'Well, yes.'
'Your father was well aware that you chose the Greek pantheon, out of all the other pantheons, deliberately. To piss him off.'
'He'd have been stupid not to realise that.'
'And, by the way, one of the Titans you killed on Bleaney' — remember, no bodies equals no proof — 'was him. Your own father.'
Not even a flicker in Zeus's expression. 'You say that like it's a bad thing.'
'Patricide usually is.'
'Usually. Now, shall I continue, or are you going to keep on sidetracking me?'
'I'm not sure I want to hear any more, now that I know where the human portions of your monsters came from.'
'Squeamish?' said Zeus. 'Squeamishness is a luxury no true pioneer can afford. Suffice it to say that I gave those whores and street kids the kind of power and invincibility they'd hitherto thought they could get only through a needle or a firearm. They were my foundation stones. On them and on countless dumb animals I built the edifice of a grand dream. A dream of saving humankind from itself. This dream.'
'And getting one up on your father at the same time.'
'A fortunate corollary.'
'As well as gaining absolute authority for yourself. Misunderstood misfit Xander Landesman, appointing himself supreme leader of the world. Revenge of the dropout.'
'Your obstreperousness is one of the things I like most about you, Sam. It's quite endearing. Exasperating, but endearing.'
'Maybe we should just cut this short,' Sam said. 'If the only reason you've brought me here is to brag on about how clever and ruthless you've been, with your dancing DNA and your Greek myth storytime audiobook, then maybe — '
'Sam!' Zeus burst out. 'Heavens, woman, just stop and think for a second. You're not here so that I can crow about my achievements.'
'And not here to be killed either. So, what, then?'
'Could I make it any more obvious? Why not ask yourself why I had Hermes pluck you from the battlefield. It was because I had a feeling about you, Sam, based on what Dionysus and Aphrodite told me about you and my own subsequent researches, after your identity became apparent. And my hunch has been confirmed over the past few weeks. You're stubborn and obstinate and awkward in every way, not to mention resourceful and smart. That makes for a worthy foe. It also makes for a worthy ally.'
'Ally?'
Then she saw it, and everything in her seemed to sink. Not just her heart, her whole self, as though her soul was draining out of her, seeping onto the floor.
'Godhood, Sam,' said Zeus. 'I'm offering you your very own apotheosis. Transformation from mortal to divine. Exaltation. I'm asking you to join us and become an Olympian.'
69. COUNCIL OF WAR
Argus pinpointed Poseidon's whereabouts. Hermes fetched him. The twelve Olympians sat in session in the naos of the main temple. Zeus presided. Sam looked on from the sidelines.
A council of war.
'We go nuclear,' said Athena. 'Argus has control over the world's atomic arsenals. It's high time we took advantage of that. We bomb London. That'll halt this thing in its tracks. You know this, O Zeus.'
'I can't countenance it, O Athena the Owl-Eyed,' said Zeus.
'Why not? I'm the one you consult when it comes to tactics. Have I not advised you well in the past? Have I not helped steer you successfully around countless potential pitfalls? So this is what I am recommending now. Wipe out London with one of Britain's own ICBMs, and this new insurgency we're seeing will melt away — gone in a flash.'
She hadn't always been Athena. Once, she had been a brilliant business strategist, a consultant whom corporations hired at staggering expense to tell them how to get one over on the competition and expand their own interests. Then she tried to play off two rival pharmaceutical giants against each other, for the sheer pleasure of manipulating them both, and got caught at it.
'I agree with my stepsister,' said Dionysus. 'Why must we exert ourselves over and over again quashing these uprisings when there's a far less effortful option open to us? All Argus need do is think it, and the deed is done.'
Dionysus had been a vintner and bon viveur who hosted lavish, booze-sodden parties that could last for days. The good times ended for him after one of his guests killed another with a broken bottle in a drunken brawl.
'Typical!' barked Ares. 'You're soft in every way, Dionysus. Soft and lazy. I, myself, will gladly take on these mortals hand to hand on the slopes of fair, snow-capped Olympus. The clash and clangour of combat is my music. Bloodshed and screams are my meat and drink.'
Before he was enlisted into the Pantheon, Ares had been a soldier, a good one, born for discipline and killing, if a little too apt to sacrifice the former in the name of the latter. His involvement in a massacre of civilians in some west African hellhole town prompted a dishonourable discharge and a descent into alcoholism. There were frequent arrests for affray, until Xander Landesman came along.
'And I will fight alongside my stepbrother,' Apollo declared. 'My arrows stand ready to pierce a thousand mortal breasts.' He and Ares clasped fists, a sinewy display of shared philosophy.
Apollo used to be an Olympic-class archer, a toxophilite of the first rank, until he took a bribe from a betting syndicate and blew a contest he should have won easily. The scandal was hushed up but his career never hit the bullseye again.
'I'm minded to side with Athena and Dionysus on this one,' said Hades. 'In the thick of combat isn't a place I'm too comfortable being, and there's something rather elegantly fitting about using one of the mortals' own weapons of mass destruction against them. So much death in the space of a handful of seconds — I find the idea positively thrilling.'
An embalmer by trade, Hades had been noted among his peers in the field of mortuary science for the skill and care he took over his work. With cosmetics brush and restorative wax he could render even the most unsightly corpse viewable. He prided himself on having saved many a family the distress of a closed-casket funeral. Unfortunately, it emerged that his affinity with dead bodies didn't end with smartening them up and making them look lifelike. A colleague caught him in the morgue one night, lavishing the wrong kind of attention on a recently deceased lingerie model on the slab. Vocational oblivion beckoned, but so did Xander Landesman.
'Perhaps,' argued Aphrodite, 'we should offer them one last chance. Set a deadline. Give them until, say, next Monday to reconsider and pull back, then if they don't comply, attack. Isn't it better to show forbearance and allow their better natures a chance to shine through?'
Aphrodite had previously been a madam running one of the most exclusive bordellos on the planet, a harem- like haven for playboys, plutocrats and princelings. Her abiding philosophy was that the relationship between prostitute and client was a sacred one, akin to true love, and in support of that, money was never mentioned on her premises. Credit cards were silently swiped and exorbitantly debited, and from there on in it was l'amour all the way. This didn't save her, though, when the inevitable police raid and prosecution for brothel keeping came. Her clients, showing anything but love, turned on her in order to protect themselves, and she had been facing a lengthy stint behind bars, until a certain arms dealer's son approached her with a tempting proposition.
'Hardly,' sniffed Poseidon. 'They don't have better natures, O Protectress of Births. Haven't you realised that yet? Give even an inch of ground and they'll think you're weak. Gods cannot be seen to be weak. Say the word, Zeus, and I'll capsize every warship out there.'
So said a man who'd been a keen amateur yachtsman and also a shipping magnate who routinely overloaded his cargo vessels in order to maximise profits. Dozens of crewmen were lost at sea as his freighters foundered in rough weather, shipped water and sank. Eventually his avarice left him with nothing, no fleet of any kind except his
