Memory Game (Hound of Hades Book 2), page 28
He handed me a freshly-laminated card. I tucked it into my pocket without looking at it. “You’ve been talking this place up for days,” I said to Jade for the kid’s benefit. “Show me something that will convince me it’s worth the money.”
Domestic technology turned out to mean things like looms, old-fashioned washboards, and vacuum cleaners. Jade blew right past it all. Unlike me, once we had passed the front desk, she made no effort at putting on a show for the civilians She had probably come here often enough that she knew it wasn’t necessary. Sure enough, when I looked over my shoulder, the kid was already on his phone. And if there was anyone else in the museum that we needed to worry about acting casual for, I didn’t see them. Apparently domestic technology wasn’t that popular a topic.
I paused by a space-age piece of machinery that looked more like it belonged in a zoo than a museum. “What is that thing?” For a minute, I even convinced myself I cared about the answer. I knew I was stalling, though. There are only so many times you can lie to yourself before your own lies stop working on you, and I had reached that point before my age hit double digits. Trying to tell yourself your screwed-up family isn’t actually as bad as it seems will do that to you.
Jade didn’t answer. She didn’t even slow down. She could see through my delaying tactics as well as I could. I hurried to catch up with her as she stopped in front of a door marked “STAFF ONLY.” I waited for her to pull out a keycard or type in a code; instead she simply pushed the door open. It wasn’t even locked. Well, given the state of Hades’s temple, I supposed I didn’t have much room to judge.
I followed Jade down the dark stairs, trying not to trip over my own feet. The staircase seemed much longer than it should have been; the basement was nothing more than a spark of light at the bottom. The closer we got to that light, the less it looked like your average fluorescent bulb. It had a faint violet tinge, and hung over the entire space equally, making it impossible to pinpoint a source.
We stepped into a swirl of color and chaos. The walls of Hades’s temple—the same walls that Gordon and the other vultures down there had picked over, talking about aliens and ancient history and everything except the people who had actually died down there—had been sedate stone, unpolished, decorated only by elegant carvings. The walls of Mnemosyne’s temple, on the other hand, assaulted my eyeballs from all directions at once. I rubbed my eyes, trying to resolve the patterns into something that made sense. To my surprise, the more I looked, the more order I found in the seeming jumble of images. There, by the stairs, was a half-sunk Titanic. A little further up was a line of Roman soldiers marching toward the sea. And if I craned my neck, I could barely see a fur-clad man facing off against a mammoth.
If I wasn’t mistaken, these walls held the entire history of the human race.
I looked away from the walls before I could get too distracted. I couldn’t let myself forget that I was in enemy territory. Not that it was possible to forget. I could already feel the tooth-jarring buzz of divine power rattling through my body. The feeling didn’t bother me quite as much as it used to; having to sleep surrounded by it for a whole month meant either it was going to fade into the background eventually or I was going to get used to sleeping on Ciara’s couch. And sleeping on Ciara’s couch meant waking up covered in climbing vines. So I learned to ignore the way the air felt too dense and my hair stood on end whenever I got too close to whatever Lissa was doing—or at least ignore it well enough to sleep. But that was Hades’s temple. This space belonged to Mnemosyne.
According to Ciara, every temple felt different to her. To me, divine power was pretty much divine power. But knowing this particular goddess had it in for me made the sensation jangle my nerves that much more.
In front of us, five Guardians stood in a circle in front of a marble altar. Light shifted and swirled across the stone, forming images that melted away as quickly as they appeared. I looked away before the images could start making sense. “I was told this was where Mnemosyne hangs out.”
The altar went dark as all five Guardians looked up at once. The one closest to us spoke. “She does not belong to us.” She pointed at me.
One of the others in the back, a sad-eyed woman with her hair in a long braid, jerked her chin toward Jade. “Neither does she, anymore.”
The other Marked must have made it here before us. I had known giving in to Jade and letting him go had been a bad idea. I felt Jade stiffen next to me, but her voice betrayed none of her tension as she replied, “News travels fast.”
The first Guardian stepped forward. “And yet you dare to profane this sacred place with your presence.”
“I had a deal with Mnemosyne,” I said. “I want to know if she’s planning to honor it.”
“Why should she keep her part of the bargain when you did not?” the Guardian demanded.
“She lost her right to the moral high ground when she started lying to her own Marked. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still help each other. I’m prepared to make another deal, and I think she’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
The sad-eyed Guardian moved up to join the first. “Remember your place, Marked. You do not bargain with the gods.”
“I’m not the only one being naughty lately. One of your Guardians went walking through my memory without my consent. I’m guessing she took a lot of information about Hades with her when she left. I know the gods don’t have any rules in this game of theirs, but it seems to me that once someone crosses that line, they’ve revealed themselves as a major threat. One that Hades will want to deal with.”
