BEWARE OF BARS BEARING JACKALOPES 2 page

“Open a window,” she mumbled.

“Roll the window down,” Aidan said, and a moment later the cold hit her face. She sucked it in hard through her nose, feeling it saturate down to her toes.

“Is that better?”

“Yeah.” She blinked at him. She was half on his lap, her legs twisted down behind the passenger seat. The dome light was on and Henry was driving, a little too fast maybe for the way he kept glancing into the back.

“Is she okay?” he asked. “Are you okay, Cassie?”

“I’m okay.”

“Do I need to drive to the hospital?”

“No,” Aidan answered for her. “I think she’s okay. Just head to your house.”

Henry’s eyes met hers in the mirror; she nodded.

“Where’s Andie?”

“Right behind us.”

Cassandra lifted onto her elbows and looked back. The familiar headlights of Andie’s silver Saturn followed close behind. She took one more deep breath. She must’ve blacked out. When she remembered why, her eyes snapped to Aidan, but he was just Aidan, no feathers or blood. He reached up to touch her face and she jerked away. There had been feathers coming through his fingers as well, red-tinged quills breaking through the joints and twisting out from beneath his fingernails. It made her fingers sore just thinking about it, like a nail had been torn off.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Aidan held his palm up and didn’t touch her until she’d relaxed. He looked from one eye to the other, checking her pupils.

“She’s never done that before,” Henry said from the front. “Has she eaten today?”

“Probably not enough. And then she had a beer on top of it.” But not a lot of beer. Not so much that she’d hallucinate. They turned onto Ticonderoga Drive, which led to Somerset Street and their house. Henry kept watching her in the rearview mirror, ready to jerk the Mustang around and drive to the hospital at the first sign of distress. When they pulled into their driveway, he came around to get her door.

“Hold still,” he said when she got out. He put his hand on her chin and turned her face into the beam of their garage door light. “Do you hurt anywhere?” Cassandra moved her shoulders and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She shook her head. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I think she’s fine,” said Aidan.

Henry ignored him.

Andie’s Saturn turned into the driveway, bathing them in its headlights. Her shoes squeaked on the pavement a few seconds later.

“You screamed and fell down.” Andie’s brows knit. “That’s weird even for you.”

“Nice going,” Henry snapped. “I wanted to find out if she remembered what happened.”

“Shut up, Henry.” Andie shoved him, but did look sort of regretful.

“Let’s just get her in out of the cold,” Aidan suggested. They walked with her to the front door in a tight formation, ready to catch her if she fell. It was nice of them, but the tone of the conversation had started to change, taking a turn toward talking about her like she wasn’t there.

When they got through the door, Cassandra squirmed free and took off her coat and shoes, grateful that her hands weren’t shaking. “I probably just didn’t have enough to eat today,” she said. “Andie keeps stealing my lunches.”

“You never fight me for them.”

Inside the house she felt better. There was space to move, even in the entryway, and it was familiar. Home. The TV was on in the den, and canned audience laughter from the sitcom rerun their parents were watching carried down the hall. A hint of garlic laced the air, along with roasted chicken.

“I think I’m fine now,” she said, right before a black-and-silver German shepherd barreled past her legs on his way to Henry.

“You kids have fun?” Their dad came into the hall holding an empty snack bowl. Cassandra looked at Henry. When he looked away first, she knew he wouldn’t say anything.

“Nobody better smell like beer.” Her father stopped short in front of them and scrutinized their faces. He adjusted his glasses and leaned closer to give her face a sniff.

“Dad.”

“Cassandra smells like beer.”

“A glass and a half. Over like three hours. I swear.”

He gave her the eye and grilled everyone else. They came up clean.

“Sixteen-year-old girls don’t need beer,” her dad said, but it was a tired lecture. He’d been talking to them about drinking responsibly since they were thirteen. “You might be grounded. I’m going to talk to your mother.” He reached a long arm into the kitchen and set the empty bowl on the counter. “Honey,” he called. “The kids are hammered!”

“What?!”

“Kidding, dear.” He smiled, but when he raised a finger his voice was stern. “I am going to talk to your mother.” He turned away back down the hall. “You kids just be careful.”

