by Amie Gibbons
Artemis turned back, mouth open, and Hades looked almost as surprised.
Millie pointed at the ground next to Apollo and Artemis actually walked back over.
Millie on the ground and pointing like that looked like a small child telling her parents where to sit and I refocused on Apollo to keep myself from laughing when Artemis sat down. This wasn’t the time for laughter.
“Has he ever been like this before?” I asked her like he was the small child now, stroking his hair, slower this time.
The curls were as soft and buttery as they looked and I dug my fingers in, letting the curls spring back out of them. Apollo snuggled closer.
“Once,” Artemis clipped off, face as sour as her voice when I looked up.
“What did you do then?”
“The same thing you’re doing now.” She reached out and rested a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “And then I helped him take away his memories.”
“Do you know what he wanted erased?”
“I have a guess, but he never told me.”
“You’re guessing it was her? That Cassandra? Something to do with her?”
“Yes.”
“What could be worse than her betraying you all? I mean, he remembered that.”
“I don’t know.”
Can you say master of the monosyllable? “Is that why you hate me? Because of her? I’m not her.”
“No, you’re not. But you’re just as bad for him as she was.”
“Please stop talking about me like I’m a child or a crazy person,” Apollo said.
“He speaks,” I said.
“I’m not catatonic. I want to be, but I’m not.” He eased up. “You saw that,” he said to me. “Do you know what you saw?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t make sense of it.”
“Good.”
“Wait, what-”
“I can’t believe you yelled at my sister,” he said to Millie. “You’re so shy.”
“Apollo?”
“Don’t want to talk about it.”
Oooooookay.
“What? No I’m not,” Millie said.
“You’re not?” Hades said. “You seem pretty shy.”
“I’m socially awkward and definitely an introvert. But that’s not the same as being shy. I’m not shy. I like being the center of attention, as long as I have something to say or am performing.”
“Performing?” Apollo asked, voice shaky. His tanned face was pale and pasty and his eyes didn’t have their little boy sparkle.
“Singing, dancing, reading to a bunch of kids, doing a presentation. You really thought I was shy?”
“Yeah. You sing?”
She nodded. “Do you want to sing? I feel better when I sing.”
“Singing sounds good. You start.”
“Do you know any Christmas songs?”
Apollo made a face. “Not Christian. You do know that, right? We predate Christianity by about three thousand years.”
She shrugged. “I’m agnostic, I still like Christmas.”
“You’ll have to teach me the song.”
Millie nodded and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and putting a finger in one ear.
She wasn’t a great singer, couldn’t always tell when she was on key, but she had a pretty voice and could belt it out despite her bad lungs. Years of yelling over her big sisters, she claimed.
Millie started singing We Need a Little Christmas, making heads turn.
I smiled. Good song choice. Not religious, but then again, we were surrounded by the definition of the violation of the first commandment so they probably wouldn’t have appreciated anything more Jesus and less Santa.
Tyler uncurled as Millie’s voice picked up and she sat up stretching. Tyler liked it when Millie sang because you got to see more Millie then.
“Does your phone get internet here?” I asked Apollo. He nodded and handed it over, watching Millie with a little smile.
I pulled up Youtube and found a playlist of cheery, upbeat Christmas music with lyrics, starting with that song.
“Millie,” I said, cutting her off mid-verse and hitting play.
Millie bobbed her head, took a deep breath and started over with the song and me accompanying her. I handed the phone to Apollo so he could read the lyrics and join in if he wanted to.
He gave it the first verse, nodding his head to the rhythm, and jumped in on the second, singing with a clear, strong voice that made me want to stop singing for fear of drowning it out with my terrible voice.
Hades grabbed Artemis’s hand and spun her around and into his arms for what looked like a fast waltz. She stumbled, trying to keep up with him and following lead about as well as I would.
Apollo laughed as his sister stepped on their uncle’s foot and Millie and I shared a smile. Mission accomplished.
I hit pause on the playlist once the song ended. We had quite an audience now.
“Can you do something pop?” someone called, kicking off a wave of voices.
“Or country? You’re Apollo’s Nashville girls, right?”
Okay, apparently we were tonight’s entertainment. We weren’t the only ones climbing the metaphorical walls here. Gods probably weren’t used to being bored.
Millie clapped her hands and laughed. “I can do some pretty good country pop!”
“Can you make a song for me?”
“We should get those TV Nashville people to write songs about us!”
“Give them time, we’ve only been around two years!”
“Apollo, sing with the little one!”
“Or let me have a go on her.”
“No, me first! I don’t want her after him. Who knows what he’ll do to her.”
Millie’s smile disappeared and her eyes flew wide.
Uh-oh, I climbed to my feet.
She held up her hands, backpedaling a few feet as her wings popped out. “There will be no having. And I don’t find rape jokes fucking funny!”
Artemis pulled out her bow, stepping up to Millie’s side, taking a protective stance so fast my opinion of her shot up about ten points. If Millie had been overreacting, she wasn’t the only one.
