Antigoddess

by Kendare Blake

  “She’s showing us what she can do. Showing us she’s on her way. And she’s not one bit frightened.”

  Comforting words rose up in her mouth, but she swallowed them down. They were lies. He would’ve seen right through them, anyway. The images on the screen were screams in Hera’s voice. She had nothing to fear. She could run at them brazenly, without armor or subterfuge. She was stronger. She would win.

  “I don’t want to split up.” Athena looked down at the bedspread, mauve splashed through with green and gold. “I don’t think you’d be any safer if we did. But I’ll do everything I can to keep them off you.”

  “Who’s going to keep them off you?” His hand slid across the blanket and covered hers. “I didn’t want to say anything. I guess I’ve had a case of, what you call it, denial. But there’s no time for that anymore. Athena—” She felt the mattress shift as he moved closer. “You’re strong. Stronger than Hermes and stronger than Apollo, but—”

  “But not stronger than her.” She kept her eyes low. It wounded her pride that he had said it, and that it was true.

  “When Apollo bashed your head in, I thought—” He shook his head. “But this is Hera, pissed off beyond reason and desperate. She’s not playing around. That stone fist—”

  “Will go through my face and come out the back. I know. But what else am I supposed to do?” She looked up, into his eyes, watching him search for an answer to that question, frantically scrambling through his clever brain for any possible alternatives. It made her smile.

  “I can’t let you. I can’t let you go without knowing.”

  “Odysseus.” Please don’t. Don’t make it any harder. We were never meant to have this, anyway.

  “Athena!”

  The door burst open and clattered against the wall before it wobbled and fell onto the carpet. Hermes had taken it clear off of its hinges.

  “What? What is it?” Athena asked, rising.

  “They’re gone. All of them.”

  “Gone? What do you mean ‘gone’?” Odysseus asked, but Athena wasn’t listening.

  Apollo, you softhearted idiot, what have you done? Where have you taken them?

  In the background, the news from Philadelphia blared from the TV. All of that movement to their south. It felt almost like a wall. Like they were being herded. Again it crossed Athena’s mind that the blasts in Philadelphia had been a diversion. Now she wondered just how many purposes it served.

  * * *

  “So, do you think they’re freaking out yet?” Henry asked from the backseat.

  “Who? Our parents?” Andie shifted against the leather seat next to him.

  “Yeah. Do you think they’re looking for us?”

  “Why would they look for us when we left a note telling them where we were going? I think they’re on the phone with each other. Plotting our punishment.” She smiled. “It won’t be until after we should’ve been home that they’ll really start to worry.” Her smile faded.

  Aidan slid his hand across the seat and took Cassandra’s. She laced her fingers through his, and he pulled her palm up and kissed it. He was grateful for the touch; it was written all over his face. I should tell him that it’s all right. That I forgive him. That the past feels less and less important.

  Only it wasn’t true. Not yet. The past felt less important, but it was still there.

  “We’re going to have to stop for gas soon.” Aidan glanced at the fuel gauge. “Maybe get something to eat.”

  “Gas already?” Andie nudged Henry in the shoulder. “You might think of investing in a car with better fuel economy.”

  “When I bought it, I didn’t think it’d have to go on a cross-country chase.” He shoved her back.

  After a few disagreements and slight changes in direction, they had decided on southwest, toward Pennsylvania. Aidan had suggested catching a flight somewhere, but no one seemed to know where they should go, and no one was certain that Hera and Poseidon couldn’t just rip the plane out of the air anyway.

  Cassandra yawned. Her eyelids felt thick and weighted.

  “It’ll be a little while yet,” Aidan said. “You’ve got time for a nap.” She let go of his hand, and her head fell against the headrest.

  When she woke, they were stopped and she was alone in the car. Turning, she saw Andie and Henry, leaned up against the door, watching the gas pump as the gallons tried desperately to keep up with the dollars.

  Andie reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

  “It’s my mom.” The first call. “I’m shutting it off. I can’t— I don’t want to listen to her messages. I’d want to call her back too bad.” She stuffed it back into her pocket. After a second, Henry pulled his out and shut it off too. He sighed.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to let Aidan choke you out?”

