Squad Goals

by Kate Karyus Quinn

  It’s not Merilee who answers, though, it’s Themis. Themis is the Greek goddess of justice. She was the second in command at MOA; now she mostly just hangs out there, helps Merilee, and sulks.

  Oh...also she was my adoptive mom for a while. Again, long story.

  “Themis, it’s Mavis…” I pause. Yep, totally awkward, she’s definitely not over the fact that her Academy was blown to bits because of some things I was peripherally involved in. Okay, maybe a lot involved in. “I was looking for Cassie…”

  “Cassie hasn’t been around here in a while. UWR keeps her busy.” She says busy like there are finger quotes around the word. My sister isn’t the only one with some sass. Themis thought Underworld Academy was a joke when it was still a school. Now that it’s a prison, she has even less use for it.

  “How have you been, Mavis?”

  “Fine,” I say tightly. I don’t want to get into the nightmares or the panic attacks.

  “Mmhm,” she says in this knowing way. “Have those tablets I gave you helped any?”

  A few months back, I went to MOA hoping to banish some old demons. Instead I had one of my worst panic attacks ever. Themis found me. Once I got myself under control again, she gave me the pills that I carry around in my bra now. She said to think of it the same way I would a hangover cure. A ‘hair of the dog’ type thing.

  “Yeah,” I say after a long pause. “They’re helping.”

  “That’s good at least. This world has become so unbalanced.”

  “Believe me, I know,” I tell her. “I see it every day.”

  “I told your sister not to kill Zeus,” she says tightly. “I warned her what would happen. And now his powers are split into three people.”

  The Triumvirate. Zahara the harpy, a stuffy fae aristocrat, and a Wisconsin beauty queen. Yep, you guessed it. That’s another long story.

  “This Triumvirate nonsense is not working,” Themis is saying. “The Underworld Reformatory is not working. None of it is right.”

  It’s not that I disagree with her. Everything is a mess. And I’m not the Triumvirate’s biggest fan. But I also know that this is Themis’ favorite topic and if I give her a chance she will go on and on and on and on.

  “Look, I gotta go…” I say.

  “Mavis, just...stay safe,” Themis tells me.

  “I’ll try,” I promise her.

  I grab my bag and start to head out the door when I catch sight of myself in my office mirror. I’m wearing the head-to-toe skintight suit that I always wear to work. It’s lightweight, breathable, and bulletproof.

  It’s also magical.

  I close my eyes and think of what a young professional would wear. Fern taught me a spell last year to change your clothes in a jiffy if you need to. I look pretty good at the moment. Black pencil skirt, white blouse. My bag becomes a purse, pink for that splash of color. A pair of high-heeled sandals complete the look. I’m ready.

  The only piece that doesn’t fit is the neon bracelet on my wrist. But I’ll remove that once I’m above ground again. This bracelet is what allows someone living—like me—to be in the Underworld without giving up my life. I never snap it on without feeling like it’s a shackle. And I never take it off without giving a little sigh of relief.

  On my way out I check in with Greg and tell him Cassie’s not with her mom, but I couldn’t reach Edie either so that looks promising.

  “You know how the two of them are when they’re together,” I say with a laugh. “I’ll call her again after I do this thing I’ve gotta do.”

  Greg eyes me and my get up. “Are you going to a job interview? Are you leaving UWR?” he asks, unable to hide the obvious desperation behind the question.

  Guilt digs into me.

  Unlike me, Greg doesn’t wear a bracelet; he’s a part of the Underworld. He can’t leave. I know he’s constantly worried that Cassie and the rest of his friends will forget about him down here and leave him behind.

  They would never, but I get that all fears aren’t rational.

  I force myself to bark out a laugh and sidestep the question. “No. I’m going to the one place that is worse than being in actual hell.”

  “Where’s that?” he asks.

  “A baby shower,” I say. And with that, I’m gone.

  3

  I stare down at the baby diaper with a big glop of brown chunky goo at its center.

