The Pythia’s hold on me was strained, as if an inner debate was taking place on the best way to dismember me. Dionysus’s curious eyes watched intently from Apollo’s face, while Silenus looked away, still clinging to his lantern.
I expected Gabriel to come to my rescue, so I was rather surprised when I saw him step in behind Apollo and place his hands on the god’s shoulders. “Is this how you will honor Josie?” Gabriel said softly. “By destroying what little she cared for in the world?”
The Pythia’s grip on my arms relaxed, but she didn’t let go. Apollo’s chin widened as he pushed to the surface. His bloodshot eyes watered as he choked back a sob. “Honor? Her ashes are under a bench in a city park.” He glared at Gabriel. “If she had been human, I could have bought her soul.” He turned his scorn on the Pythia next. “I’ll never have to mourn my other lovers. You’d think this pain would be bittersweet, but it sears me to the core. And now the world goes on. It cares not for my grief, and I’m expected to perform like a circus monkey for the council.”
The Pythia sucked in a pained breath. “Is that what you think of our communion?”
Apollo drifted again as Dionysus tried to emerge. “After nearly three millennia of the same monotonous ritual, what do you think?”
The Pythia trembled, shaking me along with her. It began in misery, but quickly shifted to rage as the Maenad tried to break free again. “Well, you wrote the book, darling,” she snarled, tightening her grasp again.
Gabriel’s eyes widened over Apollo’s shoulder. His jaw tensed and he swallowed. It occurred to me that he was actually worried I wouldn’t make it out of the cave alive. My cool resolve shattered and I felt my heart turn to stone in my chest. Of all the ways to go, this was not what I had envisioned.
Josie’s death had been far from glamorous, but she had gone down fighting the good fight. My demise was looking more pathetic by the second. I doubted I’d even warrant a memorial bench, if I happened to be accidentally offed by a depressed deity.
Gabriel tried again, gently rubbing Apollo’s shoulders. “If not for Josie, think of the Pythia, who has loved and served you for thousands of years. You are linked in spirit. Do you see how you torture her? Do you see the violence you compel her to inflict?”
Apollo closed his eyes and turned his face away. “You don’t give a damn about my oracle. Your concern lies with your fragile friend. But why should I care? Is she not the one ultimately responsible for what’s come to pass?”
“Excuse me?” I said, jerking sideways to get a better view from around the Pythia. I was about to come apart like a defective Chinese finger trap, but I’d kept my mouth shut long enough. “How do you figure it’s my fault?”
Apollo ripped away from Gabriel and stormed across the cave to look down at me from a more menacing angle. “She followed you into the heat of battle, no matter the price. She trusted you implicitly, even when you withheld information.” He sniffed at my surprised expression. “You broke her heart, and then you fed it to the wolves.”
“That’s enough.” Gabriel’s wings beat sharply, blowing bits of dust and feathers across the cave. The doves responded in kind, filling the cave with their noisy panic.
Tears clouded my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. The Pythia’s iron hold prevented me from wiping them away. “He’s right,” I said. “I never did fully trust her. I never trusted anyone.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “Lana, Josie’s death is not your fault. She wanted to advance more than you did. You know that as well as I do. And Apollo knows it too. He’s just hurting and looking for someone to take it out on.”
Apollo turned and charged Gabriel, coming nose to nose with him as his face twisted into Dionysus. “Would you prefer I take it out on you?”
“You mean someone your own size? Are you sure that’s such a good idea, in your condition?” Gabriel’s features tightened and a glint of mischief crept into his eyes, as if he had given up on calming the god. Or maybe the mad raving was contagious.
Dionysus’s scream filled the cave. His eyes filled with black, and the Maenad’s grip tightened, drawing me in closer to her. Her breasts pressed against mine, and she shivered. “You’re much more tender than our usual sacrifices. This will be easy. I’ll lick you from my fingers like cake.”