* * *

Aidan insisted she get into bed, so she sat, still dressed in jeans and her blue cardigan, her blankets pulled up to her waist and the big black-and-silver dog stretched along one side. Andie sat on the edge of the bed and scratched his ears.

“Can’t believe Henry let you borrow Lux,” she said. “He must think you’re dying.”

Cassandra stroked the dog’s furred shoulder, and Lux tilted his head toward her and whined. He’d stay with her until she fell asleep, then sneak out of her room to go crawl in with Henry. Despite being adopted as a family dog, he’d been Henry’s from the start.

Andie stood up. “Listen, I’ll call you after I’m done at the nursery tomorrow. You need a ride home, Aidan?”

“I can walk.”

Andie waved, and they listened to her footsteps tramp down the stairs. There was a short, muffled exchange with Cassandra’s parents, and a few seconds later, the front door opened and closed. Lux’s ears pricked when she started her car. For a few deep breaths it was silent, and Cassandra sat in her bed, cuddled into her blue comforter. Whatever it was she’d thought she’d seen, it wasn’t real. Feathers didn’t sprout from people like leaves. They didn’t slice through a body and tear them up from the inside out. And Aidan was fine.

“So,” Cassandra said hesitantly. “Did I make a scene?”

Aidan shrugged from the foot of the bed, where he lay reclined on one elbow.

“A little. Sam said it was a nice diversionary tactic from Casey and Matt.”

Cassandra smiled. It was what she expected. Kincade was full of nice, nonbigoted people. She’d been a little strange all her life, but no one ever made her feel it. When she went back to school on Monday, a few would ask how she was doing, whether she was okay, and when she said she was fine, they’d talk about something else. It seemed strange sometimes, like something was in the water.

It feels like a shield, she thought, but didn’t know why she thought that.

“You going to tell me what happened?”

“Mmm-hmm.” In a minute or so. She wished they were somewhere else, at the kitchen table, maybe, or in the den had her parents not been in it. Her room seemed suddenly childish, with its white dresser and vanity and gauzy blue curtains. There was a jewelry box on the vanity that played music; her mother had gotten it for her when she was six. She wanted to throw it out the window.

None of this is mine.

“Cassandra?”

“You’re not going to believe me,” she said, and he gave her a look. Of course he would believe her. He always did.

“I saw you, standing in front of me. Except you weren’t right. There were cuts—wounds—and there were feathers coming out of them.”

“Feathers?”

“Everywhere. Brown and white. Like they were slicing through you somehow. Even through your tongue and”—she made a face—“under your fingernails.”

Seconds ticked by with Aidan staring at the blanket. It wasn’t exactly the quick comfort she’d expected.

“It was really real. I think I could smell the blood, the disease, even through the cold.” She swallowed, careful not to inhale too deeply. That smell might stay with her the rest of her life: sweet, cloying, and sick. It reminded her of counting pennies from her piggy bank.

Beside them, something struck the window, and Lux nearly punctured Cassandra’s lung scrambling off the bed to attack. It was gone before he’d managed to bark twice, gone in a thump and a flash of silent feathers, but they’d both seen what it was: an owl. An owl had landed on the windowsill. It had balanced for an instant, all tufted ears and yellow eyes.

“Lux, quiet,” said Cassandra, and the dog gave one final bark before returning to jump back onto her lap. Aidan went to the window and rubbed his sleeve through the fog of dog breath.

“It’s gone.”

“That’s a weird coincidence,” Cassandra said.

“Yeah.” Aidan returned to the bed but didn’t sit. He reached for his jacket. “Listen, I’d better let you get some sleep. You and your dad.”

“My dad?” she asked as he walked to her door.

“You think he actually goes to bed before he hears me go out the door?” He smiled, then paused with his hand on the knob. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you, don’t you?”

“I know. Are you weirded out?”

“No. And if I am, I like it.”

* * *

The sensation of cold hit her first. It shocked her insteps and made her toes clench. The dead, half-frozen grass spread ice all the way up her legs, and slow, chilly wind took care of the rest of her.

It’s cold and it’s dark. And I’m flipping barefoot. Where am I?

Moonlight showed the bony trunks of pines, green needles silver in the night. Up ahead was the orange glow of a dying fire, and the wind rattled through dry, brittle things.

