Garen lifts his dark brown eyes, fixing them on me as I approach. A mix of confusion and anger passes over his face as he realizes I’m making a beeline for his table. It’s wonderful.
I set my tray in front of him and point at the chair. “Care for some company?” I ask, sweet as can be.
He gives me a calculating stare, then glances at his meal like he’s trying to figure out if it’s worth leaving now—he’s barely even started. “What do you want, Freya?” he finally says in a weary tone.
“That’s a ‘yes,’ then? Good.” I slide the chair out and plop down, scooting in with some obnoxious screeches.
He shakes his head and sighs. “Come to gloat?”
“Why would I do a thing like that?” I ask, picking up my chopsticks and fumbling with them.
He stirs his soup—he has a mix of dishes from both sides of the cafeteria, I notice—and glares. “Drop the act already. We both know you’re smarter than that.”
“You really hate me, don’t you?” I say, still struggling with the chopsticks. “It’s not like I came out swinging. I wanted to be left alone.”
He gives me another of his uncomfortable stares, then rolls his eyes. “That didn’t change my job, you realize. And no, I don’t hate you. I hate what you represent—what you and your kind do to people—but you? As a person?” He shrugs. “I barely know you, and you haven’t done anything particularly detestable. Just suspicious.”
“Aw, Garen, you sweet-talker, you. What girl doesn’t want to hear they’re not ‘particularly detestable’?” I finish in a gravelly mimic of his voice.
“Plan on telling me what you want yet?” He takes a sip of his soup. “Or are we going to do this dance some more?”
“To be honest, I came by to ruin your dinner because you’ve been a giant jerk to me,” I say, and he smiles a little at that. “But you’re dangerously close to being more than a one-dimensional James Bond villain, and I’d kind of like to see how much.”
That gets me a very confused look. “Freya, do you have the faintest idea how strange you are?” he asks, sounding legitimately curious.
“Nope. Lay it on me.”
“There’s a lot that’s wrong with you, actually, but do you know what the worst part is?” He leans in as he asks it, like he’s about to share a secret, and I hunch over to listen. “You give people here hope.”
“Huh? What’s so bad about that?”
“You should know—you’ve been around. Hope can tear a mind apart, make you question everything.”
“And what do I make you question, Garen?”
He holds my gaze, then shakes his head, just a little. “You don’t get it, do you? Why you’re so damnably terrifying? You honestly haven’t thought about it.”
“Thought about what?”
“Freya, if you can act like a person, if you don’t have to twist people into following you, can accept a normal life like everyone else, then logically, so can any other god.”
I think it over for a moment, then bob my head. “Yeah, okay. Makes sense. What’s your point?”
“What’s my—they don’t, girl. Ever. You’re the only god in the history of this company—I’ve checked—who’s been able to do this.”
“So you hate gods, but because I can act a little differently, you’re … what? Worried all those years hunting us down might not be as morally awesome as you thought?”
“In part,” he mutters. “Look, do me a favor and slip up, all right? Act like the holy berserker I know you want to be, and quit messing with my head.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say with a wink, and make another try for my sushi.
“Like that!” he says, holding out his hands, exasperated. “You’re not trying to threaten me, and this isn’t some patronizing attempt at seduction—you’re actually having fun here.”
“’Course I am. The colossal jackass who ruined my life, shot me full of poison, and tried to get me imprisoned for eternity is climbing the walls because I’m being myself.” I give him a thumbs-up. “Good times!”
“Glad to brighten your day,” he says, drier than a desert. “You think it’s so simple. I’m a bad man for doing my job? Fine. Change the job, then. Tell me what I should do about gods, Freya. You’re in charge now. What’s the plan, fearless leader?”
Ooh, interesting. I set my chopsticks aside and snatch one of the dumplings with my fingers, popping it into my mouth while I think it over. “Some gods are evil, I’ll give you that,” I say, chewing. “So you go after them. Only them.”
He gives me a mocking salute. “Great idea, sir. Now all you need to do is define ‘evil’ and we’re off to the races.”
“Don’t give me that,” I say, eating another dumpling with my fingers. “Try a god of pestilence, maybe? God of sin? God of freaking evil?”
