Chapter Four

Hephaestus toiled in the gloom of his forge in the wee hours of the morning. He preferred to work at night, since daylight made it hard to see the metal’s color, and he preferred having his shop wide open to get a good breeze going through. Working metal is, if anything, hot work, and Hephaestus, along with his roommate, lived far outside of town in the Sonoran desert. Their nearest neighbor was well over a mile away, which made it easier for Hephaestus – Hep to his friends – to get away with hammering away at two thirty in the morning day after day. His roommate, Scroat, could sleep through damn near anything, so Hep’s nighttime habits had never bothered him.

His forge was compact and efficient, contrary to the impressions one might get from his mythology. It had been a long time since he’d done any big work, such as Achilles’s shield (the way Achilles’s had died, like a chump, still bothered Hep), so it made more sense to keep his anvil, forge, vise and quenching tub all within an arm’s length of him while working. He had another work area set up for casting metal, and yet another with the latest welding equipment. Tradition was well and good, Hep thought, but drawing a neat bead with a TIG welder beat trying to get borax into a red-hot joint and then hammering the hell out of it any day.

Tonight Hep had his casting furnace running (it used clean, efficient propane, thank you), and was pouring pistons. He’d managed to burn holes in not just one, but both pistons in his motorcycle’s motor. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d done, but was mildly impressed with himself.

He removed the lid from the furnace and peered into the crucible, the light from the propane flames casting his face into sharp relief. He had dark, curly hair, dark eyes, a powerful brow, and was otherwise lumpy in exactly the wrong way. Hephaestus was, in no uncertain terms, an ugly bastard. To top that off, his legs were weak and barely useful. He stand at his forge, and he could walk with some difficulty, but that was about it.

Those who fucked with Hep because they thought they could outrun him, of course, usually found themselves caught in a finely-wrought trap. Ares, the son-of-a-bitch, had been fooling around with Hep’s wife when he and Aphrodite wound up caught in a metal net so fine they had not noticed it, and so strong they could not escape it.

The other gods in Olympus had been very amused by their predicament.

Hep used a long spoon to scoop the dross off the top of the molten metal, then used a long pair of tongs to remove the white-hot crucible from the furnace. He turned to the right and carefully poured the glowing, shiny liquid metal into a ceramic mold. He set down the crucible in a bed of sand, closed the lid of the furnace and turned off the propane. The flame died with a “foomp,” and Hep’s workshop fell silent apart from the clicks coming from the piston mold.

While he waited for his new casting to cool, he walked over to his workbench and had a seat. He took a long drink from his mug of water, wiped his lips, and looked over at his latest motorcycle.

The bike was as black as he could make it. The sidecar was black, the gas tank and fenders were black, the handlebars and wheels were black, even the motor was black. The only parts that were not black were the lights.

He was trying to figure out a good way to make those black, but glass wasn’t really his specialty. If it weren’t for that damn cheery taillight, he was fairly certain his bike would actually absorb light.

Hephaestus spent a while tidying his shop, until the casting was cool enough to remove from its mold. Then he went over to the casting, pulled on his welding gloves and loosened the clamps holding the mold shut. He pulled the two halves of the mold apart, and used a pair of tongs to take out his freshly cast piston. There was still a lot of heat coming off of the metal, just as he wanted.

Hep turned and dunked the piston in the water in his quenching tub. It hissed and spit, and Hep shook the piston around a bit to make sure the water would actually touch and cool the piston. If he didn’t move it around, the piston might just build up a layer of steam around it, which was inefficient. A few seconds later, he pulled the now-cool piston out of the water.

“Well, fuck!” Hep said. There was a small bubble in the face of the piston. He threw the piston on to his pile of scrap to be melted and cast again.

The first light of day began to creep into his shop. Hep walked outside to cool off a bit, and to watch the sky brighten. The sun had not popped up over the horizon yet. When the sun did peek out from behind the edge of the world, he would go and get Scroat out of bed.

Scroat had been Hephaestus’s roommate for two hundred forty seven years. The two had known each other and traveled together for quite a while before that. When Christianity had become the predominant religion, Hephaestus ended up with no worshippers. He was effectively unemployed. He spent a bit of time moping around Olympus before he got tired of the trailer-park antics of the other Greek gods, and set out to see the rest of the world.

He’d been in what would become Mexico, drinking around a bonfire with a few of the Aztec gods (also unemployed). He’d just met them, and they seemed like a good bunch at first. Tequila, however, has a funny way of turning some people in to raging assholes spoiling for a brawl. Hephaestus had been watching his words very carefully, because the Aztecs were getting touchier by the moment, when a scrawny, dirty guy with short dark hair and a deep tan staggered into the circle.

The Aztecs eyed him warily, then one by one they began to size him up, and try to figure out a reason to beat him to a pulp.

“Hey you ugly motherfuckers, where’s the shitter? I’ve been walking all fucking day and I need a comfy spot to pinch out a nut loaf. If you get my meaning,” the newcomer said.

The newcomer, Bama-Pana (Scroat to those who knew him), quickly proved himself to be good in a fight, and he and Hephaestus had fought their way out of that mess and had been friends ever since. They’d made their way north, to what would become the United States, and bummed around meeting the native gods for a few years before they settled in the Arizona desert where the climate worked for both of them, and they were generally left alone to do whatever they wanted.

For the last hundred years what they’d wanted to do, mostly, was ride motorcycles. Scroat liked to go out and find trouble, while Hephaestus preferred to just work in his forge, tinkering with whatever new technology struck his fancy.

They both still had a deep love for alcohol, and spent a fair amount of time in seedy bars. The most interesting people could be found in the worst bars, it seemed to Hep. As far as Scroat was concerned, cheap bars were the best place to pick up cheap women who would tolerate his constant stream of profanity, and entirely inappropriate advances. Based on his success rate, Scroat’s assumption seemed to be correct.

The sun finally peeked out from behind the horizon, and Hep turned back to his shop. He shut down the gas lines, put his tools back in their correct places, swept up a bit, and shut the big doors. He walked out of the side door, turned around and locked it with a huge iron padlock he’d made back in the early eighteen hundreds. It looked primitive, but it would take a skilled person indeed to pick this lock. He’d carefully hardened and tempered the metal, and any attempt to remove it with a bolt cutter would likely result in a broken bolt cutter, severe muscle strain, and possibly some eye injuries. The tool, however, would not even leave so much as the tiniest mark on the lock itself. And what’s more, the would-be burglar would get a sneaking suspicious the lock itself was laughing at him.

Hep liked his lock.

The sun was now completely out, and beginning its daily climb towards the heavens. Hep walked across the sandy yard, up the worn, wooden stairs and into his house. He washed his hands in the kitchen sink, which had a few dirty dishes lurking in it, went into his bedroom and changed out of his work clothes and into fresh clothes he would not be embarrassed to be seen wearing in public. Or, at least, clothes that didn’t smell as bad.

After changing, he picked up his favorite hammer, the one he kept by his bed, and strode down the hall to Scroat’s room.

It was time to wake up his roommate.