Chapter Twenty-Eight

Assurances were made, soothing words that were not registered in my conscious mind. Hector promised that Ares was weakened without the Nectar. Jasper refused to look at me at all.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blood on the floor, the shock in Jasper's face, the hesitation in Hector's voice. The flesh on my right hand tingled where it had connected with Ares' skull.

The image frightened me too much to sleep, despite Hector's insistence that I rest. I studied his history book instead for hours. I like to think I was the sort of person who enjoyed a good thriller.

It helped to reimagine the past I had forgotten. A forgotten lifetime was just what the doctor ordered: if I was busy figuring out who I was, I didn't think about Ares or his blood or the way that nobody wanted to talk about it.

What must they all think of me now?

However, the book was a distraction from the threat of war coming down on us at any second. What I found were diverting questions; had his world and mine coexisted all this time? What caused the Greek myths to die out and become obsolete if they are still so alive right under our noses? And who stole the Nectar of the gods?

And to think, just days ago—I'd lost track—I tried to tell myself that this was all a vivid dream. Smell the coffee, Autumn, because this is real, honest to gods. Even your imagination isn't this good.

As I read I munched on another of Jasper's wrapped granolas. I wasn't hungry; it was just something to keep me busy. I did a lot to keep busy in the hours immediately following the Incident; avoiding Alex, Gregory, and Lindsay, studying the book, showering. I showered twice already, scouring my skin until I hated myself a little less.

The book said lots of things that were helpfully distracting: reading about war in a book and preparing to be part of one are vastly different situations.

It sat heavily in my lap. I read stories about Zeus and Hera, Aphrodite and some king named Minos, and Poseidon. There were tales about the gods mating with humans—hello, Hercules, Perseus, Achilles, and that guy Minos, again. The Titans turned out to be ruthless killers and a battle ensued between the gods and their parents.

Gods are not birthed like humans: they come out of odd body parts, sometimes the head or the thigh, or were conceived through strange wooing. Zeus turned into a bird to gain Hera's affections. The fact that all of the gods seemed to be related by blood as well as marriage didn't escape me. Maybe deities played by different rules. I found stories that involved humans mating with animals that I didn't much care for.

Added almost as an afterthought to a page dedicated to Hades was a brief paragraph about Persephone that made my insides turn just a little. In comparison to his brothers though, Hades had been tame when it came to his one and only love.

The Hades from the book was not my Hades, and Hector had never mentioned Persephone so I moved on.

I purposefully skipped over all of the parts about Ares. He may have been the god of war but without the Nectar he was just as mortal as any human. It was exactly the thing I didn't want to dwell on.

The book had sections on the Nectar, too—also called ambrosia. This never-ending juice that kept the gods of days past alive without human knowledge had been around since the creation of the gods themselves. An entry about the Nectar was vague on where it came from or why it was necessary. The little information that was written about it told me that the Nectar was the one thing keeping the gods a part of our world. A second page on the subject reminded me that the Nectar was traditionally consumed yearly by each of the gods. For thousands of years, the gods drank at the beginning of the Olympic ceremonies. It was a big deal, grand and formal and ironically hosted one time during each cycle of the mortal calendar; a ceremonial renewal of their strength and power and immortality.

What I understood was that without it, the gods would fade away. I had always thought a religion stuck around so long as people believed in it: if the Catholics stopped practicing, would it be relevant anymore? The tome in my lap said differently; if it was to be trusted—for all I knew the book was a collection of Wikipedia articles—then the gods had a super secret weapon and because of it they had survived the discovery of electricity and the invention of the Internet.

Hector appeared in the doorway between my living room and the bedroom for the first time since he had assured me it would be all right, that he was going to make it all right. He didn't have to specify what 'it' was.

I kept reading, trying to ignore him and failing, but I couldn't talk to him. I refused; no words would be able to make up for what had happened, no apology great enough.

There was no reason to keep pretending to read. When I closed the book in my lap, the momentum blew musky air in my face. I waved the dust away, grateful for any reason to stall the conversation. "Are you just going to stand there?" There was little life in my voice.

Quickly Hector crossed the room and swept me into a solid embrace. Comfort. Empathy. Concern. I wanted nothing to do with the emotions he broadcast.

"I simply wanted to check on you. As I understand it you've been left alone, which is quite the opposite of the order I gave Jasper." His tone reserved, I thought the worst must be over. "How are you?"

"I don't want to talk about it. I'm fine, Hector. Really." Not really. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're going to need Lindsay a lot more than you need me right now."

"I don't think you understand—"

I interrupted him. "No, you don't understand. In the throne room... that should not have happened. I wasn't even thinking, I just acted: he was going to kill you and so I killed him first. I can't be trusted not to take unnecessary life."

