Antigoddess (32 page)

At first she thought it was a rebroadcast of the Chicago explosion. The piles of debris and clouds of dust looked so similar. But this structure was more twisted; there was more iron to it, and the destruction hadn’t been as complete. The frame of half of one of the buildings was still visible, charred and jagged. And the “live” tag blinked in the corner of the screen.

“My god,” she heard someone say. The camera panned over fire trucks and ambulances, flashing red and yellow lights everywhere. People were panicked and crying. On the periphery of every camera angle there was blood: someone walking with gauze pressed to their head, paramedics running past with stretchers.

“Where is that?” asked Aidan, and the guy with the lottery tickets said, “Somewhere in Philadelphia.”

Philadelphia. The same way they’d been heading.

Aidan threw two twenties down on the counter and nudged Cassandra and Andie toward the door. “It’s more than enough for what we got,” he said when Andie looked worried. She needn’t have bothered. No one even looked their way when the bell dinged to announce their exit.

Andie jogged ahead with Henry’s Mountain Dew and Chuckwagon.

“It was them, wasn’t it,” Cassandra said.

“I think so.”

“Of course it was. It was just like Chicago.” She clenched her fists, felt heat behind her eyes. “How many people do you think died this time? Were they people who knew, like the witches, or were they just regular people?”

“It doesn’t matter if they knew or not. She killed them.” Aidan’s face was a mix of blank and terror. “She’s insane.”

Cold fear clamped around Cassandra’s heart. If Hera found them, they wouldn’t have a chance.

Walking back to the Mustang, her feet felt like lead. She couldn’t hear anything. The images of smoke and blood took over her senses. She didn’t see the figure shuffling toward her until he was close enough to touch. Close enough to smell.

He stank of urine and something faintly medicinal. He wore the clothes of a vagabond, stained and torn, just a green sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. The sides of his Velcro tennis shoes had burst. He giggled and pointed at her. Stringy brown hair trailed along his hollow cheekbones, and underneath the shock she felt sadness. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

“She’ll have you.” His grin stretched, showing every black-stained tooth in his mouth. “She’ll have you now.”

“What?” Cassandra asked. “Are you all right?”

The man’s eyes widened, stretching impossibly until it seemed that his lids had retracted into his skull. His hazel green eyes trembled and skittered wildly back and forth—until all at once, they were blue.

Aidan grabbed Cassandra and pulled her behind him.

“What?”

“I know those eyes. Even half mad and sick with disease, I would know them anywhere. Aphrodite.”

Cassandra looked toward the car. Andie and Henry stood behind the wide open door, their faces scared and confused. She tried to drag Aidan away, but he wouldn’t budge. He grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him around the side of the Sunoco station. Cassandra hesitated, then followed. She rounded the corner just in time to see the man’s body buckle at Aidan’s feet.

“No,” she breathed. He took her by the arm.

“Walk, don’t run.”

“Where are we going to go now?” Cassandra asked, just before the vision struck.

It sent her to her knees. Pressure squeezed down hard on her arms, hard enough to crack the bones. The world went by in flashes, whipping from right to left. She saw trees, a flash of blue sky. Ice-blue eyes beneath a crown of dark gold hair. Hera laughed as she wrenched her back and forth and lifted her up high. The sky whipped past, like leaning her head back on a playground swing. Panic took hold and her fists connected, digging into Hera’s strange surface, soft and hard, warm flesh dotted through with granite. And then the ground rushed back. She felt her head strike pavement and heard something crack. After that, everything went dark.

“Cassandra.” Aidan shook her gently. They had to move; people had seen her fall from inside the gas station and were starting to come out to help. The clerk was on the phone.

She gripped his arms and let him pull her up. Her head felt heavy. It seemed like she could feel the blood sloshing around inside it.

“We’re okay,” he called to the people coming toward them. “She’s okay. She just slipped.”

“Aidan. I saw.”

“What? What did you see?” He watched in horror as blood began to drip from her nose.

“I saw Hera. I saw her kill me.”

He scooped her up and ran to the Mustang. “No. Everything’s going to be fine. She’s not going to touch you.” He shouted at Andie and Henry to get in the car, and put Cassandra gently into the passenger seat. The tires squealed as he pulled out onto the on-ramp.

