Approaching Storm

by A. L. Kessler

  I covered my eyes. "I don't want to talk about this."

  Teal laughed. "That's fine because it's time to go home. For all of us."

  I looked at Lee, and she grinned. "Werewolves." I shook my head.

  "Not-really human." She pointed at me. "Come on; you have to be curious as to why he's here and obsessed with you."

  I knew exactly why he was here, because he thought I was his soul mate. "I need to talk to Davina," I said suddenly, leaving my soda. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

  "Don't forget you're watching the shop for a few hours in the morning," Lee called after me on my way out the door.

  I basically ran to Davina's house. I paused for a moment until I saw a light on and I went and knocked.

  "It's late, what do you want?" she called through the door.

  "I want a potion."

  She opened the door and stared at me. "You want a what now?"

  I pushed my way in and crossed my arms. "A potion, one that will bring back the memories I've lost." I didn't know why I hadn't thought of it before, because it seemed clear as day now.

  "I can't do that, May."

  "Why not? You clearly know something about what is going on. Which means you know how to help me."

  She shook her head and led me to the kitchen. "Sit down, shut up, and listen." She went and got two teacups. "Whatever is wrong with you, I can't fix it. I tried when you first got here." She placed a kettle on the stove and then turned to look at me. "You're a mystery to me. I don't know what connection you have to Zephyr."

  "But he knows you. He called you something. A guardian of Hades? Something like that."

  She rolled her eyes. "Then I was assigned to this tiny ass place without any explanation other than to keep it hidden and protected." There was a small tremor in her voice that made me question if she was telling the truth.

  The kettle let out a shrill whistle, and she started pouring boiling water over the tea bags in our cups.

  "What can you tell me about Zephyr?"

  She handed me the teacup and then motioned to the living room. "That he's trouble. He's a warrior of Ananke, and that makes him extremely dangerous."

  "Ananke is his mother right?" I sipped the tea and let the warmth settle through me.

  She nodded. "She is. His father is some unknown human. Ananke raises her boys to be warriors to make sure she doesn't lose her seat as controller of the Fates."

  I sat back in the chair. "So Zephyr used to work for her."

  "Last I saw him a few centuries ago, he still did. Zephyr isn't the type of person to just flip over a coin. Especially not for a woman." she held her hand up to stop any protest that might have come from me. "No offense."

  I thought for a moment while I sipped the tea. Maybe I wasn't all that good of a person either when I appeared here. "You know nothing about his life after you two um…what exactly were you two?"

  She laughed. "Friends with benefits. Until he destroyed the village that I was supposed to be protecting." Her smile faded. "That was the last of our friendship. I realized he'd been using me to get to the village."

  Something haunted passed her eyes, and I wanted to reach out to comfort her, but Davina wouldn't allow that. I sipped my tea. "Do you know anything about me before I came here?"

  "Nothing, May, I'm sorry. I don't even remember hearing whispers of your name from the gods. I'm on earth ninety percent of my time. I wish I could help you."

  I nodded and finished the tea. "Do you think Zephyr would have killed Maverick?"

  She pressed her lips together. "I think that if Zephyr thought Maverick was a threat in any way, he would have neutralized it. He is a warrior after all."

  I stood. "Thank you for talking and for the tea."

  "Of course. Be careful, May. I don't know what Zephyr's intentions are." She got up and walked me to the door. "The tea…"

  "Yeah?" I asked turning to face her. "It was good."

  "It may give you some odd dreams." She gave a small smile. "It is the best I could do."

  Yes, because my life needed more nightmares.

  It was almost midnight by the time I managed to face my fears and go to bed. I half expected Zephyr to come see me, but he said he was going to be gone until the next night. I pulled my blankets around me, double checked that my gun was on the nightstand, and closed my eyes.

  I couldn't keep Davina's words out of my head, and I tossed and turned until the lights on my clock told me it was almost two. This was ridiculous. I'd never had anxiety over sleep before. Except…that wasn't true. When I first woke here, I refused to sleep in fear of…what?

  A voice whispered to me. "Sleep, Amaya, come to me."

  My eyelids grew heavy as the voice demanded I sleep. I couldn't figure out where it came from or why it had the power to draw me into the world of dreams, but it did, and I couldn't fight it.

  The world seemed to spin around me, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself looking over a beautiful city. Pillars of white marble held up arched roofs with gold trimmings, perfectly kept cobble streets lead through the town, leading to a massive temple up on a hill.

  Something called to me here, something that said I was finally home.

  "Not all demigods get to call this place home," a male voice spoke from next to me. His curly black hair gave him a carefree look, and his eyes seemed just as dark, but what caught my attention were the wings sprouting from his back. They shimmered between black and blue with twinkles caught in the feathers like stars in the night sky.

  I swallowed as a name came to my tongue. "Ike?"

  "Ikelos, but you could never get the pronunciation right, so you got to call me Ike." He chuckled. "Of course, you wouldn't remember that."

  "I remember nothing. Your name just came to me." I motioned around. "This is all familiar to me, but I can't remember it."

