فصل 29

Carrot-peeling god

Tofu stir-fry is good, but

Needs more ?gboyà

LITYERSES HAD A TALENT for making friends.

Half the crowd surged forward to kill him. The other half shouted that they, too, wanted to kill him and the first half should get out of their way.

“You villain!” Hunter Kowalski yanked Lityerses from his chair and shoved him against the wall. She pressed a borrowed screwdriver against his throat.

“Ssssstand assssside!” Sssssarah yelled. “I will ssssswallow him whole!”

“I should’ve thrown him against the side of the building,” Leo growled.

“STOP!” Josephine waded through the mob. Not surprisingly, folks moved aside. She pulled Hunter Kowalski off her prey, then glared at Lityerses as if he were a chariot with a busted axle. “You put trackers on our griffins?”

Lit rubbed his neck. “Yes. And the plan worked.”

“You’re sure Commodus knows our location?”

Normally, I avoided attracting the attention of an angry mob, but I felt compelled to speak.

“He’s telling the truth,” I said. “We heard Lityerses talking to Commodus in the throne room. Leo was supposed to tell you about that.”

“Me?” Leo protested. “Hey, things were chaotic! I thought you—” His welding visor fell shut, making the rest of his sentence unintelligible.

Lityerses spread his arms, which were so scarred they looked like testing logs for hacksaw blades. “Kill me if you want. It’ll make no difference. Commodus will level this place and everyone in it.”

Thalia Grace drew her hunting knife. Instead of gutting the swordsman, she drove the blade into the nearest coffee table. “The Hunters of Artemis won’t allow that. We’ve fought too many impossible battles. We’ve lost too many of our sisters, but we’ve never backed down. Last summer, in the Battle of Old San Juan…” She hesitated.

It was difficult to imagine Thalia at the edge of tears, but she seemed to be struggling to maintain her punk rock facade. I remembered something Artemis had told me when we were in exile together on Delos…how her Hunters and the Amazons had fought the giant Orion in Puerto Rico. An Amazon base had been destroyed. Many had died—Hunters who, if not cut down in battle, might have continued to live for millennia. As Lester Papadopoulos, I found that idea freshly horrifying.

“We will not lose the Waystation too,” Thalia continued. “We’ll stand with Josephine and Emmie. We kicked Commodus’s podex today. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

The Hunters cheered. I may have cheered also. I always love it when courageous heroes volunteer to fight battles I don’t want to fight.

Lityerses shook his head. “What you saw today was only a fraction of Commodus’s full strength. He’s got…vast resources.”

Josephine grunted. “Our friends gave him a bloody nose today, at least. Maybe he won’t attack tomorrow. He’ll need time to regroup.”

Lit let out a broken laugh. “You don’t know Commodus like I do. You just made him mad. He won’t wait. He never waits. First thing tomorrow, he’ll strike hard. He’ll kill us all.”

I wanted to disagree. I wanted to think that the emperor would drag his feet, then decide to leave us alone because we’d been so entertaining at the dress rehearsal, then possibly send us a box of chocolates by way of apology.

But I did know Commodus. I remembered the Flavian Amphitheater floor littered with corpses. I remembered the execution lists. I remembered him snarling at me, his lips flecked with blood: You sound like my father. I’m done thinking about consequences!

“Lityerses is right,” I said. “Commodus received a prophecy from the Dark Oracle. He needs to destroy this place and kill me before he can have his naming ceremony tomorrow afternoon. Which means he’ll strike in the morning. He’s not a fan of waiting for what he wants.”

“We could ssssslither away,” suggested Sssssarah. “Move. Hide. Live to fight another day.”

At the back of the crowd, the ghost Agamethus pointed empathically to the dracaena, obviously agreeing with her idea. You have to wonder about your chances in combat when even your dead friends are worried about dying.

Josephine shook her head. “I’m not slithering anywhere. This is our home.”

Calypso nodded. “And if Emmie and Jo are staying put, so are we. They saved our lives. We’ll fight to the death for them. Right, Leo?”

Leo raised his visor. “Absolutely. Though I’ve already done the whole dying thing, so I’d prefer to fight to someone else’s death. For instance, Commode Man’s—”

“Leo,” Calypso warned.

