Mortal Gods

by Kendare Blake

  “I think I need to get some air. Andie?” She kept her voice calm and stood. It wasn’t even hard. Blood and terror had become like milk and cookies. Even through the coppery taste. Even through the smell.

  “What’s up?” Andie asked, and Cassandra glanced back at Megan’s bloody face.

  Only it wasn’t Megan’s. It was Odysseus’. And it was Hermes’.

  * * *

  “We’ve got to skip class,” Cassandra said.

  “No arguments here,” Andie said. “But why?”

  Cassandra wiped at her lips. The blood was gone, but the flavor coated her mouth as if she’d swallowed a gallon.

  “Hey, are you okay? Should we get Henry?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” Hermes and Odysseus were in trouble. But the distance between Kincade and Malaysia was an impossible jump. How would they get there? How would they find them? She slammed a fist into the lockers. Stupid, useless visions.

  “Cassandra, what’s going on?”

  “Odysseus and Hermes,” she muttered.

  “What? What about them?”

  She took a breath, spat blood onto the floor, and saw only saliva.

  “I think they’re dead.”

  * * *

  Athena knew something was wrong the moment she heard the growl of Henry’s engine and the squeal of his tires. But Cassandra, Andie, and Henry were all safe when they pushed past her into the entryway: no blood, no scrapes, no broken bones. Good.

  She closed the door against the wind and it ruffled their coats like soft sails.

  “What happened?”

  The three looked at each other. Pale, frightened mortals. For the hundredth time she thought what strange soldiers they made.

  “I saw Odysseus and Hermes covered in blood,” Cassandra said.

  Athena went still. “How much blood?”

  “Buckets. Like they’d been dipped in it.”

  “Buckets of blood.” Athena wandered past them, into the living room. “What could that mean?”

  Cassandra and Andie exchanged a look. “I think it means they’re dead,” said Cassandra after a moment.

  “No. That can’t be what it means.” The Fates couldn’t expect her to win a war without her brother and her hero.

  “It might not have been their blood,” Andie suggested. “Maybe they were in a fight. Or hunting.”

  “Hunting what?” Henry asked.

  “Athena,” said Cassandra. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  “Why would I need to—?” Athena shook her head. “I don’t need to sit. I need to figure out what it means. And I think better when I pace.” But she stopped, as a small compromise. Odysseus and Hermes were in danger. But not true danger. The Fates wouldn’t let them die. Not now. Not yet.

  What if I’m wrong?

  She closed her eyes. She wasn’t wrong. But what, then, did the vision mean? Why had her prophetess seen what she’d seen?

  “I told you what it means,” Cassandra said. And a minute later, “Hey! Are you listening?”

  “Cassandra.” Andie grabbed her arm.

  “She’s not even upset. Why? Did you send them out there as bait? Did you know this was going to happen?”

  “You and your conspiracy theories,” Athena muttered. “I wasn’t the one who sent them. They wanted to go.” And now she had to go after them. Why else would the Moirae have sent Cassandra that vision? She slid past Andie and Henry and flew upstairs to her bedroom. She’d pack fast, fast as Hermes, and light. “They’ll be fine,” she whispered to no one. “You’ll be fine, both of you. Just hold on. I’m coming.”

  She ransacked drawers, paying no mind to what she threw into her bag. It hardly seemed to matter. She wouldn’t take a bag at all if not for TSA snoops getting suspicious at the airport. Questions flicked through her mind as she zipped up: how long did she have? Were they injured? Had their mission cost them a soldier? Had they lost Artemis?

  You’ll be all right. My brother and my Odysseus. You have to be.

  She snatched up the bag and flew downstairs.

  “Go home. Pack a bag,” she said as she passed them en route to the kitchen. Cans of food and cereal bars went in on top of her clothes.

  “What?” Henry asked. “You can’t take her with you. You said there were things in that rain forest.”

  “Nothing I can’t protect her from.”

  “This is ridiculous. She’s not going. Cassie. You’re not going.”

