Not My Apocalypse (2 page)

After a while I picked him up and went down the road. I still had the driver to deal with. He was pacing next to his SUV, running a hand through his hair and talking on his cell phone. He had a trickle of blood running down the side of his face and he looked like a rich douche bag.

Most of our neighbors were rich douche bags with big houses and big yards. I think my parents would’ve liked me to play with their kids because it would have looked good for me to be all social and shit, but they couldn’t take the risk. I mean, imagine me killing one of them with a thought, little Bobby splattered all over their manicured front lawn. One incident might have been explained away as a freak accident, an aneurysm or some shit, but if it happened again and again? I just didn’t have the impulse control to be able to play with other kids. In some ways I still don’t, but at least now you have to really fucking piss me off for me to crush your brain.

“Hey,” I said to the douche.

He gave me a look and did a double-take when he saw Mew-Mew.

“You ran over my cat.”

He tilted the phone away from his mouth but kept it against his ear. “She looks okay.” Mew-Mew looked up at him, giving him the same nasty stare I was.

“He. And he’s only okay because I brought him back.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He paused and said into the phone. “No, not you. Some kid is talking to me.”

“You ran him over and you didn’t stop.”

“Shit happens, kid.” And he turned away from me.

So I tore him apart the same way I tore apart his SUV. He made a much bigger mess, and he screamed while there was enough of him left to scream. Blood and guts and bone splattered against the road and against his broken SUV. His phone clattered down amid the mess.

My mom came running up. “Oh shit,” she said in a hushed voice. At the time I thought she was worried about cleaning up the mess before anyone saw it and started asking questions. Now I wonder if she was thinking about that mess being her if she didn’t have the magical protections on her. She’d be right, because I’ve tried.

***

When we met back the next day, neither Elliot or Emily looked happy. “What happened?” I asked.

Emily heaved a sigh. “Ra won’t let me borrow any of his spears. He says he doesn’t want to interfere in Norse business.”

“Did you explain to him we’re trying to prevent the end of the world?” I clenched my teeth.

“I did. I even cried and begged but he still said no.”

“Great. Just fucking great.” I punched a rock.

“But…,” she said.

I looked at her, waiting for her to go on.

“When I was leaving, Set said that if maybe I happened to sneak a spear or two he might not notice if it got back before sunset. And then the Norse wouldn’t be able to say Ra was helping us because it’s not his fault if some half-mortal kids stole them without him knowing.”

How very political. For once I appreciated the craftiness. “So he’s inviting us to steal them?”

Emily nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

So, one problem down. I looked at Elliot. “So, what about you?”

He looked even more upset than Emily had. “Apollo said no. I mean flat-out no, no hints that he might secretly want to help us or anything.”

I sighed. “I guess we’ll just fucking have to steal one, with or without an invitation.”

“Won’t he be upset when he finds out?” Elliot asked.

“Yeah, probably, but we’ll worry about that later.”

“How are we supposed to steal one of Apollo’s horses?” Colin asked.

“I’m still working on that. We’ll figure something out. So, what did you find out?” I asked Stefan.

“Thor said we’ve got a few days at least. The sun horse is limping and Sköll is catching up, but he’s not quite there yet. And get this, when the horses are resting, no one is bothering to check the horse out and treat him. It’s like they want the world to end or something.”

“No, they don’t want it to end, they just think it’s inevitable, so they aren’t trying,” Colin said.

“But it
is
inevitable,” he said. “Ragnarok is going to happen.”

“Yeah, maybe so. But it doesn’t have to happen
now
.” I looked around at them. “It doesn’t have to be now,” I repeated, feeling fire inside me, both metaphorical and real. “Not on my watch. Not on our watch, right?”

Stefan had a light in his eyes that told me he was on board. Colin was with me, too. Emily didn’t look so sure, but she’s the youngest of us so I give her some slack. Elliot looked like he wanted to hide. “We’re the sons and daughters of gods; we’re supposed to be heroes, right? Well, except for me, but fuck that. I don’t want to end the world. I want to save it.” I’d meant it yesterday when I first brought up the idea of stopping Ragnarok, but now it really sank in that we were going to try to fight off an immortal being and save the world. It wasn’t just an idea; it wasn’t just one of those things I said when I was pissed off about my lot in life. I really, honestly wanted to save the world.

