Chapter Twenty-Four Hermes
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hermes
Hermes had done some pretty weird shit for the other gods, in his unofficial role as errand boy–slash–private investigator.
He’d tracked down one of Artemis’s lost tigers, only to find that the creature had been kidnapped by that Joe Exotic guy.
He’d rigged the Nobel Prize in physics for Athena and the Grammys for Apollo.
Once he’d even infiltrated a Michelin-starred restaurant because the pastry chef refused to give Hera his mocha cake recipe.
It turned out that the recipe wasn’t written down, so Hermes couldn’t steal it—he’d had to pose as a busboy and take an illicit video of the chef baking the cake, all so that Hera could re-create it for Zeus’s birthday.
But as he watched Julia dance on tables with her best friend, Hermes realized that this was a first. He had never before crashed a bachelorette party.
Julia’s head tipped back at something her friend said, and she laughed—a laugh so simple and bright that Hermes felt slightly jealous.
His emotions were never uncomplicated. There were always nuances to the way he felt, always strings attached.
But seeing Julia, he felt almost nostalgic, if it was possible to be nostalgic for something you’d never felt.
Then Julia swayed, nearly tumbling off the table she was perched on.
The friend threw out her arms to catch Julia, and Hermes sighed.
Too bad Ares could only regulate adrenaline and cortisol, a power tied to his role as god of war, helping humans conquer their fears.
Julia was going to feel awful tomorrow. And Hermes doubted that Hera would offer to mend the woman’s hangover.
When he was near Julia and her friend, he pretended to look up in surprise. “Julia!” he shouted over the din of the music. “Oh my god, what are you doing here?”
Julia’s smile broadened. “I had no idea you were coming to my bachelorette party!”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” Hermes held out a hand to help Julia down, then did the same for her friend, who moved with visible reluctance. “Nice to meet you,” he introduced himself. “I’m Harry’s cousin Percy.”
The woman didn’t provide her own name. “Sorry, but this is a private event.”
“Abby!” Julia scolded, or rather, slurred. “Percy is the cousin I told you about—the nice one. The rest are all so bitchy.” That last was said in a drunken stage whisper.
Oddly, Julia’s words sent a warm glow through Hermes’s chest. “Can I give you a ride back?” he offered, ignoring Julia’s overprotective friend. “I was just on my way out.”
“No, don’t go!” Julia wrapped her hands around Hermes’s wrist, tugging him in the direction of the dance floor. “Stay and dance with us!”
“I’ll get her home safe, I promise,” Abby added, eager for Hermes to leave.
He blinked. For a moment, the woman’s outline seemed to flicker, as if she were an old-fashioned movie whose film reel had gotten stuck. Hermes saw Abby, with her short dark hair and square jawline.
But at the same time, like a ghost overlaying Abby’s form, he saw Aphrodite.
“Wait for us here, Julia. We’re going to get you some water,” Hermes said gently. “Abby, would you come with me?” He put a warning hand on Aphrodite-as-Abby’s arm, squeezing it hard, so that she bit back her protest.
It was a sign of Julia’s drunkenness that she didn’t question this strange new pairing. She just nodded agreeably and kept dancing.
As soon as they’d retreated toward the bathrooms, Hermes whirled on the goddess. “Aphrodite. What are you playing at, shape-shifting into a mortal?”
She looked like Julia’s friend again, but her eyes narrowed in a way that was distinctly Aphrodite. “I’m afraid I don’t understand—”
“Your illusion is guttering out like a dying candle,” Hermes snapped. “I’m starting to see you, which means the mortals will soon.”
Only Hermes would have seen that flicker; magic worked better on gullible mortals than it did on gods. But Aphrodite was approaching burnout.
She cursed under her breath. “I’ve used too much power tonight.”
“Doing what?” Hermes asked, but Aphrodite ignored the question. She lifted a hand to her brow as if checking her own temperature.
“Do I feel overheated to you? Maybe I should get Hestia to make me a cup of tea,” Aphrodite rambled. “I’m so weak that I couldn’t even dig into Julia’s desires, the way I did at Olympus.”
“You magicked her at Olympus?” Hermes asked, surprised.
Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “What are you going to do, tattle on me? All I did was make Julia sleepy, so she would go to bed and get out of my way.”
Hermes decided not to make a big deal of this. “You should get back. Why don’t you go grab a cab, and I’ll grab another one for me and Julia.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t forget to change back into yourself.”
Aphrodite flickered once more. She must have felt her magic draining, because she winced. “Fine. I’ll go.” But as she started to turn away, something occurred to her, and she glanced back. “Hera sent you, didn’t she? Is she tracking me with the Argos Eye?”
“I used a nonmagical tracker. Julia’s phone.” Hermes jerked his thumb back toward the dance floor. “When Julia went totally MIA, Ares got worried, so I logged in to her laptop and pulled up the Find My Devices page.”
Ares had offered to come with him, but Hermes had insisted on making this trip alone. Don’t be the groom who shows up at a bachelorette, he’d said flippantly. That’s a job for the fabulous cousin!
The truth was that Hermes had wanted to find Julia himself. Knowledge was power, especially knowledge that you alone possessed.
And maybe, a small part of him admitted, he’d been worried about Julia.
He watched Aphrodite start toward the door of the club.
Near the exit, she stretched her arms overhead and then—with a flash of light that Hermes knew only he could see—she became her own glorious self once more.
There was obvious relief in the set of Aphrodite’s shoulders, now that she’d shed Abby’s form like a snake emerging from its skin.
Hermes started back across the dance floor, his mind racing. Aphrodite couldn’t magic Julia either. It wasn’t just him. But why would Aphrodite’s enchantment have worked on Olympus and not work now?
Could Julia be a demigod? Hermes had encountered plenty of half-divine offspring in his travels. He always felt the magic coiled within them, radiating like heat from a stove. He’d gotten nothing of the sort from Julia. No, he thought, she was purely mortal.
But how could a mere human resist the power of two Olympians? Was another god shielding her? Perhaps she was under some kind of protective spell.
One thing was certain: He couldn’t keep this from Hera anymore. Not to mention that he should probably share the news with Hades, too. At least Aphrodite had blamed her own exhaustion, rather than assuming there was anything unique about the mortal woman.
Poor Julia, Hermes thought, glancing back in the direction where Aphrodite had disappeared. It was bad enough to have attracted the enmity of a god or goddess.
Far worse to be the target of their envy.