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It’s almost dark by the time I leave the cave, so I try to hurry back to my car. The fading light makes things difficult, and I stumble over roots and rocks in my haste. After tripping over a particularly large root and landing face-first in a pile of leaves, I force myself to slow down. It might be dark, but I know the way and there is no point in breaking a bone just to get there two minutes faster.
I’m almost back to the Old Mitchell Trail when the young man steps out from behind a grove of trees and blocks my path. I brace myself for a fight or a good lie about why I’m off the trail, but I relax when I recognize him.
“Thanatos,” I say. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry,” he says, but his smirk indicates that he’s really not. “I just came to say hello, Atropos. Or is it Sophie you prefer these days?”
“Either,” I say. “What brings you out here?”
I rarely see Thanatos in person, for all that we are coworkers in the business of death. He has more contempt for humans than even I do, and he outright hates most of the gods, so he only journeys from the Underworld when he has no choice.
He hasn’t changed since the last time I saw him. He still looks like a seventeen-year-old kid with green eyes and blond hair. Like most of the male gods, he’s ripped and sports a full six pack. He wears nothing more than a loincloth and sandals, his usual outfit, but he doesn’t appear bothered by the evening chill.
“I’ve come to give you a warning from my sisters,” he begins.
“Oh, gods. What is this? Crazy ex-boyfriend day?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Go on.” I’m not about to tell him about my meeting with Ares or Zeus.
“I’m sure you know how much they admire your power,” he says.
I snort. I can’t help it. Admire isn’t the right word. Covet is more accurate. “Lust after” would be another appropriate expression. Thanatos’ sisters are the Keres—disgusting, parasitic women who feed on the blood of those who die violently. Wherever there’s a war, a bomb, or a plague, you’ll find the Keres in the middle of it, lapping up the blood. The more violent the death, the sweeter the blood. To them, anyway. Can’t say I ever tried it.
They’re cruel, too. Rather than peacefully escorting a soul from an already-dead body to the Underworld as Thanatos does, the Keres rip the soul from a dying person and cast it off while they feast on the body. Eventually, Thanatos tracks down the soul and takes it to the Underworld, but not before the body has been desecrated and the soul has wandered the Earth, alone and confused, sometimes for weeks. It’s the ultimate form of disrespect for the dead, and I despise everything about the Keres.
The feeling is mutual. The Keres’ ultimate goal is to control the manner of death, as I do, so they can feed their appetites. In their opinion, humans should always be dying from some horrible plague or war wounds. Peaceful death does nothing for them, and they can’t stand the fact that I don’t make every death a horrible one.
If anything, I deliberately create fewer violent deaths just to make them uncomfortable. Since there are hundreds of thousands of them, they need a lot of blood to keep the troops fed. I get perverse satisfaction from denying them. Even Lacey can’t stand the Keres. The advances in medicine, warfare, and safety that she has allowed have happened, in part, to help starve the Keres. There are far fewer pandemics and wars today than there used to be, which means less food for the Keres despite the increase in population. Sucks to be them.
“So what’s the message?” I ask Thanatos, humoring him.
“That they are starving. If you don’t start crafting more violent deaths, they will take your job. And when they do, they will not be lenient with the humans. You coddle them too much. My sisters will not be as kind.”
“And they wonder why I don’t like them?” I mutter.
Thanatos glares at me. “I’ve come to present a compromise. If you hand over your shears now, my sisters will still allow many humans to die peacefully. They’ll limit the bloody deaths to a fair number. Enough to satisfy their needs, but not so many that the humans feel persecuted. You can retire and live however you please. However, if you resist, every human will die violently with no mercy for anyone.”
“Seriously? That’s your big compromise? Quit my job or the humans will all violently die? What makes you think I’ll go for this?”
“I know you have, we’ll call them, ‘mixed feelings,’ about your job. You told me once you wished you didn’t have to be the Death Fate. This is your chance to get out of it.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. My job doesn’t thrill me. But I’ll never give it up, at least not to the Keres. I may not love my job, but I do it well and respectfully. Your sisters are just flying killing machines with no respect for Zeus’ master plan or the humans.”
“Since when do you care about the humans?” Thanatos asks.
“I don’t, but there’s a difference between not caring and total disrespect.”
Thanatos is silent. He’s good at it. Finally, because it’s almost dark and I need to get out of the woods, I press him. “You’ve passed on this threat several times over the centuries,” I remind him. “And it’s never come to anything. In fact, every time they’ve tried to take my shears, your sisters have gotten their asses kicked. What makes any of you think this time will be different?”
“They have powerful allies this time. More than that, the Oracle at Delphi has finally foretold your downfall.”
“The Oracle, huh? You do know she’s bat-poop crazy and that most of her prophecies are just the words of a psychotic, not a psychic?”
“Perhaps,” Thanatos says. “But you might not want to wait to find out. Surrender your shears now, and you can spare humanity my sisters’ retribution. And avoid your own punishment,” he adds.
“Let me think,” I say, pretending to do just that. “Um, no. Not a chance in Hades. Either your sisters are bluffing or the Oracle is nuts. Either way, I’m thinking I’ll be just fine.”
“I guess that’s the risk you’ll take then.”
I nod. “I guess so. Go tell your sisters they’d better learn to like Spam, because they won’t be getting any extra human flesh and blood any time soon.”
Before I can say anything else, Thanatos steps back behind the trees and vanishes.
“Asshole,” I mutter.
I continue walking back toward the visitor’s center, thinking over the encounter as I go. As uncomfortable as Thanatos’ warning makes me, I don’t think I’m in any real danger. Even if he’s telling the truth about the Oracle prophesying my doom, her prophecies are so unreliable and vague as to be laughable. There’s even a good chance the Oracle isn’t really an oracle at all. It’s possible she’s just high on some gas that leaks out of the Earth’s core at her location.
I’ll tell my mom and sisters about it when I get home, but I can’t see any weakness that will allow the Keres to steal my shears or defeat me. My shears are safely locked up in my workroom in a secure area below a house that the Keres cannot enter. There’s no way for them to get my shears without me handing them over. And that isn’t going to happen.
I get back to the parking lot to find the park ranger looking at my car, jotting down the plate number. I jog up to him. “Sorry,” I say. “I got distracted by the view, and it got dark faster than I thought it would.” It’s always best to play the ditzy tourist when in danger of getting caught.
“Okay. I was getting ready to lock the gate for the night, but I wanted to make sure no one was left in the woods. I was getting ready to go looking for you.”
“I’m fine,” I say, getting in the car. “Sorry if you had to wait for me.”
“Be more aware next time,” he says as I drive off. I give him a wave as I exit the lot and head for home.
Broken Fate Page 9