Royally Screwed

by L. J. Vickery

  Candy shrugged. “Cool.”

  “Game’s starting.” Lahar wasn’t about to let things interfere. “Everybody settle down.”

  Candy used her instincts to pick a seat at the far end of one couch, next to a young, red-haired woman and an older one. The pair hadn’t been introduced as goddesses, so Candy didn’t know what the fuck they were, but sure as shit it wouldn’t be normal.

  “Hi, I’m Angie, and this is my mother, Addie-May.” The younger of the two stuck out her hand.

  “Hi.” Candy gave a tentative smile and shook then lowered her ass hesitantly. “There’s no one here, right?” she asked.

  “You’re clear.” Angie laughed.

  The game started and the older of the two leaned around her daughter to speak. “Tell me, Candy, if our lovely Doctor Dani-Lee hadn’t been with Huxley in Maine, would you be here right now?”

  Candy didn’t know what the woman was getting at, but gave an honest answer. “Nope. I would have hauled his ass to that bitch Worthington right then and there.”

  The older woman looked smug and satisfied, and Candy could have sworn she mumbled, “the scrying bowl never lies” before settling back against the cushions.

  Candy let that one go. Too many mind-fucks at once. She let herself become immersed in the game. She even plucked a wing and various other foods off plates as they got passed around. She noted that when a plate passed an empty chair, it became invisible, then visible again, never with any food missing, but often times seriously rearranged. They either fucked with her brain, or had some odd tricks up their sleeves. The god thing had yet to be settled.

  ****

  It was well into the top of the fifth inning, two out on LA, with neither team scoring yet. The Boston pitcher kept the ball down and away, but Ramirez reached and got underneath the pitch. Launching it high and hard he sent it not only out of the park, but way the fuck out of the park, clearing the green monster and hitting Lansdowne Street.

  “Fuck yeah.” Candy leaped to her feet, unable to contain her glee. “Take that Boston.” She did a fist pump, then looked around at the stony faces pointed her way. “Shit. Sorry,” she added with a big ass smile on her face that told them she wasn’t. “Got carried away.”

  Then she noticed the woman named Tess got deathly still.

  “Marduk.” Tess barely got her husband’s name out of her mouth. “Honey. Hit rewind.” She put a trembling hand on his shoulder.

  “Babe. Nobody wants to see that shit again. Seriously.”

  “No. Marduk. You don’t understand. Play it back,” she said in an almost haunted voice. Marduk had no choice but to comply.

  Tess raised her voice to a shout. “There. Stop.”

  “Yeah. The ball cleared the park,” Anshar groused. “So what?”

  “Nobody else sees it?” she asked. “Lenore?”

  “Holy fuck.” The platinum blonde was suddenly onboard with whatever she noticed. “We are so frigging stupid.” She hit her head with her hand.

  Marduk turned to his wife. “Why don’t you try explaining for those of us not up to speed? Ramirez hit and home run, and…”

  “Marduk, look. The sign. Citgo. Citgo…sit and go. The clue that Ereshkigal gave Nergal. He understood it to be two words. It wasn’t.”

  Some kind of light dawned all around as everyone turned to stare at the sign.

  “The king wouldn’t have known. He’s not a Boston fan,” Marduk stated. “We have to call him. Ereshkigal is being held somewhere in or around Kenmore Square.”

  Candy observed this interchange, growing more and more confused. Citgo sign? King? Ereshkigal? Fuck it. Her team was ahead, and these guys no longer paid attention. Something huge must be going down.

  Marduk’s thumb hit the “live” button and the game resumed, but Candy was correct. Nobody watched anymore.

  “Get him on the head channel.” Enlil seemed to speak for the crowd. “This could be huge.”

  “He’s already on it,” Tess whispered, and Candy observed the concentration on Marduk’s face. He inadvertently gave small head motions while he talked. He finally came back up for air.

  “Nergal will be here momentarily.” Marduk turned his head back to the television and watched Big Papi hit a solo home run, tying the game. “How about that,” Marduk acknowledged the hit, but Candy could tell the fun had gone out of the game for all of them.

  Eyes focused distractedly on the replay, and some halfhearted jeers got lobbed in Candy’s direction. She wouldn’t rise to the bait. LA would win. She was sure of it.

