“I can’t tell if he left alive.” Ares studied the tracks of blood covering most of the floor. If Hephaestus left alive, he’d done so in pieces. “There’s too much corruption to the trail. The Moirae dragged themselves through it. Maybe they dragged him along behind. Or maybe he dragged himself, and got away.” He leaned in and sniffed a spray of red. “Not all of it’s his. Good on him.”
“Will you cut the CSI,” Hermes snapped. “Goddamn it.”
“I’m saying he might be alive,” Ares snapped back. “Look here, at the palm print. There was weight behind that.”
“Do you want me to get you a black light and those little flags with numbers on them? And get your damned wolves out of it!” Hermes darted to the desk and threw a paperweight at Panic and Oblivion. It landed among their paws and shattered. They whined and trotted away licking red muzzles.
Ares set his jaw and squeezed fresh blood from his mangled hand.
“Hermes,” Athena said. “Someone should try to track him, if he can be tracked.” She nodded reluctantly at Ares, as if to say, Let him do it. She didn’t want to leave the others, in case the Moirae or Achilles decided to double back.
“Where are we?” she asked, and hoped no one gave the obvious answer of Hephaestus’ house. That much she could tell. From the welded girders decorating the ceiling to the double fireplaces burning hot, the whole place felt like him. Blacksmith of the gods. It even smelled faintly of iron, though that might have been the blood.
“Buffalo,” Henry supplied.
Buffalo. So close to home. So close to her own bed she could practically feel the pillows rising up to meet the backs of her shoulders. She wouldn’t even make them hitchhike. They’d spring for a car. Hell, they’d spring for a driver.
She took a deep breath, and doubled over coughing. Minutes out of the underworld and the feathers came on fast. A bundle of them in her chest all at once, twisting through lung tissue and rib meat like flowers blooming in time-lapse photography. She hacked and spat and bled down deep, holding Odysseus at arms’ length when he tried to help. He couldn’t help. It had to run its course.
When she finally caught her breath, she’d worked up three medium-sized feathers and crunched them in her fists. Another wormed its way out through her third and fourth ribs. That one she yanked, foolishly and too hard. The gash it left was twice as big as if she’d been careful.
Odysseus finally got close enough to put his hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him with bloody teeth.
“Welcome home.”
* * *
Ares couldn’t find a trace of Hephaestus. There were no real clues as to whether he had managed to escape, though the sheer amount of blood on the walls and floor suggested he hadn’t. Ares returned empty-handed from following the trail ten minutes after leaving, and a search of the massive home had to be abandoned when they realized they’d be lost in the labyrinth in minutes.
Athena gritted her teeth. Another friend missing and probably lost. Her death of feathers returned with a vengeance. Not a great way to return to the world above. Adding insult to injury, they could not, as it turned out, get a car with a driver. That was thanks to the wolves. Nobody would allow them in a vehicle without being secured in crates, and Ares wasn’t about to secure Oblivion and Panic in crates. So Athena rented an SUV, and drove home with Odysseus sitting shotgun. Ares lounged in the rear seats and smeared blood over everything. The wolves they stuffed into the back cargo space.
Athena glanced into the rearview mirror at Hermes, behind the wheel of the Mustang with Andie and Henry. She wished he’d ridden with them, but he didn’t want to leave Andie and Henry by themselves. And no one could’ve convinced Henry to let Ares or his wolves set finger or paw inside his car.
Then again, maybe it was better. Even with steel and road between them, she couldn’t think of what to say. Part of it was tension, and Ares’ presence like a big, bleeding elephant in the room. But mostly there was simply so much. Where to begin? And once they started, where would it go? Farther, probably, than any of them had the energy for at the moment.
* * *
The house. Her house. Athena watched it grow larger as they approached, eyes wide and fingers hugging the steering wheel like an excited child. She wanted to stick her head out the window like a dog. Ares and the wolves had slept on and off during the drive back, but she couldn’t have, even had she not been driving. Odysseus didn’t sleep either. He’d spent too much time unconscious and she’d been below for far too long.
I never want to leave this place again.
But she would, if she survived. She’d seen enough things change during her long life to know that change was the only certainty. Just then, though, she let herself believe that pulling into her driveway was truly coming home. She and Odysseus and Hermes were home.
“I’m ordering from Stanley’s Wok.” Hermes popped out of the Mustang and pulled out his cell. “Any requests?”
Odysseus leaned his head back and moaned. “God, I missed Stanley’s Wok! Just get … the entire left side of the menu.”
“So the usual, then, plus sesame beef for Athena.”
“How are their chicken wings?” Ares asked, leaning on the open rear hatch. He’d let the wolves out to stretch. Panic and Oblivion loped side by side in the yard, snapping jaws at each other. They looked like dogs, except that when they stretched their necks, their shoulders popped out a bit too wide.
“Find somewhere else to eat,” Hermes snapped.
“Hermes. Get him some chicken wings.” Athena stood in front of her house and breathed in deep. Spring had sprung. The yard smelled of loamy earth and wet roads and bands of warmth woven between layers of chilly air.