Silenus backed into a corner and ducked down to curl himself around his lantern. He was part of Dionysus’s entourage, but he seemed oddly repelled by typical ritual activities during the off-season, when he was sober. I wanted to be angry he wasn’t helping me, but I suppose I should have just been glad he wasn’t joining the Pythia in her early sparagmos celebration.
My shoulders were on the cusp of dislocating, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. The thought of harming one of the few original souls felt sacrilegious, but whether by friend or foe—or soul-crushing guilt—I wasn’t keen on dying today.
So I whistled. Soft and low. Just enough to let the hounds know I could use some moral support. Saul bound into sight first, his tongue wagging playfully as he bobbed his big black head around to check out the flurry of doves going crazy above us. The Maenad showed no concern. If anything, she looked amused.
“His coat is lovely. Much like the ceremonial bulls we use,” she said, giving me a cruel smile.
I blanched. “You’re a heathen.”
“No dear, I’m the queen of the heathens.” She howled in my face. Her breath smelled of wine and raw meat, and her moist arms chaffed against my own. I was pretty sure the Pythia had finally left the building. So I didn’t feel bad about what I did next.
“Aggredere!”
Saul jumped up on his back haunches and placed his coffee can paws on the Maenad’s shoulders. His jaws opened and lowered over her, just as Apollo resurfaced.
“No!” He reached out, terror staining his face.
Saul’s teeth bypassed the Maenad’s flesh. Instead, he latched on to her heavy robe and pulled her to the ground, dragging me along. The Maenad gasped and let go of me to catch herself, but she was too slow. Her head bounced against the cave floor, and the Pythia cried out, returning on impact.
Apollo threw himself to the ground, pulling the Pythia into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, tucking her head under his chin. “I shouldn’t have come here. I should have stayed home.”
Gabriel rushed to my side and reached down to help me to my feet. “I think it’s time to go.”
I nodded and rubbed my bruised arms.
Apollo’s tear-streaked face turned up to us. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this.”
Gabriel pressed his lips together. “We know. It hasn’t been easy for us either.”
Apollo wept and pulled the Pythia in closer. She looked dazed and confused, her eyes rapidly blinking and taking in everything. I wondered if souls could sustain concussions. Maybe that was just her normal state—when she wasn’t a raving lunatic during the winter months, that is.
The chaotic cooing and flapping finally settled, and I could hear myself think again. I could also hear the unmistakable crunching of an unsanctioned snack. We all turned at the same time.
Coreen stood halfway across the room. Two small, white wings stuck out from either side of her mouth. She stopped munching when she noticed us staring and tried to give me her best innocent face. It was a little hard with her cheeks full of bird.
“Cessa,” I hissed. Her ears lay flat, but she refused to drop the bird, and slowly, defiantly, she began chewing again. “Cessa.” I pointed at the ground.
“She can have it,” Silenus said, finally brave enough to join us again. He set his lantern down on the cave floor and flopped down next to it.
I collapsed beside him, and Saul came over to nuzzle his head in my lap. Gabriel stood in the center of the room with the rest of us sprawled around him, as if his massive wings had blown us down. The silence was only punctuated by the soft sounds of Coreen’s chewing and Apollo’s sobs.
“Would you like an escort back to the temple?” Gabriel
asked.
The god shook his head gently and ran his fingers through the Pythia’s long tresses. “Tell the council to expect my report on the morrow.”
Gabriel nodded and held his hand out to me. I took it and stood, turning to call Coreen. She was slumped against the back wall of the cave, looking miserable and bloated. “Bite off more than you could chew?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
Coreen whined and groaned in reply. When I slapped my leg, she lay down and rolled her head back. Her rib cage flexed and rippled, and my breath caught in my throat. “Silenus?”
“Hmm?” He looked up at me and then followed my gaze.
“You ever see another beast eat one of those doves? It doesn’t look like it’s agreeing with my hound.”
“I ate one just last week,” Silenus said, flinching as Apollo frowned at him. “I was working overtime, and I got hungry.”
“And it didn’t make you sick?” I asked, watching Coreen writhe.
