Mortal Gods

by Kendare Blake

  The basement was floored in sealed concrete, the walls bare aside from a few other swords and knives. It wasn’t much more than a large open space and a partially finished laundry room. A speed bag and a black heavy bag hung in the eastern corner beside a set of free weights and a bench.

  Andie whistled. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t anything so humble.”

  “We’ll have to get some mats,” Athena said. “We can’t be slamming you down onto concrete.”

  “What is this?” Andie asked. She ran her hand over the black leather surface of the heavy bag. “Don’t tell me you use a punching bag. Or free weights.”

  “Please,” said Athena. “I could juggle every one of those weights with my fingertips. This is for Odysseus.”

  Andie walked to the speed bag and gave it a gentle push.

  “He was some great warrior, wasn’t he?”

  “He was.” In her memory, Athena could still hear his scream and see the flash of bronze as he charged into swords and arrows. “One of the best. He still is.”

  “Better than Henry used to be? Better than Hector, I mean?”

  Athena cocked her head. In a fair fight, Hector would have won. But Odysseus had never been bound by the rules of a fair fight.

  “It would depend on the day,” she answered finally. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know.” Andie shrugged. “Because it feels like I should. It feels like who I am.”

  They still are what they were. That’s what Demeter had told her. So was this black-haired girl really a warrior? Even without her memories? Athena’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious to find out.

  “Cassandra doesn’t want me to,” Andie went on. “She says she wants to kill Aphrodite, but what she really wants is for all of you to go away. For everything to go back to the way it was. She wants Aidan back. But none of those things are going to happen. Are they?”

  “No.”

  “That’s why I want to learn.” She rubbed her hands together. “So let’s go. Do you have some wooden swords or something? Maybe a shield?”

  Athena walked to the closet and disappeared inside. When she returned she held two long staffs, like walking sticks.

  “What’re those?”

  Athena tossed one to her. “It’s a bō. You use it like an extension of your arms.”

  Andie’s face fell as she turned the staff back and forth. She’d wanted the sword. But she already held it correctly, right palm away and left palm in, so maybe her hands did remember.

  Andie sighed. “I feel like the lame Ninja Turtle. Don’t you have any sai?”

  “You can do more with this,” Athena said, and quickly used the bō to pop Andie in the chest. Lightly, very lightly, but the girl nearly buckled.

  “Ow!” Andie rubbed her sternum.

  “There’s an easier way, you know,” Athena said.

  “There is?”

  “I could just choke you to death.” Andie took a hasty step back, and Athena laughed. “Take it easy. I’m kidding.”

  “Well don’t. You’re not very good at it.”

  Athena spun the bō. Maybe time wouldn’t pass so slowly after all.

  * * *

  “We’re never going to find her.”

  Odysseus stared up into the trees of Taman Negara and felt small. The rain forest canopy stretched up and out and on forever; or at least that was how it seemed. And they were going to plunge into it, headfirst, to try to pick up the months-cold trail of one dying goddess.

  Hermes didn’t agree or disagree with Odysseus’ declaration; he was too busy trying to explain to their boat guide that they didn’t have a hotel to get to and didn’t need transport to one. He knew enough of the local language to keep things civil, and he’d gotten them this far, but his vocabulary failed in the face of the guide’s good-natured insistence. He had to resort to a lot of wild hand gestures.

  Odysseus adjusted his pack on his shoulders. They’d stopped off at a hostel near the airport to shower, but it hardly made a difference. Hours and a very long boat ride later, the humid air felt like a second, very amphibian skin.

  “Okay, okay, so we’ll die,” Hermes said loudly, and both he and the guide threw up their hands. He picked up his duffel and affixed it like an improvised backpack. When he met Odysseus’ eyes, the look they shared spoke volumes. They were already tired and felt like shit, and it was only going to get worse.

  “How did I let Athena get me into this?” Hermes grumbled. He picked an arbitrary spot in the forest and stepped in.

  “I thought you were excited for the chance to get out of Kincade, mate.”

