He was five when he followed the lithe man with the creased face away from his guardians or parental units. He had no idea if they had been his biological parents or foster parents. He didn’t care. It was one of those things he never looked up later.
He followed Hermes out of the other world’s Chicago into Olympus’s copy of Chicago. The gods did that—copied the other world’s cities. It was easier than creating something fresh; easier to use what was already there and then tweak it, change it, revise it, adapt it, supposedly improve it.
The Hermes's temple back then was the Chicago Board of Trade with its sun dial in a flat granite face. Older Hermes strode inside where he dumped purses and wallets he’d stolen to the side of an altar already heaped with items—the boy had watched the Hermes relieve pedestrians of their belongings, and he handed over the wallet he’d taken. The older man gave him a speculative stare from dark creased eyes.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I guess you can stay here. Call me Merc.”
The boy chose a corner behind the altar. The next day, Merc or Mercury had him take in items from followers who came to ask Hermes for help with their deals.
“You have to leave something for me too,” the boy said, and most of them did—some amused, some serious.
Merc laughed when he heard. “A full altar keeps me a god,” he explained to the boy.
“So we steal from other altars.”
“Unfortunately, stealing for that reason is against the rules. One of the few rules that can’t be changed. Only citizens decide which gods get their offerings. But as the Hermes I can trade other gods’ goods. Lots of citizens leave me all their offerings to distribute. Of course, I take a cut.”
And the boy gained a mentor.
* * *
Kouros was from Maine and liked it, so the city probably wouldn’t change for a few decades. Jes-Jer were not the type of head gods to rotate cities in any case. Changing cities took more administrative acumen than either of them had. Although buildings often remained the same inside, the settings altered. “Your lives will get better when we move” would temporarily increase offerings from citizens but the subsequent problems would considerably lower them, especially from farmers.
Jes-Jer would never take the risk. They were currently not entirely in favor with the farmers, who had spent a decade pleading for a Kouros before one was appointed. Jes-Jer tried to appoint a Kouros they could threaten and control.
Their efforts failed. The farmers continued to pay token allegiance to Jes-Jer. Community leaders mostly fully supported them. But Jes-Jer needed to tread carefully. Their current approach: stock up offerings by promising abstract rewards.
Hermes preferred tangibles. He checked his altar as soon as he entered the temple and spotted a set of tools for Kouros. Most citizens gave goods directly to the gods they admired but a few went through Hermes—for convenience and also, Hermes suspected, to keep Jes-Jer from noticing their preferences.
He also noted a carton of bullets for Artemis—from Ares, probably. He and Artemis were two of the gods allowed weapons: rifles as well as bows and arrows. Ares was a god. He didn’t need to leave offerings, which meant he dropped off the bullets also for convenience. Ares took Hermes’s role as messenger god seriously.
Hermes didn’t complain. He was the messenger god. And thief. And bargainer. And conductor of the dead. The more roles, the more security. He and Kouros agreed on that.
Not that Hermes did any of those things specifically. And he dressed in what Ven called “yuppie chic” and Kouros called “slick parvenue”—a loose leather suitcoat over a tie-less collared shirt, skinny pants and combat boots (working on Olympus involved a lot of walking).
Of course, a decade separated Ven from Kouros as nearly twenty years separated Hermes from Kouros. Ven appeared in his mid-twenties, Hermes in his late-twenties. Gods stopped aging, though not all at the same age. Kouros might remain a curly-haired brat for the rest of his life. He might age to fit his various jobs, until he was, say, past 100.
In any case, Ven was legitimately a product of the 80’s as Kouros was a product of the twenty-first century.
Neither Ven nor Kouros could go back to the other world, however, not without losing their status, even their memories. Hermes could. His clothes were current as was his technology.
He was the Hermes, after all.
He moved on to the computers that stored information about Olympus. Lots of records were lost during the Chaos and none of them had been in digital form anyway. Most gods had computers now tucked out of sight but Hermes could access them. He was the one who set them up.
Knowledge mattered.
None of the extant records mentioned hounds or dogs, except Apollo’s greyhounds and Cerberus. Cerberus was actually a friendly golden retriever who greeted the dead when they arrived in Hades's realm on the ferry. Not the type of dog to join a Wild Hunt.
Hermes glanced at the Internet-connected computers, then changed his mind. He didn’t want to give himself a reason not to visit Artemis. Jes-Jer thought Artemis would know about hounds. Hermes ought to ask her.
When he first heard Kouros’s reference, he looked up information online and had to agree with it—to a point. Artemis was entirely herself. She was also a slender, compact woman with brown skin and arched brows over deep-brown eyes.
Olympus didn’t use race-based terminology—though Jes-Jer occasionally played with the idea, unsure if it would help or hurt them. Hermes supposed the other world would label Artemis in some fashion.
He didn’t care. The other world was a hellish place that corrupted its residents; it was the source of original sin. Artemis escaped it—they all did.
He checked on her location before he left the computer room—one of the first “apps” he’d set up his computers to do (after he stealthily placed bugs in various items attached to various gods)—and noted that she was currently at her temple in the West End.
He headed there.
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