Out of Practice Aphrodite (The Goddess Chronicles Book 1)

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Out of Practice Aphrodite (The Goddess Chronicles Book 1) Page 19

by S. E. Babin


  “You have a sword waiting for you, child. Come.” Lachesis took my hand and led me over to the middle of the floor. She nudged a rug out of the way revealing arcane symbols covering most of the area. She pulled me toward the middle and told me to stand inside an elaborately drawn triangle.

  I stood there without a word, but my insides were tangled with nervousness.

  Lachesis pulled a necklace from her pocket, a simple silver chain with a rainbow moonstone hanging from it. I could feel the magic pulsing from it and I watched entranced as the stone spun and reflected blue and green light from within. “Take this,” she said and slipped it over my neck. “It will allow you to call us when you have great need.” At these words she looked at me sternly. “Great need, Abby. We don’t deliver pizza or find lost cats. Got it?”

  I snorted. She knew me too well, although even I wasn’t dumb enough to call on the Fates for less than a life or death emergency. “Got it,” I said.

  “Good. Now there’s one more matter we need to attend to before you’re off. Atropos?” Lachesis turned toward her sister and nodded.

  Atropos smiled that creepy smile and closed her eyes, her mouth moving in a language I couldn’t decipher. A startled yelp rang out through the cavern and I turned to see Keto and Artie lying in a tangled heap of limbs. I shouted with delight and ran toward them with my arms outstretched.

  “It’s a good thing we didn’t activate the portal,” Clotho mumbled. “I knew she wouldn’t stay in one place.”

  I ignored her and rushed over to my dear friends. Both wore a shell-shocked look and stared at me in confusion. Artie was the first one to get up and as she looked around, her face pale. She knew exactly where we were and judging from her pallor, she wasn’t happy about it. Keto stood and bowed to Atropos.

  “Lady,” he said and turned to Lachesis and Clotho. “Sisters.”

  Interesting, I thought. He never spoke to me with that level of respect. What was their relationship? If we made it out of this alive, Keto had lots of ‘splaining to do. Artie followed Keto’s lead and bowed deeply to the sisters. But where was Hermes?

  Clotho answered my thought. “He has been called home by Zeus.”

  Hmm. Right around the time we needed him most Daddy called him home? Keto caught my eye and gave me a sharp shake of his head as if to say don’t bring this up now. I wouldn’t, but there would be a reckoning later.

  Lachesis smiled warmly at Keto. “Welcome home, brother. Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, welcome to our home.”

  Artie’s smile looked more like a grimace as she stumbled over her words. She was under the same impression I had been of the Fates. Odds were good she was wondering why I was still alive and what horrible demise these three deceptively pretty women had in store for her. I tried to offer her a reassuring smile, but her brow crinkled and the confused look stayed on her face. I’d explain it to her later once my surprise wore off.

  “So,” I said, “Who’s ready to go kill some harpies?”

  I was met with silent blinks.

  “Perhaps someone needs to catch us up.” Artie frowned as she looked at us, no doubt wondering what kind of trouble I had managed to get myself into in the short time I had been gone.

  An innocent smile spread across my face. “Before we do that,” I said, “look.” I spread my hands wide, sending golden sparkles throughout the room.

  Keto snorted. “You look like Tinker Bell.”

  Not the look I was going for, but I’d take it. “My magic is back.”

  “No kidding,” Artie said, but softened her sarcasm with a small smile. “And then some,” she said as she watched me try to shake out the rest of the sparkles flowing from my fingertips.

  Clotho cleared her throat. “It might be some time before that effect wears off, Abby. You might need to hole up somewhere until you don’t look like a freak.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I was grateful, although I could have done without the Disney effects. At least my magic was back. I caught my two buds up on the most recent developments. Keto was the only one who didn’t look like he was on board.

  “Keto? Everything okay?” He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, then steepled his hands and leaned forward. “Why are we still worrying about Ares?” he asked.

  Atropos stepped in. “Because he is one of your biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to defeating Eris. You may not need him on your side, but you do need him out of the way.”

