The Valkyrie (18 page)

“I don’t give a
shit what that dumb fuck was going to tell on you for. It isn’t my
business. Liberty can I borrow your lipstick? And is no one going
to congratulate me on a cracking, bad pun?” Liberty fished around
her bag for her lippy and handed it to Glory which she duly
applied. “Now you’re fiancée is about to go on stage. I suggest
that you go out there and stand near the front. If you don’t want
to marry him anymore then that’s fine and it’s probably the right
thing to do, but don’t get turned into a bloody tree I’d miss
you.”

“Yes.” Liberty
said as she ran out of the room.

“Having a nice
evening Bea?” Glory asked.

“Heavenly.” Bea
began to follow Liberty out of the room before stopping “For a
smack head you’re pretty classy.” This made Glory and Bea smile.
They had a little moment together.

“This marriage
is a terrible idea. Be gentle with her, I won’t be pleased if you
hurt my oldest friend.” Glory said with gravity. Bea nodded, that
was exactly what she had wanted to hear from Glory. Glory wasn’t
going to intervene. Bea even thought Glory was a little pleased by
the turn of events, even if she wasn’t aware of it herself.

Glory stared at
her reflection in the mirror: her pupils were wide and her hair was
glossy. She was wearing a black leather miniskirt and band t-shirt
that she’d bought in the 70s. She was also wearing her bawdiest
pair of Doc Martins. Aphrodite had paled in comparison not that
anyone would dare make such a revolutionary statement. She still
had Liberty’s lipstick and applied another layer before resting on
the sink. Who the fuck is Bea? Had she let a cat amongst the
pigeons by hiring her on an impulse? So many mysteries were piling
up on themselves. Where was Val? Why was Apollo getting married now
and to her best friend of all goddesses? She sat and stared at the
tiles on the wall as if they would reveal some secret to her as the
warm up act began to strum away on stage. A few errant notes swam
around the toilets. Glory got up and moved towards the door when
someone else pushed through and she jumped back to avoid being hit.
There stood Apollo, all shiny and cute.

“This is the
girls.” Glory said.

“I know.”
Apollo said as he held her. They stayed like that for a few
minutes, just breathing each other in.

“Don’t do it.
Don’t marry her.”

“Trust me. I
can’t be without you anymore. I won’t do it any longer. I love
you.” Apollo let her go and left the room. Glory stood there with
her reflection feeling empty. Her body wanted to cry even if she
couldn’t justify it rationally. She followed Apollo out of the loos
and went to go and hear him play. She saw the Valkyries standing
with the Olympians who had turned up: Aphrodite was next to Ares
(she was clearly dazed and was ignoring everything that he was
trying to say to her), Hermes was talking to Dionysius who was
slyly trying to feel up Honour in the density of the crowd and
Liberty was chatting intently to Bea. Ares tried to catch her eye,
there was a small mosh pit growing to his left as the beings near
him started to feel angry. Glory thought she’d go and stand near
Hermes, he was normally civil.

“Hey, haven’t
seen you in a while.” Hermes said loudly into Glory’s ear. The lead
singer of the band, a wood elf, was singing loudly about being
dumped. “How are you?”

“I’m alright
ta. What about you?” Glory asked clapping politely as the band
finished and the sound guy came on to tune Apollo & The Muses’
instruments. Hermes pulled out two tinnies from his bag offering
Glory one of them. She had managed to drink her dirty pint very
quickly.

“Cheers” Hermes
and Glory said clinking their cans of Strongbow together.

“Yeah I’m
alright, I’m not looking forward to delivering all those bloody
wedding invitations. I don’t like weddings.”

“The only thing
I like about them is the open bar.” Glory said. Apollo walked on
stage and played a few notes as the lights dimmed.

“Oh I was ever
so sorry about your friend, very sad. I’m not sure exactly what
happened though. I must say you seem to be holding up pretty well.
I know you guys were close. Unlike you’re mother which frankly must
have been a relief to you.” Hermes said touching Glory on the arm.
He felt her turn cold.

“Let’s never
talk about my mother again, eh?”

