Mortal Gods

“It’s going to be a hell of a scar,” Andie said.

“Yeah,” Henry replied. The scar on his face was brutal and ugly, a red, stitched stripe just below his cheekbone. “The docs did a real Frankenstein job of it.”

“Makes you look like a warrior,” Andie said.

“Don’t say that,” Cassandra said. “You wouldn’t say that if you remembered what it was like to watch a spear go through his chest. And stop … touching him all the time.”

“What? Gross, I’m not touching him all the time,” Andie protested, but Cassandra turned and walked away.

“It will all happen again,” she muttered. “They’ll get together. Henry will die. I’ll swallow an axe, and Andie might live just long enough to wish she hadn’t.”

“That’s no prophecy. That’s only your fear.”

Cassandra turned. Calypso blinked innocently and sipped from her cup.

“How do you know?” Cassandra asked.

“I don’t. It was just a guess.”

Just a guess. But it did make Cassandra feel better somehow.

“You’re thinking about him,” said Calypso. “Your Aidan.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’ve seen that face on lots of girls. And in the mirror, when Odysseus is gone, and I’d give anything for him to walk through my door.” She shook her head, and pretty braids fell across her shoulder. “It must be difficult to believe. That someone eternal as Aidan could be truly dead and gone forever.”

“I don’t believe it,” Cassandra said. “But no one knows where he went. Not even Athena.”

“Athena doesn’t know everything. I’ve guided my share of mortals to the underworld. Almost as many as she.”

Cassandra stared at Calypso intently. With the fire reflected in her sea-glass eyes, she appeared entranced.

“Is that where he is? Is there a way to get there?”

Calypso blinked away the fire and turned her face to the shadows.

“I don’t want to give you false hope,” she said. “The way to the underworld has been closed for more than a thousand years. And I don’t know if your Aidan is there. But if he is, it doesn’t matter. Because we can’t reach him.”

“False hope,” Cassandra whispered. But if it was false, it didn’t stop her head from filling with possibilities.

*   *   *

Athena sat on Achilles’ lonely cot while Odysseus knelt on the floor, tending her crushed ankle. The shack was extremely well fortified. Shelves warped beneath the weight of canned food and bottles of water. He had plenty of first aid supplies, too. And, of course, weapons. Nothing so rudimentary as his hammer, either. He had blades of all kinds. He had a longsword, for Pete’s sake.

“The boot’s ruined,” Odysseus said. The steel trap had bitten all the way through the leather. It flopped sadly when he pulled it off her foot. “Might as well cut it down and make a bootie.”

“As if I’d ever wear a bootie.” Under the boot, Athena’s sock was all blood from lower leg to heel. When Odysseus plucked the fabric away and rolled it down, dark holes in her ankle and foot were plainly visible.

“Sheesh,” he said. “You should probably have stitches.”

“Do you know how to stitch?”

“Not really.”

“Then just bind it up. Either they’ll close, or feathers will pop out of them.”

Odysseus turned slightly pale at that.

“Hey.” She toed him. “No time to get queasy.” She glanced out the door at Achilles, who had put all the clothes he owned in a rucksack, along with a couple of his favorite books, and waited for them in the yard. “Are you sure about him?”

“As sure as I was the first twenty times I told you to leave him alone,” Odysseus snapped, and tugged the bandage just a bit too tight.

“If you’re waiting for me to say you were right—”

“I’d never wait for that.”

“I’m still not sure that you were right,” she snapped back. “What about Henry? How can we bring Achilles face-to-face with Hector?”

“Henry isn’t Hector,” Odysseus said. “But I’ll talk to him about it. Make sure he understands that Henry isn’t the enemy.”

Athena chewed her lip and watched the progress on her foot.

“Make sure you use enough bandage so the blood won’t show through at the airport.”