Henry and Andie got out of the Mustang and stretched their weary limbs. The Mustang was many things, but it wasn’t roomy, and Henry had been cramped in the backseat the entire ride with the shield across his lap. It took a minute to wrangle it out of the car, and when he got it loose, it slipped from his fingers and clanged onto the driveway to wobble like a fallen top.
Athena frowned. She knew Henry was tired and unused to the feel of it, but watching him fumble still felt like a bad omen. She walked over, toed the shield, and flipped it up into her hand like a skateboard. The Shield of Achilles. It hadn’t aged much since she’d last seen it. Hephaestus must have taken it out of the world of men as soon as Achilles’ line died out. She squeezed the edges to test the metal, to see if she could bend it. But of course she couldn’t. And she shouldn’t want to. The Shield of Achilles was a formidable asset. The metal taco shell of Achilles didn’t have the same ring.
Besides, it’s Henry’s now. He claimed it, fair and square.
She wished she’d been there to see him do it.
“You’ll train him with this?” Andie asked, and nudged the edge of the shield.
Train him. How could she train him? So they could start right back where they’d been? So she could use them up again, and run them headlong into impossible odds?
Athena shook her head slightly, and tilted the shield into Andie’s hands. The mortals’ lives weren’t hers to play with.
“Are you and Henry—?” Athena gestured with her eyes and kept her voice low, cloaked by a light breeze and Ares’ wolves snarling.
Andie’s cheeks went rust.
Athena snorted. “Good.”
“Are you and Odysseus?” Andie asked. She arched her brow and made the same gesture with her eyes. Neither excelled at girl talk. “I mean, you jumped off a mountain for him, so, the cat’s out of the bag on feelings.”
Yes. Feelings. Except feelings didn’t change what was.
“I just know I couldn’t let him go,” Athena said. “And I still can’t.”
Odysseus caught her eye and smiled. He looked different to her now. Fragile. The untouchable hero of her memory was gone, and maybe he’d only been a delusion to begin with. Or maybe it only felt that way because she’d lost the power to protect him.
“I still don’t unde
rstand how you’re not dead,” Andie said to Odysseus.
“The banks of the underworld kept me in limbo after we jumped off Olympus,” Odysseus replied. “And then good old Ares showed up with magic beans. Water from one of the rivers of Olympus. It let me heal. Brought me back.”
“Did he piss in the bottle first?” Henry muttered.
Hermes snorted, but Ares laughed full force, with just a bit too much wicked mirth in it. Odysseus turned faintly green.
“Hope you don’t mind if we take off,” Andie said. “It’s been a long trip. We want to get home. Henry, you should probably leave that.”
Henry had been holding the shield, and looked disappointed to have to let it go. But it would be a lot to explain, and impossible to sneak in under his shirt.
“We’ll take care of it. Until you come to train.”
As he backed out of the driveway, Henry waved. Just a little wave, and no smile. Athena waved back. Something had changed while she’d been gone. Henry had finally thawed to them.
Well. Maybe not to all of us.
Ares stood alone, his good hand stuffed into his pocket, studying the house. She thought he’d sneer at its lack of grandeur, but he didn’t. Maybe he was too tired. Whatever it was, the expression he wore took her a moment to place. He looked at the house like he wanted one. Like he wished it was his. Or at least he did until he caught her looking.
“The wolves and I will take the basement,” he said.
“You’ll take whatever I give you,” she said. And that means somewhere you can be watched.
18
MANY HAPPY RETURNS
It always happened with gods. You left the house in the morning for a simple meet and greet and returned in the evening after a battle, an impromptu obstacle course, and a trip halfway to the underworld.
Henry’s stomach growled loudly and he mumbled, “Excuse me.”
Andie shrugged. “What for? It’s just your stomach. Not like you can control it, or even like it smells bad.”
He grinned. “Next time I’ll let a burp fly. Isn’t it nice that we can make out and somehow still talk like this?”
“It’s not that nice. I’m a lady, for Christ’s effing sake.” She laughed. He loved to watch her laugh. Teeth out, like a donkey yawning. It was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
“Can you come in for awhile?” he asked. “Or do you have to go home?”
The slightest flush crept into her cheeks.
“I can come in.”
Had he not been so focused on Andie, thinking ahead to her warm curves on the soft, familiar surface of his bed, he might have noticed that something was different about his house. That yellow light flooded nearly every room. That it looked like a house again instead of a vacant building. But he didn’t even notice that Lux wasn’t barking.
He and Andie opened the door with their hands and lips already on each other. The awkward, embarrassing sound of their mouths smacking apart when his mother shouted would replay in Henry’s brain for days afterward.
“Henry!”
At first his mom’s face was all he could see. Her smile stretched so far across it might literally have gone from ear to ear. That smile was rare. He’d only seen it a handful of times in his entire life. The question in his mind—what could be that good?—was answered less than a second later, when he saw Cassandra on the couch with his dog half on her lap.
“Oh my god,” Andie whispered. Then she shouted it, and ran to hug her friend. Lux disengaged and came to snuffle Henry’s hand.
“She came back today,” his mother said. “Just came back. Showed up on the front steps with…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked farther into the den, to where a stranger stood.
A god.
