Jack’s face turned white. “No, that’s not what I want to hear. You’re not supposed to see him. That was part of the deal.”
“There wasn’t a deal. I was the one who made the rules, and I can break them whenever I want.”
“No. No, you can’t. The last time you two were together—” he twirled his fingers in circles at his temples— “well, things sorta went all to hell, you know? You’re batshit around him, and I don’t want you to start losing those marbles again.”
“I’m not going to.”
“What’s different this time?”
She opened her mouth for a scathing retort, but he interrupted her.
“No, Selene. No more lies. Is there anything different this time than the last? Did he still look at you like you held the world in your palms? Did he still feel some kind of connection that he couldn’t explain?”
The answers weren’t ones she wanted to give. She didn’t want Jack to be right. She wanted to linger in Ronin’s life, because that was what the fiber of her soul wanted. It wanted to see him, taste him, touch him again until she had bathed herself in everything that was him.
Selene was a stronger goddess when she was with him. No…more. She was a stronger woman, because he stood at her side.
She didn’t have to speak. All the responses Jack looked for were already in her haunted eyes.
“You see how fucked up all this is, don’t you?” he asked, leaning forward so he could look into her eyes. “You weren’t meant to be together other than in the most destructive way. You made the right decision. You gave him a second chance, Selene. Messing that up for him would be the cruelest thing you have ever done.”
She blew out a ragged breath, but nodded in response.
Words couldn’t escape her lips when her entire being felt shattered. Instead, she lifted shaking fingers and inhaled deeply of the cheroot cigarette.
“I’m not saying any of this to hurt you, Selene.” Jack wrapped his knuckles on the table to get her attention. “This is what you need to hear right now. I know you well enough to see that wildness in your eyes. You want to go to him, and that can’t happen. For all our sakes.”
That’s right, because Ronin and her were infinitely dangerous when they were together. They liked to destroy things, and that was what they had done. Without the humans, other gods would fade out of existence until there was only her and a few others left. She wouldn’t just be responsible for the death of all humans on the planet but so many powerful beings as well.
Some of whom she’d helped make.
But wasn’t that what the earth wanted? Couldn’t she feel the low grumbles deep in the core where lava roiled? The earth wanted a reset. It wanted to have a few moments to breathe when there weren’t lifeforms writhing on top, gnashing and gnawing at all the earth had to give?
It would be a blessing for a few centuries. Selene had always wondered what true silence would sound like. Would it hurt her ears? Would an infinite amount of death make her so powerful that she ceased to be?
Again, Jack struck the table with his fist. “Enough of those thoughts, goddess of death. We need you here, not in your mind. That future will not come to be, because we will not let it.”
And therein lay the problem. With Ronin at her side, no one had been able to stop her. No one would have dared lay a finger on her with the all-powerful being that was Ronin, the King of Gods, standing beside her.
She was weak without him. Not just emotionally drained and tired, but also unprotected without her bodyguard and lover.
She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her black hoodie and nodded again. “Duly noted, Trickster. You can rest easy tonight. I will not end the world again.”
Jack nodded back to her, and together, they sat in silence. It wasn’t quite the same as the quiet she’d imagined, but it would be good enough.
From the shadows behind the Trickster, Mutt shimmered into existence. She hovered a hand over the top of his head and asked, “Want me to brain him?”
Selene gave her a small smile. The ghost would have done anything she asked, but there was no need to hurt the Trickster god. He was right. There were only a few reasons for her to ever see Ronin, because he was a temptation she couldn’t ignore. She wanted him with every inch of her soul. Dangerously so. And that meant she had to keep away from him.
A deeper voice, like gravel crunching against stone, interrupted her thoughts. “Selene, I thought you’d already told your ghosts to stay away from the weaklings.”
Jack stiffened.
Of all the people she’d hoped to avoid in this ridiculous place, this was one of the highest. Selene didn’t like the other death gods and goddesses. They were a rather needy lot, and looked at her like some kind of unofficial leader who had forsaken them long ago. Some wanted her dead for the things she had done. Others wanted to name her a saint for them. Regardless, they were both insulted that she wouldn’t give them the time of day.
She didn’t look his way. That’s what he wanted. Instead, she ground out, “Morpheus. I thought someone slit your throat a few years back.”
“Someone tried,” he corrected, then took the remaining seat at the table. He tilted his head back so she could see a thin white line across the expanse of his neck. “As you can see, they failed.”
She hated him with a passion that rivaled the history books. Pale as moonlight, the albino man was strong for one of their kind. He fed from the dead like it was his job, and in a way, it was. Broad-shouldered with a thick neck, he looked like a linebacker from before the world had ended. His white hair was spiked straight up with gel, and his pink eyes roved over her with a hunger she didn’t appreciate.
“It wasn’t me,” she replied. “You’d be dead if it were.”
“Oh, I know how lethal you can be. Don’t worry, goddess. I didn’t think it was you for a second.”
Jack shifted back a little, clearly uncomfortable being seated at a table with two death gods in a pissing contest. “I’ll just go.”
