Antigoddess

10 SCATTER

Weeping. Weeping, they were all weeping. Celine, Mareden, and the third witch, a petite brunette creature called Estelle. Athena stood to the side with Hermes and Odysseus, trying to not be annoyed. Trying to be patient and sympathetic, like she should be. God knew the witches had reason enough to cry. Reason enough to be downright hysterical. Their sisters were dead. Their home was destroyed. But Athena was angry and shaken, a combination she never wore well. After a few more seconds of watching the moaning huddle, caked with dust and dried blood from several cuts, she turned and stalked into the trees.

“Hey, wait up.”

She glanced back and saw Hermes following. He looked tired, and streaked with sweat and grime. They had run so far, left Chicago behind, the skyline dwarfed by miles of distance. Athena looked back at it from the copse of trees where they’d stopped. A plume of smoke curled up from the east side. It looked to Athena like Hera’s waving arm, bitchy and gloating.

“Fuck!”

“Sister—” Hermes held his hands up while Athena battered her fist into the bark of the nearest trunk. The tree trembled but didn’t fall.

Athena looked at her torn and bleeding knuckles in disgust. Bits of bark were embedded into the skin.

Hermes didn’t press her. She’d plant her set of bloody knuckles square in his jaw if he did. Hera had beaten them, and losing in battle was something Athena had never gotten used to. A million questions weaved through the air. How had Hera known where they were? How had she gotten so close without them knowing? Close enough to plant a bomb? But Athena didn’t have any answers.

“I want you to take them,” Athena said suddenly. “Take them and hide them. Do it well.”

“Where?”

“I don’t care where!” she screamed, then bit down on her tongue when she heard the cries of the witches sharply cut off. They had so many reasons to be afraid. They didn’t need to be afraid of her too.

Celine’s potion had started to wear off, and the wound in her mouth throbbed. The wounds on her knuckles throbbed. It seemed she could feel the point of every impact that the pattern of bricks had imprinted into the flesh of her back in a hot, sore bruise. Cuts from window glass and sharp-edged steel stung in a dozen places. Evidence of her defeat. It was in every one of her wounds and in the wounds of Hermes. It was in Odysseus’ cuts and those of the witches. It was fifteen miles away, seventeen bodies broken and torn open, buried in rubble.

“I don’t care where,” she said again, this time more calmly. “Think of anywhere. Take them far away if you have to. Or let them decide. Just do it well. Make them safe.”

“There’s nowhere safe.” Hermes looked at her wildly. “Did you see that? Did you see her? She’s still a god.”

“So are we.” So are we. But not like that.

“Her and Poseidon together. Aphrodite. How are we supposed to stand against that?”

“I don’t know. But we will.”

We’ll stand. But we won’t win.

She closed her eyes and thought of Hera. Of the impact of her fist into the ground. She’d felt it all the way up to her knees. With Poseidon, Hera could take whole cities of lives, and she would. Just to sharpen her teeth. All the better to bite through Athena’s neck.

“What do we do?” Hermes looked up into the sky. “What should we do?”

“What are you talking about?”

He glanced at her. Guilty. “I’m talking about not winning. Bad choices.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Athena stood still. Irritation mixed with anger and fear. “You think you made the wrong choice. Picked the wrong side.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.” She kept her voice low. Tried to keep it calm, but it came out accusatory. “You’re afraid.”

“Of course I’m afraid,” Hermes hissed. “And Hera might be a high-riding bitch, but she’s afraid too. You can understand that, can’t you?” He shook his head. “She’s doing what she has to, like she’s always done.”

“Killing people to save herself?”

“To save her family.”

“We’re her family!” Why was he talking like an idiot?

“Will you give us up?”

Athena and Hermes turned. Celine stood a short distance from them, the jacket of her suit torn to reveal a long swath of pale arm. A deep cut ran down her leg, leaking blood into the grass. She had lost one of her shoes and discarded the other, so she stood evenly, if a little weakly.

Does she blame me? Athena looked at the girl, at her tear-streaked face and hitching chest. Do I have any right to tell her not to?

“No. We won’t give you up.” Athena glanced sideways at Hermes, who looked away.