“God of war?” he asks with a lazy smile. I frown and I’m about to get snarky when he holds up a hand. “Low blow. We’ll set that aside for a moment. How about love?”
“Love isn’t evil!” I snap.
“The brokenhearted might disagree. Jilted lovers. Adulterers. What’s the line between love and lust? Where do stalkers come from? Who decides when love happens? People get hurt, Freya. You know that. Love can ruin lives as quickly as bullets.”
“Oh, screw you,” I say, legitimately upset. “You’re just cherry-picking the worst-case scen—”
“Then who chooses?” he asks. “You? Pick a god—any god—and tell me they don’t have the potential for fantastic amounts of harm.”
“I’m a god of beauty, too, you know. Where’s the harm in—”
“‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?’” Garen quotes with a smirk.
“Ugh.” I throw up my hands. “How long were you holding on to that one?”
“Have I made my point yet?”
“No! What about nature spirits? They—”
“Name one who can’t be associated with a natural disaster. One.”
I think it over for a moment. “Forest gods,” I say with a defiant look.
“Ecoterrorists,” he shoots back. “They’ll go to any lengths to protect the land, and you know it.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” I say, feeling flustered. “There are gods of simple things, too! Dance, art, joy. Why lock up a god of happiness, Garen?”
“Now you’re getting interesting,” he says, pausing to take another spoonful of soup. “Have you ever known a god with a specialty like that? Just one domain, and nothing else?”
“Yeah, plenty.”
“What were they like?”
“Very focused on whatever it was, I guess. Driven, really.”
“Would it be unfair to say obsessed?”
I feel a trap closing but plow ahead. “No, I suppose not.”
“Okay, great. Here’s the problem: They come in all shapes and sizes, but at their worst, those gods can be the most insidious of all. People aren’t meant to be happy twenty-four seven, and that’s one of the nicer fates. I’ve seen artists so inspired they worked their fingers to bloody nubs and passed out from exhaustion. Those gods burn people out, twist them into puppets, and, given enough time, permanently break them. They can’t help it—it’s their nature. They have to do it, and we pay the price.” Another slurp. “Except you,” he says, looking up from his soup with a very strange expression. “You held back. So are you a reason to find new respect for the gods … or hate them even more?”
Huh? “Why would I make you hate—?”
“Because if they could ignore their urges like you can, if they can help it, and they don’t…” He grits his teeth and makes a fist. I feel the anger pulse through him like distant thunder. “Then every last one of those miserable sons of bitches can burn.”
Ah. “Gettin’ a little dark there, aren’t you?”
He smiles at that, and for once it’s not his oily, practiced one. “You did ask. So yeah, there’s your answer. Sorry if you feel like I ruined your life over it, but you know what?”
“Not really sorry?”
“Not so much, no.” He returns to his soup, and I feel the anger in him start to evaporate. We both eat in silence for a few minutes, him slurping noodles and broth, me wrestling with my dumb chopsticks.
He looks up, watches quietly for a little. “God of love and war, and you can’t pick up a piece of fish?” he says at last, pointing his spoon at my current struggle.
“Fish, I can handle,” I say, tossing down the chopsticks with a frustrated noise. “Come to Scandinavia sometime—best seafood you ever had.” I hold up a piece of sushi and gesture at it. “This is a little fish burrito, and for some reason, I’m not supposed to use my fingers to eat it?”
He sighs and holds out his hand. After I pause for a few seconds, watching it warily, he snorts and grabs my chopsticks, then reaches over and beckons for my free hand. I narrow my eyes at him.
“What am I gonna do, put your prints on a gun?” he asks, and gestures for me again.
I snort and stretch out my hand. He takes it, fits the chopsticks into my fingers, and helps shape my hand around them. “There, like a pencil. Just use your thumb, index, and middle fingers to wiggle the top one. The other, you don’t move.”
I try it. He corrects me a few times, and then it clicks. I reach out and pick up a piece of sushi with the chopsticks and smile. “Hey! Thanks!” I eat it, happy with my new talent. “You’re still on my list, and I don’t know why you did that, but thanks.”