  “Yeah? Well, you were excited to tag along.” Soft ferns brushed against their legs as Hermes picked his way through a patch of dense green leaves to a space where the ground was clearer, coated with dark soil and dead plant scraps. “So who’s laughing now?”

  Odysseus didn’t think either one of them was laughing, but he knew why they’d come. Athena’s determination to murder Achilles left little doubt. Gathering forces and destroying arsenals. His Athena. She’d never stop fighting. Keeping her off Achilles’ scent was going to be the battle of his life.

  “I know it’s early to be asking, but do you feel anything? Can you feel Artemis anywhere?”

  Hermes lifted his head and scanned the trees. “Nothing yet. Maybe nothing ever. My god-dar was never as good as Athena’s. Even before we started dying. Probably not the answer you were hoping for. Now that we’re here, this place certainly seems a lot bigger than Cassandra’s fingerprint, doesn’t it?”

  They walked for a few moments, listening to the sounds of rustling leaves and insects. The jungle did seem larger than Odysseus had imagined. Everything was a wonder; the heaviness of the air, the span of the leaves. And if the noise was any indication, they were surrounded by at least three million bugs.

  “Maybe we should’ve brought Cassandra with us.”

  “Ha,” Hermes said. “And risk her falling to a snakebite or a poisonous insect? Risk her tripping down a ravine?” He veered around the curve of a large trunk. “Athena would have your tongue just for suggesting it.”

  “Maybe,” Odysseus said. “But she might’ve made this go a lot faster.”

  * * *

  They found a spot to camp when the light began to fade, and Odysseus channeled his inner Boy Scout to start a serviceable fire. Hermes disappeared into the trees to hunt but returned carrying a large, gutted fish.

  “Cassandra’s speech about endangered animals get to you?” Odysseus asked while Hermes scaled the fish and put it on a spit.

  “Shut up. Fish just cook faster.” He rinsed his hands with water from his canteen and rummaged in his bag for a can of potatoes, which he opened and shoved down into the coals. “Athena should’ve packed herbs and butter,” he grumbled, but it wasn’t long before the fish skin was crackling, and the savory smell made their mouths water.

  They ate in relative quiet, just a few muttered comments about how surprisingly good the food was. Odysseus ate only a small portion of the nearly two-foot-long fillet, allowing Hermes to polish off the rest, along with most of the potatoes and a chocolate chip granola bar for dessert. Athena still would have wanted him to eat more.

  “So,” Odysseus said. “Is there anything I should know about sleeping on the rain forest floor?”

  “Hm?” Hermes asked, even though he’d probably heard. He’d been looking up through the canopy, catching a glimpse of stars above the smoky orange glow of the fire. “Oh, uh, not that I can think of. You might want to check yourself for leeches every once in a while.”

  “Leeches.” Odysseus grimaced. “Fantastic. And then what? I just yank them off? I think I saw that in a movie once.” He glanced downward, trying to detect any movement or sliminess in his shorts.

  Hermes laughed. “Right. Stand By Me. The leech in the kid’s tighty-whities. But don’t just yank it. I packed salt. They’ll drop off.” His smile faded, and he looked back up into the
sky.

  “Hey. You all right?”

  “As all right as a dying god can be, I suppose.”

  Odysseus prodded the coals with a stick and sent up a whirl of sparks. “You’re not going to die,” he said. “Athena’s going to win this war.”

  The words came easily and sounded confident. But Odysseus couldn’t meet Hermes’ eyes, and he couldn’t stop his jaw from clenching. He needed to believe what he said, that they would win, and that Hermes would live, because it meant that she would live. But he didn’t really know.

  “I don’t want to take that hope away from you,” said Hermes. “And I’ll admit, she seems pretty sure. Just in case, though … I don’t know how long I want to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “This.” He kept his voice cheerful and gestured around to the trees and sky. “I mean, it’s scenic and everything. A once-in-a-millennium commune with nature. But that’s about how often I’d like to keep it. Even if I weren’t thin as a sack of sticks, I’m not cut out for all this … labor.”

