Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters Read online

  “Whatever,” I say, attempting a withering look. It is compromised by the fact that I’m blushing the color of a pomegranate.

  The dining room door opens, and the bodyguard says, “He’s ready to see you now.”

  “I’ll find you later,” the boy says, then goes into the dining room.

  I don’t answer, my mouth dry.

  “Well, well, well,” Icarus says once we are in the elevator.

  “What?” I say, daring a look at him in the mirrored wall.

  He’s smirking. “Aren’t you going to ask me who that was?”

  “Why?” I say. “You’re going to tell me anyway.”

  “That, my dear, was the prince of Athens.”

  I laugh. “That’s impossible. The prince of Athens is my second cousin and he’s about five years old.”

  “Not that one,” Icarus says. “This is the new prince of Athens, Theseus.”

  “The new prince of Athens?” I say. “Did he spring out of his father’s head? Rise from the sea?”

  “Don’t you watch anything?” Icarus says, disgusted. “It’s everywhere on the gossip feeds.”

  I roll my eyes. He knows I hate that stuff. It’s bad enough living in the middle of a gossip feed; I don’t want to watch them, too.

  “Apparently he was the product of some fling that the king had years ago,” Icarus says. “The king has made him the prince. The queen is pissed.”

  “I bet she is.” The queen of Athens is a witch named Medea, my mother’s cousin. “If he’s taking the place of Medea’s kid, I’m surprised he’s still alive. I wonder why he’s seeing Daddy.”

  “Probably some diplomatic business,” Icarus says, then leans in close to me. “The real question is how long it’s going to take for him to get into your diplomatic business?”

  I punch him in the arm. “Shut up. Whatever.”

  “I saw how he looked at you, and don’t tell me that you didn’t look right back, because I know you, sister, and you did.”

  “Nope, nope, not going to happen,” I say, telling myself the same thing.

  “Because you have so much else going on right now,” he says.

  “I do,” I say.

  “Ariadne, video games do not count.”

  I don’t dignify that with a response.

  * * *

  When we hit the lobby, Icarus is met by a crowd of production staffers, all demanding his attention, and I leave him to his work. He’ll be busy for hours.

  Not me. I don’t have anywhere to be until lunchtime tomorrow. Unless I’m needed in the maze.

  I make it back to my room and eat the dinner that is waiting for me on a tray. Then I change into my favorite pajamas, flannel ones with cherries on them, my ball of silver thread in the hip pocket.

  I prop myself up on the idiotic throw pillows my mother insists on installing on my bed, then put on my VR headset. Finally. Now I can get back to playing First Blood.

  I’m hoping the game will make me not think about that boy. Theseus. The gods-be-cursed prince of Athens. The first boy who has ever looked at me with interest would turn out to be from our greatest enemy. There is not one thing in my life that can be easy.

  The techno music from the party my mother and sisters are throwing for our guests and the media is loud enough that I can hear it over the game’s audio, even with my headset on. I turn up the volume. I need to concentrate. The next boss is a pain.

  A text bubble crosses my line of vision. It’s Icarus, sending a screenshot from his live feed of the party. He’s set up a secure channel between our phones so he can share the things that no one else in the world will ever get to see.

  This is one of those.

  It’s a picture of Xenodice dancing on a tabletop, but it’s an outtake, not one he’ll send to the magazines, because her eyes are half-closed and she looks weird. Also, one of her boobs has fallen out of the side of her shirt. I pause my game and reply—Nothing I haven’t seen before.

  I restart the game. I’m playing as Atalanta, and I have to get past Achelous, an old man river god. I’ve had this game for weeks and still have not been able to get past this one stinking river god. Icarus sends me another picture of Xenodice, still up on the table, but she’s dealt with the shirt problem by taking it off. I ignore it.

  When you play as Atalanta, you can’t defeat Achelous by wrestling him, which is too bad. It stinks to fight a river god with weapons. I pull out my sword. It’s worth a try.

