“Hey.” Andie poked her head through his door. “You finally get the dust out of your hair?”
“It only took three showers.” He sat up on the bed to make room.
“I told my mom what we ‘found’,” she said, and made air quotation marks. “That by the time we got there they were gone. But they left word that they were safe, and would come home soon.” She pulled her black hair out of its ponytail and snapped the binder between her fingers. “My mom went on this tirade about how irresponsible they were. How inconsiderate they were of everyone’s feelings.”
“My parents said the same thing.”
“I couldn’t even disagree. I mean, I do feel like that sometimes, even though I know the truth. Not about Athena, because she’s doing who knows what in the underworld, but then again, she effing left us on that hellhole of a mountain—”
“Andie. You’re rambling.” He tossed the hockey puck onto his desk. “But I know what you mean.”
“Why won’t they just come back?” she asked.
“They will.”
“I don’t think Demeter really knows that.” Andie sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, then tilted up again. “I sat on your phone. Here, it’s ringing. It’s … Ariel. What’s she want?”
“Give me that.” He looked at it briefly, and wished she’d called at any other time. “Hello?” He turned slightly and tried to listen, laughed in all the right places, asked follow-up questions, all the while with one ear tuned to Andie, who was not so subtly rubbernecking over his shoulder. It was distracting, but he got the gist of the conversation. Party at Ariel’s house. Come whenever he wanted.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.” He put the phone in his pocket. He and Andie could just hang out, the two of them. Watch a movie. Be miserable together. He sighed, and got up off the bed. “Want to go to a party?”
* * *
“A party at Ariel Moreau’s,” Andie mused as they pulled up to her house. It was in the same wealthy neighborhood as their friend Sam, who hosted epic Halloween shindigs. “What’s she even doing home? Shouldn’t she be spring breaking in Cancun or something?”
Henry smiled. “Don’t be a jerk.”
“Tall order. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. This isn’t exactly my crowd.”
“I’m your crowd.”
“If you say so,” Andie said. “But if you disappear for three hours to make out with Ariel, I’ll be none too pleased.”
Henry watched her get out of the car and start up the street toward the driveway. “Not much chance of that,” he said quietly.
Inside the house, Andie stuck to him for approximately five minutes. Then she was off, talking to everyone and no one. She had a way of making herself seem comfortable even when she wasn’t.
Henry stood with his friends from hockey and drank a beer. There was enough music and enough conversation to keep him from thinking about his sister for five minutes at a stretch. It wasn’t the same with Achilles, though. He thought of that fight every time he looked at Andie.
Henry didn’t remember the first fight with Achilles, that grand duel in the sands outside Troy. He wondered if he would be even more afraid if he did, or if it would be boring, like it was just more of the same.
But boring was the wrong word. He didn’t imagine the prospect of getting a spear rammed through one’s chest could ever be boring.
“Hey.”
He turned and found Ariel with her head cocked flirtatiously. She seemed a little drunk. “You brought a girl to my party,” she said.
“No, he didn’t,” Max Bauer interjected. “He brought Big Andie. She doesn’t count.” Everyone laughed.
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Henry said through a fake smile. “She could kill you.”
“I sort of want her to. Remember Sam Burress’ Halloween party? If she smothers me to death with her rack then I’m all for it.”
Henry’s grip tightened around the beer bottle, but Ariel turned him away.
“Do you need another drink?” she asked.
“No, this one’s almost full. And I have to drive home later.”
She looked disappointed, and put her hand on his arm. “My parents are out of town. You don’t have to drive home. You could stay.”
Snickers and victorious whispers broke out behind him. He could stay at Ariel’s house. Probably in her room. Likely in her bed. He looked across the party to where Andie was taking a shot of something. She was going to need him, before the night was over.
“No, I think I’d better stay sober. Get Andie home safe.”
Ariel shrugged, surprised, and walked away.
That might be it. The end of his phone calls from Ariel Moreau.
Henry looked at Andie and realized that he didn’t care.
* * *
In the end, Andie had a better time than he did. Maybe too good a time, judging from the way she stumbled on the walk back to the Mustang.
“My mom’s going to kill me if I wake up hungover tomorrow. She’ll kill me tonight if she’s still up. Whoops—”
She stumbled again. Henry caught her and threw her arm around his shoulders.
“You can stay at our place if you want. Just text her and let her know. She probably won’t mind.”
“Stay? At your place? Your parents won’t care?”
“You’ve been staying over at our house since you were seven.” They reached the car and he maneuvered her toward the passenger side. It took some doing, but he got her in and managed to drive them both home.
When they got to his house, it was dark. His parents hadn’t even left the outside lights on. They were home, though, inside sleeping—or at least pretending to. He did his best to be quiet going in, but Lux was ecstatic to find not one but two family members to greet, and his snuffling nose in the entryway made it a special chore to get Andie out of her shoes and jacket.
“Wait,” she said when they stood before the open door of Cassandra’s bedroom. “I don’t think I want to go in there.”
“Andie. It’s late.” But he couldn’t say he blamed her. The room looked darker than dark, and deserted. The air inside didn’t feel like it belonged to the rest of the house anymore.
