Broken God (6 page)

Chapter
9.

It’s a minor god.
Barely qualifies. A sea deity that lives and thrives, as much as any of us do,
in Puget Sound.

She was one of
Poseidon’s daughters, and a cousin, but one I didn’t care for. She wasn’t of
Olympus, but she was an Olympian.

She was the first.

Break and break and break
.

The words echo like
a promise and a chant, a heartbeat that marks time as I follow Hermes to the
shore.

Poseidon is there
and I laugh, a hoarse noise that pulls Hermes’s gaze.

I am doing this. I
am dooming us all, because a girl with the wild eyes and laughing lips is
irresistible.

She wanted coffee,
and I knew better. I knew I should say no.

I should never have
gone back.

You’ll try to run from this. But you can’t. Not this, Father.

She was always
right. I hated it then, and I hate it now.

Poseidon glares at
me, but addresses Hermes, “I told you not to bring him.”

“And I told you
that this concerns him.”

“
He left Olympus,”
Poseidon snarls. “He left his family.”

“
We all left
Olympus, Uncle. You can hardly fault Apollo for that alone.”

“I can fault him
for this.”

He can’t. No one
but Hermes and Artemis knows the details of the prophecy Del spoke all those
years ago. The one that promised I would bring my family to its knees and kill
Olympus.

Apparently my uncle
doesn’t care. He can be pissed without knowing.

Of course, his
daughter is lying twisted and wave soaked, a few feet away, smelling faintly
already of rot and fish.

Her hair has been
hacked off, sloppy. Some trailed long and twisted around her neck, some so
short I can see the white of her scalp. Her throat is a raw gaping wound and I
wonder why. Blood smears there and down her naked torso, like whatever slit her
throat and drained away her life blood revealed in it.

“You know that
Uncle Zeus will want him here. He has a vision that we don’t. He’s already
called Artemis down from Canada. Do you think he wouldn’t have sent her after
Apollo? The entire family is gathering. Apollo is part of that.”

“I’m not,” I
murmur, soft and almost hidden. Almost, he can ignore it. Almost, Poseidon
doesn’t hear my protest.

Almost.

“That’s typical,
isn’t it, nephew
?
You haven’t wanted anything to do with your family for centuries.”

Not true,
necessarily. More, I didn’t want to kill my family, for centuries.

“Enough, brother.”

I inhale sharply,
and my eyes close as I go very still. Hermes slides a quick look at me,
assessing my mental state, or maybe bracing himself to catch me if I tried to
bolt.

I might be crazy,
but I’m not insane. I won’t run while Hermes is standing at my side.

I lost my taste for
pointless exercise in futility a long time ago.

Still. Staying
still. That takes more strength than I realized I had.

Turning to face him
takes
even
more.

My uncle is at his
side, and his silver eyes flick over me before settling on Hermes and giving a
brisk nod. Something passes between them, silently, and I wonder for the first
time what has happened in Olympus while I’ve been gone.

But that’s not what
draws my gaze.

No.

That is the man between
Hades and Poseidon. He’s wearing jeans and a plain t-shirt, and his hair is
brushed back and away from his face, shot through with silver. There are new
lines on his face, which I didn’t expect.

And the beard that
is short and barely more than heavy stubble—that too is
short
through with gray.

He looks,
impossibly, old.

When did that
happen? Last time I saw him…

A hall in Olympus, and the family was shouting. Father was
shouting. I ran, with my twin and my cousin.

“It’s been a long
time, Apollo.”

“Yes,” I whisper.
Clear my throat and try again. “Yes, Father, it has.”

My family is
predictable.

We are soon ensconced
in a palatial mansion far from the city. Father takes the largest room on the
highest floor, and Hades takes a one near the basement. Poseidon bitches and
moans, and threatens to remain in his sea, until Zeus shrugs and says,
“
Do whatever the fuck you want, brother
.”

After that, he
quickly picks a bedroom and locks himself away.