  Andie laughed. “What for? You want me to be in love with you?”

  “No.” Henry snorted and shuffled his feet. “It just might be nice to feel like we knew what we were doing. Like maybe we’d know how to fight or something. Besides, it can’t be all that weird. Cassandra’s still Cassandra.”

  Andie shrugged. “I guess so. But I don’t see what good it’d do. So you’d know how to use a sword. And I might know how to shoot an arrow or something. Big deal. The flipping Mustang’s a more useful weapon. Besides, you’d also remember what it was like to die with a spear in your chest. Doesn’t sound like fun.”

  “It might give us a better chance.” The fuel nozzle clicked off, and Henry pulled it out and put the gas cap back on.

  “I’m just not doing it. I—” She exhaled. “I’d rather die as me.”

  “You’re not going to die, Andie.”

  “Look at us, Henry. Look at what we’re doing. None of us knows what’s going to happen. Not even Cassandra, and she’s frickin’ psychic.”

  Cassandra opened the car door and stepped out. The day was bright and cold. The parking lot of the travel plaza they’d stopped at was already busy, filled with the sounds of idling engines and the scents of oil and gasoline. She stretched her back and legs and cracked her neck.

  “Look who’s up. Want to go in and grab something to eat? Aidan’s in there already, but he never knows what to get you.” Andie gestured behind them, toward the Sunoco convenience store.

  “Sure.” Cassandra smiled. “You coming, Henry?”

  “I’ll stay with the car. Can you grab me a Chuckwagon sandwich?”

  They walked through the aisles of motor oil and cold medicine, toward the cold cases in the back. Andie craned her neck toward the hot chocolate and cappuccino machines. It felt too early for soda, but they stocked up anyway, grabbing bottles of Mountain Dew and Diet Coke. Aidan walked up holding both a Grape and an Orange Crush. Cassandra could never decide which she wanted.

  “I’ve got a couple of breakfast burritos in the microwave. We should really eat on the road.”

  Cassandra nodded, even though the thought of getting back into the car so soon made her want to scream and kick her feet. She’d better get used to it. They had days and days of car ahead of them. Who knew how far they’d have to run before they felt safe enough to get a motel room? Who knew how far they’d have to go before Aidan felt safe enough to sleep?

  There was a short line for the cash register, and it took extra time as the guy in front of them wanted to cash in scratch-off lottery tickets and buy several more of each different type. Cassandra took the opportunity to stretch and flex her legs as much as she could. She wouldn’t even have noticed the footage playing on the TV mounted in the corner had the clerk not taken it off mute and turned up the volume.

  At first she thought it was a rebroadcast of the Chicago explosion. The piles of debris and clouds of dust looked so similar. But this structure was more twisted; there was more iron to it, and the destruction hadn’t been as complete. The frame of half of one of the buildings was still visible, charred and jagged. And the “live” tag blinked in the corner of the screen.

  “My g
od,” she heard someone say. The camera panned over fire trucks and ambulances, flashing red and yellow lights everywhere. People were panicked and crying. On the periphery of every camera angle there was blood: someone walking with gauze pressed to their head, paramedics running past with stretchers.

  “Where is that?” asked Aidan, and the guy with the lottery tickets said, “Somewhere in Philadelphia.”

  Philadelphia. The same way they’d been heading.

  Aidan threw two twenties down on the counter and nudged Cassandra and Andie toward the door. “It’s more than enough for what we got,” he said when Andie looked worried. She needn’t have bothered. No one even looked their way when the bell dinged to announce their exit.

  Andie jogged ahead with Henry’s Mountain Dew and Chuckwagon.

  “It was them, wasn’t it,” Cassandra said.

  “I think so.”

  “Of course it was. It was just like Chicago.” She clenched her fists, felt heat behind her eyes. “How many people do you think died this time? Were they people who knew, like the witches, or were they just regular people?”

