Uninvited (Etudes in C# Book 3)

by Jamie Wyman

  “Really? A satyr that’s just a pretty face? Who’d a thunk it?”

  “He’s okay, but not super hot,” I assured Flynn. “You’d think he’d pick a better glamour.”

  “Not how it works,” Marius told me.

  I cocked my head at him. “What do you mean?”

  He started to explain, then cut himself off. Eyes drifting to the ceiling, he gestured with his fingers and hands, as if trying to pull an answer from the ether. “It’s… We look the way we look. The glamour a satyr uses is a minor bit of magic meant to conceal the horns and furry legs that people seem to take issue with. Some satyrs exaggerate their better features to make themselves more attractive, but on the whole, what you see is what you get.”

  “So a short and fat satyr can’t make himself look like Flynn?” I clarified.

  Marius snorted. “He could. But it would be quite an effort. In case you haven’t noticed, we tend to be a bit of a lazy lot.”

  Flynn crossed his arms over his chest. “So why haven’t you changed how you look to hide from the beasties that want to get you?”

  “Why hide one’s light under a bushel?”

  I giggled. Flynn rolled his eyes.

  “Vanity aside,” Flynn said, “shouldn’t you at least try? Wouldn’t that help?”

  Marius raised an eyebrow. The air around him shimmered and blurred. As I watched, his eyes went from a deep green to a piercing blue. His cheekbones paled, and his beard winked out of being. The hair falling past his shoulders lightened from black to brown. As his face rearranged itself, I gasped. Within seconds, I was staring at Mal in Marius’s clothing.

  Flynn grimaced. “That’s the best you can do?”

  “It’s his brother,” I explained. “That’s Mal. Almost.”

  The satyr nodded. Marius’s voice came out of Mal’s mouth. “Flynn doesn’t know what to look for, but Catherine, you’ve seen him. This doesn’t convince you at all, does it?”

  I waved my hand back and forth. “A little. I mean, it’s close, but there’s something wrong.”

  “It’s hard work to maintain and shift. The worst part is that there are spells and relics made specifically to see beyond a glamour. Most deities are so powerful they wouldn’t be fooled in the slightest. Assuming they’re bothering to do a visual search and not a magical one, that is.”

  “Is keeping it together really so difficult?” I asked.

  His answer came in the beads of sweat pearling on his forehead. Marius’s appearance changed again. The long locks of brown shrank up into his scalp where they formed unruly ginger spikes. His skin lost most of its color, and Marius’s eyes flushed to a golden hazel. His face lengthened, his features becoming more gaunt and pronounced. Tattoos formed on his arms in a perfect mimicry of Flynn’s.

  “I hate you,” Flynn said to his new twin.

  My giggles were quickly silenced by the stony look Flynn shot me.

  “Take off my face, Marius, before I knock it off you.”

  Not-Flynn smirked just before melting into another form. This time I could tell that Marius was concentrating hard. I don’t know if Flynn noticed, but I could almost see the real Marius beneath the glamour as he worked to morph his appearance. His hair spooled out from his head in a lush ginger mane. His cheekbones rounded, features softened, and his eyes turned a muted shade of green.

  My jaw dropped. She was a little taller than me, curvier and prettier than what I usually saw in the mirror, but there was no mistaking it. Cat Sharp stood across the room from me.

  “Oh, now that’s just fucked up,” I said.

  Marius leered down at his—my—chest. He copped himself an admiring feel. His voice came out of my mouth. “How do you manage to leave the house?”

  “Stop that,” I snapped. “Those aren’t yours.”

  “Technically they’re not yours, either,” Flynn said with a shrug.

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Go back to the first one,” a bubbly voice said. “He was cute!”

  In a single instant, many things happened. With a snap of power, Flynn sparked to life, arms aglow with orange light. Marius’s glamour of me dropped, and he stood wearing his own face and brandishing his sword. I whirled around, already reaching out to the well of energy within YmFy, and found a dead girl sitting in lotus position about three feet above my bed.

