by Jamie Wyman
I am a technomage, I thought gleefully. I traced back over memories of times I’d fixed something that should’ve been irreparable. How many times had I resurrected old clocks or computers? How often had I walked into a job and known immediately what was wrong with the system and precisely how to fix it? I understood now, that was part of my gift.
And someone had tried to keep that from me.
Someone bound her powers, stunted her growth, Flynn had said. It was just one more way Eris could lord her power over me in our already lopsided relationship. Add it to the list of things I’d bitch about when I finally got in the same room with her. My fury ebbed, giving way to the childlike elation that came with these new sensations.
Las Vegas looked as she had a few hours ago. She wore the dark night around her glittering form like a silken robe. However, if I focused—shifted my awareness as if trying to look through a reflection—I could see tiny strands of energy connecting the city. I saw the electricity coursing through it like a river. Even the Mercedes itself sang to me as Marius sped back toward the Strip. I watched the way currents flowed into the radio. Streams of light flowing like water from one mechanism to the next.
What if I just…pinched it here?
Like a kid trying to levitate like a Jedi, I focused my mind on the current of sound coming from the car. I stretched out my new sense and interrupted the flow as if I put my hand under the stream from a running faucet. I did this over and over then turned my attention to other little tasks, like playing with the windshield wipers. When Marius glared at me, I stopped and snickered. Then I locked and unlocked the doors in perfect rhythm.
“So,” Marius said, “does this mean you get to go to Hogwarts next year?”
“I’m not sure what it means. I’ll deal with it after I figure this mess out.”
Marius nodded and kept his attention on the road. Tonight had changed some of my opinions about him. He’d saved my life—that was worth something. He even didn’t fuss too much as I explored my newfound power. I looked at Marius and saw someone new, as I had after the shark attack. Someone worth further inspection.
“Thank you, by the way” I said. “For saving me back at the apartment.”
“Pfft. Nothing more than enlightened self-interest on my part.”
“Will you shut up for two seconds? I’m trying to pay you a compliment here. Seriously, Marius, if you hadn’t thrown me the hammer when you did, I’d probably be dead right now.”
“Hammer?”
“The hammer I used to—” A flash of gory memory warded off additional comment. “The hammer. It fell down next to me and gave me a way to defend myself. You threw it to me.”
“I did nothing of the sort. For one, I was a bit occupied with Porky to bother with you. For another, hammers are for working stiffs and are, therefore, most definitely not my style.”
If he hadn’t passed me the tool, who had? I was about to ask him, but he kept prattling on.
“You also may have noticed I prefer my saber, and you’d better believe I wouldn’t have thrown that to you.”
Ah yes, the sword he pulled from thin air. “Where did you get that thing anyway?”
“Hephaestus made it for me.”
I gaped at the satyr. “Heph—the Hephaestus?”
“The very same. God of the forge, blacksmith of Olympus himself. Heph has a bit of a problem with the ladies, you see. Well, one night, I took him out and got him laid. Triplets, too,” he said, eyes glazing over with memories. Soon, though, his expression grew grim. A frown of frustration pulled his mouth. Was that sad nostalgia?
“Damn, that was a good night,” he breathed. “Fantastic wine.”
The moment of frailty passed. Marius’s casual, aloof mask realigned over his features. There was a finality to his silence.
“So, you’re saying you took him out and helped him get some action, and he was so grateful he made you a sword?”
Marius flashed a cheeky grin. “I’m a spectacular wingman. I could probably work the miracle of getting a woman to notice your friend back there.” The humor faded from his grin, leaving behind stony malice. He rubbed at the pinkish lines on his neck, reminders of Flynn’s grip.
“I think Flynn can do well enough for himself,” I said.
“Really?” he asked. Marius turned the Mercedes south onto the Strip. “Have you shagged him then?”
“Flynn? No way!”
“Why the bloody hell not? He’s protective enough of you. You’d think he’d peed on you and marked you as his territory.”