He goes back to his meal. “Maybe so when you do eventually snap and try to kill me, you’ll at least feel conflicted about it.”
“Kind of a dick move if that’s the case,” I say, targeting another sushi.
He makes a little eh noise. “Gotta keep up appearances. I know your kind. Too endearing for your own good—or mine.”
“It’s the cleavage, isn’t it?” I say with a grin, crossing my arms and leaning forward.
He snorts. “Seriously? You look like you should be sending applications to colleges.”
“Well, excuse me for being dreamt up when this was middle-aged,” I say, gesturing at myself.
“Look at you, showing off your sense of humor like it’s an A on a math test.” He drains the last of his soup and tosses down his napkin. “Well, this has been awkward and annoying. Don’t make it a habit, if you’d be so kind.”
“Call me,” I say, toasting him with my water glass.
He makes a disgusted sound, picks up his tray, and leaves.
I spend a few seconds eating in silence, feeling pretty smug about our exchange (other than the fact that I’m going to prove him right when I level this place). Sadly, like all good things, those vibes are not long for the world. A little twitch of movement out of the corner of my eye, a white shape prowling around the table, and suddenly Dionysus is sliding into the chair opposite me, tray piled high with gourmet choices.
“Eating alone? Cruel fate for such a beautiful creature,” he says, undressing me with his eyes.
“Did I invite you here?” I growl, good mood thoroughly mangled.
“Did he?” Dionysus says, nodding at Garen, who’s just leaving the cafeteria. “Double standards are unbecoming for beauties. Come, sit and spar with me as you did the half-breed.” A glass of red wine blinks into existence in one of his hands, and he takes an exaggerated slurp from it.
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“No,” he says with a shrug, picking up a handful of sushi, mashing it into a pool of soy sauce, and eating it. “But then, this isn’t quite the sort of sparring I’d prefer anyway.” Despite a mouthful of food, he manages to say it in a crisp, unburdened voice. What a weird trick.
“So what makes you think I’m going to sit here for longer than it takes to tell you how much of a scumbag you are?” He opens his mouth to respond, and I hold up a finger. “You scumbag. There.” I wrap my hands around the edges of my tray and make to leave.
“Nothing I can say, clearly,” he says, and looks pointedly to our right.
I narrow my eyes, then follow his gaze. About twenty feet away, Samantha’s having her usual outcast meal in the Forbidden Zone. This time, however, she has a visitor: her father, Gideon Drass. My lips twist, and I set my tray back down.
“You’ve been listening to them?”
“And you,” he says with a sly smile. He pulls an exaggerated sad face and draws a tear down one chiseled cheek. “Boo-hoo, Freya’s got self-control, whatever shall we do?”
“Yeah, old news. What are Samantha and her father talking about?”
He rolls his eyes and takes another crass bite of his meal. “The usual clichés.” He mimes a girlish pose. “Oh, Father, I’m torn between familial respect and the need to be my own person!” He frowns and his voice deepens. “Daughter dearest, I love you and can’t help wanting to protect you, even if my overbearing choices are driving you away.”
“They’re people, not tropes,” I say, glaring.
“And we are gods,” he says with a knowing look. “Billions of them, a handful of us. Now tell me whom I should paint with broad strokes.”
“Shut up,” I hiss. “I can’t hear them.”
“So Garen thinks you’re different?” Dionysus asks, ignoring me. “You frustrate him because you make choices he can’t predict, yes?” He tilts his head back and tosses another piece of sushi into his mouth, arcing it like a piece of popcorn. “Hmm. Chablis, I think,” he murmurs to himself, and the glass of wine in his hand flickers and refills with what I assume is the perfect vintage.
I sigh noisily and stare at him. “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”
“Indulge me, and we’ll see,” he says, smirking. “Come now, fair one. What’s the harm in a little indulgence now and then?”
I maintain the stare a little longer, then blow out a breath and hold up my hands. “Fine. What do you want?”
“So many things,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. Then his demeanor changes in an instant, downshifting from lecherous to suave. “But I’ll settle for a conversation.”
“Why?” I say, picking up another piece of sushi as daintily as I can. “Still hoping to talk yourself into my pants?”