“Yeah, we’re in. They’ll never get past us.”

Jimmy slipped to the front through a line of Hunters. Despite his size, he moved as gracefully as Agamethus, almost as if floating.

“I owe you a debt.” He inclined his head to the Hunters, to Meg and me, to Josephine and Emmie. “You saved me from the madman’s prison. But I hear much talk about us and them. I am always wary when people speak this way, as if people can be so easily divided into friend and enemy. Most of us here do not even know each other.”

The big man swept a hand across the crowd: Hunters, ex-Hunters, an ex-god, an ex-Titaness, demigods, a snake woman, a couple of griffins, a decapitated ghost. And downstairs, we had an elephant named Livia. Rarely had I seen a more motley collection of defenders.

“Also, this one.” Jimmy pointed to Lityerses. Jimmy’s voice remained a sonorous rumble, but I fancied I could hear thunderclaps under the surface, ready to break loose. “Is he now a friend? Am I to fight side by side with my enslaver?”

Hunter Kowalski brandished her screwdriver. “Not likely.”

“Wait!” I yelped. “Lityerses can be useful.”

Again, I wasn’t sure why I spoke up. It seemed counterproductive to my main goal, which was to always keep myself safe and popular. “Lityerses knows Commodus’s plans. He knows what sort of forces will attack us. And Lityerses’s life is at stake, just like ours are.”

I explained how Commodus had ordered Lit’s death, and how Lityerses had stabbed his former master in the neck.

“That doesssss not make me trussssst him,” Sssssarah hissed.

The crowd grumbled in agreement. A few Hunters reached for their weapons.

“Hold it!” Emmie climbed onto the dining table.

Her long hair had come undone from its braid, strands of silver sweeping the sides of her face. Her hands were splotchy with bread dough. Over her camouflage combat clothes, she wore an apron with a picture of a hamburger and the slogan KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY BUNS.

Still, the hard gleam in her eyes reminded me of that young princess of Naxos who had jumped off a cliff with her sister, trusting the gods—the princess who had decided she would rather die than live in fear of her drunken angry father. I had never considered that growing older, grayer, and thicker might make someone more beautiful. Yet that seemed to be the case for Emmie. Standing on the table, she was the room’s calm, steady center of gravity.

“For those of you who don’t know me,” she began, “my name is Hemithea. Jo and I run the Waystation. We never turn away people who are in trouble, even former enemies.” She nodded to Lityerses. “We attract outcasts here—orphans and runaways, folks who’ve been abused, mistreated, or misled, folks who just don’t feel at home anywhere else.”

She gestured to the barreled ceiling, where the stained glass fractured sunlight into green and gold geometry. “Britomartis, the Lady of Nets, helped build this place.”

“A safety net for your friends,” I blurted, remembering what Josephine had told me. “But a trap for your enemies.”

Now I was the center of attention. Once again, I didn’t like it. (I was really starting to worry about myself.) My face burned from the sudden flush of blood to my cheeks. “Sorry,” I told Emmie.

She studied me as if wondering where to aim her next arrow. She had, apparently, not quite forgiven me for possibly being Georgina’s divine father, even though she’d had that news for at least five minutes. I supposed I could forgive her. Sometimes such a revelation can take an hour or more to process.

At last, she nodded brusquely. “Apollo is right. Tomorrow we may be attacked, but our enemies are going to find out that the Waystation protects its own. Commodus won’t leave this net alive. Josephine and I will fight to defend this place and anyone who is under our roof. If you want to be part of our family, for a day or forever, you are welcome. All of you.” She looked directly at Lit.

The Cornhusker’s face paled, his scars almost disappearing. He opened his mouth to say something but managed only a choking noise. He slid down against the wall and began to shudder, silently sobbing.

Josephine crouched next to him. She gazed at the crowd as if asking, Anybody still got a problem with this guy?

Next to me, Jimmy grunted. “I like these women,” he said. “They have ?gboyà.”

I didn’t know what ?gboyà meant. I couldn’t even guess what language it was. But I liked the way Jimmy said it. I decided I would have to purchase some ?gboyà as soon as possible.

“Well, then.” Emmie wiped her hands on her apron. “If anyone wants to leave, now’s the time to say so. I’ll make you a brown bag lunch to go.”