Celine held her head high, dignified. Whether it was a show of strength or just the force of habit Athena didn’t know. Her red hair hung limply, matted down with dust.

“Then we must find the others: Jenna, Bethe, and Harper. They may be in danger. Will you help us?”

For a moment Athena only blinked. It was Hermes who stepped forward and nodded. He looked at his sister.

Thank you, brother.

“We’ll go now, and I’ll come back for Mareden and Estelle.”

“Yes,” Athena replied. Exhaustion crept up in the wake of adrenaline. “Be careful, and quick. We don’t know how much Hera knows, or what she intends to do.”

“She had a hard-on for you, that’s for sure,” Hermes said. “You shouldn’t stay here. Take Odysseus and go. I can meet you in Kincade.”

Athena glanced back through the trees. Mareden and Estelle huddled on the ground, embracing each other. They weren’t listening to anything that was being said. They didn’t care. If Hera found them again, they wouldn’t even run.

“I’m not going to leave them,” Athena said. “So you’ll have to hurry. It won’t be easy for you to move so many witches at once.” She paused. Recommending that the witches split up was out of the question, after what had happened. “Get them to the nearest safe place. Celine, you should keep on moving once he gets you there. Lay low. Do you have some friends?”

“We have many, all over the world,” Celine replied. “And they are very discreet.”

“Good,” said Athena. “Then get going. I’ll watch over Mareden and Estelle. Hermes—” She grasped his arm suddenly and stood for a second, looking down at it. She hadn’t meant to do it.

He might never come back. The next time I see him he might try to kill me. Or he might run and keep on running.

But there was nothing she could say. No guarantee she could ask for.

“Don’t give up,” she said finally. “We haven’t even started yet.”

He patted her hand and she let go. “I’ll be back.” He offered an arm to Celine and she took it. “The god of thieves might be easily rattled. But that doesn’t make him a coward.” He turned to go, but before she walked with him, Celine looked at Athena.

“I’m glad that you came to us in time to learn the whereabouts of the girl.”

Athena said nothing. It was the last thing she’d expected.

Celine shrugged. “Blaming you would be easy. But it is not so simple as that. We would have been forced to choose a side. It would have come to this, eventually. So I am glad that when you found us we were strong enough to help you. And I am glad that you were there to save us.” She paused, and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. The voice that issued from her throat was the same as ever, though her lips trembled. “The last of Circe’s coven.” She nodded to Hermes, who led her a few paces before picking her up and starting to run. It was only seconds before they were no longer visible.

Will they be all right? Athena stared into the trees where Hermes had gone. Would any of them? They’d stepped into it right and proper. The odds of survival slipped by the minute, and the odds of a victory were somewhere between winning the lottery and dying of spontaneous human combustion. She flexed her torn hand and rubbed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The pain felt like weakness. Where would the next goddamn feather turn up? In her heart? Or maybe it would corkscrew right through her eye.

She thought of Hera, so strong, and as maliciously clever as ever. Her death was a slow turning to stone. It was a walking metaphor. And instead of making her weak it only made her more of a monster. They were up against too much. Poseidon would crash the sea into every continent and Hera would apparently bomb the shit out of the rest, all while brandishing her damn stone fist like a battle-axe.

What did it feel like, to have your flesh slowly harden into rock? Did it feel similar to the way the feathers felt? Stinging pains and dull, aching throbs?

“I hope it hurts like fucking nails in your eyes,” Athena muttered. “And I wish that it had started with your face.”

Behind her, Odysseus cleared his throat. She turned to see him standing beside the tree she had struck with her fist. There was a patch of bark missing eight inches across and three inches deep. Sap oozed from the wound like sticky, amber blood. Embarrassment clenched down in her chest; she didn’t like him knowing she’d lost her temper. It wasn’t in tune with the goddess she’d always been, the one he must remember.

Odysseus examined the splintered wood and flashed a cockeyed grin.

“Whatever the tree did, I’m sure that it’s sorry.”

Athena sucked on her tongue. “I miss the days when one glare from me was enough to turn you into a trembling puddle.”

