by S. W. Clarke
I was glad when we passed out of the arena. I was even gladder when we entered a normal hallway with normal lights, what looked like an administrative wing.
But I wasn’t glad when the minotaur stopped us in the hallway beyond.
He stood in front of a pair of official-looking double oak doors and pointed at me. “Just Grunt. The human waits out here.”
↔
Grunt had stepped up like he was about to physically interject, but I set a hand on his shoulder and stepped forward instead.
Instead of my usual tactics, I just smiled up at the minotaur with tight lips. “Was that your boss’s instruction, or did you just decide that?”
The minotaur stared down at me. This was the one I had pinned on the floor of the Singing Angel. I still remembered the sound of him lowing. “Humans do not enter Typhon’s rooms.”
“So what you’re saying is, he didn’t explicitly tell you to keep me waiting outside.”
“Well …” the minotaur began.
I took that as my opening. “You see, Grunt here may be an ogre and Valdis’s man, but Typhon’s going to want to talk to me. Trust me.”
The minotaur snorted. “Trust a human?”
All right, so not an easy cookie to crack.
Before I could come up with my next line, Mariana had taken over. Just like that, she was using my body like it was her own. Her posture straightened, and she clasped her hands in front of her. “I am Valdis’s wife. It is imperative that I speak to Typhon.”
Behind us, Grunt didn’t miss a beat. “It’s true.”
My flare of anger was overtaken by my skepticism. Like that’s going to work.
The minotaur eyed her with an unblinking stare.
“And if you keep me waiting out here in the hallway,” Mariana added, “you’ll have the oldest vampire in the world to answer to.”
Before she was only sort of lying. Now she was really weaving a tale.
I could practically feel the tension enter the minotaur’s body. His nostrils flared, but this wasn’t anger. This was fear. His hoof raised, fell atop the handle to the door. When he clicked it open, he nodded us both in. “Go on.”
And then, just as fast, I was in control again.
Box of frogs, she was going to give me whiplash.
“You made the right choice,” I said as we passed through, not least because I knew I could kick his furry behind without even Percy’s help. Our barfight had proven that.
Inside, the heady scent of a cigar flowed over me. Here it was warm. Here the lighting was soft and cozy. Here I stood in front of an eight-foot-tall painted portrait of a striking woman seated in a wingback armchair, her husband standing alongside. In the portrait, he had dark, short hair, a corded neck, a starched pinstripe business suit on. A long-haired lap dog rested on the floor beside his wife’s feet.
The two of them looked like pompous try-hards.
I pointed at the painting. “Don’t tell me that’s him.”
Grunt shrug-nodded.
Around us stretched four walls of books from floor to ceiling. They were interspersed with fluid-filled jars; I recognized a kidney, a brain, some ten-eyed creature. All of this surrounded a chaise lounge, the same armchair from the portrait and an end-table with a decanter of golden liquor atop it.
But other than me and Grunt, the room was devoid of people.
That is, until the door at the far end opened. I caught a glimpse of a desk and a high-backed chair, a wall-to-wall window overlooking the arena. Then the door shut, and out stepped a backlit man with dark, short hair and a navy pinstripe suit on.
This was him.
But he didn’t look like a pompous try-hard. As his dark eyes swept over us, falling first on Grunt, then settling on me, a dark feeling seethed up my spine. I sensed hard muscle under that suit, raw power in those big hands.
This man was severe. This man was ruthless.
He held a half-smoked cigar between two fingers that he lifted, tipped in my direction. “I’ve met the ogre. I don’t know you.”
I took a quick breath. “Well, I’m—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
My head jerked. “How would you know if I was going to lie?”
“I heard what you said to my guard. ‘Valdis’s wife.’ ”
I raised a finger. “Now that’s not precisely a lie, you see.”
Typhon stared at me. He raised the cigar to his lips, twisted it between his lips until he took a good puff. Then, with an exhale, “Valdis’s wife is dead.”
“I’m her.” I touched my chest, doing my best to keep my hand from shaking with the tremor. “At least, her soul is my soul.”
One of his dark eyebrows rose. “So he found you, then. Miracles never cease, even in this GoneGod World.” He paused, surveying me. “And what of the crystal?”
Now I was getting nervous; I curled my fingers at my side. “How do you know about the crystal?”
Mirth touched the edges of his eyes. “I gave Valdis the creation crystal, little wife. Well, the more accurate word is, ‘lent.’ At great cost. With the promise that he would return it to me as soon as he’d accomplished his goal. Which I can see he has.”
So the creation crystal’s owner wasn’t Valdis … it was Typhon. And Valdis’s goal in borrowing it had been to return Mariana to this world. Valdis brought her memories back by stabbing me with the crystal.
And now Typhon wanted the thing back.
“I don’t know what became of the crystal,” I said. I needed the dagger to fight Lust. And if Typhon knew I had it, he would take it from me.
Typhon took a step forward. The darkness in his eyes was so powerful, I thought he was about to come at me. Instead, he paused at the decanter, upturning three tumblers. “A drink?”
This guy was really hard to read, and I prided myself on my ability to decipher body language.
