by Jasmine Walt
They took my order and said they'd be delivering it in forty minutes.
Even though I was still exhausted, I rolled out of bed and forced myself to put the bleach in my hair. Afterward, I would cut a fringe and shorten it. I aimed to change my appearance enough to avoid that dark-haired look that was gracing newspapers and bulletins across the country.
After slathering my hair with the concoction (and coughing from its fumes), I went into the bedroom and ordered Plutus to sit at the foot of the bed on some newspapers while I cut his hair into a short, choppy cut that was closer to his head.
“Don't make me look bad.”
“That would at least be a step in the right direction,” I replied. “Plus, you won't know the difference.”
It briefly crossed my mind to bleach his hair like mine. I dismissed the thought as soon as it formed. It would be pretty weird for both of us to be seen together with badly bleached hair. Plutus would escape my own hair's fate.
Tonight, due to some political stuff in Washington, DC, we weren't the big item on the news. A brief mention for people to still report us if they saw us and nothing more. I breathed a sigh of relief. Our pictures weren't even displayed.
The food came while I was washing out the bleach in the shower. I avoided looking in the mirror, instead opting to go eat my salad without seeing the state of my hair.
“How does it look?” he asked when I came out.
“Don't know,” I answered. “I was afraid to look.”
A beat passed.
“I'm sure it's not that bad,” he finally answered.
I swallowed both my food and my heart down. Why did I feel like this around him? It felt like an ache deep in the pit of my stomach that I couldn't get rid of.
Suddenly, I wasn't hungry. I trudged back into the bathroom and risked a look at myself in the mirror.
To my relief, it wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't luxurious blond hair or anything, it looked a bit gray with too much brown streaked through it. I hadn't put the bleach on it evenly, so I had patches of white. It felt coarser and less soft and silky. I knew that it could have been so much worse, so I was somewhat happy with the result. At least I still had hair. I'd heard horror stories of people's hair falling out even with salon grade products.
I took the pair of scissors and hacked it off. I kept it long enough to brush just above my shoulders. With the fringe, the new cut immediately transformed the shape of my face. Thankfully, I had a steady hand, so the end result wasn't too bad. It wasn't going to be mistaken for a real salon job, but it wasn't bad.
I looked at myself in the mirror again, shocked at the transformation that had taken place. I didn't recognize myself. I looked like a completely different person.
I met my eyes in my reflection and I could see the tears brimming at my lower eyelids. I thought I was stronger than this. I mean, it was only hair, right? It would grow back.
I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry.
How the hell did I get into this damn mess? My hands clenched tight at my sides, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them.
I left the bathroom.
“I'm going out,” I called to Plutus. He started to ask me something, but I ignored him and charged out of the hotel room. I caught the elevator down to the bottom level and nearly jogged out of the entrance across the street to a little convenience store.
I only smoked a couple of cigarettes during my rebellious years because I thought it was cool. I almost got addicted to them, and probably had been on some level, but I stopped before it became a habit. Since then, I'd always hated smoking, even being around smokers. The smell of it stirred something deep inside me, a combination of longing and disgust.
I don't know what it was; I just wanted to have a smoke again, almost in defiance of still being alive.
I bought a pack and a lighter and stood outside the hotel smoking one before crumpling up the rest of the pack and throwing it in a public trash can. My hands smelled like nicotine and I felt both relieved and depressed.
I stayed out front for about another fifteen minutes by myself, not really doing anything, except thinking. I wanted to be by myself for a bit. I didn't want to have to worry about protecting some mortal god. I didn't want my life to be in shambles at that moment. I didn't want to be in love with the one guy I really couldn't have. And I wanted my damn hair back.
Was that too much to ask?
I noticed a pay phone by me and thought about the one question that had been bothering me for a few days now. We hadn't used a phone at all since leaving San Francisco, so no one knew where we were.
The phone booth could be wire-tapped by some professional hitmen, however, it wasn’t likely. I had the feeling that nothing big was going to happen. At least that night.
Then again, I didn't really care.
I dug into my jean pocket, fished out two quarters and fed them to the machine. I knew his number by heart. After all, I'd worked with him for years.
Dion's voice filled the earpiece. “Hello?” He sounded exhausted and like he had been hitting the bottle again. I've heard that voice when we stayed late working on horrific cases. Dion drank when the case became too much.
I could guess what he was stressed out about.
“It's me,” I said quietly.
There was a beat as he realized who I was.
“Oh, Gods,” he said. “Callie. What's happened? How...where are you...?”
“Why?” I asked, ignoring his questions. I hadn’t called him to answer his questions. I called to have him answer mine. “Why me, Dion?”
We knew each other well enough to where we knew what the other one meant. Well, I thought I knew him. I could almost hear the unspoken question from him, but he didn't ask it.
“It...I...” he stumbled over his words and it wasn't from the copious amounts of alcohol. “I know what it looks like, Callie.”
I gritted my teeth. “And what does it look like, Dionysus?”
I could almost hear him wince on the other end of the line. “It looks like I was partnered with you, to set things up,” he said, resignedly. “It looks like the gods have been manipulating you for years.”
