“How to—?” she asked, and stopped. Suddenly she knew. It was just like it had been before. During the war against Troy. Greece had needed a weapon, and only Odysseus had been able to convince it to come out and fight. Only Odysseus had known where it was hiding.
“It’s Achilles,” she whispered. “They’re looking for Achilles.”
Achilles. The greatest warrior the world had ever seen. She hadn’t thought of him in ages. During the time of the Trojan war, he’d been necessary, but even then she’d wished he hadn’t been. He was cold, smart, and narcissistic. He knew the price of glory and he didn’t care. The slaughter he left in his wake was red and spread with entrails. He knew nothing of pity, and when he was angry, even the gods were afraid.
Of course, the standard for brutality had changed over time. In the twenty-first century, Achilles might actually be comparatively sane. But somehow she doubted it. Somehow she knew that he’d only gotten worse.
I’ve seen mortals do horrifying things. Impale people on pikes, stretch their limbs until the joints blew apart. I looked into the eyes of those torturers, searching for just one spark of recognition, wondering if it was really him, come back again and again.
“When the Cyclops jumped me in England, they weren’t going for the kill. That’s probably why I got the better end of it. They wanted to take me alive, so I could be Hera’s Achilles-dowsing rod. So what do we do?” Odysseus asked. “Do we find him first? I can take you there. We could leave now.”
“No. Nobody finds him.” There was no point. He’d never fight for their side; there wouldn’t be enough blood to sate him. He would fight for Hera, for glory, and a place amongst the gods. If they went looking, they’d lead their enemies right to his doorstep. “I don’t want any part of him. He’s mad, and evil. He always was.”
Odysseus sighed. “No, he wasn’t. He was just an angry boy, caught up in your struggle. Like we all were.”
Athena nodded and bit her tongue on disagreement. He had known Achilles better than she had, after all.
“What about you? Why are you looking for your weapon? Planning to ‘eat’ Hera and Poseidon before they can eat you? You trying to save your own skin?”
She sighed. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing to say yes. It would be nice if Hermes didn’t have to die.” She chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Just something Hermes said back in Utah. He called us ‘the last of the sane gods’ and said I had my cape of Justice on again. Seemed stupid. But after what Hera did in Chicago…” She looked down, and her voice grew somber. “The world doesn’t need that running around, I suppose. The world has enough of that as it is. So, yes. I’ll take her out. I’ll handle my own, before they wreck anything else.
“We need to get out of here.” She struck her fist against the softening wood of the picnic table. How long did it take to switch loads on a truck anyway? She didn’t even know where Craig was. Eyeballing the red Freightliner, she wondered just how hard it would be to steal it and how fast it would go.
“Don’t,” Odysseus said. “Just, don’t. We’re not hijacking a semi.”
Athena smiled. Then she coughed. At first it was just a light tickle in her throat, but it got worse. She felt something moving, coming loose down in her right lung. It itched. She coughed harder, until she was bent over, hacking.
“Athena!” Odysseus held her by the shoulder. She took great, whooping breaths; her coughs sounded like someone ripping a bed sheet.
Finally she sputtered. She’d managed to dislodge it and work it up her throat. Her fingers fished around on her tongue, and held the feather in front of her face.
Just one, and mostly white, with a little brown speckling at the edges. Only the shallowest bit of the left side had any blood or tissue stuck to it. The rest was just wet.
“Don’t get upset,” she said shakily. “It’s just a small one. Hardly attached to anything.”
Odysseus stared at it before she crushed it in her fist and flung it off into the grass.
“How long do you think you have?” he asked.
Athena smiled, still a little breathless. “Forever.”
13
THINGS YOU LOSE
The day after the Halloween party, Cassandra sat around the kitchen table with Andie and Henry. Henry crunched through M&M’s with circles under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises. Andie and Cassandra split their third Kit Kat. Andie’s leg bounced up and down at a jittery pace, and even though she’d showered her costume makeup off an hour ago, Cassandra knew she still looked dead.
