I’m better at it than most of my demihuman peers because I generally dislike and distrust the pantheon’s heavyweights, and the feeling is decidedly mutual, but Persephone was a special case for me. How special I hadn’t realized until that very instant. I would have to watch out for it in the future, make sure that anything I did for her I did for my own reasons.
Minutes passed, and my impulse to fall asleep right now faded into a more mundane and manageable sort of postinjury weariness. I pushed myself back into a sitting position and rearranged the pillows before turning my attention to Melchior.
“I’ve got a couple of questions for you. Like, how did you all manage to show up in time to keep me from finalizing my last big mistake?”
Mel hopped up onto the foot of the bed. “When we ducked through the gate you’d cut back to home and didn’t find you at the other end, I knew something must have gone wrong, so I put in a call to Shara. She sent Cerice to us, and Cerice did some Fury-tracking magic to follow you back. Oh, and Cerice also asked me to give you a warning.”
I raised an eyebrow. Even that took more work than usual. I might not want sleep, but I needed it. I could feel it in the ache behind my eyeballs and the tingling misfires of nerves all over my body. Though Persephone’s care and my brief time as a wave in the sea of chaos had repaired most of the accumulated damage of the past few days, I still felt very much as though I had been left too long in the spin cycle of life.
“So what does her royal uptightness think I did wrong this time?” I asked.
“You forgot to close up the gate you cut.” He held up a quelling hand before I could argue. “I know Megaera prevented you, but the end result is the same—an unclosed Fury gate.”
“Which means?” Gods but I was tired.
“Ultimately a big explosion. The gates open from one point in the multiverse to another via something like a least-time path through chaos. Apparently that takes a lot of energy. The longer they’re open, the bigger the energy cost, because the multiverse is always moving. The movement sort of stretches the connection between the two points and keeps stretching it farther and farther with each passing second until it reaches an unsustainable point. Then it snaps, and a bunch of the energy gets whiplashed out through the gates.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Think Tunguska. Cerice says that was Tisiphone.”
“Hmm, that might have possibilities someday. I’ll have to file it for later thought, after I sleep. One more question, then you’re off the hook: What happened with the fight after my lights went out? Did we win?” I probably should have asked that first, but my brain felt like a badly fragmented hard drive.
“It was pretty much a wash,” replied Melchior. “Megaera and that giant disco-ball thing weighed in about even with Cerice and Alecto, though that spinnerette was a whole hell of a lot nastier than the usual kind. I think it might have managed to take Fenris down if Megaera and company hadn’t decided to call the whole thing off.”
“Call it off?”
“I’m not sure about all the details,” said Melchior. “I was too busy taking care of removing your fat, unconscious butt from the field of battle to pay much attention, and Fenris’s explanation of what happened didn’t entirely make sense. He claimed the disco ball ordered Delé and Megaera to bug out via some sort of supersecret whisper that only he and the spinnerette could hear.”
“Huh. Interesting that he hears it, too. Speaking of which, where is Fenris?”
“I sent him back to Raven House and asked him to keep an eye on things there. I figured that until he’s really gotten himself grounded here, he’s better off keeping a low profile, and that means no visits to Olympus.”
“Good thinking, Mel.”
“My turn for a question. What’s up with the disco ball?”
“As far as I can tell, Megaera believes that thing embodies the important bits of Necessity and that only the spinnerette can translate for it.”
Melchior whistled. “Really? That’s hard to buy, even after seeing the feed from Hades’ office. I have a hard time picturing Necessity as a disco ball. A wrecking ball, on the other hand . . .”
The faintest whisper of sound, like a laugh but with undertones of breaking glass, made me look beyond Melchior to the garden. It appeared empty, but after hearing that laugh I knew better. Someone was there, and she wanted me to know about it. That explained some of the nerve jangles I’d been getting, too—they weren’t misfires at all. It was my ghost feathers trying to let me know something was up.
“Eris?” I said. “Do you want to come out where we can see you, or would you prefer to lurk?”
The laugh came again, this time louder. A breeze ruffled the leaves of the nearer trees. One in particular, an apple heavy with fruit, danced more than its fellows. There, among the more mundane red-kissed yellows hung one fruit that glinted golden and wore black where the others showed crimson.
As I watched, it dropped from the tree and rolled across the low grass toward the bed. When it got a few feet away, it lifted into the air, rising to the height of a tall man. It hung there for a long moment before suddenly losing a divot to the crisp sound of a bite being taken. This was followed by chewing while a set of perfect white teeth in a glistening skull slowly faded into existence. I watched through the gaps as the skull made quick work of that first bite.
Came the swallow, and the apple slid down an invisible gullet while the spine behind appeared a vertebra at a time as it passed. A second bite brought a skeletal hand and arm into view, holding the apple. This time the swallow brought collarbones and ribs. By the time the apple was chewed down to the core, a complete skeleton stood beside my bed. When the skeleton bit off the bottom half of the core, it acquired flesh and hair, recognizably becoming the Goddess of Discord.
