Food of the Gods

by Cassandra Khaw

  “Demeter—” The sound that Ananke makes isn’t anything a human throat should produce.

  “Do you want to explain to the others why we’ll be short a chef, then? He’s been invited, Ananke. Leave him be.” Demeter fixes me with an evaluating stare, mouth puckering. “Though you’re a bit thin, aren’t you? Unusual for a cook.”

  Click. Epiphany A into Slot B, tagged with a nervous chuckle: this is Demeter, goddess of agriculture and maternal affairs. Ostensibly sweet, but you can never tell with these icons of fertility, what with their affection for ritual sacrifice. Ananke, though, I can’t place. I keep silent as she storms back into the building. A hint of scales glimmers across the skin of her back before she is swallowed by the gloom.

  Demeter tuts loudly. “Sorry. Ananke can be so shrewish, sometimes. She still expects everyone to bend their knee to her, but that’s just—” She crouches down, corrects the placement of the old Russian woman’s scarf, strokes the back of a hand across the dessicated cheek. It’d all be quite sweet, if the unfortunate senior weren’t still on all fours. “Anyway. Don’t judge us for the actions of our predecessors. The primordials are not as well socialized.”

  “Uh-huh.” I gulp, steady myself, close the distance between us and hold out a hand in greeting.

  She stares at my outstretched digits, silent, a smile coagulating. Finally, she rises, fabric billowing across plump limbs, more obedient to aesthetics than physics, as if moved by a non-existent breeze. In all fairness, as an exhibition of power, it’s far less gauche than the norm.

  “Demeter.” She holds out a supple palm, fingers slightly crooked.

  I stare back, conflicted. What’s proper protocol? After some deliberation, I go with excessive obsequiousness; slavish respect is rarely out of vogue. I dip forward, press a kiss to the ball of her wrist, half-bowing, half-something, a bending of the knees that might, in certain circles, be construed as a curtsey. The ridiculousness elicits a warm laugh, one that soon transcends into sensation, and it washes over me and it is—not sticky equatorial heat, but something continental, laced with a breeze that tastes of the sea. Summer. Smell of the harvest and human sweat, the—

  “Lady.” Her name aches in my chest, a benediction. But reverence quickly gives way to shock when the realization hits, the knowledge that I’ve been surprised into exaltation. It hooks into my gut, drags out the words, hoarse: “Lady, what are you doing?”

  “Sorry about that. It’s… automatic, sometimes. Like breathing.” Demeter’s contrition would almost be believable if it weren’t for that smile, hanging like a corpse from the trees. She withdraws her hand, pivots to enter the flat, gazing over the bridge of a shoulder. “Come. We’ll make it up to you.”

  I bite down the impulse to explain that isn’t the point; that an apology, especially one so flippant, is hardly compensation. She shouldn’t have done that. At least, I don’t think so. Doubt dogs me as I pad along behind Demeter. The inside of the building is musty, damp, white halogen casting hard shadows across a space that isn’t so much dilapidated as it is old, worn gray by generations of living.

  A light strobes as we pass underneath, a warning. Smells tendril from behind closed doors. Marijuana. Tobacco-smoke, six different brands, clove and menthol intertwining. Indian food, unctuously rich, not spiced in the way I remember, not pungent with chilli oil, but still enticing. And underneath that, old beer and human urine, underpinning the acrid, decade-deep stink of cleaning bleach.

  Human smells, all of it. Nothing supernatural whatsoever.

  “We keep a low profile,” Demeter remarks, as though she’s been reading my thoughts on a board. “Life has not been easy for us in this country.”

  I don’t reply, my attention focused inward; an auction is begun, a channel for negotiation opened. Room on the wet curve of a ventricle for whichever demon is willing to take on the Greek gods. Bob—his name is not actually Bob, but call a demon a duck and you bring him to your level—wins, of course, committing the entirety of his self to the effort, and I wince as he seeps through muscle fibers and abdominal cavity to write himself on cardiovascular tissue.

  I breathe, feel his teeth behind mine, feel his power compound the wards that I knit under every intake of air. Rudimentary safeguards, sure, but still another layer of protection, another minute I can use to buy an excuse out of whatever hell might visit. Bob strains against my skin, stitches his essence through my cells, laces himself in tight. I feel him grin. I might regret this one day, but that supposes I get another day.

