by Paul Neuhaus
On the one hand, Hermes was relieved Rhene was out of the picture. On the other, he told Zeus to watch it with the transmutations since turning the nymph into a slug was, while helpful, also a shitty thing to do. In fact, Hermes felt guilty enough that he took his daughter in and raised her as best he could. He named the girl Adrestia which means “she who cannot be escaped” which is a) a weird name and b) portentous in a “look at me asking for trouble” kind of way. Anyway, like I said, Hermes took her in and tried to get on with his life. The only problem was Adrestia was as crazy as Rhene—if not more so. She was bratty, she was petulant, and she was always revenging herself on others for slights real and imagined.
In fact, stick a bookmark in that concept because it comes up again.
Hermes managed to bring the girl into her teen years without serious incident. Don’t get me wrong, she was considered a giant nuisance and the other Olympians spent years avoiding her. But it was what it was. Then Adrestia hit puberty and all bets were off. All the girl’s worst traits were amplified and even some of the more laid-back gods and goddesses plotted ways to bump her off inconspicuously.
Everything came to a head on Adrestia’s sixteenth birthday.
Do you guys remember that MTV show My Super Sweet 16? It was a “reality” program where ultra-rich sixteen-year-olds would get an extravagant party and they’d throw a tantrum because it wasn’t extravagant enough. It had its fifteen minutes as a cultural touchstone. I think they even riffed on it on South Park. Adrestia’s party was like that show. I know because I was there. They held it in the beautiful meadow at Olympus’ feet. There were tents and exotic animals and circus performers and foods from all over the known world. But none of it was good enough for Hermes’ daughter. She bitched about the juggling bear, she bitched about the spiced eels from the Orient, she bitched about the tree sloth who could say “hello” in six human languages. None of it was good enough.
Not even Pegasus was good enough.
In a rare moment of beneficence, Zeus gifted Adrestia with the most sacred animal in the world. The animal that’d helped bring down the Kraken at Argos. The animal that carried Zeus’ lightning bolts into battle. The animal Adrestia called “tacky” and “beneath me”.
When that happened, dark clouds rolled in and Zeus rose from his solid gold chair. I’ve never seen the allfather so pissed. He raised his hands, ready to give the teenager the slug treatment, but Hermes intervened. Though he knew his daughter was insufferable, he still carried guilt in his heart. Long story short, he got her sentence commuted to banishment for life. Adrestia was kicked out of her own Sweet 16 and told to live among mortal men for the rest of her days.
Every so often, throughout the centuries, I’d get wind of her running afoul of both gods and men. As time wore on, her reputation as a Raw Nerve grew and grew. She became known as the unofficial goddess of the Hissy Fit.
Which reminds me of a footnote. While I was at the party, I hung out with this guy. He was a little older than Adrestia and he was handsome in a not particularly standout way. His name was Calesius, and he was the stable boy of the gods. We hit it off, but there was no sex if that’s what you’re thinking. It was just two people chilling at a shindig and making snarky comments about the other guests. Anyway, at one point, I looked over and saw Adrestia glaring at us. Not only was she glaring at us, she was jotting something down in the little book she always carried around with her. I remember thinking, Uh oh. That can’t be good, but nothing came of it—or at least I thought it didn’t.
All the way out to Jellybelly’s Happy-time Petting Zoo (which I found, again, with Hope in GPS mode), there was a fly in the Pontiac. A stowaway from the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s delightful underground accommodations. I’m sure you’ve experienced the phenomenon yourself. The pesky-fly-stuck-in-the-car thing. Buzzing around you. Banging itself against the windows. Anyway, annoying bugs notwithstanding, we got where we were going more or less in one piece. The others were already there. They’d gone in Petey’s Escalade. Keri and Elijah met me at the entrance.
The petting zoo hadn’t been a going concern since the early aughts. Not only were there no animals there, all the paint was faded and one or two of the paddocks had fallen apart. That aside, Keri was aglow. “Dora! You have to come see!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” I was limping a bit and sore from the chase through the sewers.
