by S. E. Babin
Typhon was an ass, but I was still glad he was my friend.
I stole away after dinner and bribed Charon with an extra coin to keep his mouth shut. I sent a quick burst of magic out to add a long sleeve shirt, jacket and a beanie to keep warm during the cool California nights. Typhon had chosen to settle there and, I had to admit, it worked for him. It was a place he’d fit right in. Lots of monsters lived in Hollywood these days. Typhon just happened to be one of the prettier ones.
As soon as he opened the door and saw it was me standing there, he shook his head, burst out laughing and opened the door wider to let me in.
I stepped through the threshold of his home and was immediately assailed by the smell of something delicious cooking. He led me to the kitchen, poured me a glass of wine, and opened the lid of a massive pot.
I leaned over to look in.
“Meat sauce,” he said, which were the first words he’d spoken since I came in. Not even a hello.
“It smells amazing.”
He stirred the sauce, put the lid back on, then leaned against the counter and studied me. “I heard what happened to Hades.” His green eyes were full of regret. When I opened my mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “Hermes told me. We keep in touch. No one else knows.”
I shut my mouth and nodded. “I’m trying to get him back.”
“I assumed you weren’t here because of my offer to make you scream. Pity.” He waggled his eyebrows and took a long pull of wine. “So my dear, how can Typhon best serve you today?”
When I told him, his eyebrows shot to his hairline and he burst out laughing. When I didn’t join in, his chuckles died off and he stared. “You’re serious?” He snorted. “Of course you are. Abby, some of the most insane shit of my life has happened in your company. Why did I think that was going to settle down?”
I lifted both shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Because I can’t help it?”
His lips twitched. “You’re going to owe me for this. Big time.”
“No sex,” I said immediately.
“I don’t have sex,” Typhon declared as he leaned close enough into my personal space to make me squirmy, “I am sex.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Still. Mr. Sex Pants. No hanky panky.”
He rolled his eyes and let out a languished sigh. “You truly are prudish for an immortal, Abby. You aren’t even married.”
“What?” I screeched. “Yes, I am!”
He set his wine glass down. “No, you aren’t. You’re living in an alternate timeline still in possession of your memories, but your husband is married to another woman.”
I was going to murder Hermes six ways to Sunday for telling Typhon my business.
“So we really have to do this?” I pleaded.
“Yes.” He moved around the counter and into my space. “You want me. You always have.”
He wasn’t wrong. I just wanted Hades more. A lot more. So there was a massive difference there. It was like the human’s “List”. Most humans had one. It was more a human thing than an immortal tradition, but if I had to put some gods or monsters on there, Typhon would be included. But Tom Hiddleston would be in the slot above him. So there was that. I mean, technically, I could make Tom Hiddleston love me, but that didn’t really seem fair, right?
“One date,” he said.
I blinked at him owlishly. “No.”
“No sex,” he added.
“No,” I said again.
“One date or no deal. And not an at the bar drunk dancing date. More of an I pick you up at 7, you’re dressed nice, wearing perfume, and good underwear and your hair is fixed kind of date.”
Well. Those terms would prevent me from showing up with hillbilly teeth and dirty overalls. “I just gave birth,” I said.
“Even better. You’ve been without sex for awhile.”
“Typhon!”
Was Hades going to be furious with me? If he was dead, I wouldn’t think it would matter. “One date? No more? No sex pressure?”
He slapped a hand over his heart. “So hurt. I never have to pressure people for sex.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Why not?” he retorted.
“What’s in it for you?
“A date with a beautiful woman.” He turned on his megawatt smile.
“Typhon,” I said, my patience thinning.
“Abby.”
“Be honest. What’s in it for you?”
Any amusement fell from his face. “I need a wife.”
21
Well blow my skirts up and call me Susan. “What now?” I said gaping at him.
“I need a wife,” he repeated. “Mom is pressuring me to find a nice girl.”
I burst out laughing. “So why in the hell are you asking me out? She knows who I am.”
“She needs to think I’m trying.”
“But you aren’t,” I reminded him.
“Well, technically I am. You aren’t married. I like you. So stealing you from Hades would be a total win.”
“You can get any girl. Why are you bothering with me?”
“Because I like you the most.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re an idiot,” I said, my voice exhausted. Typhon could wear the patience off a stone statue.
“What? Why am I an idiot?”
“I’m the goddess of love. You’re attempting to woo someone who knows all the soul mates in the world.” My voice softened.
He looked super weirded out. “Stay with me now,” I begged him. “Hear me out. Give me ten minutes and I can tell you exactly who you’re supposed to be with.”
“You can still do that?” His expression was one of guarded hope.
I rolled my eyes. “No one ever asks me to, but yes, I still possess all of those powers.”
“Huh.”
“So what do you think? Should we? If your mom is still pressuring you, then don’t you think you should be asking the right questions? There’s a lot of heartache out there. I can’t tell you how to go about the wooing, but I can tell you who you’re supposed to be with. And..” I paused. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him this part. “I can sometimes see a secondary choice. Not that it always goes that way, but sometimes crazy things happen.”