  Odysseus grinned. “Got someplace else you’d rather be? Leading a caravan of glitterati across the cities of Europe, maybe?”

  Hermes lowered his eyes. “You have to admit, there are things … that one would wish to do once … or several more times, before dying.”

  “Like what?” Odysseus asked softly. Hermes looked so tired. Let him daydream for a while. Let him out of the sweltering trees, and into someplace bright, and gilded, and marble.

  “Like walking midday through the Piazza della Signoria. Like spending hours on a winter bridge over the Seine. Eating a meal that doesn’t show up at my door in a cardboard box.” He laughed. “And other things, too. It would be nice to feel things.” He cocked his eyebrow. “Like one last, sweaty fling with a beautiful boy. Under a canopy of stars, perhaps? In the Taman Negara rain forest?”

  Odysseus’ eyes widened. “Believe me, mate. If boys were my fancy, I would be the luckiest bloke on earth.”

  Hermes waved him off. “Straight or gay, I’m irresistible. We both know why you and I won’t be tumbling through the leaves. It’s the same reason that we’re here, in the middle of a sweltering, rotten jungle. The same reason I won’t see the piazza ever again.”

  “What’s that?” Odysseus asked, even though he knew.

  “We both love my sister.”

  6

  CIVILIAN RELATIONS

  Andie and Cassandra cut a slow, straight, limping path through the crowded halls on the way to Algebra. Faster students edged around them like rocks in a stream, grumbling as they passed. But Andie could go no faster. She’d trained with Athena almost every day for a week. There wasn’t much left of her besides a patchwork of bruises, held tenuously together by frayed muscles.

  “I play hockey year round,” Andie said. “Dry land practice, calisthenics, three ice practices a day during summer camp. And I’ve never felt this much like shit.”

  “It’s because they’re muscles you don’t normally use.” Cassandra shifted their books in her arms as a frustrated freshman pushed by and knocked them loose.

  “Muscles I don’t normally use,” Andie repeated. “Yeah. For like two thousand years.”

  “You’re overdoing it. She’s going to injure you.”

  “She knows what she’s doing.”

  Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Athena probably did know what she was doing. But that didn’t mean she had any consideration for Andie’s well-being while doing it.

  “Look at you,” she said. “Look how you’re walking. You’re like the Tin Man after a good bout of weeping.”

  “Jerk,” Andie said. “She has a plan, okay? And I think that plan is to use up my body’s entire reserve of lactic acid.”

  Cassandra sighed. “Brace yourself. Here come the stairs.”

  “I want to take the ramp.”

  “We don’t have time to take the ramp.” She let Andie put a hand on her shoulder like an old woman and listened to her bitch and moan her way up the first flight.

  “You could take the heat off me, you know, if you’d let her train you, too.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “It wouldn’t even be hard for you,” said Andie. “You have all your memories already. It would be like riding a bike. It would all come back.”

  Cassandra shook her head. There was still another long flight of stairs to go, and then two long hallways to the classroom.

  “You and I had very different past lives, Andie. You were an Amazon married to a warrior. I was a crazy princess they locked in a basket.”

  “You mean you don’t remember anything useful? You can’t shoot an arrow, or drive a chariot?”

  Cassandra’s memories of Troy sat in the back of her mind like something she’d done in childhood rather than thousands of years ago. She didn’t like to think about it. Not only because of how it ended, in blood and despair. But because it felt normal to think about it, when it should’ve felt strange.

  She shrugged.

  “I’m pretty sure I can work a loom,” she said.

  “Yuck. Boring.”

  “Just be glad Athena didn’t choke you, too. You used to do it with me. We’d sit all day in a room and weave, talking about the menfolk. They were riveting times.”

  “Hey. You guys are going to be late.” Henry walked toward them from the direction of his locker, looking strangely naked without a notebook in his hand.

