Mortal Gods

Behind them, tires crunched in the snow, and Andie turned in the backseat. A beaten-up hatchback idled behind Odysseus’ Dodge Spirit.

“Chinese delivery,” Andie said as the delivery guy jogged past their door holding two white bags the size of backpacks. “Did Hermes know we were coming?”

“He didn’t know you were coming,” Odysseus replied. “And I wouldn’t expect to get much of that Chinese, either. Athena’s got him on a ten-thousand-calorie-a-day diet. If I were you, I’d order a pizza.”

Ten thousand calories or not, it wasn’t doing any good. The boy who opened the door was painfully thin, the skin of his cheeks drawn, and the bones visible in his wrists and shoulders. Hermes’ light brown hair shone, and his skin was smooth. Everything about him looked healthy, even as his body ate his flesh away. He waved them inside.

“I can’t believe you’re going to eat all that,” Andie said as Hermes set white box after white box out on the kitchen countertop.

“Big sister’s orders.” Hermes dumped an enormous pile of sesame chicken onto his plate and placed six steamed pork dumplings around the edge. When he ate, he used a fork instead of chopsticks, to better shovel everything in.

“Is it helping?”

Hermes paused a fraction of a second before taking another bite.

“I feel better. And Stanley’s Wok has incredible pork dumplings.”

“It smells good,” Andie said. She eyed the boxes, and Hermes’ brow arched possessively.

“I told you,” said Odysseus. “Order a pizza.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hermes pushed a box of dumplings in Andie’s direction. “Besides, if you ordered a pizza, I’d eat that, too.”

Cassandra snorted in spite of herself. Without Athena standing stone-faced beside him, Hermes was impossible to dislike. He was so much more fragile than Athena, and much more concerned about not being an asshole.

“That wasn’t there when I was here last.” Andie nodded toward the living room wall. A silver sword with a black handle was mounted above the fireplace. The blade glinted, long and thin, in a subtle curve.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Hermes said with his mouth full. “It’s brand new. Just a replica, though I imagine it could cut someone in half if I wanted it to. It reminds me of one I used to have during the Ming Dynasty.”

“Athena will like it,” Odysseus said. “It suits her, to have weapons all over the house.”

“It does,” Cassandra agreed.

“I don’t think she’d care if I put up baskets of posies. She doesn’t give one whit about decorating or style. If you really want to make her happy, we should sell this place and hobo it down by the river.”

Andie stood, chewing dumpling, and walked closer to the sword. “So, you know how to use this? You studied it?”

“I did,” Hermes replied. “Though fighting and killing comes fairly naturally to gods. Except maybe for Aphrodite.” He glanced sheepishly at Cassandra, who shrugged, even as her hands burned. Any mention of Aphrodite’s name made her think of the glee on the monster’s face when she drove the broken limb through Aidan’s chest.

Cassandra rubbed her palms against her jeans and the burning disappeared.

After Aidan’s funeral, she had asked Athena what her power meant. Athena had blinked and replied that it was her purpose. That she killed gods.

She killed gods. Both intentionally and by accident. Hera. And Aidan.

But Cassandra couldn’t believe that. She was no loaded gun, to be pointed and fired. Yet her hands still burned, and her heart raged with a surprising ferocity. Feeling so angry was new, and she didn’t know what to do with it, besides murder Aphrodite.

And maybe Athena for good measure.

She felt Odysseus’ eyes on her as if he could read her mind. But her silent threat wasn’t real. Much as she hated it, Athena was needed.

“Did you get the maps?” Cassandra asked. Maps of every continent known to house a rain forest or jungle that might be the one Artemis ran through. Athena wanted her to use her sight on the maps to figure out which one it was. Probably a stupid idea. She’d never tried it before, and the only thing she knew about her “gift” was that it was generally disobedient.

“I did,” Hermes said. “Do you want to do it now? Or is my eating going to distract you?”

“Well, it looks like you might be eating for the next few hours, so I guess we should go ahead.” Cassandra smiled and took off her coat.