Chapter 1
In the rules of gods and men, demigods are capricious creatures. If their father is immortal and their mother simply mortal, then they, like their mother, would be simply mortal. However if their mother were the immortal, and their father simply mortal, well, that’s a whole other ballgame. Hit the randomiser, pick a name out a hat – you didn’t know until they were born. Usually though, the mortal demigods outnumber the immortal demigods, mainly due to the fact that a good number of goddesses had taken vows against having children, or simply from cheating on their partner, eons before humans even existed. Also, because in the plainest sense, male gods were whores and got around. A lot.
Regarding goddesses and female mortals, children were a possibility. It didn’t usually happen, due to basic female anatomy, but gods as a species were fascinated by humans – they imprinted on them often; and most imprinted-upon humans did end up having a demigod child, one way or another – though they did never have more than one. That was just asking for trouble.
Demigods themselves were powerful, and quite obviously different from normal humans. Those demigods that did not inherit their mother’s immortality were still strong in their own right. More durable, with better health and longer lifespans; they were somehow both removed and more firmly tied from fate, and depending on their parents, fate could sometimes even hand them gifts. Children of Zeus could always sense when a storm was coming, and the gifted could summon lightning to their hands. Children of Janus could tell you exactly when something began, and when it would end. The gifted could summon any key they desired from nothing, so long as what they sought to open – or close – was in their line of sight. Children of Macha rode horses without fear nor fault, and the gifted would always have dogs by their side, ready to do their bidding should they command it.
Immortal demigods were much different. In many ways, they were gods in their own right, but they held no responsibilities or domains of their own, nor the true power of their immortal parent. Some, with less than savoury views of demigods, liked to call them shades, or pale copies of their parent, no matter whether they looked or controlled the same magicks they did – after all, some of the pantheons were particularly close, when it came to relations. Sometimes immortal demigods picked up powers from relatives, or older generations, rather than their mother.
Even Shaw grimaced when she thought of the family trees of Greek and Roman Gods – she politely ignored how her own name was added to that tapestry through Enyo.
Sameen herself was an immortal demigod. Enyo, however, didn’t exactly want to be a mother, so instead of raising her on Olympus like she was supposed to, Sameen’s father brought her up on his own. Sameen, however, aged just like an immortal demigod was supposed to – slowly. It took the rest of her father’s entire lifetime for her to age to the approximation of an eight year old. In total, it took her one hundred years for her to reach the approximation of twenty. By that time though, she’d been taken in multiple times, until they realised her predicament, and she ran off. At an approximation of thirteen, Apollo found her and decided to sponsor her, so Sameen was finally brought to Olympus – but in many eyes, it was too little, too late.
It didn’t help that Enyo had inherited her mother’s charming mental composition, which Apollo liked to rename every few years, trying to get it right for when the humans actually understood mental disorders.
They did teach her what she needed to know though. She finished early, even, and went back to Earth, stalking her father’s reincarnation until she made the mistake of playing around with her powers, de-aging to an approximation of three. Her father recognised her, having never forgotten his last life. Sameen, to the worry and distain of other gods, went to live with him once more, making herself age as a normal human would.
At ‘five’, she emigrated from Iran to America, and her father made up a tale of how ‘her mother stayed behind’, and that later, after they were settled, ‘her mother’ went missing during transit. Sameen would have to stick to their story, so her father made sure she knew it well, in case the authorities came looking. Putting her faked papers under scrutiny of the authorities had been a risk, but she had an established cover now.
And Sameen wanted to do something with it.
She let the charade continue after the car crash, not understanding the ache in her chest until Apollo told her that it was grief. She’d been too young to become attached the last time around, but now she was grown, mature, no matter what she looked like, and emotionally, she was what her true form portrayed – an adult. Even with an Axis II personality disorder, as Apollo so haughtily called it.
Sameen and Apollo had banter. Sameen got annoyed by him often, and Apollo despaired over her lack of interest in his activities. But they did rub off on each other. Sameen picked up his love for shiny cars, and even called in a favour from a former peer, a son of Vulcan, to teach her how to fix them up. Apollo was also the reason she decided to go to med school – she analysed herself thoroughly after that decision, before shuddering, not wanting to copy the happy-go-lucky god more than she already had.
Joining the Navy and the ISA though, that was all Enyo.
“C’mon Sameen – it’s just one night, and I got your newest lil bro to mentor!” Apollo grinned, while Sameen finished cleaning her gun.
“How about…no.”
Apollo pouted, “Sa-meen, don’t you get any days off?”
“No.”
“How about I give you some days off? Make your employers forget-” Sameen clicked her gun back together, pointing it at him.
“Apollo, listen to me carefully…no, no, and no. The type of work I do-”
“Is all shady government stuff that I really don’t want to hear about,” Apollo interrupted, causing Sameen to roll her eyes before tucking her gun into the back of her trousers, turning away from him and picking up her jacket, tugging it on. “Sameen, it’s his birthday. He’s just turned fifty.”
“I don’t care. He’s still fifty years too young to help me out with anything.” Sameen honestly didn’t care about her siblings – she only had seven or eight. Or maybe nine, she didn’t know. It must be nine now with this new brother of mine, she thought as she finished buttoning her coat, tugging on her gloves and getting out her phone. Hearing the delicate shimmering of godly travel, she muttered, “bye Apollo” before dialling Cole.
She had to get back to work.