Abbott Park?

No, not Abbott Park. There was no crumbling, patchy stone fence, and the trees were different. No sound of moving water from the stream either. Wherever she was, it wasn’t in the hills of Kincade. It was wide open, and flat.

This is a dream.

But every physical sensation was there, from the cold on her goose-bumped skin to the irritating wet of thawing grass between her toes. Even the weight of her body. It felt completely real, to move and blink, to feel her hair shift across her back.

But I’ve had these dreams before. This must be someplace I’m going. Soon.

Cassandra stood silent, waiting for whatever mundane tidbit the dream wanted to impart. She crossed her arms. Stupid. The last thing she remembered was lying in her bed with a warm dog beside her. Now she was in the middle of a frigid, overgrown field, edged by pine trees.

I’m dreaming of an overgrown field. I’m not really in one. Just show me what you’re going to show me already.

Nothing happened. She waited, and then walked toward the place where the small fire ebbed in a hand-dug pit. She wondered who dug it; maybe her dad, or Henry. Maybe this was a preview of a really miserable future camping trip. When she stepped into the small clearing, off the grass, her wet feet turned the dirt to mud that stuck to her soles.

“Damn it.”

Her voice rang out too loud and made her jump, which made her feel stupid. Cold air crept down the neck of her sleep shirt and the embers of the fire inhaled and glowed brighter. She put her foot over them to get dry, but couldn’t feel heat. Her foot dropped lower and lower, until she stood on the embers.

This is different.

“This is different.” Her voice was too loud again, though she’d spoken softly. But she didn’t care. Something was off here; something was unfamiliar. What was off was hard to say. It felt … altered.

I don’t know this place. I’ll never know this place.

The urge to leave rose up in her neck and shoulders and rushed down to her feet. The instinct to back up, to return the same way she’d come and disturb nothing.

Maybe then they’ll never know I was here.

But who did she mean? Her heel shuffled backward, out of the coals she couldn’t feel, and in her hurry she sent pebbles and sand skittering across the ground, loud as her voice. She jumped back, and gave a short yelp when her feet ran up against a rough wool blanket.

It hadn’t been there before; she was sure of it.

There’s something under that blanket.

She knew it as surely as she knew it hadn’t been there a moment before. She wouldn’t touch it in a million years, but she bent, and her fingers found the edge.

Don’t.

Her heart hammered. The adrenaline would wake her up as soon as she lifted the blanket. Too soon for whatever was underneath to move. But not too soon to see it.

Don’t, idiot.

Her fingertips tightened on the edge of the wool and pulled until his face came into the light.

His face. Just a boy. Not much older than she was, relaxed and asleep. Shaggy, dark hair hung across his forehead. He was handsome, with angular cheekbones. The sight of him filled her with cold dread.

I know him. Or I did. I would if he’d open his eyes. If he opened his eyes, they’d be dark, dark brown. And they’d be so clever.

But she couldn’t know him from anywhere. Not from school, even though he seemed about Henry’s age, maybe seventeen or eighteen. The gentleness of sleep wasn’t at home on his face. This boy was a flashed grin, narrowed eyes, a quick tongue. An image of him flickered: fierce and confident. She wanted to hit him in the head with a rock.

It wouldn’t do any good. It’s done. It’s started.

“What’s done? What’s started?” Words flew into her mind. Her own thoughts, but she didn’t understand them.

The wind shifted, and drew her gaze up and away from the boy, into the trees. She couldn’t see anything but black shadows between trunks. Maybe that was where she was supposed to go. Her way out.

“No.” No. She stared at the darkness. That’s not the way out. “There are wolves in the woods.” Not wolves.

Not anything. She glanced down at the boy, then back to the trees. The shadows had shifted. Something had changed. A tree that was there before wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Not a tree.

She stood still and stared for so long her eyes started to go dry. Cold wind whipped across them and made them water, but she didn’t blink. She wouldn’t blink and let it fool her in that moment. Eyes wide open, she stared into the dark. Until the darkness lost its patience.

It moved, picking its way from shadow to shadow. Slowly at first, and then faster.

Cassandra’s stomach fell through her feet and her mouth tasted bad suddenly, like she’d gargled with cemetery dirt.