Which leaves the
rest of us to find a place in the house that doesn’t annoy the others and still
fits our own personalities.

Not the easiest of
tasks. And not one I’m in any hurry to attempt. I slink past Athena and Hera
snarling at each other, while Ares leans against the wall, watching with a
familiar gleam in his dark eyes.

“You look like
shit, cousin,” he says, without looking at me. The girls have always been far
more entertaining.

I shrug. “I am as
any of us are, am I not?” I say, simply.

All three look at
me, and I feel curiosity and judgement in their gazes, and it makes my stomach
drop, twist unpleasantly.

So I retreat.
There’s an unoccupied room on the far side of the house that overlooks the
forest. Artie will like it, so I slip inside and let the door close behind me.

This is not the
life that I have chosen.

It’s the one I’ve
run from, for so long I’ve almost forgotten why I ran to begin with.

Except. That’s not
true. I remember too well. I drop on the bed that will be Artie’s and my raven
huffs on my shoulder, shifting nervously.

I wonder if my
family has found the same strange way of channeling their power. I wonder if
they would listen, if I told them our way.

I rub the eye on my
chest, a self-conscious thing that I’m only aware I’m doing when my fingers
come away a little warm. Then I curse, and let my arm flop down and hum, until
everything fades away and I dream.

When I do, I dream
of Del and the whole world burning.

Chapter
10.

It takes exactly
three days for me to lose all patience with my family and bolt.

Three. Long.
Fucking. Days.

Artie gets to the
house that night, crawling into the bed where I’m sleeping, curling around me.
I hear the low snuffle of her hound, and something else.

“Brought Del,” she
murmurs, her words brushing into my hair and I smile. With Del near my head, my
sister at my back, and her Hound sprawled across our feet, it’s almost like all
of the endless years have fallen aside, and we’re on our island, sleeping
wrapped around each other in our childhood bedroom, and somewhere, not far, but
far enough that she is
separate
,
mother is singing,
a noise that I pull power from.

I smile to myself
and drift back to sleep, wrapped in memories and comfort.

When I wake, it’s
with the rising sun. I can hear movement in the house, and my sister’s steady
breathing against my neck and Del’s claws digging into my shoulder.

Carefully, so I
don’t disturb Artemis, I crawl from the bed and rub her Hound’s ears while I
pad away, Del at my heels. She
mews
once, an imperious demand, and I grin,
scooping her up and letting her settle on my shoulder.

“Let’s find
coffee,” I murmur.

Here’s the fun
thing about my family.

They don’t believe
in coffee.

My uncle Hades and
Hermes are in the kitchen, and Demeter is there, with Persephone leaning over
Hade’s shoulder.

And every last one
of them is drinking mead. Like that’s an acceptable drink at sunrise.

Unless you are Dionysius,
mead is
not
a breakfast beverage.

“Where is the
coffee?” I mutter.

They eye me with
something like concern and contempt, and then Persephone is swaying over to me,
all bright
-
eyed
warmth and ‘have some mead, nephew’ and I snort. Del’s little claws dig in and
she hisses once, in warning, as I turn away.

“You…you have a
cat.”

That comes from
Hades. I shrug. “You were the first to use an animal to channel your power,
uncle.”

There’s a beat of
silence, and then, “My power has not been so strong as to need a channel for
centuries.”

I hesitate, and
Del’s tail, wrapped around my throat, tightens just a little, a growl rumbling
up and through her small body.

I force a smile.
Shrug my shoulders. And then I retreat because I really can’t deal with all of
my family without coffee.

Three days later, after
four fights between the goddesses, a lecture from Zeus, and one very awkward
funeral of sorts, I bolt. I leave Artemis and Hermes and all of them behind,
and hightail it for the city, with Del clinging to my neck, hunkered down in
the curve between my jacket and my neck as the wind buffets us.

The fact that she
isn’t clawing me up
,
tells me all I already knew about my foundling kitten.