  Keto’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Ah. Bribery. I like the way you think, Atropos.”

  She demurred, a strange action for someone that powerful. “Of course, bribery. You didn’t think you could politely ask him to step out of the way did you?”

  “A girl can always dream,” Artie said.

  Lachesis clapped her hands, the noise like a gunshot throughout the room. “Enough idle chatter. Our job here is finished. We’ve given you everything we can give, Abby. It’s up to you and your friends now to see this through.”

  “Here we go again,” I said. I took Artie by the hand and led her over to the triangle area on the floor. Keto followed, his footsteps cautious. When we all stood inside, the Fates joined hands and walked toward us, raising their arms as they walked closer. A shimmering wall of light rose in front of us, iridescent and flowing like water.

  It was beautiful and powerful. “Don’t stick your fingers in it, Artie,” I warned and an elbow in the ribs told me she heard me. Artie had major attention problems. If anything was shiny, she’d veer off whatever path we were on to touch it.

  The vision of the Fates started to fade as we began our journey to retrieve the sword. “Farewell, Aphrodite. Good luck.” The words drifted on the wind as the portal swooped us through the Shadows to our destination.

  I didn’t feel like my body was split in half this time, but the portal did drop us unceremoniously out of the sky. I landed on my rear-end with a hard thud. I’d be sporting a few bruises in the morning. Once I got up and dusted myself off the sound of muttered curse words led me straight to Keto and Artie.

  I stared in awe at my surroundings. I’d seen amazing things in my lifetime, almost to the point where I was jaded about beauty. But this nest was gorgeous. And gorgeous was not a word I often associated with anything involving harpies. With the face of a woman and the curvy body of poultry, harpies were synonymous with death. And they had major kleptomania which explained why the sword was hidden in their nest. I didn’t quite believe Eris had hidden it there so much as I believed the harpies had taken it from her.

  We were treading on dangerous ground and we all knew it. Not only were the harpies deadly, their song induced a trance-like effect on those who heard it, luring them to certain death. Some were resistant to the song – most Olympians were not.

  Artemis, however, looked like a kid in a candy store. Her eyes were bright and she turned toward me with a wide shit-eating grin.

  “Abby. Harpies? This is awesome.” She fist pumped and turned to Keto. Her smile drooped, fell, and she slowly lowered her arm.

  “Keto?”

  “Artie, you think harpies are awesome?” The sneer forming on his mouth was a gesture unlike any I had seen on him before. I didn’t like it.

  And neither did Artie. “Yep, sure do,” she said and put her hands on her hips. She glared at him, daring him to say anything else to her.

  “Why have you been acting so high and mighty?” she asked. “Ever since we started this venture you’ve had something negative to say.” Keto opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

  “No. Keto I really like you, but I think after this you and I need to have a nice long discussion. You know Abby and me better than anyone else. I’m not sure where this Judgy McJudger attitude is coming from.”

  I snorted and tried to cover it up with a cough, but Keto turned those inhuman yellow eyes on me. Anger burned in his gaze and something else, something I was scared to define. I turned away and heard the shuddering breath he drew as he struggled to compose himself
. Eris’ effects were either still working on him, or Keto had been suffering in silence with his anger for a long time. Artie leaned in and squeezed my shoulder.

  “We can just leave him here if you’d like.” Anger burned in her gaze. Any love she had felt for him had been consumed and I felt responsible.

  “Artie, you don’t have to come. Maybe you and Keto should go back and try to repair this.”

  She snorted and shrugged her shoulders. “That’s the good thing about being a goddess, Abby. We have an endless pool of men to choose from.”

  Her response was flippant and casual. The hitch in her voice betrayed how much she cared for him. We both turned. Keto stood there, hands in his pockets, his posture dejected. I extricated myself from Artie and shoved her toward him.

  “Go,” I said quietly. “I can take care of this.”

  Artie said nothing, but didn’t move to take my arm back. I left them standing there, both involved in a silent internal battle. How it would end I didn’t know. I knew I wanted the two people I loved most in the world to have some sort of final resolution.

