Ungodly: A Novel (The Goddess War) (32 page)

But Hermes looked at his thin fingers wrapped around Henry’s throat and trembled. They were numb and graceless as dry twigs. He had to be careful, oh so goddamn careful.

“There has to be a better way to do this,” he stammered. “Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland made an entire crappy movie about it in the ’80s.”

“Hermes. You have to.”

“I don’t have to.
Flatliners
. That’s what it was called. Terrible.” He squeezed down gently, testing. “And fantastic. Like most things in that decade.”

“Hermes.”

“I don’t know why you had to ask me. I’m your friend. You think I won’t mess this up, but I could, I really could—” As he spoke, his grip tightened, and as he kept talking, Henry stopped. Henry turned first red, and then purple. He hit Hermes in the chest. Hermes knew he would, that his blacking-out body would try to defend itself, but it still made the act that much worse. But if he stopped now, Henry would make him do it again on an already bruised neck.

“It’ll be all right, when you wake up,” Hermes whispered.

“What are you doing?!”

Andie’s voice was such a shock that he let go. She stood in the open doorway, eyes wide and furious. Then she shoved him back into the pillows and knelt over Henry, rolling him over and slapping his face.

“Odysseus!” she shouted over her shoulder, and then glared at Hermes. “What were you doing to him?” She pressed her ear to Henry’s chest, felt his wrist for a pulse. “Wake up, Henry. Wake up.”

“Is he still alive?” Hermes asked.

“You were trying to kill him?” Her face grew as red as Henry’s had been a moment ago. “Because you’re dying and you think your sister needs another soldier? I should cut your head off!”

At her feet, Henry took a great, whooping breath and started coughing. She knelt and helped him sit up, tugged at his shirt collar as if it could give him more room to breathe.

“Hermes, you stupid asshole,” Andie spat. “I don’t care if you’re dying. I’m glad you are. We’re your friends!”

Henry’s coughing slowed, and he sat quietly, one hand to his forehead, blocking his eyes. Hermes didn’t know if Henry’s heart had stopped, but if it had, even for a few seconds, it might have been long enough.

“Andie,” Henry said. “I told him to do it.”

She drew back as though he’d slapped her in the face.

“Henry?” Hermes asked. “Or Hector?”

“It would be both,” he replied. “If he came back, it would be both. But it’s just me.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Andie asked. “We decided!”

“That was before he tried to kill my parents,” Henry said as she got to her feet and backed away. “That was before I realized I can’t beat him. Andie—”

“So you were going to
Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers
yourself without even saying anything?” She held up her hands. “Don’t. I am so out of here. And don’t even think about following me. I don’t need a domestic on my record right before college applications.”

Odysseus caught Andie by the arm as she darted for the door.

“Oy. What’s going on?”

No one responded, but there were many eyes, shooting many daggers. Odysseus sighed.

“Time for a family meeting.”

*   *   *

Despite the loss of Aidan and Achilles, the backyard circle had grown larger. Athena looked around at the new faces: at Thanatos, pale beside Cassandra. At Ares and his wolves. They left a space for Hermes, too, who listened through his open window.

They were waiting for Athena to start. To lead. But she refused. And after a moment, Odysseus spoke, catching Cassandra and Thanatos up.

“So,” Cassandra said. “If Henry dies, and is brought back, he’ll have more than just his memories? I thought it was just me and Achilles.”

“So did I,” Athena said. “Odysseus hid his strength from us, and not even your ability to kill gods was apparent right away.”

She met Cassandra’s eyes and saw the smolder there, the readiness to jump in front of Henry if Athena made the slightest move. Athena shook her head.

“I did hide it,” said Odysseus. “So who told?” He looked at Athena, but Ares straightened.

“I did,” Ares declared. “I figured it out.” He punched Athena in the arm. “And you always said I was stupid.”

“Ares,” Odysseus muttered. “You dick.”

“They had a right to know,” Ares said. “To choose. And this one’s chosen, so someone choke him out and bring back Hector. We could use him.”

“Athena,” Odysseus said. “Say something.”

“It’s Henry’s choice,” Athena said, and looked around at them. “Your choice, if you want to fight at all. Your choice what to do.” She swallowed hard. It still wasn’t easy to say. “I’m not your leader. I never was. You don’t need us. We needed you.”