Typhon’s stare was hawkish with interest. “Do you do that to everyone?”
“What?”
He waved a hand. “Look at them and peep into their hearts to see who they’re meant to be with?”
I gasped in horror. “Never. It’s intrusive. I am not a voyeur.”
“Did you do it for Hades?”
“No, Typhon.” I sighed. “Having this power makes me want to feel love just for the sake of it. The natural progression. I don’t want the pressure of it. So do you want to do this or not?”
“Do we still have a date?”
“Nope.”
“Then no deal. I still want a date. And I want you to tell me who my soulmate is.”
“Aaargh,” I said in disgust. “Then this means without a shadow of a doubt, that I will get that vial of ichor?”
He bowed. “I solemnly swear.”
“Then I’ll be here Thursday, dressed to the nines. I’ll send you a list of things I need for the soulmate spell. You can’t pick me up,” I added when his expression darkened. “Hades banned you from the Underworld.” I waggled my fingers at him, “Tata.” I disappeared before he could try to wrangle anything else out of me.
22
Plan Get My Husband out of His Hellish Heaven was beginning to look a little more viable. Hecate and I spent the next several days poring over the book, sifting through the words and meaning of it to see if there was anything there to help us with the upcoming fight we were about to walk into. We went through a crapload of coffee. So much that Hades had to send Charon up to the surface to the grocery store.
I thought it was hilarious, but Charon was pissed. Super pissed. I knew I’d better not need a ride across the river for a long while and, if I did, I better have something to bribe him wi
th. However, he lugged in about forty cases of Newman’s coffee and slapped down a Sam’s receipt. I goggled at him, but he refused to look at me.
Charon. In a Sam’s. On a Friday. I chuckled every time I thought about it.
On the even more awesome side, Hecate and I pretty much knew everything there was to know about kicking angel ass now. We even knew a lot of things we never wanted to know and things we never, ever planned to speak about in the light of day again. God had big plans for all of us, the Underworld and Olympus, and we were the only ones left who cared enough to do anything about it.
The other Olympians would laugh us straight out of history if we approached them with it. But...I still kept thinking about Ares and Dionysus. Ares loved to fight. Anything. Anyone. Anywhere. He would be in. I thought I could persuade him to come to our side. I just needed to find him first.
And Hades. He knew the memory share was real. Every once in awhile I would catch him staring at me with a look so heated and fierce it made me ache from head to toe. I did my best to keep my distance from him mainly so I wouldn’t be tempted to take him up on the open invitation to his bedroom. I wanted my Hades back. Not this. But still. This was him. In a way. I shook my head to clear those thoughts. The ones that were become slightly rational. I didn’t need to justify anything right now.
I needed to get into Heaven. Kick some ass. Take some names.
Have some sex.
Probably in that order, but if things got weird, I’d still go with it.
Hermes and I decided to go the first gate to see how strong it was. By doing so, I thought we might be able to throw God for a loop. He hadn’t been able to track us for awhile, so he was probably getting antsy. This would show him we were still desperate and looking. But it would not reveal our other maniacal plan. As far as we knew, God still believed Hades and Persephone were still happily married. And if I knew Persephone like I thought I might, I figured she was still arrogant enough to be clueless about Hades sending her on a trip. We would see soon enough.
We could pretend to test the strength of the door while Hecate gathered the supplies to open the Underworld door. Hermes thought I was insane to come back here, but he didn’t know it was a ruse. My mother and I were still mum about the other entrance. I was still mentally unprepared to travel to the deepest stretches of the Underworld. I’d never been there or seen it before and Hades had never explained how it worked.
When I confronted Hades about the entrance, he didn’t seem surprised, but he also told me he couldn’t open it. When I told him what we were going to do, his eyes widened slightly and he stared at me with rapt fascination.
“How on the gods’ greenest Earth did you procure Gaia’s ichor?” he asked in frank amazement.
I was not keen on telling him about the giant monster with the surfer’s face who had a crush on me, so I smiled coyly and said I had my ways.
Hermes and I traveled to the gate only to see Uriel and Gabriel hanging out. They stood, stared at me with a nonplussed look that I ignored. I walked right up to the door and started hitting it with massive blasts of magic.
“Uhh, Aphrodite?” Hermes said, his voice full of worry.
“Shut up. I’m working.”
The door was stronger than ever and the wards had been reinforced tenfold since the last time I’d been here. This was probably futile, but I had to put on a good show so the boys would go report back to Daddy.
Hermes hadn’t helped me at all. He stood across from me spectating between me and the two angels like he was in a tennis match. “Okay. This is super weird. Aren’t you worried they’re going to hurt you?”
I glanced back at the angels and gave them a little waggle of my fingers. Gabriel waved back. Uriel shook his head like I was the dumbest thing on the planet.
“Nope,” I said and hit the door with more mojo. In the beginning, we saw each other all the time. I’d come and rage at the door, rage at them, rage to the sky. They’d never lifted a finger to harm me. In fact, they begged me to go just in case someone else came to see what the ruckus was all about. God had told them to kill any trespassers. When I asked them why they hadn’t tried, they gave each other side-eye glances and shrugged. I tried to press them, but they would never answer. The important thing was, they also didn’t try to kill me. So we came to an uneasy truce. I’d show up, rage against the world, try to get the door open, and occasionally they’d bring me sandwiches and throw out far-fetched suggestions.
