by Molly Ringle
He gave her seemingly honest answers to the questions she did ask, but he was unpredictable and unreliable at heart. He excelled at telling half-truths and making them seem whole, or at dodging topics he didn’t want to discuss, even when she saw no reason for him to avoid them. He played with you because that was what he did, and you simply had to let him, and not allow it to drive you mad.
Only in those erotic tangles did she lay hold of his vulnerable and true self, or so it felt. In his climactic broken breaths and shudders each time, he lost his grip on control for the space of a few blissful moments just like any other human. Hekate had her arms and legs around him when it happened, and soaked up the love and longing that bled from his skin into hers.
But then he’d grin and pop up and turn straight back into his elusive everyday self. And her longing would spin out further.
Hekate ventured into the wider world a lot during that month, exploring with her revived sense of magic, and visiting temples. Hermes often went with her, or “happened” to meet her at the sites, which of course led to more intimate leisure activities afterward. Nonetheless, even with such distractions, it was then that Hekate started noticing how the sacred sites were often placed exactly at spots where magic thrummed most vibrantly.
She brought it up with priestesses or priests, and they usually nodded and said the site had been chosen because it “felt” sacred, or because here the Goddess could be sensed more strongly, or similar reasons. They couldn’t explain it more fully than that, and at the time she didn’t even consider the possibility of mortals switching realms at those sites. Still, the placement of the temples lit up Hekate’s mind with questions about magical abilities among mortals. She spilled her overflowing thoughts into Hermes’ ears, and he drank them up and responded with insights of his own.
See, it wasn’t all sex; they did still have intelligent conversations. His mind, the quickest and most complex of anyone’s she knew, only made him more dangerously alluring.
All in all it meant they spent a lot of time together. And Dionysos—well, he was sure to notice one of these days.
Huge angst. Total messiness. All taken together, Zoe couldn’t look Niko in the eye today. And he totally knew why.
At the moment they were all outdoors, on the promised hillside with a view a couple of kilometers from the Underworld. Adrian had safely landed the Airstream here, after strapping down everything movable inside it for the flight, and now Niko and Adrian were fussing with the generator to hook it back up. Sophie and Liam, with Tab and Freya and the dogs, were strolling around the two caravans, for Niko and Freya had fetched another from somewhere in Greece for Liam. It was a camper trailer of some kind from the 1970s, white with light blue stripes around it. Liam evidently loved it, judging from the grand plans he was chattering about. They hadn’t yet tied vines to Isabel and Terry to bring them here, but planned to after they’d got the caravans set up.
Zoe had been clearing sticks and rocks from around the site to make it easier to stroll about. She paused now and let her gaze rest a moment on Niko while he was occupied in fixing the generator. But, as if sensing her, he glanced over, caught her eye, and winked.
Ugh. Cheeky bastard. She spun around and seized up another armful of sticks.
Sophie came around the corner of the Airstream, her hand tracing its shiny surface. “You look deep in thought,” Sophie said.
Zoe chucked the heap of sticks out into the shrubs. “Memories. Where have yours got to?”
“You’ve gotten your magic back. Hekate, I mean. Hades and I are still souls, but…” Sophie stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and squinted out at the wild valley. “I have the feeling we leave soon to get reborn.”
“Sad. It shouldn’t be, but it is. It will be for Hekate.”
Sophie glanced at her. “So that’s not what your memories were about?”
“Ah, no. Um. The magic coming back, yes. Also…” Zoe grimaced. “The whole thing with Hermes. Wow.”
“Ohhh.” It sounded like a missing puzzle piece had fallen into place for Sophie. She glanced back toward Niko. “So it’s true. We heard gossip in the Underworld, but never saw anything for sure.”
“It’s weird, you know? Because—he’s Niko. And I’m not straight, but it all feels real. And wrong, yet not wrong. I don’t know. Sorry. Ancient history, literally.”
Sophie nudged her elbow in a way that reminded Zoe, fondly, of Adrian. “Nah, it’s sweet. I’m not sure, of course, but I could swear the guy loved you. Maybe even still does.”
They both glanced at him again, though Zoe only dared look for a second. “No one can ever be sure with him. I think that’s always the problem.”
“Plus now he’s a dude and you’re not into those.”
“Another problem.”
Sophie turned to look at Tab and Freya, who giggled and talked together outside Liam’s caravan. “Too bad he couldn’t have been born into one of their bodies, huh?” Sophie said.
“Seriously. Though with Tab, I don’t know. It just doesn’t quite work between us. In any lifetime.”
“How about Freya?”
“Oh, sure, physically she’s a ten. It’s the personality that destroys it for me.” Zoe sent Sophie a bashful glance. “But this may be more than I ought to talk about with my mum.”
“It’s okay, I’m one of those cool mums.”
Something rustled among the bushes several meters away at the edge of the clearing. Zoe caught motion in the corner of her vision, and turned to look, grateful for the diversion. Sophie noticed too, and they both stared into the thick tangle of the spirit-world forest.
“Thought I saw some monkey-thing earlier,” Sophie said. “Might’ve been that.”
