by Amie Gibbons
“I never said you did. I said he’s your patron.” He held up his hands with that same easy smile.
He probably had that smile when wandering around his boss’s new underworld.
“I was sent to deliver two messages. First, plead this case out. Second, your god wants to talk to you.”
I fingered the tiny cross resting just above my collar. “He’s not my god. God didn’t stop existing just because beings with magic who call themselves gods woke up. He’s still up there. Watching over us.”
“And yet He hasn’t come down, even though there are false gods among us now. Makes you wonder if He’s really there.”
I glared. “He is.”
Henry held up his hands. “Sorry, we’re getting off topic. The gods are playing within the rules the government set out, not forcing anyone to worship or heed them. That doesn’t mean they can’t do a hell of a lot more than they show the public. You don’t talk to Apollo soon, he’s going to stop playing nice.”
My face froze. I’m not scary usually, at five foot one, I’m far from it, but Henry quickly looked away.
“Don’t threaten me, Henry.”
“I’m not. I’m still your friend even if you aren’t mine. I’m trying to protect you. Don’t shoot the messenger.” At least his smarmy smile faded. “You have the message. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you in Olympus soon. Always a pleasure, Cassandra.” He turned on a heel and walked to the street where his limo waited, blocking the lane.
Yeah, like I was going to just let him go without telling me what was really going on.
“Get back here.” I rushed after him.
An eye appeared in front of me and I slammed on the brakes. Damn good thing I was wearing wide-heeled black boots instead of heels today. It’s hard to slam to a stop in stilettos.
The eye was a foot across and nearly as tall. The iris was dark purple, with a midnight blue six pointed star around the pupil; the skin on the eyelid a sun kissed gold and lashes that long, curled, blackest black women spend a fortune at Sephora to get.
I looked around. Not one of the suited, briefcased masses swarming over the stairs and square looked at the eye or gave me a second glance.
I shook my head and slashed my hand through the eye. It went straight through.
Illusion.
The gods could make things out of thin air, but it took energy. Mostly they just did illusions. Usually just as effective.
And more energy efficient.
Henry’s limo pulled away and I walked through the eye.
The gods could contact “their people” mentally. I wasn’t one of Apollo’s people so he couldn’t invade my mind like that, but any of them could pick on anyone in their territory they wanted. For some reason, Apollo wanted me.
Why me?
Good freaking question!
Psychics aren’t a dime a dozen, but it wasn’t like I was the only one in the country. I wasn’t even the only one in Nashville, not that that mattered. Sure, it was the city Apollo chose as “his,” (the whole Music City thing, I guess) but he could go all over the country. The Greek Gods had all of the U.S. Hades claimed Atlanta but hired Henry, who kept his office in Nashville.
And why did the Greeks have the U.S. anyway? Didn’t the Native American gods have something to say about that when the gods were carving up the world like a birthday cake?
Yet another unanswered question about the gods. The list just got longer and longer the more I learned about magic and the gods.
My mind whirled as I walked to the office. Why would the gods care about an assault case? Henry said they didn’t want accusing them to become common. I could see how that could make some bad press. And get annoying. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.
Huh. Idea. Probably even a good idea.
If I didn’t mind a little risk to my sanity, life and soul.
The eye appeared in front of me three more times on the way to the office. I didn’t tell it to go away. I didn’t swipe at it again.
Ignore it, tell it it doesn’t exist, and maybe, just maybe, you can believe it away.
It worked on illusions.
Too bad it didn’t work on the gods themselves.
CHAPTER TWO
“What the hell is this?”
I jumped in my chair, looking up from the notes on my desk. My boss, Mark Filaduchi, waved a folder in the doorway, wide face set in hard lines, eyes dark brown stones.
If looks could kill, I would’ve been pounded into powder.
My closet of an office was in the middle of a line of them in the D.A.’s office. My desk occupied the far wall and the rest of the space was taken up by stacks of folders and a small bookshelf of old law school casebooks and treatises. There was enough room for me to walk between the obstacle course to my desk, but not for my six-three, over two hundred pounds boss to get through easily.
Which was probably the only reason he was staying in the doorway.
“It looks like a file so I’m going to go with file.”
“Don’t be a smart ass.” His Texas twang made his voice gravely most of the time. Now it was downright threatening. “Tell me you did not subpoena Dionysus.”
“Okay. I did not subpoena Dionysus.”
“Cassandra!”
“Okay.” My hands flew up, swishing in front of me. “No more smart ass. Reily subpoenaed him already, that’s why we had to have a last minute meeting with Spenser today. And if Dionysus ignores it, which I think he will, Reily will say we can’t go forward because he can’t mount a proper defense. I don’t think it’ll work, but it will give him something to appeal, and possibly set a precedent for this sort of thing.”
“So why are you subpoenaing him if you think he’ll ignore it?”
I pressed my lips together. “Ummmm, because I don’t think he’ll ignore me.”
Filaduchi’s eyebrows went up so fast it was like they were trying to jump off his face. “What makes you say that?”