  “Smell it!” The woman to my left encourages, drunkenly elbowing my kidney.

  Gamely, I bring it closer...and sniff.

  “Baby Ruth,” I announce, certain that I’m right.

  “You got it!” My best friend from high school screeches in an over-excited way that makes me wonder if she’s also been hitting up the baby bath mystery punch bowl. But no, of course not. She’s the mother-to-be, constantly rubbing her extended belly like she’s trying to coax a genie out of her hoo-hoo.

  She pushes her way through the women crowded into her living room and pulls me up into a big hug. “I am just so happy you could come, Mavis!”

  This is the third time she’s told me this; each time I’m slightly less thankful, myself.

  It doesn’t help that every time she tells me how happy she is to see me, Mallory adds, “I mean, it’s like you came back from the dead!”

  I have to resist telling her that is exactly what happened. I don’t because, well, frankly the truth would blow their little minds. My old high school crew has no idea who I really am. Back when we were all friends in our trashy little Florida high school, I barely knew what I was. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I went to Mount Olympus Academy for my second education. The most important one. There I learned to shift and spy and...die.

  When I left Florida, I never looked back. Not that high school was miserable or anything. I was an athlete. Basketball. Soccer. Field hockey. Give me a ball and a goal—I could get it there. I was so popular. Making people like me came naturally.

  Now though, my smiles that once came easily are strained. I don’t have a lot of patience for idiots and almost everyone seems like an idiot these days.

  Idiots or not, though, I have to find a way to fit in with them. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working at Underworld Reformatory. I don’t want to be alive but living with the dead. I don’t want to be constantly worried about the next panic attack.

  Knowing what I don’t want isn’t the same as knowing what I do want.

  When I got the invitation to Mallory’s baby shower (she married her high school sweetheart and waited all of three years before popping her first baby out) I decided to see what my old classmates were up to.

  I was looking for inspiration.

  Instead I found just another version of a life I can’t imagine for myself.

  Sure, on the surface Mallory has it all. She’s a successful mommy-to-be blogger. Her husband, Ricky, has a good job at his HVAC company. The two of them live in a big house that once would’ve been inland, but has become oceanfront after a series of natural disasters a few years back.

  She seems happy. Like at twenty-two she’s already conquered the game of life.

  I can almost imagine myself in her shoes. Almost convince myself I want the same thing. But as the staff she hired for the party starts to bring the finger sandwiches out, Mallory reminds me why our life goals are so incompatible.

  “Thank you,” she coos to the girl who sets a tower of blue iced cupcakes at the center of the table. Mallory turns her attention back to her guests and in a low voice assures us, “Ladies, I know having strangers in your house is scary in these awful times. But please know I would never do anything to endanger my guests or the life of my unborn child.”

  She hugs her belly with both arms and I barely resist rolling my eyes. “There’s new one-day DNA tests you can have employees take that will detect any unusual ancestry.” Mallory giggles. “Although, it can be awkward if the person you’re testing doesn’t know about it themselves. I felt terrible when I had to dismiss a girl because of h
er witch blood. The poor thing had no idea.”

  “So she says,” snipes one of Mallory’s friends.

  Mallory frowns. “It’s true. The non-humans do seem to be natural liars. But this girl did seem upset. She begged me to give her the job. Told me this whole ‘my family is dead’ sob story. I felt for her, of course I did. But I couldn’t risk having her in my household, contaminating it.”

  My hands clench and I hide them in my lap, hoping no one notices. Or maybe I hope they do. I’m not sure what the point is of sitting here listening to this crap. But for some reason, I feel weirdly embarrassed, like maybe the fact that I am a shifter is something to be ashamed of. Still, I’d love to dig my cat-claws into Mallory’s face, shift back into human form and tell her the baby will be born with cat scratch fever now, and then run into the kitchen, spraying urine over all the hors d’oeuvres before making my exit.

  Mallory’s extra-hateful friend, Greta, flicks a long chunk of hair over her shoulder, hitting me in the face. “This is why the Humans First rally is so important. I don’t care what that Triumvirate of gods says about them keeping the bad ones locked up—I say they’re all bad ones.”