  Besides, she sensed the heightened tension in the room. It was the same anticipation that overcame the office back home when a new assignment came up. A palpable readiness lingered in the air, and it sucked her in with its degree of intensity. Shit, piss. She was about to become a part of something else. Damn it. Couldn’t she have a normal vacation like everyone else?

  She tried to focus on the game, but the room became even more electrified and…holy fuck. All right. Candy let out a breath. She’d instantly gone from a not-quite-believing-these-guys-were-gods stance to where-the-frig-do-I-sign-up?

  Appearing in the room was easily the most magnificent male she’d ever laid eyes on. The dude stood seven-feet tall, but not that lanky seven-foot shit that some guys sported. No. This guy…god…was tall, broad, imposing. He had bulging muscles everywhere. And she knew that how? Because the motherfucker only wore some skimpy-ass, loincloth thing—threaded with shiny gold—along with mind-bending armbands on his hu-nor-mous biceps and wrists.

  Okay. Mr. Blondie-Enlil did an all right job sporting the braids. But this hunk? He had deep chestnut hair in a long ponytail that trailed over his right shoulder, entwined with a whole lot of bling. But his were strung out on fucking leather. How hot was that? She wanted to thread her fingers into all that glory while the guy thrust his tongue down her throat. No lie. Really.

  She shook her head in denial. She certainly wasn’t thinking about Enlil anymore.

  Then the one she assumed to be Nergal spoke. Okay. Forget about his tongue. She wanted his dick down her throat. He’d probably come fucking champagne, where Enlil would be beer. Damnit. That arrogant asshole should get out of her brain.

  “You’ve located my queen?” Nergal’s voice emerged rich and thick; cultured in a way that Candy had never come across before. And she’d been to a lot of diplomatic dinners undercover. None of those haughty pricks had anything on this guy.

  “Tell me where she is,” he commanded.

  Marduk spoke, “We’ve discovered the meaning of the words your wife told you, which actually turns out to be only one word, not two.”

  Wait. Wife? All Candy’s fantasies swirled down the toilet. Damnit. The good ones were always taken. Her eyes travelled to Enlil briefly before she mentally kicked herself again.

  “Explain.” Nergal’s one word held a plethora of angst.

  Marduk rewound the game to the pertinent home run, and while he did, Nergal continued, “How can you watch this drivel? Without New York, there’s no World Series,” he declared. “And what’s with A-Rod, anyway?” It seemed that Nergal, even strung tightly looking for his wife, attempted some humor.

  “Boo,” “asshole,” and “A-Roid” travelled around the room. Clearly Nergal understood how to get the hometown fans riled.

  “Here it is,” Marduk stated, interrupting the grousing. “Check out the sign.”

  “Citgo,” Nergal barked. “What is that?” He squinted as closely as possible at the advertisement.

  Marduk answered, “Fossil fuels, my liege, for the human vehicles, and it’s obviously what your queen described in her plea.”

  Enlil cautioned, “I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but that’s the good news, King Nergal. We know the sign is in Kenmore Square. The bad news is that icon can be seen for miles throughout Boston. Even though we have Ereshkigal nearby and in town, we’ll still have a hell of a time finding her.”

  “Maybe not.” Candy finally figured
out that this queen—wife to the oh-so-magnificent one—was being held against her will. Her violet eyes met the king’s bottomless green ones as they snapped to hers.

  “And who is this?” Nergal took a deep sniff in her direction. “Human?” He looked around to see if any new gods had become corporeal. “And not a Chosen,” he ascertained. “Why is she here?”

  “Long story, your majesty, but suffice to say we’re working on it,” Enlil interjected.

  “Hey.” Candy didn’t like this. “Don’t fucking talk about me like I’m not in the room.” She drew herself up to her five-foot-four, tallest self. “I’ll tell kingly here what he wants to know.”

  Nergal’s eyes narrowed at the slang term she’d used. He looked her up and down.

  “You know what?” he growled. “You’ve got spunk.”

  Candy groaned. She knew where this headed. Her own superior ran this one on her all the time. She gave a deep sigh. “Yeah. Let me have it, big guy.” She beckoned with curled fingers.