“I’m good,” I said.
Grunt shook his head.
Typhon poured out one for himself. He held it up, swirling it as he studied me. “You’ve lied to me again just now. If you do so one more time, I’ll send you into my arena. Death by wendingo can be … invigorating.”
My jaw clenched. How did he know?
“Sir,” Grunt began. “Please forgive her. She’s just a human.”
A chord jangled through me. Fear. That was followed by a surge of defiance. “No wendingo can kill me.”
Now a faint smile really did cross Typhon’s face. “Well, I do like that better than groveling. Tell me the truth about the crystal and I might consider keeping your feet out of the dirt.”
I couldn’t lie to him again; I wasn’t actually sure if I could defeat a wendingo without my whips. Plus, he could somehow see through my lies. So I reached into the neck of my shirt and pulled out the dagger. “Here it is.”
Typhon had just taken a sip of his drink, and now lowered the glass with surprise and some interest. “That son of a bitch. He forged the crystal into that, didn’t he?”
I nodded. “At the cost of his life.”
Typhon met my gaze. “Valdis is dead?”
“He’s dead.”
“By whose hand?”
I gripped the dagger harder. “Ever met a mortal sin?”
Chapter 34
Typhon chuckled, a strange light entering his eyes. I didn’t know quite how to read that expression. “A few. Was it Avarice?”
Well, I certainly hadn’t expected that answer. I didn’t want to think about Avarice walking around the GoneGod World. “It was Lust.”
“Ah, Lust.” He took a slow, thoughtful sip of his drink as though my answer surprised him not at all. “Since becoming mortal, I've had a few good nights with her. And let me tell you … You see these streaks of gray?”
I humored him with a nod (and a suppressed eye roll).
“I'm a creature who has thousands of years left in me,” Typhon went on. “I came here at what you humans would consider the age of twenty-seven, and yet I have gray in my hair.”
He waited expectantly.
I obliged. “And why is that?”
Typhon’s eyes lit up, as though he wasn’t even here in this room. As though he was seeing a different place—or maybe a different person—entirely. “I had to burn time to free myself of Lust's hold on me. And let me just tell you before you ask: yes, it was worth it. Worth not only the lifetime burnt, but a hundred more, too.”
Now I did roll my eyes. "I'm glad you got your rocks off.”
He let out a low, desirous sigh. “And so, in dying, Valdis forged the creation crystal into a dagger with which to avenge his murder.”
“Not to avenge him,” I corrected. “To defeat Lust and rescue his daughter.”
His eyelids lowered over the glass. “So Lust has Ariadne.”
He knew who Ariadne was. Grunt had been right: Typhon was the guy with the answers. And seeing his environs, I didn’t know how I felt about him having all the answers.
But I couldn’t lie to him again, that was for sure.
“He said the world would end if Lust had possession of Ariadne. Why?”
“The girl is a vessel, bearing only half a soul. It is her empty half which begs for possession by a greater being. Once inhabited, she will magnify Lust’s powers with her own charisma.”
“To what end?” I pressed.
He tapped his finger on the glass. “I suppose Lust would like the whole world to adore her.”
The whole world. I thought about Seleema, my friend, about the way she’d grabbed my braid and yanked. About the way she’d kicked me. If the whole world were like Seleema, we would live in a waking nightmare.
And we wouldn’t even know it.
But … some of us would. She couldn’t bring every Other and human under her spell at once. Could she?
“How would she do that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the intricacies of Lust’s plans,” Typhon said. "But the outcome of them is not in my interest, either."
This was good. I could work with this. "How do I defeat her?"
"There's only one thing that trump's Lust's ability to control your desire, and that's your belief.” He gazed down at the crystal dagger. “This is one of the most powerful items on the planet. And now I’ll be needing it returned to me.”
I lowered the dagger to my side, my heart leaping up into my throat. “I can’t give it back to you. Not until I’ve defeated Lust.”
Typhon smiled, a slow and insidious curl of the lips. “What makes you think you have any power here?”
“Don’t you want Lust defeated?” I shot back. “You’d be stuck under her spell just like the rest of us.”
“I’m sure I could defeat her just as well with the dagger. Better, I’d dare to say.”
“No,” Grunt said, speaking up for the first time. The suddenness of hearing his voice drew both our attention. “You wouldn’t. You aren’t human.”
I scanned Typhon out of the corner of my eye. He looked human, but he’d told me he had thousands of years of life left. So definitely an Other, then.
“You know the creation crystal’s possibilities are greatest in a human’s hand,” Grunt went on. “Which is why Valdis entrusted her with it.”
For the first time, I sensed a vibrance in the air. All this time, Typhon could have commanded his guard outside to apprehend me. He could have grabbed the dagger from me himself.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t because I had more power than I realized, and he’d been hoping to talk the dagger out of my possession.
“I will return the crystal to you,” I said to Typhon. “I swear it. But first I need to defeat Lust.”
Typhon’s eyes flicked back to me. They swirled with something like intrigue. “How do I know you’ll keep your promise? Humans are so … fickle.”