  “Polly?” I gasped.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Shut the Fuck Up”

  Her chestnut hair was pulled up into a little bun on each side of her head. She hovered, the sheer white of her gown flowing around her as if in a current of water.

  “Impossible,” Flynn said.

  She lifted a perfect hand and wiggled her fingers. “Hi!”

  “Polly?” I repeated. “Polyhymnia?”

  She flapped her lips. “Not even close, sister.” Unfolding her legs, she stood on my bed and bounced a little before stepping to the floor. She was shorter than Polly. The more I looked at her, the more differences I could see. Like the pert nose, smattering of freckles, and radiant dimples. But the resemblance was uncanny.

  “And sister is the answer to your next question,” she sang.

  “You can’t be here,” Flynn snarled.

  Her toes barely skimming the floor, the woman floated across the room and licked Flynn’s nose. “And yet here I am, Copper Top.”

  “Muse,” Marius said with a reverent bow of his head. “You honor us with your presence.”

  The Muse glided over to Marius and offered him her hand. He bowed over it, letting his lips graze her skin.

  “No, you don’t,” Flynn protested. “We don’t. There’s no honoring here.”

  She gave Marius a curtsey before glaring over her shoulder at Flynn. “At least someone knows his manners around here.”

  “What are you doing here?!” Flynn roared.

  “Bleebie bleebie bee,” she said, her face pulling into a mocking frown. The Muse rolled her eyes and turned her attention to me. Extending a hand, she said, “Charmed. I’ve heard a lot about you, Cat.”

  I shied away from her. “Really?”

  “You solve my sister’s murder and you think I’m not going to hear about it?”

  Shaking her hand, I asked, “So which one are you?”

  “Who am I?” The Muse spun, the gossamer of her gown flying wildly about her. As she whirled, her feet came off the ground and an ephemeral pink light poured from her skin. When she spoke again, her voice echoed with strength. “I am she who would tease out tears from your soul. She who would pluck the strings of your heart until you melt into a weeping puddle. I am the reason Meryl Streep has won so many fucking awards. I am Melpomene.”

  “The Mistress of Tragedy,” Marius intoned.

  “And you beg for it every time.”

  In a movement faster than I could blink, Flynn caught the hem of Melpomene’s gown and yanked her to the floor. His eyes blazed down at her, and she returned the heat of his stare tenfold.

  “How did you get past my wards?”

  “Oh, those were supposed to keep me out? How cute.”

  “How. Are. You. Here?” Flynn demanded.

  “I am a thought, you clueless bastard! And since that is supposedly your thing, I had no trouble slipping right in through your front door. It was as easy as coming home.”

  Melpomene got to her feet in a huff. Though she was a head shorter than Flynn, her presence filled the room. She lifted her chin proudly and squared off against my friend.

  Flynn seethed. “Impossible.”

  Melpomene lifted a gentle palm to his cheek. When he flinched, the Muse tilted her head, her eyes soft and pitying. “Oh, dear Recluse… Have you forgotten so much in your time away from your kind?”

  Flynn smacked her hand away. “I have no kind.”

  The Muse coughed, a noise that sounded remarkably like “bullshit.”

  “You’ll have to forgive him,” Marius said. “He’s gone and left his manners with his sense of humor.”

/>   “Up his ass and three doors to the right?” Melpomene sniggered.

  “Somewhere in that neighborhood, yes.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Why are you here, Muse?” Flynn bellowed.

  “Ah!” She lifted a finger then dug in the folds of her gown. Soon her hands came up around a small silver disc—a pitch pipe. She blew into it and coaxed out a high note. After she cleared her throat, she sang, “I am your singing telegram.”

  The white of her billowing dress exploded into a wreath of black smoke and bloody light. Her face, so beautiful before, now appeared gaunt and withered. The sclera of her eyes melted to a glistening jet black.

  “The Recluse will hide no more!” she called, her voice deep and twisted with the screams and sobs of children. “We see him, a bright star among lights in the desert playground. He will come forth. He shall deliver the traitor, or we will purge him from the sanctity of this puny demesne.”

  “Like hell,” Flynn snarled. Power coalesced beneath the skin of his fists, and he made to lunge for Melpomene.