Not one they’d ever seen before, but Henry saw past the college-boy clothes in an instant. It was hard to believe that his parents hadn’t. But then, they’d had far less practice.
“Zack,” the god said. “Thanatos.”
Zack. Cassandra’s eyes flickered vaguely at the name.
That’s not a name she’s heard often. Just something made up? For our benefit?
“Henry.” His mom gestured for him to come closer, but his feet stayed planted. Sitting on the couch, one hand held limply by their dad, Cassandra looked like a ghost. She looked like a rag, worse even than she had in the days following Aidan’s funeral. Whatever had happened to her after Olympus had been bad to the point of trauma, and his parents’ smiles seemed at best mismatched and at worst wildly inappropriate.
“Cassandra.” The god who called himself Zack stepped up and knelt beside her. “I’m going to go, so you can be with your family. But I won’t go far.” He and Henry’s parents stood. It seemed to take forever for his father to work up the nerve to shake the boy’s hand.
“Thank you,” his dad said. “For bringing her home.”
“Sorry I couldn’t convince her to come back sooner.” And he sounded like he meant it. When he walked past, Henry grabbed him by the arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I thought I would stay at my cousin’s place.”
Henry looked into his eyes.
“She has a lot of cousins.”
Thanatos looked back. “Not as many as she used to.”
A minute after he left, Henry heard a car start somewhere on the street. They must’ve driven right past it without noticing.
With the stranger gone, the tension in the room was plain. No one knew what to do after so long apart. His parents puttered around Cassandra like square pegs navigating round holes. They wanted to yell and scold, but were too happy to see her. They wanted to baby her and stuff her full of food, but it wasn’t right to coddle a runaway.
“So you and Athena came home,” Henry said.
Cassandra looked at him. Wherever she’d been, it was sunny. And hard.
“Hi, Henry.”
“Hi, Cassie.”
They all looked to him for what to do. As if he knew any better than they did. He was sick of being the one to figure it out and hold it together. But everyone else seemed ready to break.
Henry took a deep breath.
“What do you say to a double-cheese Hawaiian pizza?”
* * *
Even though it was an odd meal, eaten between estranged and hated family members, Stanley’s Wok had never tasted better. Not even the sound of Panic and Oblivion crunching through chicken wing bones could put Athena off her food.
“The house looks great,” she said.
“What?” Hermes asked. “You thought I was going to trash it? I’m the only one who does any cleaning around here. And now it’s going to smell like dog.”
Ares scowled near the kitchen sink and fed Oblivion another wing. The wolves didn’t, in fact, smell like dog. They smelled like blood if they smelled like anything.
She’d need to decide what room to give to Ares. And he’d need a few sets of clothes. Nothing Hermes had was likely to be of his taste, and probably wouldn’t fit anyway. Ares had several inches on Hermes around the shoulders and chest, even before Hermes started to lose weight. Odysseus’ shirts would be tight, too. But maybe something of Henry’s.
She stuffed the last of her sesame beef into her mouth and pushed away from the table. Her room, her bed, and her widow’s walk called her name.
Everything in her room was exactly as she’d left it. Exactly. Nothing had been moved, from the items on her dresser to the blanket on her bed hanging slightly askew. Hermes had preserved it like a shrine.
The door closed behind her, and she turned. Odysseus leaned against it. He looked good. Healthy. Freshly showered, and his T-shirt clung to his chest from the damp. Athena cleared her throat.
“It’s good to be back,” she said.
“It is.” He crossed the room to her, hands fluttering in his back pockets, eyes everywhere but on her. “Only we’re not back.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“We’re not back,” he said. “Not back t
o playing at goddess and hero.”
He looked up at her from under his brow. They were alone, and all at once that seemed to take on another meaning, as if the French doors had bricked over and all the furniture but the bed had tramped out on wooden legs.
“I know,” she said.
She thought it would be all the encouragement he needed. But instead he stood there, as awkward as she felt. She rolled her eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She shrugged. “I just thought … that you would handle this part.”
“This part?”
“You have this reputation, after all. Calypso, Circe, even Penelope. Odysseus, the man of many ways. Slayer of Cyclops. Seducer of women.”
Odysseus laughed.
“I’ve never had to seduce a woman in my life. They see me and fall into my lap.”
Athena rolled her eyes again, but she laughed, too.
“You’re the difficult one,” he said.
She crossed her arms and nodded. She was difficult. And she’d been the one to blur the lines between them in the first place, kissing him in the sleeper of that truck, something that it felt like had happened forever ago and as close as yesterday. If she hadn’t done that, he might never have pressed the issue. But it had felt so natural there, waking beside him in the afternoon light. As right and as easy as resting her head on his shoulder on the banks of the Styx. She stepped closer, barely a shuffle of feet. If she could just get close enough, maybe it would feel that natural again.
He stood still, as though he was worried any movement he made would scare her off. But his breath came faster, and she could hear his good, strong heartbeat.
She lifted her arm and slipped it around his neck. It was harder than anything. Heavier than any sword or shield she’d ever lifted. And she trembled. What guts this took. What a fool she’d been, to think Aphrodite was ever weak.