Henry regained his feet and smiled, just a little. When he came at her again she couldn’t help being impressed. He was steady and strong. But it didn’t matter how fast he learned or how much he remembered.
Achilles was fire and knives, rage and poetry. Achilles was slaughter. And Henry would never be his equal.
* * *
After a shower, Hermes shut himself inside his room and blasted music Athena didn’t recognize, some kind of remixed electronica. He was pissed, she supposed, that he’d gotten stuck with Achilles all day. The hardest job. The only job that could really be called a job.
Athena stood over the stove. The steam from a massive pot of noodles basted her face. A decent vat of linguine with clam sauce would do for a peace offering. She didn’t really know how to make it, but she’d lived in Italy long enough. She’d seen it prepared a thousand times. She stirred, trying to make her fingers cooperate. Even now they were too used to scavenging, or being served.
“I didn’t know goddesses could cook.” Achilles walked up behind her and peered into the sauce. He took a deep sniff of the white wine.
“I’m not sure this one can,” she said, and glanced at her sink, which was full of hostile clams.
Achilles stretched.
“It feels good here,” he said. “Like a camp. Or a compound. I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.”
“And you could, couldn’t you? You could do this every day.”
“Of course. Can’t the others?” His blond hair was wet from his shower, slicked back and hanging down his neck. His t-shirt clung to the muscles of his chest. He looked like a rogue or a male model.
“How old are you, Achilles?”
He ran his eyes over her body and stepped closer.
“Almost as old as you, Athena.”
“Careful.”
He chuckled. “Sorry. All the fighting makes me … amorous.” He jumped onto the countertop. “I’ll aim my affections elsewhere. No shortage of beauties here. Even that big girl, Cassandra’s friend.”
“Andie?” Athena asked. “You stay away from Andie. She’s a biter.”
“I could win her over. And wouldn’t that be something, if I killed the boy in one life and stole his girl in the next. What would they say?”
Athena sighed. “How old are you, I said.”
“I’m seventeen.”
Seventeen. Two years younger than Odysseus. Four years younger than she and Hermes pretended to be.
“Have you always been this way?” she asked. “So strong?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Of course, you don’t exactly jump off a building until you know you can. After I was killed that first time, I pushed it. There’s not a lot you can’t do, without that limit.” He smiled. “But you know that.”
“I used to know that.”
“That’s the last time you shower first,” Odysseus said. He walked into the kitchen with a towel around his shoulders. “Ran out of bloody hot water.” He sniffed the air. “What’s going on here?”
“Clam sauce,” said Athena. “Well, probably.”
“Right. Can you give us a second?” Odysseus said to Achilles. “I need to talk to her.”
“Sure.” Achilles hopped off the counter. “I’d be willing to give that sauce a try,” he said. “Assuming there’s any leftovers.” He winked and headed for his bedroom.
“He really does get flirty,” she said.
“What?” Odysseus asked.
“Nothing. What did you need to talk to me about?”
Odysseus stared suspiciously down the hallway. “Cassandra,” he said. “She should train, like the others do. Learn how to defend herself if she has to.”
“Anything she fights she can burn up with a touch. Besides, she doesn’t want to.”
“But—”
Athena shook her head quickly. “Never mind. You’re right.” Cassandra’s powers weren’t instantaneous. To use them she had to put herself in harm’s way. She’d almost died facing Hera the last time, and this time would be worse. This time Hera knew their tricks. “She’ll have to be convinced.”
“No problem. I’ll start with her tomorrow, after school. Which, by the way, I was expelled from.” There was a surprising amount of heat in his voice, considering he’d never been seriously enrolled.
“Poor hero. Did the principal wound your pride?”
“Shut up.”
“How soon can you have Cassandra ready?” she asked.
“Inside of a month, I’d say. She’s no warrior, but if we focus on dodging…” He walked to the sink and poked at a clam. “You know you might lose some of them. Even with all this training.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” said Athena. “You want to chop those tomatoes?”
