Antigoddess gw-1

by Kendare Blake

  “Hey! You coming?”

  She turned toward the voice, shouted from the rolled-down window of a silver, late-model Ford Taurus. A jacket-clad arm hooked out onto the door and gestured for them to come on.

  Odysseus grinned and slung his bag over his shoulder. In the fog they hadn’t even noticed the car pulling over. They walked up and Athena got into the front seat. Odysseus piled into the back and immediately tossed his bag down to use for a pillow. He’d probably be snoring in less than a mile, but he shook hands with the driver before flopping onto his side.

  “Name’s Derek,” the driver said after they had introduced themselves. “Where you headed?”

  “We’re trying to get out to New York,” Athena supplied. She held the front of her cardigan closed to keep the rips and blood hidden.

  “Oh, yeah? Freak Show Central?” Derek checked his mirrors and pulled back onto the highway.

  “No, just upstate,” said Athena. “We have friends there.” Derek made an affirmative sound with his nose and roof of his mouth, and said nothing. Behind her, Odysseus shifted clothes around in his bag, getting comfortable.

  “I can take you quite a way,” Derek said. He rubbed at his face quickly with the back of his hand. “I’m headed to Erie, Pennsylvania. Driving straight through.”

  “That’s just fine.” Athena yawned. Part of her didn’t want to sleep. She knew the fresh, stiff hell she was going to be in for when she woke up. All of her muscles and tendons would have clenched down and shrunk three sizes. But it wasn’t a matter of choice. It took a lot to weary a god, but it happened eventually.

  “Thank you for picking us up,” she said. “We might’ve stood out there all morning, with the fog as thick as it is. I’m surprised you even saw us.” Her lids slipped shut. She was asleep before the driver could answer, and when he did, her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see the look on his face.

  * * *

  Had Athena been more alert when she had gotten into the car, she would have noticed a few strange things about their driver. His clothes didn’t fit right, for a start. His pants were too tight to even button, and they were too long. Inches of fabric collected around the tops of his Velcro tennis shoes. The clothes didn’t match, either. He was wearing a combination of green and red that would have looked wrong even around Christmas. And then there was the smell, sour and medicinal, hiding just underneath a camouflage of Brut 57.

  But Athena hadn’t been more alert. She had fallen asleep, slumped against the passenger-side window. She and Odysseus slept together, oblivious to the car’s increasing speed. The Taurus’ engine was surprisingly quiet, even at a hundred miles an hour, and the freeway was wide open ahead, except for a large tanker semitruck, shining silver as it plodded along in the right lane. Neither one of them stirred as they passed it. The truck driver watched with annoyance and told another driver over the CB that some idiot in a silver Taurus was out to get them all killed. He didn’t really take the thought seriously until the car moved over the center line, and the passenger door opened and a young woman flew toward the speeding pavement.

  The move was quick and well done. He pushed Athena’s door open and shoved her out toward the ground, with the intent of sending her rolling across the asphalt, directly under the sixteen tires of the semi just behind.

  It wouldn’t have been fatal. She was dying, that was true, but she still couldn’t be killed, not by any conventional means, anyway. It would, however, have ruined her eye, and left bloody red scales of road rash across her cheek, shoulder, and arm. The impact of the semi would have cracked her bones like dry branches.

  She thought all of this in the fraction of a second it took to catch hold of the swung-open car door in the reflexive instant she felt her neck tense just enough to keep her skull from bouncing off of the pavement passing by below.

  She hung suspended between the open door and the front seat, her knee wedged underneath the dashboard, and flexed. Her hands wrapped around the interior door handle, trying to pull it shut while the driver swerved. Something struck her hip and she yelped. Looking back she saw the end of some kind of steel or lead pipe, just before it raised and came down again, this time closer to her rib cage. The impact had the opposite effect of what was hoped for; it made Athena’s muscles contract sharply, and she managed to pull the door most of the way shut.