“This is too much chocolate on too little sleep,” Henry muttered. But he reached back into the bowl anyway.
“You should stop. Dad wants you to help rake the yard later.”
“Ha-ha,” Andie said between chews.
“You wanna help too?”
Andie dropped the candy bar. “Yeah, sure.” She sighed, and stretched in the chair. “I’ll tell you one thing. That is the last time I lace these bad boys up into a corset. How did women wear those, anyway?”
Nobody answered. Henry’s eyes drifted over Andie’s chest and he looked almost disappointed by the news. Cassandra kicked him in the shin.
She glanced out the window while Andie and Henry talked about taking naps. The day was gray, pale, and disgusting. Leaves shedded off of the trees like pieces of dead skin and frost clung to the brown grass and frozen dirt. Everything was so cold. Cold to the point of cracking.
Henry stood and turned on the TV on the kitchen counter, just a small-screen Panasonic their mother liked to listen to while she cooked. It was tuned to CNN and they were broadcasting more coverage of the attack in Chicago. This time it was footage taken from someone’s camera phone. The video was shaky, shot while running backwards. The collapsed building went in and out of frame, only one half of it visible through the clouds of dust.
“Can you change that? It’s pretty much the last thing I want to see.” She still didn’t know why Hermes and his sister had blown up the warehouse. Not for sure. But he sure as hell hadn’t seemed very sorry about it when she’d seen him.
Henry turned the whole thing off and leaned over the sink to look out the window.
“Hey, it’s Aidan.”
Cassandra stood just in time to see his head pass by the glass, a few seconds before he knocked and came through the front door. His eyes found hers and he smiled. There wasn’t a scratch on him. He was safe. She hadn’t realized how scared she’d been. Her heart thumped like she’d run a mile.
“Aidan!” Cassandra’s dad walked down the hall and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re just in time to rake.” He sipped his coffee and raised his brows at the rest of them in the kitchen. “With so many bright-eyed helpers it should only take a few hours.”
“Sure thing, Tom.” Aidan smiled. “Do you have leaf bags?”
“In the garage. I’ll go get the rakes. You guys meet me out there in five minutes.”
After ten pulls on her rake, Cassandra felt ready to fall over. They were spread out in the backyard, dragging damp brown and yellow leaves into sad-looking piles. Wetness made the piles heavy and flat, and far too cold to jump in.
“Here, let’s get this one.” Aidan handed her a leaf bag and she held it open while he used their two rakes to gather leaves and stuff them inside. Cassandra looked over her shoulder at her dad, who saw and flashed a smile.
“It feels like lying now,” she said.
“What does?”
“Not telling my parents. It didn’t before, because it didn’t feel real. But Hermes was real last night. They’re really here. So now it feels like lying.”
“The less they know, the safer they’ll be.” He didn’t look at her when he said it.
Will they really be? Or will the gods blast through them whether they know or not, if they get in the way?
“Cassandra?”
“Yeah?” She let go of the bag and took her rake back to start the next pile.
“We should think about leaving soon.”
Her rake stopped. There was no pretending that she hadn’t heard, and really no pretending that she hadn’t known, deep down. Not in the dark space in her mind but someplace lower: in her heart, or the pit of her stomach. She looked again at her dad, and at Andie and Henry. They were throwing leaves at the dog, who barked and raced around them in circles. Her mom watched through the kitchen window while she put a casserole together for lunch.
She and Aidan would have to leave. To run. She didn’t know why she felt so shocked; it wasn’t like they’d be able to hide in Kincade. It wasn’t like they could make a stand there. Not against what was coming.
“When can we come back?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Will they be safe here? Will they go after them anyway, even if we’re gone?”
“I don’t know. But it’s their best chance.”
“When?” she asked, and held her breath. Whatever he said would be too soon. Too abrupt and cold.
