I swallowed some coffee, stuffed some more food in my mouth. “Oh?”
Lucy continued. “Part of me was hoping you had.”
I spread butter on a piece of toast and took a bite out of it. “Why’s that?”
“It’s just …” Lucy glanced toward the restaurant’s entrance. She turned back and leaned across the table, her chin hovering over my grits. “Look, I know you took the scroll. Is it on you or not? If it is, I can protect you.”
I finished my coffee and raised my glass for a refill. “I can tell the scroll is really important to you,” I said with a pleasant smile. “It’s in a safe place.”
Lucy cursed under her breath and sat back in her booth, crossing her arms. After a few deep breaths, she said, “I wish you’d never gotten involved with Typhon.”
Seeing as our waitress was nowhere in sight, I lowered my mug and sighed. “Yeah me too. Can’t take it back though. That’s what my father always said.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said.
“For what?” I said, taking a sip of Simon’s chocolate milk.
“For this,” said Lucy, angling her head toward the front of the restaurant.
I didn’t look, only met Lucy’s eyes. “Do you remember Berlin?”
“Berlin?”
Someone cleared their voice off to the side. “Just a minute,” I said, swallowing a last mouth full of eggs and washing it down with chocolate milk.
A hand fell on my shoulder and I turned.
“You don’t look too surprised,” Dickie Man said with a sneer. The Minotaur stood a little farther back. A couple thugs blocked a side entrance I had pegged earlier.
“Oh, I saw you guys through the window,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Uh, Theo. It’s not too late to fight back,” Garfunkel said with a glance at the wall of antiques. “Plenty of weapons. And don’t forget you’ve got the God-Slayer hidden under your coat …”
“Not this time,” I said, and spun, socking Lucy across the jaw. She fell back in the booth with a whumph. Clio just stared at me wide-eyed, her lips still sucking on her milkshake.
Behind me Dickie Man laughed. “Nice hit. Now come on. The boss wants to see you.”
“Hold on a minute,” I said and set my credit card on the tabletop, careful to keep the scrap of paper towel concealed beneath it. After a final glimpse at Lucy’s unconscious form, I was about to turn back around when my phone rang again. Larry.
“Oh crap, I really need to take this call.”
“Come on, Princess, let’s go,” Dickie Man said as I raised my phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Theo,” Larry said, gasping as if he’d just ran a 5K. “I’ve been trying to call for hours.”
“Yeah, I’ve been uh busy.” Dickie Man reached for me and I backstepped out of his reach, pawing his hand away from me. “What do you want? I paid you. You better not have messed with my investment—”
“It’s your mom.”
Before Larry could say any more, Dickie Man grabbed my phone and tossed it to the Minotaur who crushed it between his hooves.
“Let’s go,” Dickie Man said. “Restrain her.”
On our way out I took a last glance at the crushed remains of my phone, fearing the news I hadn’t been able to hear.
I really, really, really didn’t like surprise variables …
“A View To A Kill”
The drive into the heart of NYC wasn’t all that bad. Typhon’s goons handcuffed my wrists but at least they didn’t throw a sack over my head. They also confiscated the lava axe hidden under my jacket. When we reached our destination three hours later—a long time for me to consider all the possible bad things that Larry might have been about to say about my mother—Dickie Man threw a suit coat over my cuffed wrists and walked me inside the building’s grand, marble-pillared lobby. A few minutes later I was standing in Typhon’s office, sixty stories above the ground on the second-highest floor of the skyscraper.
A flat glossy desk lay before me and behind it, a leather swivel chair facing a wall of windows. I couldn’t help but marvel at Central Park beyond the glass. To have such a view, this place must have cost a fortune to rent.
“Well here she is, sir.” Dickie Man said, raising my hands high over my head and slipping the chain of my handcuffs into an industrial-grade carabiner clip suspended from the ceiling. After giving the chain a firm tug, he turned back to the leather chair, leaving me to dangle on my tiptoes over a swatch of tarp. “Call me if you need me, sir.”
He bowed and left, closing the door behind him, and I twisted around to take in my surroundings. Clean, unbroken space dominated most of the office. Cold white walls and ceiling. Lots of straight lines and hard edges. You’d think it would be boring but it was actually quite aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Comforting even. And warm, the sun refracting through the windows and reflecting off the white walls.
And suspended from the ceiling directly beside me, a hooded Zeus gang acolyte, his body limp and still. Blood dripped at steady intervals from his chest to the growing puddle beneath him on a neat, square-shaped tarp. Oh, did I mention the magnificent view of Central Park before me?
“Trust me, guys. My plan will work,” Garfunkel mimed.
“Worst. Plan. Ever!” Simon shouted, eyeing the corpse beside me.
“Nice Halloween decorations,” I said to the leather chair, still facing away from me.
Garfunkel cleared his throat. “Uh, Theo. I don’t think that’s a decoration. I can see that dude’s ribs. What makes a hole that big …?”
Simon meanwhile formed his hands into earmuffs over his ears and started making loud, annoying, nonsensical sounds.
The leather swivel chair shifted, but stayed turned away from me. “Theo Apollonia. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Typhon’s voice was silky smooth, like almond butter. “I’m a bit surprised at how little resistance you put up, almost like it was your plan to get caught.” He paused. “I do hope you understand the need to confiscate your—I mean, my—axe. I trust the ride here was pleasant?”