  In the backseat, Odysseus woke. After a few startled seconds of coming to, he plunged forward and began to fight with the driver for control of the steel pipe. The Taurus careened sharply to the right. Athena winced. If they turned too far, or went off the shoulder, they would flip like a coin.

  “The wheel!” she shouted at Odysseus, who stretched out and grabbed it. With the door mostly shut, she had just enough leverage to draw her leg up and piston her boot-clad foot into the driver’s ribs, snapping at least two. The impact drove him into Odysseus, and the car swerved again.

  “If you want me to drive, you have to give me some room.” Odysseus tried to hang on to the wheel as the car accelerated in mad spurts. It revved and shot forward as the driver’s foot pushed the gas pedal unintentionally down to the floor.

  Athena reached up and grabbed the driver by the throat. She yanked hard and for a moment he was on top of her, before she heaved herself up and shoved him toward the still slightly open door. The front seat was cramped, and Odysseus’ shoe heel scraped her cheek as he climbed over from the back and dropped down to drive.

  “She’ll have him if she wants him,” the driver said, and Athena paused. She was holding him by the collar and the door had popped open again. He hung suspended over pavement passing by at ninety-five miles an hour.

  “She can have anything she wants. Anything she wants,” he babbled. His eyes fixed on Odysseus, bloodshot and stark raving nuts. “I wanted to give him to her. I wanted to. He’s right there.” His arm stretched out toward Odysseus, trembling. “And then we drive away, we drive away and you’re gone. You’re gone, awful bitch—”

  “Throw him out the bleeding door!” Odysseus growled. “Or I’ll put that pipe through his teeth.”

  Athena ignored him. She stared at the driver, fascinated. Tears welled in his eyes. He was manic and sad, a special kind of sad that was reserved for when you failed someone you loved.

  Athena snorted.

  “That silly brat.”

  “What?” Odysseus asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “This is her attempt,” Athena said incredulously, and shook the driver by the collar. “She sends a lovesick lunatic to try to take me out? Her assassin is a mooning mental case?” Her eyes narrowed in disgust. “She must be the laughingstock of that little trio.”

  Odysseus let the car slow. Athena wrested the pipe away from the driver and tossed it into the backseat. He cried, hard, with his eyes clenched shut.

  What were they going to do with him? Aphrodite’s little assassin. They could tie him up, she supposed, and gag him so they wouldn’t have to listen to his ranting all the way to Kincade. Once they got there, she might be able to find a way to put him to use.

  She cried out as pain pinched down on her hand. The bastard was biting her. Half of his teeth had disappeared into the skin between her thumb and forefinger. When she let go, he grinned an enormous blood-tinged grin and shoved himself backward out the open door before she could stop him. They heard the sharp crack of his bones striking the pavement and felt the car lurch as the back tires caught some part of him underneath.

  Athena looked out the back window. He was a rumpled set of clothes tumbling and flapping down the middle of the road. The semitruck was only a mile or so behind. The body would be found, and they had better be nowhere near when it got called in. She yanked the door closed tightly and stared ahead. Odysseus breathed hard, and the car slowed. He’d been shocked into coasting, his foot off the gas.

  “Don’t slow too much,” she said, and grasped his knee, guiding it down. “But don’t speed. We need to—” Exhaustion hit her in a strong tide. It felt
like someone had cut her adrenaline line and it was leaking out of her in a rush.

  “We need to what?” Odysseus asked gently.

  Athena put her fists to her forehead. “We need to get out of Dodge,” she said, “and then we need to get out of Ford.”

  Odysseus’ brows knit. “Is that a cutesy, Americanized way of saying we need to get out of here and then ditch the car?”

  Athena smiled. “Sorry. I’m suddenly very, very tired.” Aphrodite, you sneaky little idiot, she thought. Why do you always have such shitty timing? She let her head fall back against the seat. Odysseus reached for her bitten hand. The semicircle of teeth marks oozed blood.

  “I’ve got more salve and bandages.”

  She jerked her hand away. “Forget it. I’m not walking around with both hands gauzed up.”

