Ungodly: A Novel (The Goddess War) (13 page)

“So, the Derbys. Are they really your family? Or just mortals you befriended and bewitched with roasted chicken?”

“They really are,” Hephaestus said. “Or at least, they’re my descendants. The first Alexander Derby II was my biological son. I’ve lived a whole saga here. Heartbreak and triumph. Wars fought and won. Generations of family.” He frowned. “And then this.” He held up his twisted and curled hand. “Now my real family comes knocking.”

“Athena was here,” Hermes said. “At the end of this past summer. Briefly.”

“I know. I felt her, luckily, before she felt me.”

“So far before?” Hermes asked. “No offense, but, steel robot legs or not, you don’t look like you can make a speedy getaway.”

“My body is twistier, that’s for certain,” Hephaestus replied. “But the limp is nothing new, and I’ve learned the need for escape plans. There are ways out of here, my friend, that you can’t even imagine. Be careful what doors you go through.”

“Sounds ominous,” Hermes said, and stuffed another bite of chicken into his mouth.

“So it does. But it’s a necessity.”

“I didn’t want to find you this way,” Hermes said. “I imagined you in a suit not so different from the one you’re wearing now. But there were no crutches, or braces. I thought … I hoped, that maybe you had a bigger cane. Maybe one of those canes with four feet at the bottom.”

“And I hoped you’d somehow been able to outrun the whole mess.” Hephaestus chuckled. “But here we are. And here it is.”

Here it is. And damn it, how I hate to ruin such a nice lunch.

“You’ve heard about the war, haven’t you,” Hermes said quietly. “And you’ve heard about your mother.”

Hephaestus looked down, and picked up his wine.

“Yes,” he said. “Hera has fallen. Shall we pour a libation for her out on the floor?” He shook his head. “I heard.”

“She didn’t try to contact you? Didn’t try to get you to come over to her side?”

“She didn’t. And I would have said no, anyway. Dying gods tearing each other’s throats out just to be the last gods standing. Even if you win, what kind of survival is that? What kind of victory? It’s vulgar. No, when Mother needed help, she didn’t turn to me. She went to her favorite son, like she always does. Like my own damned wife does, for that matter.”

Ares and Aphrodite. They always enjoyed humiliating you.

“I thought you gave Aphrodite back,” Hermes said.

“Zeus wouldn’t take back the bride-price. He said I was stuck with her.”

Hermes laughed. Nothing remained on any of the platters except chicken bones and a few sprigs of asparagus. Both bottles of wine were dry. And he needed to get back to Andie and Henry. He’d been gone too long already.

“I’m in the war, Hephaestus. I need your help. That’s why I came.”

“I just told you. I don’t want to be involved.”

“I know. And I wish I didn’t have to beg.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and stared into his empty plate. “I don’t want to die.”

Hephaestus sat quietly for a long time. Then he set his wineglass down with a clink.

“What do you think I can do for you?”

“I need you to forge us a shield for Hector of Troy.”

12

THE KIDNAPPING OF PERSEPHONE, REDUX

The knife in Ares’ hand shone dull silver. Athena tensed. He’d gotten the drop on her, but if he thought he and Aphrodite would get out of it clean, he was kidding himself. When he took one step forward, she would spring. And that knife might just end up buried in his gut. She might just saw the blade clear up to his throat.

Aphrodite stepped between them and slapped Ares’ hand.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t joke. Do you think because she’s unarmed she can do no damage?” She turned to Athena and apologized.

“A joke?” Athena asked. “That’s supposed to be funny? I could’ve torn your hand off.”

“Torn my hand off?” Ares laughed. “Weeks of fighting monsters have made you overconfident.”

Weeks of fighting monsters. Had it been that long that she’d spent tearing scales and claws off of beasts at the banks of the Styx? Had that much time passed in the dark? She didn’t know. It could have been days and it could have been forever.

“It wasn’t all a joke, either, Aphrodite,” Ares said. “This is going to take a lot of blood.”

He drew the blade across his hand and flicked a few red drops into the lake. He shook blood in all directions, flinging it onto petals of asphodel and into the mud of the bank. Athena recoiled as some of it landed on her face, but it was smart. The dead would smell it, and come for a taste. It wouldn’t take long.