  Marius put his hands to Flynn’s chest. “She’s but the messenger.”

  “I can send a message right back!”

  “Messengers are sacred to their gods. A Muse, doubly so. Don’t you know anything?”

  I flinched. Marius had no clue about Flynn’s true nature. Flynn—a deity of thought and intellect, a creature of technology and insight—knew the sum total of all. But he had been in hiding so long. He’d been masquerading as a technomage-bartender hybrid. Had he forgotten so much about the trappings of godhood?

  The Muse’s terrible voice cut through the air again. “Come forth! Embrace that which you have forsaken. We see you!”

  “What is she going on about?” Marius asked, not taking his attention off Melpomene.

  “And you!” Her gleaming eyes shot to Marius. “The price of your blood tips the scales. Soon your skin will hang from the halls of Hades while your shade wails for mercy. Your soul shall know only everlasting despair.”

  The cacophonous gale that swirled around and through the Muse abated. The shadows melted into the ether, and she floated back down to the ground. Restored but winded, she said, “Love and kisses, the lords of Olympus.”

  Marius pondered this, his eyes darting back and forth between Melpomene and Flynn.

  “All right,” Flynn snarled. “You’ve said your piece. Now get the fuck out of my home.”

  As she caught her breath, Melpomene’s face twisted in an unimpressed grimace. She didn’t get the chance to say whatever she’d wanted to, however. Instead, orange light flared around her and the Muse’s being dissolved into citrine bubbles and sparks.

  Marius gaped. He pawed through the orange haze where the Muse had been a second earlier, then wheeled on Flynn. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “She’s fine. I just sent her back to where she belongs.” Flynn turned his back on Marius, but the satyr clamped down on his shoulders and yanked him back around.

  “Before we could find out exactly who sent her! What’s more, you’ve insulted a Muse and potentially the beings she is working for. Are you really that dull? What are you to them, Flynn?”

  Flynn jerked himself out of Marius’s grip. He paced the room, simmering with fury, but he didn’t speak.

  “He’s a god,” I said.

  My friend shot me a glare of sheer contempt, but he made no attempts to deny my words. He simmered, the orange light on his tattoos shimmering and twisting.

  As Marius studied Flynn, his lips moved and his fingers danced in the air, as though he were adding up a great sum. Marius—so quick and smart—was a voyeur. He was probably remembering every interaction with Flynn and holding them up against this new revelation like a slide against light, trying to divine what it all meant.

  When he’d reached some sort of conclusion, Marius addressed me. “But he’s not an Olympian. I know most of them. He’s not of their pantheon.”

  “Not of any,” Flynn growled. “And now they’re looking at me. I feel them, Cat. I feel their fucking eyes all over me. And he’s the one that drew their attention.” He jabbed a finger at Marius. “I want you gone. Now.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Flynn stalked up to Marius and looked down his nose at the satyr. “I want you gone. I don’t care where you go or what you do, but you are not welcome here. Do you understand?”

  “Flynn!” I protested.

  “Gone. You have one hour.”

  “Come on, Flynn.” I followed him as far as the door, but an orange force field zapped into being inches in front of my face. When my breath splashed across it, the light pulsed and flared with the snap of power. I didn’t dare touch it.

  “Dammit,” I muttered. “Sometimes he can be such a whiny, emo son of a bitch.”

  “And that bright ray of sunshine has all the power and trappings of a deity? That’s what you’re saying?”

  I nodded.

  Marius pondered that a moment. I could almost see the questions flowing through his mind. Rather than ask, he just chuffed out a breath. “He’s going to get himself into worlds of trouble if he doesn’t learn diplomacy.”

  “As long as I’ve known him, he’s only ever learned anything the hard way.”

  “Something else the two of you have in common, then?”

  “I guess.”

  I shuffled over to my bed and stared at my things thrown over the sheets. The clothes and necessities I’d meant to pack before Marius had returned. I’d been about to do anything to get to him and now that we were alone together… My mouth went dry along with any well of words. What was I supposed to say?

