The Valkyrie (20 page)

Glory was left
frustrated, Athena had left with her more questions and not nearly
enough answers. What on earth did she mean by all that? She’d never
taken to warning her about anything before, particularly where her
box was concerned. Who was just like Zeus? Apollo? This was all too
much for Glory. What frustrated Glory most about the situation was
that she couldn’t work out whether Athena was being sarcastic about
Elgin or not.

Glory got back to the house to
find that their hallway had been invaded by reams and reams of
taffeta and silk. Honour was trying to organise the organza
delivery and move it into the living room but it was clearly a bit
too much for her. Glory crawled over the ocean of fabric and
eventually made her way to the kitchen. Liberty was on the phone
with a pained expression on her face. She was clearly talking to
Hades. Glory went over to the whisky cupboard and poured herself a
large stiff one. She then went over to the cupboard aptly named
‘PARTAY’ and riffled around for a few ecstasy tablets before
dropping them in and letting them dissolve. Liberty finally got off
the phone.

“Geez that god
is an absolute ovary ache.” Liberty threw her phone at the
wall.

“Hades?” Glory
asked.

“Yes, what a
chip he has on his shoulder.” Liberty shook her head. “He was
convinced he was being swindled out of his portion of the dead from
KW2.”

“It would be so
much easier if the whole process was centralised and there was just
one afterlife for the bloody mortals.” Glory could have gone
further but that would have been tantamount to rebellion in most
immortal quarters.

“That is a far
too sensible a suggestion.” Liberty huffed.

“I take it that
the taffeta monster is the real reason for your mood.”

“My mood.”

“Yes, you’re
pretty pissy.” Glory had observed that when she herself felt like
that it tended to rain outside.

“I can’t go
through with it.” Liberty looked like she had the potential to
start crying. Glory didn’t know whether Liberty could cry or
not.

“Had any more
visions that might shed a light on all this mayhem?” Glory asked to
which Liberty just shook her head, it was worrying that Liberty had
apparently lost her foresight “Have you spoken to your dad? He’s a
pretty good bet on being able to solve this.” Glory liked
Prometheus but she couldn’t help feel that he was only ever out for
what he could get.

“I’m going to
try and see him tonight. The invitations went out today. I can’t
believe I agreed to get married after an engagement that was less
than a week.” Liberty said despondently.

“How drunk were
you?” Glory knew full well that it had nothing to do with alcohol
and it had been by Eros’s hand, but she wasn’t aware that there was
a way to reverse the effect his arrows had and yet Liberty was no
longer in love. Liberty wasn’t telling her something and after the
loos at Apollo’s gig she could more than easily guess who Glory
wasn’t being told the truth about. She felt the niggling sensation
of distrust begin to bloom.

“Horrendously
drunk it would seem.” Liberty furrowed her brow “In the meantime I
may suggest that you go try on one of those beastly dresses
considering that you are my maid of honour.”

The thought of
being maid of honour at Apollo’s wedding shook her. Glory hadn’t
allowed the wider implications of the whole business to properly
set in yet. “I don’t have to make a speech do I?” Glory asked. “I
won’t be sober by that point of the day.”

“Neither will
I.” Liberty got up, left the room, scrabbled over the taffeta beast
and went to sit in her room and play scream music.

Glory finished
her whisky and mulled over all the sheer horror of the last few
days: Valour’s death, Bea’s arrival, Liberty’s engagement to
Apollo, Apollo appearing to have some sort of mad cap plan for who
knows what, Athena being a bit more odd than normal and Eros was
mixed up in it all somewhere. Oh and what sort of plan could Apollo
possibly have for the two of them that kicked off with him marrying
her best friend? Could she even trust Apollo anymore? Could she
trust anyone, even Liberty? Was she even in love with Apollo still?
That would require her going into her room and opening that evil
little box to find out, which wasn’t happening any time soon. She
thought she must be in love with him still based on the sex last
night, but she enjoyed all the emotionally unattached sex with
everyone else too much for that to be indicative. And what about
the elephant in the room, what about the Ragnarok? All this end of
the world bollocks. Glory had a very bad feeling in her gut. All
these strange pieces fitted in together but she couldn’t see it
yet. It frustrated her that everyone else was holding their cards
to their chest so tightly. This could only mean one thing: a
rebellion against Zeus was afoot. It would be seen whether it was
just going to be a localised Olympian dispute or whether it would
embroil everyone else.