Odysseus laughed. “In all our long history, I don’t remember any days like that.” He gestured over his shoulder, back toward where Mareden and Estelle still sat. “They’re all right,” he said. “I just couldn’t … stand there anymore. They don’t want comfort, you know?”

“I know.” What could have comforted them? They wanted their sisters back, their lives back. They wanted for none of what was happening to be happening. It was impossible. Not even Zeus at the height of his powers could perform those kinds of miracles. And even if he could, he wouldn’t. She could practically hear his voice in her head, as clear as it had been when she’d sat near his knee on Olympus.

What has happened was ordained by Fate. It governs all things, and we cannot see into its mind, child, no matter how mighty we are.

Over and over she’d heard those words, or a similar variation. The Fates. The Moirae. Three beings of destiny, above the gods. Zeus always called them “It,” but they were really three: three sisters. He was mostly right, though. They acted as one, spoke as one, sometimes moved as one as they worked their golden loom, weaving and unweaving peoples’ lives. And shearing them off just as quickly. Fate was the only lesson a god needed to learn. It was their only hard limit.

Athena exhaled bitterly. Since then she’d learned a lot more about limits. Limits of strength and limits of life.

“How fast do you heal?”

Athena blinked. She’d been caught up in her own mind and hadn’t noticed Odysseus drawing closer. He held her injured hand up to his face, surveying the tears in the skin and the drying patterns of blood crisscrossed over her fingers and wrist.

“Faster than you’d think for someone who’s dying,” she replied, and he smiled.

“You should put something on it anyway,” he said. “I’ve got some ointment and bandages in my pack, from back at The Three Sisters.”

Athena sighed. All the anger that had fueled her flight through Chicago had leaked out. What still lingered was weak and exhausted, just fumes. Odysseus brushed his fingers across the back of her hand, lightly and carefully. The touch was soothing and sweet. She could’ve closed her eyes and fallen asleep standing.

Instead she pulled away and clenched her fist, breaking the newly forming scabs on her knuckles.

“Don’t baby me,” she said. Odysseus raised his eyebrows.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He smiled his familiar smile and walked back through the trees. Athena counted to ten before following.

Hermes was back before nightfall. He came without Celine and would only say that he had found the others and that they were safe. Athena didn’t ask where they had gone. The fewer people who knew, the safer the witches would be.

“Are you going to rest for the night?” Hermes asked, and Athena looked over her shoulder at Odysseus, who sat with his back against a broad tree trunk. His eyes were closed, but he was listening, she was sure.

“We’ve rested enough.” She glanced into the darkening sky. Hera was out there somewhere. She knew it, but she couldn’t feel it like she had been able to sense Demeter’s presence. The bitch had cloaked herself somehow. Either that, or I’m just growing weaker.

“Are you sure?” Hermes asked. His eyes stole down to her hand. Odysseus’ bandaging stood out on her knuckles, bright white. “Did you do that yourself?”

“No. Odysseus had some salve from the witches.”

“Oh,” Hermes said.

Athena cocked her head. “Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“Then get going. Why are you dawdling?”

Hermes did his best to appear intimidated and couldn’t quite manage it. “You’re not the warm and fuzzy sister I left here a few hours ago.”

“You’re not the confused and cowardly brother who ran off a few hours ago. Are you.”

“No.” He smiled with closed lips. He liked her better this way, no matter what he said. She could see it. This way was normal. It made him feel safe.

Hermes rolled his shoulders back. “Well, stay off the main roads when you go. They’re calling this a terrorist attack, which is at least accurate. But Fox News is saying it leveled half a block, and that’s a total exaggeration.”

Athena looked around at the trees. When they’d fled Chicago, they’d done so in a state of panic. They hadn’t even gone the right way, which would have been east, though it was probably a lucky mistake in case Hera had been watching in an attempt to follow. She and Hermes hadn’t stopped running for miles, darting like rabbits into the first patch of forest they found. They’d changed directions then and run through trees for another four miles. She wasn’t certain where they’d ended up. She thought it was part of Palos Park.

“Look, there are forest preserves all over down here, looping to the east. We’ll stick to them as best we can. Drop the witches and then meet us at Wolf Lake. We’ll start hitching from there.”

