Crazy Cupid Love

by Amanda Heger

  Suddenly, they hurled to a stop, and Jake and Mrs. Washmoore collapsed into a heap in the darkness.

  “Shit.” Jake’s voice came from somewhere beneath his aunt. “Oh gods. Eliza, please. Pull her off me.”

  Eliza, who’d had the fortune of landing on her butt a few feet away from the pile, planted her unsteady feet on the floor. Still woozy, she fumbled in the dark until she found Mrs. Washmoore’s side. Eliza pushed, and the woman’s unconscious body rolled off Jake with a thud.

  “Are you okay?” Eliza asked.

  He groaned. “Where are we?”

  Eliza splayed her hands on the lush carpet. The faint smell of seaweed filled her nostrils. And down the hallway, a dull purple glow faded in and out in time with a deep bass beat. “Dionysus,” she said. “We’re outside of Dionysus? You brought me to the bunker. Jake, I told you—”

  “I brought you Oliver.”

  “He’s in there?” Eliza pointed to the Dionysus entryway.

  Jake pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he moved. “Two quick stomps take you back to the drop-off point of the person ahead of you. Aunt Rebecca let me use the tubes after hours. Easier to get back and forth from the Dionysus to the dumpster at night.”

  As Eliza’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see the way he held his arm at an odd angle. “Are you okay?” But she knew the answer. That arm was broken, maybe worse.

  “I’m fine.” He grimaced.

  But the look on his face revealed the truth he was hiding—from himself as much as Eliza. Jake was in pain. A lot of pain.

  And that knowledge made her insides burn with a rage so bright, it put her anger over the last few days to shame.

  Oliver had hurt Jake. And now the bastard was going to pay.

  “Help me with Aunt Rebecca,” Jake said. He grabbed one of Mrs. Washmoore’s armpits with his good arm and motioned for Eliza to do the same. She tucked her anger into one of the deepest, darkest pockets of her soul and took the woman’s other armpit.

  What had looked like a faint purple glow in the hall became a fluorescent maze of purple and blue light once they pried open the reinforced door of the bar. Smoke machines created puffs of glowing, green fog around them, giving everything the appearance of a nymph-infested swamp.

  Music drummed loud enough to drown out the alarms, and a hundred or more bodies moved in time to the beat. The entire place was a sweaty, swarming mass of arms and legs and sea creatures. Apparently, Nereid Night was still going strong.

  And Eliza immediately wanted out.

  Instead, she and Jake made their way toward a row of tables near the dance floor. Together, they lowered Mrs. Washmoore into the closest booth, next to a group of partying Monopods. Once Eliza was satisfied the Fury would be safe among the single-footed, she scanned the room.

  Immediately, a pale, half-dull, half-bulging face caught her eye across the dance floor. “Jake—”

  “Here she is! This is the one I was telling you about!” The Maenad from earlier—she’d shed her mink stole, but there was no mistaking the ivy dress and diamond nails—grabbed Eliza’s elbow and pulled her into the crowd.

  “She is adorable!” another Maenad cooed, bopping to the music. She’d twisted her long hair up around the top of her head to look like bull horns. “It’s so great that you’re embracing your heritage.” She pointed to Eliza’s tablecloth.

  “Uh, thanks but—”

  “Oh my gods.” A third Maenad twirled circles around them. Just watching her made Eliza dizzy. “You should let us give you a makeover.”

  Eliza wasn’t about to take on a supporting role in a raving-ones version of Clueless, but saying that would be beyond impolite. “Maybe another time,” she shouted over the music. “I really need to get going.”

  “Just one more song.” The first Maenad grabbed Eliza and spun her further onto the dance floor.

  “I really can’t.” But the more she tried to pull away from the trio, the deeper into their swirling circle she ended up. In vain, she held her arms against her chest to protect herself from their crazed dancing as she tried to dodge and weave her way through the mess. “Excuse me, I’m just going to squeeze through here… Or, okay, maybe here. No? Well…”

  “Eliza!” Jake’s voice broke through her panic, and in seconds, he was there, prying her from the dance floor with his good arm.

