Sweet Tea and Sass

by Tegan Maher

  “Who else might be there?” I asked, hoping he was going to say Elvis.

  He rolled his eyes. ”Please tell me you’re not hoping for a glimpse of the King.” When I cast my eyes down in guilt, he gave a delighted laugh. “I swear, I’m gonna invite him next year myself.”

  “If you do, invite the younger version,” Bob suggested. “The older one will give Shakespeare a run for his money.”

  “Is that even an option?” I asked, my mind whirring with possibilities. “You can just invite whoever you want, at whatever stage of their lives you want?”

  “Pretty much,” Ari said, then drained his beer. “There are some rules, of course, but for the most part, we can do whatever we want.”

  “Rules? I asked, intrigued. “Such as?”

  He shrugged and his muscles rippled under his pink polo. I swear, if it weren’t for little movements like that, I’d have sworn the man was carved from granite.

  “For instance, we can only bring one of you at a time.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said, furrowing my brow, then got excited because, well, I’m a superhero nerd. “Are you saying stuff like alternative realities is real? That I actually exist on other planes? Like on Earth 13 or something?”

  He gave me a get real look. “You really gotta stop watching so much TV. No, I mean I can’t bring, for example, the twenty-eight-year-old you and the forty-year-old you.”

  I pressed my lips together, taking in the implications. Oh, the possibilities. “So, you could go back in time and tell me to invest in Microsoft when I was like eight?”

  He snorted. “That takes insider trading to a whole new level, and it’s even more illegal where I’m from than it is here. I mean, technically I could, but my wings would fall off and I’d be grounded. Fate’s a prickly witch. She doesn’t take kindly to meddlers. Changing history, even for one person, is one of the few absolute no-nos we have. The butterfly effect is real.”

  “What’s another rule?” Bob asked as he polished a wine glass.

  “Lemme guess,” Colin said, warming up to the conversation. “You can’t bring anybody who would damage historical records.”

  I tilted my head, not quite getting what he was saying, but Ari nodded. “Yeah, that’s another big one.”

  “Okay,” Bob said. “You’re gonna have to give me a little more. I’m not following.”

  “No revealing history’s mysteries. Amelia Earhart, post-disappearance. Elvis, post-faking his death,” Colin said. “If we could talk to them, we’d have answers that would change history.”

  “Well, yeah,” Ari said. “Except Elvis didn’t fake his death.” He gave Colin a skeptical look. “And I’m a little surprised to learn you’re a conspiracy theorist.”

  Rather than respond to that, Colin, being the lawyer that he is, caught what Ari didn’t say. “So you’re saying Amelia Earhart didn’t crash her plane into the ocean? That she really did go through a black hole or end up living on an island or in occupied Germany or something?”

  Ari scowled. “I’m not saying any such thing. And in case you’ve missed the point of this conversation, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you even if any of that was how things really went down.”

  “So how come you didn’t know who poisoned Cass?” I asked, referring back to when my boss, the disgraced angel of temperance, had been murdered.

  “We can only observe exactly what you can. You were there. How come you didn’t know?”

  “Because I didn’t have all the pieces. I didn’t know what he’d been doing, and I didn’t know he’d pissed off the wrong people. Or at least I didn’t know which one of his many enemies hated him enough to off him.”

  He shrugged. “Same with us. Just because we can jump to any point in time we want doesn’t make us omniscient. As a matter of fact, I did go back and watch Cass die and missed it the same as you did. Except you actually saw more than I did.”

  “So are there any big rules that we have to follow while we’re up there?” Colin asked.

  “Now that’s a good question,” Ari replied. “And yes, there are. Basically, you have to follow the same rules we do. You can’t talk about current events with anybody from the past or do anything else that could damage the timeline.”

  “And how do you enforce that?” That seemed like an almost impossible rule. I mean, the big stuff was easy—no discussing Fortune 500 companies, etc., but the little stuff could be tricky. Like he said, the butterfly effect. Small ripples could make tsunamis.