  He motioned to the city below. "Watch as the day you first were brought here. You are not a demigod, but this swiftly became your home after yours was destroyed. Taken in by Poseidon to live here."

  "So I'm a goddess. How could someone do this to a goddess?"

  He touched my hand. "You aren't really a goddess," he growled. "I want to give you everything I can, but many of us are sworn not to give away too much." He shook his head. "But this, I can give you. Watch below."

  I turned my eyes back to the scene in front of me. A younger me stood in the cobbled streets, a blue and green dress draped over my body. I noted that the wings that Zephyr had been so worried about weren't present. A man stood next to me, his tall form towered over me, and his toga matched the color of the dress I wore.

  Callister appeared. Dressed in black pants and no shirt. His chest covered in scars, but it didn't distract from how handsome he was.

  "Callister, I present to you, your betrothed Amaya Corvidae, born of the sea and storms."

  Callister took my hand and kissed it. Somewhere deep inside m,e hope started to surface, and I tried to remember that day. The dream felt so real. I noticed a building away Zephyr had his back against the wall, watching his brother closely.

  "We'll set the wedding date soon."

  "Already?" The dream me asked, and I felt the same surprise I'm sure she did. That was soon.

  He touched my cheek, and I jerked back from him. "You want to be safe and protected? Then we marry and move to my mother's realm."

  What the hell was he talking about? The dream me looked at the man next to me for some explanation. He simply nodded.

  "Set a date soon then." Dread filled me, and Callister and the man went off to talk, leaving me standing in the road.

  Helpless.

  I turned to Ike, and he motioned. "Keep watching."

  Zephyr came out of the shadows and stepped in front of me. "Callister means well."

  I shook my head
. "I'm not some pawn to be married off."

  "You're not," he agreed and motioned to the road. "Walk with me?"

  And I knew that was the moment I started to fall in love with him.

  The world around us swirled in black and faded away. "Ike?" I reached out for him as he started to fade, his fingers barely touching mine as the city disappeared completely.

  Suddenly, I couldn't move. My wrists were in cold shackles, keeping me against a slick wall, my breathing was uneven as pain laced through my back.

  I knew this nightmare. It was too soon for it to return to me. It hadn't been a month. The full moon hadn't come yet.

  "My precious Amaya," Callister's whispered in my ear causing me to cringe. "My precious little, Amaya ." There was something sinister in his voice. "I will strip everything away from you, and you'll have no choice but to come back to me begging."

  The pain in my back sliced through me as fresh blood trickled down.

  I could hear Zephyr in the background yelling for me. But then everything was wiped away.

  The pain still haunted my body as I woke up in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar faces staring down at me. They were faces I learned to love and trust over the last five years. Teal, Lee, and Maverick all stared down at me.

  "My god, she's awake." Maverick smiled down at me. "Howdy miss."

  I woke with a jump and cried out. Touching my face, I found wet tears against my skin. A flood of emotion tried to swallow me. Ike. Ike had gifted me with a dream. I don't know how I knew him, but he'd given me a few things to go off of. I was Amaya, born of the sea and storms. I wasn't considered a goddess, and for some reason, I needed to be protected. The man I was assuming was Poseidon thought the best way to do that was marrying me off.

  I scrubbed at my face. That didn't make any sense. There were still too many gaps, but I knew one thing for sure, Callister was to blame for what happened to me.

  A few hours after dawn, I walked to the soda shop and opened it up. I was just setting out the ice cream scoops when the door swung open. I looked up as Teal came in with her laptop bag and waved at me.

  Everything felt normal as she set up at her usual table.

  "What's today's subject?" I finished setting the scoops out.

  She smiled at me. "What are your dreams trying to tell you?" Her headline hit me hard, and I let out a forced laugh.

  "Are you going to say that they are leading you to adventure and romance?"

  She shrugged. "Or success and fame." There was a glint in her eye that she always got when she talked about her job. "You'd be surprised how many people eat this stuff up."

  After last night's dreams, I wouldn't doubt it. I shook my head. "Well, you have fun writing that."

  "Any luck on Maverick?" She met my gaze.

  "No, not really. I know that he was in the outskirts looking for a potion, but still no real clues on who would want him killed. So far everything points to Zephyr, but there's no real solid evidence. The only thing is the theory that Maverick taking me out to dinner threatened him."

  Teal shook her head. "No, it'd be too obvious. He's a stranger in town, and Maverick just shows up dead? That would be a stupid move, and Zephyr doesn't strike me as stupid."

  No, especially if what Davina said was true. As a warrior, Zephyr would know better than to leave a dead body hanging around. I hung my head. "Then I'm at a dead end."

  "Something will come up," she promised. "Until then, just focus on relaxing a little bit."

  "I don't know why everyone thinks I suddenly need to relax and rest," I muttered and turned to make me a soda.

  "Really? A dead body on your porch, a vampire trying to kill you, ominous predictions from Delphi? None of that says you need to take it easy?"

  "No, all of that says to watch my back."

  Teal laughed. "Okay, that's fair. Look, murders like that happen in supernatural towns all the time, someone decides the human doesn't belong there and removes them."