“Why are we doing this?” Athena asked, wiping her cheek.

“Have you noticed how Persephone is nowhere near?” Ares asked. “How she seems to hang out by the river border, and near her palace? I think it’s because she’s mostly dead now. Mostly a shade herself. I don’t think the dead are quite as obedient as they used to be.”

As Athena looked out across the still lake, a pale head poked out of one of the tunnels. A pale arm followed it, and then another, until a parade of waxy corpses lurched toward them, so many that Athena wished Ares had put out less bait. They came from everywhere, even from the corridor they’d come down, their legs stiff and jerking, vacant eyes bright at the prospect of food. Of life.

Aphrodite moved close to Ares and took his arm. So many dead were disconcerting. Men, women, youths, all shuffled closer with their mouths slightly open.

“They won’t hurt you,” Ares whispered into Aphrodite’s hair.

“You sure?” Athena asked irritably. “What’s the second part of the plan?” The first of the dead touched her: a whisper against her shoulder. Then a weak, groping hand.

Athena pushed her panic down. They were only shades. Only the dead, and she could force her way through thousands if she had to.

Which she would, if she wanted to get free. Hundreds of pale shades had already assembled in only a few seconds.

“All right, before there are too many.” Ares’ voice was loud, and not quite as calm as before.

“Ares, hurry,” Aphrodite pressed.

He dragged the blade across his wrist and reached for the head of the nearest dead. He forced his wrist against its mouth and let it drink. “Here.” He tossed Athena the knife. “Feed as many as you can.”

Athena watched the corpse lap and suck on Ares’ blood. Color quickly returned to its hair, its cheeks, and even the rags it wore. The eyes blinked to something like life.

Turncoats. They were making turncoats. The blood of whoever fed the dead would bind the dead to them.

Athena made a quick cut in her palm and shoved it in the face of the nearest shambling body.

“Give me the knife,” Aphrodite said.

Athena handed it over, and Aphrodite followed their lead. When they started, Athena feared an onslaught, a rush of bodies crushing them and pushing them back into the lake. But the corpses just shuffled without much aim. All except those being fed.

Ares had finished with two, and held both of them by the shoulder.

“Your mistress is dead now, like you,” he said. “She isn’t your queen any longer, but a shade who walks the halls. Find her. Bring her to us.”

*   *   *

Athena lay back on a bed of asphodel. The wounds on her wrists and hands had scabbed over, but she’d given up so much blood that her head swam. How much blood could a god bleed before they passed out? She still didn’t know. But she, Ares, and Aphrodite had pressed the issue. Aphrodite lay somewhere in the flowers beside her, and Ares sat wearily on a rock.

“Does anyone have anything to eat?” Aphrodite asked. “Some fruit?”

“No,” Athena replied. “And I wouldn’t eat anything you find down here, if I were you.” She turned her face away from the scentless blossoms. No food. No water. They’d just have to wait for their heads to stop pounding.

“How long do you think they’ll take?” Aphrodite sighed. “To get back, I mean. Do you think it will take them long to find Persephone?”

“Not as long as you’d think.”

Athena sat up when she heard Odysseus’ voice. At first she thought it was a trick of her bleary eyes and swimmy head. But there he was. Standing. And more than that, walking, damp from the shoulders down from swimming across the Styx. The sword that Achilles had forced through his chest was now strapped to his back.

“Judging by the speed of that massive herd of dead people I just passed, she could be here within the hour.” Ares’ wolves stood on either side of him until their master beckoned and they trotted forward to have their heads scratched.

“What are you doing here?” Athena asked. “How are you healed?”

“Sorry for not waiting,” Odysseus said. “I didn’t trust these two.” He nodded toward Ares and Aphrodite. “And I really wanted to see Oblivion dog paddle.”

Oblivion growled low in its throat. Athena pressed her hand to Odysseus’ chest through the tear in his shirt. Her fingers expected blood and a raw wound. Instead she found a warm, purple scar.

“This shouldn’t be.”

Odysseus smiled and kissed her fingertips. “You’d rather I stick the sword back in then?”

Ares stood and walked around Odysseus in a wide circle.

“That is some fast healing, even on the banks of the underworld,” Ares said warily.

Odysseus watched him out of the corner of his eye.