That gets me a full-throated laugh. “Always. But not only for that. Our mutual friend is right: You are different. To Garen, that makes you a threat. I, however, find you a curiosity.” He pauses. “A marvelously curvaceous one, at that.”
I flip him off. “Get to your point.”
“My brash little love, I’m already there. Can’t you see? Not long ago, such denials of my astonishing charms were cause for some … mild rudeness on my behalf.”
“Mild?”
He waves a hand. “Do you see me tossing you through any walls now? Or displaying the slightest unease at your baffling prudishness?”
“I assumed you’d given up.”
He scoffs. “I would never insult you so. No, I simply realize it is because you are not yourself.” He holds a hand to his chest, and those crazed eyes fill with sadness. “You have my deepest sympathies, sweet girl, for you are lost. After all, what goddess of love would deny herself such pleasures?”
One with standards, I barely manage to avoid shouting. “That it?” I say instead. “We done here?”
He sighs. “You cannot see it, can you? Clearly, this detachment was not a conscious choice on your part.”
“A conscious—well, of course not,” I say, feeling like I’ve missed something. “What, like you can just decide you’re going to be a wild card?”
“Yes,” he says, fixing lust-filled eyes on me. “Precisely that.”
“Nonsense. What god would—”
“None, of course—a god can no more choose to walk a different path than a man can change the color of his teeth.” He flashes pearly whites at me. “Ah, but between a path and a brief pause along the way, there exists a world of difference.”
“I’m going to miss the rest of their conversation if you don’t get on with it,” I hiss, flicking my head at Samantha’s table.
“Very well. A moment, if you please?” He closes his eyes and furrows his brow. “A sane god would never want such a thing, no, but—” He grimaces. “With enough—mmf—dedication and—nng—strength, great things can—can be—” He grits his teeth, tightens his fingers on the table, and twists his face like he’s fighting through a briar patch in his head. Then his features relax and he lets out a relieved sigh. He shakes himself, opens his eyes, and … my jaw drops. Those eyes—
They’re normal.
“Achieved,” he says in a pleasant, mild-mannered tone.
I sit back in shock.
“Kind of neat, right?” he asks, sounding for all the world like an average guy dropping by for a quick chat.
“What did you do?” I ask, leaning in to peer at him. Damn, he’s hot when he’s not insane.
“Shut it off,” he says simply. “I don’t have worshippers, remember? I have power. I serve no one but myself, and that means I can change myself.”
“Please tell me you’re going to stay this way.”
He grins, and it’s actually endearing for once. “If I could, I think I’d have a shot at those pants of yours after all. The irony is not lost.”
“Why can’t you—”
“Because it’s not me, Freya,” he says with a look of Oh well. “It’s a trick, a show of strength, not a way of life. You can only ignore what you are for so long.”
“That’s not true!” I say, tapping my chest. “Look what I’ve done!”
He shakes his head, and that roguish grin turns pitying. “By losing everything? I’d rather not. Give it time, sweetheart. I see in you a goddess on the rise. With that power will come the same urges that define us all. You have ignored your calling for now, but that cannot last forever.”
I glare at him. “I am my own person.”
“For now,” he repeats, and a tremor passes through him. “Ah, you see? It’s coming. Why do you think I’m showing you this? We’re no different, Freya—the only thing that separates us is time.”
The very notion sends a chill down my spine. “Oh, I beg to differ, you hideous throwback.”
“I feel the storm,” he says, a faraway look in his eyes. “Delirium, delight, the call of merriment … they are not far now. So tell me, in these last moments, what do you ask of a god touched by mortality?”
Still feeling staggered, I try to put my thoughts together, to form the most important (and relevant) question I can imagine. “How can you do it? How can you go back to letting your nature control you, to give up free will, even for a second?”
He laughs, and it seems I can hear a hint of madness in it. “I was made, Freya. Made—just like you—for a purpose. I live, breathe, love, kill for it. To have that taken from me? A crueler fate could not exist.” He catches my gaze with those human eyes of his, and I’m stunned to see them shimmer with tears. “You ask how I can submit to it, and all I can wonder is how you can stand to do anything but. I am so sorry, sweet girl.”
