Garfunkel lifted his shades. “You crazy? You know what it smells like under Theo’s arms—”
“Hey now,” I said.
“It’s called, deodorant,” Garfunkel overenunciated.
“Sweating is natural,” I said defensively. “I don’t always have time to put it on … and I like healthy stuff.”
My snarky familiar rolled his eyes. “Healthy? Like gas station corndogs? Oh, don’t deny it,” he said with a wicked grin. “You were thinking about it.”
“Let’s go,” I said, kicking the stand of my bike back and firing it up, drowning out my familiar’s words.
Who was Garfunkel to admonish me on my eating habits? If given the choice, he’d eat only Pop-Tarts for all three meals each and every day. Besides, wasn’t that Simon’s job to berate me on my personal shortcomings?
I sighed and urged the bike toward the Cracker Barrel. Yes, we each deserved a good meal, and with any luck, we wouldn’t be stuck washing dishes for a week to pay for it ...
“My Milkshake Brings all the Familiars to the Cracker Barrel”
The thing with having two very invisible, very ravenous familiars is that it gets tricky to conceal them when you’re eating out. It’s not impossible but … well, it’s tricky.
I selected a corner booth, out of the view of most of the other diners. Didn’t want to freak people out by seeing a plate magically devouring itself. See, even though my familiars were five-inches-tall, they could eat as much as a horse—reasonable, really, considering they were actually an eight-foot-tall constellation in disguise.
It was odd to think of constellations as having to need food for nourishment. But I guess anything mortal needs to eat something … and I realized not for the first time that a lot of things didn’t make sense when it came to my familiars, the tricky, secretive beings that they were. Like the saying goes, Simon and Garfunkel are a mystery wrapped in a riddle with an enigma locked in a Rubix Cube … yeah, definitely not how that one goes.
As we waited for the server, I sat back admiring all the vintage memorabilia lining the walls. Old horseshoes, rakes, muffin tins. There was even a fire crackling in the fireplace, a big, cozy contrast to the blustery chimera earlier. I sighed. Simon had selected a good place to eat.
Eating at Cracker Barrel was always comforting—no matter which one you ate at. Comfort food. Hot coffee. Those little triangle-shaped peg boards I could never seem to figure out but Orion could always solve in three moves. Orion …
“What’ll it be, hon?”
I glanced up at our homely waitress. I ordered a coffee, a chocolate milk for Simon and tomato juice for Garfunkel. Of course, I told her all the drinks were for me, indecisive young woman that I was. Our waitress laughed like she’d seen weirder and took Lucy’s and Clio’s drink order. She smiled at the pixie who smiled prettily back, and then left to fetch the drinks.
As soon as she was gone, I checked my phone. Typhon probably had Arachne and LK. And I needed to call Larry back. I turned to Lucy, impatiently tapping the tabletop. “So what’s so important that you wanted to tell me? It’s got to be big—you let me pick the place to eat.”
“Can’t we eat first?” Lucy asked with a twitch in her eye.
I placed both palms on the table. “You’re really starting to worry me. Now spill.”
“Spill? Spill what?” Lucy asked innocently enough.
“The beans. Spill the beans,” I said.
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t see any beans—”
“Typhon,” I said. “I thought I could use the Brotherhood of Zeus’s resources to free Orion but I don’t even know if they survived the chimera assault and the clock is ticking until Orion enters the Arena tomorrow night.”
Lucy unwrapped the napkin hugging her utensils, selecting her butter knife and playing it between her capable fingers. She set it back on the table and met my eyes. “About that, Theo … It’s been a long night. Can’t we just sit here like two normal people and enjoy our meal?”
“Normal?” I raised my eyes. “I’m not normal. I’ve got two invisible familiars sitting on the table top playing that triangle peg game. And I’m working with a four-armed Indian bodyguard, a pixie and a dwarf … and my archnemesis, a mythological one-hundred-headed crime lord has my partner. Are you going to help me or not?”
