“Odysseus.”
I love you.
“Athena!” Hermes shouted, and for an instant the world returned: a vulgar clash of metal and claws, screams and hateful laughter. She pressed Odysseus tightly to her chest.
“No,” she said.
Athena ran to the open wall of columns and leaped out. She dove and took him with her, straight down the sheer face of Olympus.
* * *
Athena jumped. She jumped.
It was all Hermes could think. He stared with his mouth hanging open at the empty space where his sister had just been. Then Andie screamed, as Oblivion raked its claws down her back.
“Andie,” he whispered. He turned and kicked, and Oblivion crashed into a wall. The Moirae screeched in his head, in all their heads. Ares moved toward Henry, and Hermes flashed forward and punched him in the face. It wasn’t much, but it gave him enough time to yank Henry out of the way.
It wouldn’t work for long. Hermes had to get them out of the mountain. Out of this horrible trap.
“Cassandra!” he shouted, but she paid no attention. She was murderous, furious over Odysseus, screaming that she’d kill Achilles, too, for what he’d done. But she crept closer and closer to Hera.
“Ares!” Hera screamed. “Atropos, please! Keep her from me!”
Ares turned, but Cassandra was already too close. Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis did nothing, safe behind their Achilles shield.
“Get away from me!” Hera shouted and clambered backward. “Ares! Aphrodite!”
“Mother!” Aphrodite shrieked, but Ares held her by the arm.
“It’s too late,” he said.
He was right. It was too late. Hermes felt heat off Cassandra all the way across the room, and Hera started to stiffen and shudder before the girl even touched her. Ares shoved Aphrodite against a wall and started forward, calling to his mother.
Henry stepped bravely and stupidly into his path.
“Hurry, Cassandra!” he yelled. “Do it!”
“No, damn it!” Hermes hissed. “Henry, you idiot!” He moved to tug the boy back, but Panic leaped for Andie, making him grab her and spin her out of the way. The wetness of the blood soaking her shirt made his stomach lurch, but she landed solidly and thrust her spear through Pain as it came for her hamstrings. The weight of its falling body pulled the spear from her hands, but it didn’t matter. Pain was down and dying in a stinking heap.
Hermes’ eyes twitched from scene to scene: one more dead wolf, Ares seconds away from turning Henry into a splat on the wall, and Calypso on her knees, weeping, oblivious to Aphrodite, who drew closer with an eager expression.
“Too much, too fast, even for me,” he muttered. He grabbed a brazier and threw it at Aphrodite. Hot metal and orange coals bashed into her chest. She screamed, and her dress caught fire. Ares forgot all about Henry and ran to her rescue.
“Two birds with one brazier. Finally, some progress.”
But not enough. They had to go.
“Cassandra, we have to get out of here! Cassandra!”
“No! Not yet. Not now.” She dodged Hera’s arm, and Hermes winced. Even a glancing blow would turn Cassandra’s head to pudding. But Cassandra ducked low. One of her hands trailed along the underside of Hera’s arm, and it hit the floor with a solid thump, granite clear up to the shoulder.
“My god,” he breathed. It was so fast. So incredibly lethal.
Hera screamed, and the sound only brought Cassandra on faster. A touch here, a shove there, murdering a goddess in bits, and the whole room paused to watch as Hera trembled and jerked. As she cried for Ares and Aphrodite, telling them to get the head, the head, whatever that meant. As she tried to protect her own head, putting her stiff, stone arms in front of her face.
Her pleas to Ares and the Moirae unheeded, Hera finally looked at Hermes.
“Stop her, please!” she begged.
The fear in her eyes was terrible.
“I can’t,” he said.
Hera strained under Cassandra’s touch, and then, all at once, her screaming stopped. Hera was dead. Past the point of recovery or miracles. A stone statue, her face forever frozen in a twisted howl of pain.
“No,” Aphrodite keened, and reached behind a column. What she pulled out was something Hermes never thought he’d see again. Poseidon’s head.
