Mortal Gods Read online

  “Is that the answer here?”

  “I don’t know. But I know you don’t think so. If you did, you would wander off and let yourself be torn apart by wolves. You’d dye more harlot colors into your hair.”

  Athena snorted. She could be killed. They’d proven the impossible possible. But it wasn’t as easy as Demeter made it sound. Her bones would break those poor wolves’ teeth. A death like that would take months.

  And she wasn’t ready. Who would have thought, after so much time, that she wouldn’t be ready.

  “The point is,” said Demeter, “that you stay. Why?”

  Odysseus flashed behind Athena’s eyes. His voice whispered in her ears. And Hermes, too. Her beautiful brother. Thinner and thinner.

  “There are things, I guess, that I still need to take care of.”

  Demeter drew in a rippling breath. “You are tired. Sit, child. Rest.”

  Athena cleared her throat. “No, thank you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hermes says…” She hesitated and rolled her eyes. “Hermes said that when he sat on you he could feel your pulse through his butt.”

  Demeter laughed, hard enough to knock Athena off-balance. Her feet skidded apart, and she put her arms out to steady herself. Startled birds flew from wherever they’d been hiding moments before, squawking their worry at the shifting dirt.

  “I wish you’d brought him,” Demeter said, quieting. “I miss his impudence.”

  Athena smiled. Having finally reached her aunt she was no longer all that tired. Wind cooled the sweat on her shoulders and neck. The quest neared its end. Soon she could go home.

  “Aphrodite,” she said. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing.” Demeter recoiled innocently, stretching herself so thin that Athena could feel desert pebbles beneath her toes. “Without Hera to direct her path, Aphrodite will hide. So fast and so well that you’ll never find her.”

  “We will find her.”

  “Why do you ask if you aren’t going to listen?” Demeter snapped. “Why are you talking about a mortal girl’s revenge? Why are you fighting her fight, instead of yours?”

  Athena looked away, across the sand. At first it was grief. The loss of a loved brother. And then it was guilt, too many days spent staring at Cassandra, at the shell of a girl Apollo left behind. She’d made a promise to look after them all. Cassandra, Andie, and Henry. Apollo had made her promise.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said softly. “I never … understood time before. It didn’t mean anything. I could never make a mistake. I don’t know how mortals do this. How they only live once.”

  “You doubt your instincts.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? Things just end. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Demeter wriggled in the dirt. “I might be wrong. You beat Hera, but it wasn’t Hera who caused this. Whatever really did, you may be able to fight.” The eye bulged, scrutinizing. “Tell me. What you’re thinking.”

  Images flickered in Athena’s mind: she saw Demeter rise up from the earth and shake herself off, no longer a flat expanse of skin but a woman, with brown hair waving to her waist and deep dark eyes. She saw Hermes with muscle returned to his arms, a beautiful curve in his cheek when he smiled. She saw Apollo, Aidan, bright and perfect as ever, with Cassandra by his side.

  She thought and she dreamed. Of wrongs put right. Things restored that would never be. Impossibility hovered like a light in her chest and made her want. To be a hero. To feel alive. As alive as she’d felt that day on the road above Seneca Lake, when she’d charged Hera with iron in her fist.

  “We won,” she said quietly. “Hera and I both sought the oracle, but I found her first. The other side was stronger, and everything went wrong. Our side was scattered and made terrible choices, but we won anyway. We left Hera and Poseidon dead, and Aphrodite running for cover. And now I have the girl who kills gods. And I have Odysseus, who can lead me to the other weapon.”

  She had Hermes, and capable soldiers in Henry and Andie. And she had herself. Goddess of battle.

  “You have much,” Demeter agreed.

  “I don’t want to put them through any more,” Athena said, and that was true. Hermes, Odysseus, and Cassandra had been through enough. But she couldn’t deny the urge that grew daily in her gut. She couldn’t deny the exhilaration she’d felt when Hera had fallen on the road.

  “Going through is the only way to the other side,” Demeter said.

  “The people I’ve endangered … I would see them safe. I dragged them with me before,” she said, and paused thoughtfully. “But always in the right direction.”