I didn't say anything. My heart was too high in my throat to really say anything without my voice breaking.
“I swear on Olympus that it wasn't like that,” he continued, his own voice breaking. I felt a bit of power behind the promise, but I fought it. I knew what gods did to mortals.
“Gods like to...live...as mortals...every so often, Callie,” he said. “Ever since the cop shows starting hitting television in the 1950s, I wanted to be a cop. So...I took a sabbatical from my godly duties. I became a mortal and became a cop. But...you know how I was never able to get away from the bottle.”
I nodded, even though he couldn't see. I knew. And I knew that his alcoholism was the reason why he never was promoted higher than a detective. He couldn't stay sober enough to finish anything by himself. It was the reason why his marriage with Glenda had been on the rocks a few times. Dion was a functioning alcoholic, never straying too far from liquor, so when it got bad, it got bad.
“They partnered me up with this new recruit, who in two years had proven herself to be better than her peers. She made me remember why I wanted to become a detective in the first place.” He was smiling, and even through the phone I felt it. “We worked well together, you and me.”
In spite of myself, I was smiling, too.
“A few months ago, just after the...accident...the bus...when I visited you at the hospital,” Dion continued, “I knew that it wasn't your time. It just...wasn't, Callie.” Hades had said that much. “And even though it wasn't, they don't let mortals come back to life. Not easily,” he added hastily. “I knew that...Hades...was looking for a bodyguard to protect Plutus, so I recommended you.”
A flutter of a memory surfaced. I remembered Hades telling me that I was highly recommended by colleagues. I had simply thought that he had meant performance reviews. I did
n't actually think that one of my colleagues had recommended me to Hades, my own partner no less.
“I didn't know how dangerous it was going to be,” Dion said. He hiccupped once. “I didn't know that they were going to try and manipulate you. I didn't know a lot of things. But I knew you could handle it.”
The last statement stopped me. He thought I could handle it? Handle all of this? I nearly laughed out loud. No one could handle this sort of thing.
“We'll see if I can handle it.” I was really starting to doubt that now.
True, Dion could have been lying, yet I believed him. Though he might have been a god for thousands of years, he was a horrible liar, and there was sincerity in his voice. He was telling the truth. I knew that I hadn't been set up, and that my best friend actually was a friend.
“I've been so worried about you since you left San Francisco,” he said. “I haven't been able to sleep.”
My throat was suddenly dry, a cross between a laugh and a ridiculous snort trying to force its way out.
“We're okay,” I told him quietly, trying to ease his worries. “I promise. We're okay.”
He didn't speak for a few moments, letting my words sink in. After a bit, he sighed heavily. “I'm really, really sorry, Callie.”
“I'm sorry too, Dion.”
I hung up the phone without a further word. There was nothing else to say. While I still didn't quite feel like myself, I was calmer now.
I stormed back up to our hotel room again before I got so exhausted I wouldn't have been able to walk. I entered the room, collapsed onto the bed, and cuddled a pillow.
“Good night,” I said in Plutus’ direction.
Plutus didn't say anything for a few moments, then he said, “Callista means beauty, if you remember. You still are, even if your hair is different.”
I wanted to tell him that it wasn't just about my hair. That it was Dion, that it was him, that it was because my life was so beyond screwed up right now. Then my tears started flowing and I silently cried myself to sleep.
20
Tisiphone was waiting for me on the other side. I opened my eyes to see her peering down at me. We were back in the sunlit courtyard, me on my back, she crouching next to me. It was probably like some ethereal landing pad for my sleeping self.
“Tisiphone,” I groaned, sitting up from my spot on the ground, “leave me alone.”
She cocked her head, looking at me curiously. “Your hair looks different. Did you do something to it?”
I bit my lip and waited for my anger to subside. “Yes,” I snapped. “To avoid being recognized.”
“It looks...well, it is a change.”
She must have sensed my bad mood, because she was grinning mischievously. I swatted her away, even though my hand passed right through her. She sat back on her heels, offended.
“What do you want, Tisiphone?” I pressed my fingers to my temples and winced. How the hell could I have a headache in a dream?
She crossed her arms, unyielding. “Well, I'm not sure I want to tell you now, Grumpy,” she pouted.
To her surprise, that didn't bother me.
“Fine then,” I answered as I lay back down and rolled onto my side facing away from her. “How do I go back to sleeping normally?”
She clucked her tongue angrily. “Would you get up, Callie?”
I thought about telling her to go away again, then thought better of it. I grimaced and sat up. “What's up?”
“I'm trying to warn you,” she sighed, exasperated.
“Another warning?” I asked. “Plutus and I are on America's Most Wanted. From what I've heard, every hitman in the U.S. is looking out for us, including some mythological nasties. We’ve got the bad guys and the good guys hunting us. Thanks for the head's up about the manticore, by the way,” I added sincerely.
“He's the least of your worries now. You've also managed to frighten all the kobaloi in North America, too.”
“That's good, right?”
“It would be, except for the fact that you now have even bigger problems. Stephen Cross has put meaner monsters on your tail.”
“Like?” I couldn't imagine anything worse than lion/scorpion/monster men, Shadow Assassins, or a lot of the monsters I'd seen in the Underworld.