She’s not a normal
cat by any stretch of the imagination.

That she hasn’t
left my side in days, sleeping curled around me and spending her days twisted
around my neck, sleeping in my lap or tripping over my feet—that tells me that
she really doesn’t like my family.

“Neither do I, baby
girl,” I mutter, and gun the motorcycle, roaring my way down the coast, until I
hit the city.

I told Artie all I
wanted was to get some coffee. A little fresh air and distance
from the
titans,
but
coffee because how
the actual fuck do they expect me to even pretend to be sane if they won’t
provide my drug of choice.

I could have
stopped in any gas station, though. Or even a store, for a bag of beans and a
little machine before I retreated back to that cloud
-
covered house in
the suburbs.

I didn’t though. I
drove the hour it took to take me into the heart of the city and when I found
myself slowing the motorcycle, I knew this was the place I was coming all
along.

I park the bike and
Del noses at my neck, a silent question that I ignore as I watch the shop.

She’s there.
Dancing as she cleans a counter, and I want to hear the song in her head.

I want to be the
song she hears. Every moment of every day, I want her dancing to my song.

I haven’t wanted
this since I released Del, centuries ago.

I haven’t wanted to
break a girl the way I broke her.

But standing here,
watching her dancing, and the way her gaze darts to the clock, and back to the
counter, I want it.

I stretch my Sight,
and let myself stare at her. At all of the threads of possibilities, a thousand
lifetimes and choices and one that gleams, golden bright and shining, the one
that matters.

The one that will
be.

It ties her to me.

I let out a breath,
and I push off the bike, and enter the coffee shop.

Iris looks up, a
little bit of frustration bleeding into her eyes, when I push open the door,
and then a smile, sweet and artless twists her lips.

“You,” she murmurs,
softly.
Her red
hair is pulled up today, and she’s wearing a summer dress, dark green, that
sets off her pale skin and freckles, and she’s smiling, her eyes warm.
Inviting.

Mine.

“Me,” I agree. “Did you miss me, sweetheart?”

“Should I have?”
she asks, turning away to pour my coffee—cold
-
brewed, black, topped up with a straw. I
take it from her and add a splash of milk, watching the coffee instead of her
as it turns creamy and I take the first sip.

“Yes,” I say
simply.

She blinks, and a
smile curves her lips up, wide and amused.

Gods, this girl.
She has no fucking filter, no masks that she hides behind and flirts with.
She’s just raw emotion, honest and there for the taking and it may well damn us
all, but I want to take.

I want it so
fucking badly my hands shake as I lift my coffee.

“Where did you go?”
she asks.

“Why were you crying,
the
other day?”
I counter.

Her eyes go dark
for a heartbeat and she looks down. Away. Then she smiles and shrugs. “My
brother is dying,” she says, her voice light, and it’s the first time she’s
lied to me. I hate it, immediately.

The words are true
but the way she speaks them, like they are small and trite and meaningless.
That is wrong, and I growl, low in my throat.

“Tell me.”

“Why?” she asks,
and her voice is bitter. It feels like glass shards and the strands around her
twist and warp, darkening.

“Iris,” I whisper.

She stares at me
and her eyes gleam with tears. “Who are you?” she whispers.

“Someone who can
help,” I say softly. “But only if you tell me.”

And so she does.

The boy is named
Heath. Iris’ twin. (I like that she has a twin, but I hold that thought to
myself, to examine and delight over another time.)

He was an athlete.
A good one. Got a scholarship to
Mizzou
and everything. They—her sister and Iris
and their grandmother—were thrilled for him. So damn proud she couldn’t’ even
be upset that he was moving away and leaving her behind.

We are told to say
that. That we don’t mind. But we do. It always hurts to be the one left behind.

I think that is
why, even now, Artemis is so close to me. Neither of us can
bear
to be left by the
other.

It was in the
middle of his first race when he fell. His leg was splintered in two and he was
screaming, and they thought, panicked, that his career was over.