“Can I sleep in your room?” she asked, then wrinkled her nose. “Your bed’s not super dirty, is it?”
“It won’t be unless you barf in it.”
He brought her into his room and closed the door behind the dog, who looked perplexed by their extra company. Andie wasted no time getting under his blankets. He was just about to go to his closet for a sleeping bag to put on the floor when she moved toward the wall and turned the covers down.
“Okay,” he said, and shut the lights off. His bed had never creaked as loud and gracelessly as it did when he got in beside her. But they lay back and listened to Lux turn in a circle before he sacked out on the floor.
“Henry?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to fight Achilles.”
He was about to say me neither when she threw her arm over his chest and pulled him close.
“I’m scared of it,” she whispered, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
“It’s okay,” he said.
Sure it was. He’d have some magic shield and he’d stare down that blond, god-obsessed monster just like he did before. Just like it happened before. Only this time he wouldn’t let Andie be there to see it. He didn’t know how Hector could have done it back then, how he could have let her see it and carry the sight with her forever afterward.
* * *
“How do you find a magical shield that’s two thousand years missing?” Hermes paced back and forth across the balcony outside Athena’s bedroom. “How do you find a magical shield that’s two thousand years missing?” He’d gone to Athena’s room after an hour of asking the same question in the living room, in the hopes that a little of her wisdom remained. Just enough to float the answer into his brain. But the only answer that came w
as:
You don’t. You don’t find a magical shield that’s two thousand years missing, any more than you find Excalibur, or the Holy Grail, or the last living unicorn. There was no trail to follow, no leads, no sightings. Maybe if Athena were there, she’d have a plan.
“But she isn’t. I am.” He felt the balcony rattle under his feet and slowed his pace. Without noticing it, he’d started to use his speed. To any passersby, he would’ve looked like a human-colored set of lines streaking back and forth. Oops.
He gripped the railing. This little game of What Would Athena Do? wasn’t getting him anywhere. So what would Hermes do?
“That’s easy. Hermes would run.” Except that after their trip to the desert, he’d been exhausted and slept for twenty hours. He wouldn’t be able to run for much longer. And Henry and Andie would be unlikely to run with him willingly and leave their families defenseless in the blast radius.
“So we can’t run. What else? Play to my strengths. What do I do if I can’t run?” He thought back. The last time he couldn’t run or steal his way out of a problem had been when he noticed he was losing weight. And then he’d still run. Straight to Athena. Straight to—
“Someone else who can take care of the problem.” He stood, careful not to move too much and disrupt the thought that had started to form between his ears. The problem wasn’t finding the shield, which seemed fairly damned impossible, it was having a shield. Having the advantage given to Achilles by the gods. Given by Hephaestus, god of fire, craftsmen, and metalwork.
A spark of hope started in Hermes’ chest and worked its way outward, making his whole body vibrate. Hephaestus. A god. A god he’d just seen, less than two hundred years ago.
“Screw that shield. The shield of Achilles. We’ll make a new one. A better one. A shield of Henry.” He winced. Of course, they’d have to give it a better name.
9
DEALS
When Athena woke, it was full dark. It took several blinks just to figure out her eyes were open, and several more to remember what happened. The Ares’ fist–shaped bruise on her jaw helped in that department.
Ares had stopped her from putting Odysseus out of his misery. Why? She’d had the sword in her hand. She’d finally been ready.
The sword. It was gone. She groped the cool, hard sand around her and found nothing. But she heard things. Padded paw steps. Soft yips and sniffing.
Ares’ wolves.
But where was Odysseus? Athena’s throat tightened. If Ares had finished what she’d started— She pushed herself up on her elbows and tested her legs. Her boot heel scraped loudly against the sand.
“Awake already? I must not hit as hard as I used to.”
“Where is he?” Athena got her feet underneath her but remained in a crouch. Ares’ voice hadn’t come from that far away, and her eyes still hadn’t adjusted. She thought she saw a shadow move, and in the distance, the rippling of the river.
“He’s here,” Ares said. “Not far. Come this way.”
She scuttled like a crab, hands in front of her until she felt Odysseus’ arm. He was still warm. Still breathing. She pulled him into her lap as gently as she could, and then sharpened her ears to the dark. Two separate creatures moved. Probably the wolves, but the count didn’t mean much. Ares himself was probably standing stone still, and Oblivion could go days without so much as a twitch.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Ares snorted.
“Always to the point, aren’t you sister? Not a hello. Or a ‘glad to see you’re not dead like your mother.’”
Athena inhaled sharply. Hera was dead? What the hell had happened on Olympus?
“I didn’t know she was dead.”
“That’s right,” Ares said. “I forgot. You jumped over the edge before that part. Before your little assassin made her into a statue. What did you think you were doing bringing her there? Training mortals against us.”
“It’s a war, you idiot,” replied Athena. “We’re trying to kill each other. You take the advantages you can get.” Odysseus lay full across her lap, safe for the moment. Athena kept as much acid out of her voice as she could. Ares was trying to control his formidable temper. Until she knew what it was that he wanted, she would do the same.