“OK,” our waitress said, arriving with our drinks. We sat back and I wasted no time in bringing the coffee to my lips—I needed it.
Lucy had ordered a coffee for herself and a pixie-sized milkshake for Clio. Almost immediately, Simon began to complain.
“I want a milkshake.”
Clio sucked on her straw, giving a soft groaning sigh as the sugary drink passed down her delicate throat.
“Drink your chocolate milk,” I said in a hushed voice, forgetting that our server was still at our table. She stood with her wrists folded back upon her hips, her notepad tucked into her apron. “Honey, you alright?”
Lucy smiled and raised a hand. “It’s OK. She talks to herself. Do not be alarmed, though, human. She is not a crazy person.”
Our waitress furrowed her eyes in a look that suggested she might be thinking otherwise when Clio said, “The milkshake is very good.”
Wagging a pinky at Clio smiling up at her, our server grinned good naturedly. “Glad to hear. One of Cracker Barrel’s hidden gems …” She licked her finger and flipped the page up on her notepad. “Now, what can I getcha to eat?”
We placed our orders, our waitress only giving me a lingering snooping glance as she headed for the kitchen.
“Smooth,” Lucy said and sipped her coffee.
“Like gravel,” Garfunkel agreed from his position atop an old timey lamp at the table, slurping tomato juice from his tall glass via a straw so wide he could barely fit it in his mouth. Simon, meanwhile, sat on the tabletop with his knees pulled up and his arms folded over them as he stared wistfully at Clio sipping daintily from her milkshake.
For a cherub of virtue, Simon sure was a jealous one. Garfunkel looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, his tiny feet dangling from his perch. I caught him eyeing an old two-handed saw hanging on the wall. “What?” he said. “I appreciate fine weapons.”
I shook my head. “That’s not a weapon. It’s a tool.”
“You say wash. I say warsh.”
“You’ve never said that,” I said. “Now Lucy, the plan to get Orion out. I’ve got a team of my own … but I can’t reach them. Any ideas?”
Lucy intertwined her fingers. “There’s no easy way to say this.” She took a deep breath as if she’d rehearsed this. “But it would be in your best interest to forget all about Typhon.” She swallowed. “And Orion.”
“What?” My palms were on the tabletop again.
“Something huge is going down at Typhon’s in the near future,” Lucy said, her eyes wandering over the walls of the Cracker Barrel instead of meeting mine. “I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you to get hurt.” She sent a darting glance at the side door.
“Don’t want me to get hurt? I don’t care if I get hurt. What part of ‘I have to get Orion out’ do you not understand?”
Lucy finally met my eyes. “I know he means a lot to you but—”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “That’s rich. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. What is this? Some ploy to become my partner again? Pull off some more dangerous jobs like in the old days? Live out some fantasy in your head?”
“That’s not it,” Lucy said. “I’ve grown—”
“Sure sounds like it,” I said. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you. Actually, I can.”
“It’s not what you think! This thing with Typhon—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “The Zeus gang told me all about it. Some hidden power long buried. Gonna upset the balance of the world or something. Well, as long as I’ve got Orion back by my side, I don’t care what Typhon does.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Ahem
,” a voice said from beside our table.
I turned to face our waitress already back with a platter full of ceramic plates.
She handed me a plate. “Pass it on down, hon. Careful. It’s hot.” She set down the rest of the plates. “Everything look good?”
“I want milkshake!” Simon said like some caveman.
I smiled. “All good here.”
“Right,” the waitress said, her eyes lingering on mine for a few moments before she said, “Enjoy,” and left us to it.
Lucy speared a cube of ham steak she’d just sliced off with her two upper hands. “Not bad.”
I stared at Lucy, no longer hungry, but knowing I needed to eat. “This is about that Nyx scroll, isn’t it?”
Lucy’s eye twitched.
“What is up with this Nyx chick?” I asked.
Lucy set down her fork and knife, wiped her mouth with her napkin. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” She cleared her voice. “You stole the scroll. Didn’t you?”