No one replied.

“Right,” Emmie said. “In that case, everyone gets an afternoon chore!”

She made me peel carrots.

Honestly, we were facing an imminent invasion, and I—the former god of music—was stuck in the kitchen prepping salad. I should have been strolling around with my ukulele, lifting everyone’s spirits with my songs and my shining charisma, not skinning root vegetables!

On the bright side, the Hunters of Artemis had to clean the cow pens, so perhaps there was some justice in the cosmos.

Once dinner was ready, the crowd scattered across the main hall to eat. Josephine sat with Lityerses in his corner, talking to him slowly and calmly, the way one might treat a pit bull rescued from a bad owner. Most of the Hunters sat in the griffin roosts, dangling their legs over the ledge as they surveyed the hall below. From their low voices and grave expressions, I imagined they were talking about how best to kill large numbers of enemies tomorrow.

Hunter Kowalski volunteered to bunk in Georgina’s room for the night. The little girl had remained fast asleep since her experience on the Throne of Memory, but Hunter wanted to be there for her just in case she woke up. Emmie gratefully agreed, but not until after shooting me an accusatory look that said, I don’t see you volunteering to sit with your kid all night. Honestly, as if I was the first god who’d ever forgotten he sired a child who was then carried away by a decapitated ghost to be raised by two women in Indianapolis!

The two half-starved demigods, brothers named Deacon and Stan, who I learned had been residents of the Waystation for over a year, now rested in the infirmary with IV drips of nectar. Sssssarah had taken a basket of eggs and slithered off to the sauna for the night. Jimmy ate with some of the other escapees on the sofas, which did not make me feel neglected at all.

This left me at the dining table with Meg (what else is new?), Leo, Calypso, Emmie, and Thalia Grace.

Emmie kept glancing across the room at Josephine and Lityerses. “Our new friend, Lityerses…” She sounded remarkably earnest when she said the word friend. “I talked with him during chore time. He helped me churn the ice cream. He told me quite a bit about the armies we’ll be facing tomorrow.”

“There’s ice cream?” I asked. I had a natural ability to focus on the most important details when someone was talking.

“Later,” Emmie promised, though her tone told me I might not be getting any. “It’s vanilla. We were going to add frozen peaches, but…” She looked at Meg. “We thought that might be in poor taste.”

Meg was too busy shoveling tofu stir-fry into her mouth to respond.

“At any rate,” Emmie continued, “Lityerses estimates a few dozen mortal mercenaries, about the same number of demigods from the Imperial Household, a few hundred assorted cynocephali and other monsters, plus the usual hordes of blemmyae disguised as local police, firefighters, and bulldozer operators.”

“Oh, good,” said Thalia Grace. “The usual hordes.”

Emmie shrugged. “Commodus means to raze Union Station. He’ll make it look to the mortals like an emergency evacuation.”

“A gas leak,” Leo guessed. “It’s almost always a gas leak.”

Calypso picked the shredded carrots out of her salad, which I took as a personal insult. “So we’re outnumbered ten to one? Twenty to one?”

“No sweat,” Leo said. “I’ll handle the first two hundred or so myself, then if I get tired—”

“Leo, stop.” Calypso gave Emmie an apologetic frown. “He jokes more when he’s nervous. He also jokes worse when he’s nervous.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Leo inserted carrot fangs in his mouth and snarled.

Meg almost choked on her stir-fry.

Thalia let out a long sigh. “Oh, yeah. This is going to be a fun battle. Emmie, how are you stocked for extra arrows? I’m going to need a full quiver just for shooting Leo.”

Emmie smiled. “We have plenty of weaponry. And thanks to Leo and Josephine, the Waystation’s defenses have never been stronger.”

“You’re welcome!” Leo spat out his fangs. “Also I should mention the giant bronze dragon in the corner—assuming I can finish his tune-up tonight. He’s still not at a hundred percent.”

Normally, I would’ve found that giant bronze dragon quite reassuring, even at 75 percent, but I did not like twenty-to-one odds. The bloodthirsty cries of the arena audience still rang in my ears.

“Calypso,” I said, “what about your magic? Has it returned?”

Her look of frustration was quite familiar. It was the same look I got whenever I thought of all the marvelous godly things I could no longer do.

