“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just got the idea that when we saw her, we shouldn’t look like … such punks.”
He laughed and flicked a lock of her hair over her shoulder. “Then you should’ve dyed over those purple streaks before we got here. It’s too late now. We look how we look.” Despite his words, he brushed at his jeans. “We’re really going to see her. Aunt Demeter. After so long.” He smiled. “And much sooner if you’d just call a damned owl.” His breathing was slightly labored, but hope lit up his eyes for the first time since they’d started their search for answers.
God of thieves, she thought fondly. Always looking for the easy way out. But this is only the beginning.
Still, he had a point about the owls.
“You win.” She lifted her hand toward the nearest group of saguaros.
It was like pulling a string. A tiny, yellow-eyed bird dove out of the cactus and made a beeline for them. Athena lowered her hand and it flew around and around her in a tight circle, clicking its small beak. It would have liked to land on her. She could feel that. The owls were still her servants, and the fact that it was their feathers that were killing her would probably have saddened them more than it did her, if they had been able to know.
It isn’t the feathers that are killing me. The feathers are being used to kill me by something else. Some force. This damned Twilight.
In a flash of eyes, she told the elf owl what she wanted, and it zipped off across the expanse of skin. It would search for days until it found Demeter’s mouth. It would search until it died of exhaustion.
“Was that so hard?” Hermes asked, and plunked himself down in the dirt to wait. He squinted up at the sky, blazing so brightly it appeared white. “About five more hours of daylight, you think?”
Athena snorted. “I could do with less. The sun is making my nose ring so hot I might accidentally brand my face.” She lowered down to the sand and propped her elbows on her knees.
Hermes, always one step ahead when it came to relaxation, stretched out, arms crossed behind his head. “If Apollo was here, we could ask him to turn it down.” He turned to her. “Where do you think he is, anyway? Off in the jungle with Artemis, maybe. Twins of the sun and moon, hanging out in some Mayan temple.”
Athena smiled and said nothing. It was nice to imagine. But the truth was probably far uglier.
Hermes reached into his pack for some beef jerky. He wanted to ask a million questions; Athena could see that. But they’d been over most of them before, and she didn’t have new answers.
But Demeter might. She’s always given me wise counsel. She has to have heard something that we haven’t.
“Have you thought about what comes next?” he asked.
“One thing at a time, brother.” It was a stupid question anyway. She thought about it every minute. Where they were going, and what must be done. The thousand what-ifs and maybes, and finally what might be at the end. The ultimate end. Dying was a strange, almost invigorating feeling. She couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so desperate before.
* * *
The owl returned in the dark. Its yellow reflector eyes floated toward them, sinking slowly, and disappearing when it blinked. Hours had passed while the sun sank below the sand, and she and Hermes talked of idle things that had nothing to do with the task that literally lay before them.
As the bird dipped lower, she could feel the whisper of its exhausted wings. She gave it permission with a tilt of her head, and it landed on her shoulder in a soft, grateful clump. Hermes jerked. Cold came on quickly in the nighttime desert, and the two had taken to resting back to back, staving off the chill. He turned and regarded the drowsy owl.
There was no moon. The scene in the sand, two gods speaking to a bird at the edge of an expanse of stretched skin, was invisible to anyone else. But Athena could see into the owl’s eyes clearly.
“Where is she?” Hermes asked. “Er, where is her … mouth?” He didn’t ask whether the owl had found it or not. It wouldn’t have returned if it hadn’t.
“A few hours’ walk,” Athena replied. “That way.” She stretched her arm out and pointed southeast.
Hermes sighed. “A few hours. Everything used to be so much easier. Do you remember when I could fly?”
She laughed. “Of course I remember. It isn’t easy to forget someone running all over the place like the damned Flash. It was pretty geeky, frankly.”
He snorted. “Even when you’re dying, you’re still a bitch.”