“What? What’s happening?” Andie gripped the back of Cassandra’s seat.

“They found us. So easily. They’re stronger than I am. Stronger than Athena is.” Aidan mumbled. He drove too fast; the Mustang surged forward. “I don’t understand it.”

“You’re babbling. Cassandra, he’s babbling.” That seemed to scare Andie worse than anything, but Cassandra couldn’t reply. She was numb. Shocked and outside of herself. When Andie put a tissue to her nose and held it there to catch the bleeding, she barely noticed. She’d seen herself die. She’d felt it.

“I should’ve been faster. Smarter. You won’t die. I swear that you won’t.” He reached over and touched her, twisted his fingers into hers. “I won’t let her touch you. Don’t be scared. Please, believe me.”

I want to. But my visions are never wrong. And now I’ve seen it. So now it will be.

Everyone in the car was silent and bleach white with fear. Aidan watched the passing road signs and gritted his teeth, then took the next exit ramp hard and turned around, back to Kincade.

“Athena … it was a mistake to leave you.”

*   *   *

They were going to need a car. That was certain. Hermes would have to steal them one. But a car didn’t solve the problem of deciding which direction to drive in. The world had become so busy and vast. Even a god could get lost in it.

“Maybe they headed for the Canadian border,” Odysseus suggested.

“That’s no better than a guess,” said Hermes. “He’s evading Hera, not the Feds.” They were starting to snipe at each other, pacing in their cages. Only Athena stood quietly, leaning up against the wall.

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t zero in on Apollo. He wasn’t even a blip on her radar. Of course, eventually her radar would light up like a circuit board. As soon as Hera and Poseidon found them, their combined presence would be a flashbulb behind her eyes. And then it would be too late. Hera would render Apollo into pieces. She’d kill Andromache and Hector, and take Cassandra, while the bits of Apollo screamed impotently in her wake, dragging themselves along the ground.

And if I face her, she’ll really kill me.

Athena snorted bitterly. How she’d loved to watch her heroes fly into battle to meet the end of a spear or a sword. The glory and valor was breathtaking. She’d never figured on doing it herself.

She looked at Odysseus, his eyes bright and alive, and let her gaze wander over his features, down his shoulders and chest. These were the last few moments of quiet. Soon, they would make a decision and begin moving forward toward their end.

I’ll die protecting him. There are plenty of worse ways to go than that.

Then she heard it, a whisper in her ear. It carried with it the scent of dust and a blast of dry, dry heat.

“You must go, and soon, child. He’s coming back to you and bringing all of them along besides.”

“Demeter.”

Odysseus and Hermes stopped talking. They couldn’t hear Demeter’s voice. To them, the room was empty. Hermes started to ask what Athena meant, but she held up her hand.

Miles of highway passed by behind her vacant eyes. It was a road she knew would lead them straight to Apollo, with Hera still just following after, if they were lucky.

“He’s on the freeway. He’s forsaken stealth for speed. But he won’t stay there. He’s going to turn off and—” Athena stopped, and swallowed. “Thank you, Aunt.”

“We are more monsters than gods now,” Demeter whispered. “But some are worse than others.”

For a second, Athena thought she felt a soft, dry brushing against her shoulder, like leathery fingertips. And then Demeter was gone. Athena’s eyes flashed back to the present.

“I know where they are. He’s on the road, and he’s making a wrong turn.”

*   *   *

“Not that I doubt a god’s ability to drive,” Henry said from the backseat, “but shouldn’t you look ahead of you, at least once every few miles?”

Aidan cleared his throat and mumbled an apology, then went back to staring into the rearview mirror. Cassandra knew why. He was waiting for the sky to go black behind them, waiting for a ball of fire, or a flash of lightning, or whatever-the-hell entrance Hera would decide to make when she burned up their trail.

Aidan glanced at the fuel gauge and struck the steering wheel with his palm.

“This thing gets shit for gas mileage, Henry.”

“So everyone keeps telling me. Why didn’t you take another car, then? And why don’t you have one of your own? Super rich, undying god guy?”

Andie heaved herself toward the front seat. “Stop bickering!” She put her hand on Cassandra’s shoulder.

“He could’ve bought us twelve Priuses if he was worried about fuel economy, is all I’m saying.”

