by J. P. Rice
He stared at the nine-inch piece of wood that I had imbued with sparkling sapphire enchantment and dusted in itching powder. The enchantment held no magic, but it gave the appearance of wizardry. I’d found the Cherrywood walking stick at an antique cane shop in Hilton Head. I’d broken it, put some wear and tear on it and aged it by soaking it in seawater.
I felt bad selling a fake, but this guy wouldn’t miss twenty-five grand, and if I went back to my former city to get my buried reserves of money, bodies would start dropping. This deal would save lives.
The client put the staff back into the leather bag and scratched the back of his thumb. “I do kind of feel something. Like it has its own power.” He caught himself grinning, deepened his voice and warned sternly, “But my men will know. And if you try to run, we’ll catch you. We basically own that island.”
Threatening a woman. What a tough guy. I hated to break his dear heart, but I’d been threatened by beings and creatures who could cause his body to spontaneously combust by pointing a finger at him.
Unbeknownst to him, I had no plan of being on this boat when we hit the first stop. I had another destination in mind. So his threats had no effect on me. In fact, they were quite humorous. “I’d love to meet your friends and answer any questions they may have.”
He kept scratching his hands that had broken out in a rash and softened his tone. “Good. Glad to hear that.”
I zipped the bag back up. “How ‘bout that pocket change?”
The client pulled the suede pouch out of his pocket and dangled it by the drawstring. The tiniest pinprick of an opening allowed me to see the golden glow inside. I snatched the bag and shook it next to my ear, a golden virtuoso symphony speaking directly to my soul.
He snatched the leather bag from me, and he asked, “You gonna take a closer look at it?”
“No. It’s real.” I laughed evilly. Fake base metal coins gilded in gold had more of a ringing ching than the heavy thunk of pure gold. “Besides, I know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to rip me off. It would be very foolish to do to a witch who knows Merlin.”
Beads of sweat formed over his brow, and as he leaned forward and dipped his head, the droplets fell to the carpet. “Nice doing business with you, lady. Enjoy the cruise.”
“Oh, the pleasure was all mine,” I commented, eliciting a double-take from the client.
He tucked the black bag under his arm, unlocked the door and nodded. He slid his sunglasses down over his eyes and exited, looking both directions in the hallway before hooking a right. I immediately locked the door as a devilish smile developed on my face.
I handled the pouch delicately, trying not to touch the drawstring and the itching powder that he could have left on it. I transferred the gold to a different pouch and went to shove it in my hip pocket, but my tight leather pants refused to accommodate it. After several attempts, I stuffed the gold in, leaving an unnatural lump on the front of my hip.
Now that I had my gold and didn’t have to return to Pittsburgh, it was time to go up on deck and enjoy retirement.
Chapter 2
“Misunderstanding is the spoon that stirs the cauldron of life.”
In the realm of supernatural beings, the difference between good and evil depended entirely on interpretation. If one deemed he or she had been treated unfairly, the perpetrator of that behavior was then viewed as evil. Even if that view was wrong. The interpretation, or more often than not, misinterpretation, always lay in the eyes of the beholder.
Sometimes, the beholder was a vengeful God or Goddess, which naturally resulted in murderous chaos. That was why it felt good to retire from the mythical relic hunting game. I gazed dreamily around the torch-lit deck of the ship, checking out the small groups of guests, huddled with cocktails glued to their hands. I’d closed myself off from my friends and associates and had been alone for the past decade, so I tried not to get jealous of the camaraderie.
Servers in white suits and black bow ties circulated with silver trays of hors d’oeuvres perched atop their fingertips. Two young lovers posed for pictures as a violin player serenaded them. The cruise ship bobbed along the calm waters. Glowing moonlight glistened off the crests of the waves.
I could get used to this life. The carefree thought barely had time to take shape in my head when a giant man chewing a mouthful of food emerged from a swarm of passengers.
How had he found me here? I turned to the side and buried my face in my glass of white wine, pretending to drink it. Peeking out of my peripheral vision, I noticed him approaching and lowered my glass. I had been living among humans for the past decade, avoiding anyone involved with the supernatural, especially the wretched Gods.
