Ungodly: A Novel (The Goddess War) (16 page)

Maybe we should be glad she’s gone.

Maybe she would stay gone, and draw the gods away like insects after a blinking light. The Fates could drag Achilles in her direction, and make him forget all about their old feud.

“Hey.” Andie poked him in the chest. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m good. Better than good.”

“Good.” Andie nipped his ear, and his pocket buzzed.

“Damn.” He pulled the phone out. “It’s Hermes.”

Hermes didn’t wait for a hello before speaking.

“Henry, excellent. I’m in your driveway. We’ve got to go to Buffalo. I found Hephaestus. I’m going to come in and tell your parents I have an appointment with a specialist and you need to drive me. Go with it.” He hung up without waiting for a goodbye. Henry sighed.

“What is it?”

“Guess we’re going to Buffalo.”

*   *   *

“Your parents look good,” Hermes lied as Henry backed the Mustang out of the driveway. He waved to Maureen in the kitchen and she raised her hand without smiling. Both she and Tom were like ghosts, thin and gray and sullen. They said all the right things, asked about his health, about the specialist and what he hoped to learn there. Asked if he was all right in the house by himself. But the words had nothing behind them. They were just preprogrammed sounds.

“They do,” Henry lied back. “So, what are we going to Buffalo for? What’s going on with Hephaestus?”

“He wants to meet you. Both of you. It was lucky that Andie was at the house. Saves us a stop at her place.” Behind the steering wheel, Henry hid a smile. In the backseat, Andie didn’t bother to hide hers.

“Oh.” Hermes smirked. “Finally.”

“Why does he want to meet us?” Andie asked.

“To make sure you’re worthy of a new shield.”

*   *   *

They parked the Mustang on the street in front of Hephaestus’ massive, museumlike house. When they got out, neither Henry nor Andie could take their eyes off it.

“Millionaire industrialist, right?” Hermes smiled.

“No kidding.” Henry glanced down at his sweatshirt. “Maybe we should have dressed better for this.”

“In what?” Andie walked around to the driver’s side. “Leather armor and one of those helmets with the tufts on them?” She snorted.

Hermes watched her carefully. She was uneasy. She hadn’t liked it when she asked how Hephaestus was going to determine their worthiness and he hadn’t had an answer. And she hated it whenever anyone implied she had something to prove.

But you do. We all do.

Hermes made a fist and felt his bones strain together under the skin. Practically no meat remained in his hands. He told himself it was because he’d been on the move, and hadn’t been able to eat the twenty thousand calories he could at home. But that wasn’t true.

I ate all those chickens. All that caviar and fast food.

When he took off his shirt his heartbeat was visible through his chest. If he was a mortal, he’d be dead already. But he was a god. So he had a few more weeks.

The hell with that. I haven’t come so far to leave them unprotected. I haven’t come so far to never see my sister again.

He would live until Athena returned. And Andie and Henry could still use him. What he began to lack in strength, he still made up for in speed.

“Hermes?” Andie asked. “Are you okay?”

He moved away before she could put a hand on his bony shoulder.

“Fine. Now come on. I want to introduce you to my old friend.”

*   *   *

Hephaestus welcomed them himself. No servants. No pretty blond maid. And no leg braces, that Hermes could see. He greeted them in a motorized chair, a blanket over his lap.

“I recognize them,” he said after two awkward handshakes. Henry did a decent job of it, but Andie couldn’t figure out how to lace her fingers through his gnarled grip. “But they don’t recognize me.”

“They don’t have their old memories. But they know who they are.”

Hermes nudged Andie discreetly. She hadn’t blinked since they’d walked through the door.

“He’s kind of … handsome,” she whispered after Hephaestus turned his chair away and went down the hall with Henry. “I thought he was supposed to be an ugly god.”

“He is, I suppose. Ugly for a god. But all that meant on Olympus was that he had a club foot. And I wouldn’t mention that foot, if I were you.”

Andie made a face. “He was hot from the ankle up and you called him ugly? You guys are dicks.”

“Yes, that’s a real news flash.” Hermes took her by the arm and pulled her along. They walked a few steps behind as Hephaestus led them through the various hallways and connected rooms, giving them a tour of sorts. There was a story around every corner, some architectural tidbit or the tale of this or that chunk of worked metal. They walked, and he whirred, most of his attention on Henry.

