The Gods' Day to Die

by David Welch

  Artemis sighed, and lay back against Desmond.

  “No privacy anymore,” she grumbled.

  “I miss that pond in the mountains,” whispered Desmond.

  Behind them Zeus whistled conspicuously, and strolled back into the house.

  The drive to the lab was short. About a mile away, it had been built in the basement of a derelict-looking brick building, a turn-of-the-century structure with boarded-up windows, surrounded by a chain-link fence. Inside, the building was in perfect shape, structurally at least. Dionysus had left the ground floor undeveloped to keep up the illusion of abandonment.

  The basement, however, was the sterile white of a hospital. Banks of expensive-looking computers and large machines dominated the walls, so many that the open space in the room, with an exam table and a bed in its center, was almost cramped. Jedrick hustled about in this space, ducking between people effortlessly as he made his way from machine to machine. A printer buzzed somewhere in the background.

  “Right. Okay, you want results, I have results,” Jedrick said. He practically vibrated with energy, excited by his work despite the recent death of his friend. He grabbed a stack of papers from the printer and dropped them down on the exam table.

  Desmond, Artemis, Zeus, and Hera crowded around. The output consisted of numbers and graphs and a thousand other bits of medicalese. The immortals looked anyway, as if they could glean the information by sheer proximity.

  “Now, good news first,” he said. “I have examined your genetic codes, and I see no problem in repeating the procedure for each of you. Except Desmond, of course. His bone marrow is fine.”

  “Thanks,” Desmond said sarcastically.

  “So what’s the bad news?” Hera asked cautiously.

  “Who said there was bad news?” Jedrick asked, genuinely confused.

  “Never mind,” Hera sighed, waving him to go on.

  “Now, it took me nearly two months to edit Dionysus’ DNA,” he said. “So not right away will this happen. To do all of you it could take a few years.”

  “We have time,” Artemis remarked.

  “Yes, I suppose. The machines Dionysus bought for me are truly excellent. I have—” He paused, then looked around the room. “Did not Ares and Aphrodite come?”

  “They’re watching the kids,” Hera replied.

  “And the woman we tied up in your closet,” added Artemis.

  “Oh,” Jedrick said, unperturbed by any of it. “Okay, I have found so many interesting quirks in your genetic codes. Fascinating, really. Zeus, I think you may have helped solve the Edeltzhoff P-sixty-A-A-two mutation question.”

  Zeus raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’ve always hoped to help solve that.”

  Jedrick grinned like a happy child.

  “I know, it is jargon. Edeltzhoff P-sixty-A-A-two is a mutation of the Y chromosome. Maybe eight, nine percent of all European or European-descended males have it. Doctor Edeltzhoff did studies, traced it back to somewhere in the Balkans between five and seven thousand years ago. It is possible you are progenitor.”

  “Does it have anything to do with immortality?” Zeus asked.

  “Not from what I can see,” Jedrick replied. “Of course, you could have inherited it from your father, so there is no way to be sure right now. But it is possible eight or nine percent of European males descend from you.”

  “Given his younger days?” Hera said. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Not actually all that big a deal,” Jedrick went on. “Something like twelve percent of East Asian men descend from Genghis Khan. It happens sometimes, powerful men and all their wives. Ah, this is neat!”

  Jedrick spun suddenly, facing Desmond. Des leaned back a bit, unnerved by the intensity of the man’s stare.

  “I have found something out about you,” Jedrick said.

  “About me?” asked Desmond. “The control?”

  “Yes. It appears you have the same mitochondrial DNA as Hera,” he said.

  Desmond looked to Hera, then back to Jedrick.

  “Mitochondrial DNA is the one you get from your mother, right?” asked Desmond.

  “Yes! From mother to child, never from father.”

  “So she’s what, my great-great-grandmother?” asked Desmond.

  “That, or one of her sisters,” Jedrick said.