  As I walked closer to the nest I studied it, looking for any signs of weakness and a spot where I could sneak in without alerting them to my presence. The nest, made out of granite and quartz, spiraled into the sky. Jagged crystalline pieces jutted from it, giving a deceptively peaceful look to this deadly place. Magic pulsed from the rocks, leading me to believe this place was concealed from mortal eyes.

  As always, I had no plan and now, looking back at my two friends still standing there staring at each other, no backup. I squared my shoulders, removed anything else but the goal at hand from my mind, and stalked toward the Harpy nest trying to come up with a plan before I reached it.

  All I needed to do was get in and get the sword. Sounded easy enough – if I were Superman. Not discounting the fact that I was a goddess, but Superman could get tossed into an exploding train and he’d survive. Me? My odds were higher after getting my powers back, but Harpies weren’t something a smart or sane person messed with.

  And yet, here I was, apparently neither smart nor sane, about to pick up a stick and wake a sleeping bear. As I moved closer, the faint sounds of singing tickled my ears. Great, I thought. Where were earplugs when you needed them?

  I cast a cloaking veil over myself – again grateful for the power boost I had received from the Fates – and skulked forward until I made it to the front entrance. It seemed like suicide to go right in, but I couldn’t see another point of entry anywhere in the nest. I tiptoed forward taking shallow breaths and hoping I’d come out of this alive. Reverting back to the old days of being massaged and fed grapes was sounding pretty good right now.

  I avoided the gravel surrounding the area as much as I could to keep the noise down. Harpies’ hearing was sharp and even a slight crack of a branch or crunch on the gravel would send them out to investigate. I peeked inside the entrance and saw nothing but rock. Seemed innocent enough but I hadn’t survived this long by being foolhardy – in most things, anyway. I stood there for a few moments, cloaked from sight, waiting for any movement. Not hearing or seeing anything I continued into the nest, but not before I stole a glance back toward Artie and Keto selfishly hoping they’d put aside their argument for a little while to help me get this sword.

  No such luck. They stood a little closer together but didn’t seem to be any closer to solving their argument than they had a few moments ago. Wonderful. My mouth twisted, but I had to smile. How much of a pain in the ass were men? Those two were standing outside of a danger zone arguing and I was inside of a harpy nest trying to get a sword back to bribe my ex-boyfriend with. Sounded about right.

  A rasping voice calling my name snapped me out of my thoughts and back into survival mode.

  “Aphrodite, Queen of the seas. Come.” I whipped my head around searching for the source of the voice but couldn’t find it. Desperate, I looked up and saw a harpy perched on a rock about ten feet above me. My heart leapt and I froze in place. Never in my life had I seen a harpy up close. Of course, there were lots of reasons for it – namely that I valued my skin and my life. Seeing one this close had my life flashing before my eyes. It stood above me motionless, its human head tilted to the right peering at me with cold black eyes.

  I stood motionless studying it, hoping against all hope I’d live to tell this tale one day. Matted dirty gray and brown feathers covered its massive body. Sickly blue feet poked out from underneath its bottom. I stared in sick fascination, wondering if the rusty brown substance covering them was blood. Guess I’d find out soon enough if the harpy wasn’t in a charitable mood.

  The most uniquely freakish thing about the bird was its face. In spite of the ugliness of its body, the face was humanoid and oddly beautiful. Wide set eyes rested above high cheekbones – eyes that showed too much intelligence for me to feel comfortable about my odds of escaping unscathed. Its wavy black hair cascaded down past the rock ledge it was currently sitting on and I hoped maybe I’d get lucky and it would get tangled in all that hair when it tried to fly off the ledge and eat me.

  “Why are you here?” the harpy asked, its head still motionless in that creepy owlish tilt. Since the bird could see me I threw off the cloaking veil and stood before it, frustrated it could see through the magic.

  This entire thing was surreal. “I – umm – I’m here to retrieve something that belongs to the God of War.”

  “And why is the God of War not retrieving it himself?”