“Ew,” I said, shaking off the mental image. “Look, Flynn is a friend. He and I don’t think of each other like that.”
“Well, whatever it was you two were doing there, it seemed to be quite intimate. Breathing all heavy, incapable of forming complete sentences. I thought he’d need a cigarette afterward.”
Marius shifted in his seat, and his chest puffed out ever so slightly.
Was he…? No way.
“Are you jealous, Marius?”
“Of him?” He chuffed out a caustic laugh. “Why should I be?” There was bitterness in his stare as he peered out into the night.
Jealous or not, he had a point. What had we been doing? I mean, Flynn and I had touched each other before. Friendly hugs, a back rub or two, the absent contact of nudging or accidentally bumping into one another. What made this time different?
He wanted it to be different, I thought. He’d wanted me to see, to understand. His intent transformed a simple touch into so much more. My thoughts spun over the revelation that I’d been bound by someone, that choice taken from me.
Speaking of…
“Hey, how did you get into hock with Eris?” I asked Marius.
Taking his eyes off the road, he glanced at me with genuine surprise. “You honestly want to know?”
I nodded.
Marius seemed to think about it, and once again, I could almost see past the illusion he clung to. Fissures in the satyr’s façade began to open. Finally, when he decided he could let me in, he blew out a puff of air. “I’m cursed.”
“Cursed?” I asked. Immediately, a swarm of cartoons and fairy tales buzzed through my brain. Instead of sleeping princesses or dancing beasts, I imagined Marius in those roles. “Like cursed cursed?”
Marius nodded. “Zeus laid a punishment on me. Eris promised to lift it.”
I tried to hide my shock. I may have been naive about the gods, but Marius would’ve known better. Wouldn’t he?
“How long have you worked for her?” I asked.
Marius silenced me with a level stare. I chewed on this new information for a while. As we closed in on the Strip, the buildings became brighter and my enhanced senses flared. Distracted by the brilliance of such familiar things, I zoned out and our conversation fell into a lull. Soon, though, my curiosity got the better of me. “What did you do?”
“Hmm?”
“To piss off Zeus. What did you do?”
“Oh, that.” He eased to a stop, the traffic light painting his face red. “A tryst with a particularly delectable nymph near Athens. Fantastic legs.”
I blinked in confusion. “Isn’t that what satyrs do?”
“Often,” he said. “And with great gusto. However, it seems this nymph was one of the god’s personal favorites. Zeus shares about as well as a hungry bear. The rest is history.”
“So you’re screwed because of who you screwed?” I asked. “That’s rich. So, what’s the curse? How did he exact his vengeance upon thee?”
Marius’s face grew grim and cold. “Nothing of interest to someone like you. Besides, at least I have impeccable taste and control my impulses enough not to go blathering on about love.”
I sighed, letting my head fall back on the seat. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost,” he said. “I don’t see what you hope to accomplish by going to Eris’s office. It’s not as if she lives there.”
Chewing my lip, I watched the casino loom into view, its lights
a beacon for the world to see. “It’s a place to start.”
Marius swept the Mercedes down a soft slope leading into the parking garage below the hotel. He flashed a pass to a weary security guard and pulled into a side lot reserved for executives.
As we made our way to the elevator, our steps echoed in the low-ceilinged garage. Marius still wore his suit slacks and black shirt. He’d taken off his tie and opened the first couple of buttons. With his sleeves rolled up and his typical indifferent gait, he looked like it was perfectly normal to be going to the office at zero dark thirty.
On the elevator, he sagged against the back railing. Pinching the bridge of his nose, his face puckered for a second then split into a leonine yawn. “I’ll be glad when this is over. I could use a few hours of sleep and a massage from Swedish triplets.”
“Past your bedtime, Marius?”