  If Demeter notices any of it, she says nothing.

  We skip the mold-spangled elevator, rust crusting its hinges, and walk up several flights of stairs instead. The floor that we turn off is indistinguishable from its peers, maybe even rattier. Demeter supplies no further conversation, just strolls up to a door and raps on the wood. (Her knuckles don’t actually come into contact with the wood. My eyes water, even as visual cortices argue with the sliver of cerebrum familiar with everything eldritch; the world writhing between two interpretations of material truth.)

  I knuckle tears away and squint, Demeter already blithely gliding through the crumbling timber like it’s not even there. I wade in after her. Mana hits, rich and old, not cut with modern-day apathy. Pure. I bite down on the tip of my tongue, hoping to offset the dose, which snarls like a straight shot of LSD to the brain.

  “Rupert.” A new voice; male, this time, deep baritone rolling across my ears. “What took you so long?”

  I blink, and blink again. My vision acclimatises, mana-warped imagery coalescing into familiar shapes. Blink. If I expected to be impressed, I’m disappointed: the domicile of the Greek gods, or at least whatever waystation this represents, is dingy and slightly moist, with low ceilings and questionable lighting. The walls, peculiarly, are draped with paintings in bronze baroque frames, poorly maintained.

  “I”—probably not the best idea to roll Orpheus under the bus—“decided to take the scenic route, I suppose. Get to know London, and all that. Enjoy the sights. Things.”

  “I see,” the man resumes, disapproval weighing down the words. He’s taller than I am, barrel-chested, with a beard to embarrass entire lineages of Chinese men. “Could you perhaps have done it on someone else’s time? We are on a schedule—”

  “I’m sorry. I just got off a thirty-six-hour flight. I barely even know which way is up. Could we just do this tomorrow? Also, I didn’t catch your name—”

  He reaches me quickly, too quickly, spatial physics obliterated in a wink of his will. Before I can react, he clasps my hand and forearm, shakes the limb with unnerving gusto. “I am Poseidon,” he booms. “God of the sea. And—”

  A tickle of power, frothing up like sea foam. Bob screams an objection inside my skull, pressing up, up, even as the wards heat.

  “Proprietor of the worst fish and chip shop in Croydon,” drawls yet another voice, older, gnarled with cynicism. “Hephaestus. So glad that you could join us. I hope you weren’t anticipating any sort of fanciness, because there’s none—”

  “Watch. Your. Tongue.” Poseidon releases me to spin about and glare at his brother-god. “Who do you think you are?”

  “The only god with any relevance in this forsaken country we’ve been piled into. This cold, wet, terrible place.” Hephaestus hobbles forward. He’s the ugliest god I’ve seen, face warped by the fire; skin red-veined, smoke wisping out between the cracks.

  “Enough.”

  Darkness, still and heavy. Like the drape of a pall, like the caress of a mourning veil. It is not an onslaught, not the thundercrack of a broken skull, not a blade between the ribs, not the heart tortured into a final rictus. But quieter, more insidious, the last hours before dying, that muffled grief that comes as you memorize the planes of your beloved’s arm, hoping, hoping you’d be able to hold that moment, keep it safe, keep it whole, even though you know she asked for this, and this is not a death but a release, but you need her to stay anyway, need this piece of her, this scrap of
time to tell you that you had something beautiful once and—

  Minah. I drown her name, halfway nauseous from memory, and look up as Hades make his appearance. He is tall, gaunt, unmistakable, saturnine and regal, black hair framing cadaverously lean features. Unlike the others, he is pallid, albeit less like a Caucasian than a corpse, waxy and cold. All in all, a fearsome sight, were he not wearing crocs, shorts and a floral batik shirt.

  “Must we always fight?” Hades’ accent is, bafflingly, crisp and disdainfully British, the kind prevalent in bad adaptations of Jane Austen’s works.

  “There’s no fighting, brother. It’s not my fault that Poseidon cannot stomach the truth of his predicament.”

  “I’ll have you know that shop is—”

  Hephaestus rasps a wet, choking laugh and I wince. He sounds like he’s gargling razors. “So he says. So he says.” Another tortured paroxysm. “How do your subjects feel about your use of them, I wonder?”