  “It doesn’t matter if they knew or not. She killed them.” Aidan’s face was a mix of blank and terror. “She’s insane.”

  Cold fear clamped around Cassandra’s heart. If Hera found them, they wouldn’t have a chance.

  Walking back to the Mustang, her feet felt like lead. She couldn’t hear anything. The images of smoke and blood took over her senses. She didn’t see the figure shuffling toward her until he was close enough to touch. Close enough to smell.

  He stank of urine and something faintly medicinal. He wore the clothes of a vagabond, stained and torn, just a green sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. The sides of his Velcro tennis shoes had burst. He giggled and pointed at her. Stringy brown hair trailed along his hollow cheekbones, and underneath the shock she felt sadness. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

  “She’ll have you.” His grin stretched, showing every black-stained tooth in his mouth. “She’ll have you now.”

  “What?” Cassandra asked. “Are you all right?”

  The man’s eyes widened, stretching impossibly until it seemed that his lids had retracted into his skull. His hazel green eyes trembled and skittered wildly back and forth—until all at once, they were blue.

  Aidan grabbed Cassandra and pulled her behind him.

  “What?”

  “I know those eyes. Even half mad and sick with disease, I would know them anywhere. Aphrodite.”

  Cassandra looked toward the car. Andie and Henry stood behind the wide open door, their faces scared and confused. She tried to drag Aidan away, but he wouldn’t budge. He grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him around the side of the Sunoco station. Cassandra hesitated, then followed. She rounded the corner just in time to see the man’s body buckle at Aidan’s feet.

  “No,” she breathed. He took her by the arm.

  “Walk, don’t run.”

  “Where are we going to go now?” Cassandra asked, just before the vision struck.

  It sent her to her knees. Pressure squeezed down hard on her arms, hard enough to crack the bones. The world went by in flashes, whipping from right to left. She saw trees, a flash of blue sky. Ice-blue eyes beneath a crown of dark gold hair. Hera laughed as she wrenched her back and forth and lifted her up high. The sky whipped past, like leaning her head back on a playground swing. Panic took hold and her fists connected, digging into Hera’s strange surface, soft and hard, warm flesh dotted through with granite. And then the ground rushed back. She felt her head strike pavement and heard something crack. After that, everything went dark.

  “Cassandra.” Aidan shook her gently. They had to move; people had seen her fall from inside the gas station and were starting to come out to help. The clerk was on the phone.

  She gripped his arms and let him pull her up. Her head felt heavy. It seemed like she could feel the blood sloshing around inside it.

  “We’re okay,” he called to the people coming toward them. “She’s okay. She just slipped.”

  “Aidan. I saw.”

  “What? What did you see?” He watched in horror as blood began to drip from her nose.

  “I saw Hera. I saw her kill me.”

  He scooped her up and ran to the Mustang. “No. Everything’s going to be fine. She’s not going to touch you.” He shouted at Andie and Henry to get in the car, and put Cassandra gently into the passenger seat. The tires squealed as he pulled out onto the on-ramp.

  “What? What’s happening?” Andie gripped the back of Cassandra’s seat.

  “They found us. So easily. They’re stronger than I am. Stronger than Athena is.” Aidan mumbled. He drove too fast; the Mustang surged forward. “I don’t understand it.”

  “You’re babbling. Cassandra, he’s babbling.” That seemed to scare Andie worse than anything, but Cassandra couldn’t reply. She was numb. Shocked and outside of herself. When Andie put a tissue to her nose and held it there to catch the bleeding, she barely noticed. She’d seen herself die. She’d felt it.

  “I should’ve been faster. Smarter. You won’t die. I swear that you won’t.” He reached over and touched her, twisted his fingers into hers. “I won’t let her touch you. Don’t be scared. Please, believe me.”

  I want to. But my visions are never wrong. And now I’ve seen it. So now it will be.

  Everyone in the car was silent and bleach white with fear. Aidan watched the passing road signs and gritted his teeth, then took the next exit ramp hard and turned around, back to Kincade.

  “Athena … it was a mistake to leave you.”