  “Well, I’m going,” Athena said. She closed the fastenings on her bag. “And I’m not leaving her here unguarded, to be snapped up or killed by who knows what god. Besides—” She looked at Cassandra’s hands. “She might come in handy.”

  “Cassandra,” Henry said, and took her arm.

  “I’ll be okay, Henry,” said Cassandra. She turned to Athena. “I have a bag packed in Henry’s trunk. We all do. Just in case.”

  “Your passport in there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Clever girl. Let’s go.” She ushered Cassandra out the door and waited as she ran to Henry’s Mustang for her bag. He squawked the whole time, trying to get Cassandra to stay. He was going to be a tough nut to crack. But when the time came, he would fight. He would, because Hector had. Reason carried him pretty far, but if someone pushed, he pushed back. For now though, the big brother/mother hen routine was getting on Athena’s last nerve. She stuffed Cassandra quickly into the cold Dodge before Henry could really work up a guilt trip.

  “What am I supposed to tell Mom and Dad?” he shouted.

  “Lie,” Athena shouted back. “You ought to be getting pretty good at it by now.”

  * * *

  “I’m sick of the jungle. And I could really use another serving of monkey.” Odysseus kicked through an enormous leaf and was rewarded with a long streak of wet across his shin.

  “Don’t tell Cassandra that,” Hermes said. “She’ll never speak to you again.”

  They’d walked all day since leaving the peace of the village at dawn. Now the sun dipped low, and Odysseus had passed tired about three days and a dozen or so miles ago.

  “She heard the ravening beasts,” he said loudly, referring to the tribal elder. He raised his brows. “But maybe they weren’t our ravening beasts. There’s got to be more than one beast that ravens in a jungle this size, eh?”

  “She knew what she was talking about.”

  “Did she? But your ears are ten thousand times the ears that she’s got, and you didn’t hear anything.” He ducked a vine that Hermes intentionally flapped back into his face.

  “Maybe I would if you’d stop yammering. Besides, she didn’t hear them with her ears.” Hermes slowed and took a breath. “I’m sorry. I keep trying to remember you’re only human, but we’re so close. And I don’t know how I know that, before you ask.

  “You’re not the only one who’s tired. Or sick of all this wet.” He looked back. “I want to go home, too.”

  “Home,” Odysseus said. “Is that what Kincade is now? Home?”

  Hermes smiled. “I guess it is. I didn’t think I’d ever have one of those again. And certainly not Kincade, New York, a piddly town with no decent shopping mall and not a single museum to speak of.”

  “But it’s where we all are,” said Odysseus.

  “Yes. Where we all are.” Hermes turned back in the direction they’d been heading all day. “But we can’t leave until we find my other sister. So get a move on. I miss my pot stickers.”

  8

  STRANGER FORESTS

  Lux ran back and forth between Henry’s and Cassandra’s rooms, searching for someone to play ball with. In the end he wound up playing by himself, letting the ball drop and bounce and chasing it down with stomping paws. The sound of dog toenails skittering across the bathroom tile was so loud it broke through the music in Henry’s headphones.

  He leaned back from his desk and called the dog. Lux was restless. So was he. Cassandra had been gone for three days already, and the house felt empty. Especially s
ince no one else knew she was gone. He’d told their parents she was at Athena’s, keeping her company until Hermes got back from having treatments in Arizona. They kept asking how Athena was, and how she was doing. Their mom talked about the whole thing like a girly sleepover.

  Lux put his head on Henry’s leg and chewed his soggy tennis ball, hoping to have it thrown. It was so much better when people did it.

  “This is nasty,” Henry said. “Where’s your tug rope?”

  Lux whined and rolled the ball into Henry’s lap. Despite the plea in the dog’s brown eyes, he had no time to play. A half-finished history paper glowed on his laptop, due fourth period. His phone buzzed on the desk, and Lux snatched his ball back and whined.

  It was Andie.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing, I guess, from the tone of your voice.”

  “Yeah. I haven’t heard anything. I didn’t really expect to.”

