2. Hermes
2
HERMES
T ime…
It used to mean nothing to my kind. We never dealt in days, months, or years. Only the ages of time have altered us. The way we were perceived by men changed parts of who we were.
At the beginning of our lives, there was only us and those who had come before. The Primordial Gods were the first beings in the universe and gave birth to form. Chaos, Erebus, Gaia, Tartarus, Nyx, and my old Uncle Eros were the first sentient forms in Creation. Only Eros is still awake, and the others slumber, which really is for the best. They were not the friendliest gods and always caused a fight at a reunion. But from them sprang the Titans and the Cyclopes. After many years of family squabbles, the Titan's reign on Earth (or Gaea since she is the Earth itself) ended with the arrival of my forebears. The Olympians were born, and the Titans became angry and hostile with their rise to power. Family reunions were put on hold because they always ended with someone trying to kill somebody else. In the end, it came down to a war to control the universe.
The Olympians won, led by my father, Zeus, and banished the Titans to live in the depths of despair—Tartarus. I know it's confusing. Tartarus is both a being and a place, and it is not on anyone's bucket list to visit. He may be asleep, but he has a horrible rating on Airbnb. The Olympians had children, and we took our place by their side in the heavens, far above what is known today as Greece.
Humans were born. None of us understand why Zeus created you, but he did. Well, he gave the spark of creation to Prometheus, and the old Titan was the one who crafted you as you are. Eros gifted you with emotion and feeling – that was probably a mistake, but he insisted. He didn’t like being shown up by Zeus.
History sucks and is a very confusing tapestry of time. Before man, time was meaningless. After you were born, everything changed. We changed. You slowly grew and looked up to the heavens where we lived and began to worship us, and through that worship, we grew and altered in ways that took us time even to understand ourselves.
I became a psychopomp, a shepherd of dead souls. I helped the dead find their way to the underworld. It was a weird job that you lot thrust upon me, and I admit I hated it. The underworld is cold and sad, and I was the youngest of the gods. When I wasn’t a farrier of souls, I raced across the world and used my good looks to bed anyone I found fair enough to lay with me. I was a bit of a slut, and because of that, humans began to see me differently. One I enjoyed immensely. I became a phallic god before what humans refer to as the Bronze Age.
I even modeled for a few of the phallic statues of me. I was young, but I didn’t need the money. I just liked the attention and the orgy that soon followed. I reveled in my new role, and my winged sandals, a gift from my father, allowed me to travel quickly for long distances. Trust me, Heaven to Earth was a very long commute. In the following pages, I became the God of messengers and thieves, shepherds, and travelers. Because of humanity's choice to make me the messenger god and my father’s gift of winged slippers, my power has remained undiminished, unlike most other godly beings. Mail carriers and FedEx alone keep me worshipped because they keep my memory alive. Many companies even use me as their logo, which is very flattering.
But unlike most of my kind, I’ve remained alone for most of my existence. Over the eons, I found a few mortals and demigods for whom I had feelings, but none captured my heart for long. Most of my brothers and sisters found another God or sometimes even a half-sibling who was their perfect match. We gods see things differently than mortals and have never been concerned about familial ties. But no other god ever made my heart beat faster for more than a fleeting tumble.
But something has been happening. My brother, Apollo, has always been a lot like me. He was a total love them and leave them heartbroken type of guy. But even he found his perfect match in the last couple of years. Then, my uncle, Eros, one of the oldest and most powerful gods, found a human mate with whom he fell in love. He even made him immortal so they could live forever in love together. I have hope that…
I mean, it would be nice to eventually find someone who completed me. But the spark of Eros’ power has never connected me to anyone – I’ve never felt the tether around my heart that pulled me towards someone, no matter how hard I tried to deny it. To find that perfect match – to know someone so deeply that you didn’t have to speak – I long for it.
But I’m definitely not going to find it in my current situation. I have found myself involved in a precarious state of affairs, and I should have figured that it would be a shit show since it was Loki that got me involved. We’ve always been pretty good buddies, even though we are from two incredibly different pantheons. You shouldn’t think about it too much because it can really give you a headache. Loki and I shared one thing in common. We were both trickster gods. My tricks were stealing Apollo’s bow and arrows or his sacred cattle. Loki’s biggest trick was killing his brother. He killed a lot of people back in the day, but now he was wearing a different type of disguise. He was the mayor of Valleywood. If anyone deserved to deal with red tape for eternity, it was probably him.