“Get up.”

The boy didn’t move. Even as whatever waited in the trees came closer, close enough to hear the sounds it made, insect clicking, like jointed legs and jaws. An image flashed in the dark part of her mind: one red, faceted eye above a disturbingly human nose. A human mouth that opened to reveal a second set of mandibles.

“Get up!” Whatever it was in the woods, it was almost out. And when it came from the trees it would spring. She didn’t want to see its face. She looked down at the sleeping boy. Maybe it was better this way. Better that he sleep through his throat being torn out. If he woke he’d be afraid, and he could never outrun it.

Cassandra backed up, the wrong way, back into the dying coals. This is not the way out.

The smell of caves and mold scented the air. She couldn’t remember where she’d come from, or how long she’d been there.

A face broke through the trees, pale as the moon, with a ruined mouth and one red eye. It saw the boy and scrambled forward, on him before she could stagger back, before she could think of finding a weapon or what she would do if she had one.

The boy’s eyes flew open. He pushed against the chest of the creature as its fingers sought his eyes and mouth. A flash of silver showed through the blanket, and he dragged a knife across the thing’s eye cluster.

Dark blood sprayed across his face and arm, and the creature rolled and curled in on itself, hissing and clicking its mandibles. When it came back to all fours, its head twitched and one of its forearms kept flicking at its mangled, dripping eye, or what was left of it.

The boy drew himself up from underneath his blanket. His eyes never left the creature, and his knife never left his hand. He slipped quietly to the left, and Cassandra moved out of the way.

You weren’t sleeping. You were never sleeping.

He smiled. “You know I don’t have all night.”

Cassandra turned toward the boy in surprise just as the creature sprang, and it knocked her down as it passed. Rolling onto her elbows, she watched the two struggle. The creature’s back pressed down into the smoking embers and it screeched. The boy kept his face away from the clacking jaws, and his arm jerked hard, once, then twice. The creature twitched and gurgled.

“I suppose it wasn’t exactly fair,” he said as he continued to stab. Dark blood coated him up to the wrist. “Robbing you of your one”—stab—“stupid”—stab—“eye.” The creature lay limp, and the boy pushed it away and sat back on his haunches, breathing heavily. “But fair is overrated.”

“Who are you?” Cassandra shouted, looking from the boy to the dead monster and back again. He’d killed it. Feigned sleep and killed it, with no fear. His voice was accented, London-street, but not strained. He might’ve sounded more upset if he’d just come out of a scuffle in his local pub. Cassandra pushed off the ground and stood beside him. They watched silently as the body of the creature stiffened. Its pale, blood-streaked face stared up at the sky accusingly, and its arms and legs drew in and curled like an arachnid’s carapace. He’d left the knife in its chest. When he reached forward to pull it out, it made a sick sucking sound that made Cassandra want to retch. She swallowed hard.

The boy studied the blood on the knife and wiped it on his sleeve.

No surprise in your eyes. You knew it was hunting you. You knew what it was.

She studied his profile.

I know you. I knew you. I liked you, and I hated you.

“Glory of Athena,” the boy whispered, and made a reverent gesture before bowing his head.

The next attack came too fast. The second Cyclops leapt onto his shoulder and drove him forward, facedown into the stiffening body of the first. Cassandra screamed as it dug its jaws into his shoulder and neck, tearing skin, but it was his screams that finally drove her away, out of the dream.

* * *

Aidan’s footsteps fell heavy on the bridge. Frost crunched beneath his feet as he walked down the center of the road, listening to the whisper of the river water thirty feet below, barely perceptible as it flowed lazily past downed trees and rushed against a steadily spreading sheet of ice. He didn’t bother to listen for cars. It was late and the road was quiet. His ears were on the sky, on the branches creaking above his head. He was listening for feathers. For wing beats.

An owl’s feathers made no sound. That was how they hunted. They watched silently, heads spinning round, eyes wide as dinner plates. They watched, and they swooped without warning, talons breaking the backs of an unsuspecting rabbit, or mouse, or unlucky house cat. It seemed cowardly. It seemed like a cheat. And he expected better, especially from her.

He stopped in the middle of the bridge and stared up at the blank spot in the sky that the road left, cutting through the vast forest that surrounded Abbott Park. It was there somewhere, the owl that had flown up against Cassandra’s window. He had to find it.