  “Oh! Look at him,” the bull-horned Maenad purred. “What if we—”

  “Go, Jake. Go!” Eliza shouted.

  They pushed through the mass of bodies as fast as they could manage, but by the time they reached the edge of the crowd, Oliver had vanished.

  No. No. Where is he? Where?

  She quelled her growing panic. It wasn’t over yet. She hadn’t come this far—held at spearpoint, trapped under the weight of magical chains, and shot through a series of tubes—to give up now. Oliver had to be here somewhere.

  Eliza scanned the room.

  Shirtless (exceptionally hairy) Satyrs swimming in Nereid tanks? Check.

  A tree nymph playing a conch shell? Double check.

  A group of Dactyls passing around a little of Glaucus’s “magical herb”? Check, check, and check.

  Stocky, balding man with a bulging eye and an ax to grind?

  Nope.

  “He couldn’t have gone back out the front from here,” Jake said. “We would have seen him.”

  Eliza nodded. Jake was right. And that meant Oliver was either somewhere in here among the writhing bodies, or he’d slipped behind the bar and snuck out the back.

  If she were an angry half-Discordian, where would she go?

  “Out the back?” Jake asked.

  “Out the back.”

  Several sweaty minutes later, they’d inched their way along the perimeter of the dance floor, ducked behind the bar—where the bartender had long since jumped ship to make out with a Siren in the corner—and slipped into the kitchen.

  Compared to the constant thump, thump, thump of the bar, the space was gloriously silent. Well, almost.

  “Code Phaethon. This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test.”

  Jake glanced around the empty kitchen. “All the kitchen staff must have evacuated.”

  Eliza didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. The only people left in the entire building were her, Jake, Oliver, an unconscious Mrs. Washmoore, and a lot of really smashed Descendants. At least she wouldn’t have to explain why she was trespassing in an Employees Only zone…

  Something swayed in her periphery, and Eliza whipped around. “Jake?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  They froze in silence until, along the far wall, a metal prep table rattled ever so slightly.

  “There!” Eliza pointed as Oliver tumbled out from his hiding spot, overturning tables and littering the floor with stainless-steel cookware.

  For a brief moment, he stared straight at Eliza as he ran, the Scroll still tucked beneath one arm. She sprinted after him, knowing—without glancing back—that Jake would be right behind her.

  They weaved through rows of sinks piled high with pots, along a line of refrigerators that seemed to stretch forever, and finally down a dim corridor far from the Dionysus kitchen. Eliza’s breath came in ragged spurts, and by the time they’d run into the complete darkness, every muscle in her body begged her to stop. But she only ran faster, with Jake beside her, spurred on by the sound of Oliver’s footsteps ahead.

  She pushed through her pain.

  They were gaining on him.

  She forced her legs forward.

  They were going to catch him.

  “Ooof.” Eliza slammed into something solid, and searing pain exploded from her kneecap. She fumbled in the dark for the offending weapon, and her fingers closed in on something round and soft and covered in thick hair. “What the—”
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  She let go just as the lights flipped on.

  A head—the very head she’d been holding—rolled across the floor.

  Luckily for everyone involved, it belonged to a practice dummy.

  Through the dark depths of the Dionysus kitchen, Oliver had led them to the weaponry practice range.

  “Some people really don’t know when to give up, do they?” Oliver’s voice echoed through the empty gymnasium. He stood on top of the weaponry rentals desk with one hand tucked into the gap between the buttons of his shirt, like a Discordian version of Napoleon. “They fail their Cupid exam, and years later, they come back for more. They get hit with a dozen extra rules, and they keep showing up every day just to humiliate themselves. All their enchantments backfire, and they try to fix them anyway.”

  “You’re the one that should give up, Oliver,” Jake said. “It’s two on one, and the entire Agora is surrounded.”

  “More like one and a half versus one.” Oliver nodded to Jake’s swollen, hanging arm. “And let’s face it, we’ve both seen her in action. She’s not exactly a threat.”