“I don’t know where Wolf Lake is,” Hermes protested. “Some of us haven’t committed every stretch of the globe to memory.”

“So get a map.”

“No money. It was inconveniently blown up back at The Three Sisters, remember?”

Athena looked at him carefully. He was being thick on purpose. Since when had the god of thieves needed money for anything? He was already wearing a fresh set of clothes, some new jeans and a Hollister t-shirt that had obviously been lifted from somewhere.

“Besides, it would be a good idea if I went ahead to Kincade and checked things out. We don’t need any more surprises.”

“Am I slowing you down, Hermes?”

He didn’t answer, just smiled an odd little smile. He looked good, all things considered. With his muster up and his eyes bright, he hardly looked sick. It was the weariness that really made his bones show. Plain old fatigue, pulling his skin down toward the ground.

Athena sighed.

“Fine. Go on ahead. But be careful. And don’t do anything until we get there. We won’t be more than three days behind.”

“Absolutely.” He smirked and walked away toward where Mareden and Estelle waited. Their eyes were dry, finally, and their faces lit with tenuous hope. They had been certain that Bethe, Harper, and Jenna had somehow been killed too. When Hermes got to them, they each stood to one side and slung an arm around his neck. Only Mareden looked back at Athena, and when she did it was without expression.

“Aren’t you worried we’re getting lost?” Odysseus asked. They’d been walking for two hours and had left the Palos Park Woods. The going was easier for a stretch as they crossed over highways, but then they’d gone back into the trees. It was full dark and the sky overhead hung a dull, overcast black. Light in the forest was basically nonexistent. Odysseus kept close to Athena. She did her best to pick the path with the least obstructions, but it was a miracle he hadn’t gone face-first over a root.

“How do you know we’re going the right direction?”

“I just know.”

“But how? There’s no moon, and no visible stars. And it feels like we’re traveling in a curve.” He adjusted his pack on his shoulders. “Don’t you think we should pop out of these trees and check? How can you see in this? I’m going to end up arse over ears.”

Athena groaned. “You’re worse than Hermes.”

“Well, I’m only saying.”

“Don’t question me. I’m a god. Dammit.” She turned back and saw him smile in the dark.

“You could just piggyback me, you know.”

“Is the great Odysseus getting tired?”

“Not in a thousand years. It’d be faster is all. During that uphill stretch I was halfway to jumping on without asking.”

He reached forward and managed to slip his finger through one of her belt loops. She froze like he’d stabbed her with an ice pick and slapped his hand away. The grin fell off his face in the span of a second.

Athena blanched. “Sorry.” Grabbing her belt loop had been a harmless gesture, meant to keep him on the right track and on his feet rather than facedown in dirt and ferns.

“Don’t worry about it. Nothing like being smacked away like a three year old to remind you of your place.”

“Don’t be like that.” She watched him. He didn’t hide his facial expressions in the dark like he did in the light. The embarrassment and disappointment on his features were plain. He shook his head.

“I’m not. Like anything. It’s just been a long time. I thought you might’ve loosened up.”

“Don’t count on it.”

He smiled. “Look, I didn’t mean anything by it. I feel like I know you, is all. Like I’ve known you for a long time. Ever since Brighton Beach, getting my memories back—I guess it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t feel the same way.”

He made her feel guiltier by the second. “I do feel the same way. I have known you. For a long time.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve been alive these few thousand years. What do my two lives matter to you?”

“Will you shut up? They matter plenty. When I saw you back at The Three Sisters I thought—” She paused as the smirk broke through his cheeks, then laughed. “You still can’t touch me.”

“But you’re still my goddess?”

“Because I’m still your goddess. Now keep moving.” As she turned, she caught a flash of disappointment cross his face. That was real. She’d seen him through so many things in the past. She’d seen him sad to the point of madness, seen him sulk when his pride was wounded. But she’d never seen that look before.

I’ve never seen that look from anyone.

“Wait.”

“What?” He tensed, thinking she’d heard something. She lifted her hand toward his face curiously. Her fingers traced the air along his neck and shoulders. She could feel the heat of his skin.