  More near-pornographic pictures of my sisters cross my view. Icarus thinks they’re hilarious. I find them awful and embarrassing, but I seem to be the only one. Icarus will pick the two or three best ones and release those to the media. He’ll save the video for the Paradoxes. The trick with Acalle and Xenodice is showing enough, without showing too much. They aren’t porn stars. Although, based on the look in Xenodice’s eyes, there might be a sex tape from tonight. The sex tapes are a whole other business line. They are released separately, through surrogates who pay millions for them. It’s been a few months since one surfaced. She’s due.

  Do they like it? I wonder.

  I would hate it, but I’m not sure about my sisters. I know they love the modeling shoots. Love the clothes. Love the drama. Love the boys. I don’t even think they mind the sex tapes, as long as they like who they are with.

  My phone rings. Icarus isn’t giving up.

  “Aren’t you at work?” I say, battering Achelous with my sword, beating at his watery form. I fail, epically. He takes my sword from me, then rips my shirt off and carries me underwater. It’s the downside of playing as Atalanta. If you’re Meleager you get to keep your shirt on when you drown.

  “I am at work, at the party. Come down with me,” Icarus says in his most charming voice. “It will be fun.”

  “No, I guarantee you, it won’t.” What about fire arrows? Will they work on Achelous?

  “There’s a super-cute boy in a satyr costume. I’ll text you his picture.”

  “Don’t,” I say, knowing exactly what the guy in the satyr costume will look like. Icarus has one type—ripped and blond, like the barbarian hordes in Romans v. Germans.

  “The prince of Athens is here, looking hot.”

  “Perfect,” I say. “I’m sure he’ll love my flannel pj’s.”

  “He might,” Icarus says. “How can you tell if you don’t try?”

  “I’m not showing Theseus my pajamas,” I say, still playing my game.

  I can’t get my arrows to light because my flint is wet. Achelous grabs me. This time he rips my pants off, too.

  “Crap,” I say.

  “Ariadne, are you in VR? Pause it and listen to me. Or I won’t be your best friend anymore.”

  I roll my eyes, but I pause the game. “Fine, I’ll talk to you, but I’m still not going to your party.” Atalanta has been reborn and is standing there, waiting for me to play again.

  “I get dumb around cute boys,” Icarus says. “I won’t be able to introduce myself. I’ll look stupid or say the wrong thing.”

  “Then get Acalle to introduce you.”

  “Oh Hades no,” he says emphatically. “The last time I got Acalle to introduce me to someone, they ended up making out in the banquette right next to me the whole night. Not what I was going for. You can’t trust Acalle not to jump on someone.”

  “If he’s gay…”

  “He might be bi—I didn’t send a questionnaire. Besides, Acalle never worries about that particular roadblock. But you … You can introduce me to someone and not outshine me.”

  “Thanks,” I say, trying not to let his words sting. I don’t want to go to the party. I don’t want people looking at me. However, that doesn’t mean I want my undesirability announced to me, either.

  Icarus knows me too well. His voice is conciliatory. “I didn’t mean it bad, Ariadne. Come on, please? This one time?”

  I imagine it. Seeing Theseus. Talking with Theseus. Dancing with Theseus. Being normal. That’s not my life.

  Ac
helous is shaking his fist at me from the river. There has to be some way I can beat him.

  “I have to go now, Icarus. You’re on your own with the satyr. You’ll figure it out. You always do.” I hang up the phone and go back to my game.

  I finally manage to defeat Achelous using a weighted net, which seems like it goes against all physical laws, but okay. Then I defeat a bunch of mini-bosses and finally, I’m standing there with the rest of the heroes, facing the Caledonian Boar in an open clearing in the middle of a forest. The boar is huge, with bristling red fur and tusks longer than my arm. Its deep-set eyes are dark red, like dried blood.

  An idiot NPC runs forward, only to be gored by those tusks and tossed into the nearest tree, where he hangs grotesquely. The spear is heavy in my hand, even though it’s only pixels. I can do this. Atalanta will draw first blood. I throw my spear and it hits the boar’s shoulder, bringing it to the ground. A rush of triumph fills me. I did it.