Saul tentatively sniffed under her tail, and then jumped away just in time. A red blob splattered onto the cave floor. The sulfuric stench of hellhound blood tinted the air, and I covered my nose and mouth as two more blobs joined the first.
“Zeus almighty.” Silenus stood and took a step back.
Coreen twisted herself around and began lapping at the mess she’d made. I gagged and looked away. “What’s wrong with her?”
Gabriel brushed past me. “Ohhh,” he cooed. “They’re precious.”
I spun around wide-eyed. The first blob had been transformed into a little ball of black fur. Gabriel scooped it up and cradled it to his chest, while Coreen cleaned up the last two.
“Puppies?” I stared in disbelief. “How?” I gave Saul a disgusted look and his ears flattened in offense.
Apollo stood and helped the Pythia to her feet so they could get a better look at the pup in Gabriel’s arms. “Its muzzle is bit narrow—more like a jackal,” the god noted.
“Anubis.” I grimaced. “He was in the city with his jackals a couple months back.” I looked down at Coreen and sighed. “I let you out of sight for two seconds. Geez.”
The Pythia rubbed a finger under the pup’s chin and smiled softly. “What will you do with three more hounds?”
I shrugged. “Sleep on the floor, I guess.”
She giggled—a far more pleasant sound than she had made under the influence of the Maenad—and took the pup from Gabriel to return in to its siblings, now suckling at Coreen’s belly. I felt entirely too stupid for not realizing my own hound had been pregnant, but to be fair, birth was something usually reserved for the mortal world. We didn’t witness it often on this side of the grave.
Apollo watched the Pythia fawn over the litter with moist, melancholy eyes. “All this time, I thought she was the most fragile of my heart’s desires.” His breath trembled out in a great sigh. “Do you suppose that’s why I cared so deeply for Josie? Because your kind are so very fragile? Because your deaths are more permanent than humans even?”
“That’s a question for a professional. We all have our vices.” I thought of my own attraction to men from hell and wondered if maybe I should be talking to a professional myself. I shrugged the notion away and patted Apollo on the back. “As far as a permanent death, I prefer to believe that reapers are just as susceptible to reincarnation as anyone else. And while I’m indulging these delusions, I prefer to believe that our vehicle of rebirth happens to be hellhounds.”
Apollo smiled at that. “I wondered about your hounds.”
Saul had been named after my late mentor, Saul Avelo, and Coreen was named in honor of Grim’s late second-in-command, Coreen Bendura. Reapers were technically immortal. We had the potential to live forever, but we could be offed just as easily as the humans, if you asked me. The only true immortals were the gods who still had a following in the mortal realm. The rest of us were just along for the ride.
“Oh, Apollo.” The Pythia snuggled a puppy under her chin and turned her pleading eyes up at us. “Can we keep one? Please?”
A grin tugged at the god’s lips and he looked at me. “I hear that Hades fetches a pretty coin for his pups in Tartarus. Though these are clearly not purebred,” he added. “And I imagine Holly will have quite the fit when you return with the lot of them to her pristine abode.” He tapped a finger to his chin. “What if we brought your hound back to the temple and allowed her to raise her litter there with us? Would that be a suitable trade of services for one of the pups?”
The Pythia tried to hide her smile behind the little mound of fluff wriggling in her hands.
“I think that would be fantastic.” I knelt down and scratched Coreen’s head between her ears. “Hear that? You’re getting a vacation. Thanks to the wild oats you’ve been sowing behind my back, you little tart.”
Coreen snorted and turned away to lick a puppy butt.
“Is that the one you have your heart set on?” Apollo asked the Pythia as she stood and handed the puppy to him. “A girl,” he said, lifting it in the air to scope out its plumbing. “She’ll need a name.”
Apollo waited for my eyes to fall on him. I already knew what he was thinking, and it made my heart swell before the words left his mouth.
“How about Josie?”
Limbo City Park was quiet, even though it was still fairly early in the evening. The memorial additions gave the place a more macabre feel, like a cemetery, and the tulip trees showed the first hints of yellow, announcing the arrival of fall. Soon, the Oracle Ball would be upon us.