“Might be all sorts of things. Never know out here. Let me see.” Zoe stretched out her life-force senses, scanning the nearby animals. There were always lots more than she expected, even in the living world. Animals did a good job hiding. “Yeah, there’s monkey things up higher, bats too, squirrel and rabbit type things…and something dog-like. Pack of jackals? Wolves? Anyway, they’re sneaking off now. Probably just curious what we’re doing, dropping two trailers in the midst of them.”
“As long as nothing too big and hungry shows up.” Sophie sounded nervous.
“Don’t worry. That’s why we scary-scented immortal types are sticking with you out here.”
“Ooh. But this gal is cool.” Sophie knelt to examine a fat blue bumblebee that had landed on a yellow wildflower.
“Wow, very.” Zoe bent to look at the bee too. But a moment later she frowned aside into the forest, trying to work out what had felt so familiar about the dog-like things.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sophie approached the Airstream, gathering her courage to enter it. The generator hummed, and both trailers stood ready for moving into. She halted as Adrian appeared in the Airstream’s open door. He paused too, then jumped to the rocky ground in front of her.
“Nothing broken inside, I don’t think,” he said. “I must have strapped it all down well enough.”
She nodded. “Super.”
“Rearrange stuff however you like. Make it comfy.” He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I haven’t used it for a while, of course, and wasn’t planning to, so it’s yours as long as you need it.”
She nodded again. The Airstream had been sitting neglected in the spirit realm in Oregon for over a month, near the university campus she no longer lived at. For now. She tacked “for now” onto so much of life lately.
“Well then.” He squinted over at his team of horses. “Niko and I better get back to the States, keep watch on the bad guys.”
Sophie found her voice. “Please be careful. They’ll destroy you so fast if they get a chance. Just—please, be extra careful.”
His gaze met hers, and for a moment it was like looking at Hades again, with those stormy dark eyes, black windblown curls, and facial hair, here sharing space with her on the forested coasta
l hills of spirit-world Greece. “I will,” he said. “You be careful too. We’ll keep in touch.”
Then with a blink of his eyelashes as a sort of goodbye, he moved past. She stood there a few seconds, aching at how the wall of trauma still oppressed her, preventing her from embracing him. She even felt anxious about entering the Airstream, because oh Goddess, the memories linked to this little silver trailer. Maybe she should trade with Liam, give him this one…
But Liam was already playing with the windows from inside the other trailer, calling to Zoe through the screen, “I found a good spot for Rosie to sleep!”
Nope. Sophie was stuck with the Airstream.
She womaned up. One foot in front of the other, and repeat. In a moment she was up the steps and inside.
The smell of it knocked her back in time. Emotion swamped her. She stood there breathing it in, letting it happen.
The trailer smelled like Adrian, of course; there was that. But it also smelled like itself, old upholstery and chilly metal window frames and the ghost of all the food cooked over the years in the kitchenette. The smells together made up the experience of her relationship with Adrian. There on that bed, she had curled up with him lots of nights, either terrified about Quentin or steaming up the windows in lust, or alternating between those two. In this tiny bathroom—she stepped forward and peeked inside it—she had gotten ready for classes several mornings after spending the night here. At this kitchen counter she had made squash soup on Halloween, feeling morose because she wasn’t home in Carnation.
At least her house in Carnation had still been standing at the time. Should have counted her blessings.
Okay, so count them today.
She walked to the bed at the end of the trailer. One blessing: Adrian had made the bed for her with fresh sheets and blankets. A sweet gesture.
Another: Tab was off to wrap vines around Sophie’s parents and bring them here for the night. They’d probably sit outdoors between the two trailers, so they’d be within earshot the whole time Sophie and Liam slept.
Another: this kitchenette, though tiny, was better laid out and equipped than the awkward camp stove, toaster oven, and fridge combo they had in the Underworld lately. She could finally cook better.
Another: well, did she have decent pantry supplies here? She opened a cabinet in the kitchen, and pulled out the plastic storage box that Adrian had packed all the pantry goods into before hauling away the Airstream. She popped off the lid. Yep, flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and more.
She moved aside the bag of flour and found two pillar candles. She pulled them out, then looked over at the table against the window. There they had sat one cloudy fall afternoon, while Adrian explained how he had become immortal and what Thanatos was. These candles had burned on the table between them, because he had just gotten the Airstream and didn’t have the generator yet for electricity. She set the candles on the tabletop again now.
Among the pantry supplies she also found a box of matches. Sophie took it out. Her hands shook; it took five strikes to light the match, and the flame flaring to life almost startled her into dropping it. But she kept her fingers clamped around the match’s wooden end and lit both candles, then blew out the match and sat on one of the table’s bench seats. She stared at each flame until they no longer made her think of the house burning down. She pictured instead normal, nice candle-related things: Christmas cards, jack-o’-lanterns, birthday cakes. Adrian’s eyes glimmering with candlelight while he told her that, yes, the owls Persephone painted on the clay jar were purple, just as Sophie remembered.
Sophie reached out and flicked her fingertip through one of the flames, fast enough not to burn. She did it to the other candle too, then repeated the trick a few more times.
She got out her phone and struck through “fire” on her trigger list. One foot after the other, and repeat.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
No,” Landon said. “No, no, no.”
