clothes too were modernized and expensive: she paired a cream-colored silk top with tailored gray slacks. A headband adorned with a peacock’s feather, her sacred bird, was affixed to her head. Zeus’ wife, Athena’s stepmother, pivoted on sling-backs with kitten heels. She glanced at Athena’s frayed jeans and smiled, then shoved Mareden away. Relief passed through the witches in a wave, and they came forward to catch her. Then they crept backward, toward Hermes and Odysseus.
“Didn’t you used to be clever enough to run away?” Hera asked.
“Not a day in my life have I needed to run from you,” Athena replied.
The two goddesses faced each other for the first time in over a thousand years. From a distance they would have seemed like two normal, mortal women with smooth cheeks and groomed hair. But to those in the room they were thunderstorms encased in skin; the current of the air between them crackled with the possibility of violence.
“That was a long time ago.” Hera smiled. “Since then I’ve grown stronger. You’ve only grown dead.” She casually brushed the fingertips of one hand along her bangs, tucking them back. The other hand she kept curled in a tight fist by her side. Unnaturally tight, it seemed to Athena. She looked closer. The skin of that fist was smooth and poreless, whiter than the rest of her skin. Something was wrong with it. She blinked and looked harder. Just above the bones of the wrist there was a small roll. It took her only a moment to realize that it was the line where the arm became flesh again.
“You’re turning to stone,” she whispered, and then she laughed. “That’s fitting. Guess I’m not the only one growing dead, eh? Whatever that means.”
For a moment, Hera’s eyes darkened, and Athena tensed. She would engage her if she had to. And she would move fast, before that stone fist of hers could smash through any of these poor witches’ faces. But Hera’s expression cleared and became almost light.
“Athena, look at you. Scrambling around, seeking answers from sorceresses, playing by all the rules. Haven’t you learned anything from this century?” Hera’s hand strayed into her back pocket. “You have to break the rules to win. And humans have come up with such excellent toys.” The thing she held in her palm was no larger than a tube of lipstick. It was trim and black. On the top was a small green light, and what appeared to be a button.
“Oh, fuck,” said Hermes, as her thumb pressed it down.
The bomb had been planted somewhere on one of the lower floors. The blast was strong enough to cause the whole building to quake. The sound was deafening. Only Athena, Hermes, and Hera had ears enough to hear the shocked screams of the witches. It happened in an instant, one bright instant of fiery light and flying glass, wood, and concrete. The floor beneath them rippled like it was made of water before exploding into pieces.
Hermes moved too quickly to be seen. He raced around the circle and grasped Celine, Mareden, and one more of the witches, and vaulted through the window headfirst. It was impossible to tell whether the glass broke because of him or because of the explosion.
Athena acted almost as quickly, pivoting and running toward Odysseus. Her arm caught him by the waist and she went through the window after Hermes. They had dropped only half of the forty feet when the force of a second explosion catapulted them forward into the concrete of the building across the street. Athena was barely able to twist her body in front of Odysseus before they struck the wall. When she finally hit the ground her bones felt loose, like they’d been rattled inside her muscle.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted at Hermes. He had the witches in his arms. He nodded and ran, faster than any living thing, just a blur streaking through the panic as people from nearby buildings began to empty into the streets, screaming.
Another strong rumble surged through the ground, and Athena leaned forward to cover Odysseus as, behind them, the warehouse that held The Three Sisters collapsed in on itself in a cloud of dust and crashing brick. She stifled a frustrated scream. No one inside could have survived. She peered through the dust, moving her head to try to see through the people running in all directions.
Hera stood unharmed in the center of the rubble and twisted metal. Her shirt was torn and her pants were filthy and streaked with dirt, but there were no wounds. She stared directly at them. Athena heard her voice clearly above the chaos.
“When they said that someone would oppose us, I hoped it would be you, Athena.” Her smile was malice and poison. “I sincerely hoped it would be you.” She raised her fist, the fist of stone, and slammed it into the ground. The impact set off a shockwave, and the foundation of the building next to them began to crack.
“Come on,” Athena said to Odysseus, and pulled him to his feet. She didn’t let him run on his own for long before she lifted him by the shoulder and went faster.
9
PREMONITION
Andie grabbed Cassandra’s arm. Something had apparently happened on the movie screen that Cassandra should take note of. Or something was about to happen. Andie had already seen the thing twice, so she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it didn’t matter. To Cassandra, the movie on the screen was images and noise. A distraction. Something meant to block out the memory of blasted dust and flying glass, and screaming.
Despite the sheer volume of the theater and the thick smell of buttered popcorn, despite the color and spectacle of everything happening in the made-up story playing out before her eyes, the only thing she could see or hear was that explosion. It was huge, on repeat inside her head. It spoke of the death of innocent people. Lots of them. And it hadn’t happened yet.
Cassandra stood and made her way to the end of the aisle, ignoring Andie’s startled questions about where she was going. She shoved through the theater doors and stalked through the lobby, past the concession and the restrooms. She didn’t stop until she was outside. The cold and dark seemed as far as she could get from the explosion. From the heat and choking dust. But the minute she was clear of it, her mind started it up again from the beginning.
How many of them would die? Who were they? And what did it have to do with her? Because it had something to do with her, that much she was sure of.
She walked quickly around the side of the building, down the shadowy alley that somehow still managed to smell faintly of buttered popcorn.
“Cassandra?”
She jumped at the sound of Andie’s shout.
“Cassandra? Are you out here?”
Cassandra craned her neck and saw Andie walking through the parking lot, looking in every direction. She drew farther back into the shadows and walked behind the theater, then slipped across the alley, staying in back crossways until she couldn’t tell what she was behind anymore.
Andie couldn’t help. The distraction hadn’t worked. And Cassandra hated to see that look on her face, when she knew it.
As she walked her brain went back over every option she could think of to stop the explosion, options she’d already crossed out as infeasible. She couldn’t call in bomb threats to every building in every major city. But maybe she really could talk to the police. They employed psychics sometimes. They might believe her.
She ground her teeth as she walked, and felt the passing wind slowly freezing her ears and making them sting. Her arms and fingers were cold too. She’d left her jacket back at the theater.
“Cassandra?”
She gave a little yelp as Aidan appeared in front of her, and jerked so hard in the opposite direction that she almost fell on her butt. He held his hands out.
“It’s just me! Andie called me. She said she couldn’t find you.”