He had called me to his office and shared a file with me that he had been collecting over the last couple of years, and he thought my shapeshifting thievery might come in handy for me to dig further into this organization that kept appearing over the last couple of years when something bad was happening. The truth was not pretty. Neither was The Truth, which was the organization's name and their plan; their very purpose was to bring knowledge about the magical world’s existence to the normal people of the planet. This was a secret that the magical world kept to ensure their safety. We couldn’t allow that to happen because it would mean war. Humans have always tried to kill and destroy that which they didn’t understand. It was easier for them to hate than to learn or accept that which was different from them. Humanity was a beautiful mess.
But what I discovered was much more nefarious than that. They knew about our existence – the gods of all the different creeds and nations. If the world discovered that – the world would burn. We know this because of a prophecy given by the Oracle of Delphi – Apollo’s husband, well, one of them anyway. He has three. He’s always been a greedy little shit. But when the oracle speaks, only the truth is revealed. If it came to war, the world would burn, and our kind would be destroyed. Humanity had created weapons to destroy the gods, whether they realized it or not. Mankind’s ability for war had surpassed even my brother Ares, and he was a total asshole.
I glanced at myself in the mirror, and the face that reflected back at me was not my own. A disguise of necessity so I could live amongst the enemy. Denny Perkins was the identity I stole with help from Loki. Denny was in construction and had a bit of a belly and a pack-a-day habit that I found gross. His gravelly voice made my skin crawl, but I had been living in his form for almost six months. I shuddered to think what Loki might have done with the real Denny Perkins. That wasn’t my concern, even if I was the patron god of thieves, and the way Denny overcharged his clients definitely made him a thief.
The things I did to discover the truth were abysmal and boring. Loki should have gotten me an identity that had more power within the group, but he thought that was too dangerous – so I’m a grunt within the Truth. That meant manual labor and being told what to do. I hated being told what to do. At least I was a foreman in our construction project, whatever the fuck it was.
That was the problem. I was there to gather information, and what I mostly heard were rumors and gossip. Harry was the head honcho here at the Truth, but he was not the brains behind it. There were other more powerful men using him like a puppet as he lorded around our shoddy base camp. The walls were paper thin, and if you were lucky, you could get an earful if you happened to be in the right place at the right time. I tried to sneak away and do my job as a spy as much as I could, but Denny was missed too easily on the building project for me to escape for long. But I had heard enough. I had overheard an argument that let me know Harry was as much a lapdog in this organization as any of us, even though he appeared to be in charge. Who the others were, I didn’t know. But I had to find out.
The one thing I was always on the lookout for was those immortals who aligned themselves with the Truth. Medea was a powerful witch and not someone I wanted to bump into. But I knew she had a hand in the design of this project, this fucking spiral tower that seemed to have no purpose. That made it dangerous. That meant its purpose was hidden, and it was potentially deadly if she had anything to do with it. She really hated the gods. We kind of deserved it… We made her life a telenovela without the fun comedy. We took everything from her and then forgot about her until it was too late.
“You ready?” I turned and found Petey standing in my doorway. “Dude, I knocked forever.”
“Yeah, I… Guess I was in deep thought.” I huffed. I should turn him into a fucking ferret for barging in on me like that.
“No one would ever believe that of you,” he chuckled as he kicked his boot against the doorframe. “We gotta get down there. I heard we’re having a problem.”
“It’s gonna be too tall. I already told them that. It’s not braced enough.” I grabbed my hat and swallowed what little pride Denny ever had.
“You look like shit.”
“I always look like shit.” I brushed past him and turned to the skinny guy who smelled of peanut butter sandwiches. We all smelled like peanut butter sandwiches since that was what we’d eaten for the last week. “Coming?”
He shut the door behind him. There was only one door that had a lock on it in the entire damn camp, and that belonged to Harry. That’s where all the secrets were kept, and after someone- I can’t imagine who- managed to break in a few months ago and steal Eros’ weapons back, the lockdown on the place had only grown. They were scared. They should be scared. One of us walked among them and was prepared to do whatever it took to bring them down.
Me. I was talking about me.
“Apparently, the structure is starting to lean.”
“We’ve only got the base built. How is it leaning?” I asked the question but already knew the answer. It was leaning because I had pulled out two of the pins supporting it.
“You’ll see.”
