* * *
Athena breathed a sigh of relief when she and Achilles pulled up to a dark and silent house.
“Looks like they didn’t wait up,” Achilles said. He studied her wounded arm. Blood had run all the way down the sleeve and coated her hand in a red glove. “Good thing, I guess. But I expected a little fanfare.”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll make you a hero’s breakfast. You can fight Hermes for it.” She parked the Dodge on the street and killed the engine. “Lazy a-holes. Didn’t even shovel the driveway. Now I’ll have to drag the Dodge back up when no one’s looking.”
“Or you could shovel it yourself.”
“Not likely.”
“Why not let me drag the car up, then?” Achilles offered. “You’re not in the best shape.”
“Fine. But tomorrow. Now, let’s not wake anyone up.”
Inside, she headed for her bedroom on quiet feet. But when she tried to close her door, she almost shut it on Hermes’ face. He gasped at the dark stain on the shoulder of her jacket.
“Is that yours?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, something. But it’s only good. How’s your stomach? Strong?”
“Why?”
“Because I think this is going to be gross.”
She ground her teeth and skinned out of her jacket sleeves. The fabric of her shirt bloused out wetly where the feathers protruded, like she’d taken a wound and then stuffed it with something. Only the wound was the stuffing.
She chuckled, once. It wasn’t going to be funny, when the shirt was off. She started unbuttoning and glanced at her brother.
“We’re going to need towels, and something to pull them.”
He went to the bathroom for towels and tweezers. She moved the chair from her vanity to the middle of the room, and after a second rolled the rug out from underneath. Wood would be easier to clean.
She slipped her good shoulder free and winced as the extra weight of the shirt hit the feathers. It didn’t hurt. Not compared to other things. But the pain of the feathers was special. It made her stomach turn. It scared her.
One good breath, and she pulled the shirt all the way off.
Brown and white feathers stuck out of her shoulder. She’d hoped it would look like a wing. Just a wing, attached to her skin. But it didn’t. The feathers pushed through at all angles, in all sizes, nothing like natural growth. It was a wound of cracked, broken skin and bloody bits of tissue. Athena stared at it, scared to look away, afraid that she’d feel them move, or that another one would break through, even though there hadn’t been any new pain since leaving Pennsylvania.
“Oh,” Hermes whispered. He stood in her open door, his pair of tweezers looking tiny and grossly inadequate. What they needed was a weed whacker, or some way to tear them out by the handful. Hermes wavered on his feet, and she darted forward and steadied him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can do it myself.”
He set her on the chair. The burn of the first feather being removed felt almost good. The hot trickle of blood down her arm felt less so. As he plucked, the burning and stinging melded together. Ten, then fifteen feathers fell to the towel on the floor.
“Maybe I shouldn’t pluck all of them now.” Hermes swallowed. “Your shoulder is coming apart.”
“They can’t stay,” she said. Not one more minute. “Don’t worry. We’ll bind it up tight.”
“Oh my god.”
Athena looked up. Odysseus stood in the doorway.
“Dammit,” she muttered. She turned her face away as if she could distance herself from her own wound. Hermes stopped plucking and backed off to give Odysseus a better view.
“Cassandra,” Odysseus growled. “She’s so fucking careless!”
“It was an accident,” Athena said.
“This doesn’t look like an accident.”
She allowed herself a peek at Hermes’ progress. The feathers didn’t leave neat bleeding pinpricks. They cut through to the surface like razors and left jagged, deep crevices. Where two sprouted too close together, the cuts joined and gaped open, enormous and long. Hermes was right. The meat of her shoulder looked like it had hit something and shattered.
“Disgusting, isn’t it,” she said softly.
“What’s happened?” Calypso came down the hall, smelling like vanilla, no doubt gorgeous fresh off her pillow. Athena wiped her eyes with the back of her arm.