“I know you have a plan,” he said. “And I know you can lead an army. But even the best-laid plans can unravel.”
Athena handed Odysseus a knife. “Don’t worry so much. It will all fall into place.” A chill ran down her back as she spoke. He could be right. Even if the Fates were on their side, that didn’t mean they would all make it. Their first victory had cost them Aidan. And when she’d faced Ares in the jungle it had cost a tribe of men.
But that was my fault. My mistake. I won’t make another one.
“What smells so delicious?” Calypso asked. She walked into the kitchen, clean and freshly dressed in dark jeans and a light, form-hugging sweater.
“You going somewhere?” Athena asked.
“Cassandra and the others invited me over to watch a movie. Are you coming, Ody?”
“Yeah.” He handed the knife to Athena and left without a backward look. Athena listened to the Dodge kick to life. Tires rolled down the driveway, and the house felt suddenly empty.
Calypso had been there less than a month, and already they welcomed her into their group as a friend. Already they trusted her. Because she’d saved them? Or because she wasn’t a god?
“It doesn’t matter,” Athena whispered. She wouldn’t have gone anyway, even if they had asked.
She stood for a few moments and let the pasta steam her face. Then she walked to Hermes’ bedroom.
“Hermes, I’m making … something.” She knocked on his door. “Will you come out and pretend to eat it?” She waited, trying to discern sounds of movement above the techno thump. He couldn’t be giving her the silent treatment. Hermes didn’t even know how the silent treatment worked.
Farther down the hall, light shone through the crack of the bathroom door. The shower was on. She smiled. Any moment he’d come flying out, bitching up a storm about the lack of hot water.
Something in the bathroom crashed to the floor. It sounded like a bag of baseball bats dropped onto cement. Or a thin body tumbling against hard tile.
“Hermes,” Athena gasped. The bathroom hinges and lock didn’t stand a chance. The door cracked and gave way. She stood in the frame and moaned, hands clapped over her mouth.
“Get out. Get out!” He scrambled to get his legs underneath him, not much more than bruises and bones. Dark marks covered his stretched skin. She could see every rib. Every bump of his sternum.
“Get out!” he shouted. “Don’t look at me!”
She took half a step back, to mind her own business, to hide behind useless noodles. But then he crossed his arms over his face. Her brother feared her eyes like a vampire feared daylight. She wrenched his robe off the wall hook. When she draped it over his shoulders she braced for an elbow to the face, but instead he leaned into her and let her hold him tight. Heat from his fever bled into her cheek and chest.
Hermes cried, naked and shivering on the floor. Footsteps sounded across the carpet: Achilles, coming to investigate. Athena leaned and turned the broken door closed before he could see in.
“Everything all right in there?” he asked.
“It’s fine,” she said, and squeezed Hermes tight while he held his breath. “Trying to figure out the hot water.”
“Okay. Well…” Achilles
didn’t say anything else. After a moment his footsteps moved back down the hall.
“Trying to figure out the hot water?” Hermes sniffled.
“I didn’t hear you coming up with anything.” She spoke through her teeth, her chin resting against the top of his head. “How did you hide this?” she asked. “How did I not know how bad you were?”
“I know how to dress. I’ve always known how to dress.” His voice sounded better already. Clearer. She shut her eyes.
I make every excuse, use all the right words, to make him seem fine. How his fever is lower. How his eyes are bright. I stuff him full of food. Like it helps. Like it matters. Like he isn’t going to die.
He tried to gather himself up, and adjusted the robe to slide his thin arms into the sleeves.
“This is humiliating,” he said. “I look disgusting.”
“No you don’t. You could never.”
He hmphed. “I think they call this phenomenon ‘sister goggles.’ What are you doing in here, anyway? Ruining my ice-cold bath?”