  He waved me off. “We don’t. Fate does. She’s put a magical gag over the whole city. If you start to say something that can mess things up, it simply won’t come out.”

  Bob frowned. “But how does she—”

  Ari gave him a knowing smile. “Because she is omniscient. She has to be.”

  “You talk about her like she’s a real person,” Colin said just as Stephanie approached the bar.”

  “Hey Des, Colin,” she said, then winked at our companion. “Ari, always a pleasure.”

  I raised a brow at the blush that spread across his cheeks and wondered what the story was there.

  “Who are we talking about as if she’s real?” she asked as she slid her empty glass across the bar.

  “Fate,” I said.

  “Oh, she’s real, all right. But which one are you talking about?”

  “There’s more than one?” I asked, confused.

  She laughed. “Of course there is. There are three. But I assume they’ve spelled the ball like they always do, so you won’t have to worry about anything.”

  That was a relief, at least. If they could make an angel’s wings fall off, I shuddered to think what they could do to a mere witch. “Will they be at the ball?”

  She shook her head and looked at us over the rim of her sunglasses as she took the fresh drink Bob handed her. “Nooo. They will not. They keep to themselves ever since Apollo got them drunk and took advantage.”

  “Wait,” Bob said. “All three of them? Are they hot?”

  Stephanie burst out laughing as she realized his mind had taken a dive straight into the gutter. “No, they are not hot. Or at least not all of three of them. And even if they were, they’re too freakin’ terrifying to think of in that way. Apollo got them drunk and convinced them to alter his fate. They got super salty about it once they sobered up and have refused to party with us since.”

  “Steph, why aren’t you coming this year?” Ari asked.

  “Um, because I’m on a gorgeous beach at a luxury resort,” she replied, pulling the wedge of pineapple off the rim of her glass and taking a bite of it. The sun glinted off her sable hair and her brown eyes glittered with amusement. “Why would I possibly want to trade a bikini for a ball gown? You know I hate those things.”

  Ari huffed a breath out through his nose. “You never wear a gown. You always wear your formal toga.”

  She waved a hand and her bracelets chimed together. “Still. Makeup, hair, catty angels, blah, blah, blah. The food’s fabulous, but that’s about all it has going for it. No offense. I’ll stay right here and catch up on my reading.”

  With that, she turned back toward the beach, her sarong dropping off her tanned shoulder as she sauntered away.

  “That’s a shame,” Ari said with a faint smile as the delicate scent of her jasmine perfume faded from the air. “She always spices things up, but I can’t say I blame her. Are you two ready to go?”

  I drained the last of my beer and nodded, anxious to finally learn how we were going to get there.

  “Close your eyes,” he said as he put a hand on each of our shoulders. “You’re gonna love Celestial City.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I was used to teleporting, but whatever he did, it wasn’t that. Or not exactly that, anyway. A wave of nausea swept over me and I doubled over, sucking in deep breaths to keep from heaving. Colin had a decidedly green tinge, too, or at least I thought he looked green. It was hard to tell because rather than being blue, the sky was a soft
pink with fluffy lavender clouds.

  A castle towered in the distance behind him, shimmering in the sun as if it were crusted with jewels. To be fair, it was owned by freakin’ angels. It probably was.

  “Sorry about that,” Ari said, grimacing a little. “Sometimes I forget that interdimensional travel is tough on mortals, especially if you’re not used to it.”

  “Wait—interdimensional?” I said, swallowing hard against my gag reflex. Though I’d suspected the city was on a different plane, it felt a little strange to know it for sure. And to actually be on a different plane of existence was more than a little surreal.

  He gave me a duh look. “Well yeah. We don’t exist on the same plane as Earth does. You knew that.”

  “Only sort of,” I replied. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I didn’t figure you guys rented out a palace on a deserted island, but I don’t know anything for sure other than what little you’ve told me. Cass wasn’t exactly a Chatty Cathy about the homeland.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, inclining his head. “Now you know.”

