Ungodly: A Novel (The Goddess War) (7 page)

Maybe I was imagining it. Or maybe he was groping me with his death brain tentacles.

That thought was dumb enough to make her stumble. He caught her by the arm and pulled her back to her feet.

“Your hand,” she said. “Get it off me.”

He shrugged and let her go, then led the way to a table and pulled out a chair for her. She almost snubbed him and pulled one out for herself, but sat down instead. Defiance had its limits. He sat across from her and began to spin a coin like a child’s top. The same fat gold coin he’d made her call the night before. His eyes followed it thoughtfully. Downcast, they lost their arrogant, mirthful squint. Downcast, they looked almost sad.

“Why do you want to come with us?” she asked.

He didn’t look up when he answered.

“Because though I’ve never had much fondness for the other gods, or them for me, I’m the god of death. If their time has come, I should be there.”

“You don’t want to save them? Sabotage me? Kill me?”

He slapped the coin down on the table and smiled. “That’s a lot of questions. But the answer to all is no.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“You’re forgiven. But I like you, Cassandra. Can’t decide yet if I like you better in heels and skintight leopard or like this, brown hair loose, beach clothes, eyes shooting daggers at my face.”

She swallowed. Where the hell was Calypso? The way he looked at her, it was impossible to keep color from creeping into her cheeks.

“You don’t even know me,” she said.

He shrugged.

“I will. And besides, I can tell already that you’re not like most of the girls who seek me out. All they want is to know about death.”

“You did not just make fun of suicidal girls.”

“You misunderstand. Suicidal girls don’t need me. Except for, perhaps, poor Calypso.” He raised his brow and she narrowed her eyes. “The truth is, lots of people are curious about death. They want to know it without knowing it. I can only keep it up for so long. The dance gets old.”

“So you don’t … kill them?”

His black eyes sparkled, and for the tenth time she wished she could tell whether they were dishonest or charming.

“No. I don’t kill them. Except on those rare occasions when it really is their time. I’m Thanatos, not Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“But you’re the god of death. Death embodied. Don’t you need to be killing things?”

He leaned back in his chair and laughed.

“I’m killing things right now. Things die, and are dying, all the time. Everywhere. Plants. Fish. Someone in an apartment twelve blocks from here. I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to choke the life out of them. Atropos, the Fate of death, decrees, and I am her hand, but the phrase ‘the touch of death’ is still just an expression.”

Cassandra’s eyes moved over nearby buildings. Someone dying in an apartment twelve blocks away? The thought filled her with dread and a spike of adrenaline.

“But you have,” she said. “Killed with your hands before.”

He looked into her eyes.

“I have. I won’t make excuses for what I am. Not even for a pretty girl.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, but didn’t have to, as Calypso finally returned with several tacos wrapped in brown paper. They ate in relative silence, and Cassandra was pleasantly surprised to find that she liked the food. Lots of salsa, and the fish was fresh. She watched Thanatos exchange godly small talk with Calypso. Maybe it was the daylight playing tricks with her eyes and mind, but he didn’t seem so bad. Certainly not as coldly menacing as he had in the club and in the serial killer’s pad he kept.

I’ve come this far. And I knew it was going to be dangerous anyway.

“Thanatos,” she said, and the laughter at the table died off. “I’ve made up my mind. You can come.”

*   *   *

After lunch, they checked out of their hotel and took their scant belongings to Thanatos’ house in the hills. The second she dropped her bags in one of his guest rooms, which was just as neutral and sparely decorated as the rest of the house, she felt like a fly beginning to notice bits of web sticking to her feet. But when he said it would be easier to make their plans if they were all together, she couldn’t think of a single reasonable objection.

She studied the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the guest bath, and the oversized claw-foot bathtub. She walked the long hardwood hallways and let her eyes crawl up the walls to the vaulted ceiling. When she got back to the kitchen, he’d poured them glasses of sparkling water.

“What story do you tell?” she asked. “People must wonder who you are, to have all this. And they must notice you have no job besides … seducing girls with slightly self-destructive tendencies.”