  “Suit yourself. But that bloke’s mouth was like a toilet.”

  A groan issued from her throat, made up of every frustration she’d had over the last day and a half. It filled the car almost to bursting. She wanted to slow down, to take stock, but her brain refused to obey. It raced ahead, thinking of good places to get off of the interstate, mapping out alternative routes and figuring where they might be able to score another car, because more hitchhiking sounded not appealing at all. All she really wanted to do was rest. To go back to sleep and wake up to the radio playing a good song and gold and red fall trees going by in the window. But there was no time for that.

  “What I want,” she said, “is to know why the hell she was after you. Why are they after you? Why did you come halfway around the world to seek my protection?”

  Odysseus looked grimly ahead when he answered. “They want me because I know what they’re after. They want me because without me, they won’t be able to get it. And I came to you because you’re the only god strong enough to stop them.”

  11

  MESSAGES FROM THE MESSENGER

  The explosion in Chicago was on every channel. It didn’t matter whether she flipped from CNN to ABC, there was the same live image: smoke rising into the sky, and an enormous pile of wreckage on the corner of a block. It was a mess of crumbled rock and steel girders, dust and flashing red and yellow lights from fire trucks and rescue crews. Some of the neighboring buildings had been hit too, and wore dangerous-looking cracks snaking up their sides. Before the bomb it had been a small, restored warehouse, converted to house a consultancy of some kind. No one was sure yet how many had died. Estimates varied wildly from twenty to several dozen, depending on the network. There were other casualties too: people who had been walking on the sidewalk or driving past. There were surprisingly few injuries. It killed you, or it left you alone.

  “It’s terrible,” Cassandra’s father said. He and her mother had been watching the coverage since he’d come home from work. The smoke reflected in his eyeglasses and was made tiny. “It’s going to cost the city a hell of a lot to rebuild.” He shook his head and sighed. That’s what the world is coming to, the sigh said.

  “Who would do that?” her mother asked. Reporters cried terrorism but were having a hard time pulling together a motive, and the only groups who had come forward to claim responsibility were the ones who came forward to claim responsibility for everything. One program suggested the consultancy was actually a high-end escort service. That at least would make it a more likely target.

  Cassandra sat on the couch beside Henry and stared at the screen. She hated it. Hated everything about it, and whoever had done it. The feeling coursed through her like liquid metal; she felt it in her wrists. Hate. Frustration. Every time a reporter named groups who might be responsible, she wanted to scream. They’d done that. Dying gods. Aidan’s malignant family. They’d done it on their way to her.

  “If it turns out it was a brothel, this news coverage is going to get a whole lot uglier.”

  “Why?” Cassandra snapped. “Are the reporters going to start saying that they deserved it? That they deserved to get blown into a million pieces, because they were whores?”

  “Cassandra!” Her parents looked at her, mouths open as she stalked out of the den and headed for the backyard. The smell of meatloaf in the oven made her want to break a window. It was so domestic and unaffected. Business as usual. When she burst into the backyard, she almost hit Henry in the face with the door as he followed with her jacket.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey, what?” He didn’t try to touch her as she paced, just tossed her the jacket and let her walk it off, watching as the rage leaked out through her feet and through the steam of her breath in the cold air.

  “There were no words. No names. No sense of place. Not even the weather. I didn’t know where it was.”

  “There wasn’t anything you could do.”

  She slowed. “Then why did I see it? What’s the point?”

  “Maybe there is no point. You just know things, and they just happen. That’s how it’s always been.”

  “Henry, that is so not good enough.” And it wasn’t right, either. Something was coming, just around the bend. She felt it, an odd sense of increasing, like the world starting to spin faster.

  “You’d better get back in there and tell Mom you’re okay,” said Henry. “She’s been asking if something’s up with you.”

  “I know, I know. I should eat meatloaf and smile. Talk about school.” Cassandra took a breath. The itchy feeling in her wrists was gone. Only vague tiredness remained.