  “Yeah,” Colin said. “But what I want to know is how we get home if something happens to you.”

  “Why would something happen to me?” he asked, puzzled. It had obviously never occurred to him that he could end up like Cass. I shook my head. Immortals.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Pick a reason. Rebellion, betrayal, allergic reaction to a random cat scratch. It doesn’t matter, and I’m sure it’s not going to be an issue, but just in case, where’s the emergency exit?”

  “To be honest, I never even thought of that. We’ve never had a problem.” he averted his eyes. “Well, except for once, but he ended up dying anyway, so it never really got to that point.”

  My brows shot into the air. “Explain.”

  He shot me a guilty glance. “I’d rather not.”

  “I insist.”

  “Fine,” he sighed. “But I can’t name names. Rules, remember. It was actually Cass’s fault. He invited a powerful but not-so-ethical hotshot from Detroit up here for our annual poker tournament. The fella ran a hustle on a Solomonar, which is always, always a bad idea.”

  “What’s that?” Colin asked, keeping step with Ari as we headed toward the castle. I had to trot just to stay beside them, they were taking such long strides, but no way was I falling behind and missing this story.

  “Oh,” Ari said with a wave of his hand. “The Solomonari were Romani wizards who rode dragons and controlled the weather. We had to put the kibosh on their organization a few centuries ago because they got a little big for their britches, as Destiny would say, but there are still a few good ones around.”

  “So how’d the guy die?” Cheating at cards would get you shot where I came from, or at least beaten to within an inch of your life, but that sounded a little too ... humanish ... to have been what happened here.

  He shrugged a shoulder. “The guy tried to make a run for it once he realized we weren’t nearly as scared of him as his underlings back in Detroit were. Almost made it, too, except the Solomonar opened up the skies. The dude hit the wet grass in his fancy Italian dress shoes and slid right into the dragon hatch.”

  “So he was eaten?” Colin asked, shuddering.

  Ari gave a matter-of-fact nod. “Yup. Before we could do anything, the dude’s dragon toasted him like a marshmallow then slurped him down like a Jell-O shot.”

  I shuddered at the image but figured the guy’d gotten what he had coming. He musta been too stupid to live if he’d tried to cheat at a poker game attended by angels and wizards.

  We’d just about made it to the castle, so I stopped. I didn’t want to go inside until we knew how to leave, but I didn’t want to miss the end of the story, either.

  “How’d you explain his disappearance?” I asked. “You mentioned he was some bigwig.”

  Ari shrugged. “We didn’t. It was 1975 and he had a lot of enemies. People like that disappeared all the time, especially in Detroit.”

  Colin gasped and whipped his face toward Ari. “Holy crap. You’re talking about Hoffa!”

  “Hoffa who?” our friend asked, a mischievous smile playing on his face. “Lots of guys disappeared from Detroit in the 70s, and none of them are worth losing my wings over.”

  I rolled my eyes as he placed his hand on what was surely a solid gold doorknob on a side entrance door. “Okay, fine. We get it. But before we go in, we need to know how to get out if something happens to you.”

  “You’re awful paranoid,” he replied, but cocked a knowing brow and motioned with his eyes to Stephanie’s bracelet. The sun glinted dully off the gold. “If things go so sideways that I can’t get you out of here, you’ll likely need more than just instructions. Call Steph. She’ll know what to do.”

  With a curt nod, I followed him inside, Colin close behind me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The only way I could describe the inside of the palace was decadent. My sandals squeaked across floors made of white marble shot through with gold, and thousands of candles glinted off gold, silver, and bronze fixtures and decor.

  The windows were draped in blue velvet, and massive Turkish rugs separated the cavernous room into smaller sections. The furniture looked sort of like leather, but the color wasn’t right. Rather than brown, it seemed to shimmer.

  “What’s this fabric?” I asked, my fingers trailing along the back of a sofa.

  “Dragon skin,” he replied.

  Before I could protest killing such an awesome creature for its hide, he arched a brow at me.