“She’s right,” Cassandra said. “We are the weapons here. Me against Atropos. Hector against Achilles. It won’t be for the gods to tell us what to do.” She nodded to Athena. “We’ll wait for the vision from Clotho and Lachesis. And then we’ll decide.”

27

THE LAST VISION

Cassandra and her parents sat in the kitchen, like troops awaiting orders. Soldiers sitting in a U-boat, ears strained toward the first sounds of exploding shells.

Upstairs, Henry blasted music. He’d locked himself and Lux in his room after he’d explained to their parents for an hour how and why he had Hermes try to squeeze the life out of him.

“Like watching a pot try to boil,” Thanatos said from the doorway. “Take a walk with me?”

“It’s not like a walk is going to free anything up,” Cassandra said, but went out with him anyway, into the faded light of early evening. “I’m not giving birth. It’ll come when it comes.” But it would be soon. She knew it the same way she knew what side a coin would fall on.

They walked companionably down the block together. The sky was clear and still. There was no breeze.

“Let Athena take your place,” Thanatos said.

“No.”

“You won’t be you, after it’s over. You’ll be gone.”

“So they say,” Cassandra muttered, and kicked a pebble.

“You’re acting like a stupid kid.”

“I am what they think I am,” she said. “What they created. I can’t let someone take that fate for me. Not even Athena. Besides, I owe Odysseus. A girlfriend for a girlfriend.” Cassandra closed her eyes and thought of Calypso’s face.

“Why?” Thanatos asked. “Why do you want to be a Moira?”

“It’s not that I want to be one,” she said. “I already am one.”

The Cassandra that used to be, before the gods descended like locusts, felt so far away she might as well have made her up. That was another girl. Aidan was gone and she was, too.

“How do you even know you’ll be able to do it?” Thanatos asked. “That you’ll be able to call up your power? Since you lost control with Ares, you haven’t been the same.”

He stopped her, took her by the arm. His fingers were so cold, even through her shirt.

“It didn’t feel bad,” she said, “to join with them. It didn’t hurt.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

She was stronger. In control. She could hold her power between her fingers as if it were a candle.

“Isn’t this what you wanted me to find, when we met?” Cassandra asked. “Control? Balance? To bring death from someplace other than a place of hate?”

“I didn’t want you to find it right before you disappear,” Thanatos whispered. He touched her cheek, knuckles cool against her skin.

Cassandra looked into his black eyes. He was different from Aidan in every way. Perhaps that made it easier to like him. He would never be a replacement.

“I used to think I was angry at the gods,” she said. “But I was just angry. Angry at Apollo for painting a target on my back. Angry at Aidan for being gone.”

“You still love Apollo,” Thanatos said.

Aidan. Apollo. He couldn’t undo the past, but he’d tried to make up for it.

“I guess I do,” Cassandra replied. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Thanatos said. “I find that I’m jealous. Maybe it’s leftovers from Calypso’s spell.”

He stood before her, a god dressed like a boy. She saw through it now. If Aidan were alive, and came knocking on her door, she’d know him for what he was in an instant.

“If I let you kiss me,” she said, “would you try to kill me?”

“No,” he said, and pushed his fingers into her hair. “If I kissed you now, I wouldn’t. But I would someday.”

Someday. But they would never have a “someday.” Their time would end when she did.

She pressed her hands to his chest.

Birds chirped loud in her ears. A hundred. A thousand. Too many to populate the elm trees on the sides of the road. It was the vision.

“Birds,” she said, and pushed away from Thanatos. “What are you trying to tell me? That you’re staying in an aviary?” But the chirping wasn’t birds. The wings coming toward her face flapped too fast, and dipped up and down. Birds didn’t have fur, or pinched little rat faces.

Bats. They screeched their way past calcite formations and subterranean waterfalls. Cassandra felt the breeze from their wings, felt the warm skin of them pass against her cheeks. If any of their claws caught in her hair, she was going to scream, vision or not.

“What is it?” Thanatos asked.

“Cave system. Adirondacks. There’s a newly opened entrance.” She could see them, too. The Moirae. Or more accurately, she could feel them, beating like a heart in the center.