His breath hitches. He shudders, snaps his eyes shut, and grips the table again. There’s a pause as the muscles in his arms flex, and then he looks at me, a wretched leer curving his granite lips. Demented dreams swim through those eyes, and my heart sinks as I realize the spark of humanity he summoned is lost somewhere within.
“Come find me when you find yourself,” he purrs, dabbing a finger in the soy sauce on his plate. “Then we’ll see what I can find.” He lifts his hand between us, waits a beat, then licks away the liquid with a long, incredibly suggestive stroke of his tongue.
“Gag me,” I say, sneering.
He chuckles softly and picks up his tray. “Privacy, as promised, for our little lost goddess,” he says, rising. He leaves with nothing more than a bounce of his eyebrows.
I take a moment to mentally scrub myself, trying to wipe the entire unsettling conversation from memory. I don’t care what he thinks—even if I gain in strength, draw a little closer to the principles that created me, I’ll never be anything like him. Love and war are far removed from the unleashed desire that defines that creature. He’s just trying to mess with me. If anything, it’s probably all some idiotic scheme to get me in the sack.
I sigh, shake my head, and close my eyes. Time to snoop. The background murmur of gods and Finemdi staff fades. After a moment of searching and sifting, the clipped, tense conversation between Samantha and her father swims to the surface.
“—just don’t see why we can’t have a nice, normal conversation for once,” Gideon is saying.
“Dad, please,” Samantha hisses. “Look around and tell me how any of this is normal!”
“Which is exactly why we need to find it where we can,” he says, sounding desperate. “Come on, Sam. Where’d my little scientist go?”
“She’s right here, Dad,” she says, slapping the table. “Alone in the corner, like usual.”
“This again?” he says, and I can hear the eye roll. “Do not look to the company for friends—that’s all I’m asking! You have a life outside this place—what about your classes?”
She makes an uninterested grunt.
“Hey, I thought you were doing great. Not many teenagers can say they’re taking classes at a graduate level!”
“Yes, that’s all the cool kids care about these days: how many grades I’ve skipped.”
“Well, fine, join a damn book club or something!”
“Oh, right, I forgot it was so easy,” she says, matching his sarcasm. “Should I get on that normal-people stuff before or after I review my next delivery of magical artifacts?”
“Do not take that tone with me,” he says, going into authority mode. “This job is your choice. I’ve always supported you, but there are rules!”
There’s a clatter as she snatches her tray, piling utensils onto it. “Sorry, sir. You’re right. I guess I’d better get back to work.”
“Sam, come on, you—look, you’ve barely touched your food.”
“Thanks for the chat, Gideon,” she says in a dead voice as she goes.
For a moment, there’s just the sound of her stalking away. Then, once she’s out of earshot, Drass lets out a frustrated groan. I turn my head and crack an eye to see him rub at his mustache, deep in thought, before returning to his dinner. Once it’s clear nothing else is going to happen, I tidy up my eating area, pick up my tray, and hunt for the Hawaiian sisters. Smiling when I spot them at their usual table, I make my way over for a bit of pleasant conversation for a change. The rest of my meal passes uneventfully, with the exception of Hi‘iaka’s awesome story about the time she got into a contest of strength with the Anemoi (Greek wind gods of the cardinal directions). I’m not going to get into it here, mostly because I can’t do her sound effects justice.
I look at the clock as I head out of the dining hall and realize Nathan still has an hour of class left. I grimace in annoyance, though not because he’s missing dinner (the kitchens are open late, so he can always order à la carte); it’s that I’ve just reminded myself what I learned in my own recent lecture. The meal was a nice distraction, but it’ll take a sushi roll far better than even the beauties I had for me to quench my rage at Finemdi’s perversions. Using the powers and abilities of gods like playthings, dismembering creatures like Ahriman for trinkets, and—
Hey.
A thought strikes me, and I realize it’s something that’s been bouncing around in the back of my head ever since I left Adam’s presentation. I turn it over a few times, looking for problems and liking it more and more. It may not come to anything, but at the very least it’s something different from my hate for Finemdi, which is actually very refreshing—I was getting tired of leaving those sessions with nothing to do beyond whining about how much I dislike them.