“I thought after this, we could go to my house and figure it out.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “Why is this happening?”
Aidan lowered his eyes. “I wish I had answers, or better things to tell you. If it was anything else, I could stop it.” He clenched his teeth. “But I can’t. Believe me when I tell you, running away isn’t my style.”
The breeze whistled through Cassandra’s hair. It smelled like winter. Like change and dying things. She searched the gray sky for the sun and couldn’t find it.
“What am I going to say to them? They’re not going to understand, Aidan.”
He put his arms around her and tears slid down her cheeks.
“I hate this,” he whispered. “And I hate them.”
Cassandra leaned against his shoulder and stared at her family.
“I’ll kill every one of them, I promise. And I’ll give you your life back, as soon as I can.”
* * *
The light in Aidan’s bedroom was scant, silvery, and indirect, filtered through layers of clouds before it hit the window. Long, dark curtains blocked most of it, and they hadn’t turned on the bedside lamp. Aidan paced quietly in front of his open closet, like he wasn’t sure where to begin, and Cassandra didn’t push. If she didn’t push, maybe the moment would drag out, and everything would go away on its own.
“I think we should go south, find the coast. Athena doesn’t care for the sea; she might avoid it.” He stopped, swallowed.
“If you think so.”
“I don’t know what to think. It’s a guess, and a wild one. I don’t have any idea what my sister might or might not do anymore.”
The muscles in Cassandra’s arms and back ached from raking and from plain old fatigue. It didn’t matter where they went. They were going away. She felt numb and exhausted. Aidan would have to drag her along, wherever he decided to go. She’d asked him when they could come back and he’d said he didn’t know. But they were running from gods. Gods. They’d never be able to come back.
I’ll never come back. This life is over.
Aidan started to move suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch. He grabbed clothes out of his closet and stuffed them into a black duffel bag; he emptied his drawers of socks and t-shirts and shoved them in too.
“I’m going to have to get money out,” he said. He’d paused at his desk, his eyes moving over his things: his laptop covered in stickers, a few paperbacks, a small curved snake figurine made of pewter with gold gemstone eyes. His parents had gotten it for him at a festival they’d gone to. Cassandra watched him slide it into the duffel with his laptop.
“I should write them a note. Tell them we went to—tell them we went somewhere together and will be back in a few days. Maybe then they won’t call the police until we’re too far to be caught.” He flipped open a notebook and grabbed a pen. “You should write one for your parents too.”
His hands shook, and he put pen to paper three times before setting it down and taking a breath.
It’s hard for him. But he’s had to do it before. He’s had to love people and leave them before they knew what he was.
She didn’t know whether that made it easier. Whether it made it better or worse.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“I know. But you’re brave too.”
“Am I? Is that why I want to call you a liar? Why I want to run through that door, and down the stairs, and go back home like nothing ever happened?”
He turned and knelt at her feet. He would be with her. She wouldn’t be alone. But she wanted Andie and Henry. She wanted her parents. Aidan’s hands rubbed along the sides of her legs, like he was trying to warm her after coming in from the cold.
“We’d better get going back to your place,” he said. “And we’d better hope that Henry is napping.”
“Why?”
“Because my parents have both of the cars. We’re sort of going to have to borrow his.”
Cassandra laughed humorlessly. “He’s going to kill us.”
14
CONVERGENCE, OR, WELCOME TO KINCADE, EMERGENCY EXITS ONLY
He cut a welcome figure on the side of the highway. Athena sighed with relief. She knew he could take care of himself.
Hermes lifted an arm in greeting. Odysseus waved and tucked his poor, mortal neck in like a turtle’s against the light, cold mist, too light to complain about, just cold enough to make him miserable. They’d only been walking in it for a few miles, since their ride on Route 17 had let them out, but Odysseus looked about ready to catch pneumonia.
“Took you long enough,” Hermes said when they reached him. The orange polo shirt and black jacket he wore were damp and clinging, but he didn’t shiver. Neither did Athena, standing tall in her wet, filthy cardigan.