***

Apollo walked
out on stage to find his favourite guitar waiting for him. He
picked her up and played a few notes. The rest of the band walked
on and settled down to their instruments. He looked into the crowd,
he could see his brothers all in a jovial mood and Liberty was busy
engrossed by that new girl. Apollo’s eyes narrowed: Glory was with
Hermes which concerned him, Hermes could be a bit of a dog and they
frequently had similar tastes in girls. Apollo had written the song
he was about to play for Glory. Clio the band’s drummer looked to
Apollo for the nod and the song began. After it had finished he
looked up and Glory was gone.

Glory heard everyone get in. She
heard Honour cackle as she stormed up the stairs to change her
shoes. She heard Liberty yell for more shots and Bea ask whether
she wanted tequila or turpentine. She heard Aphrodite demand that
she be taken home and she heard Ares sigh loudly at this. They were
going to fight in the car back to Olympus. She heard Dionysius
request that they all go to a night club called Savage that his
maenads had already carried on to. She heard Hermes on his phone
bellowing about Japanese government bonds. She heard Apollo say
that he was tired after the gig and that he was just going to go to
bed in Liberty’s room. Then she heard the door slam and everyone
else leave. Glory had run a bath. The water was cold and she hadn’t
taken any of her clothes off bar her Doc Martins which hid under
the sink. She hadn’t turned the light on, nor had she locked the
door. She lay under the water with her eyes closed tight so that
when she cried the tears could flee her cheeks and leave no
trace.

“I forget that
you’re a sea goddess at heart. You know, you really should reply to
my text messages. We’ve been mutually ignoring each other for the
last thousand years out of necessity, but that isn’t how it’s going
to be in the future. Stop ignoring me please. Why are you ignoring
me now? How do you think I feel about that?” Apollo asked as he
turned the light on and then sat down on the loo seat lid. He sat
there for five minutes watching her. Glory looked so serene. He
leaned over and stroked her submarine cheek. Glory opened her eyes
and looked at him through her haze. She sat up, got out of the bath
and stood on the mat. Water clung to her sodden clothes. Apollo
pulled the plug and then went and found towels from the airing
cupboard. He peeled off her damp clothes piece by piece and hung
them on the shower rail to dry. He wrapped her body in a big yellow
towel and her hair in another.

“Let’s go to
your room. They won’t be back until tomorrow lunchtime if Dionysius
has his wicked way.” Glory didn’t move, so he picked her up,
carried her into her room and set her down on the chaise longue. He
found a brush on her vanity table and sat beside her teasing the
knots out of her hair. He went to stroke her cheek again but saw a
tear roll down her face. He’d never seen a goddess cry before. The
tear slid down her cheek and fell to floor as a little pearl. It
bounced along the carpet and rolled into his foot. Apollo picked it
up and inspected it. He put it in his wallet for safe keeping.

“Bed time now.”
Apollo took off his jeans and t-shirt before getting into Glory’s
bed. She followed him leaving her towel on the chaise longue. “What
happened?”

“Hermes said
that Valour’s dead. I know she’s dead, she had to be. She wouldn’t
go off grid like that for a few days. Liberty doesn’t know. She’s
had a new blind spot appear. She could only predict me having the
phone call with Val when she handed her notice in.”

“You can’t just
develop blind spots like that.” Apollo said stroking her hair.
Glory curled into him and sobbed.

“How did I let
that happen? I should have had her back.”

“It was
probably a fixed point in time that you couldn’t do anything about.
I can’t see what happened either.”

“How did Hermes
know then?”

“Hermes can
find anyone anywhere. If he can’t find you then you no longer exist
on this plane. There’s something very strange afoot. Don’t let on
that you know anything. I’ll speak to Hermes too.”

“You shouldn’t
be here. If the old man finds out he’ll be furious.”

“Don’t worry
about him in the slightest. I’ve got it all covered.” Apollo said
kissing Glory on the forehead. This was a bolder Apollo, an Apollo
who also knew that the tide was turning.

“What about
Liberty?” Glory knew that Liberty would neither care nor be back in
time tomorrow for work let alone to catch Apollo in her bed.

“She’s screwing
the new girl Bea right?”

