The Demigod's Legacy

by Holley Trent

  “Hey.”

  The single syllable seemed inadequate given the way he’d ended their evening, but at the time, he’d thought he’d been doing the right thing. She should have been angrier at him with everything that was going on, but she’d softened up like butter under a broiler with hardly a touch. That wasn’t right. His wife had never done that. Like most Aztec women, she hadn’t been especially flirtatious. They’d been taught that only courtesans were allowed to solicit attention that way—they were exceptions to the rule. He’d pled with Citlali to not hide her personality around him, but he knew she wasn’t the same person she was when she was with her family and friends. She didn’t trust him, and that hurt him still.

  But she wasn’t my mate, though. Dee is.

  He shoved his hands into the pockets of his Dickies and watched her.

  December set the blanket on the back of the chair and turned to Uncle, chafing her arms, evidently, against the unexpected chill in the morning air. She turned to Uncle. “So … was your rest eventful?”

  Uncle nodded.

  “Good. Maybe we’ll have some time to investigate before Cruz gets up. Eight-hour time difference, I think. That’s assuming that Hannah got your message?” She pushed up an eyebrow.

  Uncle nodded. “I’d say she did. I’d also say that it wouldn’t hurt to allow her a few more precious hours of sleep before she has to rise for the day.”

  “That’s fair. I’m sure she has other things to do besides chasing bogeymen around, anyway.”

  “That’s actually a big part of her job description, Dee,” Tito said.

  He suspected, though, that Sean would probably prefer that Hannah do a lot less adventuring in the coming months, and Tito certainly wasn’t going to blame him for that. That kid of theirs would be born of alpha stock. Even if they had a little girl, she’d be tough to mess with—especially if she were anything like her aunt Belle. That didn’t mean Sean was going to freak out any less. Even after Eztli had died, Tito had still worried about him for the longest time. That was what parents did. The part of the brain that had been carved out for his child would never go back to the blank slate it was before. He’d still be his daddy. He just had someone new to devote similar mental energy to.

  Tito scooped up the mesh bag with the wine and nodded to Tamatsu. “Well, let’s bounce, then. I bet Ma’s up. She doesn’t sleep much.”

  “She used to,” Uncle said.

  “When? For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve never seen her get more than an hour or two at a time, and that was only when she started getting really scattered and unpredictable, and needed to reboot. I think she’s afraid someone will cut off her head and limbs while she sleeps or something.”

  “She slept fine before your father betrayed her the last time. She was pregnant with you.”

  Shit.

  “I’d really like to hear that story one day,” December said.

  “There’s a book,” Tito and Uncle said in unison.

  “Someone wrote a book about your mother?”

  “Yep. Lady named Elizabeth Putnam. She was the only person who knew who Ma was when she moved to Maria. Liz was a bit of a misfit, anyway, so no one would have thought she were any more strange for saying she was consorting with a goddess.”

  “Was she a Cougar?”

  “Yeah. She was the historian and had a role that Miles Foye has now—the Cougar’s Ear. Sorta Ma’s intermediary. Back then, everyone in the glaring knew everything about how the race came into being and about the various curses, but the knowledge got lost over time. Having that information on paper went a long way toward bringing the Foye wives around.”

  “Makes everything seem realer, I guess.”

  “Yep.”

  Tamatsu stood between Tito and December, looked from one to the other, and then laid a hand on a shoulder of each.

  “Oh, crap, here we go,” December muttered. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes.

  Tamatsu yanked them through time and space, and landed them squarely in the middle of Ma’s salon.

  She sat beneath a lamp with a tiny pair of shorts on her lap along with a pincushion and pair of scissors.

  She pulled a threaded needle from between her teeth as she glanced up at them. “Seam fell out. Not gonna let a pair of twenty-dollar shorts go to waste.”

  They obviously weren’t Ma’s. Her taste in clothing tended to be pretty conservative for a goddess, and those shorts had sparkly fuchsia rhinestones on the butt. Also, the garment was no wider than one of her thighs—not that Tito could remember seeing those in the past hundred years.

  December tucked a swath of loose hair behind her ear and shifted her weight under the probable heat of Tamatsu’s stare. He was looking at her like she’d forgotten to say something, but really, he was just Tamatsu. Angels tended to have staring problems.

  “So … ” she said. “Was Cruz okay?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Ma said. “We understand each other just fine.”

  Tamatsu vanished in his usual flash of blinding light, and without warning.

  December winced.

  Ma resumed her mending work.

  “So … ” December started again.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not sure if I should beat around the bush or just prance right into the topic. I haven’t quite been brought up to speed on goddess etiquette.”

  “You can speak plainly.”

  Can, but shouldn’t.

  Tito took a seat beside the rarely used thirty-year-old stereo system and crossed his legs. As chivalrous as he tried to be, his curiosity won out at the moment. He wanted to see if December could hold her own against Ma’s unflinching intensity, or if she’d lose her wits and skulk away.

  Most folks skulked. Ma wasn’t really what Tito would call “approachable.”

  “Oh!” December hurried over and took the mesh bag from Tito.

  He’d already forgotten he was holding the damn thing.