“Harpies,” she answered with a distasteful frown. Apparently, she didn't think too highly of harpies. “And Lamia is hot on your tail.”
I searched my memories for what exactly a harpy was. “Chicken...women?” I asked weakly.
“A lot worse than just chicken women,” Tisiphone sneered. “And not only women. Harpies can be male too. They're gossipy things that tattle on everything they see. I'd watch out for them. The majority of those looking out for you are harpies. They can blend in with whatever your surroundings are. Think of them as homing pigeons. They'll blab about you to anything nearby.” She cleared her throat. “Now Lamia...”
“Labia?”
This caused her to erupt in unexpected laughter. “Nonononono,” she said. “Lamia. A vampiric bitch of a demon. She devours children as revenge, Callie,” she emphasized. She leaned into me for dramatic effect.
That actually didn't sound as bad as I had originally thought. At least she didn't sparkle.
“What does that have to do with us?” I asked. “Plutus and I are both adults.”
“But you're still children of parents. Lamia can...bend...her curse to do what she wants. And if you task Lamia with hunting after someone's children...”
“She'll go after them regardless of age,” a new voice said. “It's all just semantics.”
We both turned to see Hades enter the courtyard. I wanted to run up to him and punch him in the face, and felt even more angry that I couldn't because I wasn't really there. I had to settle for holding my fists tightly at my sides. It was very hard, considering I was furious at the god.
“So you're saying that she's after Plutus, specifically,” I said, “and she'd...devour him, as you'd say?”
“Rather,” Hades corrected, “she'd deliver him to Stephen so he could steal Plutus' powers and then devour him. How is my son, by the way?”
“Well, one's blind and crippled, the other is actively hunting the two of us.”
Hades sighed. “You know who I meant.”
I shrugged, sarcastic laughter bubbling up inside me. “He's finding mortal life to be pretty hard. Other than being blind and lame, he's been hit by a car, been in a fight with a manticore and a couple of kobaloi, forced to ride forty hours in a car across the countr—”
Hades held up a hand to silence me, which irritated me to no end. I could have gone on, but that wouldn't have done anything. He knew he was a dick. For Plutus' sake, the least I could do was hear him out.
“I know it has been hard on both of you,” he said at length. “But it sounds like you're almost to Tiresias.”
“What is he going to tell us?” I asked. It was a question that had been bugging me the entire drive, one that I hadn't been prepared to face if there wasn't a good answer.
Hades looked at me blankly. “If I knew, then you wouldn't be driving to New York City.”
Gods. “No, I mean, is he going to be able to give us an answer—how to turn Plutus back into a god?” I couldn't imagine that a guy like Tiresias would know something that a god like Hades didn’t.
Hades nodded, so that shut me up once again. “If anyone knows, it will be Tiresias,” he said. “Other mortals have found the way to become immortal, but there hasn't been a successful one in eons. Why do you think Stephen is so keen to kill Plutus and eat his heart? It's the only established way to turn into a god and receive their powers.”
“You think that's what Tiresias is going to suggest?” I asked. “Eating the heart of another god.” I shuddered to think of it.
Hades waved that off. “No Tiresias wouldn't suggest that. We're not cannibals.”
I wasn't going to bring up the fact that I distinctly remembered a few myths about gods eating each other.
“So,” Tisiphone interrupted, because she must have seen my sneer, “what if Tiresias doesn't know how to...cure...Plutus of his disease?”
“So mortality is a disease now?” I snapped. She smirked at me.
“He will have an answer,” Hades stated firmly, as if that was the end of the topic.
I pressed my mouth into a thin line, fighting the retort that was climbing its way up my throat, and I opted to change the subject. “You could have told me that my partner was a god. That he was the one who recommended me for the job.”
“That was extraneous,” Hades said nonchalantly. “Gods who are living as mortals are meant to be anonymous. To tell you would give away his position. It was on a need-to-know basis.”
“Need-to-know?” I asked incredulously, looking at Tisiphone. “Need-to-know?”
“We don't need to tell you why we do what we do,” Hades said evenly.
I was going to reply, but I decided against it. The fury was slowly building inside me though, and I had to bite it back down.
“Speaking of why you do what you do,” I asked quietly, hiding my anger, “I thought you said that Aphrodite would back off.”
Tisiphone cocked her head towards me as if hearing an interesting thing for the first time in her life. “Wha...?”
Hades, meanwhile, was shaking his head. “She has, as you put it, 'backed off', I assure you,” he said.
I gave myself a little shake and hugged my arms to my chest. “Then why do I still have these feelings for him?”
Hades didn't answer, and Tisiphone was watching me with stunned silence. “I knew it!” she mouthed. I ignored her.
“I'd like to wake up now,” I said.
“Tisiphone,” Hades commanded.
“You're going to have a lot of explaining to do,” she snickered.
“Not today though,” I said, giving her my biggest, cheekiest grin.
She snapped her fingers and I found myself gasping awake to the sound of the alarm bleeping annoyingly. I groaned and slammed my hand on top of the machine, snoozing it.
Seven am already and I felt like I hadn't slept at all.