Maybe there was more to the yelled out catcalls than just some stupid guys.
The cheery voices dropped away, leaving the crowd that had been inching up and joking suddenly a dark mass of powerful beings.
Worse, a mass of powerful, bored and arrogant beings who were just told they couldn’t have something.
Humans didn’t like being told they couldn’t have something. It made them want it more. Why did I have a feeling gods were even worse?
Tyler had moved with no sound in front of Millie, so fast it seemed like magic.
Whatever had been keeping us tied broke off like she did nothing more than cut a thread. Seemed to take her about as much effort too.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Artemis’s head snapped around and she looked at Tyler like she had never seen her before.
“Tyler, no,” Millie said, inching up to our friend, like she was scared to get close. “I’m sure I was overreacting. It’s not worth it. Stop it.”
Tyler wasn’t doing anything I could actually see.
I focused on her. Whatever Apollo had done to suck out our powers didn’t take all of it because she was lit up like a Vegas sign to my psychic vision, all dark purple tinted with red… kind of like the color of the tip of a hard penis.
She focused on the nearest gods and the power flowed out of her, natural as a tide going out; the purple a stained water smelling of musty perfume tinted with salt and sex.
The nearest gods backed away like they could see it, too. Maybe they could. Maybe they could just sense it. Whatever it was, it scared them enough to make them back off.
Which scared the hell out of me.
“What’s she doing?” I asked Apollo.
“Blowing her secret,” he said, meeting my eyes over Millie’s head. “She’s going to need to join Ravena after this just
to protect herself. I would’ve protected you girls! What do we do now?”
“Apollo, shut up.” Wheels turned in my head, like a clock starting to work after being hit in just the right place to knock off the dust.
He looked from me to Tyler to the cluster of gods nearest to us, and the line after them that were turning to see what was going on.
“Oh, oh. I have an idea.” I paused, fingers moving with my brain. “I think… yeah, yeah, there’s definitely an idea here.”
“Is it a good one?”
“No. Bad, very bad. It’s all I’ve got though.”
“Tyler,” I said out loud. “You almost done there?”
“Not if they keep backing away,” she said, voice low and sultry, like a Dominatrix promising pain men would beg for.
“Yeah, let’s save some for later. Run!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We hauled ass up the slope, me tapping my speed, Millie flying, Tyler somehow keeping up. Whatever she was, it was powerful in more ways than one.
We cleared the top of the hill and picked up speed, running faster than the ten meter dash winner at the Olympics ever could hope to move without magic.
What’s going to happen to sports now that there’s magic in the mix?
Sooooo not the time to worry about stuff like that.
We hit the path near Hades’ rose garden and Tyler took the lead, racing us back towards the door we came through.
Someone popped in front of us, cutting us off at the path.
I barely caught sight of his black hair and almost as dark eyes before he dropped, clutching at his groin and moaning. I blinked and realized Tyler was next to me, pulling back from nut-punching the guy.
She grinned and fled, I followed. Millie barely kept up, her wings giving her an advantage over humans but not us.
If there was ever a question about Tyler or me being human, it was answered now.
We hit the door and flew out, if not literally then pretty damn close, Millie swooped in behind us and I shoved the door closed, pushing a chair up against it.
“Yeah, like that’s going to hold them off,” Tyler said.
Millie lay on the carpeted hallway, clutching her sides and wheezing. She wasn’t built for moving that fast, despite her wings. Her lungs couldn’t take it without an inhaler.
Tyler picked her up, tossing her over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and ran down the hall, her shoes forgotten in the hallway like a supernatural Cinderella. She ran, Millie’s weight slowing her down a little but still nothing compared to what a normal human would be feeling.
Maybe she wasn’t just an abnormal human. Maybe she was one of the gods? Maybe she had been in hiding or something for five thousand years and they didn’t know til now?
Who else could have cowed them so easily? Not me, and I was supposedly amongst their ranks. It would sure as hell explain a lot.
Millie’s wings sunk into her back as we barreled down the stairs so they weren’t hindering Tyler and Tyler picked up speed again. I had to pull out what was left of my speed to keep up with her.
I didn’t know where we were going. I just followed Tyler into the Nashville night and blew out of the theater on her heels, hoping she had a place to hide. Because until I could implement my plan, we were going to need a place to hide out.
And where could you hide from gods?
“Where we going?” I asked.
“No idea.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Potion,” Millie said, arching up so Tyler was carrying her like a statue. She pulled something out of her jacket pocket. “Hides a magical signature.”
We stopped running. “What?” I asked.
She shrugged as Tyler put her down, holding up a minibar sized glass bottle with a clear liquid in it.
“Seemed like a good idea to have a few things for defense, just in case. Just sprinkle a few drops on. It will keep them from tracking us... at least magically.”