That’s a weird coincidence, Cassandra had said. But it wasn’t. No matter how much he wanted it to be. Their time of calm would end. Unless he stopped it.

The moment Cassandra spoke of feathers breaking through skin, he knew. He knew that somewhere his sister was dying, with feathers cutting through her body. His self-righteous, battle-ready sister. And now she wanted something. Something that had to do with Cassandra.

“You can’t have her,” he said, and his breath left his throat in a cloud of steam. He had to find the owl. It wouldn’t be hard. It was Athena’s servant, but it was still just an owl. It wouldn’t race to her side to whisper in her ear. It would fly, and hunt, and sleep, and reach her in its own time.

The wind came up hard and sudden; the sound it made moving across the bridge and over the river was like a scream. The river would be covered over soon, locked down under ice and snow, only breaking through in the spaces where it sped up, past rocks and through spinning eddies. Aidan breathed the cold in deep but couldn’t feel it. Cold had never been able to touch him. Not in all his long, immortal life. He was a golden glow. He was light, and heat. He was Apollo, the sun, and he’d burn down anyone who tried to hurt her.

Movement high up in the pines caught his attention and he moved, darting off the bridge, running low and quiet. He reached the owl in moments, watching from beneath as it swooped from branch to branch. He watched its brown speckled belly, its flight feathers stretched out on the wind like fingers. It didn’t pay any attention to him, so far below on the ground. Not even when he leapt up to catch it when it dove.

The sensation of being pulled down out of the air had no time to register in the bird’s brain. Neither did the feeling of its wings being crushed, or its neck being broken. There were no final thoughts. Only vague surprise and no regrets.

Aidan looked down at the feathery mess in his hands. The owl was dead. Silenced. He stroked the feathers.

“You didn’t feel it. And it wasn’t your fault.” The bird was so light in his hands. Maybe he shouldn’t have killed it. Maybe they could have caged it and kept it as a pet. Cassandra might have liked that.

But how many more would she send? He couldn’t cage them all. His hands tightened. Questions filled his ears like they’d been shouted. What did she want? And how many others would she bring with her?

“I’ve waited too long for Cassandra.” The fear he felt ran down to his fingers; he could feel feathers trembling. “I’ve waited so long, and now I finally have her. And I’ll kill every one of you if you try to ruin it.” He looked down at the poor dead owl. “Even you, Athena.”

FAR JOURNEYS

Athena jerked awake, back tensed taut as a bowstring. There had been a dream, a flash of vision, something breaking. Something awful. She couldn’t remember what it was. All that remained was the adrenaline, sparking through her veins and driving sleep far, far away.

“What is it?”

She glanced over at Hermes, ever the insomniac, even in his weakened condition.

“Are you all right?” He came and knelt beside her. His bony hands on her shoulders were warm to the point of being feverish. “Is it the feathers? Can you breathe?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice was clipped and terse. He took his hands off and rolled his eyes; she muttered an apology. She was never a bitch on purpose, but accidents were happening more and more frequently where Hermes was concerned. Taking out her frustrations on him wasn’t fair.

“I don’t know what it was.” She sighed. Talking was starting to be uncomfortable. The feather in the roof of her mouth pressed down insistently, and the flesh that covered it was tender and inflamed. Soon a bit of it would break through the skin, and she would wriggle it loose and tear it out. They say the mouth is the quickest-healing part of the body. She wondered who “they” were. Mouth wounds seemed to take forever to go away. And a torn strip the length of an owl’s wing feather would be one hell of a canker sore, if it turned to that.

“Maybe just a bad dream,” Hermes said softly.

“We don’t have ‘just dreams,’” she replied. “At least, I don’t.”

“I don’t either. It was just something to say. Anyway, if you don’t remember it, then it isn’t much use.” He gave her a piercing look, making sure nothing was flooding back. “Might as well call it ‘just a dream.’”

“I guess.”

Hermes stood up and stretched his thinning back. He was starting to look like a PSA against anorexia. She held in the soft snort of bitter laughter that accompanied the thought. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was all that funny anymore.