“But we’re just kids,” Elliot said.

“A few thousand years ago most of us would be considered adults. Besides, who else is gonna do it?”

“I’ll do it,” Stefan said. “I don’t want the world to end.”

“I don’t want the world to end either, but I’m scared.” Emily said.

“You can help with switching the horses. We’ll hold off Sköll,” I said.

“What about the injured horse? Apollo needs his horses, too, so we’ll have to switch them back before he goes and takes it, and we end up where started,” Colin said.

I rubbed my temple. “We’ll take the injured horse to someone to get healed.” I searched my memory for horse deities. “We’ll get like, fucking Epona or something.”

Colin perked up. “Oh hey, I can get her.”

“What about the noninterference issue?” Elliot said. “If Ra can’t help us directly, then she won’t either.”

Emily said, “But it’s not an act of aggression. If Ra helped us stop Sköll, then they could say he was trying to attack another pantheon. Healing a wounded horse isn’t the same thing.”

Elliot kept looking for excuses. “But she still might not want to risk it.”

“Then we’ll see if she knows someone who will. We’ll worry about that later. We need to move on this now.” I had to hope Satan didn’t find me until
after
we saved the world.

Chapter 2

It’s because of cemeteries and ghosts that I first met other gods. The first one I met was a sort-of god. I mean, when I asked him if he was, his answer was kind of fuzzy and I gave up trying to get him to explain. He was a cemetery guardian, and more than just a ghost. He’d come when the ghosts cried out, afraid of me. They wanted him to throw me out to protect them. This skeletal figure showed up and introduced himself as Ankou and threatened to drive me out of his territory. I convinced him I meant no harm and the ghosts calmed down.

In other cemeteries I came across Hel, Hecate, the Morrigan (a raven goddess who heard about me from the crows), Odin, and Anubis. Through them I met lots of other deities. Some of them were nice to me, some of them were jerks. A lot of them seemed curious about me and asked me lots of questions. They all knew the prophecy about me, and I guess they assumed that since I was supposed to bring about the end of the world, I actually wanted to. Most of the ones that took the time to talk to me and gave me a chance realized I wanted nothing to do with my father’s plans, or for that matter, Jehovah’s.

Some of the nicer ones invited me to visit them. Persephone, who was especially nice to me, invited me down to her underworld early one fall so I could keep her company. None of the other Greek deities wanted to go down to Hades and she got bored in the depressing realm filled with the shades of the dead. The idea of hanging out in the gloomy Greek underworld didn’t bother me at all. I mean shit, it sounded better than being at home.

I made sure it was okay to bring along Mew-Mew (like, that he wouldn’t get stuck there or something) and I followed her down. It was the longest I’d been away from home, and yeah it was gloomy but Persephone was fun (okay, so I admit I have a little crush on her. I see why Hades would want her, although I hope I don’t have to kidnap a girl to get her to stay with me). I was in the Greek underworld for a month before Satan came looking for me. Hades was
not
happy about him showing up and for a while there I thought it was going to start a fight. But Hades kicked me out, so I had to go back home.

Satan didn’t ever do me permanent damage, but he did beat the shit out of me whenever he dragged me home. And every time, I told myself that someday I would be strong enough to fight back.

***

The plan was to steal Apollo’s horse that night and hide him somewhere. Emily would go with Colin and steal the spears just after sunrise when Ra laid them aside for the day. I chose to be on horse-stealing duty because I figured my affinity for fire might make me less likely to get hurt. Besides, I like animals and I was happy for an excuse to visit the stable of Apollo. Most of the Greek gods weren’t very nice to me, so I hadn’t gotten the chance before.

Stefan and Elliot came with me to the stables. I got in contact with Persephone and she snuck us into the sky-realm without me telling her why we wanted to get up there. She didn’t ask, either, and left us to go about our business. Elliot led the way to the stable. It’s a good thing I’d been hanging out with gods for years and visiting all kinds of strange realms. If this had been my first time in a sky-realm, I might have freaked out. I’m only half divine, so I can’t flit around wherever like gods can, but my father was once an angel and I inherited an ability to travel in sky-realms. Stefan sank into the clouds with each step like it was deep snow, but Elliot did just fine.