“Lousy date. You’ve kept me up and running about all night, and what do I get for my troubles? Attacked by some deity’s minions and throttled by a geek with a god complex. You could at least have had the courtesy to invite me to watch you slink out of your dress.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall. “I bet you won’t so much as offer me breakfast.”
In the years we’d worked together, I had rarely spent this much time with him at one sitting. Now, in light of all we’d been through, I was seeing more than a snarky goat. I saw something human about him. God help me, I’d started to like the bastard. In spite of myself, I smiled. I may have even giggled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing, she says. I’m beginning to think that a date is precisely what you need.”
“Oh, really? That’s the magic that will fix all my woes?”
Marius eyed me up and down. “It’s a place to start. You need a sleepless night…and not one where you’re running from gods and monsters. You, Catherine Sharp,” he said, taking the few steps toward me, “need a real date.”
I laughed uncomfortably and tried to slide past him, to put some space between our bodies. He edged forward. With an arm on each side of my body, he wedged me against the wall.
“You need someone to seduce you within an inch of your small and sorry life. A night with good wine and the promise of soft kisses. Perhaps,” he said, his breath tracing warm lines over my cheeks, “a dance beneath the moonlight.”
His fingertips glided over my arm. My head swam with his closeness. The heat of his body so near to mine called to my blood, and my skin flushed. The scent of him—a clean, spicy cologne and natural musk—set my senses swirling. My breaths came in shaky, shallow draughts.
His eyes held mine captive. “Spend the hours until dawn touching and in a tangle of pleasure and silk sheets,” he purred.
Marius gently lifted my chin, and my stomach knotted with anticipation. This wasn’t some illusion as it had been in my apartment. This was real. Nerves standing at attention, heart pounding in my chest, I waited, breathless.
His voice was little more than a whisper. “Yes, I think that is exactly what you need.”
Marius tilted his head. As if it were the most natural conclusion, I closed my eyes, ready to welcome his mouth over mine.
With a polite ding, the elevator came to a stop at the penthouse. Marius pushed away, leaving me waiting and wanting. Confused, I stared after him as he strutted down the hall.
Looking over his shoulder, he called out, “Are you coming?”
No, I thought, you just left. I mentally smacked myself for even humoring the idea. In an instant the heat of desire shifted into a swell of embarrassment and unfulfilled resentment.
I shoved away from the wall and stalked after him. “That was a dirty trick.”
Marius’s swagger went all the way to his wicked grin, but he said nothing.
I followed him down the familiar hallway. I knew this place, but at this obscene hour, it looked different. Quiet and abandoned, it reminded me of an amusement park after-hours. The door to the goddess’s office was closed as always. Marius tapped the wall, and a panel slid aside to reveal a touchpad similar to the one at YmFy. The satyr’s fingers twitched over the keys as he pecked out his password. A red light blinked and a buzzer sounded. Marius frowned.
“Odd,” he said.
“What is it?”
Marius poked at the keypad again with the same result. “My code isn’t working.” Reaching into his pocket, Marius pulled out a small gold card and slid it into the slot to the side of the keypad.
Red light.
Buzzer.
“Bloody hell,” he said. “The security codes have been changed. I can’t get in. I don’t suppose you could make yourself useful and talk to the computer?”
I shouldered him aside and looked at the keys, intent on hacking my way through the system with variant code. However, the moment I stepped up to the wall, all ideas of hacking fell to the side. My vision shifted so I could see the other version of the world, the one made of filament and light. Like red-hot wire, lines streaked through the walls, around the windows and doors. Capillaries from the touchpad traced to cameras, through shared arteries into the beating heart of the security system in a server room many floors below.
I saw the entire network.
Like electric fire, the keypad itself seemed to swirl with red, orange, and white. Strands tangled in a snarl of flashing luminescence. Without thinking about how or why, I put one hand on the touchpad. While the screen flickered, the lines that should have gone into the keys, transferred into my other hand, held flat against the wall. Now that I had a hold of all of those threads, I could sort them.