  “None of my sisters survived childhood,” Hera said. “They weren’t immortal.”

  “Ah, there you are, then,” Jedrick said. “I compare your nuclear DNA with hers, I’m estimating . . . at least twenty generations of separation between you. Many ‘greats’ grandmother.”

  The two stared at each other for a moment.

  “I’m not baking you cookies,” Hera said with a grin.

  “Twenty generations . . . does that even count as related anymore?” Desmond asked.

  “Yes,” Jedrick said. “And no. While Hera is your direct female ancestor, you two are so far apart genetically that you could have children together.”

  “And we’re right back to ‘ick,’” Desmond declared.

  Jedrick shrugged.

  “So, do I have this Edeltzhoff mutation thing too? Has this just been one giant family reunion?” Desmond asked.

  “Mmm, no,” Jedrick said, scanning some papers. “No relation to Zeus or his offspring. Must have come from a mortal husband.”

  “Any other big secrets?” Artemis asked. “Not every day we have a geneticist at our disposal.”

  “Oh, but you will,” Jedrick said. “I will gladly take apart your genome. It is amazing, really, having other immortals to compare to Dionysus. I can probably unlock how this all came to be. Piece together what made immortals in the first place! So many little quirks. For instance, you know that you are part Neanderthal?”

  “We are?” Zeus asked.

  “That’s nothing special. Most non-African humans are between two and four percent Neanderthal. But you are also one to two percent Denisova hominin,” said Jedrick.

  “Wait, I read about that,” Desmond said. “That was some new human species they found in central Asia, right? Around the time when Neanderthals and modern humans cohabited?”

  “Yes. And until now, only Melanesians in New Guinea and Australian Aborigines were known to have any trace of the hominins’ genes. So far at least, these things always change. But since much of Europe descends from you, at least some Denisovan genes are, or were, part of the European gene pool. We have not found them yet—anyway, you have small amount. Maybe contributes to immortality, maybe not. Who knows?! It is fascinating,” Jedrick babbled. “Were I not already disgraced, I would write dozens of papers on this. Get famous and pick up all the girls at the medical conferences.”

  “But getting back to the point,” Hera said. “The procedure isn’t something you can do overnight.”

  “No,” Jedrick replied. “Not at all.”

  “And we’re not going to go live out our oldest dream while Theni is being tortured by that bastard. If we’re going to do this, she is going to do this,” Zeus said. “We deal with Lenka first, then do it.”

  His words brought a heavy silence over them all.

  Artemis looked at her father. “We can’t take the offensive unless we get something out of the woman we captured. Figure out where Lenka’s operating out of. And she hasn’t been talkative.”

  Zeus nodded. “I know. But your brother knows ways of getting people to talk.”

  “He’s also gone Christian for the past two thousand years,” Artemis griped. “He might not be willing to use some of the ‘old techniques.’ ”

  “I have Sodium Pentothal!” Jedrick declared. Everybody looked at him for a long moment, then turned back to each other.

  “I know my son, Arty,” Zeus said. “Were it just his life on the line, you might be right. But to save Athena? Or any of us? He’d do thing
s that he’d spend a decade confessing for. He’ll get her to talk.”

  Artemis leaned back against one of the machines. She frowned. “I hope you’re right.”

  Ares yanked the chair from the closet, dragging it and its occupant up the stairs behind him. It thumped hard against the stairs, eliciting cries of surprise from the gagged, blindfolded captive. Aphrodite followed close behind. At the top of the stairs they dragged the chair and the woman into the bathroom. Ares picked up the chair and its occupant, plunking them down in a giant, dry whirlpool tub. Aphrodite pulled the bathroom window closed.

  “You need me for anything else?” she asked in ancient Minoan.

  “No, better get back to the kids,” he replied in the same language.

  She turned to leave, then paused. She turned back to Ares and took his hands in hers.

  “I don’t like you doing this,” she said solemnly.

