Where did she come from? Did you see a house?”
The stretch of highway was secluded, bordered on both sides by pines and orange-and-brown autumn trees. Farther out, Cassandra saw the slate gray edge of Seneca Lake peeking through the trunks. She thought back over the way they’d come.
“There was no house. No driveway, not even another car for the last five miles. What was she doing, popping out of the trees?”
“Thank god we didn’t hit her.”
“It would have been better if we had.” Aidan stared into the side mirror, looking back with dread. Cassandra craned her neck to look out the window.
The old woman stood in the middle of the road as though dazed. Her arms hung slack at her sides, and she swayed on her feet, which were planted wide apart. Something was off. Something wrong. The vacant way she stared at the car made Cassandra want to crawl under the seat.
“What’s the matter with her face?” Henry asked. As they watched, the old woman’s cheeks began to sag. The lines became deeper, and the corners pulled down until her mouth was a leering scowl. Then it dripped off, leaving behind a wet, black spot.
“Get it in gear, Aidan,” Andie said shrilly as more of the old woman’s face detached and hit the pavement. All of her skin liquefied; her hair slid down her head to reveal the skull beneath: obsidian black and covered in slime and scales.
“What is that thing?” Henry asked, but Aidan didn’t answer. He threw the car into reverse.
“Buckle up.”
Athena sat in the passenger seat; her knee bounced and twitched nervously. Odysseus was driving as fast as he could, but it was nowhere near fast enough. They were headed south, toward the Finger Lakes, on Route 89. Seneca Lake was close enough to smell, but they were still at least twenty minutes from finding Apollo and Cassandra. She glanced toward Hermes with annoyance. She refused to believe that there hadn’t been anything faster in the car lot than a ’91 Dodge Spirit. She looked back to Odysseus. He was scared. Much of that fear was concern for her. Was he really driving as fast as he could?
She pushed her neck back slightly and checked the gauges. Eighty miles an hour. Any faster and the engine in the piece of crap would fall out onto the highway.
The tires squealed; the smell of burnt rubber bloomed instantly in the air. The Mustang growled into reverse, aiming straight for the old woman.
Cassandra would have winced, even if she had been the most evil old woman on the face of the planet. Even if she had been granny-Hitler, she would have winced at the idea of running her down. But the thing standing in the road looked nothing like an old woman anymore. It was hulking and webbed, with teeth like an anglerfish from the depths of the ocean. The last of the old woman sat in a puddle around its feet.
The Mustang hit it with a heavy thud, and Cassandra bounced as the body passed beneath first the back and then the front set of tires. Aidan braked hard, and the car slid to a stop.
“What the hell is that thing?” Henry asked again.
“It’s a Nereid,” Aidan growled. “It’s disgusting and warped, but that’s what it is. They serve Poseidon.”
“Poseidon?”
“Poseidon.” Aidan ground the gears in the Mustang. “You know, god of the sea, brother of Zeus. My uncle, and a real prick.” He dropped the car into first and revved the engine.
As they spoke, two more Nereids emerged from between the trees and sprang onto the highway. Above the burning rubber, the scent of wet rot and fish permeated the air.
“Hang on.” Aidan popped the clutch and the car squealed forward, aiming straight for them. Cassandra squinted her eyes and turned her face away from the impact. Their huge, muscular bodies were likely to come right through the windshield. Her mind flashed on the image of one of them covered in shattered glass and bleeding on her lap, the rotten, fishy reek smeared across her clothes.
It seemed that neither Nereid was going to move. But at the last second, one of them dodged around the car, slamming its fists into the passenger side, crushing Cassandra’s door and cracking the window. The other Nereid went the same way as the first, under one set of tires and then the other.
“Are you all right?” Aidan asked, and she nodded, her eyes wide. He turned toward her, his eyes moving across her arms, making sure she hadn’t been hurt. He didn’t see the goddess step in front of them until everyone else in the car screamed.
Aidan hit the brakes instinctively as Aphrodite raised her arms. When they slammed down onto the hood, it was like being struck by pillars of marble. The Mustang’s engine was driven six inches into the asphalt, and the rear end of the frame jerked upward, lifting off the ground two feet before bouncing back down again.
Aphrodite stood amidst the steam rising from the wrecked hood, a broad smile stretched across her flawless face. Her eyes locked with Aidan’s, hot with madness. She leaned against the boiling black paint, laughing a maniac’s laughter as golden hair lifted in waves around her shoulders. The whimsical, gauzy dress she wore was beautiful and ruined, shades of differing blue and green, stained and torn in a hundred places. Cassandra remembered her from the vision, the shadows and water reflections swirling over her features. She was worse in the daylight, with no shadows to hide under.
“Get out of that car, baby brother. Get out of that car and come home with Mother.”
“Cassandra,” said Aidan softly. His hand went to the door handle. “When I take her on, you have to run, do you understand?”
Cassandra looked at the mad thing in front of the Mustang, and the bent steel of the hood. In the mirror, wrecked black bodies of Nereids littered the road, but there would be others. Aidan would be outnumbered. They’d run over the top of him and come for her anyway.
“No. We stick together. I’m not leaving you.”
He grasped her hand and kissed it. “You’re the one they’re after. Remember your vision.” He let her go and opened the car door.
Cassandra watched as Aphrodite backed off to give Aidan space. He kept his body between her and the Mustang, and she seemed happy to let him do it. She circled and crouched and made mock charges, laughing when he jerked to block her way.
“It doesn’t make me happy to see you this way, sister.”
Aphrodite clucked her tongue. “Apollo, Apollo, still so pretty. Give up the girl and come home. Mother will not be angry.”
“Hera isn’t your mother.”
Cassandra tensed, watching the exchange. In the corner of her eye something dark moved, just a shadow in the trees. Another Nereid. If she and the others ran now, they’d be caught, whether Aidan had a hold on Aphrodite or not. She could feel them, and smell them, moving in closer, tightening around them like a knot.
“You shouldn’t have run,” Aphrodite scolded. “You shouldn’t have shielded her. You made us chase, made me sad, made Mother tear witches in half.” She looked at him petulantly, her full lips pouting. Then she smiled and half turned away, before hooking her fingers into claws and aiming for his eyes.
“Aidan!” Cassandra shouted, and opened her door. Before she could get out, Henry lunged from the backseat and pulled her back in, just as the Nereids attacked the car. Three of them beat into the side panels and rocked the frame back and forth. One smashed in the rear window and reached for Henry; Andie punched it in the face over and over, oblivious to the cuts left on her knuckles by fins and scales.
Aidan twisted out of Aphrodite’s grip and tried to help, grabbing the nearest Nereid and shoving his fingers deep into the creature’s eye sockets, then ripping back hard enough to dislodge the skull. Aphrodite shrieked and clawed at his back, drawing deep furrows of blood, but Aidan kept moving, using the head of the first Nereid to bludgeon the one who attacked the back of the car.
Henry scrambled to the front seat and covered Cassandra with his body, protecting her from glass and clawed fingers.