“Only a few bursts,” she said. “This morning, I moved a coffee cup across the counter.”

“Yeah,” Leo said, “but you did that awesomely.”

Calypso swatted him. “Josephine says it’ll take time. Once we…” She hesitated. “Once we survive tomorrow.”

I got the feeling that wasn’t what she’d intended to say. Leo and Emmie exchanged a conspiratorial glance. I didn’t press the issue. At the moment, the only conspiracy I’d be interested in would be a clever plan to smuggle me back to Mount Olympus and reinstate me to godhood before breakfast tomorrow.

“We will make do,” I decided.

Meg slurped down the last of her stir-fry. Then she demonstrated her usual exquisite manners by belching and wiping her mouth with her forearm. “Not you and me, Lester. We won’t be here.”

My stomach started tossing its own little salad. “But—”

“Prophecy, dummy. First light, remember?”

“Yes, but if the Waystation is attacked…shouldn’t we be here to help?”

This was an odd question coming from me. When I was a god, I would have been delighted to leave the mortal heroes to fend for themselves. I would have made popcorn and watched the bloodbath from a distance on Mount Olympus, or simply caught the highlight reel later. But as Lester, I felt obliged to defend these people—my dear old Emmie, gruff Josephine, and not-so-little Georgina, who might or might not be my child. Thalia and the Hunters, Jimmy of the Lovely Loincloth, the proud griffin parents upstairs, the excellent elephant downstairs, even the dislikable Lityerses…I wanted to be here for them.

It may seem strange to you that I hadn’t already considered my conflicting obligation—to seek out the Cave of Trophonius at first light—and that this might prevent me from being at the Waystation. In my defense, gods can split their essence into many different manifestations at once. We don’t have a lot of experience with scheduling.

“Meg is right,” Emmie said. “Trophonius has summoned you. Getting your prophecy may be the only way to prevent the emperor’s prophecy from coming true.”

I was the god of prophecies, and even I was starting to hate prophecies. I glanced at the spirit of Agamethus, hovering by the ladder to the loft. I thought of the last message he had given me: We cannot remain. Did he mean the defenders of the Waystation? Or Meg and me? Or something else entirely? I felt so frustrated I wanted to grab his Magic 8 Ball and bounce it off his nonexistent head.

“Cheer up,” Thalia told me. “If Commodus comes at us with his full strength, the Oracle might be guarded with just a skeleton crew. It’ll be your best chance to get in.”

“Yeah,” Leo said. “Besides, maybe you’ll make it back in time to fight with us! Or, you know, we’ll all die, and it won’t matter.”

“That makes me feel much better,” I grumbled. “What problems could we possibly run into, just Meg and I?”

“Yep,” Meg agreed.

She did not sound the least bit worried. This seemed like a failure of imagination to me. I could envision all sorts of horrible fates that might befall two people wandering into the dangerous cavern of a terrifying, hostile spirit. I would rather fight a host of blemmyae on bulldozers. I would even consider peeling more carrots.

As I was cleaning up the dinner plates, Emmie caught my arm.

“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Was it payback?”

I stared at her. “Was…what payback?”

“Georgina,” she murmured. “For me…you know, giving up your gift of immortality. Was she…” She pressed her lips into a tight line, as if she didn’t trust them to say any more.

I hadn’t known I could feel any worse, until I did. I really hate that about the mortal heart. It seems to have an infinite capacity for getting heavier.

“Dear Emmie,” I said. “I would never. Even on my worst days, when I’m destroying nations with plague arrows or putting together set lists for Kidz Bop compilations, I would never take revenge in such a way. I swear to you, I had no idea you were here, or that you had left the Hunters, or that Georgina existed, or…Actually, I just had no idea about anything. And I’m so sorry.”

To my relief, a faint smile flickered on her face. “That’s one thing I can believe, at least.”

“That I am sorry?”

“No,” she said. “That you had no idea about anything.”

“Ah…So, we’re good?”

She considered. “For now. But when Georgie recovers…we should talk further.”

I nodded, though I was thinking that my to-do list of unwelcome tasks was already quite full.

“Well, then.” I sighed. “I suppose I should get some rest, and perhaps start composing a new death haiku.”