“That’s a stupid question.”
“So give me a stupid answer.”
“But you already know, don’t you?” she asked. “You already know what I am. Who I was.”
She paused, but he didn’t move. He held her with those dark, steady eyes until she went on.
“They cursed me and murdered my family. They put an axe in my chest. They betrayed me, strangled me in a field! Blew up buildings full of people. Made it so I can’t go home.”
Her voice went lower and grew louder with every word. Every memory. An image of Aidan flashed inside her brain and she squeezed her fists to crush it out.
“It’s more than enough reason to hate them,” she said. “More than enough reason for them to die. And that’s the truth.”
“That’s the truth,” he said softly. “But it’s not the whole truth.”
“Finish your juice and get up.” She walked out of the room. “I’ve got gods to kill.”
* * *
Cassandra’s anger kept her warm for most of an hour, long after she’d finished stuffing her scant belongings into a bag. Anger felt good. Safe. When it started to wane, she imagined Ares’ face bleeding under her hands. And then Athena’s. And then Aphrodite’s, and the fire surged up fresh.
Calypso stepped into her open doorway.
“Did you wake Thanatos?” Calypso asked. “Is he well again?”
“I don’t know if he’s well. But he’s up.”
Calypso seemed to have calmed since their encounter in her bedroom, but said nothing else before walking away. Cassandra’s heart sank. Her anger fizzled, and without it she felt cold and alone again.
I want to go home.
“She just wants assurances,” Thanatos said.
He leaned against her door, looking down the hall after Calypso.
“Assurances that you’ll do what you promised,” he said. “That you’re more than a shaken little girl whose anger won’t carry her as far as she thinks it will.” He shrugged. “I tried to tell her you are. But she didn’t seem to believe me. Right now I don’t think you’d believe me, either.”
“Stop pressing me.”
She glared at him. The god of death looked too smug and too innocent. The effects of the Fury’s blood still clung to him, and the slight hitch in his movements and grimace on his face made him seem more human. He’d abandoned his slacks for jeans and a dark gray T-shirt. He wore the costume well.
“Did your headache go away?” she asked.
“No. But I’m out of bed now.”
He held his hand out. Cassandra shouldered her bag and walked past it.
“I had another day and a half before we really needed to get moving,” he said. “But if you insist.”
“What do you mean? Why a day and a half?”
He slid past her in the hallway. “That’s the earliest we can expect to be hunted down by one of Megaera’s avenging sisters.”
“Her what?”
“You didn’t think they’d just let that go? They’ll be on our trail every step of the way to Hades. And even if I don’t come back to this house for a decade, one of them will be here waiting when I do. Unless they’re all dead. The Erinyes have patience to spare.”
Cassandra paused in the living room and looked out over the darkness of the hills, at the thousand tiny points of light from mortal houses. She thought she detected movement in a few of the closest and, standing in front of the large windows with the neon glow from the kitchen bathing her back, she felt suddenly exposed.
Relax. There’s no Fury standing in the bushes with leathery wings and bloody eyes. She blinked and focused in on a particularly tall shadow. That’s just a tree, idiot.
Thanatos moved around in the kitchen, stuffing supplies into a bag. The extra Fury blood went into a cooler with a couple of ice packs. He seemed calm. Sure of his timeline. But maybe he was always calm. Death had nothing to fear.
“Does this mean you can’t come back to this house?” Cassandra asked. “Did you give up your house for this?”
He nodded.
“It’s just a house,” he said. “And I will come back. As soon as you’re strong enough to come with me and scare the Furies out of my basement.” He closed the last of his cabinets and picked up his bags. “Time to go. Taking the car east.”
“Is that where Hades is?”
“Must be. That’s the way my arteries are straining.”