by J. P. Rice
He cleared his throat a few times, and through his fingers covering his mouth, he whispered, “And don’t tell anyone I said this, but I love you more than her.”
I leaned down and hugged him again, planting a loving kiss on his rosy cheek. Those words meant everything. It was as if my entire life had been validated by one sentence.
“Are you going to ask me about Lugh’s Spear? I know you want to,” he teased as his eyes widened, causing his forehead to wrinkle deeply.
I tried to act casual. “If you know something, sure. You know I can’t get it out of my head.”
He stated bluntly, “I’m told that Arawn and Maeve have it.”
“Last I heard, Arawn was living in Ireland.”
My father sat up straight in his chair. “Was is the key word there. He and Maeve have set up a compound in Seattle. They are cross-breeding creatures from Fae worlds. Orcs with faerie wings and ogres that can breathe fire are just a few of the examples I was alerted about.”
“And they have the Spear?” I asked.
He nodded confidently as he stroked his long beard. “As far as I know. They are cloning these creatures to create an unstoppable army. Once they have that and the Spear, they won’t lose a battle. Quite a scary proposition. If only there were somebody out there that could possibly prevent it...”
I smiled. “You don’t need to tempt me.”
He cocked his head to the side and shrugged. “Yes, well, where’s the fun in that for me? I’ll gather all the information I can and have Danforth send it to you. We’ll get in touch with Johnny Tango. I believe it might be good for you. Although this brand of quest is always fraught with peril, I can see in your eyes that you need an adventure. Something to soothe your soul.”
The fire cracked right on cue, signaling that I needed to do this. “You’re right. I convinced myself that the past decade has been relaxing, but really, I feel like a caged lion, ready to pounce. I enjoy the danger and excitement.”
He stared into my eyes and said, “Yes, I fear you may have gained that from me. I’m too old to carry on like that anymore, so I need you to do it for me. You already have my spirit and it will join you vicariously on every mission you attempt. Don’t hide from who you are. Embrace it. But use it to make the world a better place. And with that, perhaps the Gods will take notice. And if not, they can piss the fook off and you can simply be happy with yourself.”
I blamed my mother for this deficiency. I was constantly concerned about what the Gods thought of me. It had become an infatuation. A child desperately trying to get needed attention mirrored my relationship with the Gods. All my actions were an ill attempt to get them to notice me, praise me, love me as a child of the Gods. But one couldn’t control the actions of others. Not without torturing them, of course.
My father was correct, as usual, and so was the Hound of Pittsburgh for nudging me to get over here. I needed to hunt down the spear for me. For my father’s spirit.
Fook the Gods and screw my mother for judging me incorrectly for so long. The bitch still hadn’t admitted to anyone that I was her daughter. It was as if she were ashamed of me. And even though my father hadn’t publicly announced I was his daughter, his love made up for it tenfold.
I still couldn’t understand why it was such a big secret. Originally, my father had stated that because they were both married to others, it would bring shame to Brighid. Why couldn’t they have said I was her husband’s child? Why had they sent me to Sleepy Willow to be raised by a village of elves? Why wasn’t I born with magical ability?
After all these years, I still couldn’t get straight answers out of my father. I really wanted to know why it needed to remain a secret after five hundred years. I’d stopped pressing him about it many years ago and appreciated our relationship for what it was. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a burning desire inside me to get the answers to all my questions surrounding my birth and upbringing.
Why were they ashamed of me? Why had my father first visited me when I was twenty-two?
Instead of wallowing in my sadness, I needed to dust myself off and get out to Seattle. I would feel better if I went with someone. I had the perfect travel partner in mind, but his phone number had changed, so I hadn’t been able to get a hold of him.
This called for the random stop by.
Chapter 10
I needed to stop at my house and grab my friend Owen’s address that I’d written on a scrap of paper. As I walked toward my front door, an uneven breeze was wreaking havoc on my hair and kept blowing it into my eyes. Seemed like a storm was brewing despite the stringy ivory clouds dotting the sky. I took off my gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of my black jacket so I could fix my hair.
