by David Welch
Lenka sighed, then motioned toward Alexi. The cables were still attached to Athena. Alexi turned the dial, sending electricity jolting into her. She leapt in her chair, screaming, the restraints holding her down.
“Stop! Stop stop stop!” she wailed. Lenka turned to Alexi, noticing an exhilarated smile on Duscha’s face. He motioned to Alexi, who stopped the current.
“Why . . .” Athena cried. “Why did you do that? I—I don’t know—”
“Where are they, Mother?” Lenka demanded. “Give me a place!”
“I—I can’t do that, Lenka,” Athena said, her head bobbing, tears flowing freely. “You know I c-can’t—”
“Duscha,” Lenka said.
His daughter reached into her pocket, removing what looked like a small thimble. Except that protruding from the thimble was a two-inch-long, razor-sharp, metal thorn. She slipped the thimble over her index finger and moved behind her grandmother.
“Babushka, please tell Papa where they are,” she said, resting the tip of the thorn just below Athena’s right collarbone.
“G-get away from me . . .” Athena managed between breaths.
Duscha pressed, driving the tip into her flesh. Athena screamed again.
“Papa says I came too close last time,” she said. “That you almost bled to death. I think he is being too careful, yes?”
“Evil bitch!” Athena muttered.
Duscha dragged the thorn across her skin, cutting a two-inch gash. Blood trickled down Athena’s breast. Athena’s eyes rolled, and Lenka saw she was losing consciousness.
“Back up, daughter,” Lenka said, turning to Alexi.
“No! She will break for me!” Duscha declared.
“I will not ask you again,” Lenka warned.
Duscha laughed maniacally and pushed the thorn a little farther, extending the gash. Lenka grumbled and motioned to Alexi. The man hesitated a second, then turned the dial.
Current flowed into Athena and through her into Duscha. Both of them screamed, writhing in pain. Duscha lost her grip on her grandmother and fell backward onto the floor. For a second neither moved; then Duscha came to. For a moment she struggled for breath, and then a broad smile formed on her lips. Lenka shook his head. She never had been quite right.
“Nicholai, get her out of here,” he said, motioning toward his daughter. Nicholai helped her up and pulled her toward the office. Duscha went on shaky legs, gasping for breath and smiling all the while.
Lenka turned back to Athena.
“Do we have to do that again?”
No response.
“Alexi . . .”
“Colorado . . .” Athena barely whispered the word.
“What was that?”
“N-near the national park . . . Rocky . . .” she continued. “Please, Lenka . . . don’t hurt her . . .”
He stared at his mother for a long moment. She didn’t meet his eyes, too weak to hold up her head.
“Get her out of the chair,” Lenka said. “Put her in the Winnebago. Get everybody up. We leave immediately.”
9
Grand Lake, Colorado
“Were you ever at Ebbets Field?”
“A few times,” Artemis said. “My dad was living in Brooklyn. We’d go to the games sometimes with his family.”
Desmond nodded, staring idly at a distant mountain. They lay at opposite ends of a canoe, their legs intertwined in the center. They floated idly in the middle of Grand Lake, soaking up sun and the view. The Rockies rose around them, their lower slopes the vibrant green of a spring pine forest, their summits still covered in broad snowfields. It seemed incongruous to Des. Down here it was warm, in the low seventies. And yet he could see snow in every direction.
“Did you see Jackie Robinson play?” he asked.
“Twice,” she replied.
He nodded.
“That’s two; my turn?” Artemis said, prodding his thigh with her toes. Des nodded for her to go on. It had been their agreement when they launched the canoe. Since she had been alive for five thousand years, he got to ask two questions about her in exchange for one about him. There was much more time for her to cover, after all.
“Where were you born?” she asked simply.
“Long Island,” he answered.
“That’s it? Come on, you gotta give me more than that,” she said.
“Suburban Long Island,” he added.
She huffed, gently kicking him with her toes.
“Fine, your turn.”
“Who was the smartest man you ever knew?”
“Ben Franklin,” she replied.
“You knew Ben Franklin?”
A sly smile crossed her lips, and she said, “Not as well as my sister did . . . but yes. I met him several times.”
“And he beats out Plato and Aristotle and Jesus?” Desmond asked.
“Plato and Aristotle were philosophers,” she said. “Not exactly my cup of tea. Apollo used to love them. And I never knew Jesus, so you’ll have to ask Ares about that.”
“Ares knew Jesus?” he asked.
“Uh-uh, that was three questions I just answered,” she replied. He sighed and waved her on.
“You’re obviously no idiot,” she said, “so tell me, how’d you become so smart?”
“Dukeston University,” he said. “I majored in history, with a focus on European history.”
“Nope, not good enough. I’ve seen the students that come out of American colleges these days, heads stuffed full of PC nonsense. Not many of them would have enough sense to recognize a tobacco offering as a spiritual act. You do. So spill it.”
“That’s two questions,” he countered.
“I get an extra one for you asking me three,” she said with a smirk.