“You okay?” Elijah asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just had a bit of a workout.”
“Is that where the smell’s coming from?”
“Always the charmer.”
The three of us had been walking from the entrance toward the complex proper. I fell between the two of them. Keri sniffed the air next to me. “He’s right. You smell like a dead ox.”
“Did you guys miss the part where I was going into the sewers to hunt for the monster that almost killed you?”
“Did you get him?” Keri said.
I sighed, and my shoulders drooped. “No. He gave me the slip. Again. I did, however, find his boss. And her accomplice.”
“That sounds like something we oughta know about,” Elijah said, concerned.
“Absolutely you should. But I wanna tell all of you at once. Plus, I want a look at this crazy horse of yours.”
We went under a decorative arch and came to Happy-time’s central area. There was only one corral left intact, so that was the one we headed for. It was just a fenced-in area, so I could see Pegasus even from a distance. I’d seen him before, so the thrill of a first-time view wasn’t there, but there was no denying he was a magnificent animal. He was black from head to toe, but not in a flat kinda way. His hide had an iridescence. Where it caught the light, you could see a million colors. Also, from a distance, I could see he was injured. One of his wings was taped back. “What happened to him?” I said.
“We dunno,” El said. “The people that found him told us he was like that already.”
“Where was he found?”
“Turkey. He went through a chain of middle men and shippers before he found his way here.”
Petey was leaning against the fence. “So many bribes. So. Many. Bribes,” he said in a shell-shocked tone (making it clear he’d been the one to pay those bribes).
Chad and Tiresias were also leaning up against the fence. Pegasus went to them in turns and gave them friendly nudges. Given their cosplay, he must’ve thought they were from a kindred species. I shook my head. “You guys couldn’t get out of your brony get-ups and into your street clothes?”
“These are our street clothes from now on,” Chad said. “It’s who we’re meant to be.”
“From here on in, I identify as a pastel pony named Marshmallow,” Tiresias added.
I shook my head and turned to Petey. “What about you? What’s your pony name?”
“Sugar-dollop,” he said without a trace of irony.
“You guys ain’t wired right.” As Pegasus went by me, I held out my hand and the horse did a weird thing. He got wild-eyed, snorted and went out of his way to avoid getting close to me.
“Huh,” Elijah said. “That’s not like him. He likes everybody.” He went toward the gate and started to unfasten it. “Come on. He’s just skittish. Let’s give him a chance to make friends with you.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like Dora’s stink,” Keri said.
I don’t think that was it, though. Supposedly, animals can smell fear and I gotta be honest: I don’t care for horses. I know they’re supposed to be man’s second-best friend, but they’re big and they’re scary and, sometimes, they bite. I can take them or leave them, and maybe Pegasus was picking up on that. “I’m good,” I said. “I can appreciate his beauty from here.”
“Don’t be silly,” my old flame said. “Becoming intimate with this horse has been one of the great joys of my life.”
Everyone snickered. “You’ve been intimate with this horse?” Keri said.
El flushed. “You know what I mean.�
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Seeing he wasn’t going to back down, I went to him. We entered the corral and El shut the door behind us.
Pegasus’ standoffishness persisted. He did not like the fact I was inside his living space. He wasn’t aggressive, but he also wasn’t coming anywhere near us. “Man, that’s weird,” the elder Wiener reiterated. “This is the friendliest horse in the world, and he doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
“It’s no big deal,” I replied. “It shows he’s an excellent judge of character.”
“Now, now. Don’t take it so hard.”
I rolled my eyes. “I was being sarcastic. If the pretty horse doesn’t like me, I’m not gonna lose any sleep.” I didn’t waste any time going back out through the gate. I climbed over the fence, so I was between Petey and Ty. I noticed right off Petey was looking back toward the entrance.
“What’s that?” the rapper said.
