Almost no one came and went. Only one man and one woman in two days, both of whom returned with groceries and packages wrapped in brown paper. He’d stood in the shadows for two days watching housekeepers.
And not one time has my god-dar gone off. Not even a blip. And no movement from any of the million windows, either.
He looked up to the top floors, which rose well above the trees. The place looked less like a home than a museum. Several stories of gray-brown brick and white window moldings. It took up an entire corner of a city block.
And all that’s rattling around in there is one god and two housekeepers?
Or maybe no god at all. Maybe he’d come too late, and Hephaestus was already dead. He’d hoped to watch the house and see a well-dressed gentleman walk down the front steps with a silver-handled cane and a bad limp. He’d hoped they would catch each other’s eye and smile. They’d have a drink, and share some food. Talk about old times. And then he’d forge Henry a new shield, a better shield than that flimsy Frisbee Achilles toted around. And Hermes would go home.
Just once, couldn’t it be that easy?
There was only one way to find out. The soles of Hermes’ shoes seemed loud as he crossed the street. He had his hand raised in a fist to knock before he remembered that he was the god of thieves, and broke in.
He stepped into the foyer, feet soft on the marble floor. The interior looked like any other massively expensive house might. High ceilings, walls painted robin’s egg blue, and a striped silk chaise. He moved farther in and sniffed the air. A light scent of iron lingered in the rooms, and his pulse quickened with hope.
As he passed by open doorways he noted the rich furnishings: Chinese vases, long oak dining tables, a study full of books and bronze busts. But his mind galloped ahead to Hephaestus. His old friend. The god that Zeus had deemed the most sturdy. The most reasonable.
He can’t possibly be that pissed about Hera. She kicked him off Olympus because she was ashamed of his shriveled foot.
Hermes swallowed. She had done that. But she was still his mother.
The sound of footsteps made him freeze, then zip down another hallway. But it was only the woman. He heard her humming in what he assumed was the kitchen. He listened to cabinets and drawers open and close, and sniffed the air again. No iron this time, but chicken with sage and butter. Enough for an extra guest? He glanced at his emaciated stomach. Maybe enough for one extra guest, but never enough for him.
Have to hurry. It would be rude to interrupt his lunch.
He darted into the hall and up a set of stairs, following the faint hint of metal in his nose. The farther he got into the house, the less it looked like a house. Rooms grew larger and hallways shorter. They doubled back on themselves. Twice he found himself in the same hallway and three times in the same room. And everything seemed to skirt the outside edges. There didn’t seem to be anything in the center. The architecture was clever; you wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t already suspicious and paying too much attention. But all the rooms and stairways he’d been through left a rather large square empty in the middle of the building. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He was close to lost.
There has to be a way to the center. And what will I find when I get there?
Images of all kinds flashed through his head. He imagined ten bellows, an entire smelting operation. A wide, gray, empty room, and at the center a contorted, withered corpse that was unrecognizable as anything resembling a god or human. And then he opened a door on his right, and stumbled through.
The space was massive, walls covered with books and paintings. Great chandeliers lit it, casting a yellowed parchment color across the marble floor. Hermes leaned against a railing three floors up and looked down on it. Above him were another four floors.
“Hermes.”
Hephaestus sat in a leather wingback chair, his lap covered with a blanket. Behind him, a fireplace roughly the size of a Chevy sedan blasted heat through the space.
“Hephaestus?”
His friend smiled. “What took you so long? Is the messenger of the gods slowing down? I felt you come in twenty minutes ago. And I felt you lurking outside my walls for two days before that.”
Hermes leapt over the rail and dropped to the floor, in too big a hurry to bother with stairs or a ladder.
“All that time you knew I was here, and you didn’t come out to welcome me?” Hermes tried to smile. But the longer Hephaestus stayed in that chair, the more his apprehension grew. The other god looked all of about twenty-five except for his strange widow’s peak hairline, but he sat at an odd angle, one shoulder jutted up much higher than the other. Hermes’ eyes flickered to his legs, hidden under the blanket. “You look like a cartoon villain in that chair.”