  * * *

  They were going to need a car. That was certain. Hermes would have to steal them one. But a car didn’t solve the problem of deciding which direction to drive in. The world had become so busy and vast. Even a god could get lost in it.

  “Maybe they headed for the Canadian border,” Odysseus suggested.

  “That’s no better than a guess,” said Hermes. “He’s evading Hera, not the Feds.” They were starting to snipe at each other, pacing in their cages. Only Athena stood quietly, leaning up against the wall.

  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t zero in on Apollo. He wasn’t even a blip on her radar. Of course, eventually her radar would light up like a circuit board. As soon as Hera and Poseidon found them, their combined presence would be a flashbulb behind her eyes. And then it would be too late. Hera would render Apollo into pieces. She’d kill Andromache and Hector, and take Cassandra, while the bits of Apollo screamed impotently in her wake, dragging themselves along the ground.

  And if I face her, she’ll really kill me.

  Athena snorted bitterly. How she’d loved to watch her heroes fly into battle to meet the end of a spear or a sword. The glory and valor was breathtaking. She’d never figured on doing it herself.

  She looked at Odysseus, his eyes bright and alive, and let her gaze wander over his features, down his shoulders and chest. These were the last few moments of quiet. Soon, they would make a decision and begin moving forward toward their end.

  I’ll die protecting him. There are plenty of worse ways to go than that.

  Then she heard it, a whisper in her ear. It carried with it the scent of dust and a blast of dry, dry heat.

  “You must go, and soon, child. He’s coming back to you and bringing all of them along besides.”

  “Demeter.”

  Odysseus and Hermes stopped talking. They couldn’t hear Demeter’s voice. To them, the room was empty. Hermes started to ask what Athena meant, but she held up her hand.

  Miles of highway passed by behind her vacant eyes. It was a road she knew would lead them straight to Apollo, with Hera still just following after, if they were lucky.

  “He’s on the freeway. He’s forsaken stealth for speed. But he won’t stay there. He’s going to turn off and—” Athena stopped, and swallowed. “Thank you, Aunt.”

  “We are more monsters than gods now,” Demeter whisp
ered. “But some are worse than others.”

  For a second, Athena thought she felt a soft, dry brushing against her shoulder, like leathery fingertips. And then Demeter was gone. Athena’s eyes flashed back to the present.

  “I know where they are. He’s on the road, and he’s making a wrong turn.”

  * * *

  “Not that I doubt a god’s ability to drive,” Henry said from the backseat, “but shouldn’t you look ahead of you, at least once every few miles?”

  Aidan cleared his throat and mumbled an apology, then went back to staring into the rearview mirror. Cassandra knew why. He was waiting for the sky to go black behind them, waiting for a ball of fire, or a flash of lightning, or whatever-the-hell entrance Hera would decide to make when she burned up their trail.

  Aidan glanced at the fuel gauge and struck the steering wheel with his palm.

  “This thing gets shit for gas mileage, Henry.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me. Why didn’t you take another car, then? And why don’t you have one of your own? Super rich, undying god guy?”

  Andie heaved herself toward the front seat. “Stop bickering!” She put her hand on Cassandra’s shoulder.

  “He could’ve bought us twelve Priuses if he was worried about fuel economy, is all I’m saying.”

  “Shut up, Henry!” She gestured toward an exit sign. “Just get off the freeway. The back roads are secluded. We can slow down and save gas and still have cover. We can’t stay on the interstate much longer anyway without risking a high-speed police chase.”

  Cassandra sat quietly in the passenger seat, holding an open bottle of Orange Crush. Andie had finally gotten her to drink a little of it, though she’d refused anything to eat. She glanced up through the windshield. The sky was so incredibly blue and Aidan was driving so fast. But it wouldn’t matter. Her death waited for her beneath blue skies and pines. On a day just like today.

  “Aidan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If this doesn’t work, will you promise to protect them?” She touched Andie’s hand, still on her shoulder. “I mean it. Will you get them somewhere safe, even if I’m dead?”