Mortal Gods (23 page)

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 beside 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.”

“They ran,” Athena said, and grabbed him by the arm. “So we chase.” Without another word, they took off together, and they didn’t stop no matter how loudly Odysseus called.

*   *   *

“What are you up to?” Achilles asked, but Athena didn’t answer. If he wasn’t an idiot, he’d figure it out.

She sniffed the air, scanning the larger grave markers, and the trees, anywhere a pack of wolves might hide. Then again, they might scatter. But that was all right. She only needed one.

Ares, Ares, Ares. My idiot brother. What were you thinking, sending them after us when you knew I was here?

But she really didn’t care. The wolves were a gift, and much like gift horses, you didn’t look them in the mouth. A flash of red fur, flicking fast like a fox tail, darted toward a copse of trees on their left.

Excellent.

“Go!” she shouted to Achilles, and he took off, cutting off the wolf’s path of escape so she could come in from behind. As they closed in, she noted that it was the twitchy one. Panic. Maybe the most annoying wolf, but no matter. She wasn’t picky. The other wolves would sing like canaries to Ares and Hera. They’d tell them all about Achilles. She hoped it drove fear deep into their bellies. Fear, like icing on her cake. But, it didn’t really matter what they felt. Because while the other wolves sang, this one would lead them right back to its master.

“Take it alive,” she said.

18

EXHIBITION

They kept the wolf chained in the basement. It refused to talk. It refused even to stand up on two stretched hind legs and pace. Panic quivered and twitched and looked as sad as any wild animal on an eight-foot leash.

“Talking wolves,” Andie said. “Just another fine day in godland.” She stepped closer to Henry, and he put an awkward hand on her shoulder.

“It’s weird knowing one of those things is right underneath our feet,” he said.

According to Odysseus, Athena had brought the wolf home in a sack, like a huntsman. He said that she and Achilles had looked positively triumphant.

“What’s the rush all of a sudden?” Henry asked. “None of us are ready.”

“She won’t say,” Odysseus replied.

Across the room, Hermes fidgeted and cleared his throat. “Maybe she just sees an opportunity,” he said quietly.

“For what? A new pet?” asked Cassandra. “Someone needs to talk to her.”

“Why not you?” Achilles asked. He came out of the kitchen with a metal bowl and held it out. “Here. You can take this down for me.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Raw, room-temperature hamburger.”

“Gross.”

Cassandra walked down the hall and opened the door to the basement. The red wolf’s growl reached most of the way up the stairs, a jittery, unearthly sound that made her shudder. But when she saw it chained in the corner, crouched down on all fours and shaking, she almost felt sorry for it.

“Staring contest?” she asked Athena, and the goddess turned, surprised.

“Something like that,” Athena said. “You might not want to get too close.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not right now. Can I have that?”

Cassandra handed over the bowl. It sort of smelled, a little bit bloody, rotten, and unpleasant. Or maybe that was the wolf. There wasn’t much ventilation in the basement.

“Are you hungry, Panic?” Athena asked. “Of course you are. You’re always hungry. So tell me where your dad is, and you can have some uncooked burgers.” She wafted the meat under Panic’s nose and waited.

Nothing. Not even a whine. She tossed the bowl onto the floor, and the wolf dove on it, swallowing the meat in huge, mushy chunks.

“I think you’re supposed to withhold the food longer,” Cassandra said.

Athena sighed.

“I don’t want to torture it,” she said. “I’ll figure something else out. But it will lead us to Hera and Ares, one way or another.”

Panic finished eating and began to pace back and forth, fast. Its red brush tail twitched with a maddening lack of rhythm.

“Why don’t we just let it go and follow it?” Cassandra asked.

Athena glanced at her.

“You’re in as big a hurry as I am,” she said.

“Well, yeah. You think I don’t know that where we find Ares, we find Aphrodite?”

Cassandra cocked her head at Panic.

“It looks plenty scared,” she said. “It’d probably run right home.”

“Yeah,” said Athena. “It looks pretty scared. Except it knows exactly what you’re saying and can stand up on two feet and talk. It’s not a regular wolf, Cassandra. It’d be more than happy to lead us on a merry chase all the way to Indonesia.”

They’d held the wolf hostage for two days. Long enough for Calypso’s cuts to almost completely disappear, and long enough for Athena to run out of patience.

“Speaking of hurries,” Cassandra said, “why
are
you in such a hurry all of—” She paused. Her nose tingled, like she was about to sneeze. But instead the tingle turned to a burn. Smoke rushed into Cassandra’s eyes, and she doubled over, coughing, her eyes watering buckets. The basement cement burned up in flames and ash. All the walls. Even the floor. Someone screamed. Not her. Not Athena, either. The voice was raw and full of panic. On fire. Cassandra whimpered, and Athena caught her as the flames ate the last of the oxygen in the room.

*   *   *

Cassandra woke up on the living room sofa smelling like a campfire, and underneath that, like burnt human flesh. Her clothes were ruined. All the Febreze in the world wouldn’t take that stench out.

“Here,” Hermes said to Athena, and handed her a steaming mug.

“Cassandra,” Athena said. “Sit up. Take a few sips of this.”

The heat of the tea burned over Cassandra’s lips and down her throat, nowhere near as hot as the smoke. Athena touched her cheek with the backs of her fingers and brushed her hair over her shoulder, the way Odysseus sometimes did.

“Tell us what you saw.”

A vision. Like so many others. Death and destruction. People in flames. Vague, maddening flashes full of blood and smoke and never once any useful detail.

“A fire,” she said. “Something’s going to burn. And someone. Lots of someones.”

“Someone?” Andie asked. “Who?”

“Just go over it from the beginning,” Athena said.

Go over it from the beginning. Athena sounded so calm. Like she really thought it would make a difference.

In one fast, sweeping motion, Cassandra threw the mug of tea into the opposite wall. It shattered, and Athena jumped backward, dragging Hermes and Calypso back with her. Beware, beware, the tantrums of a god killer.

“Sorry,” Cassandra muttered. “The tea tasted like burnt people.”

“Hey,” Odysseus said. He moved closer and put his hands on her shoulders. “Easy. Take a few minutes. It’s okay.”

“I don’t need a few minutes,” Cassandra spat. “Why aren’t we training? Or interrogating the red dog some more?”

“Cassie,” Henry said.

“Don’t fucking
Cassie
me, Henry.”

“But why won’t you tell us what you saw? Was it that bad? Was it one of us?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter. I saw it, so it is. You, or me, or Andie, I don’t know. But if it was us then we burn. Let’s go.” She stalked toward the backyard.

“We could try,” Athena said, without much enthusiasm.

“We can’t, and you know it. The only way to stop more of this is to stop all of it. To stop the source. So come on.”

*   *   *

Calypso volunteered to babysit Panic.

“See if you can charm some secrets out of its head while you’re at it,” Athena said.

“And don’t get too close,” said Odysseus. He touched her arm and her cheek, all but healed. Jealousy and bitterness balled up in Athena’s throat.

“Tastes like shit,” she whispered, so quietly that only Hermes heard. He squeezed her shoulder as she led them outside. The light was fading, the air heavy and chilled with mist. They didn’t have long. The mortals would catch a cold.