She paused then, naked and incredibly desirable, waiting for my eyes to track up to meet the chaos in her own before speaking. “Like what you see?” She popped the rest of the apple core into her mouth, chewing slowly and languidly. “Too bad.”
She swallowed, and clothes appeared to cover her form—a conservatively cut black-and-gold skirt-suit. It was just a tiny fraction of a percent too tight, practically screaming sexy librarian, as did her narrow black-rimmed glasses with their faintly gold-tinted lenses.
“So, what do I get if I happen to keep a book out past its return date?” I asked with an eyebrow waggle.
Melchior, who was still sitting on the end of the bed, buried his face in his hands.
Eris licked her lips and looked mock-eager. “I’ve always been a big fan of red-hot pincers, though there’s a lot to be said for the rack. But that’s nothing to what we do to you if you drop one in the bath.”
“Is it even possible for you to arrive someplace without making a major production of your entrance?” I asked. “Or for you not to draw attention to yourself?”
Without answering, Eris sat down on a very nice folding chair that appeared in the instant before her butt reached it. She made a show of crossing her legs that had me mentally reciting “virgin goddess, no touchy, touchy equal death, virgin goddess, no touchy, touchy equal death, virgin goddess, etc.” She does it just to aggravate me. Well, me and everybody else, aggravation being her stock-in-trade.
“Of course,” she finally said, after I’d almost forgotten the question. “I arrived here while you were still sleeping and remained as quiet as the dead all through your lovely little chat with her royal springieness, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“Oh yes, and I must say that at least one of the things our lady of bright flowers and perpetual sunshine had to say gave me a nearly irresistible idea. I’d have actually announced myself sooner, but I got caught up in trying to talk myself out of taking advantage of the best opportunity I’ve had for mischief in centuries.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Did you succeed?”
“Not yet. It’s sooo tempting.”
“Care to share?
” I asked.
“Why not. I’m thinking that I really ought to murder you and leave this”—she snapped her fingers, and Athena’s spear appeared in her hand—“sticking out of your corpse.” She grinned and winked before placing the tip of the spear against the hollow of my throat. “I mean, think about it. I could eliminate the best chance Necessity has for ever getting back on her feet while simultaneously bringing utter disorder down on Olympus with one tiny twist of my wrist. It’s very nearly a perfect plan, don’t you think?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I’ve had my life threatened by the best of them—Hades, the Furies, Odin. The list is endless, really. But this time the feeling of a knife at my throat was different. It came from someone I considered one of my best friends in the pantheon, and it came as a complete surprise. Usually, I’ve earned my threats. Even when I haven’t, I’ve generally got reasons for expecting trouble from the person who’s making it for me.
Not this time. I was simply too shocked to think. I just stared at the spear and couldn’t come up with a single coherent response. No smart-ass remarks. No sudden clever-escape ideas. No pleading or bargaining. Nada. A glance at Melchior’s dumbfounded expression suggested he was also fresh out of clever.
“Well . . .” prompted Eris. “Aren’t you going to try to talk me out of this?”
“I’ve got nothing.” I spread my hands in the air palms up. “I can’t think of a single reason for you not to kill me. Well, not from your point of view as the Goddess of Discord at least. Call it a golden-apple opportunity. With the exception of any personal regrets you might have about killing me, there’s really no good reason for you not to shove that thing home.”
Something happened then that I thought I would never in a million years see. Eris’s shoulders began to shake very gently, as though she were crying. Her hands on the spear were rock steady, her expression didn’t change, and no tears actually fell from the chaos of her eyes, but there was no question she was crying.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, and her voice had the harsh staccato rhythm of someone speaking through tears though her eyes remained dry. “Why do you ask?”
“I—” And there I stopped. Maybe it was the hypnotic fascination a snake holds for the bird it has cornered. Maybe it was pure curiosity. Maybe it was pity for the friend who was trapped inside the pole power of chaos. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t bear to point out her dry tears. We sat in silence for the longest time as Melchior glanced back and forth between us, apparently afraid to make any bolder moves.
“You’re completely blowing your lines,” Eris said after a while, her voice harsh. “You know that, right?”
“What am I supposed to say? Killing me and framing Athena really does make beautiful sense from Discord’s point of view. It would sow confusion and stress like almost nothing else at this point.”
“You’re supposed to talk me out of it,” she said. “Or better yet, blackmail or bribe your way free.” The shaking of her shoulders grew more pronounced, and there were tiny gasps interspersed with her words, but her expression remained unchanged. “What kind of selfrespecting Trickster are you?”