It was no use hiding anymore.
As I turned to smile at Zeus, a sharp pain shot down my neck and into my shoulder. I never used to feel pain before the incident.
The Greek God of Thunder—a mountain of a man—was in his natural appearance, which was unusual for the devious shifter. Dressed to impress in a black suit and bowtie, I wasn’t the least bit impressed. Zeus had long, dark, scraggly hair pulled back into a ponytail and a well-trimmed beard with gray spotting.
He oozed muscle definition, evidenced by the stressed buttons on his tight suit jacket and the material bunching up around his massive shoulders. His tight jaw, lively green eyes and olive complexion made for an appealing man, let alone a God, but most of the tales were true. He was the ultimate sleaze.
“How did you find me here?” I asked, unenthused.
“It’s nice to see you too. I should like to think a man of my stature deserves a better greeting,” he said, holding his arms out at his sides.
“What would you like? A bow? A curtsy? I’ll start treating you with respect when you do the same for me. Do you even remember our last encounter?” Dressed in a pair of leather pants, short heels and a red Iron Man T-shirt, I’d already started thinking about an evacuation plan.
He inched progressively closer and his cologne overpowered the natural salty sea scent. “I do. But first, where have you been? I remember hearing about you trying to rescue the Dagda’s Harp from the demons. Many reports said that you’d died in the Red Cavern about ten years ago.”
“They just covered me in lava. No big deal.” I attributed my survival to my mother being the Goddess of Fire and the dragon’s blood that coursed through my body. Luckily, my horrific burn scars had healed completely, my hair had grown back in and my skin looked the same as it had before the incident. Except for those pesky wrinkles.
“Where have you been for the past decade?” He stared at me with one eyebrow raised in a state of perplexity. Like I was supposed to check in with him. He added, “Nobody has seen you until recently.”
I knew it. One of his lackeys had spotted me and ratted me out. “I’ve stayed off the grid for a while. I’m staying out of the supernatural artifact game now. In fact, I’m retired. And why am I even talking to you after what you did to me?”
A server walked by and extended her hand. I passed her my empty glass. “Thank you.” Behind her, I noticed the client from earlier.
I waited until she left and turned my attention to Zeus.
“If you’re referring to our last encounter, we had a wonderful time,” he said stepping closer and leaning in near my face. I could feel his warm breath on my nose as he continued in a softer tone, “You said you loved me if you recall.” His words reeked of old man’s breath drenched in Ouzo, but it had been so long since I’d experienced intimate contact that it wasn’t offensive. No. I couldn’t get wrapped up in the moment.
I planted my palms on his chest and shoved him away. The man barely moved, making me angrier. “You tricked me, you son of a bitch. You shifted to look like my husband. I thought I’d found the man I’d been searching for. The man I truly love. Not some scumbag who tricks me into sleeping with him.”
He grabbed my hands. I yanked them away, but he held firm. He puckered his lips as if he wanted a kiss and said, “I did it for yo
u. So you could have a nice time. You know he’s dead and never coming back, right?”
His words were messed up on so many levels that I had to stop myself from pulling my right hand away and slugging him in the mouth. I took a deep, cleansing breath, but it didn’t work. I was angrier right now than I’d been in the past decade. No wonder I wanted to stay away from this shit.
I freed my mitts from his grasp, pointed my index finger in his face and erupted, “First off, stop touching me. I don’t want your stink on me, so that Hera can track me down. Second, I know what the general consensus is about my husband. But I will never give up. My Darabond is out there somewhere and I will rescue him. I don’t care if it takes another two hundred years.”
I rubbed my thumb over the gold half-heart locket in my pocket, my constant reminder of my husband. Darabond had the other half and I couldn’t wait for the day when we completed the heart again.
Zeus guffawed. He stopped a passing server, drained a glass of red wine and put it back on the tray.
“Excuse me, what is so funny about that?” I growled.