“This feels like a maze,” Andie whispered. “If I lived here I’d have to mark my way with string.”

They paused at a set of stairs. But before anyone could look uncomfortable, Hephaestus maneuvered his chair toward the wall, and it engaged with a lift mechanism. And so the tour continued, until they reached the fourth floor.

“Just how many floors does this place have?” Hermes asked.

“Not nearly as many above as it does below,” Hephaestus answered. “Why? Are you getting tired?” He looked back jovially, but his smile faltered as Hermes wiped sweat from his brow. “Just a few more rooms.”

By the time they turned through the last, Hermes had begun to agree with Andie, who suspected that the house didn’t obey any physical laws. But then they walked through the last door, and Hermes found himself looking down on the large central room where he’d dined with Hephaestus on his first visit. It was lit with the same combination of fireplaces and lamps, giving the marble floor a parchment yellow glow.

“Here we are,” Hephaestus announced.

“Back to the center,” Hermes mused. “How do we get down? Is there lunch?”

Hephaestus chuckled. He took Henry by the arm and gestured up. Hermes looked as well. What he saw almost made his stomach drop into his shoes.

The Shield of Achilles was mounted to the center of the ceiling, where a skylight might normally be. Instead the metal caught only the barest reflection of light. To Henry and Andie, it probably looked like nothing more than a black circle. Only Hermes’ immortal eyes could detect the intricate detail work: the world laid out in each ring, from the constellations and cosmos to the vast ocean. And in between, cities and cattle and war. Farmers reaping their fields. Peace and strife.

“Is that real?” Hermes asked.

“Of course it is,” Hephaestus replied. “It’s my finest work. It was never lost. When the mortal world no longer required it, I took it back.” Hephaestus studied the shield and its housing with pride. “I mounted it there in one day.”

The shield sat in the middle of a system of steel girders, welded and arranged at angles so that they formed a latticework, similar to a spider web. The last of the girders attached to the wall just above their shoulders, and similar pieces attached to the doorway on the opposite side of the open room. No doubt Hephaestus had done all the welding and construction himself. To him, no skylight could have ever been more beautiful than this dark one, reflecting mellow orange flames.

“But now let’s go down to the main level.” Hephaestus moved his chair back into the twisting hallways. “And discuss a new shield.”

*   *   *

Inside the large, ground-level room, Hermes began to despair of scoring another gourmet lunch. He hadn’t seen a single servant since they’d arrived, and hadn’t heard anyone humming in any room that might be a kitchen. The air smelled like iron and faintly of sulfur. He walked the length of the room restlessly, half an ear cast toward whatever dull industrial story Hephaestus was telling Henry at the moment. Henry, to his credit, appeared enthralled. Andie just seemed bored. After the initial handshake, she’d been largely ignored. Hermes wondered why Hephaestus had even asked her to come.

Maybe he’ll get to her next. Or maybe he’s just too taken with Henry.

Hermes smiled. That was good. It meant a better shield. He tapped his foot, and looked over the oil paintings on the walls and down into the shadowy corners. His eyes narrowed. What first appeared to be a black rectangle painted onto the floor was on closer inspection a stairway cut through the marble. Hermes walked toward it and sniffed. If Hephaestus kept his bellows down there, he couldn’t smell them, or detect any heat.

“Hephaestus.” Hermes gestured toward the stairs. “Does that lead to your bellows?”

Hephaestus turned his chair away from Henry and stared down into the dark space.

“I have no bellows, anymore.”

Hermes blinked. No bellows. No forge?

“I suppose not.” He looked at the robotics of the motorized chair. “You must have new ways of doing things. As long as it comes from your hand, the shield will have no equal.”

He waited for his friend to say something else, but the silence stretched out. Hermes’ stomach began to tighten.

“Hephaestus? What’s going on?”

“Hermes,” Hephaestus said quietly. “You always run in too soon.”

Andie and Henry looked up in alarm. Too soon. Too soon and too careless.

A house empty of servants. How many of these doors have locked behind us?

“What have you done?” Hermes asked.