  “Don’t romanticize them. I’m sure you’ve heard of the dragon wars. They took out a good many of our warriors before we could close the gates, and our seamstresses were happy to turn them into furniture. War is war.”

  I snapped my mouth shut. I hadn’t actually heard of the dragon wars, but I figured that must have been an awesome thing to behold, and not in the good sense.

  “So where are we going?” I asked, following him up a winding staircase.

  “I figured I’d show you to your rooms before I gave you the tour. That way, you can take your finery out of that weird little bag you’ve stuffed it in and hang it so that it’ll be fresh again when you get ready for the ball.”

  “That’ll work,” Colin said, then furrowed his brow when his stomach rumbled. “That’s so weird. I just ate a huge lunch before I came to the resort not two hours ago.”

  Ari smiled. “Like I said, time isn’t the same here. I’m sure there will be refreshments in your room, but don’t eat too much. We’re having a feast before the ball actually starts. Though I’m not sure that matters much,” he said, giving me a wry glance out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve seen you eat enough for four grown men, then ask for dessert.”

  “Hollow leg,” I replied, grinning. “Magic takes up a lot of energy.”

  “For some people, maybe,” he said, shooting me a smug look as he stopped in front of a door and glanced at the knob. It swung open. “Easier than flicking a fly.”

  I gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. “Yeah. We mere mortals don’t have angel mojo. Though I’ve seen you destroy a steak the size of your head along with all the fixins in the same time it would take an average person to butter his potato, so I’m not sure you should be pointing any fingers.”

  I was a little off balance from the goofing around, so when a chick came whipping around the corner and plowed into me, we both went ass-over-tea kettle in a tangle of arms and legs. Her old-timey skirt wrapped around my legs and I cringed at the sound of ripping fabric when I tried to kick my feet loose.

  “I’m so sorry, m’lady,” she said, spitting hair—both hers and mine—from between her lips. Since I was wearing shorts rather than eighty-seven layers of bloomers and dress, I made it to my feet much faster than she did. I held my hand out to help her and smiled at her in an attempt to ease the anxiety creasing her features.

  “It’s no big deal, really,” I said as I grasped her calloused hand to pull her
up.

  I did a double take when she gazed up at me; she was one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen despite the fact she was dressed like a ragdoll and didn’t have a stitch of makeup on.

  Huge blue eyes stared up at me, shimmering with tears and surrounded by long sooty lashes that the cosmetics industry made milions from because every woman wanted them. Throw in full lips and a perfect, peaches-and-cream complexion with just the right amount of freckles, and I’d have kinda wanted to punch her if she hadn’t looked so pathetic.

  And yes, I realize how cliché that description all sounds, but I had a feeling she was exactly the type of girl who initiated their creation to begin with.

  I bent to pick up the items that had scattered from a basket she’d been carrying: needles and several different types of thread, and several items that, on closer inspection, appeared to be makeup of some sort. Remembering that time was weird here, I realized I might very well be holding a fresh case of blush or lip tint that was three or four centuries old in my time.

  “Here you go,” I said, stuffing the last couple of items into the basket and holding it out to her.

  She sighed and swiped a tear off her cheek. “Thanks, miss. Again, my humblest apologies for being such a graceless cow. It’s only one of many flaws, but it’s one that gets me in more trouble than others.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m right there with you. I’m one of the biggest klutzes to ever walk the earth, so don’t give it a second thought.”

  “She really is,” Ari agreed, a smug smile on his lips. “She once tripped on a piece of string and sent an entire tray of drinks straight toward my wife’s lap.” He laughed. “Luckily, I managed to freeze it before it landed on her.”

  The girl gasped when he spoke, then dropped into a deep curtsey, her eyes downcast. “M’lord,” she stuttered. “Forgive me. I knew not whom I was addressing.”

  Ari gave her a kind smile as he touched her elbow, indicating she should rise. “There’s no need to bow to me, lovely,” he said. “All’s well that ends well.”