“No,” I lied, and for once Simon didn’t call me out. He was still pouting and hadn’t touched his food or drink.
Lucy smirked. “I was your partner long enough to know you’re lying. You lifted it from my duffel bag in the woods outside of the mine, didn’t you?” When I didn’t say anything, Lucy said, “You’re good.”
I crossed my arms. “I already know that.”
“Yes, Miss Humble.” Lucy picked up her butter knife again and tapped the butt against the table. “I’m going to need that scroll back. Like, now.”
For the second time during our sit-down, I laughed. I laughed until I realized she wasn’t joking. “What are you going to do? Put a butter knife through my eye?”
Lucy clenched her teeth.
“I know you can,” I said warily. “Like that security guard you killed on our last mission.”
Lucy raised a couple hands. “That was a misunderstanding—”
“Oh is that what you call it?” I said.
My ex-partner met my eyes pleadingly. “Surely you realize that in my capacity of serving as a bodyguard before the gods left, I sometimes had to kill to protect my goddess.”
I exhaled loudly, trying to regain my composure. “I get that. But a museum security guard isn’t a mortal threat. He didn’t even have a gun.”
Lucy’s shoulders sagged; her lower set of hands dropped to her lap. Then she gave me the most confused look I’d ever seen from her, and for the first time since I’d parted ways with her, I felt the deep-seated pain that losing her goddess had torn open inside her.
“I know you’ll likely never forgive me for that slip of my throwing star,” she said softly, “but how was I supposed to know that the man had no weapon?”
She’d never told me her side of the story from that night; I’d never given her the chance, only pointed the finger and left her to fend for herself in this foreign world.
And what was it I’ve said about Others being obstinate …
I shook my head; sweat dappled my underarms. I finally understood why Lucy had let me pick the restaurant. She was getting ready to betray me to Typhon, probably to get herself off his bad side. And from the queasy look on her face, she was having second doubts.
Lucy picked up her knife and promptly set it back down. In a much calmer and sorrowful voice, she said, “Please tell me you’ve got the scroll on you.”
Before I could respond, my phone rang. It was an unmarked number.
“The Apollonian Gambit”
“Hello?” I answered.
“Oh Theo! Thank the GGs!”
“Arachne,” I said with a glance at Lucy. “You scared me. What happened? Where’ve you been?”
“Gurrl. You would, like, not believe it.”
“Try me,” I said. Across from me, the waitress topped off Lucy’s coffee. She looked my way but I still had some left so I waved her away.
“No time, Theo. Me and LK ran into a … complication on the way out of the club. I’ll uh have to tell you about it, like, later. Anyways, I was such a klutz and dropped my phone—shattered like a Tic Tac!—so I couldn’t call you until now because when we got back to the bodega, Typhon already had men stationed outside. Watching for us!”
“They were watching my apartment?” I said after another sip of coffee. “Arachne, I’m so sorry for getting you involved in this.”
An aluminum can tab popped over the phone line and Arachne took a gulp of what I knew was Red Bull. “No thang, gurl. It’s so exciting going topside! I should have done it sooner!”
“But the danger,” I reminded her. “How did you get inside the bodega without them spotting you?”
“Oh you know LK. He caused a … um distraction.”
I facepalmed. “Don’t tell me he took off his toga again …?”
Arachne paused. “Umm …”
“Greetings, Theo!” LK shouted, and I had to lift my ear from the phone’s speaker for a second. “You should have seen the bad men chase after me. And the confounded looks on their faces when I disappeared.”
“You could have been arrested for streaking!” I said. “Can you put Arachne back on please?”
The phone made a scuffling sound and Lucy looked at me and angled her fork at one of my sausages. I shrugged and she stabbed it off my plate.
“Hey, Theo!” Arachne sing-songed. “Like, where were we?”
“The danger,” I said.
“Oh Theo, you and me, we’ll figure it out. We’re, like, two peas in a pod! Besides, our plan at the club worked.”
“Really?” I said, straightening up when I realized how surprised I must have sounded. Guess the impromptu gang war hadn’t ruined things after all. “Tell me more.”