“I... uhhh... see, it’s... well...”
“Spit it out, Cassandra.”
“I want to set a precedent for subpoenaing the gods. If a random lawyer like Reily does it, Dionysus will ignore it and it’ll get ugly once we start taking it up the chain of courts and he never shows. It’ll be the U.S. v. Nixon all over again, without the court prevailing in the end.
“And that would only be if you’d let me take the time to do that, which we both know we don’t have time for. It will just peter out and then this will be a mess. Defendants will be using it all over the place and creating some serious problems.”
“They’re already doing it. It’s already a problem at the trial level, just hasn’t moved up to appeals courts yet.”
I gaped. “More than just that guy in New York?”
Way to be off the ball.
“None that were published,” he said with a held up hand. “I’ll email you the article I read on them. It just came out today, you didn’t miss anything in your research.” He smiled quickly and sobered up even faster. “Back to the question. Why?”
“I want the gods to recognize the legal system, now, before they get used to going around it. Maybe one answering a subpoena will set a precedent with the others. Since everything’s so new, a lot of them are playing follow the leader when something works out in their favor. And then once it doesn’t work, defendants won’t pull it on every case.”
“Same question. Why would they jump just because you tell them to?”
How much did I want to explain?
I looked around. My office just kept getting smaller and smaller the longer I worked here, piles of casefiles and boxes of recorded proceedings grew like mold in ADAs’ offices.
“Stop with the darting eyes and just tell me.”
I hopped in my seat, eyes snapping back to my boss. “Apollo has... taken a special interest in me. He wants me to work for him.
“Earlier, Henry Hepner tracked me down at the courthouse. He said Apollo wants to talk to me. Apollo has pull wi
th his brother. I’ll trade Apollo a meeting with me for Dionysus answering the subpoena.”
“You think he’ll risk setting such a precedent just to talk to you?”
I nodded. “Apollo thinks if he can get me alone in a room with him, he’ll be able to convince me to work for him. That seems to be pretty important to him, and the gods theoretically want to work within the system. I think the gods will see this as an opportunity to establish their good intentions and willingness to integrate into our world.”
“Then why would Dionysus say no?”
“He’s busy and this doesn’t exactly rank high on priorities. I mean, how many witnesses do we subpoena, who aren’t gods, that don’t show up? The gods seem to want to work with our system, but only on their terms and when it’s convenient for them. Apollo might, might”—I held up a finger—”take the two birds with one stone approach, talking to me and establishing good relations with society.”
“Why does he want you to work for him?”
I switched the finger at him. “That is an excellent question. He wants a personal lawyer, and he likes psychics, but I’m not the only psychic in the country. There’s enough that I’m willing to bet at least a good amount are lawyers, too. And what does he need with a criminal attorney working for his business?” I shrugged. “So I don’t know.”
Filaduchi stared at me until the spot between my shoulders started to itch and I wiggled them. “You’re a good liar, Cassandra. But you’re not that good.”
“Please give me some leeway here?”
“Is whatever you don’t want to tell me relevant to the case?”
“No.”
Another long stare had me wiggling in my seat like a naughty eight year old sent to the Principal’s Office.
“All right,” he finally said. “You’ve got some rope. Don’t hang yourself with it.”
“I’m trying not to, sir.”
“Get back to work.”
“Yes sir.”
“Cassandra?” He paused mid door and turned back towards me.
What was it with him and the last word at the door thing?
“The gods might be petty and foolish in mythology, but from what I’ve seen the last two years, they’re conniving, ruthless and as rational as you or I. Don’t yank Apollo’s chain. Don’t try to play him. Get him to agree if you can, but don’t get yourself involved in anything with him.”
I put on my brightest smile and gave him another, “Yes sir,” before he turned and marched away.
The smile melted off my face like strawberry ice-cream in the sun. It always felt that way when I put on my fake smile, like it needed a moment to tone down before it could turn off.
If I could see my own emotions, there’d be a cloud of sickly yellow streaked with pink around my head. Anxiety. An emotional ulcer.
I clenched my fists and drew a deep breath as I looked back down at my notes.
“Don’t get yourself involved in anything with him,” my boss’s words rang in my head.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid,” I said.
# # #
I left a message for Apollo with his theater’s front desk for him to call me, I had a proposition for him.
I left the office near six, got in my car and pulled out onto Second Ave.
Six on a Friday. You’d think there’d be maybe medium traffic as the rush died down, right?
I wish.
I turned down First, trying to circle around the traffic on my way to the freeway.
When I was in law school, the streets of downtown and midtown were crowded at night, and the traffic going down south or to the east was terrible during rush hour.
The gods woke up in my third year. After the world adjusted and the gods started up businesses, and magic became the BFD of the twenty-first century, crowded didn’t begin to cover the traffic.
Businesses, shows, lectures, and shopping associated with the gods rescued the economy. That was the only reason I got to stay in Nashville after law school instead of trying to find a job back home.
The legal market all over the country had been drier than the air in winter back in Denver before magic gave the economy a much needed kick in the ass. The gods built companies that needed lawyers, the economy working again made more legal jobs in general, so suddenly government jobs were easy to come by again.
