by Amie Gibbons
“Stay here and watch Millie?” I asked.
Tyler sat up and pulled off her mask. “Repeat after me. Not. My. Monkeys.”
I shrugged. “I can’t. I’m making these my monkeys.”
She pinched her nose like I was giving her a headache and turned to look at Millie.
“Come on.” She hopped off, too. “Millie should be fine here. They’re getting over here anyway. Do you know why she passed out?”
“I’m guessing the smoke. You know her weak lungs.”
We grabbed our gurneys and rolled them up the street towards the news van. The medical people looked at us as we rolled by but didn’t say anything or try to stop us.
Tyler’s withering glare probably had a lot more to do with that than mine.
“Hi,” I said when we got up to the camera people. Channel Five, nice.
Here goes nothing… or everything.
# # #
It took some of Tyler’s sweet talk, but she convinced them to put me on. We found out no one was killed while I cleaned up with some of her towelettes and I was so relieved I almost passed out again.
“You ready?” Tyler asked.
Doubt chewed at the corners of my brain. “Shouldn’t you be doing this?”
“No. I’m not a leader. I’m not the person who puts people together and naturally knows who will be good at what and gets them doing it. I’m the sociopathic person behind the politician, the one really pulling the strings.”
“Haha,” I said, wishing I could’ve cleaned up more as I put my mask back on.
I had a few minutes while they covered the scene to think about what I was going to say. Was I really going to do this?
Talk about blowing something up.
“You can do this,” Tyler said like she was reading my mind.
I took off my mask. “How did you even know what I was planning?”
“You know I’ve always been able to read you. It’s why you always lose at poker even though you’re more psychic than me.”
“You’ve been beating me since One-L year, long before magic woke up. It has nothing to do with it.”
She winked at me and grinned. “You know it.”
The reporters waved me over.
“Here goes,” I said, walking over.
One handed me the microphone and I took a deep breath, wishing I could’ve kept my oxygen on for this.
What did I think I was doing?
What the hell was I going to say!
The cameraman nodded at me and counted down three, two, one on his fingers.
“Hello, Nashville. My name’s Cassandra Berry. I’m an attorney in the DA’s office, b-” Someone grabbed my shoulders from behind and the world blurred away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“What!” I yelled, whirling around once the world snapped back, well, a world. I didn’t need to look with eyes or psychic abilities to know it was Apollo.
Roses surrounded us and the patio furniture sat empty a few feet away.
Why did Apollo bring me to Hades’ garden?
“I thought you guys couldn’t pull someone in? Don’t we have to come in by ourselves? And what door did you take me through?”
Apollo clenched his jaw, the air vibrated around him with rage. “I think I should be asking the questions right now, don’t you?”
“Obviously not.” I crossed my arms. My hands didn’t feel much like talking right now. Go figure. They probably knew more than my brain how much trouble I was in and were smartly keeping their little mouths shut.
“You’re damn right you’re in trouble,” Apollo all but growled, stepping right up against me so I was staring at his chest and had to crane my neck to keep up my glare.
“My father is furious. The only reason you’re still alive is I have a connection to you and was able to get to you faster than him. Do you have any idea what position you put me in?”
I scowled.
“To put this in language you can understand, you impossible woman! I’m harboring a fucking fugitive right now!”
He wasn’t tall by modern American standards, but dear God he could tower when he was pissed.
Well I was pissed, too. He did not get to claim the monopoly on pissed.
“I was doing you a favor! If you people weren’t so pig headed and bigoted, you’d see that! This is our war too, dammit. We can help!”
“You can help. Magical beings can help. Average, everyday humans? All they can do is panic, stop believing in us, or turn on us completely! You are either stupid or insane. And I know you are not stupid.”
“You’re the one who said humans should know.”
“No! I said magical ones should be told. Not every idiot on the street.”
Someone rounded the hedge corner out of the corner of my eye and I looked to see who it was before remembering I was trying to stare Apollo down.
“I could hear you from past the Elysian Fields,” Hades said. “For Gaia’s sake, keep your voices down. Your father is on a tear,” he said to Apollo.
So Gaia was whom they prayed to? Or at least was a mythological figure to them?
I stored that information away for future use.
“I don’t know-” I started.
“That is abundantly obvious,” Apollo bit off, over-enunciating the last two words. “Uncle, you can not let him throw her in the Underworld. It’s your domain.”
“What!”
“True,” Hades said, holding up a hand to me. “But hopefully reminding him of that fact will not be necessary.”
“Why?” I tried to say again, but sound wouldn’t come out.
Apollo sighed, clenching a hand to his chest before shooting me a look. He clasped Hades’ shoulder and said something in another language I could only guess was Ancient Greek.
Huh, of course they’d speak their language amongst themselves. They probably only spoke English for the benefit of humans around or to practice.
“Hey! Over here. What did you do to me?”
“Made sure you can’t get into any more trouble until I know what my father has planned for you. Hades is keeping us shielded for now. We’re lucky nobody heard you and told him you were here yet. We’ll keep you hidden until he calms down. No damage was done. You should be fine.”