“Lots of people have the same,” he replied. “I think it helps that no one can really tell how old I am. Everyone in this town can play from sixteen to thirty-five.” He shrugged. Standing behind the counter cutting limes, he looked not only human, but domestic. “Cassandra?”

“Yes?”

“How long are you going to study me like that?”

Her mouth dropped open, but he didn’t look up to see.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I sort of like it. At least when you’re not doing it with your eyes narrowed.”

“You can stop that any time,” she said. “I’m never going to smile at you.”

Calypso chuckled into her glass, and moved to the living room to sit. Thanatos went after her.

“You haven’t told us where we’re going,” Cassandra said. “Where Hades is.”

He and Calypso exchanged a look, and Cassandra ground her teeth. Their little god-moments were starting to get on her nerves. Oh, listen to the little mortal. Isn’t she cute? Isn’t she just precious, now that she can’t kill us?

But there had to be some way to kill him. Every god in the world was showing their underbelly. The god of death had to have one, too.

And I’ll find it. I might not be able to kill him with my hands, but I’ll kill him with something.

“Come and sit down for a few minutes,” he said. “Rest.”

“I don’t want to rest. I want to kill Hades, and all the gods I can find, so I can go home.” But not only that. Who knew what condition Hades was in. If he was already spreading disease wherever he went, then she didn’t have time to waste. Certainly not time to spend sipping sparkling lime water in Death’s living room.

Thanatos stood.

“As you wish. Come to the basement.”

So there is a basement.

The access was through the garage. As they descended the stairs Cassandra tried to put all thoughts of peeled eyeballs and girls on meat hooks out of her mind, but the unfinished state of the stairs didn’t help. Neither did the rough stone walls. It was such a sharp contrast to the rest of the house that it almost felt like descending into a cave.

Like descending into Olympus.

That one stupid day. The foolish pride of it and the disaster that awaited them. She and Athena had been no more than dogs with the scent of blood in their noses. They’d gone blindly, seeking meat in their teeth, and they’d paid the price.

On impulse, she reached back, slipped her hand into Calypso’s, and squeezed. The walk to the basement had to be bringing up similar memories for her, and hers were much worse.

I’ll get vengeance for Odysseus, too. I promise. Somehow.

She pulled her hand free before her thoughts turned too dark. She wanted to comfort Calypso, not turn her to dust.

“Isn’t there any better lighting?” Cassandra asked. “I can barely see my feet to keep from falling down the stairs.”

“Here. I know the way well.” Thanatos reached for her arm and drew her closer to his back. His fingers slid against her palm, testing the heat there as if he was trying to feel the rage licking through her fingers.

They descended the last step and hit a floor of hard-packed damp dirt. Thanatos moved away quickly, and Cassandra spun in the pitch black, half-certain her shoulder was going to bump into a hanging corpse. Then he lit a torch, and yellow light flooded the small room.

No corpses. Not much of anything, really. A few shelves of dusty books. An old stone table. Some candles. He moved along the walls, using his torch to light other torches, and made some lame joke about an earthquake striking at that instant and burying them all.

“Your sense of humor is even more twisted than Athena’s,” Cassandra said, and Calypso blinked.

“Athena didn’t have a sense of humor.”

Cassandra shrugged. She ran her hands down her legs, smoothing her skirt. Her most recent wave of anger had subsided and left her cold. She took a breath. The air in the basement smelled of worms and water.

“What are we doing down here?”

“Looking for a map,” Thanatos replied.

“To Hades? You need a map?” Her nose crinkled. “I thought you knew where he was.”

“It’s not as easy as all that. They don’t call him the Unseen One for nothing.”

Calypso laughed. “I thought they were just making fun of his helmet of invisibility.”

Thanatos laughed, too, then made a stern face. “Don’t get smart. This is going to be nasty business.”

“How’s that?” Cassandra asked. “How can looking for a map be ‘nasty business’?”

“Because our map is nasty business. It’s one of the Erinyes. One of the Furies. And she’s not going to be pleased when we bait her here. She’ll be even less pleased when I drink her blood.”

“What?”