  “Stop trying to make me say it for you,” Demeter said. “Spit it out.”

  “I’m going to wage one more war.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re supposed to fight, and we’re supposed to win.”

  “Ah,” said Demeter. “There it is.”

  “Yes. There it is. I’m going to hunt down every rogue god and monster. I’ll tear their heads from their shoulders. Cassandra will turn them to dust. One last rush of heroes on the battlefield. It’ll be glorious. Something for the books.”

  “And if you win, you’ll regain your immortality?”

  “Even if we don’t, at least we’ll be the last to die.”

  “You’re so sure,” said Demeter.

  “I am, Aunt,” said Athena. She looked up at Aidan’s sun, blazing high and hot in the sky. “I well and truly believe the Fates favor us.”

  “The Fates favor you,” Demeter said quietly. “And so. What is your first step?”

  “The first step,” Athena said. She’d begun pacing back and forth across her aunt without realizing it. “Try to find Artemis. Save her from the beasts in the jungle and gain another soldier.”

  “That’s not the true first step,” said Demeter. “When Hera came after you, she sought two things. Two weapons. You only control one.”

  “The other can’t be controlled.”

  “Then he must be eliminated.”

  “Yes,” Athena said. “I need Achilles kept out of the other side’s hands permanently. The trick will be convincing Odysseus to give him up. And once Achilles is gone … there’ll be nothing they can do against me.”

  The eye blinked slowly. For something so sickly and close to death, it was clear as a mirror.

  “Go, then, and try your tricks,” Demeter said. “None of this will really be over, anyway. Not until you are dead.”

  2

  SUN AND STONE

  Snow never gathered on Aidan’s headstone. Other grave markers stood half-buried, with ridges of ice packed across the tops even after family members brushed them off. But Aidan’s sat bare. Snow and ice shrank from it. Out of respect? Or out of horror, maybe, at something buried beneath the ground that had no business there.

  A god. A god lay dead at the feet of that granite slab. Apollo. Aidan Baxter. God of the sun.

  Cassandra Weaver stood off to the side, as she had on every Tuesday and Friday afternoon since they’d buried him. Sundays were too crowded, and she hated the sound of other mourners, the ones who knew how to mourn and what to say. How to cry softly into a handkerchief instead of screaming until their noses bled.

  Her fingers reached out and traced the air in front of his name. Aidan Baxter, Beloved Son and Friend. Every day in the cemetery she thought she’d say something that needed to be said, but she never spoke.

  High on Aidan’s grave marker, above his name, was a carving of an enflamed sun. No one had told his parents to put it there. They just had. One more strange thing, working its will on the world, placing symbols for dead gods and keeping the snow at bay.

  Odysseus stepped up beside Cassandra and laced his fingers through her hair, drawing it over her shoulder like a brown curtain.

  “It’s been an hour. Should we go?” His neck was tucked into his shoulders. Londoner. Unused to the cold.

  She’d asked him to be her alarm clock. Time in the cemetery te
nded to stretch out, and she didn’t have hours to lose. Normally, the job fell to Athena. The goddess accompanied Cassandra practically everywhere she went. A faithful, and hated, hound dog. Looking past Odysseus, Cassandra could almost see her, standing quietly near the edge of the cemetery in the copse of bare winter trees. She’d used to lean against a monument of a weeping angel, looking bored, until Cassandra snapped at her and said she was being disrespectful. But Athena was hundreds of miles away, somewhere between New York and Utah, seeking another dying goddess, stretched out across the desert. Seeking word of Aphrodite.

  Cassandra’s hands tingled and burned even at the thought of Aphrodite’s name. They’d spent two months looking, Athena and Hermes both. They threw lines out in all directions, and still Aphrodite was nowhere to be found.

  Andie said it didn’t matter. That Aphrodite would die eventually anyway. But it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be enough, if it wasn’t at Cassandra’s own hands.

  Odysseus sank deeper into his coat. His shaggy brown hair made for poor earmuffs. Cassandra flexed her fingers to drive the burn away, and to drive Aphrodite from her thoughts.