I looked where he was looking and saw a pickup truck. The kind of pickup truck cowboys have in TV commercials. It was pulling a trailer. A horse trailer. “They’re here,” I said. “That was hella fast.” I thought I’d have more time to get everyone organized and concoct a plan. I was wrong. Then, to make matters worse, I heard a buzzing by my ear and swatted around my head. I turned in time to see my stowaway fly pop and release a cloud of gray gas. Gray gas with an animating spirit inside. “Everyone!” I shouted. “Bunch around Pegasus! Don’t let anything get near him!” Even as I said it, I doubted my new friends would be able to help me. They were all untrained in battle and none of them had any special powers. In their favor, however, all of them processed what I said and did as I said. I drew the gladius and undid the straps holding the pithos to my back. Right away, I was in my standard fighting pose and I was spinning in place, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the Kraken. Unfortunately, I found him after one spin. He was entering Tiresias through his ears. In half a second, Ty went from a kindly old oracle to a crazed, flailing Tasmanian Devil. He threw himself at his fellow bronies, all of whom recoiled in horror. Who could blame them? None of them wanted to fight one of their own. I didn’t wanna fight Ty either. Anything I did to him with the gladius would be permanent, so I opted for the sensible thing and popped the top on the pithos. The moment I did, I had my feet pulled out from underneath me and I was drug backward along the ground—as if a gaucho had snared me with his lariat and pulled me behind his horse. During the drag, I lost my grip on both the sword and the jug which—at that particular moment—was fine. I was more worried about being pulled over the rocky ground than I was fighting back. Pain can be very distracting. Even as I slid, I managed to roll over onto my back, so I could see where I was headed. I was headed for the now-parked pickup truck and Hermes and Adrestia who were standing next to it. Even though I was being buffeted like crazy, I could see Adrestia was the one doing the dragging. She’d snared me with a glowing rope which she was pulling toward herself. The expression she wore was one of pure hate. The expression Hermes wore was one of deep inner conflict. The dynamic between them hadn’t changed since I’d seen them talking in the catacombs.
When I was within a couple of body lengths of the touchy demigoddess, she stopped pulling and dropped the glowing rope. With surprising fluidity, her hands went to her hips and drew twin machetes from leather scabbards. I could tell by the way she moved she was no stranger to combat. Surprising since I wouldn’t have thought she’d expend the effort getting good at anything. She was always way too busy bitching and moaning. She leapt through the air and stabbed down with both blades. I was fast enough to register the movement and roll out of the way. I knew my luck couldn’t hold out forever, though. I was born of two humans and she was born of two supernatural creatures, one of whom was a deity. As Adrestia pulled the machetes out of the wet earth, I kicked off the noose around my ankles and regained my feet. She grinned at me like a feral dog and said, “I saw what you did to my Kraken. I can throw too.”
If she hadn’t telegraphed her intent, she would’ve hit me with the machete she threw. The throw was expert. I barely twisted my body out of the way in time. The blade landed somewhere behind me.
Hermes took a step forward. His tone was menacing. He was speaking to his daughter. “Adrestia...”
She ignored him, flicking her eyes to indicate the ground behind me. “Pick it up,” she said. “Pick it up.”
I turned my head and saw the big knife she’d thrown. As quick as I could, I picked it up. She wasn’t kidding with this. I’d gone from prowling the sewers under Santa Monica to a machete fight with a madwoman in a little less than an hour.
I heard the commotion over in the paddock. Whatever was going on by Pegasus would have to go on without me. I couldn’t even spare a glance over there to see whether Ty (AKA the Kraken) had torn my friends apart. Based on the general hubbub and raised voices, it sounded like they were holding their own. I regretted not keeping a tighter grip on the pithos. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind Adrestia now qualified for imprisonment. If I couldn’t get the Kraken, I’d be happy with her. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like I was getting either.
Hermes spoke again and this time, he raised his voice to a shout. “Adrestia, we came for the horse. Nothing else.”
