Antigoddess

“Don’t waste your time,” said Hermes. “He’s gone Rambo on us. Break bottles first and ask questions later.”

“I was only trying to protect her.”

“And look how well that turned out.” Hermes lay back on his propped-up pillows.

It was enough. Anyone could see that Apollo was beat. Athena pushed away from the counter and walked toward him.

“We’re trying to protect her too,” she said gently.

“You killed her.”

“She was dead already. She still is. She’s been dying for as long as we have. Her fate is tied to ours.” She clenched her teeth. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t seem to be anything but harsh with him.

Apollo straightened. When he did, he almost looked like a god again, instead of a post–garage band sack of rags. “Why is this happening? What’s killing you?” Athena shrugged. Those were stupid questions to ask. “I heard about Artemis,” he said. “Cassandra had a vision of her, hunted down in her jungle. Something was running her to the ground. Was it true? Is she dead?”

“Maybe not yet. But that’s the end result. The means are different for all of us. Have Hermes tell you about Demeter.” Apollo’s eyes fell, and she restrained the urge to place a hand on his shoulder. Denial was strong, and so was panic. His actions weren’t so unforgivable. Hearing about Artemis couldn’t have been easy. Athena thought of her, just for an instant. Skin as pale as the moon, hair that always looked silver no matter what color it really was. She’d hunted everything in the forest. Now she was the prey.

Why does it have to be so cruel? So humiliating?

In her mind she saw a flash of a green leaf, dripping with dark blood. She smelled carrion breath.

Is that my vision, or Cassandra’s?

“So what do you want?” Apollo looked from Athena to Hermes and back again. “Do you want to save yourselves somehow? Do you think Cassandra can stop whatever is happening to you?”

“To us,” Hermes said. “And why isn’t it happening to you, exactly?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hate to burst your bubble,” Odysseus interjected, “but it probably is. There’s no good reason for you to have escaped. You probably are dying in some way that hasn’t shown symptoms yet. I mean, face it, mate, aside from your questionable decision to reenter high school, you’re no different than any of them. You’re not separate.”

Apollo shrugged. “I don’t care. Dying or not dying. I just want to know what you want from Cassandra. She can’t be harmed.”

“But she can’t be left out,” Athena warned. “Demeter said that she could be the key to everything. That she’ll become more than just a prophetess.”

“How the hell would Demeter know?”

“Let’s just say she kept her ear to the ground,” said Hermes, and looked at Athena meaningfully before dissolving into giggles. The little ass**le was always being inappropriate. But she had to cough harshly to stop from laughing herself.

Keeping her voice even, Athena told Apollo everything they knew. She told him how they’d found Demeter, stretched across the desert. She told him about the Nereid, and what it had shown her. She told them what they’d learned at The Three Sisters, and what Hera had done. As an afterthought, she told him about Aphrodite’s asylum escapee. When she finished, he walked around the room thoughtfully and sat down on top of the cheap plastic-wood table next to the TV.

“Hera, Poseidon, and Aphrodite. That’s who we’re fighting?”

Athena exhaled. “I like it when you say ‘we.’ I don’t want us on opposite sides, brother.”

Apollo narrowed his eyes.

“I haven’t made any promises yet.”

Athena clenched her jaw. She’d shown her olive branch too early. “Well, you’d better make some. Because if Hera gets her hands on Cassandra, you can bet she won’t survive it. I might have killed her to bring her back, but Hera will use her, then kill her, and let her stay dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Take her word for it,” Hermes said, his voice low. “She’s gone insane. She was cold as ice when she murdered Circe’s coven.”

Apollo hung his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well, that’s a shame. Since no one’s ever been able to hold Hera back when she gets a hair across her ass. No one except maybe Zeus.”

“Yes,” said Hermes. “Where is good old Dad when you need him?”