The first Guardian laughed. Listening to her laughter felt like looking at one of those hyper-realistic robots. If my hair hadn’t already been standing on end from the power of the temple, that laugh would have done it. “Hades doesn’t have the strength to threaten us.”
I shrugged. “Maybe not. Not now, anyway. But he isn’t hurt. He’s lost some of his influence in the mortal world, but that’s easy enough to rebuild.” I smiled. It probably looked about as genuine as her laugh had sounded. “And once he does… well, your goddess isn’t the only one with a long memory.”
The Guardian turned away. She placed her hand on the altar and murmured something under her breath. I might not have known what she was saying, but I had become much too familiar with that language lately. It was the same one I heard coming from the living room most nights when I was trying to sleep. It came from the days when Hades and Mnemosyne were allies, and alliances lasted more than the length of time it took someone to find a better offer. I’ve never learned it, myself. I’ve never seen the point. Why would I want to do anything to make it easier to talk to Hades? Besides, he can understand me perfectly well no matter what language I use. Using their gods’ original languages is something Guardians do more out of respect than anything else. And if Hades had wanted a Marked who would show him the proper deference, he would have pulled somebody else out of the underworld instead of me.
The Guardian paused, waiting for her goddess’s response. The air thickened. Static electricity tugged at my hair. Trying to run a comb through that mess tomorrow was going to be fun.
When the Guardian faced me again, she looked less than pleased. “What deal do you offer?”
“Mnemosyne leaves Ellarose Mackenzie alone. She alters the memories of anyone who has had contact with the ruins of Hades’s temple, and continues to do so until the ruins are safely buried. She does the absolute minimum to their memories that she needs to do to hide the existence of the temple.” After my brief experience with what Mnemosyne could do, I didn’t want anyone else’s mind being tampered with any more than was necessary to keep Hades safe. I wasn’t even sure I was comfortable with that much—but I also wasn’t comfortable with what would happen if that documentary crew got their shot at the ruins, so here I was. “And someone tells me why Mnemosyne wanted Ra to wipe Hades off the map,” I continued. “In exchange for all that, I don’t tell Hades what your fellow Guardian tried to do. And if you think you can have one of your Guardians mess with my memories and make me forget all this, don’t bother. There’s a Guardian of Persephone who knows what to do if I come back saying the wrong things.”
If this worked out, that would be one more secret I was keeping from Hades. This was getting to be a habit with me. But I figured he would let it slide if the alternative was bringing the gods’ conflict into the open.
The Guardian turned away to consult with her goddess again. I hummed on-hold music under my breath as I waited. Apparently she didn’t like the orders she had gotten, because she answered me with clenched teeth. “Somebody made a deal with her. She would take advantage of Hades’s weakness to destroy him utterly, leaving him with no territory and no way to regain it. In exchange, they would ally with her and let her share in their territory.”
“The fallout from the temple bombing could have done all that without her lifting a finger. So why go to all this trouble?”
“The discovery of the temple would have changed the battlefield too drastically. She did not wish to take that risk.”
For a moment, I just stared. “Are you telling me she would have altered those people’s memories no matter what?”
“She would have done what was necessary.”
That sounded like a yes to me. I muttered a few choice words under my breath. I could have stayed home and binged Netflix and avoided all of this entirely. Hell, I could have gone to work like I was supposed to and made a dent in the back rent I still owed Kimmy. “So who made this deal with Mnemosyne?”
“That will not be a part of your agreement with the goddess. Sharing that name would put her at too much risk. If Hades retaliates against the one who wanted him destroyed, that one would do the same to Mnemosyne.”
“How about giving me a hint, twenty-questions style?”
The Guardian didn’t even crack a smile. “That will not be part of the agreement.”
I wanted to keep arguing, but there were a few things I wanted more, like walking out of here with my memories intact. I had done something I shouldn’t have been able to do. I had bargained with a god and come out with the better end of the deal. I didn’t plan on pushing my luck. I would just have to watch my back until this mystery enemy came out into the open. “And the memories?”
Another consultation with Mnemosyne. She turned back to me with a nod. “The memories will be altered.”
I waited for the stinger. Making a deal with a goddess couldn’t possibly be that easy. Shouldn’t she have asked me to sign away my soul or something? Not that she could do anything with it, since Hades had gotten there first. “So that’s it? Mnemosyne doesn’t want anything else from me?”
“She does not,” the Guardian confirmed. “You may leave.” It sounded more like an order than an invitation.
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I turned around and started for the stairs.
And then I stopped. Because Jade was still standing beside me, with a look on her face like she was staring up at the guillotine blade waiting for it to fall.
“You,” the Guardian said, with a nod toward Jade, “may not.”
Chapter 32
The sulkiness in the Guardian’s voice was gone. Now she sounded like a little kid standing in line for the circus. Whatever Mnemosyne had in store for Jade, she was looking forward to it.