  “Well, yeah. That’s what Aidan said, right? Act normal.”

  Act normal. Don’t make waves or trip anyone’s radar. He seemed so silly, suddenly, thinking that they could hide. Thinking there was any way around what was going to happen.

  “Would you tell Mom and Dad I’m going over to eat at Aidan’s?” she asked. “Tell them we had a fight or something, and that’s why I flipped. Do you think they’ll mind?”

  “I think Dad’ll be thrilled. He’s been waiting for you two to fight for a year.”

  * * *

  Aidan lived in a two-story house on Red Oak Lane. It was less than a half mile from Cassandra’s. The wind cut through her jacket as she stood out front, urging her to walk up the driveway with cold fingers against her back. Inside, Aidan stood in the dining room, clearing the table and talking to his mom.

  His adopted mom. His mom who is nothing close to his mom.

  She watched the way they talked, easily and always smiling. Gloria Baxter was a petite woman with narrow hips. She wore corduroy pants in different colors and kept her hair dyed golden blond, the same shade as her adopted son. She worked as a bookkeeper for a lawyer’s office in town, and Cassandra had known her longer than she’d known Aidan.

  Gloria put her hand on Aidan’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. He said something that made her laugh. It looked so natural. She’d seen them act that way countless times. She’d seen them argue too. All of those exchanges flickered through her mind as she watched this one. It was all playacting. None of it was real.

  Aidan saw her through the window and waved. Gloria turned and waved too, and moments later, Aidan walked her up the driveway to the door. Inside smelled like marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese; the kitchen and dining room windows were still slightly fogged from the steam of boiling water.

  “Hi, Cassandra.” Gloria smiled. “You just missed Aidan’s spaghetti. But there are plenty of leftovers. Are you hungry?”

  “There really is a lot left,” said Aidan. “Too much for my dad to eat.”

  “No, thanks.” Cassandra smiled a little weakly. Aidan slipped his hand beneath her hair onto the back of her neck.

  “You okay with dishes, Mom?” he asked.

  “Sure. You cooked.”

  Aidan led Cassandra up the carpeted stairs to his bedroom and closed the door behind them.

  “Hey,” Aidan said. “I saw the way you were watching us.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” She skinned out of her jacket and tossed it on the bed.

  “Sure you do. And I get it. But
she is my mom, Cassandra. She didn’t raise me, but I love her just the same.”

  Cassandra nodded. Just the same. What did he know? But he had lived a hundred lives. He might have had a hundred parents. So maybe he did know. Maybe he knew even better than she did.

  She looked around the room like she’d never been there before. The green quilt on Aidan’s bed always smelled like Tide. His laptop sat closed on his desk, the top covered with stickers. Some of them were ones she’d given him. On the back of the door hung a vintage movie poster for Vertigo. Beside it on the wall was one of Radiohead and, next to that, a closet full of hooded sweatshirts. She gestured to the movie poster.

  “You always did like vintage stuff.”

  He nodded.

  “Were you there for the filming? Spend a lot of time with Hitchcock?”

  “Cassandra.”

  “Or maybe you hung out with The Doors.” She looked over her shoulder at a poster of Jim Morrison. “Any of their songs about you?”

  “Don’t do that. If you want to know anything about who I was, I’ll tell you.”

  “Not about who you were. About who you are. I’m trying really hard not to feel like this room is one big prop. Even the messiness.” She toed a pile of dirty clothes lying by the foot of the bed. “It all feels very … quintessential teenager.”

  “You still know me, Cassandra.”

  “I know. I know you, and I don’t.” This was shaky ground. Until very recently, she’d thought her life was only just a little strange. Aidan sat on the bed and touched her cheek. He pushed his fingers into her hair. The feel of his hands was so familiar. How many times had he laid her back on this bed? How many times had he told her he loved her? She didn’t want anything to change. No matter how strange it was, he still made her feel so safe.

  “I’m sorry I lied. But I think you can see why I would.”