Now I have a wonderful new idea percolating alongside the ever-present disgust. Hell, it’s a good thing I attended that lesson; I need to find a certain place inside Impulse Station, and I’d never have known to look for it without Adam’s lecture.
For once, I get to ditch the map. Even if I were willing to spend the ludicrous amount of time needed to scan every floor and hallway, what I want won’t be on it. That’s fine. All I need to do is follow my nose, so to speak. I wander aimlessly for a few minutes just to put some distance between myself and the other deities leaving the cafeteria, then close my eyes and concentrate. As a divine being, I can sense all sorts of things beyond mortal ken. Gods have an odor all their own, as does magic. It’s an aura that ripples under reality, infused with the philosophies and traits of whatever spawned it. Until now, I hadn’t really bothered to pay much attention to the auras of anyone or anything in this place; the building’s so overloaded with divine creatures and artifacts it’s like walking into a scented-candle store for the soul. Now, though, I have something to look for.
The entire place hums with energy. Hestia’s everlasting electricity, countless defensive wards, and the trails of dozens of gods all bathe the complex in mystic echoes. Only one of these has what I’m looking for, however—a dull, throbbing ache of calamity hidden among the crowd. I catch the scent and begin moving immediately. It’s not hard to remember what I felt when I reached for that piece of Ahriman back at Inward, and even the vaguest whiff of his aura calls to me like a siren. I wander the halls for almost half an hour, sliding against walls, turning away from dead ends, and drifting down stairwells. Finally, I find myself standing in front of an unlabeled door on the first sublevel of the complex: just a boring entrance in the middle of a boring hallway. It doesn’t even have a key card reader. Completely unremarkable in every way, except for the aura that calls out from behind it with promises of agony and despair.
I take a deep breath to steady myself, then turn the handle and push the door open. It’s pitch-black, the light from the hallway casting a murky pool just inside. I blink at the darkness before me, reach around for the light switch on the interior wall, and give it a flick. Harsh fluorescents snap to life, bathing the room in a pale white light. I cock my head to the side and frown. Instead of the arcane ritual site I’d been expecting, I find myself staring into a storage closet. Metal racks line the walls, filled with spare equipment and office supplies. It might be a little larger than most storage rooms I’ve seen, but the poured concrete floor in its center is completely bare. There’s nothing here.
I’m about to shut the door in annoyance when a thought strikes me. Those racks … why are they only attached to the walls? Why not fill the empty space in the middle of the room, too? And when in the history of humankind has a storage closet ever had a bare floor? There should be all sorts of detritus—boxes, fallen equipment, forgotten provisions—littering the ground in there. I turn back and step into the room, closing my eyes and focusing on the aura I’ve been tracking. Yes, it’s definitely coming from here. I walk farther, skin prickling from the negative energy that surrounds me. It feels like I should be tripping over Ahriman, or at least whatever they’re using to clone his aura.
I bend down to examine that too-clean floor and grimace as the wave of cataclysm swells. Here. It’s practically oozing out of the concrete. I straighten up, nodding. They must have hidden it somehow, burned it into the floor with a spell and then made the whole mess invisible. If I were stronger, I might be able to overcome whatever illusions they’ve cast here, but as it is, I already have everything I need to know. When Garen or anyone else toting a piece of Ahriman gets teleported out of danger, this is where they go.
Satisfied with my new knowledge, I move to the door and reach to turn off the lights when everything flexes for a split second. It’s as if the entire storage closet is a pool of liquid with some deep-sea leviathan trying to thrash its way to the surface. A strange crawling sensation ghosts through my skull, and then there’s a dull whump of displaced atmosphere as something bursts into existence in the center of the room.
The figure wheezes, inhaling a lungful of air and twitching on the floor for a moment before rolling over. I gasp as I recognize her immediately. Wisps of smoke trail from a singed lab coat, her glasses are cracked, and her hair is plastered to the sides of her head by blood and sweat, but there’s no mistaking the girl’s identity. I move back into the room to lean over the panting wreck of her body, and pale green eyes focus on me with almost comical alarm.
“Don’t tell my dad,” Samantha Drass says in a terrified whisper.