Red with red. Orange with orange. Like untying knots in a bundle of string. I don’t know how I understood what I needed to do—I just knew. Beneath my fingertips, chaos became order.
The lock opened with a resonant clack, and Marius eyed me. I couldn’t tell if he was scared or impressed. I realized I wouldn’t have minded if both were true.
He reached out and turned the knob. The door graciously gave way.
As he took long strides into the office, he said, “Helpful trick, that.”
I lifted my hands from the wall, releasing the energy I held, and disengaged from the building’s systems. As I did, I sagged. My limbs felt like limp noodles. I wasn’t tired per se, but working with these new skills left me deflated. I staggered in behind Marius.
“I didn’t know you could sing,” he said.
“Huh?”
“And so eloquent, too,” he muttered. “When you were doing the thing with the wall?” He sighed. “You were singing. It sounded surprisingly lovely.”
I rolled a shoulder. I’d been told before that I hum while I work, but I’ve never noticed it. “Thanks,” I murmured, joining him at the goddess’s desk.
A simple piece of paper lay there with a few words written in a flowing hand:
Gather my trophies. Claim your reward.
Taking the letter from the desk, I turned it over, reading it again and again. “This is it?” I asked. “This is all the help we’re going to get?”
“I don’t know what you expected,” Marius droned. “A treasure map?”
“More than this,” I said, tossing the note back to the desk. I dragged my hands through my hair. Between Marius’s con job in the elevator, the magic with the security system, and an utter lack of direction with Eris’s little scavenger hunt, I didn’t know if I was frisky or exhausted. Frustrated. That was a damn certainty.
I glowered at Marius for the little stunt in the elevator. Here I was, seconds away from letting him kiss me into oblivion and not so much as a single hair seemed to be on edge for him. Did he feel nothing? Was it just a game? Curse him!
That’s when the idea hit me…
This curse of his. What was it? How would I get revenge on a satyr? I began listing little occurrences—his body against mine as we danced, in the elevator—and putting puzzle pieces together. He talked a good g
ame, but when we’d been dancing together I hadn’t felt the slightest nudge of actual arousal. What if that was it? What if that was how Zeus had cursed him?
Testing a theory, I grabbed Marius by his shoulders, pulled him to face me.
“Hey,” I said. I took a deep breath, snatched fistfuls of his shirt and yanked him to me. As I pressed my lips to his, Marius made a muffled noise that sounded something like merp! His body went rigid against mine, but I was pretty sure it was out of surprise rather than excitement.
He pushed away and gaped at me. “What are you doing?”
I almost had it figured out. I just needed one more piece. “What? Suddenly you disapprove?”
For a moment, I’d done the impossible. I’d rendered the satyr speechless. Disbelief sparkled in his eyes, but his lips hitched into a lopsided grin. Letting out a breath he’d been holding, he chuffed, “You’re just trying to get back at me, Catherine.”
Okay, if I was going to confirm my suspicion, I had to pull out all the stops and make a particularly large bluff of my own. I closed the distance between us and slowly slid my hands up his chest. Marius took a couple of quick steps back but found himself pinned between Eris’s desk and my insistent body.
I rocked my hips against him. “Am I?”
The satyr bit his lower lip. “You’re not serious.”
“You’re sure about that?” I waited for the more intriguing parts of his body to respond to me, but they didn’t. Sliding my hips against his, I leaned in, lips taunting the threat of a kiss. Still, nothing beneath the belt so much as trembled. When he turned his head away from me I took his earlobe into my teeth and gave a gentle but hungry tug.
He hissed as if I’d burned him and shoved me away with both hands. “Enough!”
He stalked away to the other side of the room, and I gawked. Holy shit.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I asked. “That’s how Zeus cursed you.”
The glare he tossed me couldn’t have been darker if I’d forced him to eat bile and cancerous pus. Rather than answer, he clenched his jaw.