“Yes.” Glory
said, not one hundred per cent sure how Apollo would take it. She
hadn’t asked the reason for why he was trying to marry her best
friend and nor was she going to. He had asked her to trust him, and
she did against her better judgement.

“Who is Bea?”
Apollo had realised that he could turn Liberty’s affair to his
advantage, but he first needed to get her down the aisle to make
the whole plan work.

“I don’t have a
clue? She’s one of us though and she’s utterly terrifying.” Glory
thought of Bea’s subtle magic yesterday in Olympus.

“By the way
where did that vase in the kitchen come from?” Apollo kissed her
shoulder.

“Liberty found
it in a Save The Children charity shop.” Glory said curling into
him.

“How
interesting. It was Rupert Everett not Ben Affleck who played Kit
Marlowe.”

“Oh shit it was
wasn’t it. I killed my mother.”

“My brave
girl.”

“Are you still
mad about Byron?”

“A little bit,
yes.”

“I keep
dreaming of ships even more than I used to. I can feel the North
Sea in my bones.”

“That’s only
natural, you’re mother’s powers have passed on to you now.” It had
been a very long time since he had been able to be this close to
Glory in private and for her to be so very candid with him.
Matricide was evidently attractive to all Olympians. Glory and
Apollo normally met infrequently in overcrowded public places where
Glory would be very rude to him. He thought that was her way of
coping/flirting. He kissed her hard.

“Do you have a
condom?” Glory asked.

“Of course I
do. I love you.” Apollo said.

Glory was in Gangnam watching
sculpted women wander around with oversized handbags. They had no
idea what they were in for. She was waiting for Ares and he was
five minutes late. Glory wasn’t in a good mood, she had woken up
that morning to just a damp patch in the middle of the bed and none
of the other Valkyries were in a fit state to be anywhere near a
warzone. She found Bea and Liberty passed out on the sofa in the
living room with TOWIE blaring. She could also hear Honour and
probably Dionysius and there was no way she was going to open that
door, so she just put her uniform on and walked out. She checked
her phone and there were no messages that the marriage was off.
Glory didn’t like that she was just going to have to sit there and
watch while everyone else played their cards, although this was
probably safer for her. Ares’s car pulled up and he got out.

“Good morning.”
Glory said.

“Good morning
to you too.” Ares said. “Is this business or pleasure?”

“Business.”

“Poor me.”

“I’d give up on
me if I were you. I’m a head case and you can do better.” Glory
switched to work mode. “I thought I’d do you the courtesy of
walking you through the next week’s events.”

“How very
polite of you.”

“Right now I
decided that I’d take you around the bombsites.” Glory said. The
prospect of bombsites excited her to no end.

“Is this a
date? Because I’m a war god and bombsites really do it for me.”

“Nope.” Glory
said. “There will be massive casualties on this side of the city. I
can’t wait for the UN statements. There should be some great photos
of wounded orphans and such. They always make great headlines.”

“What did you
do to Aphrodite last night?” Ares asked. “She hasn’t been alright
since she followed Liberty into the loos last night.”

“I didn’t do
anything.” Glory bent down to tie her boot lace up.

“Are you sure?
She started talking gibberish in the car about how beautiful you
are. Not that I disagree but it was like watching a smack head
ramble about their first high. I was tremendously annoyed that she
came at all to the gig and then I was even more annoyed when she
demanded that I drive her home.”

“Your missus is
finally losing it then.” Glory led Ares around the corner.

“She’s not my
missus. What happened to you by the way, you were with Hermes and
then you left?” Ares took a map from Glory.

“I got bored.
Right now you see those three tower blocks on the other side of the
road all the way across to that building there, well these will be
in the first wave of aerial bombardment.”

“I wanted to
talk to you last night”

“You’re talking
to me right now.”

“So I am. I
want to talk to you about many things” Ares said moving closer.

“Did you like
the plans for Tokyo that Freya crafted?” Glory asked, she had to
try and remember not to be too obvious that Unit 401 were in charge
here. She felt a pair of eyes watch her. She saw a flash of Artemis
on top of one of the nearby buildings. Apollo must have sent her to
spy on Ares and Glory. That was kind of weird.