“Ugh, yeah. I know I should be fine. I was doing you a favor. Why can’t you guys see that?”
“Because you are fucking stupid and put yourself in my father’s crosshairs.”
“And you decided shutting me up was a good way to deal with that? Huh, like father like son.”
Apollo whirled on me. I’’m nothing like my father!
Ohhhhh, can you say struck a nerve?
“Uncle,” he said out loud, “could you excuse us? I must have a talk with my minkati.”
“Whoa!” I backed up, shaking my head and giving Hades a pointed look. I did not want to be left alone with an angry Apollo when I couldn’t even scream for help.
“Don’t look at me.” Hades held up his hands. “I know better than to get in the middle of a domestic squabble.”
“This isn’t a domestic squabble!”
If he could hear me, he gave no indication and disappeared.
I turned back to Apollo.
Well, shit.
I held up my hands, backing up as he stalked towards me.
He grabbed my arms and pulled me into a bear hug. “I’m not going to hurt you. Dammit, Cassandra. Can’t I yell at you without you looking at me like I’m a rapist or a murderer trapping you in a dark alley? Can you grant me that little boon? Would it be such a great imposition?”
Who knew you could think sarcastically so well at someone?
“Apollo.”
I tried backing away and tapped the hedges in the first step. Apollo kept a hold of my arms and stepped closer, pressing our bodies together.
“Get off of me. I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but-”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m far too angry with you.” He grabb
ed my chin and I knocked his hand away, wiggling out of his grasp and darting around him.
“Don’t touch me. You want me to stop looking at you like you’re on the prowl to assault? Stop assaulting me!”
“I grabbed you! That’s not assault.”
“Yes it is!”
“Not here, it isn’t.”
“Still assault in my mind, which means I can look at you that way because my looks are based on my perceptions. Lawyered.” I shook my head. “We’re being childish.”
“Childish! Yes. Like going on television and spilling secrets that aren’t yours because you’re mad at someone. Let’s talk about the childishness of that little stunt.”
“It wasn’t a stunt!”
“Then what the fuck were you thinking? Because you still haven’t told me!”
“People have a right to know! You don’t get to decide what’s best for all of us. It’s our world, too. It’s been our world for the past five thousand years and we haven’t blown it up yet. We obviously aren’t as big of idiots as you think we are.”
It was a good thing we were just mind-speaking. If this had been out loud, we would’ve have an audience in ten seconds flat.
I stomped up to him, sticking my finger in his face. Apparently my hands were feeling braver with the anger pulsing through me. I definitely was.
“You don’t get to just decide things for us. You don’t get to withhold information because it would be inconvenient for you if we know.”
“We or you?”
“What?”
“You know exactly what. You’re mad because of the bonding. I get it. I should have told you. Newsflash, going on TV and telling the world the one thing we said you couldn’t, not the brightest way to get back at me.”
“I wasn’t trying to get back at you!”
“No? You jeopardized everything! Your life, our world, our mission. Do you have any idea what humans would do if that actually got out? Any?”
“I… People have a right to know!”
“No they don’t! People are stupid. A person can be told, one on one, with time to process it, with the caveat that the rest of the world doesn't know and they can't tell them. People panic. One voice in the mass shouts fire and they all stampede, killing countless numbers of their own kind. When all that person had to do was put out the fire and explain away the smoke.”
“People are stupid herd animals and you know it,” Apollo thought, obviously just getting started. “You saw what happened after we woke. We spent months after awakening laying the groundwork before announcing our arrival so people would take the news better.
“Letting people slowly notice their world had changed made it easier on them when we finally went public and explained why and just how much their world had changed. Even then, there was panic: riots that burned down entire neighborhoods, a spike in criminal activity, which you yourself said was due to the mob mentality. Wasn't that what you said in that paper? Magic, Crime, and the Mob Mentality, wasn’t it?”
I sighed. “I was saying during protests, people have a tendency to-”
“Crimes are mostly crimes of opportunity, right? When the rule of law is shattered, crime increases, not just because the bad people are out in force, which they are, but because average citizens, good people, get caught up in the mentality. They follow the crowd, all perpetuating the idea that these things are not crimes due to whatever circumstances created the crowd to begin with. Looting, physical attacks and arson become the norm, therefore, everyone does it. Good, average, everyday citizens burned homes, businesses, other human beings!
“Your words, Cassandra!”
I tossed my hands up.
“They were scared.” Apollo sounded a bit calmer. “That was it. And that was just because we told them their world had changed, so far without major disruptions to their lives except for some of them having extra abilities.
“Can you imagine what would happen if we told them their world could end? Even with the chaser of, ‘It won’t, we’re fixing it, don’t worry,’ they would still panic! And you know this. Crime spikes when society panics. So what the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then maybe, just maybe consider you did this for a reason you don’t want to admit to yourself. Maybe you did it to get back at not just me, but gods in general.