“I made you something to eat.” The words barely made it out before she broke, and tears streamed down her face. She clung to him, and he stroked her hair and let her cry, even though her weight had to hurt him, thin as he was. He hurt all the time, every day. She didn’t know what she would do, when his skin started to tear. Would it be in one place? Or all over?
“I don’t have much longer, sister,” he said.
“No.” Athena shook her head, furious, and wiped her eyes. “You do. If Hera can heal, then so can you. If she has a way, I’ll take it. I’ll take it and pour it down your throat. You’ll live, and she’ll die.”
He hugged her tighter. “Don’t hope too much.” He brushed her hair back, and she looked into his face, handsome despite everything. Like his vanity was strong enough to force his illness to stay below his chin.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“So you could worry more than you already do?” he asked. “No. I just wanted time. Normal time.”
“Why did you let me pit you against Achilles all day? You idiot.”
“Bah,” he said. “I can still take that kid.”
But he couldn’t. Not anymore. His time was up. She had to make her move, and make it fast.
17
NEVER LOOK A GIFT WOLF IN THE MOUTH
Cassandra’s shoes crunched through the receding snow of the cemetery. She pressed her heel down, and it sank an easy two inches into mud. She thought of the coffins, all buried beneath the thawing ground, and wondered if they were waterproof, or if the water seeped through the weaker ones and dripped onto the decaying bodies inside.
“Do you have anything to drink?” she asked Calypso. “I suddenly feel like retching.”
Calypso handed her a bottle of cherry vitamin water. It coated her throat and swished away the grave dirt. Across the cemetery, workers labored with shovels and a small Bobcat. The edges of their spades cut through the earth like butter. What a good day to bury someone.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Cassandra said. Aidan’s grave wasn’t too far ahead, a few headstones away from a large tree. “It keeps Athena off my back.”
“You really don’t like her,” Calypso said.
“You do?”
“No. But I understand her.”
Cassandra eyed Calypso quietly. She was so beautiful, and there was a sweetness to her that made the beauty impossible to resent. Odysseus thought she was maybe a bit manipulative, but Cassandra didn’t see it. Cally was dying, like the others were, but she didn’t carry any of the desperation that they did. Though maybe she would, when her hair turned gray and her forehead wrinkled.
No. Calypso wasn’t there to live forever. She was there for Odysseus. That much was plain.
They stopped in front of Aidan’s grave, and Calypso put her hand on the stone.
“It’s warm,” she said. “Aidan. A good, modern name. Maybe I should choose one for myself.”
“Odysseus calls you ‘Cally.’”
She smiled. “He does.” She gestured over Cassandra’s shoulder at the bare branches of the broad tree. “That tree will never bear leaves again. The buds will fall dead to the ground this spring. I wonder if it knew.”
The tree looked fine. No signs of rot or disease.
“How can you tell?” Cassandra asked.
“I can’t tell,” Calypso replied. “But I know. Aidan won’t allow the shade. The same way he won’t allow snow on this stone.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t like to think of him…” Cassandra paused. “As being under the ground. As being there.”
“He isn’t there. He is somewhere else. I didn’t mean that he was in that box. Only that some things are strong enough to leave pieces behind.”
“Pieces.” Cassandra frowned. “You’re not good at saying comforting things.”
Calypso’s laugh dragged a smile out of Cassandra from somewhere down deep.
“I know,” she said. “I haven’t lived with humans as long as Athena and Hermes have. I think it’s made me strange. If I wasn’t strange to begin with.”
“I don’t think you’re strange,” Cassandra said. “I start training today. Hand-to-hand stuff. I’d like you to be the one to do it, if you’re willing.”
“I think Odysseus wants to train you.”
“You or him, then,” said Cassandra. “Or Hermes.”
“So, just not Athena.”
“Not Athena, and not—”
“Achilles!” The way she said it, Cassandra knew Calypso wasn’t just finishing a sentence. His shoes squelched as he walked the last yards to where they stood.
“What are you doing here?” Cassandra asked.