  Another horrifying laugh. This time, he almost hits the floor, and I drop my duffle, to go to his aid, only to be waved off by the irate deity. The other gods watch in silence as Hephaestus heaves himself upright, glassy-eyed, lip flecked with rust-streaked spit. He glowers at us, dragging an arm across his mouth, before retreating into one of the rooms.

  “Petty,” Hades spits the word like something profane. Then, he says: “Welcome, Rupert. I hope that my brothers have not been cruel.”

  “Your sister”—I glance across the hall; Demeter is suspiciously absent—“was pretty hospitable. Can’t say the same for Ananke.”

  “Tonight, you rest.” Hades continues as though he had not heard me at all, arms held out in an expression of patrician grace, absurdly clashing with the crocs. “Tomorrow, you shall join our brethren in transforming this wretched borough into a place of plenty. We are honored by your presence. We shall see you tomorrow.”

  “R-right.”

  Calling it now: I’m dead.

  (Well, not literally. But you’ll see, ang moh.)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MORNING ARRIVES SLATE-GRAY and appallingly cold. I’m awake long before the sun clambers above the cityline, a sickly radiance behind the smog, largely useless except as an indication that the day has begun.

  Sleeping, to put it delicately, has been difficult. Jet lag alone might not have been insurmountable, but it came escorted by the deep autumn chill. Of course, that wouldn’t have been a problem either if this thrice-damned flat had any concept of heating—or, hell, if the Greek pantheon understood that a blanket needs to be more substantial than a square of tissue.

  Groaning, I force myself upright, lose balance, and collapse back onto the creaking, wire-thin mattress. The impact startles a few moths from hiding. Lovely. I stare at the ceiling. My arms and legs, strangulated by seventeen layers of fabric, tingle alarmingly, as though warning of impending necrosis. I clench a fist and watch as the blood drains from my fingertips before draining sluggishly back into place.

  I should probably fix this.

  I swing my feet onto the ground, touch bare toes to the wooden flooring and immediately jump back. Maybe later. Maybe never, in fact. A wild idea rouses itself. Would it be possible to engage in tele-cooking? If someone rigged up a camera in whatever kitchen I’m meant to occupy, would it be possible for me to just delegate to an army of sous chefs? It could happen.

  Even as my sleep-addled mind dwells on the possibilities, creating a daisy-chain of command that could be transposed onto a multinational culinary business, the door swings open to reveal Demeter. In the pale of morning, she appears younger, unsettlingly vulnerable, the lines of her face gentled. Her curls fall in vine-tangled rivulets, eclipsing the hunched shoulders, the folded arms. As I study her, she drops her hands to her sides, revealing a mottling of fresh bruises, like newborn scales.

  I swallow. A memory of Minah unfurls: angles and spindles of bone, mouth pearled with gore, a history of hurt soaked into her skin.

  It isn’t my place to ask.

  “What happened to you?” The question comes anyway, pursued by ghosts.

  Demeter’s expression does not change, her eyes haunted, old as the soil. She slips from the door to seat herself on my bed, a leg crossed beneath her hips, hands latticed about the curve of a knee. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I… slept. I guess.” I’m not used to having an unfamiliar woman on my bed. I’m barely used to Minah’s absence, to the knowledge that I won’t find her in the kitchen, a song on her lips. I clear my throat, scoot back. “Can I help you with anything? You need someone beaten up?”

  Demeter doesn’t smile, arching forward to drape fingertips on my thigh. I wince. “Who was she?”

  “Minah.” Her name is a bright, sharp pain.

  Demeter’s expression flickers. A muscle in her cheek judders, stills. I pin my breath to the roof of my mouth, the stem of my spine broken into spasms. I fight the memories down: her smile, her hands; her walk, like music is running through her spine; the jut of her cheekbones and the sweep of her lashes; a gold-limned vision of Minah, bracing against the dawn, exultant, embers in that black river of hair. She laughed as I pulled her inside, beating out the flames. I have never seen anyone look so happy.