Glory thought
she’d go and rescue Honour before she drowned under all that silk.
“Need some help?”

“Yes please,
you’re a life saver.” Honour said panting.

“What exactly
are we looking at here?”

“Not a clue.
I’ve put what appears to be bridal on the sofa by the window. I’m
just struggling with what’s supposed to be for the
bridesmaids.”

“Right well
let’s put the bridesmaids’ things in that corner. How many
bridesmaids is Liberty even having?” Glory picked up a slinky silk
number that she liked the look of “Oh look this has my name pinned
to the label. Well that solves that. Maybe we should get some
mannequins in here so we can see whose is whose or would that look
really creepy?”

“That’s not a
bad idea. I’ll tell you what if you sort them out, put them onto
mannequins once you’ve got everything together and read out the
names, then I’ll write a spread sheet detailing what we received
for each girl. I can send the spread sheet back to Olympus to
confirm that we’ve received everything. After seeing Hera with
those flowers at the engagement party I can’t imagine how bat shit
crazy she’d go over the bridal party’s attire being all fucked
up.”

“How very
efficient of you, especially considering that you’re very hung
over. Who ordered all this?”

“Hera,
naturally. My laptop is in the kitchen, fancy another bevy? I think
hard liquor is the only way we’re getting through this. That is
unless we get Hercules in to perform another labour.” Honour said
leaving the room in pursuit of gin.

“He’s not
talking to me at the moment, otherwise that would have been an
awfully good idea.” Glory yelled through the wall.

Honour returned
with her laptop and two large bottles of Hendricks. “I rang Valour
earlier, she’s updated her voicemail saying that they’ve gone on
holiday to Bermuda.”

“Lucky Val, I
could do with a holiday too.” Glory felt glacially cold.

“Where’s Bea,
we could do with her help?”

“Not a clue
mate.” Glory’s eyes had lost their focus.

***

Liberty was
laid like a starfish on her bed. Evanescence was playing on repeat
as she stared at the patterns on the ceiling. She got up and pulled
out the box under her bed that she’d been storing Apollo’s love
letters in and read a few. My goodness were they drivel, absolute
nonsense most of them. The weird thing about them was how
half-hearted they were, the sentiment was paltry. It was as if he
was going through the motions of a seduction. She wouldn’t put it
past Apollo to have a template stashed somewhere that he just
adjusted each time to accommodate the new girl’s name. She shoved
the box under the bed. The tip was all that was left of Eros’s love
arrow and it was on her vanity table looking at her. The audacity
of the whole thing, the affront to her independence was
astonishing. Apollo clearly didn’t know her very well at all if he
thought she was going to take marriage lying down. She got up and
went to change out of her hangover pyjamas and put on a clean cut
white shirt dress and brown leather wedges. She found her handbag
and walked downstairs.

“Are you two
still going at it?” Liberty said from the doorway of the living
room. A small army of creepy mannequins had appeared from nowhere
and were taking over the room. Glory sat on top of the bookshelf
yelling out names of girls and pointing at mannequins. “Who are all
of these girls you’re calling?”

“You’re sodding
bridesmaids.” Honour said.

“For fuck’s
sake!” Liberty said storming out of the house slamming the door
behind her. She stomped down the street and got in her car. It was
nicer than Glory’s mostly because it lacked the smell of
evaporating ethanol. She checked her phone for the address her
father had text her and set off rattling along London’s dreary
streets towards St George’s in Bloomsbury.

***

“Another
Hawksmoor.” Liberty said as she threw her bag down beside
Prometheus and slumped in the pew.

“You can’t get
out of marrying Apollo it’s a fixed point in time now.” Prometheus
said looking straight ahead to the altar.