  “Your brother sent you wine. He made these with grapes from his vineyard. He wanted you to try them and let him know what you thought.”

  “The sombra’s making wine, now, is he?” Ma set the shorts aside and took the bag onto her lap. She wrapped her arms around the bundle and peered at the protruding necks, tapping one bare foot rhythmically against the hardwood floor.

  “Sombra?”

  Ma huffed quietly. “That was what our father called him. Sombra, because he was like a shadow. Quiet. Never had anything to say and so we’d forget he was there.” She looked up, but not at anything in particular. Just ahead.

  She stopped tapping her foot for a while, and then resumed at the same time her gaze focused on December again.

  “He … seemed lonely,” December said.

  “A common enough affliction for our kind.”

  “And maybe loneliness is fine if it’s by choice, I guess, but his circumstances didn’t seem like his choice, to me.” December shrugged. “But I guess that’s none of my business. I felt bad, and I needed to get that off my chest, I suppose.”

  “He chose solitude over harder options.”

  “Maybe? I don’t know the backstory, so I’m just flapping my jaw a whole lot and putting my nose in other folks’ business. I just … think for some people, solitude is one of the worst possible situations.”

  “He’s not a person, niña. Not in the way you’d think of one.”

  “But he’s got a soul, doesn’t he? Or whatever essence there is that animates folks and gives them consciences and personal codes of conduct?”

  Ma’s narrowed gaze flitted to Tito. “Consciences. Some might say beings like me and Sombra don’t have them.”

  Tito settled lower in the chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t going to have that argument with her in front of December. The never-ending debate had been raging for a good seventy percent of Tito’s life. They eventually got tired of arguing, and knew they’d pick up the thread again later.

  “You really believe that,
Tito?” December asked.

  He didn’t look up. “You’re treading into some dangerous waters with that one, Dee.”

  “Why?”

  “If you knew her the way I do—“

  “Maybe I don’t want to know her the same way you do. Maybe I want to know the lady that Cruz feels comfortable enough to call ‘Grandma.’ I don’t believe that Cruz would call some soulless person that, but I guess I know Cruz better, right?”

  “Dee, that’s not fair.”

  “You’re not fair. Stop assuming you know everything worth knowing.”

  That made him look up. “When the fuck did I act like that?”

  “You know when.” She pressed her lips into a flat, pale line, folded her arms over her chest, and turned back to Ma.

  He had no idea what she was talking about, but she seemed to be referencing a very specific event.

  “I think that … some people, if they have a choice, they wouldn’t want to be alone,” she said to Ma. “Maybe they’re not so good at putting themselves in the thick of things. Maybe they’re not good at being the initiator. Maybe they’re no good at all unless they’re part of a team.”

  “Are you speaking in hypotheticals?” Ma asked. “I did say you could speak plainly.”

  “Sorry. I talk in circles sometimes and I can’t help myself. Usually, I get to the point. Bear with me, please.”

  “I’m not complaining.”

  Tito raised an eyebrow. He’d never heard his mother speak that sentence before.

  “I don’t want to tell you how to run your life, but I get all broken up inside when I see families that aren’t together. Maybe because I can’t go home and I miss mine so much.”

  “Even after what they did to you?” Tito asked.

  Whether their actions had been compelled by some outside force or not, most victims of the same would have cut off the affection and never looked back. Even if Tito could fix what was wrong with the Farmers, there was no guarantee Dee would ever be able to go home. He didn’t want her to go if those people were forever changed.

  She smoothed her fingertips over her opposite forearm and swayed side to side. “Love’s not such an easy thing to give up. You can’t just walk away without feeling a little bit bruised from having and then losing it. You’re not supposed to leave love behind, but sometimes, I guess you have to.”

  The statement seemed to hit Tito square between the eyes. She hadn’t been talking about him—or at least, he didn’t think so—but guilt had a way of making the impersonal personal.

  “Sometimes, walking away hurts,” Ma said in a careful, modulated voice. “But the biggest mistake some people make is that they don’t love themselves, too. If a person knows her worth, she knows that walking away may be the only way she can stay afloat, and the manner in which she turns her back—the manner in which she closes those doors—is unimportant in the scheme of things. She can make fire rain down, or she could just disappear to someplace and cry. I prefer the fire.”

  Tito knew all about the fire. He saw it every time he and his mother decided to go their separate ways again. There was never a peaceful parting of ways, only chaos and destruction.

  His tantrums.

  Her fury.

  And yet they kept reconciling. Maybe they were a little codependent.

  “Walking away doesn’t mean you can’t try to fix things when you’re ready.” He’d said the words to himself, because hearing the words spoken aloud always added to the truthfulness of them, but he didn’t mind if Ma and December had overheard. They needed to hear him confess.

  “You’ve walked for so long, Yaotl,” Ma said.

  “So have you.”

  “Perhaps so.”

  December stuffed her hands into her back pockets and peered out the window behind Ma. In spite of the hour, vehicles passed, slow, with engines loud in such a placid neighborhood.

  “Three times,” December said. “That SUV has passed three times since I’ve been standing here.”