  I am the hero.

  Then the boar cries out in rage and confusion, an animal in pain, before it is surrounded and chopped to pieces by my fellow heroes. I hate myself a little, and the game makers, and the gods. Here was this miraculous creature, giant, chthonic, and I’ve thrown my sharpened stick at it, bringing it down. Pixels, I know. Still.

  My phone rings again. It’s Daddy. I take off the headset and answer.

  “Hi, Daddy,” I say.

  The party is still bumping downstairs, but that isn’t the reason why when I put my feet on the floor, it rumbles beneath me. Far down, in the maze under the city, the Minotaur is making an earthquake.

  “I need your help,” Daddy says.

  “Sure,” I say, standing up, pushing away my tiredness, thinking of everything I need to bring with me.

  “I’m so sorry to ask you to do this, sweetheart,” Daddy says. “The fourth time this month, too.”

  Fifth, I think, but don’t say. What would be the point of saying? Daddy doesn’t make the earthquakes. It isn’t his fault.

  So I say, “No, no, it’s fine.” I hang up the phone. I put on my rainboots. I say a quick prayer.

  Then I leave my room, headed to the maze.

  THREE

  When I get in the hallway, I hear Acalle and Xenodice before I see them. They are each being supported by a different guy, trailed by a crowd of burly guys with shoulder-mounted cameras, lights, and boom mics. My sisters stumble, giggling, when the floor shakes.

  Xenodice did, at some point, put her shirt back on. However, given the way she is hanging all over the dude who is holding her up, I have to guess it won’t be on for long.

  I stuff my hands in my pockets. I would go back in my room, but it’s not worth it. It’s unlikely that they will even notice me anyway.

  Acalle stops, letting Xenodice and the camera crew go on down the hallway past her.

  “Ariadne,” she drawls, stepping away from the guy. The floor rumbles slightly, and it is too much for Acalle’s balance. She tips toward me and I grab her to keep her from falling on the floor.

  “Hey,” she says, her words slurred. “You did me a solid today, with Daddy. Icarus told me they changed my storyline. I’m getting a competitor.”

  I realize the guy she’s with is Vortigern, the competitor who looks like a Visigoth.

  “No problem,” I say. I hate seeing her like this, but I don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to judging people for what they do.

  “Ariadne…,” she says, like she’s going to ask me something.

  “I have to go,” I say, passing her back to Vortigern, who takes her on down the long private family hallway toward her suite, and I turn away.

  My boots sink into the thick pile carpeting as I walk by the doorways—my parents’; the fifty guest rooms, because sometimes people need to host a party with fifty close friends and family members who are too important to stay in the high-rise hotel Daddy built a few years ago.

  Along the walls, giant pictures of my family hang in gilded frames. Acalle and Xenodice on horseback when they used to compete in dressage. Pictures of them skiing. Before they were the Paradoxes. Before they were famous. My brother who is dead, the one we went to war with the Athenians over. Even me in a pink dress, identical to the ones my older sisters are wearing.

  It’s another life.

  There is one picture missing from the walls. My younger brother, Asterion, who no one ever talks about.

  I pass a few of the uniformed workers, but they turn their faces to the wall. They aren’t allowed to put their eyes on us. No matter what happens. The security cameras are watching, but they don’t bother me much. If there’s one thing you get used to in Crete, it’s cameras.

  I arrive at the elevator at the end of the long hallway. This elevator doesn’t have openings on most floors of the palace—only this floor, the lobby, and the maze. This is the family entrance to the maze, although I’m the only one who uses it. The elevator doors are white and gilded, like the others, but this one requires a retinal scan.

  The elevator car is the last taste of the palace before I drop into the other world of the maze. When I first started taking this elevator, I was eye level with the golden buttons on the white leather–upholstered walls. Now my head nearly touches the dangling pendants of the crystal chandelier. I always wonder why Daedalus continued the decorative theme of the family hall into this elevator. Did he think my parents would take this ride into the maze? That my mother would visit the Minotaur?