Gabriel lounged on Josie’s memorial bench, draping his arms over the top and letting his wings droop behind the smooth, marble back. He gave the seat an approving nod and then pointed his chin across the small courtyard. “At least our girl’s in good company.”
In the center of the clearing stood Saul and Coreen’s memorial statues, in perfect likeness to their tributes. Josie’s bench had replaced one of the plain ones that backed up to the circle of tulip trees shading the spot. Sunlight spilled through the golden leaves and tinted everything in honeyed hues, making Gabriel look like he belonged on top of a Christmas tree—well, all except for the beer in his hand.
I sighed and tilted my own Ambrosia Ale to my lips. Then I nudged Gabriel over so I could sit next to him.
“Where’s Kevin?” he asked.
“Working late, I guess. He wasn’t home when I left.” I shrugged and pulled a deck of cards from my pocket. “He wouldn’t have come anyway.”
Gabriel took another drink and nodded. “So just the three of us. Like old times,” he said softly, running his free hand along the white marble of Josie’s bench.
“Hard to play poker without opposable thumbs,” I said, slowly shuffling the deck on my lap.
“We’ll help her out.” Gabriel pointed to the spot between us, indicating where I should deal to Josie.
My throat tightened, but I went ahead and dealt the cards out anyway. We were going to get drunk and play cards with the dead in the middle of the park, and I didn’t care who saw us.
Gabriel and I took turns helping Josie. We laughed. And we cried. Slowly, I felt a broken piece of my heart begin to mend. And as silly as it sounds, I could have sworn Josie was there with us—laughing as she won our imaginary jackpot.
Dire Offering
Liz Schulte
1.
Cruising down the highway in Oklahoma singing along with the radio at the top of their lungs, Mindy and Mae didn’t have a care in the world. The sun baked the long stretch of painfully flat highway, and wavy lines of heat formed in front of them as they barreled toward Dallas. Mae sang even louder as another bout of nervous anticipation gripped her deep in her gut. Mindy grinned at her as she played drums on the dashboard.
“What are you going to do without me?” she shouted over the music.
Mae reached out and turned the radio down enough that she didn’t have to shout. “Probably have a lot less drama.”
Mindy rolled her eyes. “And by that you mean you wi
ll live a boring, empty life. Face it, Mae, you need me. I make you fun.”
Mae laughed and shook her head, refocusing on the road. There wasn’t much to see along the side of the road. They would be in Dallas a few days ahead of the moving van, but that was expected. Everything was going exactly as planned.
That was until all the lights blinked on her dashboard and the gas pedal suddenly had no resistance. She fought to maintain control of the steering wheel as she directed the car back over to the slow lane, then rolled to a stop on the shoulder.
Traffic whizzed past them as they looked at each other and the dashboard dumbfounded. Mae’s hands trembled and her heart thundered in her chest. They could have been killed out here. She examined the lights on the dashboard, but everything was on.
“Maybe we’re out of gas,” Mindy suggested.
“We just got gas,” Mae sputtered. “It’s a brand new car.”
“New to you,” Mindy reminded her. “But it’s still five years old. Maybe you ran over something and punctured the tank.”
Mae shook her head. Surely, she would have noticed that. “Maybe it’s something with the electrical system.” She dug her AAA card out of her purse and handed it to her sister then found some aspirin for herself. “We need a tow to a mechanic.”
Mindy pulled out her cell phone and dialed while Mae popped a couple pills. She felt close to tears as she listened to Mindy try to explain where they were—the middle of nowhere.
Nothing was around them, and with each passing second, the car got hotter.
Mae fanned herself as sweat ran down her temple and clung to her lower back. “It just doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head.
“If the tow truck driver is scary, we aren’t going with him. We’ll call someone else.” Mindy pursed her lips and inspected her fingernails.
“How long did they say?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“Min, in forty-five minutes I’m not going to care if Charles Manson picks us up. It’s hotter than hell, we’re sitting on the side of the road, and I don’t think many mechanics work over the weekend. We’re not in a position to be choosy.”
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