Enemies(17)

It was her turn to be cool; her eyes shifted downward. “Yes.”

There was a moment of quiet, and Janus seemed to take stock of the situation before speaking again. When he did, it was lower, wearier, and infused with candor. “You know, don’t you?” She looked up at him, and he looked back. “That something is coming?”

She gave a slow shake of her head. “I heard rumors. Before I left.” Her raven hair hung loose around her shoulders, straight and perfect, in a way that I only wished mine would. “That something was coming. Something bad. Cloisters were disappearing, ones where the village elders had known each other for hundreds or even thousands of years, just going quiet in eastern Asia, Turkey, eastern Europe.”

“Ah,” Janus said, and there was no mirth or light in his expression, only a sad understanding. “Yes, something is coming.”

“Death,” Athena whispered then seemed to catch herself. She looked for a moment as though she wanted to stuff her hands over her mouth, as though she could crowd the thought back into her, as if she’d never spoken.

Janus cocked his head. “It certainly brings death. But what do you know of what is coming? Have you seen—”

Athena began to shake and placed her palms flat on the table. After a minute of silence she removed them, and there were wet spots of moisture in the shape of handprints left on the table where she had rested them. Her eyes came up, and I realized they were a dark brown, the irises shadowed in the low light of the restaurant. “The village elders talk of a darkness that spreads from the lands of old, of enemies coming back from a bygone time.” She leaned forward and whispered. “They talk of whole villages being wiped out, villages of metas strong and powerful being erased from the land.” She looked left and right, as though someone might hear her. “I left so they wouldn’t find me.”

Janus leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and adopting a thoughtful posture. “Have you heard more than rumors?”

She was quiet then, looking down. “My father was an elder. He traveled to Cappadocia, to a cloister there, one that had been there for thousands of years. The elder there was powerful, had been a local deity in his youth in the days of the Romans.” It took me only a moment to realize that she was speaking of the days of the Roman Empire. “The village was dead.”

Janus stirred, only a little. “Dead?”

Athena nodded, meek as a mouse. “As though he had come upon them himself.”

“He?” I interjected, looking to Janus, who shook his head subtly, as though trying to warn me off.

“Athena,” Janus said, causing her to look back to him before she could answer me. “What was the state of the village? What did your father say he saw?”

“Bodies,” Athena said quietly. “Bodies everywhere, in their homes, in their places, lying on the floors and in beds, as though he had come for them.”

Janus held out a hand to stay my questions, putting it up as though he could ward me off by a simple wave of his hand. “Athena, dear,” Janus said, “it is not him. It may, perhaps, be someone with powers like his, but I assure you that it is not him destroying villages. Indeed, I can assure you that it is not even the same meta every time—”

“No, it is him,” she said, swallowing, her throat making an unnatural motion. “My father was there for the last time he spread his fingers across the lands, and he said it was exactly the same, the same thing happening, the same darkness.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You can tell me a thousand times I am wrong, but a thousand times I will tell you I am right, that he has returned to cover the land in his darkness again.”

No hand was going to stop me this time. “Who?” I asked, and I said it loudly enough, insistently enough, that she broke out of her focus on him and looked to me, her dark eyes shining. “Who are you talking about?”

She looked at me with a hint of confusion, then let her gaze stray back to Janus, who seemed to shake his head in resignation. With that little permission given, Athena turned back to me. “Death, of course. Him. The one who would destroy the world and claim all the souls for his own.”

My mouth was dry, and the air had gone still in the restaurant. The sun shining in from outside felt like it had been captured behind a cloud, and I was left to stare at her, probably open-mouthed at the words she had used.

“You know,” she said to me, waiting for a reply that I couldn’t give. “Him. Death.

She gave a small shudder, and the name came out in a fearful whisper.

“Hades.”