The stable of the sun was fucking awesome. Even at night, when everything around it was dark, it had a glow coming from inside, like the sun itself was in there sleeping. We got up to the huge doors, but they were bolted shut. It took the three of us a few tries and more than a little straining to lift the bar and get one of the doors open.

Inside, it was so bright it was hard to see. I had to blink and squint for a long time, and I was worried someone would find us right then, when I was half blind and couldn’t see to defend myself. As my eyes started to adjust, I could make out the bright shapes of the horses in their stalls.

The place smelled like heat—not like something burning, but like a hot, dry day. The animals were snorting, a little nervous as they watched us. I could talk to some horses, but not all. Unfortunately, it turned out I couldn’t talk to any of Apollo’s horses. So I had to do the best I could. “Easy, easy,” I told them with my hand still half covering my eyes.

“They’re beautiful,” Stefan said.

“Which one should we take?” Elliot asked. I glanced over and he looked nervous.

“I don’t know. The one least likely to be missed?” It sounded lame even as I said it. Like Apollo wasn’t going to notice one of his horses missing.

Elliot said, “There’re extras.”

“What?”

“He pulls the chariot with four horses. There are six in here.”

“Good, then he’s got some to spare.” I moved toward the closest stall. The longer we were in here, the more chance that someone might find us and stop us. I stepped up to the horse and slowly lifted my hand. Is this how humans have to talk to animals? Because it’s hard. The horse looked at me warily but after a moment he leaned down and sniffed at my hand. He snorted and fire came out of his nostrils. He looked like he was made of fire, and even this close I couldn’t tell if there was anything underneath it. The fire shifted gently like a campfire in a light breeze. I rubbed his nose and moved my hand up until I was scratching behind his ears. Beneath the flames he was as solid as a regular horse, but warmer.

“Isn’t it burning you?” Elliot asked.

“My father is the lord of Hell. Fire doesn’t hurt me.”

Stefan went to the front of the stable and I was about to ask him what he was doing when I realized he was looking for a bridle or something to lead the horse with. He swore for a while, searching the things hanging from the walls and the things piled on the floor. He came back with a frown on his face. “I can’t find a bridle or a saddle or anything.”

“I guess that makes sense. They’re chariot horses, not horses for riding,” Elliot said.

“Huh.” I looked at the horse, trying to keep from getting pissed off. Not having a bridle to lead the horse was such a stupid fucking little thing, and I wasn’t going to let something like that stop me. Not being able to talk to it sucked. “Maybe I could ride it.”

“Ride a sun horse?” Elliot said.

“Do you know how to ride bareback?” Stefan asked.

“No.”

He sighed. “Have you ever even ridden a horse before?”

“No.” Both of them gave me a look as I kept petting the horse. “But how hard can it be? I mean, people do it in movies all the time.”

“This isn’t the movies,” Stefan pointed out.

“Well, I know that. But they’re mortals.” They kept looking at me. “Well, I gotta fucking try it at least. Unless you have a better idea?” They didn’t. So I led the horse out of his stall and used a bale of hay to get up high enough to hop onto his back. I got onto the sun horse and… well, I fell right off the other side. So it wasn’t as easy as I thought, cut me some slack. The other two couldn’t stop laughing, and I told them to shut up because they were making the horses nervous. I got right back up on the horse (there’s a metaphor about that, isn’t there?) and this time I was a little more careful. There wasn’t anything to hold onto except the fiery mane so I grabbed that and hoped it wasn’t going to piss the horse off. He seemed okay with it.

So now I was sitting on a sun horse and I wasn’t sure what to do next. “Um, giddy up?” I said.

Nothing. That made the other two start laughing again. “Fuck you, guys. You’re not helping.”

“Kick him, like a cowboy,” Elliot suggested, making a clumsy demonstration.

I tightened my hands on his mane. I didn’t want to fall off again. Then I tapped his flanks with my heels and he jerked forward. I just barely hung on. He only went a few feet before he stopped, so I nudged him again. He seemed confused, but he kept moving forward and we made it to the barn doors.