“I wanted to see him,” he said. “The god beneath the ground.” He stared at the headstone as if it were a museum exhibit, and it made Cassandra want to tear her skin off. Her palms began to tingle and itch, but the tingle couldn’t do anything to Achilles besides make him nice and toasty warm.
“It doesn’t seem right,” he said. “This small marker when he used to have temples.”
“We should have brought wine,” Calypso agreed. “To pour out a proper libation.”
Achilles gestured to the bottle in Cassandra’s hands. “Maybe he accepts libations of vitamin water now.”
Libations. Godly talk from a godly hero and a nymph. They didn’t really know whose grave they stood at. They didn’t know Aidan at all.
“Stop it,” Cassandra said. “He’s not a god. He doesn’t accept offerings of anything anymore.”
Achilles stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“You should have come another time,” Calypso whispered to him.
“I wasn’t sure what the right thing was,” he said. “What seemed more respectful. To come when she was here, to show I cared—”
“You don’t care,” Cassandra said. “Everyone else is fooled by you, but not me. Even though they know I’m the prophet, no one listens. My curse is still at work all these years later. You’d think I’d be used to it.”
“I don’t blame you,” Achilles said. “My face is the face you remember killing your brother. Just like Henry’s is the one I remember killing Patroclus.”
“You didn’t—” she said, and shut her mouth. She’d been about to say, You didn’t actually see that, but she stopped herself. That was an assy thing to say, even to Achilles.
“We only do what the Fates ask of us, princess,” he said. “You and me both.”
“Don’t put us in the same sent—” she said, and Calypso screamed.
Cassandra barely had time to whirl before the black wolf sprang and took Calypso down to the ground. Then Achilles had Cassandra around the waist, half-dragging and half-carrying her through the cemetery.
“Stop,” she shouted. “Let go!” She pushed at his hands, but he might as well have been made of steel for all the good it did. The ground whipped by so fast. They were b
eside the family Jeep in less than a minute.
“What was that?” she asked. “Cally…” She remembered a flat sound as Calypso had collapsed: her head striking Aidan’s gravestone. “You have to go help her!”
“I can’t leave you,” Achilles said. Snarls echoed through the cemetery. Calypso shrieked. “That was one of Ares’ wolves. Just one. They travel in four.”
“Take me back there, damn it! I stripped Ares’ back down to bones, what do you think I can do to four puppies?” She took a surprised breath. She’d been so angry she’d been screaming through her teeth.
“Shit,” he muttered. “If anything happens to the other weapon…” He took her by the shoulders. “Get in the car and stay there, do you understand? And get Athena here. Now.”
He opened the door and stuffed her inside. She pulled out her phone and texted Athena with trembling fingers.
She peered through the rows of headstones, trying to see Achilles and Calypso. Cally would be okay. The wolves wouldn’t give Achilles any trouble. Even if they managed to kill him, he’d just get back up again.
A few minutes passed. Exactly how long she couldn’t say. She remained in the Jeep, clinging to the steering wheel with hands hot enough to hurt, trying to fight off waves of rage so strong they felt like nausea. And then Achilles jogged through the cemetery with Calypso in his arms.
“Cally,” Cassandra said, and opened her door.
“Stay inside!” Athena shouted through the window of the Dodge as she and Odysseus squealed into the parking lot. She jumped out before the car stopped and pointed at Cassandra with a stern finger.
“Geez!” Cassandra said. “Odysseus, what did you do, drive through yards? I just texted like four minutes ago.”
“Yeah, it was fast,” he said. “Cally, Jesus!” He ran over and took her from Achilles. Blood streaked her jacket and sweater, bright red. The wolves had slashed at her cheeks and bitten her shoulders and hands.
“I’ll heal,” she said, leaning against him. “It won’t scar.”
“Of course it won’t,” Athena said, her voice equal parts comforting and bitter. “The wolves. Where are they?”
“They ran,” Achilles said. “When I threw the white one into a tree.”