“As long as you don’t order your beer in a red plastic cup, you’ll be fine.” Calypso smiled prettily at the bartender. Cassandra wouldn’t order anything, but as long as Calypso kept flirting, it wouldn’t make a difference.
“Where is this guy?” Cassandra glanced around the room. It wasn’t exactly a happening scene in the middle of the day. Maybe it never was. The place was a dive, with chipped tables and a Metroid pinball machine in the corner. The kind of bar that saw the same two dozen regulars on rotating nights.
“He’ll be here.” Calypso took a sip of her gin and tonic. “Don’t look too eager. You’ll chase him away.”
“I’ll do my best.” The knowledge of Cassandra’s powers had spread surprisingly fast through the gods’ subculture, considering how disjointed they were and how poorly they kept in touch. This was the third lead that Calypso had tracked down. The first two had hissed and scurried for cover, burying themselves deep within human crowds before she could even tell them what she wanted. It was a lot of trouble to go through for fake IDs and passports. A lot of trouble for the trails of gods.
But it would be worth every minute when she found them.
Frustrated, she eyed the bartender and considered ordering a beer. He might let her slide, if for no other reason than to curry favor with Calypso. And Cassandra could use it. The tension of waiting was getting on her nerves. The guy was twenty-five minutes late already. Maybe he’d seen her from the door and changed his mind. Maybe she shouldn’t have come.
Cassandra sighed and looked at Calypso. The nymph stirred her drink listlessly.
“What? Is it Odysseus?”
“No,” Calypso replied. “Yes. But I’ll be with Odysseus soon enough.”
“Then what is it?” Cassandra asked. “You look really depressed.”
Calypso smiled. “It’s stupid. But it is depressing.” She fingered the brown and white twist in her hair. “I look my age.”
“You do not.” Cassandra snorted. “If you looked your age, you’d look like dust.” She laughed, relieved that it was something so foolish. Of all the things to worry about. Though she supposed that to Calypso, it was important. Beauty defined her. Cassandra watched her tap her hair, almost distractedly. Saying she was still beautiful would do no good. What bothered her was the fact that she had changed. She had changed, and she would change still more. When she died she would wear an aged face. A stranger’s face.
“Tell me about your friend,” Cassandra said. “Something besides that he’s afraid of me. Should he be afraid of me?”
Calypso shrugged and brightened a little. “He’s a satyr. He doesn’t kill. But he does have appetites.”
“What kind of appetites?”
“He sleeps with lots of girls and doesn’t call them in the morning. Is that something you can forgive?”
Cassandra shrugged. “He sleeps with girls.”
“Lots of girls.”
She shrugged again. “So would Hermes if Athena wasn’t watching him all the time. And not just girls, but boys and probably congressmen.”
Calypso shook her head slowly. “But you’re going to kill Hermes, too. Aren’t you?”
Cassandra said nothing. She’d pushed the idea of killing Hermes into the back of her mind. Aside from Aidan, he was the only god she loved as well as hated.
It doesn’t matter. All gods must die. Whether I love them or not.
Loud, almost clanging footsteps snapped her out of her thoughts. Beside her, Calypso smiled and gestured for the figure in the doorway to come closer. After a second of staring at him, Cassandra did, too, with a slight nod of her head. Come on. It’s safe. I won’t put my hands on you and turn you into mutton. And she wouldn’t unless he gave her real cause. He was only a satyr. Not a god. Not even a nymph like Calypso. His death was probably so accelerated that he only had a few more years anyway.
As he hugged Calypso and kissed her cheek, Cassandra studied his body and every inch of exposed skin. All seemed healthy and California tan. His olive undertones made his brown T-shirt look green.
“David. This is Cassandra.”
Cassandra held her hand out, and watched him debate whether to touch her or to risk pissing her off by not touching her.
“It’s okay,” she said, and put her hand back on the bar.
“Sorry I’m late.” He gave no excuse as to why, and signaled to the bartender for a beer. “Should we get a table?”
They moved to the back, out of the shaft of sunlight and into the dusty yellow of the billiard lamp. David slid into a chair and tossed a small manila envelope onto the table. Calypso opened it and took out a stack of fake passports and driver’s licenses. The way she flipped through them so casually made Cassandra glance back to check the bartender. But he had his eyes where they should be, on the glasses he was washing. He knew what it meant when his patrons retreated to the back corner.