Tracy gazed at him with a calm smile, which Landon wanted to smash his knuckles into. “Then are we simply to do nothing?” Tracy said. “Keep feeding them tips exactly as they request?”
“If I call a meeting with them, and they realize you guys are nearby, watching, and they think even for a second that it’s a trap? Then I’m toast. Would you care that I was toast?”
“Surely you see the opportunity this has given us. Shouldn’t we use it?”
“So you’re going to kill whichever one shows up?” Landon asked.
“Hell yeah.” Krystal glowered from across the room, her arms folded.
Yuliya gave her an affirming nod.
“If we can manage it,” Tracy said. “But even if not, this meeting would be valuable as a test. Just to observe who shows up and what they do.”
They’d been arguing all afternoon, and Landon was sick of pacing around the Tahoe condo’s living room; sick of Yuliya and Krystal throwing in supportive comments—supporting Tracy, that is. Sick of it all. He leaned against the windowsill and rubbed his face.
It had been almost a week since the immortals had waylaid him. He’d been obediently sending his twice-daily texts, usually with information that was at least half true, so that if they checked on it, they wouldn’t discover an outright lie. He’d said stuff like, We’re probably flying over next week, date TBD (true), and Albania looks likely (somewhat true; Bulgaria looked likelier, since that’s where this sorcerer supposedly lived), and 4 of us plus a few on Europe side I haven’t met (true about the four, though they were aiming to pick up a couple dozen over there rather than just a few). The immortals never answered, which was unnerving, but Landon still didn’t dare skip a text.
Now Tracy wanted him to request an in-person meeting. If Landon refused, surely Tracy would steal his phone some night and text the request himself, pretending to be Landon. Then it’d be Landon who’d get punished if—or rather, when—they discovered the deception.
Similarly, if he called the meeting and the immortals showed up and realized they were about to be attacked, and somehow escaped—which they were excellent at doing—it would be Landon whose doomed ass subsequently got torn apart in the spirit realm.
On the other hand, say this trap worked? One good shot from Krystal’s rifle, then one grenade strapped to the unconscious immortal, and Landon’s nightmare could be over. Or at least part of it. He didn’t want to think about how the rest of the immortals or their allies might retaliate in such an event. God, he was in it deep, no matter what he did.
He lifted his face and took in Krystal’s glower, Yuliya’s sympathetic but stubborn jaw, Tracy’s unruffled tweediness. “Fine. Let’s try.”
They had already concluded that the only way the immortals would agree to meet him in person was if there was some tangible, important item he could give them. Claiming to have information he wanted to convey in person would be an obvious lie. Since he had already told Adrian and the other guy that they had an artifact for getting into the spirit realm, Landon and his teammates agreed this artifact was the best piece of bait they could offer.
Tracy claimed not to have it with him. Much too valuable, he’d said; it was in a “safe place” until he was ready to fetch it. Landon suspected Tracy was lying and totally did have the thing with him, but it didn’t matter much, since they wouldn’t be offering the real artifact anyway.
Yuliya donated a broken golden earring to stand in for it. When she pulled off the wire piece, it left a disk with concentric circles and random symbols engraved on it, which did have a sort of ancient look to it. It wouldn’t convince them once they saw it, but then, it only needed to absorb their concentration for a few seconds. As long as it took Krystal to aim and pull the trigger.
That evening, fingers icy with fear, he texted to the mystery phone number: Say I get you this artifact and return it to you. Then I run. Away from this club for good. I’d be out of the fight. Would you leave me alone after that?
It took over an hour, but an answer finally came. Potentiall
y. Do you have it?
Yes. Can you meet me tomorrow at 10 am?
Tomorrow yes. Can’t promise the time. We’ll text you when ready.
OK. I’m just done w/ it all. That, Landon thought tiredly, was at least mostly true. Parking lot of St John church on Lincoln Hwy.
***
“Think it’s a trap?” Adrian asked, after studying the messages back and forth between Landon and Niko.
Niko had flown to southern Arizona to meet with Adrian. Adrian had been camping out down there in his bus in the spirit realm, among the cacti, because Lake Tahoe in January was too bloody cold when you were sleeping in the back of a bus with no windows.
“Almost certainly,” Niko said. “That church closed last year and the building’s abandoned. The parking lot would be empty, not many people around to witness anything happening in it. Good place to hit someone with a bullet or Tazer, then drag them into a car and transport them elsewhere to blow them up.”
Adrian handed the phone back to Niko. “You don’t think there’s any chance he really is giving this artifact to us and running out on Thanatos?”
“I could see him being tempted to,” Niko said. “But I expect he’s too scared. They’re his best hope at safety. Or so he thinks.”
“So if he really is trying to murder us…” Adrian’s heart constricted with dread. Goddess, he hated being obligated to kill anyone.
Niko looked equally unenthused, his tan skin a shade paler than usual, his lips firmly set. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m coming too. If he’s bringing backup, so are you.”
Adrian expected resistance, a cool brush-off. But Niko only nodded and said, “Let’s get Zoe as well. Extra magic on our side won’t hurt.”