I swept my ginger locks aside and opened my purse when a mighty scream from above rumbled the earth. My shoulders tensed and the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. As I turned to the sky, I shielded the sun with an open hand, and through an opening in my fingers, I saw two black dragons streaking through the air.
Dragons in Pittsburgh, huh? I’d heard the stories from Tyr, but I still couldn’t believe my eyes. Tyr had revealed two possible scenarios. When King Ballistar had ransacked Pittsburgh with his dragons, nobody knew if he had left some behind when he retreated hastily to Sleepy Willow.
Another situation involved Mike Merlino using a return potion in Sleepy Willow that had sent a Sphinx and two black dragons to Pittsburgh. Either way, I gazed at two dragons spitting fire across the blue backdrop. They turned abruptly and headed east. Within a few moments the vision had disappeared, but where were they headed?
As I went to put the key into the deadbolt, I froze. Something wasn’t right and the chili I had for lunch churned in my stomach. The door started to open from the inside. Someone had broken my repellant charms and protective wards that I had set around the house. It had to be a powerful entity. The heavy aroma of olive oil flowed out the crack, and it could only mean one Goddess.
Fook the Greeks.
The door opened fully, exposing Hera standing inside my house with my red Iron Man T-shirt in her hand and an angry scowl on her face. It didn’t surprise me in the least. This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted Zeus anywhere near me on the cruise ship. Hera the Hound had followed the scent.
The Greek Goddess was tall and bony with long black hair tied into a ponytail. Her eyes and their surroundings were irritated and red from her constant crying and worrying about Zeus’s infidelity. She had a long, narrow nose and was always sticking it in everyone else’s business.
Her olive skin glowed in the emerging sunlight. Despite her skinny as a rail physique, her hips were as wide as a barn door. Her sleeveless burgundy dress that only came down to her knees billowed in the light breeze. Quite an odd choice for starting a fight in a winter setting. I could only assume she hadn’t stopped by for a tea party.
“You whore,” she exclaimed and threw the T-shirt in my face.
Before I could react and pull it away, she burst outside and tackled me to the ground, her hands lunging for my throat. I threw the shirt aside and dug my fingers under her killer grip, trying to break the hold. Her lengthy fingers stretched around most of my neck and her nails sank in. My heavy leather jacket restricted my movement, and I couldn’t bend my elbow as much as I needed to.
As I flopped around trying to get loose, she said, “You have Zeus’s love stink all over you.”
I started kneeing her in the back, trying to jolt her off me. In a gagging, garbled tone, I told her, “That’s not a love stink. That’s just...regular stink, fair lady. A musky fragrance, I must say.”
I dug my nails into her palms, but she only tightened her killer grip. “I am a Goddess,” she intoned. “The Goddess of Marriage to be precise, you strumpet. Something you will never attain.”
Wrong words, bitch. With the sudden strength of a thousand wrongfully accused women surging through me, I shoved my fingers upward, breaking the chokehold. Seizing on the opening, I chopped her
in the throat. She fell backward from her crouched position, planted her hand on the concrete and sprang to her feet.
I did a backward roll and popped up, ready to fook up this bitch. I clenched my fists and bounced from foot to foot in anticipation of another attack.
Hera stood still with her hands on her child-bearing hips. “If only you could have kept your filthy paws off my husband. Yours fled to avoid being held captive to your boorish company. It’s widely known.”
Time to unload on this bitch. “First off, your husband has fooked more whores than you could ever count. And my husband left on a noble quest, not to spread his nasty seed across the world. You’re a Goddess, sure, but I take pity on you. Everyone does. We laugh at you while Zeus dishonors you every waking hour. And just so you know, Zeus begged me before I turned him down. Begged me.”
Hera’s mouth hung open in shock. “Lies. Wait until I tell him these lies you are spreading.”
“Go ahead. Write ‘em down if it’ll help.” I gestured with my thumb toward my house. “I got a pen and paper inside. It’s nothing I wouldn’t say to his face. Some of us don’t live in constant fear of him.”
