Tweety stood and stacked our dishes on the tray. “But she’s Eris, so… wait, you expect her to change?”
“If she wants followers badly enough, yes.” I flashed him a grin. “We’re going to play a little game with the goddess.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Demarco replied. “I’d rather we just leave her alone and do our own thing.”
“No, she’ll like this game. It’s right up her alley. I know a guy, goes by the name of Auto, who can take the sleaziest, crookedest humans, gods, and demigods on the planet and turn them into politicians. He basically reinvents the candidate into what the crowd wants and pulls strings to put them into position. Once they’re elected, he uses them like puppets to keep the world spinning and people from destroying the country. He’s good. He knows what he’s doing, and he’s powerful enough to keep Eris in line.”
“You want to make her a politician?” Demarco asked.
“Yes.”
His jaw dropped.
“Eris is like an emotional teenage girl who feels rejected by her brother and his gang of warmongers. To make her feel better about herself, we’re basically going to turn her into a prom queen. Prom queens don’t have any real power.”
“But she wouldn’t be a prom queen. She’d be a politician.” Demarco stood and stretched. “And politicians make laws and govern and shit.”
“And you learned about American government… online?” I asked.
He nodded.
Just as I figured. Time to crush his image of the USA with reality. “Yeah, well, that’s all for show. In reality, the country isn’t run by three branches of government and their checks and balances. I don’t know about other countries, but in the US, government is about money and power. Those with the money have the power, and politicians are more like… figureheads. They are prom queens. They make pretty speeches and promise whatever voters want to hear, but in the end, they do the bidding of the money backing them. Eris will have a handler who is far more powerful than she is and he’ll force her to keep a lid on her crazy or he’ll rip the crown off her head and put it on someone else.”
“What makes you think she’ll go along with this plan?” Demarco asked. “She doesn’t seem like the controllable type.”
“Because we don’t spin it like this. We feed Eris the information she wants to hear and use one of her own children against her.”
Tweety laughed and I could tell he’d caught on. He tugged The Lowly Pawn’s Comprehensive Guide for Surviving Amongst Gods from my pack and opened it to the section on Eris. “Pseudologos, the personification of lies and forgery,” he read, following along with his finger. “Romi, that’s genius.”
I grinned in spite of myself. “Right? We explain that not only is she gaining followers, she’s tricking everyone, which she will be. She’ll eat it up… at least for a while. She’ll eventually grow bored and drop the ruse, but not before we steal the essence from Ares.”
“I can’t believe turning a goddess into a politician is less dangerous than putting her on social media,” Demarco said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, but it is,” Tweety replied. “I was watching this show on voting a couple of weeks ago and a cameraman walked around multiple cities asking people about their legislative reps. Nobody even knew who their lawmakers were. However, those questioned did know the names and life stories of several celebrities.”
I rubbed Demarco’s shoulders, feeling genuinely bad for the way we were shattering his view of humanity. But it was necessary. He had to know so he could understand and support what we were doing with Eris. “Trust me. She won’t be the most terrifying being in the capitol.”
“This is so messed up.” He shook his head, and then nodded to my hands. “So what’s with the thumb drive?”
I ran a finger over its surface. “Not all of Shade’s jobs involved stealing. Sometimes he had me spy on people. A couple months ago he had me hide out in the shadows behind some restaurant and get footage of a certain congressman making a turf deal with a well-known drug lord.”
“And it’s on there?” Demarco eyed the thumb drive. “Shade didn’t make you turn it over to him?”
I shook my head. “No. The congressman rolled over so fast Shade didn’t even mention the video. He told me to hang on to it in case we needed it later. So now we’ll give it to Auto to bribe him into turning Eris into a politician.”
Tweety radiated excitement at the plan, but Demarco still didn’t seem convinced. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away for a few silent heartbeats. When his gaze met mine again, it held resignation. “Okay. What do you need us to do?”
He trusted me. I wanted to turn a horrible goddess into a politician and he trusted me enough to let me do it. Not only trusted me, he was still willing to help.
I grabbed his hand and tugged on it until he locked gazes with me. “Thank you,” I said.
“Hey, someone’s gotta keep you two out of trouble,” he replied.
AFTER A FEW hours of sleep and a late lunch, Demarco, Tweety, and I emerged from the realm of Erebus onto a shadowy sidewalk in a seedy part of Washington D.C. We were showered, freshly dressed, and ready to deal with the devil. Or at least, the wolf.
Heavy east coast humidity wrapped me in a sticky wet blanket smelling of vehicle exhaust and a chemical cocktail from nearby factories. The businesses behind us had all locked down for the evening, but across the street in front of us, bass thumped from a blacked-out brick building. A minivan squeezed into the last available parking spot in the attached lot, and a group of casually dressed men piled out and headed for the front door. A blast of music escaped as they disappeared into the brick building.
“That’s where we’re going?” Demarco asked, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead.
“Yep.” I gestured for them to follow me and headed across the street.
“You sure we’ll find the guy who runs the capitol there?” Tweety asked.
I grinned. “You expected something different?”