When the doctors
came, they realized it was worse.

Bone cancer had
eaten through his body. The leg shattering wasn’t the problem—it was the
symptom. His career was suddenly the very last thing any of them were concerned
with.

“They gave him six
months,” Iris says, sniffling. “It’s been eight, and he was doing so good.
Like. I thought he might actually make but then he took a turn and it’s just…I
keep waiting for them to call. To tell me that he’s gone.” She stares at me,
her eyes wide and searching. “What am I going to do when he’s gone?”

I lean forward.
Take her hands in mine and rub them. “You’d go on. Because that’s what he’d
want.”

She stares at me,
and tears stand in her eyes, these big, begging things.

I should leave. I
know I should. I should leave her here and go back to my family, to the
fighting that is happening there that I can't ignore or escape--I can only
pretend to do both.

Instead, I take her
hands in mine and smile at her. "Come with me."

And she tilts her
head. Studies me through her tears. It feels like the world holds its breath as
I sit there, patient and waiting under this mortal girl's eyes.

Finally, she nods.
"
Okay
."

I take her out of
the city. We climb into her little car and she stares at Del who creeps off my
neck and settles in my lap with a single, grumpy mew.

"Got a thing
for cats?" she asks, cranking the engine and pulling into traffic.

I shrug.
"Think I've always known I'd be a cat person, in the end. But Del is a
good
,
little
buddy."

I rub a finger
between her ears and they pin back, and she hisses at me.

Iris laughs and
it's good to hear. To hear something other than tears and angst in her sweet
voice.

"Tell me about
you," she says, and I shrug.

"There is very
little to tell."

"Where have
you been the past few days?" she asks, tilting her head to side eye me and
that I can answer.

"There was a
death, in my family. A cousin. I have a pretty.... intense family and we've
been holed up in my father's house, while we waited for the funeral."

"Were you
close?"

I shake my head.
"No. She was a sweetheart, but no. We weren't close. I hadn't seen her in
years."

"You aren't
close to your family, are you?"

I shrug. "Not
most of them. I'm very close to my twin sister. She's my best friend." I
say it fondly, but it's such a trite way to describe the other half of my soul
.

That's what twins
are. Or,
what
they were, when the world was very young. They were two halves of one soul,
torn into two bodies. It's why Artie and I are still close, despite everything
that says I should stay away from my family.

Why what Hades did to
the twins was so infuriating.
It’s one of the only times I sided with Zeus
over my uncle.

It's why today, I
can't forget this gorgeous girl that I want in my bed and wrapped up in my
power, that smiles at me, distracted but lovely from the driver's seat--I want
to fix it. I want to give her back her twin brother.

I want to wipe away
the fear that lingers in her eyes.

She touches my
knee, and I let my fingers wrap around hers. "Stay with me, Apollo,"
she says, softly.

I want to tell her
that I am. That I am here.

That right this
moment, I don't want to be anywhere else. That I want to lose myself in her,
because I can't face the truth that is glaring at me when I look away from her.

Instead, I squeeze
her hand and she drives us into the sun.

When we are sitting
on a rock looking at the setting sun, she's wrapped in my jacket, shivering in
the cool wind, and licking an ice cream cone with dogged determination.

"What would
you say if I said I could fix your brother? What would you give me if I could
do that for you?"

She doesn't
hesitate.

"Everything.
But you can't. No one can, Apollo. I've accepted that."

She licks the cone
again, a smear of chocolate on her pink tongue and then turns pensive.

"There's
nothing I wouldn't give or do, if you could. But it's just...the shit hand we
were given. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to my awful little cafe, and I'll go back to
Heath's bedside, and I’ll go back to my shit life."

"And
today?" I ask, my voice shaking.

She licks the cone
again, pondering.

But it's already
done.

This. Whatever this
damn thing growing between us is. It's already done.

So it is no
surprise when her expression settles.