“Well,” Arachne said, “the facial recognition software I had plugged into my laptop at the club worked beautifully. And I got some decent fingerprints off the glasses LK took from Typhon’s goons after they had their ‘complimentary’ drinks. Suckers! I ran them through the NYPD database at the club before SHTF.”
Arachne took another gulp. “Now that I’m back in my parlor, I’ll be able to hack into their phones’ GPS and back-track their steps to key places in Typhon’s operations and learn the vulnerabilities of their security!” There was more chugging and then a petite belch. “Sorry, heh. But the Red Bull is getting my juices flowing now. Oh yeah! So much to do, so much to do!”
“Good,” I said and took another sip of coffee. The way this breakfast was going, I was at least going to get some caffeine in my body. “Typhon is after me,” I said with a sideways glance at Lucy. She’d resumed eating, but slowly, picking at her food as if it hardly interested her. Beside me, Garfunkel had finished most of his meal. Simon was tracing sad smiley faces in the soup of maple syrup drowning his pancakes.
I pressed my phone to my ear. “I’m working on a plan, but if things go the way I’m thinking they might, I won’t be able to talk to you for awhile. Just stay by the phone and trust me, OK? And keep doing your thing. Operation Wayfinder is still in progress.” A glance across the table showed Lucy cocking her head in an attempt to eavesdrop.
“Sure thing! Theo, gurl, be careful!”
“Will do.”
“XOXO,” Arachne said.
“XOXO,” I said and hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” Lucy asked with a hint of jealousy.
“A friend.” I excused myself to go to the bathroom, motioning for my familiars to hop on my shoulders.
While picking my way through the tables, I lifted an ink pen from a waitress delivering a tray of food that blocked Simon’s view of the act. I was passing a window when Garfunkel cleared his throat.
“Uh Theo. We’ve got company.”
I glanced out the window. Dickie Man and the Minotaur stood out in the parking lot, backed by several thugs-for-hire.
“Great,” Simon said, slumping on my right shoulder. “This day just keeps getting worse.”
“Think of it this way,” I said as I neared th
e bathroom. “Things can only get better.”
“So we’re escaping out the back door, I take it?” Garfunkel said, rubbing his tiny hands together in anticipation.
I pushed open the bathroom door; it was empty. “We are not.”
“That’s our Theo,” Garfunkel said, throwing on his Hello Kitty shades. He stopped then, his pencil-thin eyebrows arching over the top of the frames. “We’re not?”
“Yeah. What do you mean, Theo?” Simon asked, nervously twirling a strand of my hair.
“I’m making a plan.”
“Is it a … you know, a good one?” Garfunkel tugged at his shirt collar. “You do remember that Orion used to come up with the plans, right?”
“What’s wrong with my plans?” I asked, tearing off a piece of toilet paper.
My familiars started whistling to themselves.
“You haven’t even heard it yet. Listen, just trust me.”
“Like that time in Buenos Aires?” Garfunkel said.
I gave them a look. Then I pulled up Arachne’s new phone number on my phone, hastily scribbling it down on the toilet paper scrap, committing it to memory, a trick I’d perfected in the special forces. After flushing it down a toilet, I tore off a small piece of paper towel. This time I scrawled a short message to Lucy and tucked it into my billfold behind my credit cards.
There might yet be hope for Lucy …
I regarded my familiars seriously. “Now here’s what’s going to happen …”
“Yeah we’re screwed,” Garfunkel said as we approached the booth and I sat back down across from Lucy.
“There is some possible chance it could work,” Simon said.
Lucy gave me a concerned look and wiped an arm along her sweat-slicked brow. “You were gone a while,” she said. “Everything OK?”
“Sure,” I said, forking some cold scrambled eggs into my mouth. I’d be GoneGodDamned if I didn’t at least enjoy a piece of my meal. There were starving kids in the world and all that.
Lucy tapped the table and then cleared her throat. “Part of me thought you were making a run for it.”
Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1) Page 34