“If you can’t figure out in retrospect what you were thinking, maybe it’s because consciously you don’t want to admit to yourself that you were thinking revenge. You don’t get to yell fire in a crowded theater because you will incite a panic. And you do not get to yell Magic Armageddon on a crowded planet.”
“That rule only applies when you’re lying. You do get to yell fire if there is one.”
His mouth worked.
I smirked. “Yeah, that’s right. Don’t try to play with me on my turf.”
“Look around, little psychic. We’re on my turf.”
Apollo smiled, thin and nasty as he stepped towards me.
I turned tail and ran.
And slammed into hedges where the opening had been.
Apollo whirled me around and pressed me into the hedges, body to body, hands pinning mine. His eyes met mine with an intensity that made me lick my lips.
He kissed me, hard, urgent. Not at all the make-out session in the bathroom yesterday. More like yelling, just with lips. Well, yelling involves lips too, obviously.
I pushed him back and got away from the wall, circling him like we were in a fighter’s ring.
“I told you not to do that.”
“And I told you not to tell anyone.” His tone softened, and his eyes lost the sharpness that said he wanted to light me on fire. “You don’t get to know things that will get you killed. I’m saying it would be worse all around if they knew. Humans panic. As a group, they would panic. Maybe even turn against us.”
“I thought I was helping.” I tried to soften my mental tone. “You guys told me Ravena took out that building, injured dozens of people, because he was trying to get to me. And… it’s not fair! It’s not fair their lives are on the line because they live in this world and they aren’t even given the opportunity to help.”
He shrugged. “Not arguing with you. But what did you think would happen? Do you really think people could handle this? Are you that naïve?”
“Those sound like rhetorical questions.” I even sounded pouty in my head. “So, what do we do about your father?”
“Hide you until I can make sure he’s calmed down.”
I slouched against the hedges again and they cradled me like memory foam. I sighed, staring up at Apollo.
And jerked up. “Hey, my lungs don’t hurt anymore. How did you do that?”
“It’s Olympus. The magic here is pervasive and even mortal injuries are healed, remember the fight on the field?”
“Yeah. So, where are we hiding out? Are we staying here or what?”
“No, I think we’ll be safer at my place. My father already searched it, so.”
He shrugged and took my hands slowly, probably to keep me from thinking he was trying something, and popped us to someplace inside so easily it took a moment for my brain to register the difference in surroundings. Even the temperature changed from the brisk, light wind outside to a warm, next to a fire type glow.
The human body wasn’t meant to switch terrain so quickly. My eyes and stomach did their own little spaz dances for a moment and I had to yank my hands away to curl my arms around my middle.
“It’ll pass,” Apollo said. “I’m sorry. It gets easier to teleport, but I don’t think anyone ever gets used to it.”
I gave it another moment for the nausea to pass.
“Okay, I’m okay. I just… Hey, I can talk!”
I looked around. The living room we popped into was gorgeous but definitely part of a home.
A huge stone fireplace with real wood and a screen instead of glass blocking it in took up almost the entire wall. The fire crackled, casting a gl
ow and warmth to rival a day at the beach.
The couch and chairs around the fireplace were beautiful rose and gold overstuffed numbers that would’ve looked at home in a European palace if they didn’t have imprints and faded spots like people actually sat in them. The carpet underfoot was thick and looked Turkish.
Apollo took my hand and led me into the next room. A more casual one, definitely more modern in feel, with leather couches and a flat screen TV on a dark wood entertainment center with a stereo system I was betting would make any AV geek drool.
“Nice place,” I said. “What now?”
“We could continue our conversation,” Apollo said. “Although, I’m suddenly feeling a lot less angry with you.” He stepped closer, resting his other hand on my hip and staring into my eyes.
“I…” He licked his lips. “I’m trying to think of something more seductive than ‘I want to fuck you,’ but that’s all I’ve got.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks and my belly jerked. “Um…” I licked my lips too.
“Not exactly what I was expecting.”
I sprang away from Apollo like shrapnel.
Millie walked in from the sitting room with her arms crossed and her shoulders slouched, wings tucked tight to her back. She looked around with quick jerks of her eyes, face as pinched up as her body.
“It’s okay,” said a voice from behind her. Mira, Millie’s black Meowl landed on Millie’s wing shoulder. “Hey Cassandra. Can you pet her? She’s a little anxious. Could use a good roll too, but I don’t think either of you swing that way.”
Apollo made a sound like a choked laugh and when I glanced back he had a hand clasped over his mouth and was visibly shaking.
“Not necessary,” Millie said, but cracked a thin smile. “I have you to pet me, that's all I need.”
“You need a man if you ask me,” Mira said, way too saucy for a two year old.
“This is why nobody asks you.” Millie plucked Mira from her wing and cuddled her in her arms like a baby.
Mira sniffed, offended as only a cat can be, and launched out of Millie's arms, wings catching her halfway to the ground.
I held my arms out and she flew to me, landing on top of my breasts. “You're so big!” I gushed, switching her around so she was cradled in one arm and scratching her head.