Spellcrash (8 page)

“Hades,” boomed Zeus. “So good to see a brother looking so good. We don’t talk nearly often enough. My fault really. It’s always business, business, business here on Mount Olympus. You know how it is, right?” He winked. “Anyway, I want you to pop on up and have a drink or three with me. Athena has had certain things about the situation with Necessity and that Raven boy brought to her attention, things that I thought we really ought to discuss.”
Chaos and Discord!
Didn’t anyone have anything better to think about than me? I know I did.

“When can you get here?” said Zeus.

Hades nodded. “May I ask about your sources first? I’m kind of busy at the moment.” Athena looked sideways at Zeus. He nodded, and the goddess of wisdom reluctantly opened her hand, creating an image of Cerice in the space above it. Great, my ex was about to sell me out to the powers that be . . . again. I leaned forward then and began very gently smacking my forehead against the table.

“Does this get worse?” I asked Thalia. “Because if it does, I don’t want to know about it.”

“There’s still a tiny bit more that you need to see.”

“All right.” I sighed and sat up.

Melchior restarted the playback, which he had again paused while I was distracted.

“Oh my,” said Hades. “Yes, I think I’d better come through ASAP. Just give me a few minutes to clear my calendar.”

“Agreed,” said Zeus, and flickered out.

“Come see this,” said Hades.

Megaera came around to stare over Hades’ shoulder at the screen. She was followed a moment later by—

“What is
that
?” interjected Fenris.

“Spinnerette,” replied Thalia.

“Really?” asked the wolf.

I understood his confusion. This one took a very different form from the spider-centaurs Necessity had usually employed in the past. A twelve-foot scorpion with a woman’s upper body and head where its stinger should have been. The scorpion part of the creature was the exact shade of poison ivy.

The tail would have run about eight feet if it hadn’t ended in a woman. It was deep green for the first three feet, then slowly paled as it climbed the belly and breasts of the loosely human female form that tipped it. Her face and shoulders were an olive shade that wouldn’t have looked out of place in any city in Greece, and her hair was short and black.

Her arms mirrored her torso, shading steadily toward the intense poisonous green of the scorpion as your view moved downward. The backs of her hands had some of the same chitinous quality as the main scorpion body, and her middle fingers ended in wicked, hollow claws. Adding to her gruesome aspect were the sharp vampirelike fangs at the corners of her mouth. A feature that probably explained her inhuman accent.

“What is that you wanted to show us?” she asked as she slid in beside Megaera.

“This.” Hades tapped a button and quickly replayed the video call from Zeus.

When it hit the picture of Cerice, Megaera growled, “Damned fake Fury. She knows she’s not supposed to move on the Raven yet. We’re going to have words over this.” Megaera lashed out with one clawed hand as though she wanted to gut Cerice’s image. A hole opened in the wake of her claws, and she and the spinnerette stepped through into elsewhere, leaving Hades staring at the screen. Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, his dead eyes gave me the twitchies.

He rose from the desk then, gathering up a briefcase and some other items, before stepping out of range of the camera. Beyond his office window, the boy on the pier took two long steps and dove into the river Lethe.

The image on Melchior’s screen froze. The boy in the background of the picture hung in the air above the waters of forgetfulness, his arms out in the beginning of a swan dive. Seconds ticked past, with the boy coming no closer to the end of all memory. Then, as if nothing had happened, the video started forward again. With a great splash, he vanished from sight and self—an idea that had its appeal. Take a leisurely swim and a nice long drink of the Lethe, and you get to walk away from all of your problems forever.

Static ripped across the screen, closing off my window into Hades before the screen went black.

Persephone did not return. Nor did I expect her to; she’d made her message clear enough. I needed to stop Hades for my own sake as much as hers, and possibly Necessity’s as well.

“Will you do it?” asked Thalia.

I nodded. Persephone’s request clinched things though I’d almost certainly have gotten involved without it. If for no other reason than needing Necessity at least partially functional to get me back to Tisiphone.

An expression of profound relief spread across Thalia’s face. “Thank you. She’s got no brakes and all the tools she needs to tear the whole universe apart.”

“And I wouldn’t blame her for it in the least,” I answered. “If I were her, looking at that, I wouldn’t have called me. I’d have gone direct to the part where you hit the big red doomsday button.”

Thalia lifted her brow and tilted the corner of her mouth in a way that simultaneously suggested dawning understanding and continuing confusion.

“You know,” she said. “I might be wrong about that.”

“Wrong about what?” Melchior returned to goblin shape to speak.

“The part about her not having any brakes.”

“She nearly destroyed everything!” said Melchior.

“Oh, she didn’t have any then.” Thalia smiled. “But I think maybe she does now. She has one lone brake on her actions, a sort of personal angel that she trusts to make things right, and he’s standing right here.” She picked up her napkin and folded it into a pair of white wings, which she stuck lightly to my back before drawing a halo of golden light over my head.

“Me?” I shook the halo free, and it dissipated. “No one in their right mind would call me an angel of any kind. That’s crazy talk.”

“Not at all,” said Thalia. “Persephone was Hades’ prisoner and victim for thousands of years before you were even born. In all that time, the only members of the whole pantheon who ever did anything to get her out of that hell were her mother, Demeter, and, when Demeter forced him to it, Zeus. Even that was all only at the very beginning. Zeus cut the deal that got Persephone back to Demeter for nine months and left her with Hades for the other three. After that, all anyone did was say, ‘Oh, how sad,’ and go back to doing their own thing. Then along came Raven. Oh, I know you didn’t set out to help her, but you didn’t blame her for what her escape attempt did to you either.”

“How could I? She only did what she had to do and—” Thalia’s voice rode over mine.

