The Age of Zeus

76. APOLLO APPALLED

During his fellow Olympian's slow demise, Apollo was too aghast to keep up his barrage of arrows. He, like the three Titans, could only look on with disgust and dismay as a comrade-in-arms met his end in truly grisly fashion.

No sooner had the horror run its course, though, than he resumed his attack. With a vengeance. He started down the rows of stone seats, firing at the Titans, not as rapidly now but with control and deliberation. He was conserving his arrows, using them sparingly but still with sufficient frequency to keep the Titans in their place. Each time one of them leaned from cover to take aim at him, an arrow came twanging in, forcing a reconsideration of that idea. Every step Apollo took brought him remorselessly closer. Soon, if not stopped, he'd be at point-blank range.

"Dammit, there's three of us and only one of him," Hyperion said. "How come he's keeping us at bay and not the other way round?"

"Because he's hyper-fast and he doesn't miss," Sam said. "Theia, did I see a Perseus gun strapped to your hip?"

"Yup. Heck, it clean slipped my mind. Gimme a moment."

Theia was huddled behind a vaulting horse, one side of which was now quilled with arrows. Round the edge of it she sneaked the barrel of her Perseus gun. Before she could use it, however, an arrow smacked the gun out of her grasp. A second arrow send it scooting across the arena floor, out of reach.

Theia hissed in frustration. "If I was the cussing type," she said, "I'd be cussing."

"Never mind," said Sam. "Look, we're just going to have to rush him. If we all come out at once, run flat out… well, he'll have trouble hitting all of us, and there's a chance he won't hit any of us."

"How big of a chance?" said Hyperion. "Because my guess would be: not very."

"We can't stay put and just wait for him to get here."

"I know. Fuck. OK then. Count of three, then go. Tethys, you can do the honours."

"One," said Sam.

Crouching up behind the mannequin, she planted her toes in the sand like a sprinter at the starting blocks.

"Two."

Her plan was to keep her head down, presenting as little of her face as possible to Apollo. Knee, elbow, shoulder, ankle, wrist — she could take an arrow in one of those and keep going. She was prepared for it. So long as one of the three Titans got a clear shot at him. Herself preferably, but it really didn't matter which.

"Thr-"

Abruptly, men came pouring over the amphitheatre's rim, firing rifles at Apollo. A couple of dozen of them all told, dressed in plain clothes, mostly heavy metal band T-shirts. Dark-haired, swarthy, moustachioed, and leading them was a figure Sam had no trouble recognising — Paulu Galetti.

The Resistenza.

Apollo whirled to confront this new threat, and killed four of the men in the space of as many heartbeats. Then he moved to retreat, still slotting in and sending off arrows as he darted across the arena through a whining blizzard of bullets. He was no match for Hermes when it came to speed, but he was fast enough, and even when on the hoof his bow accuracy was such that not one of his shots was wasted. Resistenza members fell in swift succession, sprouting arrows from the eye, the chest, the gizzard, the gut. By the time Apollo gained the sanctuary of a niche in the low wall that encircled the arena, he'd already halved the number of his assailants.

From the niche his arrows zinged out at regular intervals, but the Corsicans did not slacken or relent. Galetti started up a cry — "Ghjuvanna Venturini!" — which the others took up and roared in unison. The noise rang round the amphitheatre, as though for once this place had an audience filling its seats, and it was hard to say whether or not the Olympian had learned the name of the little Corsican girl he had accidentally slain, whether or not he even remembered her, but the sheer volume and venom with which her countrymen chanted it seemed to give him pause. Briefly the volley of arrows let up. Galetti and the rest noted this and made the most of it, zeroing in on the niche.

"Come on, back them up!" Sam cried, leaping out from behind the mannequin, which now looked more like a human-shaped porcupine than anything.

Hyperion and Theia emerged from cover too, and the three Titans followed in the wake of the Resistenza members, all converging on Apollo.

The Olympian realised the trouble he was in and began to defend himself again. But his momentary hesitation had cost him the advantage. The Resistenza men, with Galetti to the fore, crowded in on him in the niche. He was subsumed, overwhelmed by numbers. Sam saw one of the Corsicans emerge holding his bow aloft. Another had his quiver. Then Apollo himself was being lugged bodily out into the arena, with a man holding each of his limbs. He twisted and struggled, but to no avail.

The Corsicans, of whom only a handful remained, tossed him onto the sand and secured his hands and feet. Galetti stepped up. He had an arrow protruding from his shoulder. It must have been the last one Apollo loosed off before he'd been swamped. It would doubtless be the last one he ever loosed off. A desperate, flailing shot. That was the only reason Galetti was still alive.

Galetti lowered his rifle to Apollo's head.

"Go on," the Olympian snarled, face pressed into the sand. "Mortal scum. Do it. Try. How can you kill me? I am a god! Immortal! Eternal! Everlasting!"

The Resistenza leader glanced over at Sam. He was in obvious discomfort from the arrow but the glory of this moment trumped that. In the heat of triumph, pain paled into insignificance.

"He is ours, do you agree, Madama Tethys?"

Sam would have liked to say no he wasn't, he was hers. Apollo needed to meet his death by her hand, in order to make up for Ade's death. There was an imbalance here that needed to be restored, an emptiness in herself that had to be filled. Blood demanded blood.

But then she thought of the face of Ghjuvanna on those photocopied posters in Corsica. A short life, ended by arrogant carelessness.

Apollo had worse crimes to pay for than what had happened to Ade. It was more fitting if justice came from the Resistenza than from her. At least she was present to see it being dished out.

She nodded to Galetti, who reciprocated with a nod of his own, having no idea of the generosity that lay behind Sam's gesture.

His rifle barked.

Apollo spasmed, as though subjected to a powerful electric shock.

Then lay still.

At almost the exact same instant, even while the cartridge shell ejected from the breech of Galetti's rifle was still spinning through the air, Hermes appeared with another armful of arrows for Apollo.

Sam responded reflexively, almost without thinking. As Hermes gaped down in astonishment at the lifeless remains of his fellow Olympian, she swung her gun up and squeezed the trigger. Bullets burped, rapidfire. Hermes fell, arrows skidding and scattering around him like jackstraws.

Sam hurried over to where he lay, ready to finish him off if need be, but Hermes was dying. One look told her that. She'd got him in the torso and neck. Blood was bubbling from his mouth and pulsing out through the crater-like gouges in his chest in time to his wheezing breaths.

He tried to teleport away but couldn't. He phased out, phased in again, phased out, in, alternating between here and elsewhere. At first the exchanges were so rapid he was almost strobing, but gradually they slowed, weakened, becoming the fizzling, arrhythmic flicker of a lightbulb that was just about to fuse. Then they ceased altogether, leaving Hermes fixed solidly where he was. He rolled his head. He squinted up at Sam. Something seemed to shift in his eyes, like a cloud clearing.

"Ginger tits…" he croaked, and it was followed by a phlegmy choking rattle that was just about recognisable as laughter. "Fuck." Now he was talking as Darren Pugh. Himself again, at the last. "I remember you."

"Good," said Sam.

"I told. About Bleaney."

"I know."

"I'm…"

There was one more word, a couple of short slurred syllables, and Sam couldn't identify it. It might have been sorry. It might equally have been something nonsensical like sausage. But it made no difference. Pugh's act of betrayal was in the past.

And so was Pugh.