  “Me neither.” The line went quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe we shouldn’t have let her go. So far, and so cut off from everything.”

  “Like we had a choice? She dragged Cassandra out of here. And she said she’d take care of everything.”

  “She has a name,” Andie said. “And that doesn’t really make me feel better. I can’t focus on anything. I can’t sit still.” She paused again. “Do you … want to hang out or something?”

  Henry looked at his unfinished paper and closed the laptop.

  “Sure.”

  “Good. Because I’m just pulling into your driveway.”

  Henry leaned over his desk and looked out the window. Andie’s silver Saturn flashed in the sunlight.

  “Park behind the Mustang,” he said. “My parents took the Jeep to the movies.”

  Andie chuckled. “Aww, that’s cute. Was it a drive-in? Think they’ll go parking after and make out in the backseat?”

  “Why don’t you just turn around and go home,” Henry said.

  Andie scoffed and hung up on him. Lux could barely contain himself, watching her approach through the window. When the front door opened he almost knocked Henry off his chair in his haste to get to the entryway.

  “Lux, calm down,” Andie said, then shouted, “Your dog’s trying to kill me!” Moments later, she slung herself into his doorway, cheeks flushed from the cold and from wrestling her way up the stairs. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Homework.” Henry jerked his head toward his shut laptop.

  “Oh. It’s a good thing I called, then.”

  Henry snorted.

  “So, what do you want to do?” he asked. “We could watch a movie.”

  Andie’s eyes glittered. “Gave you ideas about making out, did I?”

  “Shut up.” He swiveled in his chair and unplugged his computer.

  “I don’t think I could sit through a movie. All week I’ve felt like I should be doing something. Can’t we do something that’ll help me work off this jittery energy?”

  Since they’d learned of their shared, married past, Andie never missed a chance to be a smartass about it. Asking if he knew how she could work off jittery energy was the perfect opportunity to get her back. Or get her on her back. Henry closed his eyes and rubbed them hard. She was his kid sister’s best friend, and she was annoying. What was wrong with him?

  “What’d you have in mind?” he asked.

  Andie searched the room for an answer, settling on the dog. “It’s not bad out. We could go for a walk. Throw the ball for Lux a little. Back through the woods?”

  * * *

  They were here. They are here. Somewhere. I can feel them.

  Athena paused in the jungle. She felt them, but what was she feeling? Not their heartbeats. She couldn’t hear their footsteps or sense the weight of their thoughts. Hermes’ presence registered as a dull flicker in her chest, barely strong enough to home in on. They were still too far away.

  Or they were dead, and what she felt was the ebb of a bloody ramshackle of bones and not much flesh.

  “No,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”

  “What?” Cassandra asked from behind her.

  “Nothing.” Rain slipped into Athena’s eyes and she wiped at them. Salt from her forearm stung her. Her whole body was dirty, sweaty, and coated with plant slime from tearing through leaves and vines. The dry season of a rain forest was still wet. They’d been under a light drizzle since morning, and Cassandra shivered despite the warm temperature. They needed to find a sheltered place and make a fire.

  “What are you doing?” Cassandra asked. “Why are you stopping?”

  They’d been moving at a steady jog, occasionally at a sprint when Athena thought she heard or felt something, or when Hermes’ light shone brighter in her chest. She’d kept Cassandra plastered to her side or on her back piggyback style, but now she set her down.

  “We’ve been moving too long,” she said. “You need to sleep. And get dry.”

  “I didn’t come to slow you down. I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

  Athena paid no attention. “There.” She pointed toward three close-growing trees. “I can pull those leaves together like a canopy. It won’t be much, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

  “We can’t afford this,” Cassandra muttered, but Athena was already at the trees, drawing the leaves down and lashing their stems with strips of torn-away vine. When she was finished, it amounted to an impressive leaf lean-to, but the ground was soggy beneath her shoes. Everything in sight was slick with rain. Building a fire was a pipe dream. A change into dry clothes and a canned meal would have to do.