  I glanced at her over the top of my foam cup. "You out of all people should not be this chill about a murder."

  "Do we know anything about Maverick other than he's human?"

  I thought for a moment. "I know that he's from Texas, he talked once about how he moved from one small city to here just to find it full of unusual people."

  "Yeah, poor Maverick didn't realize supernatural creatures surrounded him for the ten years he lived here."

  I clicked my tongue while I thought. "How did he become sheriff here?"

  "Our last sheriff was killed. Deputy Hamish put out a call on an online job search site, but apparently he was too subtle about us being a supernatural town, and Maverick was the only one to apply."

  I raised a brow. "How was the last sheriff killed?"

  Teal shrugged. "No idea. Lee might know. I was still staying in my house most of the time then."

  I made a mental note to ask Lee about it when she came in. "Thanks for letting me talk all this out."

  "It's not a problem, but excuse me, as I have a blog post to write." She wiggled her fingers over the keyboard before settling in to work.

  I busied myself with setting out the ice cream scoops and checking the soda syrup while waiting for customers. Whatever spell Davina had put on the city had faded, but something else was affecting the flow of tourists. None had visited the city since the Chimera had shown up.

  Only the clicking of Teal's keyboard kept me company as I cleaned the shop. Lee walked in a couple hours later and looked around.

  "Slow day?"

  I threw the dust rag back behind the counter. "Dead."

  She blew out a huff of air. "Okay, well, thanks for keeping an eye on the shop. I bring news from the wolf pack."

  Teal's head peeked over her computer at that. "What kind of news?"

  "Zephyr left yesterday, and he just returned. He looks like crap."

  My heart pounded. "What do you mean?"

  "He looks like he got the shit beat out of him."

  "Where is he?"

  Lee hesitated. "I don't know. The wolves saw him appear near the graveyard, but that was it."

  I took the white apron off and tossed it at Lee before I ran out the door. I knew he shouldn't have gone to see Callister. My feet carried me toward the cemetery, but I made a sharp u-turn. He wouldn't stay there; he'd go someplace he considered safe.

  My house.

  I darted across the street and through my rarely seen neighbor's yard. Vaulting over the fence, I wondered what on earth Callister had done to Zephyr.

  My mind went back to the dream Ike brought me last night. The pain that Callister caused me. He was capable of inflicting massive damage, and it made my stomach churn.

  I quickly hit the numbers for my lock and walked in. The house was silent as I entered. I forced myself to take a quick couple breaths. "Zephyr?"

  I heard a noise upstairs, before rushing up, I took a moment to think through this logically. I grabbed the blade he'd given me and sprinted up the stairs. I walked into my bedroom to see Zephyr laying on my bed, curled on his side.

  "Zephyr." I went to him and knelt by the bed. His eyes were clenched shut, and his face pinched together in pain. His face looked like it'd been used as a punching bag. I put my hand to his cheek.

  He didn't move at my touch. His arm stayed draped over his stomach almost blocking the red stain on his shirt.

  What the hell had happened?

  My bedroom door slammed shut. I jumped up and drew my blade.

  A man with black hair that curled just at his ears and black eyes that bore into my soul stood there. The only thing that marred his beautiful face was the scar over his eye. The scar I gave him.

  "Callister."

  His lips lifted into a nasty sneer. "Hello, sister."

  Chapter Seven

  My heart pounded, and I backed up, gr
ipping the hilt of my blade. "What are you doing here?"

  "I've been looking for you. You've hidden so well for five years, but now I find you in this tiny town. Alive and well."

  He was the second person or thing surprised to find me alive. It made me wonder just what happened the night I disappeared. I tightened my grip as he took a step toward me. "Go away."

  "Are you going to fight me? You're useless without your powers, nothing more than a weak human. Mother is right, the only way you could be useful is under our rule."

  "Fuck you. I'm no one's tool."

  He rushed towards me. One moment he was standing across the room, the next he was in front of me, slamming me against the wall. "That could be arranged you know."

  He crushed his lips to mine, and a memory came flooding back to me.

  His fingers tightened in the front of my dress, pulling me closer to look at him. He snarled in my face. "I loved you, Amaya." He kissed my cheek and trailed his lips down my neck. It wasn't the same as when Zephyr did it. It didn't give me the same response. My body hated Callister, just like I did. "But you had to go whore yourself out to my brother."

  He shoved me away, and I took a deep breath to keep my anger under control. Lashing out at him would do me no good at this moment. He was a demigod; he was stronger than I was. "What did he give you Amaya, what on earth could he have provided you with that I couldn't?"

  There was some heartbreak in his voice that I couldn't place. I wanted to comfort him. "He gave me his heart. You've always been cold and calculating. Zephyr showed me there's more than being locked up on Olympus for the rest of my life."

  I came back to reality and shoved my knee into Callister's groin. He pulled back with a shout and glared at me. I twirled my blade, and the weight felt good in my palm. It helped me think. "Do not touch me."

  Callister snarled at me and held his hand out. A strange dark ball of light gathered there, but before it could do anything, Zephyr groaned. Callister looked over at his brother and then disappeared.