  Laughable. My mother never mentions the Minotaur. I wonder if she even remembers his connection to her.

  After a long, silent drop, the elevator glides open and I step into the maze. It’s dim and damp, like a cave, and the poured concrete wall is cool as I run my fingers along it. On the walls, mounted cameras record my every move.

  Daedalus could have designed anything he wanted. He could have put in rubber floors or glass rooms or hung marble on the walls. He could have made it look ancient, with stone walls and grottoes, like catacombs.

  He chose concrete. The brutalist maze.

  He says it made it easy to design the obstacles. Easy to expand. It also hoses off for cleaning.

  Here I’m in the safe part of the maze, where the cleaning staff sweep and handymen tackle their punch lists. This part of the maze is where the competitors are housed during The Labyrinth Contest. Where there is a heavy metal door that leads to a loading dock where I bring the cows for the Minotaur to eat on Sundays.

  From here, though, it’s only a few steps to the dangerous part of the maze, the winding, twisting prison where Crete keeps its monster. The Minotaur.

  The maze is enormous, at least fifty acres, underground, spreading under the palace, under Temple Row, under the stadium. During The Labyrinth Contest, the competitors will enter through the large and fabulously decorated gate in the stadium, but that’s not necessary for the things I do in a normal week. My entrance is an unadorned titanium door with a retinal scanner beside it.

  I endure the scan. I know what’s coming for me once the door opens, but there are some things you can’t prepare for, no matter how many times you face them. I hold my breath against the smell as the door slides open.

  I have exactly five seconds to go through before the alarms start going off. Nobody wants to take any chances on the Minotaur breaking out. Once I step through, the door slides closed behind me, and I am plunged into darkness. Water drips. The floor vibrates under my feet. I feel, more than hear, the rumbling growl rising from deep in the maze.

  He’s out there, somewhere, raging. On a normal day, he would run the maze, making the obstacles look easy. Not now. He’s not playing. He’s destroying.

  I take the ball of silver thread out of my pocket. I’m the only person who has one. It lets me navigate the maze. After Daddy told me about the gods’ plan for me, Daedalus gave me the thread, cool and metallic.

  Daedalus doesn’t go into the maze with the Minotaur. If he needs to fix an obstacle or make repairs or expand anything, he manag
es it from the control panel upstairs. He isolates the portion that needs work using retractable titanium-alloy doors that descend from the ceiling. But I’m the only person who ever goes into the maze. The only person the Minotaur won’t attack.

  It’s why the gods chose me to be the Keeper of the Maze.

  I attach the thread to the hook in the wall, the one that tells the maze it’s me. It turns off the obstacles. The greenish-yellow track lighting along the floor turns on with a hum, and I make my way down. The concrete under my feet is textured slightly, so it isn’t too slick. Cow bones cluster in the corners, like rocks that gather in the bends of a river. I make my pattern, a right and two lefts, a right and two lefts, while my thread spools out behind me, a sparkling tether to the world above.

  The cameras record my picture. Even here, the cameras are on me.

  As I walk, I sing. So he will know it is me.

  The smell of a slaughterhouse surrounds me; the hundreds of gallons of water that Daedalus runs through the maze can’t completely obliterate the smell. The Minotaur is roaring, wailing, bellowing with the call of a maddened bull; the walls shudder with his rage.

  When I get near the last turn, I rest my hand against the coolness of the concrete, letting it steady me, as I prepare for what I’m going to see. It trembles under my hand.

  I can already tell it’s going to be bad. But there’s nothing else for me to do. I hang my ball of thread from the final hook and move out of the dimness of the corridor and into the bright light of the room at the center of the maze, where the cameras don’t go.

  It is only now that I can say his name. My voice is barely audible under his roaring, but shouting would only make him worse. I do what I’ve always done, calling to him like I always have, bringing him back from the edge. I close my eyes, preparing myself for what I’ll see in his room.

  Preparing myself to help my brother.

  “Asterion, Asterion,” I say, walking forward.

  FOUR