Interlude II Hermes
Interlude II
Hermes
Hera is more resourceful than I realized.
She also doesn’t listen worth a damn. It would make me like her more under different circumstances, but we aren’t in different circumstances.
Hera, Persephone, Orpheus, Medusa, all standing out in the open without the slightest bit of concern about a sniper. I don’t know what they’re thinking.
“We’re in a war, people,” I murmur under my breath.
I exhale slowly and pull the trigger at the same time.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to riddle them with bullets and put an end to this once and for all.
Hades would crumble without his beloved Persephone.
Zeus wouldn’t, but it would still fuck with his head something fierce to lose his Hera.
Following in Daddy’s footsteps and all that.
Even killing Orpheus would serve me, because it would send Eurydice and Charon into a death spiral, which would further destabilize Hades, Zeus, and Demeter in the process.
A neat solution. There’s only one problem.
I like them.
Well, maybe not Demeter, even if I appreciate her cunning.
But the others? When Hades disposed of the last Zeus, finally realized his potential, and fell madly in love with his new bride?
I cheered just as loudly as the rest of Olympus.
He’s what passes for a unicorn in this city—a genuinely good man.
But, no matter my personal feelings on the matter, I can’t allow them to have this meeting and go their merry ways to fuck up my plans.
I shut down the frenzy of my thoughts and focus on my targets. Hera’s got a wicked graze in her upper arm. I should have known such a small injury wouldn’t be enough to take her down.
Persephone gets a careful bullet graze across her back.
Thankfully, Medusa is pinning her in place so I don’t have to worry about her jerking and endangering herself.
Next is Orpheus, throwing himself forward to protect Hera.
She’s so furious, I can practically feel the energy of it from here, high up on an abandoned building’s roof.
“You silly noble fool, stay down.” I pull the trigger again, but I misjudge Orpheus’s trajectory and take him in the upper chest instead of the arm.
Shit. I think I broke his collarbone, but with surgery and a nice extended recovery, he should be fine.
Probably. Most importantly, he’s down, Persephone is down, and Hera is down.
I fire off one last shot to skim Medusa’s leg so she doesn’t feel too guilty when the adrenaline wears off.
She’s a good bodyguard; she’s just no match for me.
I pack up my rifle in automatic movements, dismantling it and strapping it into the case, which then slides into my bag. I’ll clean it when I get to safety. In the meantime…
I trot down the stairs and through the dusty building, plastic sheets still covering the windows from where the company ran out of funding and, in a rare instance of nepotism failure, the owner’s family didn’t swoop in to pay for the construction to be completed.
I dig out my phone and call the paramedics.
The operator answers immediately. “Hello, what is your emergency?”
“There was a shootout!” I pitch my voice to match the man I heard on the street earlier, yelling at his wife about…
something. “Four people are down.” I rattle off the address and then hang up.
Most of the first responders are in the country with the rest of the city’s population, but some of them chose to stay behind.
By my calculations, there should be an ambulance scooping up my hapless victims inside of five minutes.
I slip out the door, pull my hood up, and whistle a cheery tune as I walk away from the scene.
After two blocks, it’s clear no one is around to pay the least bit of attention to me.
But then, I’m good at blending in when I feel like it.
Everyone expects Hermes to be loud and boisterous and sparkly.
A walking disco ball, even. It’s so much part of my branding that when I don’t dress and act like that, even people I know have a tendency to overlook me.
It’s a very simple trick, but simple tricks are often the most reliable. Classics are classics for a reason.
My temporary destination is another half-renovated building a few blocks away. There’s a lot of that in the upper city right now. Dozens of big projects were put on hold when the news of the assassination clause broke—an irritatingly clever move on Circe’s part.
Circe.
I’m going to have to face her eventually. I want to say with all confidence that I know how I’ll react when we finally end up in the same room, but even I’m not that much of a liar.
On an impulse, I pull out my phone again and dial Cassandra.
We haven’t talked since our last spat a few days ago when I told her to stick close to Apollo, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent me straight to voicemail.
But Cassandra is a softy, even with all her thorns.
She answers. “You have some nerve calling me right now.”
“I’m made up of nothing but nerve, darling. You know that.” I can’t help putting on the charming facade. After so many years as Hermes, court jester, the lines between her and me have blurred to the point where I don’t always make the conscious choice to don the mask.
“I’m sure you have a reason for calling,” she snaps.
In this moment, I can almost wish things between me and the snarling redhead did work out.
She’s the only relationship I’ve had since Circe died—or didn’t die, as the case may be—where I could almost see a future with her.
Cassandra was hurt by Olympus just as much as I was, and even when this damned city kept kicking her while she was down, she never let it break her.
I loved her as much as I’m capable of these days.
I guess I love her still, which is why I keep trying to convince her to leave town.
“I gave you a warning all those months ago, and you didn’t take it. ”
“The warning where you told me to go home so you could stand by and let Minos kill people.”
I’m not above getting my hands bloody, but… I sigh. “I doubt you’ll believe this, but I was only there for information and to keep an eye on his ambition. I didn’t realize what he intended until it was too late.”
Cassandra’s silent for a beat. “You warned me I was in danger.”
“Of course I did! You were there with Olympus’s spymaster. Apollo has always stuck his nose where it doesn’t belong, and I didn’t want you to get killed in the process.”
“Hermes, I swear…” She gives a sigh of her own. “You know I can’t take your word at face value. You were there. The murder happened. You didn’t even try to stop it.”