  “We should keep going,” Cassandra said, standing stubbornly in the rain. “I’m not tired, and I’m not hungry.”

  Athena walked back out into the wet. Cassandra was more than tired. She was exhausted. Dark circles loomed beneath her eyes, and the draw of her breath was heavy. If she sat for a minute and got something into her stomach, she’d pass out and sleep for weeks. Athena snatched her rucksack and returned to the makeshift shelter, where she pulled out a can of ham and a small loaf of bread they’d bought at a market on the way to Kuala Tembeling. She cut slices of each with her pocketknife and fashioned two crude sandwiches.

  “Listen, I might need you. What good will you be to Hermes and Odysseus if you’re dead on your feet? Come under here and rest. Eat.”

  Cassandra wiped water and sweat from her forehead and looked around at the trees like she might go on by herself. But then she ducked under the lean-to and took a sandwich.

  “Stop scowling at me so hard,” said Athena. “You’ll forget to chew and choke to death. Here. Spread this out to sit on.” She handed over a bundle of shirts.

  “But that’s most of your clothes.”

  “I don’t need them. I can stay wet. But you should change.”

  “Fine.” Cassandra held out her sandwich. “Hold this. And turn around.”

  Athena turned and ate her own ham while the girl dug in her bag.

  “Okay.”

  Athena handed the sandwich back. In a fresh pair of khaki shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt, Cassandra looked better already. She’d almost stopped shivering.

  “Do you think we’ll find them?” Cassandra asked.

  “Yes.” Athena stuffed down the last of her sandwich. Cassandra’s was already gone, and she had three fingers in the can of ham, breaking off chunks and stuffing them in her mouth. So much for not being hungry.

  “You seem pretty sure,” Cassandra said. “You don’t seem that scared.”

  “It doesn’t do anyone any good to panic.”

  Cassandra’s mouth twisted. “Just so you know, your brother dying is more than enough reason to panic. One might say it’s almost mandatory.”

  “Then one would be an idiot,” Athena snapped. “The line between fear and fucking up is very thin, and I can’t afford to cross it. There’s too much at stake.” Too many things depended on her having everything in hand. The thought that Hermes and Odysseus were already hurt sat on her ch
est like a cold stone, but it couldn’t be her only thought.

  “We shouldn’t lose too much time,” Cassandra said.

  Athena nodded. “I won’t let you sleep long. I don’t want to lose them, either. But I can’t lose you.”

  “Right. I’m the ace in the hole.”

  Athena’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right, sweetheart.” And then, softer, “Besides. Somewhere in the after, the god of the sun would never forgive me.”

  “Whatever.” Cassandra twisted around like a cranky cat, trying to get comfortable on the hard, damp surface.

  “Do you ever dream of him?” Athena asked.

  “No,” said Cassandra. “I wish I did. But I don’t. He’s just gone.”

  Athena looked out into the drizzle. It took less than a minute for Cassandra to pass out cold.

  * * *

  The smell of rotting meat hit Odysseus square in the face, strong enough to stop him in his tracks.

  “Where is it?” He waved his hand in front of his nose.

  “Where’s what?” Hermes whispered.

  “The bloody corpse flower. This one’s worse than the last. It must be a bunch of them. A bouquet of the buggers.”

  “No. There are no flowers.”

  Hermes’ flat voice made Odysseus forget the stench. For the last few minutes, their walk had been silent. He’d thought that Hermes had just gotten tired of talking. God knew they’d had plenty of dead air between them on their trek. But it hadn’t been that. Hermes had smelled it hundreds of yards ago. The scent of death. Real death.

  “It might be a rotting animal. A big snake maybe.”

  “Maybe,” Hermes said in his toneless voice. “Maybe.” Hermes’ legs moved on autopilot, propelling him mindlessly toward the source of the smell, because he’d come this far, and because he’d said he would do it. He had to see her for himself.

  “Hey, mate. Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  But it was too late. The trees opened up on a clearing painted red.

  “Oh, god.” Odysseus tried to catch Hermes before he went to his knees but didn’t make it in time.