  “Cold?” she asked.

  “Of course I am. It’s beastly cold.” He stuffed his hands under his armpits. “But take your time. We’ve got a while before we need to nab Andie from practice.”

  “We can go. Thanks for coming with me.”

  “Anytime. But if we don’t go soon, I’m going to warm my feet on his gravestone. Think he’d mind?”

  Cassandra looked at the marker. Aidan Baxter. She’d loved him from the minute she saw him, without ever knowing what he really was. Who was she to say what he’d do, or what he’d feel?

  I knew him in two lives, and not at all.

  She remembered what he’d done to her in Troy—driving her insane, cursing her to never be believed—and she hated him. But she also remembered the sound of his voice and the last look in his eyes. He was there, underneath the dirt, and she’d give anything to reach down and pull him out of it. Even if it was only to scream into his face.

  Damn you, Aidan. You were never this infuriating when you were alive. Come back, so I can tell you so.

  “‘Beloved son and friend,’” she read. “If they only knew. That it isn’t the half of it. That they’d have needed a gravestone a mile long to tell the whole story.” She shook her head. “Four words. It’s not enough.”

  Odysseus put his arm around her and tugged her close. He took a deep breath, and kissed her head.

  “I think he’d say it’s everything.”

  * * *

  Cassandra and Odysseus walked into the ice arena and found Andie waiting on the steps leading up from the locker room. Her hair stuck to her head, steaming with sweat from practice. It wasn’t that much warmer inside the arena than out, but Andie stretched her t-shirt-clad arms happily.

  “First one done?” Cassandra asked, descending the stairs.

  “As usual.” Andie cocked her head toward the locker room. Inside, the shouts and laughter of her teammates mingled with the noises of packing skates and pulling Velcro. She snorted. “I don’t know what they’re laughing about. They suck. We suck.”

  “Still time to turn it around.”

  But there wasn’t. February was upon them, and the hockey season neared its end. Andie waved at Odysseus as he talked to the girls running the concession stand. “Hey, heartbreaker! Get me a hot dog!”

  The sheer booming volume of Andie’s shout made Cassandra squint. “You’re in a decent mood, considering how bad you suck.”

  “Yeah. It’s funny, but I don’t really care that much. Did you know?” she asked Cassandra. “That the season was going to blow?”

  Cassandra shrugged. Of course she had. The usual, run-of-the-mill visions were still around.

  “Well, anyway. What’s going on in the world of weird?” Andie asked. “Does Athena still want to look for Artemis?”

  “So Odysseus says.”

  “But you saw Artemis running to her death months ago.” Andie craned her neck and gestured for Odysseus to hurry up.

  Had it really been so long? Standing in the hockey arena, it felt like minutes, not months. Cassandra’s eyes clouded with memories of overgrown jungle leaves streaked with blood. The slim girl with brown and silver hair, chased down by a pack of ravenous who knew what. She could almost smell the blood and the rich black dirt. “Yeah,” Cassandra said, taking a breath. “But it’s the only vision we have to go on. And you know Athena. Any chance for another soldier is a chance too good to pass up.”

  “Don’t be unfair,” Odysseus said, sneaking up behind them. “It’s about saving her sister as much as it is finding a soldier. And Artemis was Aidan’s sister, too, you know. His twin.” He handed Andie a hot dog in a cardboard shell.

  “Finally. What took so long?”

  “Sorry. Got caught chatting up Mary and Allie.” He nodded to the girls in concession, who leaned so far over the counter they were about to fall out of it.

  Andie batted her eyes. “Odysseus is so witty. Odysseus is so charming! Don’t you just love Odysseus’ accent!” She took a huge bite of hot dog and talked through it. “Barf.”

  Odysseus had enrolled at school a month earlier. An ancient Greek hero, matriculating at Kincade High so he could dog Cassandra’s footsteps. Athena’s idea, though she probably regretted it now, seeing how popular Odysseus had become with every girl in their grade. But no. Having him there served a purpose, and to a goddess that was the important thing.