I hate to have it reduced to that, but I can’t argue.
“Yes. I was there. Theseus murdered Hephaestus. I didn’t stop it.
” Because, for better or worse, it did serve my intent to destabilize Olympus further.
I still didn’t wish ill on that Hephaestus, for all that he was a raging dickhead.
I just didn’t try that hard to do anything about Theseus’s intent once I figured out what Minos was about.
“Why are you calling? It’s not to clear your conscience.”
“Darling, my conscience is hardly up for debate. No, I’m calling with another warning, and I need you to heed this one.
For both your and Apollo’s sake.” I might not like the man overmuch, but she does.
He treats her like she’s the most precious gem in all the world, which I approve of.
Cassandra deserves to be worshipped and coddled; Apollo shows every sign of doing both.
“Circe made it into the city, and it wasn’t desperately fleeing Zeus and the other two.
She planned it. She fully intends to kill every one of the Thirteen and abolish Olympus’s entire governing system. ”
Cassandra’s most lovely and awful trait is that she sees too much. Worse, she’s smart enough to connect inconvenient dots. “You also want the Thirteen gone. That’s what this is about, right? All the shit you’ve been pulling in the last year, it’s all to change things.”
My life would have been simpler if I could have loved her the way she deserved.
Having her as a potential adversary sucks.
The cheer drops from my voice. I need her to take me seriously, to fucking listen.
“Not like this, Cassandra. If I wanted them dead, they would have been dead years ago. There isn’t a locked door in this city that can keep me out. ”
“So you’re calling to tell me to…get Apollo out of Olympus?”
The tone of the question means she’s still not taking this seriously. “Yes. Right now, Circe will be focusing on Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, but it’s only a matter of time before she decides to work her way through the rest.”
“Including you.”
I stop short. I might be Hermes, might play the part of the member of the Thirteen who delivers messages and secrets and knowledge, but I’ve always been aware that I’m different from the rest of them—and not only because I want to see the whole structure of their power shatter.
The vast majority of the Thirteen—both now and stretching back through Olympus’s history—come from the legacy families.
Whether families become legacy because they’ve had members tapped to become one of the Thirteen or the Thirteen only pull from certain families that already entertain an absurd amount of money and privilege is up for debate. Chicken, egg, and all that.
“I’m not like the others,” I say finally. I can’t quite inject my usual irreverent cheer into the words. Sometimes truth cuts deep. “I never have been.”
Cassandra is quiet for a long time. Finally, she says, “I hear you and I acknowledge your warning. You know I’m no fan of the Thirteen and the legacy families. I always wanted to get out of this city. But, Hermes, Apollo’s roots run deep. Orpheus is still here, and so are their parents.”
I refuse to acknowledge the little twinge of guilt from the fact I just shot Apollo’s little brother. He’s fine. Mostly. “None of them will be safe if Circe realizes her goals.”
“Yeah, I got that.” She sighs. “Look, I’ll talk to him. I can’t make any promises beyond that.”
It’s more than I expected. I don’t tell her to leave him in the dust and take off.
We both know she won’t. She loves him as much as he loves her, and I’d be significantly happier for them if I wasn’t worried Circe planned to rip out his heart and break Cassandra’s in the process.
“There’s not much time. Talk fast.” I hang up before she can completely diminish my hope of a future where she’ll be okay.
When I became Hermes and took the first step toward toppling the power structure that took the person I loved most in the world, I never thought I’d be in a position to care about the very people whose downfall I’m orchestrating.
I stare at my phone as sirens scream past the building I’m in. Six minutes. They really are stretched thin, aren’t they?
I scroll through my contacts and pause over Dionysus’s name. We haven’t spoken since Minos’s party. He carries a lot of guilt over Pan getting hurt, and he blames me as much as he blames himself. Maybe that’s fair, maybe it’s not. Ultimately it means he won’t take my call even if I try.
I don’t try.
Instead, I pull up my neat little app, courtesy of Atalanta, and cycle through the video feeds in the city. There aren’t any in the encampment out in the country, which sets me on edge. If I were up to no good, that’s where I’d be.
I’m still not sure if it’s a stroke of genius or completely foolish that I sold that property to Demeter.
She’s not aware she bought it from me, of course.
I don’t telegraph my origin story; besides, owning that piece of land was horribly nostalgic.
It’s where I used to live, after all, so many years ago.
It’s the only piece of land I’ve ever owned and selling it to Demeter to set up a camp for the refugees from the city feels like a strange sort of cosmic balance.
I won’t be needing it in the future, after all.
The Thirteen will fall, and that includes me.
There’s a life waiting for me outside of Olympus. I don’t know where yet, and I’m just superstitious enough to not think about with who too closely…though Atalanta’s face hovers in my mind’s eye.
I almost call her just to hear her voice, but I manage to resist. She’s been my steadfast friend through this entire process.
If I tell her I warned Cassandra again, she’s going to rip me a new one.
She’s probably got a point, but it’s nice to be reminded I have a heart under all the hurt.
Cassandra and I fell apart because we were never going to be the love of each other’s lives.
Atalanta didn’t like her much, and if I know the reason why, there’s no space to address it until we’ve accomplished our goals.
The possibility of after is too nebulous to contemplate.
Unfortunately, I can’t gallivant off to the country to chase down my concerns because there are too many cats still left to herd in the city itself. “Time to get to work.”