He suppressed his sniggering and said, “A woman rescuing a man is quite comical. I respect you for trying, but you are only a feeble, frail woman. And you appear to be aging greatly. Perhaps we should go lie down in my cabin.” The chauvinist was unrelenting.
The left corner of my mouth twisted up. “I’d rather puke into a dirty pair of underpants and lap it up like a dog than go to your room,” I told him, and his eyes bulged with anger. “How soon you forget about Machu Picchu.”
Zeus tilted his head to the side and pointed at me. “Now I will admit that was quite impressive. For a woman.”
I sighed. “More like impressive for a God. Don’t act like I didn’t save everyone.”
Compared to Zeus, I looked small, but I was tall for a woman. I wasn’t skinny, sporting a little gut, but everyone was weak and frail in the God of Thunder’s eyes. I tried to talk him out of this, “I am aging rapidly. So why would you want to sleep with me now? My breasts are saggy, skin wrinkled and I want nothing to do with you. Surely you can find a young maiden to work your magic on.”
“But when a man wants certain things like being with a woman with great magical power, he finds a way. Even if she obtained that magic in a perverse manner.” He grabbed my wrists and studied the scars that ran up my arms. I had thirty-one scars. One for each creature that had given me its magic.
I peeped around and with no one in the vicinity, I raised my voice, “Perverse manner? You can go sit on a sharpened stick with that bullshit. Everyone who gave me their magic did so willingly, and you know that. What? Are you going to turn me in to the magic council?”
“God no,” he exclaimed. “I wish I’d never approved that nonsense in the first place.” He motioned for a server to come over.
Zeus continued, “That said, you tortured them into relenting to your will. There was nothing willing about it. You’ve even tortured a dragon so you could steal his powers.”
Zeus grabbed two silver dollar crab cakes from the server and shoved them into his mouth, flicking the toothpicks out into the Atlantic Ocean. He winked, and with his mouth full, he mumbled, “Keep ‘em coming. And don’t be shy with the bacon-wrapped scallops either.”
I noticed the client from before moving closer, and I grabbed a crab cake off the tray. As soon as Zeus focused back on me, I snapped, “I did not torture them. I persuaded them. You know I mix all sorts of magic. Why would you want to be with that?”
In hindsight, I had tortured them. I just wasn’t ready to admit it to Zeus or any other God. After my husband had disappeared, battles were erupting all over the netherworld I lived in called Sleepy Willow. I’d found the Morrigan near one of the battlegrounds and we hit it off, becoming fast and furious friends.
She’d taught me how to cast a spell that would transfer magic from one body to another. But it needed sealed with a kiss of blood, hence the scars on my arms. Some of the magic inside me was dark. Powerful. Dangerous. And almost impossible to control.
Also illegal in some areas of the world where those idiotic magic councils had jurisdiction. An agreement among several pantheons of Gods had given the councils powers they didn’t deserve, and they doled out punishment to anyone often based on nothing more than a whim. More or less a kangaroo court. Oh, how did the world ever exist before the fooking magic councils?
“The danger of being with you excites me,” he said, rubbing his mustache and beard creepily.
“Speaking of danger, where is your wife, Hera? She can’t be too far.” I tried to look around the massive man and noticed the client worming closer to our conversation. He turned away in an ill attempt at nonchalance, and I mashed the crab cake into a ball. I stepped to the right of Zeus and zinged the seafood treat across the deck.
The wad of food sailed through the misty air and smacked him right on the side of the face. He shrieked dramatically as if he’d been shot, hitting a high note that Michael Jackson would be proud of.
The client didn’t run away as I’d hoped, but he knew I was watching him. Where was I with this other asshole? Oh yeah, I called Zeus’s wife Hera the Hound because she tracked down anyone who got close to Zeus.
“I left her on Olympus. I told her nothing,” he said softly, caressing my wrinkled cheek with his calloused fingers. I supposed throwing thunder bolts was hell for smooth skin.
The Gods were a fickle bunch. They enjoyed trysts that bent the bonds of matrimony, yet judged others harshly for the same adulterous behavior. My parents were the perfect example.