But Hephaestus didn’t need to answer. On the opposite side of the room, from the opposite side of the house, a large set of doors opened on Achilles and the twisted, conjoined form of the Moirae. Achilles entered half-smiling, and the Moirae walked in behind him.

Walked was a strong word. Joined as they were, it was less a walk than a jerking shuffle. Each limb operated on its own in a left to right sequence. Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis. Or more accurately, Atropos, and the emptying yolk sacs that were once Clotho and Lachesis. Clotho’s arm twisted around her dark sister’s back and disappeared into her skin. Both Lachesis’ arms were still visible, but the one nearest Atropos had joined to her rib cage. Sooty purple rags draped across their parts to preserve modesty and hide whatever monstrous melding had taken place at their hips and legs.

Hermes could barely think. The only thing that popped into his head was the image of a brick wall, as if that could somehow bar the Moirae from entering his mind. One brick wall, that they’d chip and chisel at until the mortar gave and it tumbled down around his ears.

Stop. Be yourself. Be quick. Before they freeze your legs and you’re all dead.

But his legs wouldn’t budge. Whether it was due to fear or the Fates’ interference didn’t seem to matter.

*   *   *

Seeing Achilles again was the last thing Henry had expected. But he’d thought about it plenty. About what he would say. What it would be like to come face-to-face with the boy who betrayed them. The boy who killed Odysseus, and who had killed Henry, too, in their other life. In Henry’s imagination, their meeting was always the same. Achilles won. Now Achilles was here, and it took everything Henry had not to turn tail and run. But he was acutely aware of Andie, standing on the other side of the room. Andie, who would probably do something very brave, and very stupid.

The fists that hung by his sides clenched tighter. No one would lay a hand on her, as long as he stood.

Achilles paced lightly in front of him, the walk of a caged lion. His eyes never left Henry’s. Not for one second. Demeter had been right. Killing Henry was all he wanted.

“You’re unarmed,” Henry said.

Achilles stopped and held out his empty hands.

“No spear in your chest today. Nothing so easy. This time I want to do it up close.”

“All that time we trained together this winter,” Henry said. “You know I don’t remember being Hector. I guess that doesn’t make a difference.”

“Not a bit. No amount of time is going to make me forget what I lost. What you took. My best friend. And you thought you were killing
me
.”

Henry wondered what part stung Achilles worse. The loss of Patroclus, or the idea that Hector had thought, however briefly, that he was the better fighter.

“What would you know about friendship?” Andie shouted. “Odysseus was your friend!”

“Our sides weren’t the same,” Achilles replied, as if that explained everything.

But that was how Achilles worked. In simple terms. With or against. Not in complex terms like right or wrong. Henry wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did. Another ghost of a memory, tattooed into his skin.

“It must have been hard,” Henry said, “to throw that sword into Odysseus instead of me. It must’ve been hard to pretend that you could become a friend.”

“Pretending?” Achilles asked. “Is that what you think I did?” He shook his head, almost sadly.

“I would have stayed with Athena, had she been strong enough. I thought that she was the one. The goddess of battle!” He threw up his arms and grinned. “Who could beat that?”

Behind him, the Moirae writhed. They seemed larger than they had on Olympus. They would have towered over Athena. As they towered over Achilles.

“The sad fact is,” Achilles said, “I did like you,
Henry
. And I loved Odysseus. As for that dark beauty there,” he winked at Andie, “who knows what might have happened?”

Andie made a crude gesture and spit on the floor.

“I think I liked your sister the best, though,” Achilles said. “She’s a scrapper. And she’ll be coming round to our side, soon enough. Where she was always meant to be.”

“No,” Henry said. “She won’t.”

“I suppose it’s hard to grasp,” Achilles said. He pointed over his shoulder toward the Moirae. “They are the Fates, but Fate is a thing. It’s an ‘it,’ and a ‘they.’” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m one of their weapons, and Cassandra is the other. You can’t fight Fate, Hector. You knew that once. I think I read somewhere that you knew that once.”

“Stop calling me that. It’s not my name.”

“It’s always going to be your name,” Achilles said.

“No it isn’t. I don’t have to be back in Troy, and you don’t, either. We can do something different. Have different lives than the shitty ones they gave us.”