Athena took his hand.

“Come on.”

She led him down the corridor they’d come through, ears pointed backward to make sure Ares and Aphrodite weren’t following. But they were weak from feeding a horde of shades. Their heads probably hurt too much to make mischief.

The dark veined walls didn’t move as much as when they’d first passed. Perhaps they were nearly empty of dead, since so many were scouring the tunnels with fresh gods’ blood in their cheeks. As they walked, Athena kept one hand on Odysseus. She was afraid to let go.

I should tell him a hundred things. A thousand. I should tell him everything again that I whispered in the dark.

“You do heal fast,” she said. “And you move fast. Faster than you used to. You fight better, too. Even better than when I used to help you.”

“So you’ve figured it out, then,” Odysseus said, and grinned. “That I’m Mortal with a capital
M
, and clever enough to keep the secret from the goddess of wisdom.”

They stopped, and Athena turned and traced the scar on his chest. It had faded still more.

“I should have known sooner,” Athena said. “As soon as we met Achilles. As soon as I choked Cassandra. Even then I hadn’t guessed how far it went. I thought you were dead. I would’ve killed you last night, had Ares not stayed my hand.
Ares
, of all gods.”

“Don’t tell me any more,” Odysseus said. “I’m indebted to the prig enough as it is.”

She pressed her palm to his chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I let this happen to you.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your sword.”

“It was my fight!” Athena ground her teeth, and backed away. “I lost it,” she said. “Whatever I was. I’m not that anymore.”

“Athena. What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It matters that you’re here. My fuckup didn’t cost me someone else.”

“So the others,” he said. “They’re safe?”

“I don’t know. But if they are that’s not the point. Andie and Henry. Cassandra. My brother. They all could have been killed.”

“But they weren’t,” Odysseus said. “And you’re wrong about Cassandra. I don’t think she was in much danger at all. We’ve never had to test the theory, but I suspect that Cassandra would be even harder to kill than I am.”

“Why do you think that?” Athena asked.

She had figured it out—it had gradually worked its way into her head after she caught a glimpse of his more-than-human quickness. The ones who had fallen and been brought back—Odysseus, Cassandra, and Achilles—they were more than they had been when they died. And they were more than they had been when they lived before. They were two bodies in one. The hero and the myth. So Achilles being stronger, Athena understood. But Cassandra was no great warrior.

“Cassandra and Achilles,” Odysseus explained, “are archetypes. Touched by the gods. I was a traveler, with a good head on my shoulders and the finest patron goddess a man could ask for. But I was still only a man. Not divine.”

Athena nodded. Achilles was once a near invincible fighter. Now he was unkillable. And Cassandra, once an oracle, had seemed to become almost as Fate itself.

“We’re ourselves,” Odysseus said. “And we’re the old myths.”

“But you can’t kill gods?” Athena asked.

Odysseus smiled. “I’m not a weapon. Just an old hero. Although I may have been imbued with the powers of supersmartness.”

Athena thought back to Demeter’s words.
Make her remember and she’ll be more. They still are what they were.

“The Fates are responsible for this,” she said, “but I don’t know why. Achilles I understand. But why would they put Cassandra in motion when they can’t control her?”

Odysseus shrugged.

“Maybe the Fates are like the rest of you lot. Maybe they can’t agree.”

Behind them in the tunnel, closer than Athena thought possible, Ares cleared his throat.

“Had enough of your reunion?” Ares asked. “We don’t exactly have the time to waste.”

“Why not?” Aphrodite asked from his arm. “All we’re doing is waiting for the dead to bring us Persephone.” She looked at Athena and Odysseus with surprising fondness. “Let them have their time. Our reunion lasted for days, remember?”

Ares tugged her close. They looked happy and miserable all at once. Passion edged with resentment. But that was how they’d always been.

Athena pursed her lips. She stepped away from Odysseus. After all this time, she’d finally blundered into Aphrodite’s domain. Love. It felt dangerous. Foolish. As if all the wisdom gained from watching mortals wear their hearts on their sleeves and ruin themselves meant nothing.

Persephone’s scream cut through the corridor, and Athena tensed. Aphrodite trembled and closed her eyes. She clamped her hands down over her ears like a child. It was the first sign of instability she’d shown in the underworld.