“Fine. I read . . . a lot. After college I got the sinking feeling that I’d been taught what professors wanted me to know, and not what was important. Then one day I pick up some Herodotus from the bargain bin at a chain bookstore and suddenly realize that all those ‘dead white guys’ they wanted me to ignore actually have a lot of interesting things to say. And I guess I haven’t really stopped since then.”
“Thank you,” she said cheerily.
“Now, if you please, Ares knew Jesus?”
“For three years,” Artemis said. “He’s a Christian, you know.”
“Ares is a Christian . . .” Desmond said, thinking about it for a second. “I’d like to say that sounds strange, but what’s strange anymore?”
“So, what’s your second question?” she said.
“Okay, getting back to the topic. How many of the Founding Fathers did you actually know?”
“Well, I met most of them,” she said. “I only really knew one. But we were married at the time.”
“Which one?” Desmond asked.
She flashed an evil smile, saying, “Oh, Des, you really think I’m going to let you get away with a third question again without getting something in return? After all that just happened?”
“How convenient,” he said.
“Now, I want to know, why do you spend your days trekking around the wilderness? I know you have enough money that you can, but most rich men I’ve met aren’t content doing nothing. You men aren’t happy if you aren’t working on something,” said Artemis.
Des frowned, glancing down at their intertwined feet. Artemis made no move to hurry him.
“Well, I do work, from time to time. I mean, I’m on the board of directors of Taylor-Sinclair Aerospace, so that takes up some of my time. And if they have some project I’d be of use for, I’ve been known to volunteer to help out . . .”
“But . . . ,” led Artemis.
He gritted his teeth, then forced a calming breath through them.
“I—I don’t know. I used to want to do things . . . you know, big things.
Like all young men do. For a while I thought archaeology, what with a history degree and all. I dreamed of running around looking for lost treasure . . . But then I come home from college one break and find my parents are dead in a car accident. It just seemed kind of meaningless after that—a semi-depressive rut eight years running. God, I know that’s such a cliché. But my father spent his whole life building this huge aerospace company, built new engines for props, jets, rockets . . . stuff they’re using every day. Anybody looking at what he did would be impressed, yet what did it really do? For him, I mean. The money’s great, but I just look at it all and wonder what the point of it is. Is he less dead? Will all the fancy engines in the world make up for the fact that he’s no longer around to make his famous fried mozzarella on Christmas Eve? Will all the money in the world give my mother the chance to meet her grandchildren? I mean, I know, intellectually, that money and work are important, I do. I’m no socialist. But on some level, emotional or metaphysical or something like that, I feel like it’s meaningless. That you work and struggle and what? The universe doesn’t care, doesn’t even notice. It just keeps—”
“Going on,” Artemis finished.
There was a poignant silence between them for a long moment.
“Yeah. I guess you’d understand this better than anyone,” he said, then flung up his hands dramatically. “Hell, maybe Ares’ pal Jesus set up our whole meeting just to get me out of the rut. Why not?”
She didn’t laugh at his sarcasm. He didn’t either. He knew it was the same old desperation, trying to cover up all the nothing he felt.
“So what’s next?” she said, clearly trying to change the subject. “What other questions have you got for the ‘Goddess of the Hunt’?”
He saw what she was doing, but went along with it. No reason to dwell on what couldn’t be changed.
“Fine, okay. Back to it, then. You say you’re a subspecies. So I have to ask, did you ever see any other type of human? Neanderthals, or those tiny guys in Indonesia? You know, homo floresiensis,” he said.
“Sorry,” she answered. “They were gone before we came along.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed.
“I have seen several Sasquatches,” she said. “Or yeti or yeren or almas. Every country has their own name for them.”
“You believe in Bigfoot?” asked Des.
“As I said, I’ve seen them. Three times,” she said. “There used to be a lot more back when.”
“Huh. I think I owe my childhood best friend ten bucks,” he announced. “Your turn.”
“A girl’s gotta know, any former wives I should know about? Or little Desmonds and Desdemonas running about?”
“No, sadly. To be honest, I haven’t had a serious relationship since college, and even that . . . well, I knew Linda wasn’t going to be mothering any of my children. And much as I’d love to have some little ones dog-piling on me, there haven’t been any yet,” he explained, then paused for a moment. “At least none that I know about.”
“Dionysus has that problem a lot,” Artemis said with a sarcastic half-grin.
“Now, since you brought it up, I have to ask,” he said, conciliatory. “You’ve been married several times? More?”
“Forty-two times,” she replied.
“And Actaeon was your first husband?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied, ignoring his breaking of the rules of their game.
“Who was your last?” he asked.
“Crow Foot,” she replied. “Father of the young man at the end of the book. Back in 1868.”
He raised an eyebrow. “White woman marrying an Indian? Must’ve been scandalous way back when.”
“A little,” she said. “Nobody seemed to mind white men taking Indian women as spouses. But flip it around . . .”
“Hypocritical, but I gotta figure a hundred years from now somebody will be dragging us through the mud for what we believe,” Desmond said, a bit of resignation in his voice.
“Like aborting your own children?” Artemis said, a dark edge in her voice.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Or a thousand other things.”
“It was ever thus!” Artemis said with a dramatic wave of her hand. “My turn. Do you have any issue with hunting? Because there is a reason I got the title I did.”