We walked in silence. The structure, as we called it, was about a mile away from our camp, and the camp was pretty damn big. Tents and shoddily built structures covered the large field that was almost a mile long. A small Greek-styled coliseum sat at the base of the field where they had carved a theatron into the small hillside for people to sit. It did really take me back to better times. Dionysus used to put on a great tragedy.
We walked past the outdoor theatre where Harry would stand and rail against the magical world for all of his followers to hear. He was a damn good orator – no wonder he had so many people willing to follow him. The fearmongering he created also helped. The magical world was trying to destroy mankind – that was the basis for all of this, even if none of it were true.
Our world just wanted to exist and to be left alone, which is why we remained hidden. But there was no one from our side preaching and stirring up hate and fear against the humans. Our future meant coexistence with humanity. But here, among the followers of The Truth, Harry had whipped them up into a frenzy.
We walked through the grove of elm trees that stood as a backdrop against the small coliseum and to the structure. We had no other names for it here at The Truth. There was no knowledge of what it was to be and why it was being created. But I could feel the magic underneath like a small wave that grew with every slice of metal put in place.
Medea had her hands in the building and creation of this eyesore, and she, we all had a reason to fear. Her Gods, my family, had made her life hell over two thousand years ago, and she was finally seeking retribution by aligning herself with The Truth. Did Harry know who she really was? I didn’t know, but my gut told me that he did. She had shown her true self to him – she must have. The enemy of my enemy… He had crawled into bed with her, or she had bewitched him – honestly, with Medea, the truth was always shrouded in mystery.
I wish I knew what the structure was for. It had to be something heinous, something terrifying, if she was involved. I mean, she was an unhinged psychopath. The only thing she thought about was revenge upon those who wronged her, and we did wrong her badly. She lost everything, and we sat and watched as her prayers went unanswered. We toyed with her and created who she now was. It was our fault. But I couldn’t allow my guilt to prevent me from stopping her.
Whatever she had planned must not come to fruition.
“You’ll see over on the far side.” Petey grimaced. “Apparently, the boss is pissed, but we don’t know how this could have even happened. It doesn’t make any sense.”
The structure did have a slight lean to it. I was afraid that the other pins would hold everything in place, but apparently, I had chosen wisely. The back left side, the side most hidden from prying eyes, was at least a couple of inches lower than the rest.
“All that stress on the metal could bend it to the point it's unsafe,” I huffed.
“That’s what everyone’s afraid of. But look at what happened. I’m just dang neared confused as hell about it.” He walked around to the far side, and I followed him.
“What’s with all the armed guards?” I glanced around. Harry and Medea had made sure to beef up security after what I did last night.
“Look at that!” Petey pointed to the holes that used to have large metal pins welded into place. “They were welded in there. How the hell did they just disappear? I’d think you’d have to cut them out, but it doesn’t look like any other damage was done. You can see the small scars there where the pin was ripped free. It’s like some giant or Superman came in here and pulled them out.”
“Well, that just confuses the shit out of me,” I lied. I knew exactly how they had come out as I had personally ripped them free in the cover of darkness last night. It wasn’t even that difficult of a feat for one of my kind.
“I know.”
“I ain’t got an answer for you. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Who could accomplish that?”
“Someone powerful.” Harry’s voice made the hair on the back of my shape-shifted neck stand up.
I turned around and grimaced as if I were upset over what would have to be a delay in the building. “We had guards in place yesterday. This would have had to be cut out. Look at the precision. How could it have happened?”
“A man didn’t do this, Denny. I know it, and so does everyone else in The Truth. Let’s just say that we won’t be caught twice with our pants down. I’ve got round-the-clock guards that can cover this entire clearing. We also have a couple of other things up our sleeves. Let’s just say that if a magical being comes through here, we will know.”
I tried to hide the lump in my throat that I had to swallow down.
Did they know who I was?
Everyone was going about their business, so whatever it was, I seemed to be immune. No one was pointing their fucking machine guns at me, at least. For now… I was sure that Medea had cooked up something. Why wasn’t it affecting me? Her magic could ensnare a god just as easily as a shifter.
“How long until this is fixed?” Harry shook his head disgustedly. “We have to stay on schedule.”
“We have to brace it and make sure that none of the supports have sustained damage. One week, if we’re lucky. We’ll have to take apart the entire side above the support.”
“Make sure it gets done.” Harry walked away. “I can’t wait to catch someone in my fucking trap.”
I just hoped it wasn’t going to be me.