“Stay,” Morpheus replied, his voice deadly quiet. “Any friend of Selene’s is a friend of mine.”
“You have no right to say that,” she said with a sneer. “After everything you did to Ronin—”
“Did you expect me to sit by and let it happen?”
“He could have saved all of us.”
“Saved?” Morpheus tilted his head back in a laugh which sounded fake. “That’s a funny way to put it, goddess. I don’t think that’s what he was trying to do.”
She couldn’t lie to him. He’d sense it from a mile away, and he was right. They all knew he was right. Ronin hadn’t wanted to save any of them.
He’d worn anger like a finely pressed suit. Linen gloves became brass knuckles on his hands. Destruction danced at the end of his fingers, and a single look from his dark eyes could have toppled empires. His leather jacket had been clipped wings dripping blood and acid everywhere he stepped. But he’d been hers. And if he dreamed of a world filled with smoke and ash, she would have given it to him on a platter.
Selene lifted her cigarette to her mouth and ignored the other death god’s comment. She wouldn’t speak of Ronin like that. Not when everyone in this room hated him and had agreed he deserved what he got.
To them, he was as good as dead. They knew he was still in some way alive, that he wandered the earth without any of his powers or memories of what he’d done. And they’d agreed not to meddle in his life for things he didn’t know he’d done.
But that didn’t mean they hated him any less. His powers were gone and that made him less than a god now. Less than a human, because he’d been stripped. It was the worst sort of disgrace to their kind.
And she’d done it to him.
Morpheus leaned forward, reaching out for her hand which he knew she didn’t like. “Selene, have you thought about coming home?”
Home. The word meant something very different to him than it did to her.
To the other death gods, home was a place
deep in the earth. A tomb where no sunlight could reach, lit by the thousands of souls they’d kept with them. Death gods were never really alone. They were always surrounded by all the people they could ever need to see.
For Selene, home was in the arms of a man she loved. She wanted to be surrounded by the one soul who adored her, not just because she was a goddess, but because she had felt infinitely more bright.
Morpheus chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “You’ve gone soft on us, haven’t you? Of all the people who I thought would lose their damned minds, I never thought it would be you.”
“You have no right to judge me.”
“Oh, I do,” he replied. The sarcasm in his voice oozed with contempt. “Death gods are the only ones who can judge others. If you’re going to become some human-loving, pathetic goddess, then perhaps it’s far past time for us to put you down.”
She heard the breath in Jack’s lungs catch at the clear threat. He didn’t know she had nothing to fear from Morpheus. For all his threats and boasting, he was a god who lacked imagination.
“Make your threats,” she replied, “and try if you’d like. I’m interested to see just how you think you could kill me, Morpheus.”
“Everyone has to sleep.”
“That they do.” Heat burned behind her eyes, power that she could hardly control. She remembered all too well from the bad old days when she’d let it run her body. The stinging ache of it spider-webbed in her eye sockets which she knew looked like writhing black veins. “Be careful with your threats, death god, or whomever tried to kill you might succeed next time.”
Morpheus snarled at her. He shoved his chair away from the table and stalked off into the depths of the club where the neon lights turned blue.
Such emotions were childish, and she had no time for them. But, if nothing else, his showcase had made her hand steady once more when she lifted the cigarette to her lips.
Jack blew out a breath. “Is that how all death gods treat each other?”
“More or less.”
“Glad I’m not a death god, then.”
He wasn’t the only one. Most gods and goddesses seemed to think the death ones had it easy. That their lives were simply feeding off of people who really couldn’t stop them from doing it. But taking care of souls, encouraging others to live good lives, to punish those who didn’t… It wasn’t as easy as people thought.
Of course, they were also the most cutthroat lot. They didn’t like each other, and everyone was competition.
In response, Selene shrugged. “You’re one of the lucky ones, Trickster.”
He eyed her. She had the distinct feeling that he was trying to figure her out. Something she didn’t exactly appreciate. She didn’t even understand herself. Hopefully, he would share if he pieced together the puzzle of her life.
“Selene—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted him, slowly standing and stretching her arms over her head. “We’ve never been the sentimental type, Jack. I’m not interested in what you have to say, and you aren’t interested in me being a nice person. That’s how we are. Let’s keep it that way.”
If she didn’t look at him, she wouldn’t see the hurt expression that she noticed from the corner of her eye. He didn’t have the right to make her feel bad. She liked the way things were.
He was at a distance. Everyone was at a distance other than the few souls she let out of their cage, because it felt okay when they were around. But only for a little while. Too long and she started feeling something closing in her throat.
Mutt stepped closer to her. “Time to go?”
“Time to go.”
Her soul disappeared back into the stone in her pocket and Selene stepped into the crowd. When she was young, it felt like she could disappear in places like this. No one looked at her. No one even cared she was there.
But that was another time. Now, people stared at her when she was among the gods. She had become infamous, and she hadn’t realized how much she would hate it.