They never helped me. That was stretching the limits of their small rebellion. But neither did they stop me.
We left about an hour after we started. Hermes was still confused as hell. Gabriel and Uriel didn’t interfere, though my presence was a surprise to them after all this time. As soon as we got back into the Underworld, Hermes demanded to know what that was all about.
“I can’t tell you.”
His whiskey gaze darkened. “But you will?”
I nodded. “Soon. I’ll tell you everything.”
Sensing he wouldn’t get anything else out of me, his jaw tightened, but he let me be.
I went to find my mother to tell her about the success at the gate and then headed straight for my room. I had a date with a monster to get ready for.
I showed up in front of Typhon’s house at 7 pm sharp, dressed to the nines and holding a bottle of wine I’d stolen from Hades’s cellar. He opened the door and I whistled low. “Nice,” I said in admiration. He grinned, but the skin around his eyes tightened as he took in my appearance.
“Tease,” he said through gritted teeth.
“You can back out any time, old man.”
He opened the door wider and snatched the bottle out of my hand as I walked through. “I cooked,” he said even as the scent of something amazing hit my nose.
“So we aren’t going out?” I turned back to face him.
He rolled his eyes. “My mother has eyes on the house. So right now, she’s probably thinking we’re about to have beautiful blond babies.”
A blush hit my collarbone and spread up. “You wish,” I said, but it came out kind of choked.
“With that reaction, I think it’s you who is wishing!” He chortled all the way to the kitchen where he opened the wine and poured us both a glass. Typhon led me into the living room and held up the items on the list. “Are you for real with this crap?”
He was holding up a heart shaped soap, a vibrator, and a female blow up doll with anatomically correct holes. I hooted with laughter.
“Nope. I just wanted to see how far you’d go.”
He made a choked sound of disgust, but I didn’t miss the threat of a grin pulling his mouth to the side.
“Have a seat,” I said. I made myself comfortable on the floor, even as I switched from a little black dress to comfortable black palazzo pants and a white tank. I sat cross legged with my hands clasped loosely in my lap. I took a moment to center myself. It had been awhile since I’d done this kind of magic, so I needed to be a hundred percent sure I was at ease.
When I was ready, I reached over for his hand. “I want you to think about love, Typhon. Try not to see faces or people. Just the feeling of love. Okay?”
His hand, usually warm and dry, grew clammy. I heard him swallow noisily. “Okay,” he said.
I opened myself up to Typhon’s energy and let the magic flow. His inhaled gasp was all I heard as the magic sucked me down and into a vision of a woman with long, flowing chestnut hair and vivid violet eyes.
Holy crap. Artemis. I gasped audibly and forced myself to focus. Focus, focus, focus, I told myself. But she was still there, even if the vision was like trying to hold on to a slippery eel. As I made my way through the vision, Artie slowly slipped away. This had to be because of her mortality.
Damn it.
I recentered myself and looked around the area I was in. I was the only one left.
Me. I was the second woman.
Balls.
I broke off abruptly and opened my eyes. Typhon was never,
ever going to let me live this down. Never would I hear the end of it.
Was it accurate? I swallowed hard. I’d made mistakes in the past because of pure arrogance, but this time...I knew it in my bones.
It was Artemis.
And then it was me.
“So who was it?” Typhon said. He had a weird look on his face, almost like he didn’t want me to tell him.
Was I going to be honest? I let out a slow breath. This was my friend. The person who’d risked his life for me multiple times. I had to be honest.
“Artemis,” I said and watched as his face first registered shock, then abject disbelief.
“Are you lying?” he asked me through clenched teeth.
My lips pressed together. “I would never, Typhon. This was my vision.”
“And the second woman? Did you see one?”
My heart pounded. I nodded.
He tilted his head, considering. “Who was it?”
I licked my lips. His eyes zeroed in on that nervous gesture and traveled back up to my gaze. “Abby?” he asked again, hope warring with fear in his voice.
“Me, Typhon. It was me.”
He reared back from me and scrubbed a hand over his chin. “I knew it, Abby. I knew it.”
“The second woman, Typhon. Not the first.”
“Does it matter?” he hissed.
“It does. It matters a lot.” I stood. “I am not yours to have.”
“You are standing right in front of me, telling me that you are my soulmate and you expect me to do nothing?”
I grabbed my purse from the table. “I am not your soulmate.” I hesitated. “There’s potential, but Artemis is the one you seek. Not me.”
“Do you realize how insane this is?”
“Boy do I,” I said even as I sank onto the couch.
“You could have lied to me,” he said in wonder.
“I could have.”
We were silent for probably an hour. Typhon and I polished off the rest of the wine, both of us lost in our thoughts. I slipped out the door once he’d dozed off on the couch.
I hadn’t told him about the third shadowy woman. I couldn’t make her out, but I was going to do my best to find her.