  “Excuse me?” she sneered.

  The agent smirked. “Do you really think you would have passed your exam if I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands? If I hadn’t let you out of demonstrating a certain set of weaponry skills?”

  Rage bubbled up Eliza’s throat. The Cupiding exam. She hadn’t had to shoot the bow and arrow, not because she’d been the victim of a happy coincidence. Because Oliver had needed her to pass. That was the only way she’d become his puppet.

  He’d used her. He’d taken advantage of her need to make her family proud. Of her need to make herself proud. And now he was rubbing her face in it.

  “Fuck you, Trevor-no-comma-Oliver.” She stepped forward.

  “Mmmhhhmmmhmhmp.” The muffled sound came from behind the rental desk.

  “Who’s back there?” Jake demanded.

  “I didn’t hear anything.” Oliver stared at Jake as though he’d lost his mind.

  Eliza crept forward.

  A leg poked out from under the desk. “Hmmmmppp!”

  Eliza froze.

  “Who’s back there, Oliver?” Jake repeated, moving to the right and drawing the agent’s stare farther from Eliza.

  Oliver’s face split into a wide grin. “No one for long.” He pulled his hand free. In it, he held a gleaming sai.

  Eliza dove. Before she could think, before she could breathe, she was on top of Oliver’s hostage: the weapons rental clerk. He thrashed beneath her, held in place by a thin, golden net—one of the weapons that had been on display in the Ares through the Ages case.

  “Hold still,” she whispered, tugging at the freakishly strong—and scorching hot—material. “What are you even doing down here? There’s a Code Phaethon, gods damn it.”

  “I came back for my phone,” he whimpered.

  But she didn’t get anything more from him, because with every one of her movements, he cried out in pain as another massive stream of red and silver Love Luster flew from his body. It rained down on her, clogging her throat and obscuring her vision.

  Which gave Oliver just enough time to yank her upright by the ponytail.

  “You make it so easy, Eliza.” He cackled, forcing her to the other side of the desk. The sai’s point pressed against her rib cage, and she didn’t dare move.

  “Let her go!” Jake’s voice boomed. “Now.”

  “Hmmmm.” Oliver pursed his lips in mock concentration, and that one bulging eye rolled around in his head. Seconds passed, then eternities, until he spoke again. “Nope.”

  The sai bit into her skin. A trickle of warm blood seeped into her shirt.

  “You had a choice,” Oliver whispered. “We could have walked out of here together without a single bit of blood being shed. Now, look what you made me do.”

  There was no mistaking the vile promise in his words. He intended to kill them all. Her. The poor rental clerk. Jake.

  Except she wasn’t going down with a fight.

  And neither was Jake. “No!” His shout rang through the gym as he charged over the desk. The weight of his body knocked all three of them to the floor. As if in slow motion, the sai spun from Oliver’s hands and slipped under a shelf.

  Eliza pressed a blistered hand to her bleeding side and scrambled to her feet. The cut was shallow—thank the gods—but it burned like the deepest depths of Tartarus.

  “Eliza, move!”

  She jumped to her left. At that moment, a chunk of marble statue—a hand holding an anvil—crashed into the very place she’d been standing.

  Another hand—this one firmly attached to its owner—grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved. Her back slammed into the edge of the desk, and instant tears blurred her vision. She swung blindly at her opponent, throwing fists and elbows and knees but only meeting air.

  Another hit. This time to her bleeding side.

  Her lungs seized. Her ears rang. She doubled over. Vomit climbed her throat. And she braced herself for the final blow.

  But it didn’t come.

  “Run!” Jake’s voice came from somewhere far away. “Eliza. Run!”

  She forced her vision to clear and stood. Less than ten feet away, he struggled and winced as Oliver twisted his broken arm behind his back.

  “Go, Eliza. Now.” Jake’s face turned a desperate shade of purple. “Please!”

  The walls shook, and the floor began to buckle.