  “I know, Dita,” he said. “But there’s no other way.”

  She nodded meekly, a single tear streaking down her face. She turned and headed down the stairs. From below a boy’s frantic wail filled the house, followed by a little girl repeatedly shrieking, “That’s my juice, Bane!” Then came the boy’s voice: “’Top it, Mewi! ’Top it!”

  Ares sighed. Any other time his half-brother’s cuteness would have given him a lift. Now it just seemed incongruous, considering what he was about to do. He moved to the door and shut it. He then went back to the young woman, removing her gag and blindfold. She coughed and inhaled, her throat dry from having been blocked up for so long. Her cold gray eyes focused on him.

  “Ares,” she said, a devious smile forming on her lips.

  He didn’t respond; he simply looked at her face for the first time since the battle. She was pretty enough, but that didn’t interest him much. He’d run into plenty of evil women who were utterly stunning, and he had learned a long time ago that dealing with that kind of havoc wasn’t worth it just to be with a looker. No, he was more interested in how familiar the woman’s appearance was. He’d only had glimpses of her face during the battle, but even then he’d seen it. Sitting here now, he knew the conclusion was undeniable.

  “What’s the matter? Got cold feet?” she said tauntingly, in Russian.

  He ignored her, focusing on her eyes. They were gray, Athena gray. And the shape of them was a match. It was subtle, but unmistakable. He’d made out with Athena enough times in his more debauched days to know that he was looking at one of her descendants.

  From there it wasn’t much of a leap to figure it out. The shape of her mouth and jawline were entirely Lenka’s.

  “So, you’re Lenka’s daughter?” he replied, also in Russian.

  Her evil smile didn’t waver for a second.

  “You didn’t know?” she asked condescendingly, as if scolding an idiot. There was certainly something wrong with this girl, he realized. She was tied up and no doubt thinking she’d suffer torture of some kind, yet she smiled, treating this as if it were nothing. And it wasn’t the fake confidence that captured people sometimes put on to try to trick their tormentors. Ares had seen enough of that in his more violent youth. No, her smile was sincere. She truly was enjoying this.

  Masochist, he realized. The thought made him frown. Such people were much harder to torture.

  “So what is it going to be, God of War? Hmm? Knives? Electricity? Fire?” she asked, licking her lips. “You going to have your way with me? Break this helpless little girl?”

  She made puppy-dog eyes at him to accent the last words. Ares rolled his eyes.

  “Rape won’t work on a person like you,” he said clinically. “First, you’d enjoy it too much. Second, I’m your great-uncle.”

  “Oh, I’ve read the myths. I know you wouldn’t let a little thing like family stand in the way of a good time,” she went on.

  “You are a twisted little thing,” Ares replied casually.

  She shrugged. “I can’t change what I am.”

  “You probably can’t,” he said. “Just like your father and his father.”

  He crept closer, and tapped his finger against her forehead.

  “There is something wrong in here,” he said. “But it matters little to me. I have no interest in saving you.”

  “I’m hurt,” she said with a mock pout. “I was so hoping to ‘turn over a new leaf’! Isn’t that the expression?”

  He sighed. He realized what tack he would have to take with this girl. He didn’t have the time to play a long, psychological game to break her. And pain clearly wasn’t going to bother a masochist this twisted. But he had one advantage. She was young, very young. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. The type of person who probably thought she knew it all, and didn’t have enough experience to know otherwise. The kind that doesn’t truly know fear.

  Forgive me, Lord, for what I’m about to do.

  “What is your name, girl?” he asked, unable to remember what Lenka’s men had called her.

  “Duscha,” she replied.

  Happy, he thought. The name meant “happy.” Strangely fitting for a masochist.

  “Duscha Sidorov,” he said, kneeling down in front of her. “You are mistaken as to my intentions. You think I am going to torture you for information. I assure you, I am not going to torture you. That would be barbaric.”

  Her smile faded, replaced by confusion.