An image of the red room at The Three Sisters rose in her head, adorned with satin and crystal beads. The sounds of his breathing as he lay on the bed, still dazed. None of his lovers in his previous life had ever wanted to let him go. Circe had kept him for a year. The sea goddess Calypso had kept him for seven and would have married him if Athena hadn’t demanded his release.

She looked at him in the dark. Could he really be so much better than any other? What was it about him? What did his lips feel like, parted against your neck, or grazing along your shoulders? How did his arms feel when they crushed you against his chest?

She’d never felt any of those things. Not once.

Not even with you. And of all mortals, I loved you best.

Athena blinked and snapped her arm back to her side. She grimaced. The movement hadn’t been quiet. She watched Odysseus carefully. His eyes wandered and stilled again.

“If you’re having trouble keeping up, just say so,” she said quickly.

“I’m having trouble keeping up,” he said with a wry smile.

“All right. We have to keep moving, but—” She thought of ways to carry him along, using her arm to hold him up beside her. “I’ll help you.” She reached out and took his hand. The gentle pressure of his fingers sent a jolt down her spine. Then she tugged him forward, and they walked quickly before breaking into a run. As they went she pulled him up and along, and sensed his fear change to exhilaration as they streaked through night-black trees, their feet barely touching the dirt.

Athena stuck her thumb out as the tenth pair of headlights approached in the morning fog. Hitching was a pain in the ass, especially when there was fog so thick that the driver couldn’t see that the thumb was attached to a good set of legs. Visibility was also a factor when it came to Odysseus, who consistently stepped too far out into the lane and was going to get his arm taken off at the very least.

They were on Route 6, walking the shoulder and hoping to get a ride that would take them onto the freeway and, if they were lucky, out of Illinois. Two more cars passed by in the pink-orange light of dawn; the second one honked loudly. Athena and Odysseus gave it matching middle fingers.

“Just some scared house lady,” Odysseus mused. “Probably scared to death that we’re going to steal her car, cut her up, and stick her in the trunk while we go joyriding.”

“You can’t really blame her,” said Athena, gesturing to her clothes, which were still torn and caked with dirt. Blood had dried to brown spots and patches on her knees and the belly of her t-shirt. Odysseus looked even worse. Unlike Hermes, they hadn’t taken a trip to the local mall.

Hermes was probably halfway to Kincade by now, Athena supposed. He was probably holed up in some swanky hotel and figured that “laying low” meant using a very convincing alias to book it under. Athena frowned.

Don’t worry so much. He can take care of himself. He’s done it since forever.

But things were different. They were all vulnerable, and she regretted letting him go ahead on his own.

“Why are we looking for Cassandra, anyway?” Odysseus asked.

“You remember her?”

“Of course I do. She was a right comely little princess. Maybe not so much as her sister, but…”

Athena rolled her eyes. “Do you remember her with something besides your penis?”

Odysseus laughed. “I remember that everyone said she was a prophet, but nobody believed what she prophesized. They said she was crazy. Even when everything happened the way she said it would. People were jerks, back then.”

“It wasn’t the people.” Athena put her thumb out for another pair of headlights, but they went right by. “It was Apollo.”

“Apollo? Patron god of Troy?”

“He was in love with her. He was the one who gave her the gift of prophecy to begin with. But then she pissed him off, somehow, so he cursed her. He made it so she’d always see, but no one would ever believe her.”

“Sounds pretty crazy-making.” Odysseus waved his arms at an approaching minivan.

“Don’t flag the ones with children inside. They’re never going to stop for two bloodied vagrants, and they might call the cops.”

“I thought maybe they’d think we were in an accident and pull over like good Samaritans.” He sighed. “So when we find Cassandra, what makes you think she’ll help? She must hate gods, after what was done to her.”

“She probably doesn’t remember. And even if she does, not all gods are bad.” She smiled over her shoulder. “Some of them work for years to save the skins of cocky, ungrateful heroes.”

“Hey! You coming?”

She turned toward the voice, shouted from the rolled-down window of a silver, late-model Ford Taurus. A jacket-clad arm hooked out onto the door and gestured for them to come on.