“As long as you use the kill, I got nothing against it,” he answered. “And I would definitely enjoy having venison more often than I currently do.”
“I always use the kill,” she said with a touch of indignation. “And my venison recipes are top-notch, I assure you.”
“Hmm . . .” he said as he thought about what his next question should be. “Okay, the Trojan War. Did it happen?”
“You think it would be written about so many times if it hadn’t?”
“So Achilles and all that stuff is real?”
“Mostly,” she said. “The war was real, so were Agamemnon, Menelaus, Priam, Hector, Ajax, and Odysseus. Though Odysseus’ long voyage home was due to his own shitty navigation. You’d think a man who lived on an island could sail better.”
Desmond laughed, then asked, “And Achilles? Did he really die from getting shot in the ankle?”
“ ‘Achilles’ was Ares,” she said. “That was the name he was going by at the time.”
“Really?” asked Des. “I’ve read the Iliad a half-dozen times. Ares supported the Trojans, Zeus liked the Greeks. So why would Ares be Achilles?”
“The Iliad makes the dreck coming out of Hollywood look historically accurate,” Artemis said with a dismissive wave. “About the only thing it got right was that there was a war, at Troy, and ‘Achilles’ killed Hector. Ares didn’t give two whits about the Trojans, they had their own gods that didn’t involve us. Zeus was in Italy at the time and had nothing to do with the war at all.”
“So the great seminal piece of western literature—”
“Is highly entertaining crap,” Artemis said with a laugh. “All the movies and stories make Troy look like ancient Rome, when in truth there were maybe five thousand people in the city, at best. If it wasn’t sitting on the darned Hellespont, nobody would’ve cared about it at all.”
“So no ‘thousand ships’?” asked Des.
“Fifty, at best,” said Artemis. “And it took ten years because Agamemnon was one of the stupidest generals to grace the world stage.”
“Please tell me the horse was real,” said Des.
Artemis sighed, saying, “Yes. The horse was real. Priam was dumb enough to believe it was an actual offering to the gods and brought it inside.”
“Well, at least I’m not totally disillusioned,” said Des with a shrug. “But still, what about Ares-Achilles? You’re telling me he didn’t get shot down with some poisoned arrow?”
“Oh, he got shot all right, by a normal arrow, in the ankle. Ares got infuriated, limped back to camp, and threw a tantrum. He took Briseis, sailed off, and had a half-dozen children with her,” said Artemis. “But having your big hero take his toys and go home doesn’t make for a good tale, so the poets changed the way it happened.”
“Never let history get in the way of a good story,” remarked Des, then paused. “But wasn’t Aeneas one of Aphrodite’s sons? If Ares and Aphrodite are lovers . . . that must’ve been awkward to explain. Trying to kill him and all.”
“They weren’t together at the time,” said Artemis. “And Ares didn’t know who Aeneas was until years later. Luckily he didn’t kill him on the field.”
Des nodded, then noticed they were drifting close to shore. A few quick paddles brought them back to the center, and gave them a minute bit of momentum toward the opposite shore.
“Now you. Brothers and sisters?” asked Artemis.
“Only child. Used to visit with some cousins when I was younger . . . but I haven’t seen them in years.”
“So you’ve
basically been alone since your parents passed away?”
“More or less,” he answered.
Artemis frowned.
“Maybe you’d like to have some company for a while, then?” she asked.
“Maybe I would,” he said with a soft smile. “But if that’s gonna be the case, I gotta ask you the big one.”
“Am I sick of life?” she replied instantly.
“Yeah,” he replied. “They always say that nobody wants to live forever.”
“Some days . . . yes, that’s true,” she said. “Others not so much . . . I don’t think you realize how similar we are. Time passes for me the same as it does for you. I mean, I’m sure you’ve had days when you’re sick of the world, right?”
“Everyone does,” he replied. “There are some days I wonder if there is any real point to all this.”
“Never does go away completely, does it?” she said with a knowing frown.
Desmond shook his head softly.
“I have those days too, Des. Maybe more so than most. But I also have days when everything seems good and exciting. I . . . I guess I don’t really understand that sometimes,” she said. “I mean, I’ve seen it, what you’re talking about. Sadly, most of us are dead, and usually by our own hand. I see it in Dionysus. When he’s not intoxicated, he’s horribly depressed . . .”
“The God of Wine is depressed?” asked Desmond.
“The ‘God of Wine’ is bipolar,” Artemis said with a sad frown.
“But not you?”
“Des, I don’t see it much different than you,” she explained. “I have a life, I have no idea how long it is. I’m sure something will get me eventually, but it could be tomorrow or ten thousand years from now. But is it really all that different from thinking you have fifty years to live? You get up and go about your day knowing there’s a ticking clock. To you, a year may seem like a big block of time, compared to how long you live. To me, a century seems like that. But if I knew I had fifty years left, suddenly that century would seem an incredibly long time.”
“So it just scales up,” Desmond said.
“For me, at least,” she said. “I mean, I’m not experiencing this day any faster than you are, I’ve just got a larger span to compare it to.”