  “You headed to Athena’s place?” Andie asked, referring to Athena’s new house, a few streets over from Cassandra’s own, where she lived with Hermes and Odysseus. “I’ll come with you if you guys can stop off and let me shower.”

  “When’s your car supposed to be fixed?” Cassandra asked.

  “Dear god, soon,” Andie groaned.

  * * *

  Athena’s house was a pretty brown cottage with four bedrooms and two stories. A walk-out porch on the second level attached to the master bedroom, Athena’s. It probably made her feel like she could see things coming, but it seemed imperious. If she were home she’d be there now, looking down on them as they pulled into the driveway.

  Behind them, tires crunched in the snow, and Andie turned in the backseat. A beaten-up hatchback idled behind Odysseus’ Dodge Spirit.

  “Chinese delivery,” Andie said as the delivery guy jogged past their door holding two white bags the size of backpacks. “Did Hermes know we were coming?”

  “He didn’t know you were coming,” Odysseus replied. “And I wouldn’t expect to get much of that Chinese, either. Athena’s got him on a ten-thousand-calorie-a-day diet. If I were you, I’d order a pizza.”

  Ten thousand calories or not, it wasn’t doing any good. The boy who opened the door was painfully thin, the skin of his cheeks drawn, and the bones visible in his wrists and shoulders. Hermes’ light brown hair shone, and his skin was smooth. Everything about him looked healthy, even as his body ate his flesh away. He waved them inside.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to eat all that,” Andie said as Hermes set white box after white box out on the kitchen countertop.

  “Big sister’s orders.” Hermes dumped an enormous pile of sesame chicken onto his plate and placed six steamed pork dumplings around the edge. When he ate, he used a fork instead of chopsticks, to better shovel everything in.

  “Is it helping?”

  Hermes paused a fraction of a second before taking another bite.

  “I feel better. And Stanley’s Wok has incredible pork dumplings.”

  “It smells good,” Andie said. She eyed the boxes, and Hermes’ brow arched possessively.

  “I told you,” said Odysseus. “Order a pizza.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Hermes pushed a box of dumplings in Andie’s direction. “Besides, if you ordered a pizza, I’d eat that, too.”

  Cassandra snorted in spite of herself. Without Athena standing stone-faced beside
him, Hermes was impossible to dislike. He was so much more fragile than Athena, and much more concerned about not being an asshole.

  “That wasn’t there when I was here last.” Andie nodded toward the living room wall. A silver sword with a black handle was mounted above the fireplace. The blade glinted, long and thin, in a subtle curve.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Hermes said with his mouth full. “It’s brand new. Just a replica, though I imagine it could cut someone in half if I wanted it to. It reminds me of one I used to have during the Ming Dynasty.”

  “Athena will like it,” Odysseus said. “It suits her, to have weapons all over the house.”

  “It does,” Cassandra agreed.

  “I don’t think she’d care if I put up baskets of posies. She doesn’t give one whit about decorating or style. If you really want to make her happy, we should sell this place and hobo it down by the river.”

  Andie stood, chewing dumpling, and walked closer to the sword. “So, you know how to use this? You studied it?”

  “I did,” Hermes replied. “Though fighting and killing comes fairly naturally to gods. Except maybe for Aphrodite.” He glanced sheepishly at Cassandra, who shrugged, even as her hands burned. Any mention of Aphrodite’s name made her think of the glee on the monster’s face when she drove the broken limb through Aidan’s chest.

  Cassandra rubbed her palms against her jeans and the burning disappeared.

  After Aidan’s funeral, she had asked Athena what her power meant. Athena had blinked and replied that it was her purpose. That she killed gods.

  She killed gods. Both intentionally and by accident. Hera. And Aidan.

  But Cassandra couldn’t believe that. She was no loaded gun, to be pointed and fired. Yet her hands still burned, and her heart raged with a surprising ferocity. Feeling so angry was new, and she didn’t know what to do with it, besides murder Aphrodite.

  And maybe Athena for good measure.

  She felt Odysseus’ eyes on her as if he could read her mind. But her silent threat wasn’t real. Much as she hated it, Athena was needed.