  Ma resumed mending Cruz’s shorts. “Be sure they know you can see that they see you.”

  Tito got to his feet and joined December in front of the window. He didn’t have to wait long. The familiar SUV with dark-tinted windows crept slowly past the property.

  “Fuck.” He peeled his phone out of his pocket and caught Ma, in his periphery, shaking her head.

  “Don’t bother calling the police. Who you want isn’t in there. They’re circling in shifts. Have been since dessert last night.”

  “What are they trying to accomplish?” December asked, nudging the curtain more aside.

  “I can only speculate. Likely, they seek to annoy you so much that you’ll leave the property to deal with them off my turf.”

  “But they’ve got to know you’re not going to let anything happen to Cruz, so what’s the point?”

  Ma cut the dangling thread with her teeth and then stuck the needle into the pincushion. “Do not underestimate the ingenuity of desperate people.”

  “So, we’ll just wait and see what The Shadow told Hannah. We’ll go out and track them down after the sun’s up.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Tito said. “Not we. I’ll deal with them. Me and the Cougars.”

  “Like hell you are. I’m not just going to sit around twiddling my thumbs when I can be doing something to help.”

  “You can help by staying put.”

  “We’re talking about my daughter.”

  “Don’t start that again. You want to argue possession? Fine.” He shrugged. “She’s my daughter, too. You brought her here to give a piece of her to me, right?”

  “Not like that.”

  “Exactly like that. And you know what else is mine?”

  “I guess you’re going to tell me.”

  “Yep. You are.”

  “God,” she whispered to the ceiling.

  “Demigod, actually, and that’s why we’re in this mess. You’re my mate. I think me touting the wisdom of letting the folks with the magic handle things is within my purview.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got a little magic of my own.”

  “What kind?”

  “Special kind. I can make people regret so much as looking at my baby sideways in a way I don’t like. Maybe my gift isn’t as versatile as the magic you’ve got, but it’s got a hair trigger and doesn’t need reloading.”

  “Dee—”

  “Nope. I’m going to go shower and change my clothes. Then maybe I’ll grab some tea and twiddle my thumbs until I think Hannah’s up. If you even think about cutting me out of this scheme, I promise you’ll regret even trying. Also? Call Tarik, please. I want to know about what he saw in Rhode Island. Thanks.”

  She turned on her heel and went, and Tito stood with his mouth hanging open and brow furrowed.

  Ma grunted and turned in her seat. She peered out the window as a vehicle made yet another rumbling traverse up the block.

  “Go on and say the words,” he said under his breath. “I know you’re thinking them, so go on and say them.”

  “What good would that do? Will it make you feel better? Saying those words certainly won’t improve my mood.”

  “Yeah, but you’re thinking them, and you think loud. Go on and say them. Get them off your chest so we both know where we stand.”

  “Fine.” She drew the curtains shut, picked up the shorts, and stood. “I told you so.”

  He threw up his hands. “There you go.”

  “I only spoke what you asked me to.”

  “But you wanted to.” He followed her toward the kitchen, and waited in front of the laundry room door when she paused there to toss Cruz’s shorts into the washer.

  “Last year, after Los Impostores made their presence known, what did I tell you?” she asked. She sprinkled a scoop of powder detergent into the full washing machine.

  He didn’t bother answering. He knew Ma, and she was going to tell him whether he wanted to hear her or not.

  “I told you that you should let me and the
old ladies deal with them once and for all in the old ways. We had the perfect opportunity to do so with no repercussions. You said no. I try to be accommodating of you. I know you’re often too human. You don’t have my practicality, and who you inherited that softness from, I may never know. You certainly didn’t get it from your father.”

  “Here we go again with that shit.”

  “I haven’t insulted you yet. But hear this. Not everyone is redeemable, Yaotl.” She let down the washing machine’s lid and turned the dial. “There is no trial and jury system in our world. We nip our problems in the bud swiftly and brutally to contain the messes where they start.”

  “And yet you’d argue that you have a conscience and a soul? That’s not how I want my little girl to grow up.”

  “You said the same thing before Necalli got to Eztli. Remember that? You told me to back off and to stay out of your life, and that you didn’t need me. You said no one would bother you if I went away.”

  She walked past him without sparing him another look, and he seethed.

  More of that ‘I told you so’ shit.

  He couldn’t let it stand. She couldn’t understand, so what kind of grandmother could she really be to a child who was even more human than her father?

  Normally, he might have run the other way, but he followed her, tired of leaving so many things left unsaid. “You never did learn how to be a mother, did you?” he called to her retreating back.

  She stopped.

  Turned.

  He shrugged when she pointed that bottomless dark stare on him.

  “We never talk about that, do we? Just another thing we dance around like it’s no big deal. We don’t talk about how folks like me don’t really get a childhood, and how the first chance we get to make something normal of our lives, folks like you come along and try to ruin things. You couldn’t bear the thought of me having a normal family, could you? You could have had that with me, but you were so caught up in getting vengeance against everyone who you thought did you wrong that you were never around. Left me up to my own devices more often than not, even before I was fully weaned, probably.”

  “Is that what you think?”