  “We’re late already,” said Andie. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’ve got a free study hall period. I told Coach Baker I’d go clean up the weight room.” He nodded at Andie. “You look like hell. You’ve got to rub out the lactic acid. Strip the muscle.” He moved toward her, and she growled. “Fine. Later maybe. So are you learning anything, or just getting your ass kicked?”

  “I’m learning everything,” Andie replied. “I could kill you with my pinkie finger. If only I could bend it.” She told him what she and Athena were working on, and the excitement in her voice was plain. And something else, too, that Cassandra didn’t like: eyes like stars when she said Athena’s name. The goddess’ glamour, getting to her. Henry didn’t like it, either. But there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

  “You should let her train you, too,” Andie said.

  “No.” Henry was firm.

  “Is it just because it’s her? If Aidan was here, would you let him?”

  “No,” said Henry. “I just want them all to die.” He looked sheepishly at Cassandra, but she knew what he meant. He hit Cassandra in the shoulder and walked away.

  “How can he say that?” Andie asked. “How can he mean it? I know you guys blame Athena for Aidan dying, and frankly, that’s twisted, but what about Hermes? He’s our friend. And Aidan was. It’s not all of them.”

  Cassandra stared after Henry. He looked more like Hector now, even without his memories. One life bled onto the other. Why? Out of necessity? Because he was needed? She’d often wondered why fate had chosen to plant the three of them in Kincade and no others from Troy. Where were Paris and Helen? Where were Troilus and beastly Agamemnon? Were they waiting somewhere? Would she see them again? Or had the Fates finally finished with them?

  If they have, they should count themselves lucky.

  “It’s not all of them,” Cassandra said to Andie quietly. “But their problems become our problems. Their problems are going to change our lives.”

  * * *

  Cassandra had been standing in front of Aidan’s headstone for an hour. Another Friday in front of his grave, not knowing what to say. Her throat hurt from the urge to cry, from backed-up tears and stopped-up words. If she opened her mouth, she would only scream.

  He couldn’t be dead. Not really. He was a god. But Cassandra looked at the ground and felt nothing. No lingering spirit. No connection.

  If only he were there. If only she could speak to him and have him speak back.

  “Where do gods go?” she wondered aloud. To Hades? To the underworld? Or somewhere else enti
rely?

  Behind her, Athena stood in the trees, feeding owls or something and waiting to take her home. Cassandra turned to see her guardian at her post, but Athena didn’t seem to be guarding. She was restless, pacing and kicking her toes into the snow like a deer after grass. Maybe she was missing Odysseus.

  Cassandra walked quietly out of the cemetery, and waited for Athena’s head to rise, for her to notice. But she didn’t. She didn’t notice until Cassandra was practically on top of her.

  “Your feet are freezing.” Athena glanced at Cassandra’s shoes, soaked through. Her toes curled inward and lifted as they walked to the street, trying to keep them off the cold ground. “I should’ve been warming up the car.”

  “It’s fine,” Cassandra said. They got into the Dodge, and Athena blasted the floor heater to no avail. It was basically shot; by the time they got home, the air coming out of it would be almost lukewarm.

  “How’s it going with Andie?” Cassandra asked.

  “It’s going well. She’s strong. Mindful of her balance.”

  “But none of that will make any difference if she comes up against a god,” Cassandra said. Andie was strong. Tough. Smart. But against a god she could swing a sword with a razor edge and it might as well be made out of Nerf plastic.

  “Against a god, the only thing she could do is die well,” said Athena.

  “Do you think that’s funny?”

  “Am I laughing?”

  “Why are you training her, then, if she can’t fight what we’re fighting?” Cassandra asked.

  “Because she’s afraid. And because she will have to fight, and Henry, too, before this is over.”

  “Your war,” Cassandra said. “But what about my war? When are we going to find Aphrodite?” Heat flooded her hands, right down to the fingertips.

  “No one seems to know where she is, Cassandra. And I heard about your maps. How well that worked out.”

  “I could try again.”

  “Great,” said Athena. “I’ll keep the fire extinguisher handy.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “Cassandra. Aphrodite will die. In time. Let me fight the war and help me win, and she’ll die right and proper.”