It was severed and ragged at the neck, but remarkably well preserved. His uncle’s dead jaw hung slack, ringed with swollen, purple lips. The eyes remained intact but had no color. Just white orbs, not so dissimilar to Hera’s marble eyes. Aphrodite lifted the bloated, still-wet thing to her mouth and whispered into its ear.
“Shit,” he whispered, and called to the others. “Come on, move! She’s calling the sea!”
Water rushed up the sides of the mountain like thunder, ready to serve the last of Poseidon, to crush them and drown them. Hermes looked between Andie, Henry, Calypso, and Cassandra. He’d never get them all out in time.
“Cassandra, now!” he shouted.
“No!”
He darted to Calypso. “Come on. Get up!” But she wept and remained slack. He couldn’t get them all out. He could only carry two. The first wave crested and broke into the room, cold and frothy and furious. He cursed and made his choice, going for the ones he wouldn’t have to drag kicking and screaming. He grabbed Andie and Henry, and fled Olympus.
* * *
The water cut a strange, deliberate path through the room. Gallons of it surged and splashed against the confining edges of the door, so hard it reminded Cassandra of Wile E. Coyote hitting a wall when chasing the Road Runner.
But no roadrunner was ever as fast as Hermes. Andie and Henry were gone. Safe. They’d make it out.
The thought was a shy whisper in Cassandra’s angry brain. One small, unimportant piece compared to the other part that killed gods. Fire burned inside of her, inside and all around. She glowed with it. Hera was stone beneath her fingers. A few seconds more and she’d be reduced to rubble, then dust.
Water slipped up into her shoes and drenched her feet in cold. Cold enough to snuff part of her rage out like a candle. She glared at Ares and Aphrodite. At the Moirae and Achilles. She couldn’t burn him up with a touch, no matter how much she wanted to.
So what? If I kill the others, what does he have left?
“Don’t make me slice you up, princess,” Achilles warned. But he only guarded the Moirae. Ares and Aphrodite were fair game.
Ares held Aphrodite around the waist. She hugged Poseidon’s head, and the water didn’t touch them.
“You think an ice bath is going to stop me?” Cassandra asked, and Aphrodite wailed. She stepped forward, treading water to the knees. Ares glared at her, and thrust Poseidon’s head in her direction. Salt spray and a strong wave rose up like a wall, crashing into her and knocking her to the ground. She spit and sucked air and tried to get to her feet. But Ares was no fool. Through the water, she saw him run, and take Aphrodite with him. They disappeared through a door, and the door disappeared right after.
“No!”
She coughed, and her limbs sagged in frustration. The fire inside her flickered and grew weak. But she could find a way. A way through the walls to Aphrodite.
Cassandra took a step, and heard Calypso cry. She looked back and saw Calypso on the floor, drenched to the waist. The stupid girl would probably stay there, weeping for Odysseus until she traded tears for the sea. The water rose so fast, already up to Calypso’s ribs. Another minute and it would be too deep to run in. Cassandra glared at Achilles and the Moirae, protected from Poseidon’s waves. Only the barest inches of water touched Achilles’ feet.
“You can’t get past me, princess,” said Achilles. “Take her and go.”
Cassandra looked again at Calypso.
“This isn’t over,” she growled.
“It is today,” Achilles said as Cassandra turned and clutched Calypso around the waist, throwing her arm around her shoulder. It took most of her strength, but she got the nymph
to stand and dragged her toward the door they’d come in through.
(YOU CAN’T GO. YOU ARE A WEAPON OF FATE)
“I am,” she said. “Just not in the way you intended.”
Cassandra pulled the door closed behind them to keep some water in the chamber, and then shook Calypso into a run. “Come on. We’ve got to move! Move, damn you!”
Damn you. I could’ve killed them all.
EPILOGUE
Even with Hermes’ speed, they almost didn’t make it out. The winding rooms and corridors of Olympus thwarted them at every turn, sending them into dead ends and upside down staircases. The water churned up to their waists. Currents dragged them under and fought them hard, as if the sea knew it was chasing the god who’d killed Poseidon. In a room full of false doors the water finally closed over their heads, tossing them so Hermes had to twist himself between the walls and the mortals. By luck and panic, Andie found the right door, and Hermes scraped and clawed his way toward the surface.