Odysseus grinned and slung his bag over his shoulder. In the fog they hadn’t even noticed the car pulling over. They walked up and Athena got into the front seat. Odysseus piled into the back and immediately tossed his bag down to use for a pillow. He’d probably be snoring in less than a mile, but he shook hands with the driver before flopping onto his side.

“Name’s Derek,” the driver said after they had introduced themselves. “Where you headed?”

“We’re trying to get out to New York,” Athena supplied. She held the front of her cardigan closed to keep the rips and blood hidden.

“Oh, yeah? Freak Show Central?” Derek checked his mirrors and pulled back onto the highway.

“No, just upstate,” said Athena. “We have friends there.” Derek made an affirmative sound with his nose and roof of his mouth, and said nothing. Behind her, Odysseus shifted clothes around in his bag, getting comfortable.

“I can take you quite a way,” Derek said. He rubbed at his face quickly with the back of his hand. “I’m headed to Erie, Pennsylvania. Driving straight through.”

“That’s just fine.” Athena yawned. Part of her didn’t want to sleep. She knew the fresh, stiff hell she was going to be in for when she woke up. All of her muscles and tendons would have clenched down and shrunk three sizes. But it wasn’t a matter of choice. It took a lot to weary a god, but it happened eventually.

“Thank you for picking us up,” she said. “We might’ve stood out there all morning, with the fog as thick as it is. I’m surprised you even saw us.” Her lids slipped shut. She was asleep before the driver could answer, and when he did, her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see the look on his face.

Had Athena been more alert when she had gotten into the car, she would have noticed a few strange things about their driver. His clothes didn’t fit right, for a start. His pants were too tight to even button, and they were too long. Inches of fabric collected around the tops of his Velcro tennis shoes. The clothes didn’t match, either. He was wearing a combination of green and red that would have looked wrong even around Christmas. And then there was the smell, sour and medicinal, hiding just underneath a camouflage of Brut 57.

But Athena hadn’t been more alert. She had fallen asleep, slumped against the passenger-side window. She and Odysseus slept together, oblivious to the car’s increasing speed. The Taurus’ engine was surprisingly quiet, even at a hundred miles an hour, and the freeway was wide open ahead, except for a large tanker semitruck, shining silver as it plodded along in the right lane. Neither one of them stirred as they passed it. The truck driver watched with annoyance and told another driver over the CB that some idiot in a silver Taurus was out to get them all killed. He didn’t really take the thought seriously until the car moved over the center line, and the passenger door opened and a young woman flew toward the speeding pavement.

The move was quick and well done. He pushed Athena’s door open and shoved her out toward the ground, with the intent of sending her rolling across the asphalt, directly under the sixteen tires of the semi just behind.

It wouldn’t have been fatal. She was dying, that was true, but she still couldn’t be killed, not by any conventional means, anyway. It would, however, have ruined her eye, and left bloody red scales of road rash across her cheek, shoulder, and arm. The impact of the semi would have cracked her bones like dry branches.

She thought all of this in the fraction of a second it took to catch hold of the swung-open car door in the reflexive instant she felt her neck tense just enough to keep her skull from bouncing off of the pavement passing by below.

She hung suspended between the open door and the front seat, her knee wedged underneath the dashboard, and flexed. Her hands wrapped around the interior door handle, trying to pull it shut while the driver swerved. Something struck her hip and she yelped. Looking back she saw the end of some kind of steel or lead pipe, just before it raised and came down again, this time closer to her rib cage. The impact had the opposite effect of what was hoped for; it made Athena’s muscles contract sharply, and she managed to pull the door most of the way shut.

In the backseat, Odysseus woke. After a few startled seconds of coming to, he plunged forward and began to fight with the driver for control of the steel pipe. The Taurus careened sharply to the right. Athena winced. If they turned too far, or went off the shoulder, they would flip like a coin.

“The wheel!” she shouted at Odysseus, who stretched out and grabbed it. With the door mostly shut, she had just enough leverage to draw her leg up and piston her boot-clad foot into the driver’s ribs, snapping at least two. The impact drove him into Odysseus, and the car swerved again.

“If you want me to drive, you have to give me some room.” Odysseus tried to hang on to the wheel as the car accelerated in mad spurts. It revved and shot forward as the driver’s foot pushed the gas pedal unintentionally down to the floor.