  Around me women nod their heads and murmur their agreement.

  “The what rally?” I ask, then immediately wish I hadn’t.

  “Humans First,” Greta says, spinning back to me. “Haven’t you heard of the movement?”

  I shove a finger sandwich in my mouth and bite down. Hard.

  “Everyone is going to the rally,” Mallory informs me. “I mean, I’m not. I couldn’t put my precious baby somewhere that could be a target for the supes.”

  Supes. Greg was right. Humans have started calling supernaturals supes. I grab a cupcake and shove it into my mouth, so that I don’t accidentally inform all of my old school friends that I, as a shifter, am technically a supe. What would they say to me then?

  The cupcake sticks in my throat at the thought.

  Even worse, the reason there are vampires, werewolves, harpies, and centaurs among us is because my little sister is a badass dragon who had the king of the gods as her father. He was a total deadbeat dad, though. And a horrible yet powerful being. So she killed him. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but ended up ending the world as we know it.

  She still feels really bad about it.

  So, here I am, the bastard child of a god whose big claim to fame is that she can turn into a house cat. Half of my own kind would disown me if they knew I was a Moggy, and all of the humans I’m sitting with right now would tear my hair out of they knew I was a supe.

  But you know what? Screw it. If nobody likes me, I can return the favor. I swallow the cupcake.

  “I don’t think supes would target a peaceful rally,” I say. That’s totally not true. Baby vamps like Kit would tear into Mallory’s belly and eat her kid right in front of her. But I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not.

  Greta flips her hair again, confused. “Are you defending the supes?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. Did you see that news story the other day about the mermaid who pulled a mother and her children out of a submerged vehicle?”

  The other women glance at each other, unnerved.

  “It happened,” I say. “I don’t think we can just make generalizations about the supes. Some of them are perfectly nice peo—”

  “Excuse me,” Mallory interrupts, setting her own cupcake down to rest on her belly. “They are not people.”

  There are nods of agreement around the room, and Mallory continues. “These are creatures. They are unnatural. These are things. And as long as they are loose, none of us are safe.” Clearly enjoying all the eyes on her, Mallory smiles down at us, so certain of her own superiority. Not just between her and supes, but between herself and everybody else on the whole damn planet. “So FYI, ladies, Donnie and I know how blessed we are. Right, baby?”

  She hollers this, directing it toward the next room where her husband sits with his back to us and headphones clamped over his ears while he plays some sort of shooter game. I caught them in the midst of a little fight when I first came in. She hissed at him to go play in the basement and he told her that three baby showers in three weekends was too much and he needed to continue his supe-killing training without a bunch of drunk ladies crowding his space.

  Now, totally plugged into his game, he doesn’t answer.

  Mallory’s smile tightens. “Anyway, we want to share the wealth and that means that our casa is your casa. Not this one, of course.” She laughs, a little wildly. “But Donnie has a hunting lodge in upstate New York that I’ve been fixing up for a few years now. It was rough when I first got in there. Like an outdoorsy frat house, but girls, it is now the perfect place to find a little human—and only human—sanity. So if those monsters start getting too big a bite of Florida…”

  Mallory pauses to pop her phone out of the floral fanny pack she wears at her waist. She keeps talking as she types into it. “I am right now messaging you all with the address. The key is under the front mat. It’s stocked full of supplies too. Donnie likes to be prepared for the worst, so we got enough canned food and beef jerky to get us through a good five years if need be. All I ask is that you text me first to let me know you’re there, just so it doesn’t get too crowded.”

  She laughs and the others join in.

  “Mallory, you are a saint,” one of the women says. The rest quickly nod and murmur their agreement.

  “Well, you guys are the best of my besties,” she coos. “It’s not like I offer this to everyone I meet.”

  “What about the guests from your first two baby showers? Did they get the cabin invite too?” I shouldn’t say it, but I can’t resist.