  “I hate spunk.”

  Lou Grant would be proud.

  The gods all looked like they appreciated the exchange, and Candy thought maybe the king guy was not being quite honest. He looked like a dude who lived for someone to challenge him. She’d even go so far as to bet that Lenore was one of his personal favorites. Still, she backed off a little.

  “I’m sorry, your lordness…sir.” She semi-apologized as best she could. “It’s just that I need you to know that a good part of my job description with the DEA is K&R.” Blank looks on most faces except, of course, Lenore’s. “That’s kidnap and ransom for you gods who don’t know fuck-all about shit.” And okay. She’d just acknowledged their otherworldliness. She dared any of the openmouthed immortals to challenge her. “I can find just about anyone, anywhere.” She glanced at Huxley. “That’s the reason I’m here.”

  And screw Worthington’s quarry. That’s who’d gotten her into this mess to begin with. If she could do some favors for the—you’ve got to be shitting me—king of the gods, maybe she could ransom her own ass out of this cluster-fuck instead of getting shoved back into the dungeon below to become skeletal remains. She explained to the king.

  “I was minding my own business on vacation when this bitch in Maine offered me a huge pile of cake to locate Huxley here.” Her head jogged in his direction. “Now what would you say the odds are that any mortal,” she used the word sarcastically because the holier-than-thou gods employed it to put humans in their place, “could not only find him, but infiltrate this compound where he lives?”

  The king appeared intrigued. “She has a point,” he said to the room in general, one hand to his chin.

  “Not to interrupt, your worship.” Addie May gave a deep bow toward the big guy. “But it may be preordained that Candy is here to help us.”

  That got an instant reaction from everybody in the room. Holy fuck.

  “Explain,” Nergal snapped. “Right now, I want nothing more than to be over Boston looking for my wife, but if I do, I know that my energy will be detected in a second. I’m willing to defer to the human if she can help.”

  “I’ve already talked to Candy, and she confirmed it,” Addie May assured him. “If it hadn’t been for Dani-Lee being with Huxley, she would have apprehended him in Maine and never come back here.”

  Gods and goddesses—as well as Candy—looked confused.

  “Because Dani was along, as decreed by the scrying bowl, and Candy didn’t want our doctor hurt or involved, Agent Lane was forced to track Huxley back here. And whether she wanted to or not, she become involved with us.” Addie May paused to let that sink in. “Doesn’t that sound just a bit too coincidental not to have been part of a grand scheme?”

  “Decreed or not,” Nergal spoke up. “A DEA agent with K&R experience sounds pretty good right now.” He turned to Candy. “Do you think you can help?”

  “No,” Enlil spoke up, the killjoy. Why wasn’t Candy surprised? “We don’t know if we can trust her. At the next available opportunity, I say she needs to be gone.”

  “Have you tried wiping her mind clean?” the king asked.

  “Yes, but…”

  “And did that work for you?” He tapped his big, sandaled foot.

  “No, but…”

  “Then shut up, Enlil.” The king gave him a glower. “My queen may consider you one of her favorites, but I often find you abrasive. Unless you want to wring this woman’s neck right now to get her gone,” he made a sweeping gesture toward Candy as if in invitation, “I suggest you take the stick out of your ass, and bring her up to speed on our problems.”

  Enlil took one step toward Candy, who stood her ground with a glare, before he got restrained by Anshar and Lahar. “Don’t do it, brother.” Clearly neither could understand why Enlil acted like such an ass.

  “Fine. It’s on you if she screws up.” He shook his friends off, letting his feelings be known.

  “Enough,” Marduk barked. “We can’t go into a rescue blindly, and we’ve got a long night of planning ahead of us. Let’s hash this whole thing out people.”

  It was good advice, and everyone found their seats again, including Nergal, who shuffled in between Angie and Candy on the couch. He spoke to her in short spurts over the course of the next few hours as he tapped into her brain. She let him because, well, he was the king. The more he probed, the more he relaxed. Apparently, he didn’t find anything in her head too shitty.

  He also seemed amused that one of her hands kept sneaking over to touch his arm or stroke his leg. Candy couldn’t help it. Some awesome skin showed, and she needed to touch it…just a little.