Apparently not all Guardians had a functioning soul. I wondered if Bastian’s research had anything to say about that. I would have been perfectly willing to turn this particular Guardian over to him in the name of scientific research.
I looked longingly at the stairs, but didn’t go any further. I turned back around to face the Guardian, shifting a little closer to Jade in the process. What was it I had told Bastian last night? When you make a stupid decision, commit to it.
“I’m not going anywhere. I want answers.” Jade’s face had gone green enough for me to make out even in the ghostly purple light around us, but her voice didn’t even shake. I wasn’t sure I could have sounded so calm in her position.
“You betrayed your goddess. She gifted you with a fragment of her power, and you dared to act against her.”
“Mnemosyne lied to me. I want to know why.”
“It is not your place to question. Your job is to obey.”
“I did more than obey. I would have died for Mnemosyne, and been grateful for the privilege. And this is what she did to me in return. So I’ll ask you again. Why?”
Something in the Guardian’s demeanor shifted—the set of her shoulders, the slant of her mouth. It was subtle enough that I might not have noticed if not for the way the room suddenly felt like a nuke had gone off. Every molecule of air seemed to come alive around me, and they were all screaming. And there was something wrong with my vision. The walls, the altar, Jade next to me… none of it looked real anymore. They were all puffs of smoke, ready to drift away with the slightest breeze. The only real thing in the room—the only real thing in the universe—was the Guardian in front of me.
I had felt something like this twice before. Both times, I had been standing in front of Hades in some dimension that had never heard of those silly laws of physics we mortals like to rely on. That experience hadn’t been exactly the same—maybe nothing in the room felt real anymore, but at least up was still up and down was still down—but it was close enough. Once you’ve stood in the presence of a god, you don’t forget it.
The Guardian—only she wasn’t the Guardian anymore—took a step toward Jade. “You vowed to serve me when you accepted my Mark.”
I could only see one reasonable thing for Jade to do, but she didn’t run screaming out of the temple, which meant she was either braver or stupider than I would have been. “That was a two-way deal, and you broke your end of it.”
Another step forward. “I made no such agreement.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember any of it.”
Another step. “You were eager enough to devote yourself to my service. You would have done anything to escape the ruin you had made of your mortal existence.”
“And look what an improvement this is.” Jade met the goddess’s eyes without flinching. “You know why I’m here. Give me an answer.”
“I simply gave you a needed source of motivation. You fight more fiercely when you have a strong moral justification for your actions.”
“So that’s it?” Jade spread her hands. “I work a little harder if you give me an appealing lie to hold on to?”
“I prefer my Marked when they are motivated by more than duty.”
“Then you really have done this before.”
“That is not relevant to you.”
“I think it is.” Jade closed the distance between her and her goddess. “How long have you been doing this? Have you ever shown me anything true?”
Mnemosyne’s hands shot out to grasp either side of Jade’s head. Jade started to pull away—and half a second later, went still, her arms hanging limply at her sides. Light flared around the goddess’s borrowed hands as something flowed from Jade into her.
Incongruously, I thought of Julia. Seriously, how did someone sleep with a god and not notice that something was amiss? The thought made me want to burst into hysterical laughter. I held my breath to keep the laughter from escaping. But I kept focusing on Julia instead of what was happening in front of me, because it was that or run, and I owed it to Jade to stay.
The light died. The goddess stepped back.
Jade didn’t move. Her fingers didn’t even twitch as she stood exactly where Mnemosyne had left her.
“Step forward,” the goddess ordered.
She took a single step, and went back to standing perfectly still.
I wanted to say something to her. Fear stopped me. If I called out to her, and she didn’t answer, I would know for certain that something was wrong. I wanted to live in blissful ignorance for a few more seconds.
“Stand by the wall,” said Mnemosyne. “Await instructions.”
Jade walked stiff-legged across the room, where she stood staring ahead of her with dead eyes.
I’ve been told I have a smart mouth. I beg to differ. Because while the rest of me knew better, for some reason my mouth decided that instead of stealing quietly up the stairs while Mnemosyne was distracted, it was a good idea to question an angry goddess who already didn’t like me. “What in the name of Hades’s wrinkled ballsack did you do to her?”
I could have gone without knowing what it felt like to have a goddess look directly at you through someone else’s eyes. “There are many levels of memory. I take the past of every mortal who receives my Mark. In some cases, it is a mercy; in others, a show of their commitment. I remove the distractions of their mortal lives, and in return I give them power and purpose. But this Marked took what I offered her and sought to use it against me. I did what I had to do to retain control of what was rightfully mine. I took her experience, her knowledge, her will—everything but the skills a mortal needs to survive.”
Nothing in Jade’s expression changed as Mnemosyne spoke. Of course it didn’t—Mnemosyne hadn’t left enough of her intact for her to know what her goddess had stolen from her.
“The only will that remains in her is mine,” the goddess continued. “She will no longer be as useful as she once was, but she will still serve.”