  Intellect. I had to add sharp intellect to this bird’s list of redeeming qualities. Let’s hope it scored some more in that particular category.

  “He doesn’t know I’m here,” I said.

  “Ah,” said the harpy, drawing out each syllable longer than necessary. “So you hope to steal it for him? Why would you do something like that, Queen?”

  I wasn’t sure where all the queen talk was coming from, but it was giving me hope that maybe they didn’t eat royals.

  “We hope to convince him to keep off of our backs while we stop someone important to him.”

  “Eris,” the bird hissed, the word drawn out like a snake sound.

  I nodded. “She has a treasure of Zeus’.”

  “We are under her control, Queen, and cannot assist you.”

  I hadn’t asked for their assistance, but knowing they could offer it was a tidbit I tucked away for the future. But something the harpy had said gave me pause.

  “Under her control?” I asked as an apprehensive feeling began to snake through my belly.

  “Yes,” it said. “Your presence requires us to call on Eris. Unfortunately we aren’t allowed to eat you.” The harpy lifted one of its blue feet in the air, showing off huge talons.

  Wow. Okay. Guess which of the responses was winning – fight or flight?

  “Have you called her yet?”

  The harpy grinned, showing off a mouthful of razor sharp canines. “Not yet, Queen. We call no one our mistress. We might be under her control and forced to obey her demands, but Eris was a little careless with this one. She didn’t tell us when we had to call her once you showed up.”

  I grinned and wanted to coo, “Now there’s a smart harpy,” but I feared she’d eat my face off.

  “We don’t have the sword you seek.”

  My stomach plummeted and a feeling of foreboding stole over me. “Well, where is it?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  “Not here,” the harpy answered again. “But what you seek and what you need to seek might be two different things,” the bird said cryptically.

  Another thing I loved about magical beings – vagueness. “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said and waited for it to elaborate.

  “Enter the nest and find what you don’t know you’re seeking. But beware I cannot hold off Eris’ compulsion for too much longer. I will be forced to contact her soon.”

  I hoped soon was more like an hour or two, but knew I couldn’t be that lucky.

  I d
ecided to push my luck in another way. “Why aren’t you allowed to eat me? I asked. I figured the answer would be something along the lines of my powers were needed to take over the world or something equally fabulous. Instead, the harpy raised the ick factor to the extreme.

  “Don’t despair, Aphrodite. Eris claims the right to crunch your bones. I’ve no doubt you’d taste deliciously of the brine and sea.”

  Eww. I raised my hand in farewell to the harpy, who only tilted its head to the other side and continued to stare at me. I made sure I was out of hearing distance before I muttered, “And I bet you’d taste like chicken, you creepy bastard.”

  There was enough light to see by inside, but I still tread carefully, hoping to stay as quiet as possible until I was forced to reveal my presence. The harpy outside knew I was there, but I didn’t want to run into any others, especially if they were lacking some kind of mental harpy telepathy. The air inside of the nest was markedly cooler than outside. Maybe that was to keep the meat from their hapless victims fresh. I shuddered.

  It was quiet in here. Too quiet for a nest of shrieking bird women. I stopped, my eyebrows raised as I again took in my surroundings. It seemed like a cave, but even a cave had sounds of critters skittering around. No such luck in here, making the lack of noise all the more suspicious. It appeared my paranoia was finally getting the best of me. I shook off my uneasiness and continued creeping forward until I happened upon a cavernous room.

  My first thought was how civilized it looked to be lived in by carnivorous creatures. My second thought turned to horror as I looked up toward the ceiling and saw the hundreds of cages hanging in the air, complete with their own starving humans. I couldn’t stop the gasp of shock as I stared in silence at the carnage and quickly tore my eyes away before I lost my lunch.

  If I didn’t look up, the room seemed like it could have been in any magazine – something that made this entire situation even stranger. Plush sofas were placed in a circle around the room and it was decorated in soothing tones of blues and greens. Art depicting scenes of nature were hung neatly along the walls and a fire burned cheerily in the hearth.

 

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