Those extra businesses weren’t what really clogged the side streets though.
The protests were downtown’s hairballs.
The gods had a polarizing effect on culture, especially religion. Some people tilted towards the new “religions,” i.e. cults, while others turned and dug their nails into the human world and our God, claiming magic and gods had no place in the natural world, or if they were going to be here, they should pay for the privilege.
The latter had taken to the streets tonight.
Right in front of Apollo’s Theater and in my path.
Apollo’s Theater opened last year on First, looking over the river. It hosted Broadway and Vegas shows, student productions, readings, conferences, dances, and parties amid some of the most decadent surroundings in Nashville.
Which was saying something.
It was a dome in the middle of lush flowers, fountains and eucalyptus trees, all marble and gold with geographic designs and detailed statues of the gods carved in.
Tonight, guards in gold and black lined the path, protecting the group of well-dressed patrons. A mass of humanity surrounded the front and spilled into the street, holding signs and yelling.
It was the same old tune. The gods were con men. The Awakening was a second Pandora’s Box. Magic wasn’t God’s work. The people worshiping and supporting the gods in this world were risking their souls in the next. If they were going to participate in the human world, they should register their magic. They should stop hogging their powers and use them to help everyone.
Right next to people holding signs proclaiming, ‘God hates gods!’ were ones stating, ‘#TaxTheMage,’ and other slogans calling for a tax on magic.
Who knew there was something that could bring the crazy on both sides of the political spectrum together?
“Kumbaya,” I muttered, pulling out my phone and calling Millie.
“Hello?” she answered, little voice almost drowned out by clanking in the background.
“Make the baking stop!” Mira yowled in the background, giggling.
“Says the cat eating half my batter,” Millie said. “Ignore her, she’s hyper. I think she’s eaten her weight in sugar tonight.”
“Millie, put down the spoon and back away from the brownies.”
“They’re not brownies, they’re cupcakes,” she said, clipping off the words in her focused voice.
“Whatever, step away from the cupcakes and nobody gets hurt. Do you want to talk about whatever set off the baking frenzy?”
I didn’t have to be there to know there was a frenzy.
It’s probably her damn ex popping up on Facebook with another win in the news or something.
“I’ve hit a wall on my patent. How do you write claims for a potion’s effects? Base it on bio patents, method, product by process?”
Okay, work related is better than ex related.
“You lost me at claims, but stress baking is not the answer. Didn’t your boss say he’d sue you for the extra pounds he’s gained since you started bringing your experiments to the office after the red velvet truffles?”
“Yes, and then he ate five. Come over for cupcakes? I’m recreating a recipe from a TV show. It’s apple-”
“Sweetie, we don’t all have the metabolism of a hummingbird. I gained ten pounds during One-L finals thanks to your baking.”
“Shouldn’t you burn more calories when you pull out your super speed? I know I do when I fly.”
“I’m not sure… probably.”
“Oh! You could meet me at Vandy and we could run experiments on you! See how fast you can go. It’ll be like on The Flash… without the comple
tely glossing over the laws of physics and an inconsonant theory of time travel thing. Your last name is even The Flash’s first name! I didn’t even put that together before. Now we have to do it.”
“Um, maybe later.”
“Oooookay,” she said, voice dropping.
“I’ve got to get home, walk the boys, get some work done, but then, we’re going out tonight. We’ll get gussied up and go dancing.”
“Oh! I’m in! I’ll call Tyler and we’ll hit downtown. I haven’t been downtown in forever.”
“I’m there right now, stuck in traffic, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Yeah, but we’ll be in the fun part of downtown… and walk from the library so we don’t have to deal with traffic or horrible parking.”
I smiled. The not grasping jokes thing was part of Millie’s charm. We planned to meet at nine at her place and hung up.
The traffic inched up then stopped again and I turned up the radio to block out the shouts from the protesters, fingers dancing on the steering wheel to the pop-country beat.
# # #
I lived in a nice, new building about fifteen miles to the south. The commute sucked in the mornings, and sometimes at night, but it was cheaper than living in the city.
I tossed my briefcase on the faux-granite kitchen island when I got in and locked the door behind me. The dishes decorating the counter around the sink were still there, the clean ones still in the dishwasher. The dingy floor begged for a good sweep and mop. I couldn’t even give the living room more than a glance due to the massive amount of Kelsey’s photography stuff spilling out of her bedroom. I swear the piles of equipment, props and costumes had grown friends during the day.
“Kelsey!”
My roommate didn’t answer. She was supposed to be off work at six, but supposed to be didn’t mean much to second year residents (kinda like being a lawyer) especially ones with a time consuming hobby/secondary career like photography.
Looked like I’d be cleaning the common areas again this weekend even though it was supposed to be her turn.
One of these days, when I wasn’t buried by student loans, I’d get my own place.
Puccini and Webber answered my call though. They zipped out of my room and into the kitchen like curly haired racecars, skidding to a stop on the linoleum.