“I’ve tried to be nice,” she said and cracked her knuckles.
I looked around wondering if that was a joke. “That was your nice act? Trying to choke someone to death? By the way, you look ridiculous in that summer dress.”
Hera nodded slowly, and a devious smile developed on her face. Her sunken eyes lit up and she raised her chin. I knew about a few of Hera’s tricks, but I wasn’t sure what she was contemplating. She massaged her vocal cords, normally an innocuous occurrence, but I knew she was also sending an implicit threat. With no time to waste, I quickly set a spell for a sound shield.
The invisible shield came to life and surrounded me like a clear drinking glass, as Hera opened her mouth. A wailing scream modulated into a menacing, high-pitched whistle. A few windows on my house blew out and the mighty oak tree swayed under the pressure, the tips of the branches tickling the gutter. Even inside my shield, the intense sound threatened to break my eardrums.
I staggered backward and dragged the sound shield that hugged the ground with me as I devised my attack. My body shook and convulsed as the haunting sounds finally came to a stop.
Hera’s devious smile returned, this time steeped in smug satisfaction. I dropped to my knees and dissolved the sound shield. I gagged and bit down hard on the inside of my lip. Salty blood quickly built up in my mouth and I let it gush out the corners, spilling down my chin and running inside the neckline of my shirt.
With Hera’s eyes focused on the bloody waterfall, I slipped my right hand behind my back. I conjured up a knife, and when I felt the handle in my palm, I cast a quick spell to inject ancient enchantment into the blade. Most of the Gods had body protection spells set around them and a normal blade would bounce right off as if she were wearing armor. I hoped my spell would be strong enough to break through.
Hera stalked over to me with a shit-eating grin pasted onto her ugly mug. With my eyes intentionally crossed, I kept spitting out blood and hoped my acting skills were better than that of the client on the cruise ship. Hera hovered over me and drew back her arm. She unleashed a quick right jab that connected just below my left eye. My head snapped back in reaction and I squeezed the knife harder, so I wouldn’t drop it.
Hera laughed. “All that tough talk and I killed you with my lovely singing voice. Just gotta know the right tunes,” she mocked, snapping her fingers and bobbing her head. “I’d say you probably have about an hour until your feeble brain explodes or your shaken organs shut down. And in the meantime, I’m going to drag you inside your house and torture you like you did to all those you stole magic from.”
I was going to enjoy this now. She leaned in and grabbed the mop of red hair on top of my head. My hand sprang from behind my back and slashed horizontally, across her midsection. I hadn’t much time to set the spell, so I suspected the knife would barely break through her protection and just scrape Hera, hopefully chasing her away. If I killed her, my days would be numbered.
The glowing milk-glass blade of the knife ripped through her protection spell, shredded her burgundy dress and didn’t stop. The unforgiving edge of the blade sliced through layers of flesh, biting deep and hard. Boiling hot, slick blood poured onto my hand, covering my fingers instantly and causing me to drop the knife. A sick feeling ran through me as I watched her viscera spill out of the gushing red sea.
Her hands raced down to catch her innards and stuff them back inside the enormous gash. She pinched both sides of the wound together and slumped away, leaving a trail of blood. She dragged her right foot as she continued down the sidewalk, away from my house.
Oh, fook me with a witch’s broomstick. That was the problem with my magic. I couldn’t fully harness it, and breaking a God’s protection spell took some serious freaking power. My strength and cunning had pleased me, yet I felt terrified for my safety. Hera had come after me, attacked me at my home, and I was simply defending myself. It wasn’t my fault I’d outwitted the Goddess.
If Hera could make it to Mount Olympus, she would run to Zeus and force him to send a hit squad after me. I’d slapped Zeus and gotten into it verbally with a few other Gods, but nothing close to what I’d done now.
I was the hunted with her acting as the predator, but that wouldn’t be what she told Zeus. I was certain her version of the story would have the Big Bad Junipher foaming at the mouth, fangs out and charging after her. And Wittle Misses Innocent was just trying to defend herself from my savage attack.