  “You see, I believe in sin,” he said. “I was chosen to live forever so that I could experience sin, and understand its true nature.”

  He lifted his hands to her face, taking it between his fingers.

  “You called me ‘God of War.’ And when I was young, I was stupid enough to believe that. But I am no god. I was sent by God. Do you understand? I know why he made us live forever. My family has never figured it out; they think it’s a gift, or some evolutionary quirk. But I know.”

  For the first time he saw a hint of uncertainty cross her face. He couldn’t actually believe she was buying all this, but then again, she was young and stupid. And he’d used this routine before.

  “I am here because other people, people like you, they die so quickly. They live such short lives that they rarely understand sin in their lifetimes, much less do anything about it. So many of them, even the righteous ones, think they understand evil, and they try to do good. But they fail. They always fail. I can’t blame them, Duscha; sin is so great that one can never understand all the minutiae of it in a mere eighty years or so. And if you can’t understand it, you can never truly know how to spot it. You can think a person’s evil but misunderstand entirely, and end up taking out a person who is redeemable. And that in itself is a sin.”

  He paused for effect. His fingers tightened on her jaw, bringing her eyes in line with his. He brought his face to within inches of hers, his eyes peering deep into her cold, gray orbs.

  “But I understand, Duscha,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. I am His servant. Only somebody as old as me can know the full effect sin has on a soul. Only somebody who has done such evil, can recognize it in its fullness when it takes root in another. I have seen evil take root in many souls, Duscha, including my own. And I have done my part to save many from treading a dark path. But in their trials I have learned to recognize something else, Duscha. I have learned to see when a person has no soul left, when a person has done such evil that all traces of the soul have fled. And I see that in your eyes, Duscha. I see the nothing that remains where your soul once was.”

  He paused, closing his eyes and mumbling some gibberish in Latin. Most modern people didn’t know the language well enough, and figured anything said in it must be sacred or important. From the way Duscha tried to flinch back, he knew she thought the words to be something awful and terrible.

  Opening his eyes, he stared at her again.

  “You are a contagion, Duscha,” he said. “You have spread fear and pain and misery t
o God’s children. How could I serve Him if I let you live? How could I forgive you and your father when you sought to kill me, His left hand on this Earth? I can’t, Duscha. And for that I am sorry.”

  He took her head in his hands, and kissed her forehead, then pulled back while shaking his head sadly.

  “Perhaps if somebody had seen your madness earlier, it could’ve been limited, or even undone,” he said sadly. “But now? It has set in, and there is nothing to be done.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, fear creeping into her voice.

  He stepped into the whirlpool tub, moving behind where she was seated. Finding the handle, he turned on the water.

  “To drown out the noise,” he said. “Though I do this to protect them, the neighbors will never understand what I have to do.”

  “What—what are you doing?! You’re mad—”

  He muttered in Latin again. Out of her view, he reached into his pockets and withdrew two small revolvers. He tucked one into his shirt pocket. From his other shirt pocket he plucked out a single bullet. Reaching his arms around Duscha, he held the revolver in front of her face. He cracked open the cylinder and slotted the bullet into one of the five holes.

  “See your exit from sin,” he said. He spun the cylinder and closed the gun, leaving her no way of knowing if she was one trigger pull away from death or five. He placed the revolver in his left hand. Quietly he pulled the other revolver from his pocket with his right hand and rested it against the back of her skull. Unable to turn her head far enough around to see, she had no way of knowing this gun wasn’t loaded.

  “I call upon the Lord to forgive this woman her sins,” he said coldly.

  He brought the right-hand gun next to the left, and squeezed its trigger. The hammer cycled and flew forward. Duscha flinched, but no bullet came.

  “If only she had seen sense, my Lord, she could’ve earned that forgiveness in this world.”

  He pulled the right-hand trigger again. This time Duscha shrieked.

  “Look, what do you want?! Tell me, I—”