“Stop touching me.” I pulled my head back, dull burgundy hair blowing in the ocean breeze, and his hand dropped to his side. I took a step to the left. Searching the small groups of people on the deck, I couldn’t find Hera. For good measure, I scoped the entire area, looking out to the ocean and checking the boat’s surroundings. I wouldn’t put it past Zeus to have Cupid stationed nearby with his bow and arrow.
The screaming seagulls flying above the boat were the only winged creatures in the area for now. “You know leaving your wife without a reason will only stoke her curiosity. I’ll bet she’ll be here within a few minutes.” I needed to get away from Zeus, so I planted the seed.
For being a God, Zeus could be idiotic when he chased women behind his wife’s back. Hera had busted him countless times throughout their marriage. But due to her many failed attempts to unseat him, she was essentially powerless to stop him. So the horny toad carried on with his lustful ways. The general impunity had created a warped sense of moral integrity and Zeus didn’t really see his behavior as being wrong.
I said, “Now that you know I won’t sleep with you, I guess you’ll be leaving so I can enjoy myself.”
“I want to give you a chance to rethink your position. I can name a few new positions for you to take.” He bobbed his head around and winked.
I assumed he wanted to take me in his normal state, perhaps embarrassed that he had to trick me last time. I didn’t realize he had any shame.
“Enough of the innuendo. It’s not happening,” I informed him as a light ocean mist crept up on deck and kissed my forearm, then smooched the side of my face. I licked the salty substance from my lips, and apparently Zeus took it as a signal.
He moved closer, pinning me against the rail. I could feel his heat and power, the rushing waters crashing right behind me. If he weren’t so repulsive, this would be a romantic setting. “Just let it happen,” he said, cupping his hand and moving it toward my boob.
Without thinking, I slapped down, smacking Zeus’s hand away and then reversed the motion, backhanding him across his perfect cheek. Apparently, I still had some speed despite my elderly appearance. His face reddened, eyes widened, and the only thing missing was smoke pouring out of his ears.
The scent of grilled pita filled my nostrils. Zeus’s magic was coming to the surface. He erupted, “How dare you? You think you can physically assault the God of Thunder? I will rain down a hail
storm of fury, the likes of which your feeble mind cannot even imagine.”
I’d verbally accosted Zeus on many occasions, but I’d never hit him. It was a bold move. But I was one bold bitch. I’d felt dead inside since my husband disappeared. All Zeus could do was finish me off.
Zeus breathed audibly through his nose, almost snarling, with his angry green eyes fixed on me. “You had better apologize this instant.”
“Are you going to apologize for raping me?”
He snorted in derision. “I did nothing of the sort. All women are reserved for my pleasure.”
The worst part was that he truly believed that.
“Reserved? Like a table at a restaurant? Or a parking spot?” I asked, shaking my head in disgust. That was basically what we were to Zeus.
I explained, “Shifting into someone else’s skin to fool a person into sleeping with you is rape. No matter how short the act lasts, Tiny.” I smirked, allowing a few seconds for the insult to sink in. The proud God lowered his head.
I continued, “If not, you would have just showed up as yourself. Not to mention how fooked up it was to let me believe my husband was alive.” I’d stopped Zeus almost immediately when I’d realized he didn’t quite measure up to my husband.
Zeus gazed up at the night sky, contemplating. He focused back on me. “I suppose we’ve both made mistakes. Why don’t you let me massage those achy bones?” he begged, his green eyes lighting up.
He was like a dog with a bone. Unfortunately, I was that bone. I had to work some magic to get rid of this horndog because he rarely took no for an answer.
Illusion spells were one of my favorites. I could change my appearance at the drop of a hat, but I also knew how to cast an illusion shadow. I just needed to be careful because using magic had been aging me drastically since the lava bath.
An illusion shadow was a 3-D image—not real, but it looked real—that could fool people. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but it could buy a few seconds or up to a minute. I cast a spell creating an image that looked and sounded like Hera.