That was easy. “Because the person I love most in the world is in Lust’s possession. Once I save him, I won’t need any crystals.”
Typon’s head canted. “A lover?”
“No,” I said, my heart quickening. “My son.”
Now his chin lifted a degree, respect flashing in his eyes. “A child. They make honest people out of us, don’t they?” He paused a moment, then, “Very well. You may keep it for a time longer.”
That had been … easy. But I didn’t show my surprise.
"You said belief trumps desire,” I said. “What the hell am I supposed to believe in?"
He tapped the side of his glass with his ring and pinky fingers. "I don't know—I'm not Tony Robbins, my dear. But I can tell you one thing.”
Typhon paused, took another sip of his drink. He seemed in no rush. That pissed me off.
Still I waited, listening with pricked ears.
“When a creation crystal is in a human hand,” he said, “your beliefs reign supreme. Whatever you believe, human, you can manifest.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
He gave a long, aggrieved sigh. “If you can’t figure it out, I don’t have the time to shove it into your little head. What I can tell you is, you've got to get close enough to her to use it."
I ground my teeth. "So tell me how to find her, then.”
“The only thing I can tell you about Lust”—Typhon’s eyes unfocused again, his mind clearly circling whatever sensuous depravity she’d subjected him to—“is that she'll want to be at the center of it all.”
In that moment, Mariana’s voice entered my head. “Worry not,” she recited. “You will see her again when the orb falls from the sky and the world looks on. And you will smile.”
Those were Lust’s words before she took off on Percy.
When the orb falls from the sky.
“New Year’s Eve,” I whispered.
“What’s that?” Typhon asked.
I lifted my eyes to him. “She’s going to be in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The world will be looking on.”
Typhon’s nostrils flared in amusement. “A cleverer little human than I thought. You may very well be right. Though I have my doubts about your ability to defeat her when Valdis could not.”
I raised the dagger, pointing the tip of it at his chest. I had a gut feeling about what Typhon wanted. “I may be little, and I may be a human, but I can gut you with this quicker than you can grab it.”
True delight entered his eyes as he lowered the empty glass to the table, evaluating me. “You have balls.”
“Ovaries,” I said. “And if you call me ‘little human’ again, you’ll find out they’re harder than any balls.”
Well, that did it.
Silence fell between us, and I could swear I felt Grunt practically vibrating with tension beside me. Before me, Typhon just stared, that delight mixed with real scrutiny as he studied me.
Then, when I felt sure I’d gone too far—
“Good.” Typhon raised a hand, snapped his fingers and pointed at the door. “Off you go then, Valdis’s widow. And if you don’t return the crystal when you’re done with it, I’ll pickle you and put your brain on display in my study. Now get the fuck out.”
“Gladly.” I turned on my heels, dagger still clutched in my hand. Behind me, I heard Grunt suck air in through his teeth. But he didn’t understand what I did: the more I defied Typhon, the better he liked me.
This guy hated obsequiousness. If feistiness was the order of the day, I was happy to oblige.
And I suspected it was the only reason he’d let me keep the creation crystal for my quest. That, and mentioning Percy.
Sometimes even men like Typhon lived by a certain code. And I’d been lucky that his had been loyalty to family.
↔
As I stepped out of Typhon’s office, the minotaur guard set his hoof on my arm. You’d be surprised at the kind of grip a magical, bipedal cow can get with his hooves.
I jerked my arm away. “Ow. Also, you’ve groped me enough for one day, Betsy. I know the way out.”
The minotaur snorted. “You hid a weapon. Now you will be escorted like a criminal.”
> So that was it—he was embarrassed he’d missed my dagger-in-the-bra.
I tucked the crystal dagger into my boot and raised both hands. “Look, no more weapon. Don’t go lowing because you’re worse than the TSA.”
As expected, that had zero positive effect. The minotaur went to grab me again, but Grunt stepped between us. “She won’t be a problem.”
Well, not in the next twenty minutes, at least, I thought but didn’t say.
In a standoff between an ogre and a minotaur, I wasn’t quite sure who would win. But in this case, it was Grunt.
The minotaur lifted his club, pointed down the hallway. “For your sake, Ogre, I hope you are right.”
As Grunt and I walked away, he shook his head.
“What?” I said.
“Betsy?”
“It was the best cow name I could come up with on the spot.”
Grunt shot me a disapproving look, but I could also see the laugh at the edges of his mouth. For an ogre, he certainly had a lot more expression than I’d ever noticed.
We passed through the arena, where the fight between the satyr and wendingo was just starting. The crowd was cheering, the gates at either end of the arena were lifting and I could see the enormous, furry form of the wendingo emerging at the far side.
It looked like a polar bear, but bigger. Wider. And it stood upright, which made it creepily humanlike.
How could a satyr possibly defeat that behemoth?
I stopped, gawking. Some mixture of rubbernecking curiosity and horror flowed through me as the two creatures came under the spotlights.
Grunt urged me on. “We can’t watch.”
“Just for a minute.”
He kept me walking. “The satyr will win. You don’t want to see how.”
“How do you know?”
“This is not the first battle between two such creatures I’ve witnessed.”