“At the moment, the very tired kind. I really don’t want you to kill me for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is how much I think Eris might regret it in years to come. But none of those is a good argument to make to Discord.” I found myself smiling. “I’d be open to suggestions. Remember, I’m a very junior power of chaos and new to this whole Trickster gig. If you want to play mentor and show me the error of my ways, I’d be happy to learn from the real master.”
“You could at least try to convince me that any multiverse with you in it is going to be more chaotic over the long run than one where I’ve killed you off. I don’t know that it’s true, but it would be hard to disprove.”
“I could, but I’d be lying,” I said. “I don’t intend to stay in this MythOS. As soon as I get Necessity on her feet, I’m out of here and off to make trouble for Odin.”
“Boss!” said Melchior. “Can’t you see she’s trying to talk herself out of it? Help her out here.”
Eris’s broken-glass laugh sounded, though her shoulders never stopped shaking. “The sidekick is far smarter than the hero, Master Raven. Listen to him . . . and don’t make me do this.”
“Do which?” I asked. “Kill me? Or not kill me?”
“Choose,” she said, and now the shaking spread to the rest of her body so that the spear rocked painfully against my skin. “Don’t make me choose between Eris and Discord. It will break me.”
And so I did something that would have been insane under any other circumstances. I attacked Eris. Flicking the raw place in my heart—the place where my own Fury now dwelled eternal—I used the resulting anger to summon my sword. It should have been suicide. Eris is three times faster than I am at my best. In my present state, the disparity was probably double that, and yet I was able to knock the spear aside in the very moment Eris started her thrust, sending its head deep into my pillows rather than my flesh.
But I knew that Eris needed more from me. So I shouted for Persephone at the top of my lungs and yelled for help again and again, knowing that in summoning my protector, I would give Discord an excuse to flee.
Later—much later—after I’d talked Persephone out of starting a war with Discord on my behalf, I finally drifted off to sleep.
But not for long.
“I just want to wish our boy well, Persephone. Speedy healing and all that. Surely you can’t object to good wishes.”
The cheery, booming voice shattered my dreams and drew me back to the waking world—no one sleeps through the approach of the storm god. If his sheer volume weren’t enough to wake me, the way the hairs on my arms and legs rose in response to the wild electrical potential of his presence would have provided a more-than-adequate alarm clock.
“When they disturb his rest, I can and I do,” said Persephone, her voice acid. “Don’t think I can’t see straight through this whole good-god bad-god act you and Athena put on.”
Zeus’s laugh cracked like thunder, and I warily opened my eyes. My little garden bower held only my bed and the small side table where Melchior lay sleeping in laptop shape, but the approaching sounds of argument told me that the storm had arrived to end my calm, and I thought I knew why. Shara’s change in my status had made a much bigger target of me in the same moment it had granted me unprecedented power. I readjusted my pillows and glanced at Mel. His sleep light winked back at me, and I knew he would be paying attention while trying not to draw attention to himself.
“I like that. Good one.” Zeus laughed again. “Good-god bad-god, indeed. I think that even Athena might laugh at that.”
“Not unless there was an advantage to be had in doing so,” Persephone growled. “She’s just like you that way.”
“Oh, Persephone, you wound me.” Then Zeus burst into the clearing below my bed in all of his hail-fellow-well-met glory and rolled straight toward me. “There’s my lad! And bright-eyed already. I told you I wouldn’t wake him, Persephone.”
Zeus is a bronze god, quite literally—seven feet tall and built like a bodybuilder, with skin that looks so like fresh-polished bronze that you half expect him to clank when something touches him. His thick curly hair and beard gleam like new-drawn gold wire, and lightning dances between the tips of his hairs when he laughs, which is nearly constantly—mostly at his own jokes. His teeth gleam like white marble, and his eyes are as blue as a freshly cleaned tropical swimming pool and just as empty.
If you didn’t know better, and for years I hadn’t, you’d think that he was nothing more than a pretty figurehead—a sort of vacant spokesmodel for Olympus Inc. Every bit of it is a lie, from the carefully crafted picture of physical perfection and mental missing-in-action to the party-boy jokes and demeanor. He’s a sneaky old bastard and tougher than Medusa’s hairdresser.
Persephone caught my eye. “I can throw him out
now that he’s seen you, if that’s what you want.” She sounded hopeful.
I shook my head the tiniest fraction. Tired as I was, I still didn’t want to put her in that situation. Zeus was technically her liege lord and not nearly so willing to pretend to be reasonable as Athena was.
“There’s my boy,” said Zeus as he came to rest beside my bed. “Is there anything I can get you to make your convalescence more pleasant? Food?” He didn’t move or make any visible show of exerting his powers as the lord of creation, but a tray appeared over my lap holding what looked like a bacon, bacon, cheese, and bacon omelet along with sides of bacon, sausage, crispy hash browns, and thick slabs of bread dripping with butter.
“Thanks, but I kind of like my arteries.”
“How about twenty-four-hour TLC?” he asked.
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