“Shut up, Henry!” She gestured toward an exit sign. “Just get off the freeway. The back roads are secluded. We can slow down and save gas and still have cover. We can’t stay on the interstate much longer anyway without risking a high-speed police chase.”

Cassandra sat quietly in the passenger seat, holding an open bottle of Orange Crush. Andie had finally gotten her to drink a little of it, though she’d refused anything to eat. She glanced up through the windshield. The sky was so incredibly blue and Aidan was driving so fast. But it wouldn’t matter. Her death waited for her beneath blue skies and pines. On a day just like today.

“Aidan.”

“Yeah?”

“If this doesn’t work, will you promise to protect them?” She touched Andie’s hand, still on her shoulder. “I mean it. Will you get them somewhere safe, even if I’m dead?”

“Don’t talk like that,” Andie snapped. “We’re not going anywhere without you.”

Cassandra ignored her and watched Aidan. He was a god, and gods were single-minded. She’d always thought Andie and Henry were his friends. But maybe they didn’t matter if she wasn’t around. Maybe he’d just leave them, out of grief, or out of indifference.

“Nothing’s going to happen to any of you.” Aidan looked at Cassandra. “They’re my friends too.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

You promised me too, once. That you had no more secrets.

The word of a god. Was it worth anything? He’d only known them for a few years, barely a blink in his long life. She would be gone before the sun began to set, and he’d go on forever. She closed her eyes.

“It’s not going to hurt. It’s just going to be scary, and then everything will be dark. Do you think that’s how it is? My head will crack open, and I won’t know anything anymore. I won’t
be
anymore.”

“It’s not going to happen.” Aidan ground his teeth and signaled for the exit toward Seneca Lake. “We’ll cut through the Finger Lakes back to Kincade. But we’re not staying. I’ll just … tell Athena to be ready, and then we’re going north.”

“What if she tries to stop us?”

“She won’t. Not this time.”

Cassandra slid her fingers against his. “This isn’t your fault. Not really.”

He squeezed her hand and held it to his lips. “Don’t give up. I’ll stand against anything that tries to hurt you. Even my crazy-ass stepmother.”

They drove, fast and silent, along the curving highway that bordered the lake. Aidan kept one hand twined around Cassandra’s. He muttered to himself, curses and plans and possibilities. She watched him check the fuel gauge for the hundredth time since they left the freeway.

“Aidan!” Henry shouted.

Aidan looked up just in time to see the person in the road. He jerked the wheel hard, and the tire caught the edge of the shoulder. For an instant, the Mustang tilted precariously, and the screaming of rubber against asphalt and gravel rose in Cassandra’s ears. But then the car slowed and straightened out. Aidan hit the brakes hard and the jolt of the stop threw Cassandra mostly onto the dashboard. The Mustang sat half on and half off of the road, the front end pointed toward a slender but imposing-looking pine tree.

“What the hell was that about?” Andie asked breathlessly. The person in the road had been an old woman, and she’d walked right out of the trees into the path of the car. “Some old lady, just walking across the road? Where did she come from? Did you see a house?”

The stretch of highway was secluded, bordered on both sides by pines and orange-and-brown autumn trees. Farther out, Cassandra saw the slate gray edge of Seneca Lake peeking through the trunks. She thought back over the way they’d come.

“There was no house. No driveway, not even another car for the last five miles. What was she doing, popping out of the trees?”

“Thank god we didn’t hit her.”

“It would have been better if we had.” Aidan stared into the side mirror, looking back with dread. Cassandra craned her neck to look out the window.

The old woman stood in the middle of the road as though dazed. Her arms hung slack at her sides, and she swayed on her feet, which were planted wide apart. Something was off. Something wrong. The vacant way she stared at the car made Cassandra want to crawl under the seat.

“What’s the matter with her face?” Henry asked. As they watched, the old woman’s cheeks began to sag. The lines became deeper, and the corners pulled down until her mouth was a leering scowl. Then it dripped off, leaving behind a wet, black spot.

“Get it in gear, Aidan,” Andie said shrilly as more of the old woman’s face detached and hit the pavement. All of her skin liquefied; her hair slid down her head to reveal the skull beneath: obsidian black and covered in slime and scales.