  He seemed to be thinking the same thing. Marius stood just inside the door, hands in his pockets. The longer the silence, the deeper the lines on his forehead became.

  What was he thinking about? Why was his stare so dark and intense?

  Marius cut the silence with a single syllable. “Why?”

  Of all the questions either of us could’ve asked, I hadn’t expected that one. And I wasn’t certain what he even meant. “Why what?”

  “Why did you put yourself between me and a prince of Hell?” he asked, his voice creaking.

  The reason clamped over my chest in that familiar tightness beneath the breastbone. The troublesome affection. The four-letter word. The words bubbled up into my throat but stuck there. My vision blurred with tears as I said, “I keep my promises.”

  Marius frowned. “Yes, you do.”

  In quick strides of those long legs, Marius was across the room, sweeping me into a viselike embrace. His arms locked around my shoulders, one hand cupping my head to his chest. As fiercely as he gripped me, I clutched him. I let the tears fall, let him stroke my hair.

  “So stupid,” he muttered as he planted a kiss on the top of my head. “So bloody stupid.”

  “He was going to kill you,” I protested, my voice muffled by his body.

  He pushed me away only far enough that he could fix me with his stare. “So you should let him kill you instead? No, Catherine. Not for me.” His voice wavered as he pulled me back to his chest. His whole body tightened, and I felt his hot tears slide over my scalp. “I thought he would…you know. I thought, ‘This is it. I’m over.’ And I was ready for it.”

  I stepped back, lifting my head so I could watch him speak.

  “Then I looked up and I saw you.” He stroked my hair again, his expression softening with admiration. “Like a radiant, vengeful goddess coming to smite her enemies. You were beautiful. And terrifying.”

  That’s when I remembered the golden sphere around me. The aura of light and power. Flying. Being filled with energy and life. My voice a fuller version of itself as I squared off against Belial.

  “What did you do, Catherine? How?”

  The memory of holding that kind of raw energy hit me, and I swayed on my feet. Marius steadied me. If I reached out now, here in Las Vegas where the well seemed infinite, could I draw that kind of
power to me? I didn’t dare try.

  “Magic,” I said.

  Marius’s half smile soaked into his words. “Does Flynn know?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t tell him that part.”

  “Probably for the best. Your little trick knocked out the power all the way to Bristol. You don’t do things by halves, do you?”

  “What?”

  He smiled down at me, eyes glistening. “Blackouts for a thirty-mile radius. Father said it took six hours for power to be restored, but otherwise, everything is fine.”

  “And Llyr,” I asked, “is he really okay?”

  “Finer than Chinese silk.” His hands traced up and down my arms, massaged my shoulders. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “Thanks,” I said weakly. “Flynn says that if it weren’t for you I’d be…”

  “Ah, and just what did Flynn have to say on that subject, then?”

  “That you used my key fob and got us back here. Good thinking on your part,” I added.

  He let out a long breath. “It was nothing. Just did what you’d have done.”

  “What I should’ve done,” I said on a sigh. “I could’ve ported us back here the moment Belial knocked, and it would’ve saved a lot of heartache.”

  His fingers were feather-light as they drifted up over my collarbones, down to my chest. He paused just over the bullet wound.

  “Heartache,” he whispered. “Is that what this is?”

  My belly quivered with a thousand puking butterflies. The distance between us, though little more than the width of a hand, was too much. If I couldn’t find a home in the circle of his arms, I thought I might shake myself to pieces. While part of me longed to dive into him and never leave the safety of his embrace, another part of me argued that this was Marius. Could waking up next to him erase all the sins he’d committed? What did it matter if he was an arrogant, lecherous, smug bastard if just being near him made this terrible sadness ebb away even a fraction of an inch?

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he shushed me with a gesture. When he spoke his voice was insistent but gentle. “No. Before you say anything, I need to tell you…” He let out an uneasy laugh. “I don’t see why it should be difficult, and yet I don’t know that I’ve ever truly said it. And certainly not to you. I… Thank you, Catherine. You’ve given me more than I deserve.” His hand lingered over the hole in my chest. “Too much.”