“What?” Liberty
stared at her father trying to get some sort of physical reaction
from him “No, there’s no way that’s happening. That isn’t even
possible I’m not even subject to fate. I can do what I fucking want
to.”

“Yes, but you
were stupid enough to swear on Styx that’d you’d marry him and we
are all only as good as our word.” Prometheus clicked his fingers
and lit a cigarette with the little flame that resulted. “Apollo’s
got you good and proper. He’s using you as a means to an end.”

“A power play
for the throne?” Liberty asked. Her face had turned ashen.

“Yes, although
I have very little insight beyond that at the moment.”

“Well fuck me.
He really is a bit of a bastard. I’ll sit on that info, I don’t
want to be the bearer of such a prophecy.”

“There is
another horse in the running. They’re working in tandem with Apollo
at the moment but the two factions will come to blows
eventually.”

“What does this
mean for us?” Of course Liberty knew who the other horse was.

“It means we
sit tight until after the wedding. I’m sure you will make a
charming bride.”

“There’s going
to be a war isn’t there.”

“Oh yes, and I
should think it will be a damned sight more brutal than The
Titanomachy. By the way, it would be tremendously unwise of you to
mention this to anyone else. Not even Glory. We must look after
ourselves. Glory is wrapped up in it all somewhere but I’m not
quite sure where. You know she murdered her mother this week right?
Not that Britannia will be missed the putrid harridan, but old Zeus
won’t be too pleased. Matricide is too close to patricide for his
liking.” Prometheus said. He then kissed Liberty on the cheek,
turned and left leaving Liberty in a state of utmost shock. She
thought she had better get home and start storing even more nuclear
grade plutonium in the freezer just in case.

Following on from Liberty’s tantrum Glory and
Honour continued sorting all those bloody dresses and didn’t finish
it all until 11pm at which point they decided that it would be fun
to play a game of pill pong. Pill pong was similar to the mortal
game beer pong but with a different pill in each cup. They played
only one round that Glory won; her hand to eye coordination was
terrifying. Although Glory decided that Honour had actually won on
a technicality so she got to neck all the goodies on her side too.
Glory then also decided that she would just help herself to a few
more pills anyway. She opened the coke draw as she was rifling
through the cupboards and saw that they were getting a little low;
she’d have to ring their dealer Shady Tim. There was a rumour doing
the rounds that he was planning to retire at the tender age of
twenty six to The Bahamas on what that house in Hackney consumed
alone. Glory didn’t like this much, she didn’t want to get a new
dealer because she was rather fond of Shady Tim. Shady Tim asked no
questions, he didn’t ask where they got that kind of money which
was good as Glory would just have said the truth: that she magicked
it out of thin air. Plus he didn’t ask what they did with such huge
quantities of premium narcotics. In reality Shady Tim had logically
assumed that the terrace house in Hackney inhabited by a troupe of
devastatingly stunning supermodels was a front for the Russian
mafia so he was too scared to ask any questions at all. He once
wanted to know the time but he was too petrified to ask Glory even
that.

“Let’s go and
look at the stars.” Honour said.

“Alright space
cadet.” The pair traipsed out into the back garden. The garden
consisted merely of a square patch of overgrown grass and a shed
that acted as their armoury. Honour lay down on the grass and
beckoned Glory to join her. The evening was temperate and for once
the neighbours weren’t having a domestic.

“I can’t really
see any stars. I suppose it must be light pollution” Honour was too
high to be massively disappointed.

“That or the
sky’s about to fall and all the stars have started going out.”

“Is Liberty
having a hen do?”

“Ah shit I knew
there was something I’d forgotten to do.” Glory said but as she was
flying like a kite she just sat there and giggled like a child “I
need to ring Shady Tim.”

“See if he can
get me some crystal meth to try this time.” Honour rolled around in
the grass.

Glory lit a
cigarette and stared into the empty sky. “Yeah alright. Have you
got any other requests? I think we’re running low on smack. If meth
is any good we could get rid of the poppers draw in the
kitchen.”

“Nah I’m good
as long as we’ve got enough MDMA for the weekend. Did I tell you
about when I took Bea to Valhalla on her first day?”