassandra was practically on top of her.

“Your feet are freezing.” Athena glanced at Cassandra’s shoes, soaked through. Her toes curled inward and lifted as they walked to the street, trying to keep them off the cold ground. “I should’ve been warming up the car.”

“It’s fine,” Cassandra said. They got into the Dodge, and Athena blasted the floor heater to no avail. It was basically shot; by the time they got home, the air coming out of it would be almost lukewarm.

“How’s it going with Andie?” Cassandra asked.

“It’s going well. She’s strong. Mindful of her balance.”

“But none of that will make any difference if she comes up against a god,” Cassandra said. Andie was strong. Tough. Smart. But against a god she could swing a sword with a razor edge and it might as well be made out of Nerf plastic.

“Against a god, the only thing she could do is die well,” said Athena.

“Do you think that’s funny?”

“Am I laughing?”

“Why are you training her, then, if she can’t fight what we’re fighting?” Cassandra asked.

“Because she’s afraid. And because she will have to fight, and Henry, too, before this is over.”

“Your war,” Cassandra said. “But what about my war? When are we going to find Aphrodite?” Heat flooded her hands, right down to the fingertips.

“No one seems to know where she is, Cassandra. And I heard about your maps. How well that worked out.”

“I could try again.”

“Great,” said Athena. “I’ll keep the fire extinguisher handy.”

“You’re an ass.”

“Cassandra. Aphrodite will die. In time. Let me fight the war and help me win, and she’ll die right and proper.”

Cassandra clenched her fists.

“Then let’s get going. You want help to find Achilles? You got it.”

Athena glanced at her, surprised.

“Do you think it’ll work?” she asked. “I didn’t think you’d want to help. You know I’m going to find and destroy him.”

“He murdered my brother,” Cassandra said.

“In another life.”

True enough. In this life, Achilles was probably no different than Henry. Just as innocent. In this life, they could be friends.

Athena pursed her lips.

“No,” she said. “Not yet. I told Odysseus I would wait.”

Cassandra groaned through her teeth.

“If you were half the god you’re supposed to be,” she said, “Aidan would still be alive.”

Athena didn’t react. Whenever Cassandra lashed out, she took it, like Cassandra’s pain was her burden. Athena reached for the heater controls and tried to push them farther into the red, as if that would make a difference.

“Are your feet getting warmer?” she asked.

“Shut up. You don’t give a shit about my feet.” Cassandra tucked them up closer, away from the blowing vents. “You just want to use me to kill the other gods, like Hera did. So you can live. You’ll probably find Achilles and decide to use him, too. You didn’t listen when Aidan asked you to leave us alone and fight your own battles.”

“They were coming for you.”

“They followed
you
here!” Cassandra shouted.

“Of course it must seem that way. But they would have found you eventually. And Ap—” Athena sighed. “And Aidan wouldn’t have been able to protect you on his own.”

“Don’t talk about him.” Fire rushed into Cassandra’s chest, intense as an itch, but clouded and red, not clear like it had been with Hera that day on the road. “Don’t tell me what he could and couldn’t do. He could’ve done anything. He might’ve done a thousand things if you’d never come here.”

“All right. I’m sorry.”

“I want you to go.”

Athena nodded. “I will. And I won’t come here with you Tuesday if you don’t want me to.”

“No. Not just the cemetery. I want you gone. Out of Kincade,” Cassandra said. “Hundreds of people died in the explosions in Chicago and Philadelphia, from bombs that Hera planted. Hundreds of people! Can’t you go and pretend to protect other cities?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Cassandra asked. “I haven’t had a vision of a dying god in months. I haven’t had a vision of anything since we killed Hera. Since
I
killed Hera. And I’ll kill Aphrodite, too, all on my own.” Cassandra’s heart thumped, and the heat in her hands flickered. She heard Odysseus in her head. Big talk. Big, tough talk, but talking isn’t the real thing.

“I promised my brother I would take care of you,” Athena said quietly. “It’s the only promise I made to him that I intend to keep.”

“Shut up. He wasn’t really your brother.”

“He was my brother long before he was your love,” Athena said, showing anger for the first time. But she couldn’t sell it. She shook her head guiltily.

“I shouldn’t have said that. You were the most important thing to him. But he died for you, and I’m not about to—”

“Shut up, I said,” Cassandra screeched. “You want me to do this, and you want me to do that, but you don’t care what I want. You don’t give me Aphrodite and you don’t give me a way to find Aidan and bring him back!”

For a second, they both sat silent, struck dumb by the request.

“Is there a way?” Cassandra asked quietly. “Where do gods go? To the underworld? Somewhere else? Is there a way to go there, and bring him back? People used to. And gods could. I remember that. So is there? Is that where he is?”

Athena’s eyes went glassy.

“We’re not those kinds of gods, Cassandra.”

“What kind?”

“The kind who know everything.”

Cassandra closed her eyes. As usual, Athena was no damn use. All at once Cassandra’s frustration reared up in her chest and ran hot to her hands. She had to let it go or she would burst. She reached across the seat and grabbed Athena’s wrist.

Athena jerked the wheel hard. Someone screamed, and Cassandra wasn’t sure if it was Athena or her as the Dodge jumped the curb and narrowly missed a signpost. She rocked forward into the dash as Athena hit the brakes.

The burning in her hands was gone. It had disappeared and left them cold and clammy. Beside her, Athena pulled up the sleeve of her coat and held her wrist up to her face. A broken red ring, cracked and enflamed, marred the skin where Cassandra had grabbed her. Small, speckled feathers protruded in a grotesque bracelet, pushing through the flesh like blossoming seeds. As they watched, a few more tore through the surface and twisted outward, tinged with blood.

“I’m sorry,” Cassandra blurted. The anger that had seemed so fresh a second ago felt a million miles away. “I didn’t mean to … I don’t know why—are you—” She took a hitching breath and opened the door. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s stopping.” Athena stared at the wound as the feathers took over her wrist. A trickle of blood ran; one of the quills must’ve nicked a vein. It had to hurt like a bitch, too, like a thousand bee stings, but she watched it as if it were happening under glass. “There’s a first aid kit in the trunk,” she said, popping it, and Cassandra took wobbling steps around the back of the car and brought it back.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, I said.” Athena rolled gauze around the wound and tore the strip to tie it with her teeth. Her movements were brutal and efficient. It was that, and the lack of feeling on her face, that made Cassandra start to cry.

“What?” Athena asked. “It’s fine. I’ll just pluck them out with tweezers later.” She took a deep breath. “The one in my lung isn’t any worse. Whatever you did, it was localized.” Cassandra exhaled, relieved to have the wound covered. Seeing it even for those few moments had made her nauseous. Athena patted her back awkwardly. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. And you’re an idiot.” Cassandra wiped her eyes. “Odysseus made me promise not to turn you into a feather pillow. But I almost did. And I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t mean to.”