Best case scenario would be if Hera healed herself or found a doctor quickly. If she blamed me, I planned to deny, deny, deny. Nobody had witnessed the brawl, and I wasn’t about to put up any billboards. Hera’s jealousy and track record for misidentified mistresses boded well for me. But really, it was all up to Zeus—the man with a hundred thousand immortal warriors ready to die for him—to decide my fate. I could see him doing it just to get Hera to stop nagging him about the subject.
I’d slapped him upside the head at our last encounter, which could come back to haunt me. My right hand was shaking out of control and my heart wouldn’t slow down. I had to put aside the traumatic experience and get to my friend Owen’s house.
But I couldn’t move. Frozen in panic. The impact of what I had done kept hitting me in waves. I could have just signed my own death certificate. My nervous foot finally moved. I unglued the sole of my shoe from the pavement and started heading toward my house.
First, I needed to patch up the windows and clean myself up. I had to look presentable to coax Owen into traveling to Seattle with me. My feline friend had never let me down before, but I also hadn’t seen him in over thirty years.
Chapter 11
A thundering echo boomed, and a hail of bullets screamed through the air. Every lead alloy projectile flew past its intended target, across the snow-covered yard and sailed into the woods behind Owen’s house.
I pulled my fingers out of my ears and sat back on the lawn chair on his back patio.
My dear friend Owen Masterclaw walked upright on two legs. The hybrid cat and sidhe (not to be confused with cat sidhe or cat sith) grabbed his pipe off the table and searched around for his Zippo that I could see next to his touch screen. He checked his pockets, tapping his chest and hips before getting frustrated. I let him go for a few moments and he finally spotted the silver Zippo, snatching it up.
He sparked the lighter and lit his pipe, the cherry tobacco smoke dancing around his haunting yellow eyes. Owen was a British shorthair with a midnight charcoal coat and a few random snowy spots. He had white fur around his mouth, eyes and on the inside of his ears, which stood up on the top of his head.
He wore a three-piece suit, always a black coat and pants with a white dress shirt and a gold tie like a fashionable Pittsburgher. An unbuttoned plaid trench coat with the collar up completed his Sherlock Holmes look. The only thing missing was the hat.
> I continued our conversation. “I still think he should have killed Bucky. And he should have smacked Cap around more.”
Owen tapped his touch screen, adjusting the sights on his special guns. He spoke in his English accent, “Come now. Tony got all defensive, complaining that Steve didn’t deserve the shield because his father had crafted it. Also, I have a feeling Bucky has a huge upcoming role to play.”
I sipped my drink to chase away the flavor from the chili burps I’d been having since my brawl with Hera. “I know that too, even though I haven’t seen the last few, so no spoilers. But they could have let Iron Man kill him and then bring him back somehow.”
He stared at his touch screen and chased some smoke away from his eyes. “Eh. I know you love your Iron Man there, Team Stark, but it would cheapen the other deaths. You could never trust the deaths if people just kept coming back.”
“Well, whose team are you on?” I asked, swirling my Sazerac in my right hand. It was nice to have conversations like this with an old friend on a warm winter day.
Owen looked up with a goofy grin on his face. “I like everyone, but I rather prefer Ant Man.”
“Really? I was positive you’d say Dr. Strange.”
“It would appear that I’ve fooled you. Are you certain you don’t require ice for that eye?” he asked, pointing to my left eye with his pipe. “It’s really starting to puff up.”
I realized how lucky I was to escape my brawl with Hera with only a black eye, some marks on my neck and a fat lip. But how long would that luck last?
“No thanks. If I could just get the Morrigan to settle down, I’d be all right,” I said. I’d lied to Owen and told him that the Morrigan had given me the black eye in an impromptu wrestling match. Nobody needed to know about Hera, not even a reliable old friend who probably wouldn’t tell anyone.
In fact, it was time to get off the subject. “So, Ant Man, huh?”
“Dr. Strange is an interesting chap as well. And, of course, my cousin, Black Panther.” He smirked as he held his finger over the screen and nodded, signaling for me to cover my ears.