28

WALKING STRAIGHT INTO AN AXE

“How’s Hermes?” Odysseus asked. He’d come out on the widow’s walk to stand with Athena in the dark.

“Sleeping. Ares is with him now.”

Odysseus squeezed the wood railing and it groaned. It was a wonder the balcony still stood, after all her pacing and pushing.

“How much longer does he have?” he asked, and her throat tightened.

“Not long.” Hermes’ breathing had been strained for the last few hours, and the fever was back. He was still conscious, but so weak he could hardly keep his eyes open.

“I’m sorry,” Odysseus said. “I know it’s hard.”

“It shouldn’t be,” she said bitterly.

“Letting go of anyone is hard.”

“No, I mean it shouldn’t
be,
” she said. “Aidan fell in
battle
. That was bad enough. But Hermes is just lying there. Wasting away while I stand here with my hands tied, waiting to serve the thing that’s killing him.” Her fingers gripped the wood and rattled it. “Why haven’t they told us where to go yet? Why couldn’t they have shown up a day earlier? And why do I wish he was already gone, so I wouldn’t have to do this knowing that my brother is dead and that wherever I am, I wasn’t with him when it happened.”

“However he’d die … it wouldn’t make it easier.”

“Stop saying stupid things!” she shouted.

“Why are you yelling at me?” he shouted back.

“Because they’ve already won. Don’t you get it? This isn’t a battle. They cost everyone
everything
. And they still win.” Athena twisted the railing in her hands and splintered it, wrenching the whole thing loose. It hit the walkway below and cracked. She stared down at it. In the dark, the wood looked like bones.

I wish they were mine. I wish they were mine and Cassandra’s both, and we’d leave them with nothing.

“You’re not the only one losing everything,” Odysseus said angrily. “In fact, I’d say you got the best end of it. You get to sew yourself up with Clotho and Lachesis and come out a butterfly on the other side. A shiny new Atropos in an Athena skin. You won’t remember Hermes. Or me. Or if you do, you won’t care.”

“You’d rather I let Cassandra become the Fate of death?”

“I’d rather you thought of something else!” he shouted. “You’re afraid. I get it. You messed up on Olympus and you don’t think you have the right to lead them anymore, but you’re wrong, Athena. This isn’t noble. This is giving up.”

He turned and struck the side of the house hard enough to rattle it.

“Just like you and me,” he said. “That was giving up, too.”

“Odysseus—”

“You never would have done it, if you thought you were going to survive. For you, telling me you love me is the same as saying goodbye.”

Athena stepped away from the edge. She regretted tearing the railing down; her hands itched for something to lean on.

“I do love you, Odysseus.”

“I know,” he said. “But I thought that you and I were real. Not just a dream that I was having.”

*   *   *

Ares knocked on her door sometime later.

“Is it Hermes?” she asked.

“No. It’s Cassandra. She’s here. She’s had the vision.”

“But is Hermes?”

“Still sleeping.”

They went downstairs to find Cassandra, Henry, her parents, and even their dog standing in the living room.

“Is Andie on her way?” Athena asked.

“I sent Thanatos to go get her.” Cassandra motioned for her parents to sit, and they did, clutching each other at the elbow, eyes big and round as wall clocks. Athena crossed and uncrossed her arms. The notion that she should offer Cassandra’s parents something to drink popped into her head.
Ridiculous.

Cassandra began, recounting what little there was. Headlights flashed through the window and signaled Andie’s arrival just as she was wrapping up.

Athena bit the inside of her cheek, her teeth worrying at the quill of a feather. Twisting it back and forth sent shock waves of pain through her gums and down her neck. No matter. The feathers would be gone forever in a few hours.

“What’s going on?” Andie asked as she came in. When no one replied, she took her place behind the sofa.

“No one has to go who doesn’t want to,” Cassandra said. “Only me and Athena.”

“You can’t take Atropos alone,” Ares said, though he sounded impressed that she wanted to try.

“And you can’t face Achilles,” said Henry. “Only I can do that.”

“Only Hector can do that,” Odysseus corrected. “And you’re not him. Unless…?”

“No,” Andie shouted.

The room dissolved to bickering, until Cassandra shouted over the top.

“Athena,” she said. “What do you think we should do?”

Athena blinked. “I don’t know.”