“We see eye to eye on that much, at least,” he said.
She felt him move closer, and the air move as he crouched down.
“It’s why I’m here.”
Athena’s ears scanned the dark. After a few moments, she caught the movement of the wolves. One she knew was Panic, because its paws were skittish. The other could have been Famine, or Oblivion. Pain wasn’t there. She’d have been able to smell the blood, and the open sores in its fur.
So two wolves for certain, and possibly three. Plus Ares. But she heard no monsters or beasts fording the river to take chunks from her arms and shear strips of skin from her back. Wherever dear Persephone was, she didn’t seem to be causing any trouble at the moment.
“Who’s with you?” Athena asked.
“Oblivion and Panic. The two wolves who remain. Famine and Pain fell in the fight on Olympus.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Are you?”
“Well, I’m sorrier about them than I am about your mother.”
“You should watch your mouth,” he growled, and he was right. Odysseus lay prone on Athena’s lap, and she was unarmed. Ares probably held the sword, and between him and two wolves, they could take Odysseus apart.
“What do you want, Ares?”
“The same thing you do. To survive.”
“Then why aren’t you back on Olympus, hiding behind the Moirae’s twisted skirts?”
Movement in the dark: a shuffle of feet, a shrug of shoulders; Athena couldn’t tell.
“The Moirae let my mother die.” Ares exhaled hard through his nose, as though he still couldn’t believe it. “They stood by and let that girl murder her. They didn’t defend any of us. Aphrodite was the one who cleared the mountain, and when the water receded and we looked around, they were gone. Disappeared with their new pet.”
Their new pet. Achilles. Athena’s hand trailed over Odysseus’ chest and pressed down on the wound.
“What do you mean, ‘cleared the mountain’?” Athena asked. “What happened to my brother and the others?”
“What do you think happened?” Ares sneered. “They ran. Hermes always runs. And I suppose the Moirae did, too, when they understood they couldn’t control that girl. I don’t know how they managed it, with their legs melded together. Or at least I don’t like to picture it.”
It had been a loss on both sides, then. Maybe it was petty, but that made Athena feel better. The Fates were forced to scuttle off, and Ares had lost Hera.
“So now you’re looking for another shadow to cower in?” Athena asked. “Thinking maybe if you help me out of here, I might let you hide in mine?”
“You’re not throwing much of a shadow these days, sister. In case you haven’t noticed.”
Athena gripped Odysseus’ shoulders, ashamed. Even though the idea choked her, Ares was right. He’d been right when he warned her not to go to Olympus, and he was right that she was less. The goddess of wisdom and battle strategy had rushed in and been swatted like a child. And instead of regrouping she’d run away to wallow, half-mad in the underworld. For once Athena was glad of the dark. Ares couldn’t see the wetness in her eyes.
“You came to make a deal, Ares,” she said. “So spit it out.”
“I’ll help you get your boy toy out of here in one piece,” he said. “And once we’re out, you’ll help me and mine should it come to blows with the Moirae and their unkillable bodyguard.”
“Should it come to blows with the Moirae,” Athena repeated, and chuckled. Ares sounded terrified. Under the wing of the Moirae he’d been safe. Unbeatable. Now he was just as fucked as the rest of them.
“You and yours,” she said. “I suppose that means the wolves and Aphrodite.”
“Yes.”
The wolves and Aphrodite were the things that Henry and Cassandra hated the most. If Athena took the deal, she’d wind up fighting two wars: one against the Moirae, and the other against the killer of gods. She didn’t know which she was less likely to win.
“How do I know you’re true to your word?” Athena asked.
“You don’t. But I’m running out of sisters to lie to.”
“That’s not enough assurance.”
“Then how about an act of good faith?” Ares moved, and she heard an odd sound, something uncorked or uncapped. He stayed low, and slow, and she tightened all over. But she let him press the leather skin to Odysseus’ lips, and listened to the liquid pour out. The scent of it wafted up in a cloud. It smelled like fruit juice tainted with lead.
“Say his name,” Ares said. “Wake him up.”
It couldn’t be that easy. It had to be a trick. She’d say his name and Ares would laugh. His wolves would howl her gullibility all the way up to Olympus.
“Odysseus?” Athena bit down hard on her lip and tasted blood. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Odysseus said, and she struggled to keep herself from crying out and crushing him to her. “And it’s just the voice I wanted to hear.”
“What was that?” Athena asked Ares. “What was that you gave him?” She tilted Odysseus’ head up and he winced.
“Whatever it was, it tastes like balls.”
“Just water.” Ares shrugged. “Of course, waters from the rivers and streams on the eastern side of Olympus can do … lots of incredible shit for wounded mortals.” He stood and stepped away. The light was coming back. Athena looked down at Odysseus.
“That smile,” Odysseus said. “Never seen it on your face before.”
She laughed and pressed her hand against the wound in his chest. It bled only slightly.
“I hate you,” she said.
He grasped her hand and held it, made to kiss it but recoiled at the sight of her mangled nails and knuckles.
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