“You got all the initial blame for her doomsday virus, and it nearly got you killed. Then, what did you do when you finally found out the truth? You, who had every right to hate Persephone for what she did to you? Why, you turned right around and went back to Hades, and there you offered up your life to save her from further torment.”

“I came out of it all right.” I really hated this kind of stuff; it made me sound a hell of a lot more noble than I actually am. “I lived.”

“Really?” Thalia opened her eyes wide, and wisps of chaos danced in the depths. “Don’t play games with your grandmother, young Raven. You died that day.” She conjured up a finger puppet of me and waved it around. “Or the original Ravirn did, at least. He ceased to exist, devoured utterly by the raw stuff of chaos, just like your cousin Moric.” She raised her finger and blew on it—the puppet dimmed and vanished in the manner of a blown-out birthday candle.

I looked away. I’d killed Moric, and even though I’d been forced to it, I still regretted it.

“The Raven that remade himself from that same substance may have a lot in common with the Ravirn that was. He may wear the same face, make the same sorts of jokes. Even keep the same company.” She glanced at Melchior. “But the eyes of humor look beyond the surface of things. I see you as you really are—a shape of chaos bound by will. I am not fooled by the mask you wear, the illusion of flesh.” Thalia leaned forward and pinched my cheek, hard. “And such a sweet illusion it is—a grandmother’s joy.”

“The hardware may have changed, but Ravirn’s operating system is pretty much the same,” said Melchior. “That’s what really counts. And this version is at least as unstable as the original.” Thalia laughed. “True enough, but is that more of a bug or a feature?”

“I’d call it a core system requirement,” said Melchior, slipping into a Groucho Marx accent.

“The boy’s design specs ain’t right, if you know what I mean.” I laughed along with the rest of them, though perhaps more ruefully.

As it all too often did, midnight found me staring at the ceiling. Melchior snoozed away beside the bed in laptop shape, underlining my sleeplessness with his calm. Some of my insomnia comes from the nature of the Raven. The chaos light that lives in my eyes and the way that raw magic rejuvenates me make sleep both harder and less important for me. But I had stronger reasons for insomnia this time.

Tomorrow morning, I would have to step fully back into the madness of life among the Greek gods. I would have to begin to deal with the problems of Necessity and Hades and whatever Cerice was up to with Zeus. Waking would plunge me into the maelstrom. And, though it was utterly irrational, a part of me felt that not going to sleep meant not having to wake up, and that not waking up meant the morning would never come—that by putting off sleep, I might put off everything that would come with tomorrow.

It was a ridiculous conceit, and yet I found myself slipping from bed for perhaps the dozenth time since I’d retired after Thalia’s departure. This time, after pulling on a loose silk robe, I wandered over to the huge walk-in closet that Raven House had supplied me. When I’d first arrived, the closet had mostly been filled with clothes in the black and green I favored, but one corner held a small stock of Cerice’s red and gold. Over the course of our relationship, the balance between our clothes had waxed and waned due to both our efforts and some sort of ongoing magical adjustment mechanism on the part of the house.

Now, though our fire had long since gone out, there remained one spot of red and gold, one item that neither my forebrain nor my hindbrain had ever felt ready to cast aside irrevocably: a gown.

I took it from the rack then and carried it out into the bedroom, laying it across the blankets. A full-length brocade dress, it was both elaborate and gorgeous. Though I had never admitted it to Cerice, this dress produced by my subconscious was a near duplicate of the one my sister Lyra had worn for her wedding, different only in the colors of the fabric.

When Cerice dumped me, I’d sent most of the clothes she left behind on to her apartments on Clotho’s estates. But somehow, I hadn’t been able to part with the dress. It might have gone later—once Tisiphone and I had become lovers—if clothes had held any meaning for my fiery Fury. But, of course, the Sisters of Vengeance have no interest in, or need for, clothing. Which, considering the latest turn of events, meant it was probably well and truly time I got rid of the dress.

Instead, I found myself idly smoothing the fabric of the skirt and aching both for Tisiphone and for what Cerice and I might have grown into in other circumstances.

What did it say about me? My entanglement with the Furies? This romance with danger made flesh? The first great love of my life had left me for Order and now had gone on to become one with Vengeance. The same Vengeance that had once worn the shape of the woman I loved now.

Was it the risk that I truly loved and not the woman? The conflict? Walking a razor’s edge between love and death?

I had no answers. Sighing, I lifted the dress from the covers and turned to replace it in my closet, a reminder of another time.

“It was a beautiful gown.” The voice barely lifted above a whisper, but I instantly recognized Cerice.

It came from the vicinity of the lanai overlooking the bay. Though I couldn’t see anyone there, I set the dress back down and folded my arms, waiting.

“It still is,” I replied, when she did not speak again. “A beautiful gown for a beautiful woman.” Cerice finally faded into view, dropping the magical chameleon effect of a hunting Fury. She had one hip leaned on the rail, and her wings stretched wide behind her as if to sift the night wind.

She looked as though she’d only just alighted or, more likely, that she wanted me to believe she had. Her skin, always pale, looked even more so with the icy curtain of her wings and hair as a backdrop. Her expression held a cold sort of regret—an awareness of loss untouched by sadness.

“Was,”
she said, her voice still quiet. “That dress is as much a part of the past as any yesterday that has slipped forever beyond the reach of today.”

“Are you coming in? Or do you have to have an invite before you cross my threshold?” I’d intended it as a joke, but my words came out bitter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that as it sounded.

Please, come in.”

“Apology accepted, and your invitation as well.”

Cerice folded her wings and stepped through the door. It made for a strange sort of déjà vu, her entering the bedroom we’d once shared in a manner that echoed Tisiphone’s usual mode of arrival in that same place. I glanced at the table where Melchior still lay, deep in electric dreams.