“Yes. I expected the White House or at least some sort of penthouse apartment. Maybe a place like where the chief of staff to the president lives on that one scandalous show…”
“Tweety, you watch way too much TV,” I replied. “Prom queens live in castles, White Houses, and governor’s mansions. Those who really wield power come from places like this. Places where you’d least expect to find them.”
A siren roared to life a few blocks away and we hurried our steps. As we reached the entrance, Demarco stopped to study a metallic plaque affixed to the wall directly beneath a flood light. The sign glowed, making it easy to distinguish the silhouette of a man with a red circle over his crotch area and a slash through the circle. Above the silhouette were the words: “Please respect our dancers and their secrets. No touching between the waist and the knees.”
“What sort of establishment is this, Romi?” Demarco asked.
The sort where they had to tell people to keep their hands off the dancers’ junk… unimportant since we’d be heading directly upstairs. “Oh, just a nightclub,” I lied.
The look on Tweety’s face made it clear he was onto me. “What sort of nightclub?” he asked, his tone heavy with both amusement and curiosity.
I didn’t want to say, because although I knew Tweety would be cool, Demarco had spent his entire life in a bubble and I wasn’t sure how openminded he’d be. I had neither time nor energy to deal with homophobia. But I couldn’t exactly lie to them either. “A gay nightclub.”
“Really?” Tweety asked, his eyes widening. “Sweet! I’ve never been in a gay nightclub before.”
“Have you ever been in any nightclub?” I asked.
“Nope. But I saw this one movie where—”
I put a hand up to silence him. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not make me listen to another retelling of an entire flick. Let’s just go in, have a chat with Auto, and get out.”
“How about the abridged version?”
“Tweety, we h
ave stuff to do.”
Demarco still hadn’t reacted.
“You cool?” I asked him.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
My gaze shot to the sign.
“Romi, my mom was a model. She had lots of gay friends before Aphrodite sealed us away. She used to tell me about them… said it was important to respect and value people and to mind my own damn business about their love lives. As long as I don’t have to be gay to get in, I’m fine.”
That settled it, Demarco was perfect. I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Nope. Not required. And I really wish I could have met your mom.”
He smiled down at me. “Yeah, me too. She would have liked you.”
There were way too many feelings swirling around that I couldn’t handle, so I dodged them and tugged open the door. I took two steps inside before a burly bald guy intercepted me. He stood probably six inches shorter than Demarco and his skin was about three shades lighter. The tight T-shirt he wore stretched across his chest displayed an impressive amount of muscle, but the scowl he gave me was a serious turnoff.
“Ten dollars each and I’ll need to see some ID,” he said.
I’d been to the nightclub multiple times, but had never encountered this particular bouncer before. All the bouncers I’d dealt with had been nice and friendly. “Are you new here?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he repeated his request for my ID and money.
Still, I knew how to speak the language of Auto’s hired muscle. I pulled a couple of hundred dollar bills from my pocket and waved them in the air. “I’m here to see Auto. Upstairs.”
He crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge. “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you’re here to see. No ID, no entry.”
I stood there stunned for a few heartbeats before stuffing the money back into my pocket. Auto would let me in and hear me out—I knew he would—but I somehow needed to get past this douchebag to make it happen.
“Auto’s probably busy, but his assistant Mike and I go way back.” I stepped forward, trying to see around the partition blocking the entryway from the rest of the club. There were a few bartenders I’d gotten to know over the years and if one of them saw me, then they might be willing to help me gain entry. “If you could just call him on your little radio there and let him know Romi’s here, I’m sure—”
Suddenly I went flying through the air. Arms snatched me midflight and my feet were instantly back on the ground. Demarco was a blur as he released me and rushed the guard. I didn’t even see him swing before I heard the impact of his knuckles against the bouncer’s face.
A warm hand landed on my shoulder. “Are you okay, Romi?” Tweety asked.
“I think so. What happened?”
“The bouncer shoved you. Hard. And now D’s kicking his ass.” The admiration in the griffin’s voice was undisguisable.
Demarco punched the bouncer again before hefting him against the wall, leaving his feet dangling a good half foot off the ground. Demarco lodged his forearm between the bouncer’s chin and breastbone, pressing against his neck and cutting off his air.
“You don’t shove ladies, asshole,” the blacksmith growled. “And especially not her. Didn’t anyone ever teach you any manners?”
The bouncer gasped for air. Fear widened his eyes as he flailed and tried to swat Demarco’s hand away. The blacksmith didn’t so much as flinch. The jerk had shoved me, but he didn’t deserve to die. And I definitely didn’t want his blood on Demarco’s hands.
“Stop,” I said, tugging on Demarco’s arm. “You have to let him go. He can’t breathe.”
No reaction.
I ducked beneath Demarco’s arm and slid in, wedging myself between him and the bouncer and tried again. “Let him go.”
Still no reaction.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Yes, he’s an asshat and he shouldn’t have shoved me, but we need to get in to see Auto and we’re not going to be able to do that if you kill one of his guys. Please release him.”
Demarco finally dropped his gaze to me.
“I’m fine.” I put all my bodyweight against Demarco, trying to push him away. He moved maybe a quarter of an inch. “Let him go.”