  The goddess retrieves her hand and curls her fingers around the crook of an elbow. It takes another moment before she raises her gaze, mouth pinched with rue. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t ever fucking do that again. Don’t you ever fucking dare. Don’t—don’t—” The words burst in fits and starts, and I choke on them as anger metastasizes into an infinitely more complicated emotion. “Don’t ever fucking do that again. Just. Don’t.”

  “I won’t.” No platitudes, no exaggerated contrition. And for a moment, I love her and the way she perches at the rim of my bed, silvered by the morning, like she has salvation to spare and all I have to do is reach out and ask.

  “So what are you doing here? Somehow, I don’t see you as the femme-fatale kind of goddess, seducing acolytes with a saucy wiggle of your hips.” My voice stays raw, a chain smoker’s husk.

  “Good eye.” A genuine smile, this time, inlaid with something cynical. “I wanted a chance to see what you are up close.”

  What. Not who. “You mean the tattoos.”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll behave.”

  Demeter says nothing, holds my stare for a moment or six, before she dips her head in acknowledgment. In a voice almost too soft to be heard, she says: “You’ll need them, I suppose.”

  “Anyway, you going to—wait. What did you just say?”

  She doesn’t reply, rising instead, silks trailing across brown skin, suddenly inaccessible as the Mother Mary. “Get ready. We leave in twenty minutes.”

  WE LEFT IN eight.

  Why? Because nothing is funnier than towing a Chinese man, hair foamy with shampoo, mouth frothing with toothpaste, out of the shower, I suppose. I’m crammed into a white shirt and black pants, both grease-streaked and reeking of burnt fat; tied into an apron that might have once been merely filthy, and then strapped into shoes that stink of someone else’s feet. After that, I’m hoisted into the back of a van and left to puzzle at my half-washed condition.

  A panel in the bulkhead slides open about ten minutes into our teeth-rattling journey, and Poseidon’s voice booms through the slit. “How are you doing?”

  I drill a finger into a still-soapy ear. “Probably worse than you.”

  He laughs gustily, and the world swerves into a hard right.I ram a shoulder into the wall and drag a hiss between my teeth, moments before I’m flung to the other side. Thump. This time, cranium connects with aluminum, and my vision sparks white. But the good thing about being a reformed criminal, a fairweather thug who occasionally still muscles for a living, is that this really isn’t that unfamiliar.

  Head spinning, I crawl up to the bulkhead and hook my hands through the opening, peer through the divide. To my surprise, Demeter’s driving, fingers barely grazing the wheel, a cigarette
between bared teeth. The window is open; as I watch, she leans out, slaps a hand against the door and screeches something in Greek.

  “Time of the month?” The van jolts to the right before she recovers, correcting our trajectory.

  I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

  Poseidon takes a long look over a shoulder and laughs again, teeth flashing white. “She doesn’t like yoking our son to the road.”

  “Son?” I run my eyes over the inside of the van. To all outward appearances, it is a vehicle, and nothing but a vehicle, so help me traffic department, empty except for a few taped-down boxes and a disgruntled Chinese man.

  “Areion.” Poseidon’s reply is almost off-hand, summoning a twitch in Demeter. Whatever’s going on, she disapproves of this, of him, of his nonchalance, his disinterest in their two-ton offspring.

  I think about the purple-black marks flowering on Demeter’s skin, the stories of the Grecian pantheon. I don’t ask; I don’t want to know. But even as I cozy myself with the delusion of indifference, the image continues to cycle, eventually blending with a memory of Minah.

  We don’t stop. Demeter’s a competent driver if a reckless one, taking corners like a stuntwoman. Cars beep, slam their brakes; Demeter slices between red buses, a knife through hot butter. I rack up more concussions, but we survive the trip. She parks and the two disembark before Poseidon releases me from my cage. I wobble out, jelly-kneed, squinting against the gray sun.

  “Here we are!” Poseidon announces, scooping an arm about my shoulders.

  I blink and take in the vista: another consortium of shophouses cobbled from brown brick, unattractive and dull (except, perhaps, for the graffiti spray-painted across one wall); a woman with a warning grin, not quite human, not quite nightmare. School children dart past, laughing, oblivious to the old man urinating in the corner, the piss forking and lacing across the pavement.

  “Where’s here, exactly?” I look away as the geriatric zips up and scratches his nuts.