Athena reached up and grabbed the driver by the throat. She yanked hard and for a moment he was on top of her, before she heaved herself up and shoved him toward the still slightly open door. The front seat was cramped, and Odysseus’ shoe heel scraped her cheek as he climbed over from the back and dropped down to drive.

“She’ll have him if she wants him,” the driver said, and Athena paused. She was holding him by the collar and the door had popped open again. He hung suspended over pavement passing by at ninety-five miles an hour.

“She can have anything she wants. Anything she wants,” he babbled. His eyes fixed on Odysseus, bloodshot and stark raving nuts. “I wanted to give him to her. I wanted to. He’s right there.” His arm stretched out toward Odysseus, trembling. “And then we drive away, we drive away and you’re gone. You’re gone, awful bitch—”

“Throw him out the bleeding door!” Odysseus growled. “Or I’ll put that pipe through his teeth.”

Athena ignored him. She stared at the driver, fascinated. Tears welled in his eyes. He was manic and sad, a special kind of sad that was reserved for when you failed someone you loved.

Athena snorted.

“That silly brat.”

“What?” Odysseus asked. “What are you talking about?”

“This is her attempt,” Athena said incredulously, and shook the driver by the collar. “She sends a lovesick lunatic to try to take me out? Her assassin is a mooning mental case?” Her eyes narrowed in disgust. “She must be the laughingstock of that little trio.”

Odysseus let the car slow. Athena wrested the pipe away from the driver and tossed it into the backseat. He cried, hard, with his eyes clenched shut.

What were they going to do with him? Aphrodite’s little assassin. They could tie him up, she supposed, and gag him so they wouldn’t have to listen to his ranting all the way to Kincade. Once they got there, she might be able to find a way to put him to use.

She cried out as pain pinched down on her hand. The bastard was biting her. Half of his teeth had disappeared into the skin between her thumb and forefinger. When she let go, he grinned an enormous blood-tinged grin and shoved himself backward out the open door before she could stop him. They heard the sharp crack of his bones striking the pavement and felt the car lurch as the back tires caught some part of him underneath.

Athena looked out the back window. He was a rumpled set of clothes tumbling and flapping down the middle of the road. The semitruck was only a mile or so behind. The body would be found, and they had better be nowhere near when it got called in. She yanked the door closed tightly and stared ahead. Odysseus breathed hard, and the car slowed. He’d been shocked into coasting, his foot off the gas.

“Don’t slow too much,” she said, and grasped his knee, guiding it down. “But don’t speed. We need to—” Exhaustion hit her in a strong tide. It felt like someone had cut her adrenaline line and it was leaking out of her in a rush.

“We need to what?” Odysseus asked gently.

Athena put her fists to her forehead. “We need to get out of Dodge,” she said, “and then we need to get out of Ford.”

Odysseus’ brows knit. “Is that a cutesy, Americanized way of saying we need to get out of here and then ditch the car?”

Athena smiled. “Sorry. I’m suddenly very, very tired.” Aphrodite, you sneaky little idiot, she thought. Why do you always have such shitty timing? She let her head fall back against the seat. Odysseus reached for her bitten hand. The semicircle of teeth marks oozed blood.

“I’ve got more salve and bandages.”

She jerked her hand away. “Forget it. I’m not walking around with both hands gauzed up.”

“Suit yourself. But that bloke’s mouth was like a toilet.”

A groan issued from her throat, made up of every frustration she’d had over the last day and a half. It filled the car almost to bursting. She wanted to slow down, to take stock, but her brain refused to obey. It raced ahead, thinking of good places to get off of the interstate, mapping out alternative routes and figuring where they might be able to score another car, because more hitchhiking sounded not appealing at all. All she really wanted to do was rest. To go back to sleep and wake up to the radio playing a good song and gold and red fall trees going by in the window. But there was no time for that.

“What I want,” she said, “is to know why the hell she was after you. Why are they after you? Why did you come halfway around the world to seek my protection?”

Odysseus looked grimly ahead when he answered. “They want me because I know what they’re after. They want me because without me, they won’t be able to get it. And I came to you because you’re the only god strong enough to stop them.”