  Enlil glared continuously from across the room, and for that reason too, Candy kept up her digital exploration. She loved watching him stew. She could almost hear his brain steaming as he wondered exactly what she was up to.

  It didn’t help his mood that Boston ended up losing five to three.

  Chapter Ten

  Dani watched the gods with interest. She’d only been invited to a select few meetings, but Huxley had insisted she attend this one. Several things were decided over the course of the next few hours.

  The group decided to alleviate Huxley’s problem by paying Miranda Worthington her entire balance due. Huxley was mortified, but he finally told them how, several years ago, he’d been dead broke when he’d wanted to start his gym. And how some sketchy acquaintances had put him in touch with Miranda Worthington. Dani noticed he didn’t tell them all of her terms, but he laid the financials on the line and they all agreed the outline of her loan was a total rip-off.

  Once that was unanimously agreed upon, the gods turned their attention to Candy and whether she should be put back in her cell. The for-it males became quickly overridden by the much smaller band of you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me females, which showed just how much power the women wielded.

  “Fuck, no.” Lenore became the most vocal. “I suggest that each of you spend some time in that crap-hole with the vermin and see how you like it.” She turned angry eyes to her husband. “Hey, honey.”

  Trouble. Dani could tell she didn’t use her “honey” voice.

  “I tell you what. You go sleep in the third cell from hell, and Candy and I will bunk together. That should make you happy. You’ll be comfy on your own, and she’ll be under watch all night.”

  Anshar’s eyes turned dark and Hux, sitting next to him, leaned back from the irate god. “Not going to happen, ssssweetheart.” His tongue forked out in a hiss.

  She risked a glance over at Candy. That little display blew the agent’s fucking mind. But…

  “Yo. Lenore. Babe.” Candy quickly schooled her face and looked askance at the platinum-blonde spitfire. Dani hid a grin at how quickly Candy recovered. “Are you crazy? Your husband has that in his mouth? Oh no. You do not leave him for a second.” The pictures in her head probably flashed XXX ratings.

  “She can room with me,” Dani-Lee spoke up in the midst of all the mated women stepping up to say
they’d take Candy in. When everyone quieted, she continued, “It makes the most sense. I’m the only single woman in the main house, and I have an extra bed.”

  That seemed to settle things with all the rest of the residents, but Huxley clearly didn’t like it. “No, Dani. You’re human. She could easily get the drop on you.”

  “And I still don’t trust her,” Enlil added his two cents.

  Dani shook her head, exasperated. She’d been around long enough to know how things ran in the compound. She sought to assuage her self-appointed saviors.

  “Then have Lahar turn the surveillance on in my room.” Because of the volatility of the males when their powers became unleashed, all of the rooms came equipped with emergency cameras. She looked around. No one found fault with her suggestion, and it shut Huxley up. So she turned to her new roommate instead. “Are you good with that, Candy?” she questioned.

  Candy shrugged and nodded. “If it pisses off Braid-Boy, it sounds good to me.”

  Dani almost groaned. Enlil was not someone Candy wanted to tick off, but to give Enlil his due, he took a deep, visible breath and bit his tongue, ignoring the taunt.

  Dani was happy when Marduk quickly switched to the next order of business: plans for how they would approach rescuing the queen. Candy listened carefully, but Dani detected the agent’s ears perk up to an even greater degree when Dani’s earlier suggestion got rehashed.

  “It’s a fucking great idea,” Candy agreed. “Look at her.” Candy pointed to Dani who felt herself blush. “She’s a cherry-assed brainiac.”

  Dani wasn’t sure if she should be happy at that description.

  “Nobody’s going to think she’s a plant. They’re going to think she’s hauled ass on you guys because you’re arrogant pricks.” She turned to Nergal. “No offense, your greatness.”

  He nodded, attempting—and failing—to keep a small smile off his face. Candy kept talking.

  “Believe me, you won’t even have to go out of your way to try and find them, Doc.” Her reasoning seemed solid. “Once you’re out of this place and onto their radar, they’ll pick you up so fast your breakfast won’t have digested. A sip of orange juice then bam. You belong to them. They’ll be creaming their pants. Nothing says ‘capture me’ quite like time spent in the enemy camp.”