"That is not something you need to fret; many unnecessary lives will be taken in this war. Many lives will also be reborn, Autumn. Our strongest tactical advantage is to have the biggest, deadliest monsters as our disposal. Demi-gods. Souls wanting a free pass into whatever Heaven they think is coming, creatures long imprisoned and wanting to be freed. You, my glorious Fury.

"And the way we will win this war is to make sure that each and every fallen god is reincarnated into someone worthy, a beast or a fellow or a human soul who will carry on the tradition of each role. Some of the old Ares will be reborn as his new vessel consumes the Nectar—as I will gain some aspects the old Hades. But change will touch all that the old gods knew and we have to be prepared for that."

Hector smiled. I ignored the tickle in my chest when I saw it. There was that hope again, clear in his voice.

How I hated to destroy his hopes.

I swallowed. "You know I don't have enough control to lead your army. Give Lindsay the job." The words felt dirty on my tongue.

"Never; she has proven herself unworthy of the role. I trust you, Autumn. The Fates were not wrong about you." His hand reached out and touched mine, reassuring.

I wanted to scream. "The Fates are old and decrepit and misguided—they have left us all for dead. I am not the Fury you've been hoping for. I can't control myself, let alone your army. You'd be better off putting me in Lindsay's hole in Tartarus. Where you can keep me."

From killing everyone, from hurting Hector, from putting on the mantle of Hades and taking over the position myself. I looked frantically for the copy of Dracula where the helmet charm waited patiently, a promise; it was right where I left it.

"I trust you, Autumn," he repeated. Truth never sounded so good as it did coming out of his mouth.

My ill-timed stomach gurgled loud enough to startle me. Hector laughed at me, a welcome noise in the quiet of the room. I located the abandoned granola bar on the bed and offered it to Hector. His raised eyebrow was all the answer I needed.

"What's he put in these things anyway?" My voice lacked the familiar fire of a conversation with Hector and the sound bordered on depressed. "They're awful but he leaves them on my pillow like chocolates, among other places. There was one next to my toothbrush yesterday. I can't stop eating them."

Hector looked at me, head cocked to one side. He seemed truly unaware. "Who gives you those?"

"Jasper did; he calls it Fury Food, apparently. He makes sure I have one of these every time I see him and every time I enter a room. He probably drops by once an hour to feed me." I showed the empty wrapper to Hector. It crinkled in my hand. There were no markings on the plastic, no words, no nutritional facts. It was white and bland, just like the bars tasted. "Who else would try so adamantly to feed me? I figured he was doing it on your orders." When I handed the trash to Hector, he took it gingerly.

As if he thought it was going to hurt.

As if he was afraid of it.

"Jasper gave this to you." It wasn't a question. He looked at the wrapper, back to me, back to the wrapper. He sniffed it. Something in his face changed. "How many have you eaten?"

Why did it matter how many I had eaten? I didn't answer him right away—not because I wasn't curious, but because I couldn't come up with a number. It was several days since he gave me the first one and mind controlled me to sleep. There was always one within reach, no matter what room I found myself in. My apartment had become a minefield of little white rectangular bars.

I'd had several each day since Jasper commanded me to eat.

"Alex said it was your idea to have them made." I said slowly. I pushed to my feet, letting the book slide to the bed next to me, a terrible thought exploded in my mind. "When Jasper was ordering me around because you wanted him to take care of me, did you have him order me to eat these? I can't stop, even if I'm not hungry."

He thought for a moment, picking his next words carefully. "Creatures of the Underworld—Furies included—don't need to eat in the sense that humans do. I had hoped you wouldn't need much sustenance but instructed Jasper to make sure you were fed until that human aspect of your body had ceased to be a problem. We of Hades are sustained on the magic of the realm, by the River." He paused.

I waited for him to continue. He could have easily lied to me again, or walked away without explanation. But I knew somehow that he would not hide from me anymore.

Whatever we were I knew we were beyond cryptic answers and outright lies.

With a deep intake of breath, he began again. "You are still part human, which means you need to consume nutrients to stay alive—hence the kitchen in your apartment. You need to eat in order to sustain yourself. The task given to Jasper was to keep your body fed with the hope that over time you would no longer need any sustenance save for the Underworld itself. He was not asked to exercise continual compulsion over you. But, Autumn, I have never seen this before; whatever came out of this wrapper does not belong here." He raised the trash in emphasis, holding it gently.

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"First, you need to stop eating them." Hector did not grin as he did so frequently when we interacted. Fear was not the only expression playing with his dark eyes. I had seen him sapped of energy, elated, furious, but never frightened. "Second, I need to find Jasper."