  Mallory’s head whips around so she can send some visual daggers my way.

  I’m tempted to remind her of how in high school she wanted to be the blowjob queen. If there was something girls are meant to do well, Mallory wanted to be the best. I guess that part of her hasn’t changed. But back then, the poor thing had a sensitive gag reflex. She threw up on the junk of almost all the boys worth talking to. I was the one who gave her the idea to use Chloraseptic spray to numb her throat. She was overjoyed when it worked, told me I was a genius and she’d owe me for the rest of her life.

  I’m guessing, though, that she wouldn’t enjoy that little anecdote about the power of perseverance. And I’m tired of arguing.

  I started my day trying to have a rational conversation with a blood-starved vampire. I’m ending it by trying to have a rational conversation with a pregnant woman.

  I’m out.

  Not only have I outgrown my friends from high school, I don’t even know why I was friends with them in the first place. I guess I always knew I didn’t quite fit in, even then. Having the truth revealed to me about what I am only sealed the deal—and showed me that I didn’t quite fit in with the supes, either.

  I wait the appropriate amount of time (still too long), before I can make a polite exit. Mallory gives me an air kiss when I tell her goodbye, and makes me promise to “not be a stranger.” I nod, and say I won’t.

  Then I turn into a cat the second I’m outside and take a shit on her perfectly manicured flower bed.

  4

  As I make my way to the portal that will take me back to UWR, I call Edie from my cell phone. It’s strange to use normal technology and for a moment I just stare at the thing. I remember when I couldn’t even imagine life without my phone, and now I barely think of it.

  The call goes to Edie’s voicemail again. “Look, I know you’re busy a lot, saving the world or boning your vampire boyfriend but can you please call me? I’m worried.” I say in a small voice, then hang up.

  Edie is going to make fun of me so hard for that one. She’s a freaking dragon demi-god. She forgets that she’s my little sister and it’s my job to take care of her. Although, lately, I’ve felt more like the little sister. She goes out every day to save the world, while I trudge down the steep stairs to the Under
world. Sure, the intakes can be exciting, but truthfully—most of my job is paperwork.

  I reach the portal, a broken fountain in the swamp, surrounded by stone pillars. A marble pair of legs stick up from the base, broken at the knees. That would be Hermes, my dick-wad dad. He used to be in charge of all of these, but with the new regime we got new portal keys.

  I place my neon bracelet back on my arm. While I’m at it, I change back into my skin-tight onesie kick-ass suit.

  Dress for the job you want, they say. Isn’t kicking ass what I really want to do? Like Edie does? Like I used to do before the panic attacks became impossible to control. Before I became a total scaredy-cat.

  The portal opens between a pair of the stone pillars and I step through. It used to be a pain in the ass to get to Underworld Academy. For starters, to attend you had to be technically dead. Also, there was a whole test entrance that ran through the New York subway system. The Triumvirate nixed that. These bracelets get around the dead problem. And employees can reach UWR from any portal using their bracelet as a portal key.

  I arrive at UWR just in time to watch a harpy push a man through the door to the intake room. “What do we have?” I ask her.

  “Incubus,” she tells me. “Tried to seduce me. Didn’t realize that with his collar activated his supe charm is nixed.” She glances at the door. “Though if you let him go, tell him to give me a call, would you?” She winks at me and twitches her wings.

  “Will do...sorry, I forgot your name.” I feel a bit like a dick, but there are so many harpies —hundreds at this point—it is really hard to keep track.

  “Kalinda. Sixth clutch,” she tells me. If she’s in Zahara’s sixth clutch she’s only a few weeks old. But harpies mature at an incredible rate.

  “Thank you, Kalinda,” I say, trying to memorize her features. Harpies look like shriveled up old lady birds, with wings.

  I decide to let the incubus cool off for a while. And me. I’ve been up and down today and would rather not have to pop another pill. I mean, I’m not an addict, and it’s not like Themis would give me anything that would do long term damage to me, but I definitely don’t like how much I like the idea of taking another one.