She opened it and tossed it at Tyler’s face, splashing a bit on her. She jerked it at my face before I could re-aim her and it got me right in the eyes. I blinked it away just like it was water in time to see her dump a thumbful on her head.
I looked around. I didn’t feel any different.
“Try to see us with your powers,” Millie said.
I squinted, focusing on Millie. Nothing.
“Wow.” I focused on her harder, straining my eyes and brain. Still nothing. “Either I’m tapped or that actually works.”
“Of course it works.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “But now what do we do? They can still come after us normal ways, stake out our homes or go after our people.”
“I have an idea.”
I looked around. We somehow ended up on the bottom of Broadway in our mad dash, the bright lights of tourist central blazing and the street crowded even though it was a Tuesday. Music from the bars spilled out, the closest one blasting some stupid rock stuff that sounded like it was mixed by a high DJ.
“Yeah?” Tyler asked.
“Where’s that bug?” I said.
She reached into her cleavage and pulled out the little black electronic that looked like a tiny speaker. She handed it to me and I stared at it in my palm. Black, circular, giving off a slight buzz. Perfectly mundane.
“We make a deal,” I said, lifting the bug to my mouth. “Ravena, I’m assuming this was planted by you. We’re ready to hop on the anti-gods train. You didn’t kill anyone in that explosion and I get why you did it. We want to join you. But we’ve got some conditions.”
I told him where and when to meet us then dropped the bug on the ground. I squashed it with a satisfying cerrrr-pop and walked away, my girls behind me.
# # #
“Do you think he’ll show?” Tyler asked, cradling her Manhattan in one long hand. I sipped my glass of scotch. I didn’t drink often because of my past problems, but tonight?
Tonight was a good time for a drink.
“He has to,” I said as she took a drink.
Millie looked around the restaurant yet again, holding her jacket closer to her. Mira was perched next to her on the table, taking delicate cat licks of Millie’s drunken root beer float.
“Stop that,” Millie said, taking the tankard away from the furball. “You’re under age.”
“Begging the question of what is legal age when you’re a magical being,” Mira said, sticking her tongue out at Millie and launching herself off the table, landing on the tankard with the grace of, well, a drunken cat.
“Yeah, you’re done.” I grabbed Mira, settling her in my lap. She turned a few circles before settling down and promptly started snoring.
“Wow,” Millie said. “You don’t think she’s going to be sick, do you?”
“I don’t think a cat’s liver can handle alcohol.”
“She’s magical and she’s stolen sips of my drinks before, she’ll be fine,” Tyler said, sitting up straight. “Incoming.”
I turned just in time to see Ravena clear the door. We picked Turner’s because the Italian restaurant was close enough to campus to have a good solid crowd at dinner time, and a circular bar area where we could sit in the corner and see anyone coming from three sides.
Ravena looked around and pulled out a cell phone. He scanned the bar. I could tell when he saw us because he focused in and walked towards us with a missile's attention.
“Ladies,” Ravena said when he reached us, sliding his coat off his shoulders and placing it on the back of his chair before sliding into the last seat at our little table, apparently not minding having his back to the room.
Confident or cocky?
“You say you want to make a deal, though you were so adamantly against it before. I have a hard time believing you,” Ravena said.
“But you’re here,” I said.
“Out of curiosity more than anything else, I can assure you.”
“So you don’t want us on your team?” Tyler said, the disbelief obvious.
“
I didn’t say that. I said I don’t believe you.”
“We know you heard what happened in Olympus,” I said. “And, as I’m sure you could also tell by the countless other bugs you probably planted there, we didn’t tell them about the bugs. You can still hear them, right?”
Ravena said nothing and I took that as a yes.
“So,” I said, “you know why we don’t trust them now any more than we trust you. You’re just a lesser threat at the moment.”
“These conditions you mentioned, what are they?”
I looked at Tyler and she nodded. Okay, we were doing this.
“No harm comes to us three or anyone even closely tied to us.”
“You know I can’t guarantee that. This is a war, and the coming battle…” He shook his head.
“Just don’t hurt us yourselves. Nothing after the alignment. No going after us or them to get to us. We get people could get hurt in the alignment, we just don’t want them being attacked by you and yours.”
“Deal.”
“Okay, next up, you leave Apollo alone. Whatever you have planned, leave him out of it.”
He furrowed his brow. “He enslaved you. He lied to you.”
“My motives aren’t your problem. Just leave him alone.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s psychic, meaning he’s a danger on their side.”
I filed that away and narrowed my eyes. “What does being psychic have to do with anything?”
Ravena looked at me, long and hard, without actually looking me in the eyes. “I think this meeting is over.”
He stood, reaching for his coat.
Tyler was faster. She was up and on the other side of his chair before he got a hand solidly on the fabric.
“You want to stay and talk to us,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I have the answer to the question that’s been eating all of your godly asses since the day you woke up.”
“And what question would that be?”
“Why there’s more magic now than when you guys went to sleep.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
What!
I pressed my lips together, trying to keep the shock locked in.