“A little vampiric, I know. But the Furies belong to Hades. They’re his favorite daughters. His most loved pets. They always know where he is, and their blood will sing the song to me.” He paused. “Like a really gory GPS.”

Cassandra willed her stomach to be still. She was the killer of gods. Losing her lunch in front of Thanatos wouldn’t do.

“So where is she?” There didn’t appear to be anyplace in the basement to hide a Fury. It was one room with no doors.

“I don’t know. But we’re about to summon her.”

Summoning. The word sounded ominous. Dangerous. Cassandra glanced at Calypso, but she didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. She barely seemed curious.

Maybe I’m an idiot for using her as a litmus test. Maybe I’m stupid for thinking she might care about what happens to me at all. She hasn’t really cared about anything since Odysseus died.

But those were paranoid, unfair thoughts. Calypso had taken care of her, fed her, counseled her. Brushed her hair and tried to make her laugh. And she asked for nothing in return except for one good death, when everything was over.

“You can help by lighting candles.” Thanatos tossed her a box of matches. He didn’t tell her which candles to light, so she began to light them all, each tiny flame adding yellow to the brown and gray room.

“Is this just for ambiance? Or are we about to do some”—she made some ridiculous flourish with her hands—“magic?”

“You get very sarcastic when you’re nervous.” He moved toward the back wall and bent down, feeling the packed dirt with his hands. “Calypso, will you help me with these?” They knelt together, and Cassandra watched as they pulled a massive set of chains with cuffed ends out of the ground. The chains were fixed somewhere down deep. Maybe to the bedrock. She swallowed. Nothing disturbing about that.

“Can you handle these?” Thanatos asked, and Calypso tested the chains’ weight in her hands.

“Yes.”

“Don’t even give her a chance to speak, when we bring her in.”

The sight of Calypso with the chains made everything suddenly real, and it was moving too fast. They were about to summon a thing, a Fury, that was strong enough to need to be bound by chains with four-inch-thick links. It could be a trap. A lie. Thanatos could be summoning one of his own pets. A quick vision of her insides splashed against the wall and soaking into the dirt of the floor popped into Cassandra’s head.

Not a real vision. Just the product of too many horror movies with Andie.

She closed her eyes. This time something flashed behind her lids, in the dark part of her mind that always felt open. Just a glimpse of a leathery wing, claws, and an eye so red all the vessels must have burst.

She stepped back and sucked in cool air through her nostrils. That was a Fury?

Calypso had better be goddamn fast with those chains, or Cassandra’s insides really would end up splattered on the walls.

Comforting heat curled into Cassandra’s fingers and soothed her stomach. Anger followed so quickly behind fear these days. She made a fist and gripped the heat like a handful of sand, ready to throw it into a bloodied eye.

Anything that kills me, kills itself.

“Thanatos,” Cassandra said hotly. “What else have you used those chains for?”

“All manner of underworld beasts. A couple of Furies, a Gorgon.” He leafed through a book she hadn’t noticed him pick up. “A volleyball player from UCLA.”

“What?”

“Relax. It was voluntary. All very
Fifty Shades.
” He looked up and nodded at Calypso. “Once I read the incantation, the path opens. So. Who do you want? Any preferences? Now’s the time to make requests.”

“Requests for what?” Cassandra asked.

“Which Fury, of course. There are lots of them, but some are shinier than others. I thought you, Princess of Troy, might want Alecto. She was ecstatic about your city falling and your brother dying.”

“Alecto?” Cassandra’s brain reached into her past but found no memory. Back then she’d been a doomed prophetess. Nowhere near as involved with the gods’ machinations as she was now. Ah, simpler times.

“Alecto of the Unceasing Anger.”

“That’s what they call her?”

Calypso rattled her chains. “Perhaps one of the lesser Furies might be better.”

Thanatos clapped his book closed.

“I hate to tell you this,” he said, “but we won’t get much lesser. When you’ve got the killer of the gods and the god of death putting out the call, who do you think is going to answer?”

Calypso let her chains droop and cocked her brow at him.

“We could always try to color the request,” she said. “Put out the right bait.”

Cassandra looked from the nymph to the god. “What do you mean, put out the right bait?”