  The enchantment was over. His mentorship obligations were over. Even their short-lived relationship was over. And despite all that, Jake was sacrificing himself so she could get away.

  Eliza looked at the doorway. She could make a break for it—run bleeding down the dark hallway until she found someone sober enough to help her. Maybe, just maybe, she’d make it back in time to save him.

  Or—she glanced at the case of rental weapons and the shaking, terrified, lovelorn clerk hovered beside it—she could settle this right here, right now. Once and for all.

  She narrowed her eyes and stood up straight. Pain shot through her rib cage, but she ignored it and turned to the clerk. Eliza was not going to leave here without the Love of her life. “I’ll take the bow and arrow, please.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened. Burns covered his body where the net had touched his skin, but he scrambled to his feet anyway. “Yes…yes, ma’am.”

  Oliver’s laugh sent shards of ice down her spine. He loosened his grip on Jake ever so slightly and took a step toward Eliza. “The arrow? Next you’re going to tell me—”

  Jake jerked his head back, cracking Oliver in the jaw.

  The agent’s roar lit up the room as he let go of Jake. At that moment, the bow and arrow hit Eliza’s blistered, outstretched palm.

  Now or never.

  Every muscle in her body contracted in searing, blinding pain, but she forced her way through it. This pain would be nothing compared to the devastation of losing Jake. Her best friend. Her confidant. Her everything.

  With shaking hands, Eliza nocked the arrow and aimed for the spot between Oliver’s eyes. Blood soaked her shirt, and pain spots appeared in the corners of her vision. She pulled in a ragged breath, squared her stance, and—just as Jake had told her all those times—loosened her grip.

  If she hit her target, she’d save the best thing in her life. And if she failed, she could only hope she’d meet Jake again one day in the Underworld—where they’d reminisce about how her final act had been to stand in the library, wearing a freakin’ tablecloth diaper, while fighting for them both.

  Three… Two…

  She let the arrow fly.

  Chapter 27

  Calif. CCR § 287.120. Employers of one or more licensed, actively practicing Cupids must carry a policy of Cupids’ compensation insurance for personal injury or death of an employee by a
ccident or occupational disease arising out of and in the course of the Cupid’s employment.

  The Underworld burned brighter than Eliza had imagined. It also smelled like Pine-Sol, and apparently her organs made noise, because all she could hear was a steady beep, beep, beep that perfectly matched the rhythm of her heart.

  A woman stood over her in a white coat. A green stethoscope hung around her neck. “Eliza? Can you hear me? You’re in the hospital. I’m Doctor Branderson,” she said.

  “No, you’re not. You’re Persephone.”

  The woman chuckled. “Do you remember me? We met about six or seven weeks ago when you brought your father in.”

  Eliza rubbed her eyes. Sure enough, the beeping was a heart monitor, the bright lights were the fluorescent bulbs overhead, and the Pine-Sol smell was—well, probably Pine-Sol. “How did I get here? What day is it?”

  “You’ve been out for a few hours, but everything is fine. You’re a very lucky lady.”

  “Lucky?” Her memory was foggy and grayed out in places, but she knew lucky wasn’t a word anyone would use to describe her.

  “Don’t worry. Amnesia is common and usually only temporary in these scenarios. You took a big fall while out camping. A few cuts and bruises, burned your hand in the campfire, one broken rib. Nothing permanent.”

  This doctor wasn’t just off her rocker; she was off the entire porch. Eliza did not camp. The sheer number of calamities that awaited her in the great outdoors was simply too much to handle. “My parents?”

  “I’ll get them.” The doctor disappeared behind a white curtain, and soon enough, her parents and Elijah stepped into the room.

  “Eliza!” Her father wrapped his arms around her. Her mother and Elijah followed.

  “What happened?” she asked when they’d gotten their fill of hugs. Why couldn’t she remember how she’d ended up here? And where was Jake? She needed Jake. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to tell him something important.

  “You were so brave, honey,” her mom said. “We’re so proud of you.”

  Elijah nodded. “You’re a legend.”