They broke into the dank reality of the shallow cave of the state park, coughing brine, soaked, and freezing. Hermes jogged the last steps out into daylight and fell onto one knee, with Andie and Henry clutched onto his sides like barnacles. He hugged them tight, proud of them for hanging on.
Henry coughed the last of the ocean from his lungs and looked around.
“Cassandra?” he asked.
“She wouldn’t come.”
Henry blinked. “You have to go back.” He rolled away and stared into the black spot of the cave.
“Henry,” Andie said, her breath ragged. “He can’t go back. It’s submerged.”
“We can’t leave her there!” He looked at Hermes. “You can swim, can’t you? You can hold your breath.”
Hermes shut his eyes. If he went back, he’d be going for her body. And he might run into Ares or the Moirae on the way down. But he would go, if they wanted him to. He didn’t have much more to lose.
Andie’s eyes widened, and she pointed. “The cave!”
The ground shuddered beneath them. Hermes put his hands out, ready to grab their shirts and yank them down the trail. But the quake stilled. When he looked back, the cave had disappeared.
“That’s not possible,” Andie said. “Where did it go?”
Hermes walked to the side of the hill. The cave was gone. Not closed up, or fallen in, but gone, like it had never been there at all.
He stared at it, at brown grass and weeds and roots. At impossibility. Nothing there for him to fight. Nothing to dig out. No way back to the place they’d been moments before. No way back to Cassandra.
Or to Athena.
His whole body went numb, inside and out. He might’ve stood all day before that spot, if Andie hadn’t sneezed.
“Come on,” he said. He pressed his hands to her back, to staunch the blood from the wolf’s claw marks. But the blood was slow. She’d heal, nothing left but a set of scars on her back to match the Nereid wounds on her stomach. “We have to get you dry and warm, before you catch pneumonia.” He walked to the patch of shrubs where they’d hidden their supplies. “I’m not going to lose everyone.”
* * *
He brought them back to the house, and tried not to think about how empty and quiet it seemed. He sent Henry into a warm bath, and dressed Andie’s wounds. He set out warm sweaters and flannel pants and towels. When they were dressed, soup waited on the stove. It wasn’t until it was gone, and another half pot besides, that anyone really spoke.
“What are we going to do?” Andie asked.
Henry stared down into his bowl. “What am I supposed to tell my parents?”
I don’t know, Hermes wanted to say. I don’t know, but if you need me, you can leave a message at the French Riviera. But that’s not what his big sister would do. It wasn’t what she’d want.
“Cassandra and Odysseus,” Andie said, and started to cry. “And Athena. Cally. Are they really dead?”
Hermes put his arms around her. “Whether they are or not, we’ll find them.” He squeezed her, careful not to squeeze too hard. “We’ll find them. And until we do, I’ll keep you safe.” He would try, even though his insides felt like broken glass. He put his hand on Henry’s arm. The boy’s face was washed out and gray. After a moment, he bent his head over the table and wept.
“It’s all right to cry,” Hermes said, and started to cry himself. “We’re both down a sister today.”
(Down, but not lost.)
Hermes blinked as the familiar, air-through-bellows voice whispered inside his head. He almost smelled her: a faint cloud of dust upon the wind.
(You can’t think that those girls would succumb to wind and water. Those girls who defy everything. The instrument of Fate. The goddess born against the gods.)
The faintest hint of a smile curled in the corner of Hermes’ mouth.
“Aunt Demeter?”
TOR BOOKS BY KENDARE BLAKE
Anna Dressed in Blood
Girl of Nightmares
Antigoddess
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KENDARE BLAKE holds an M.A. in creative writing from Middlesex University in northern London. She is the critically acclaimed author of Anna Dressed in Blood, Girl of Nightmares, and Antigoddess. She lives and writes in Lynnwood, Washington.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
MORTAL GODS
Copyright © 2014 by Kendare Blake
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Eithné O’Hanlon
A Tor Teen Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to
[email protected] The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3444-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-1222-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466812222
First Edition: October 2014
Kendare Blake, Mortal Gods
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