He finally nodded and dropped his arms to my waist. He stepped back, tugging me with him. Pressed against Demarco’s chest, I felt his racing heart began to slow. The guard fell to the floor on his hands and knees, sucking in deep breaths.
The entire ordeal had taken less than three minutes. I glanced around to make sure we didn’t have an audience while tugging on Demarco’s sleeve.
He tucked me under his arm and, with Tweety in tow, we headed out the door, almost running into a group of drag queens on their way in. Apologizing, we raced across the street and back into the shadows to hide. Seconds after we were cloaked in darkness, the door slammed open and three guards poured out of the club. We heard their shouts as they searched the parking lot, but we remained silent until they went back in.
“D, that was amazing!” Tweety gushed. “The way you hit that douchebag… you’re fast for a big dude. And then you held him there like he was nothing. You learn how to hit like that from the Internet? Man, I’ve been wasting time watching TV. I should have been learning to do that.”
I gently slugged the griffin in the arm. “Stop encouraging him. So not amazing, Demarco. You could have killed that guy.”
“Worth it.” Tweety rubbed his arm like I’d done some sort of damage. “So very worth it. The punk got what was coming to him.”
They were hopeless. Both of them.
Demarco’s grip tightened on my shoulders. “He could have killed you. Romi, he had no right to touch you and you can’t expect me to stand there and watch some bastard put his hands on you. Not happening.”
Surprisingly sweet, but completely unnecessary. I pulled out from under his arm and faced him, looking up into his handsome, jealous, overprotective face. “I was never in any danger.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does, because we still need to get in to see Auto and you just fought the bouncer.”
“Fought?” Tweety snorted. “There was no fight. D kicked his ass.”
“Like what I’m going to do to you if you don’t stop encouraging him?”
Tweety grinned. “Try it.”
I took a swing at the griffin, but he dodged, laughing.
I sighed and crossed my arms. “All right you two geniuses, now you have to figure out a way to get us in to see Auto.”
“Can’t you just beam us in there?” Tweety asked.
“Never a good idea to pop in on someone like Auto unannounced. Likely to get us all shot or worse. Besides, the entire top floors of the club are warded, so even if I wanted to beam us in there, I couldn’t.”
“Warded?” Demarco asked.
“Protected by magic,” Tweety replied. It was an extremely basic and inadequate explanation, but my brain was too busy to expand on it.
“If I could just reach his assistant, I know I could get this whole thing cleared up. I need a payphone.” I scanned the area, but didn’t see one. Payphones were rare, but not extinct, so we headed out to hunt one down.
After a half hour of walking we still hadn’t found a payphone, so we ducked into a convenience store and paid the clerk behind the counter fifty dollars for the use of his cell and phone book. It took being transferred a handful of times and listening to a good ten minutes’ worth of ’80s hold music, but someone finally patched me through to Mike.
“Hey Mike, it’s Romi.”
“Romi?” he asked. “As in Shade’s Romi?”
Not anymore. Still, it was best not to bring my family drama into our business meeting. “Yeah. I have something for Auto and need to make him a trade.”
“Great, then come on up. Why are you calling?”
I sighed. “The bouncer won’t let me in because I don’t have an ID.”
“Oh no. You’re the bossy short girl with the hot black bodyguard?”
&n
bsp; “Bossy?” I choked. “He said I was bossy? The bouncer shoved me out the door and my… friend, the uh… hot black bodyguard, might have overreacted a little.”
Demarco arched an eyebrow and shook his head. Was he denying his position as my hot black bodyguard or the fact he’d overreacted? My bet was on the latter.
“So yeah, my friend… way over the top, but I wasn’t bossy. I pulled him off the bouncer and probably saved the guy’s life. How is that bossy?”
Mike laughed. “I’m just repeating what I heard from the bouncer. And apparently your… friend made quite the impression on the group you about knocked over as you fled. Who is this guy? Anyone I know?”
“No, and he’s not gay. And we totally didn’t flee,” I grumbled. “It was a misunderstanding, which is why I’m calling you to fix it now. I need you to focus, Mike. Can you get me into the club and meet with Auto?”
“You might be a little bit bossy,” Tweety whispered.
Frustrated and fed up with every being currently in the sphere of people I had to deal with, I bounced my forehead off the counter a couple of times. Demarco swooped in and stopped me. Apparently his overprotective streak wouldn’t allow me to hurt myself either.
“I wish I could help you, but you’re going to need IDs,” Mike said in my ear. “And there’s no getting around it. We were stung a few weeks back and a couple underage kids were found in the club. Worst fake IDs I’ve ever seen, and I don’t know how the hell they got in. Now the powers that be are so far up our asses we can’t even crap without them videotaping it.”
“That’s a pleasant visual,” I replied.
He snorted. “Sorry, Romi, but we don’t need more negative attention.”
Of course they didn’t. Auto needed his nightclub front to stay as far under the radar of the law and the public as possible, which meant I needed to figure out how to get us IDs. The only problem… there wasn’t a birth certificate or social security number between the lot of us.
“I understand. Thanks anyway.” I hung up and handed the phone back to the clerk.
“He’s not going to let us in, is he?” Demarco asked.
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