“It annoys the hell out of me that I’m the only one uncomfortable.” Odysseus tucked his hands under his arms while Athena greeted her brother.
“You’re not the only one uncomfortable.” Athena had been coughing off and on since they’d parted ways with Craig in Buffalo. And Hermes’ bones looked ready to burst through the skin. Odysseus nodded.
“How did you know where to wait?” Athena asked.
“There aren’t too many ways into this city,” Hermes replied. “I played the odds.” He eyed Odysseus as he stood, teeth chattering. “Let’s get going. I picked up some new threads for you. They’re back at my room.”
“Your room?” Athena asked.
“It’s a Motel 6. I figured that would be an appropriate compromise between the Hilton I deserve and the dirt burrow you’d have wanted me to dig.”
He stalked off with attitude to spare. Athena and Odysseus followed, smirking.
“There isn’t even a Hilton here,” Athena said.
“Believe me, I know.”
They walked quickly up the side of the highway, the Motel 6 sign visible a quarter mile up the road. When they reached it, Hermes let them into the room and got them towels from the bathroom to sponge off with. Odysseus skinned gratefully out of his wet jacket and went in to take a shower without another word. Hermes tossed Athena a bag from Nordstrom. She looked inside and promptly threw it back.
“There are sequins,” she growled.
“Not on everything! Besides, you can’t walk around looking like that.” He pushed the bag back. It tipped over and spilled its contents on the garishly colored bedspread. There were a few t-shirts and sweaters and a couple pairs of jeans. The sequins comprised only a small patch on the front of one of the shirts, winking at her in red and silver.
Athena sighed and ran the white terry towel over her hair.
“Thanks, Hermes.”
“Don’t mention it. How was the road?”
Through the bathroom wall she heard the shower turn on. The road. He asked about it so innocently. What would she tell him? That everything had been screwed? That she’d almost fallen to one of Aphrodite’s plots? That she’d allowed herself to cross a line with Odyss
eus that should have been a brick wall? No. Some things could be omitted. She looked at Hermes regretfully. If he’d have been with them, none of it would have happened, and there wouldn’t be this uncomfortable tension.
Athena leaned against the dresser. “Aphrodite sent someone to kill me.” She shrugged. “Well. ‘Kill’ might be a strong word. I suppose she just sent someone to maim me.”
“Aphrodite?”
“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised? You knew she was with Hera.”
Hermes shifted his legs and pulled a pillow out from under the comforter. “I didn’t know that. You thought so because of the glamour, but we didn’t know.”
“And you didn’t think so.”
He shrugged. “Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
She bit down hard to keep from snapping. When had she become so easy to doubt? Why didn’t he just trust her? The details came forth slowly, laid out with logic from a careful tongue.
Don’t argue. Please don’t argue.
“She used the only weapon she ever had. Lovesickness. Obsession. And it felt like her. Deceptive and wild.”
Hermes shrugged again. If he did it one more time, she’d reach out and throttle him.
“She was never like that to me. She was always sweet and kind.”
“Of course she was. You’re a boy.”
“And you’re not?”
Athena snorted. He was right. There was no reason for Aphrodite to dislike her. She wasn’t beautiful like Aphrodite, and she didn’t fall in love. There should’ve been no contention between them. But they’d disliked one another anyway. Even before the debacle with the damned golden apple.
“She told me once that she could make me fall in love with the Minotaur if she wanted.” Athena smiled, thinking back to that day, when some slight too small to remember had brought them nose to nose yet again. “She said I’d have ugly little Minotaur babies and suckle them at my breast. Then she’d looked at my bronze breastplate and said the poor things would probably starve.” And then she’d gone, in a flash of gold gauze and white skirts. She could say awful, childish things, but no one thought less of her. Certainly not any of the gods. Even Hera would go to Aphrodite when she needed something beautiful.