No one stopped her once she stepped through the crowd of gods and out onto the street. Humans didn’t much care for her. They found her face intimidating, her demeanor odd. They gave her a wide berth usually. It was almost as if their souls knew she was dangerous to them, that she could take their life with nothing more than a touch.
Selene meandered through the streets and watched the humans as she went. They were a quiet sort of people now. Where they had once looted, pillaged, and grew angry with each other in the wake of their own extinction, those who remained had softened. They helped the needy when they could. They stuck to themselves and their own family units.
She watched a father help his daughter into a building over a large, crumbling step. How he stroked the back of her head with his hand before they continued on. It was little moments like these which reminded her they were worth the weight of her loss.
Somehow, she found herself at the top of the same building where she always ended up.
The city stretched out below her. Flickering lights of the remaining neon signs blinked in the distance, mixed with thousands of candles in each of the homes. Nearby, a family tucked into bed in a building that was cut in half. They likely didn’t sleep there when it rained. There was no longer a roof over their head, but tonight was clear and almost beautiful.
Selene stared up at the stars that mirrored the pinpricks of candlelight and blew out a breath. “You can come back out.”
Mutt appeared next to her, hands tucked into her pockets and a troubled expression on her face. “Why are we here, Selene?”
“I like the view.”
“This was your place.” And she didn’t mean Selene’s, but Ronin and hers when they wanted to be alone.
How many times had they sat on the edge of this building? She stepped in the same path she always had, feet dragging on the concrete. Slowly, she lowered herself down onto the edge and let her legs dangle off the side.
“It was, wasn’t it?” she murmured.
The ghost of his presence remained here. She saw him in the way the moonlight filtered through the clouds and alit upon the edge of the building. In the starlight that turned the white side of her hair to silver. The way the wind touched her shoulders like it wanted one last second before it had to be pulled away from her.
A lock of silver hair tangled with black, and she wondered just how long she could continue on like this. With temptation always dangling in front of her, and with sadness riding on her shoulders like wings.
Mutt crouched down at her side, hands dangling over her knees, and shook her head. “You know? I don’t agree with the Trickster.”
“On what?” They hadn’t agreed on many things in all these years. Mutt was a take charge kind of person, even while she was alive.
“I think you could see him if you wanted to. All this.” She swept out her hand and gestured to the city below them. “It’s still here because you chose this for him. I was there, remember? You didn’t take all his powers away because you wanted to save the world. That wasn’t in you back then, and honestly, it’s still not in you. You don’t care about these humans that much.”
“You might be wrong,” Selene replied.
“I’m not. I’m rarely wrong and if I were, you would have said it much more confidently. You stopped all your plans, all the things you worked so hard to get, because you didn’t want him to suffer anymore. You wanted a different life for him than the one he’d been given, and that’s an honorable thing. I don’t think you’d sway from your course so easily. You made the hardest choice any of us could ever make, Selene. You won’t change your mind just by watching over him.”
She twisted her fingers in her lap, staring out over the city and pondering Mutt’s words. What if she was right? She had made the choice because that’s what she wanted to do. Ronin had deserved a life infinitely better than what he had been given. Their path was twisted and dark, manipulated by so many people that their reasoning for the end of the world had gotten�
�.
Hazy.
“So, by that logic, you think I can visit him whenever I want to because…what? I won’t do anything?”
Mutt nodded. “Yup.”
“What if my presence brings back his memories? What if it brings back some of his powers?”
“There’s nothing left to remember you by. And I don’t say that to hurt you, Selene, but it’s the truth. He might feel fondly for you. There might be some emotion. But he will never remember who you were, because of the person he is now. He wasn’t there for everything that happened.”
Mutt was right. As much as it stung Selene’s soul to acknowledge that, the man who remained was not Ronin. But then again, she hadn’t really known Ronin at all.
She’d only truly known the Reaper.
Selene leaned back on her hands and let out a small groan of frustration. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. He’s happy now, you know? Finally. After all this time with people who feared him, hated him, wanted him dead. Now he has a chance to not even know any of us exist. He should be allowed to live that life without me lurking in the shadows.”
“Did he seem offended by your presence in the hospital?” Mutt asked.
“No.”
“Did he seem like he loved his wife any less? Or that he was going to throw everything away just to be by your side again?”
“No, quite the opposite. He didn’t look at me with anything but curiosity.” And it still stung. A part of her wanted him to remember her even though she knew it was impossible. Even though she knew it would mean the rest of the world would fall at their feet once again.
“Not curiosity,” Mutt corrected. “He looked at you because he felt a little bit of enjoyment knowing that you were there. And that confused him. Because he doesn’t know you or understand anything about you. That could change, if you wanted it to.”
She couldn’t become involved in his life again. That was a dangerous path to walk and no matter how much Mutt wanted her to… she couldn’t. Could she?
“What would you do?” she asked. “If it was Silver, and you knew that no matter what, you’d have to walk at her side knowing that she didn’t remember you. Couldn’t remember you.”
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 115