They had traveled hard over the last two days and made it out of the bleak extremes of the desert. Their camp was set on a quiet curve of the Green River in eastern Utah. A soft patch of grass made for a decent bed, and the water was drinkable enough. A scraggly coniferous tree provided shelter. They were living like vagabonds or fugitives, with as little human interaction as possible. Such a lifestyle had always suited Athena, but Hermes was a house cat, and she could tell sleeping on the ground was getting on his nerves. He didn’t hide it well. He constantly tossed and hmphed and stretched his back.

“Are you hungry?” Athena asked.

“Usually,” he replied sulkily, and she tossed him a can of peaches from her pack. He cracked the tin cover off and ate them with his fingers. Dawn was about to break over the river, beautiful and pastel. At least she’d managed to sleep through the night. It hadn’t been an easy task since the encounter with the Nereid.

Her mind constantly returned to the vision that the poor creature had shown her. She saw it again and again, the blood-cloud whipped up in the saltwater, heard the gurgling and panicked currents of fins in death throes.

And the glimpse of him. Of Poseidon. Twisted beyond imagining. She could’ve sworn she’d seen a piece of coral cutting through his shoulder, like it was growing into his skin. Or out of it. Perhaps their deaths were eerily similar.

Regret, stronger than she’d imagined, clenched down on her stomach. They’d never been close, but seeing him that way still felt wrong.

Would he feel the same way? Seeing me pull feathers from my throat?

Probably not. He was weaker than she was and always resented that. He resented that Zeus had made her so strong. He resented that Zeus had that much strength to give her.

But it still felt unfair.

He should be on the sand somewhere, tanned and golden. He should be in the ocean, on a fucking surfboard with a nymph on each arm.

That was what might have been, if fate were kinder. Instead he was a monster, on the opposite side of a war.

Trying to humble me, as usual. She allowed herself a rueful smile. It lasted only a second before dropping off her face. Poseidon was ahead of them, after all, and setting traps too clever to come from his mind alone. He had help, and she suspected she knew who it was. Who they were.

“When can we go to a city?” Hermes thumped the dirt with his fist. She supposed it did make for a shitty mattress.

Athena laughed. “I knew it. Missing your pillow top and manicured nails?”

Hermes threw a peach at her; she dipped low, birdlike, and caught it in her mouth. He curled his lip. “Excuse me if I’d like to have some comfort during my final days.”

“These aren’t your final days,” she said, but he seemed not to hear. He was looking off to the west with his back to the breaking dawn, his fingers suspended over the jar of peaches.

“Maybe we should just live it out,” he said quietly. “Just enjoy what time we have left. Haven’t we had enough?” She turned away from his glance and watched the water of the river pass. It moved without pausing, without taking notice. It was indifferent to them. That was how she had been for a long time. The world forgot her, and she forgot it, passing through cities and existing on the fringe, an observer rather than a participant. But now it was different. She couldn’t explain it to Hermes, who had lived among the humans and, she suspected, lived right up to the hilt, but dying to her felt strangely similar to waking up.

“No.” He sighed and ate another slice of peach. “Not for you. I can see that. I can see it turning in your brain. You’ve got your old cape of Justice on again. You’re getting it in your head that you could be a hero. Athena and Hermes, last of the sane gods, saving the humans and righting the wrongs.” In the soft-hued light of morning, with the sun coming up over his back, she couldn’t tell how serious he was.

“Don’t sound so high and mighty. You’ve played the hero before.”

Hermes snorted. “Rarely. And never front and center. Face it, sis, I was always the Green Lantern to your Iron Man.”

“Don’t be such a nerd. Besides, you’re mixing Marvel and DC.”

“Who’s the nerd?” Hermes arched his brow. Then he softened. “My point is, there is no point. We’re dying, so we panic and band together. So what? What the hell are we trying to save, anyway? We have no purpose. We’re obsolete gods in a destructive world. The earth wouldn’t shed a tear, not even for withered old Demeter.”

“There was a time when we mattered,” said Athena, but Hermes shook his head.

“No. There was a time when we lived. Rather than just existed. But that hasn’t been for centuries. I walked with mortals, played with them, ate with them. I’ve used up more of them than I can count or remember. But I stopped living. Look at us, Athena. No family, no friends—”

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 540