His words barely registered and the demigoddess kept her eyes on me. To show she had no intention of following his request, her machete blade burst into blue flame. Both of us were lit up azure under the overcast sky. Then she came at me, her teeth gritted and her eyes bugging out. I was reduced to a defensive posture right off. Fortunately, I’d been in similar situations many times before, so I held my own despite her supernatural reflexes and strength. She was better equipped physically, but I was more skilled.
As our machetes clanged together, I heard Pegasus neighing and the shouts of Keri and the others to my left. If I’d spared a glance in that direction, I would’ve wound up a lump of deli meat, so I had to trust that my friends would manage somehow. I was worried for Ty. Would the Kraken leave his body without destroying it? That seemed unlikely given Tiresias’ importance to Mythnik history—and the fact the Kraken was an insufferable dick.
Since there was no way I could help my cohorts, I decided to focus on the machete fight. Specifically, how, if Adrestia was the same person she’d always been, I might have an in. “Is this about Calesius?” I said, conjuring a memory thousands of years old. “The stable boy. Were you sweet on him? Did you fuck him?” Based on the demigoddess’ expression, I could see I’d hit a nerve. She hadn’t fucked him, but she’d wanted to. “You didn’t, did you? Well, I did. Over, and over, and over again.” I hadn’t really fucked him, but that’s not what this was about. This was about getting Adrestia so worked up she’d make a mistake. Give me an opening. Every time our knives clanged together, blue sparks shot in all directions. I was starting to lose what little endurance I had left. I needed her off-balance and I needed it quick.
“I didn’t want to fuck him,” Hermes’ daughter hissed. “I loved him!” She leaned in with an even more aggressive series of attacks.
I barely kept her away from landing a serious blow. “You didn’t love him. You couldn’t’ve love him. That’s not how your mind works. You’re a narcissist. A psychopath. Your entire life consists of petty grudges and petty revenges.” Both her effort and her anger redoubled, so I was able to cut her. A long gash on her left side. She screamed, one hand going to the wound.
Hermes took a step forward then, looking as though he wanted to intervene—but on what side? On behalf of his own flesh and blood, or of his longtime friend and, unless I missed my guess, surrogate daughter?
Adrestia shook off her rage and took her bloody hand away from her flank. She circled me, looking for the best angle.
“Come on,” I said. “Now I’ve given you a real reason for revenge.”
She spit on the ground between us. “You dare speak ill of me? Look at you, you misbegotten slut. Wasn’t it you who released all the Evil into the world? Wasn’t it you who gave mankind suf
fering?”
The battle rejoined. The clashing of knives again rang out.
I laughed. “Believe me, Man had plenty of suffering before I came along. Mostly of his own making. But, yes, I increased that suffering a thousand-fold. And I’ve taken responsibility for my actions. Tried to make things right. That’s your exact problem, though, isn’t it? You’ve never taken responsibility for anything. You never had the chance since your whole world was wrapped up in your own fragile ego.” Then I decided to push my earlier strategy into a new direction. A potentially risky direction. I looked over at Hermes as best I could while still watching his daughter’s blade. “It’s been tough, hasn’t it, Hermes? Having a child who’s not well? Having a child who’s not a proper child at all, but rather a force of nature? An unpredictable wind of spite and entitlement?” Maybe angering an Olympian wasn’t one of my better ideas, but Hermes should’ve stepped in sooner and at least kept us from killing each another.
The switch was flipped. Hermes took two steps forward, brought his arms together in front of his chest and then spread them wide. When he did, Adrestia and I flew in opposite directions. And when I say flew, I mean flew. Both of us landed fifteen feet from where we started. Both of us had the wind knocked from our bodies, and neither of us maintained our grip on our machetes.
I couldn’t do much of anything in the moments after I hit the ground. I was dazed and breathless. Fortunately, so was my opponent or she’d have jumped up and seized the advantage. My first thought (when I was able to have thoughts again) was, Will Hermes remain the peacemaker? He was more conflicted than I wanted him to be. I knew he was unusually fond of me, but I also knew he was pressed down by the weight of thousands of years of guilt. Guilt for the daughter he could neither control nor satisfy.