I didn’t say anything, just glanced about the room again. Tried to block out the dripping sounds.
“Tell me. What’s on your mind?” said the strong voice behind the chair.
I fidgeted. Not because I was afraid of Typhon. But because I genuinely didn’t know what he expected me to say. So I did what I usually did in that kind of situation: I made a joke. “Place could use some house plants.”
Typhon didn’t laugh. After a moment, he said trivially, “I don’t like plants.”
For once in my life, a zinger came to my mind, and it was a really good one. “Oh? Because they can’t fight in an arena?”
Silence.
Then he spun his chair silently around to face me. Darkly tanned face. Tough, working man’s hands. White button-up dress shirt with beige suspenders looped over his broad shoulders, the top two buttons undone, his tie loosened and thrown back over his shoulder. Neat slicked back short dark hair. Eyes the color of iron ore, filled with gentle conviction. Those eyes said more than words ever could.
In short, he looked and sounded like Don Draper from Mad Men. Also, while he looked healthy and fit, a slight discoloration to his cheeks hinted at some minor health condition. He regarded me with his elbows resting on the chair arms, his hands clasped together over his lap. “Such wit. I like it. Theo, I think you and I are going to get along quite nicely.”
“Maybe in hell,” I said, opening my mouth as if to say Oops! “I mean, Tartarus. That’s where you spent several millennia, right?”
“Ooh, burn,” Garfunkel said, pumping his fist. “That’s my girl.”
A pause. “You’d be correct.” The way Typhon said it, he might have been explaining the rise and fall of a bell curve on a PowerPoint slide. “You read that on Wikipedia?”
I didn’t say anything. Again, not because I was scared; I didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t trust myself to think of another zinger on the sp
ot. Zingers were hard. Words in general, usually …
“I’m not sore about it,” Typhon said. “You win some. You lose some.” He smoothed out his dress shirt beneath his suspenders. Steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “Sending me to Tartarus …” He looked contemplative, the epitome of total relaxation. “Purely business on behalf of my adversary at the time.”
I couldn’t believe the man’s easy posture. He exuded smoothness like a perfectly sculpted mint-buttercream frosting. Everything that came from his mouth had a thoughtful, businesslike edge to it, yet also retained some gentle coolness. He had a sort of beachgoer vibe to him, and seemed very much not the beast I’d made him out to be. “Your adversary being Zeus?” I asked.
“The gods. The Greek gods,” he clarified. “Although Zeus was the most stuck up of the bunch. Never quite understood what his deal was. Why Hera ever took up being his wife, I’ll never know.”
I stared at Typhon. “You’re pretty chill for a man who just spent thousands of years in Tartarus.”
He sighed, pleasantly. “You know the worst part of Tartarus? The asymmetry of the place. No thoughtful design. Just flames and lava rivers and rock formations scattered haphazardly around. No class.”
He paused contemplatively, as if mentally reviewing his accomplishments. “Not here. There are beauty to the lines. A skyscraper in itself is a beautiful work of art. Hah. Skyscraper. Now that’s a fitting name. A building that scrapes the sky. You know, back in the day the gods would have punished that notion. Zeus would have cast a lightning bolt. Poseidon would have sent a tidal wave. And why?”
A slight edge started to run its way along his velvety vocal cords before flattening out. “Because the gods couldn’t accept that a creation of man could match or be better than their own. Take your tech friend, Arachne. The one who’s been snooping through my databases of late. The Red Bull poster girl—what? don’t look at me like that, I do my research.” He paused letting it sink in that my ace in the hole was gone. “Back in the day, Arachne bested Athena in a quilting match. And how did Athena react? Turned her into a spider. Why? Pride and jealousy. The same flaws they punished humans for exhibiting.”
I shifted on the soles of my feet, wishing for once that I had a chair to sit on. Beside me, my Zeus gang compatriot continued to drip. “You sound like you hate them.”
Typhon laughed. “Quite the contrary. The gods are—were—sore losers. We all have faults. They had their day and now they’re gone.” He repositioned himself in his chair. Looked at me. Through me. Saw my discomfort hanging there.
Suddenly he got up and did something unexpected. He went around his desk and unclipped my handcuffs from the carabiner. Then he pushed his leather chair around the side of the desk. It rolled to me silently, like a dream.
“Sit. Please. And notice I didn’t offer him the same favor.” After pointing to the Zeus acolyte, Typhon turned and strode back toward his massive glass window. “We’re not adversaries, are we, Theo?”
I didn’t say anything, but I sat. The chair felt like a dream.
He turned back and faced me. “You want something. Well no sense waiting. Most people in this world don’t realize what they could have if they simply asked the universe for it. Go ahead. Whatever you want, ask for it.”
I didn’t understand. Why had Typhon brought me here? If he wanted something from me, why didn’t he just take it instead of showing off this grisly scare tactic? At least we’d come to the crux of the situation. “Orion. I want him released.”
Typhon nodded and repositioned a stack of papers, sat on the corner of his desk a few feet away from me. “OK. Anything else?” He let his word fall like dripping honey, his fingertips pressed together delicately before him.
I glanced uneasily at the Brotherhood of Zeus corpse hanging out beside me. “I want to be free of you and the Zeus gang. I don’t want to have to keep a constant look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
He nodded again, like a psychiatrist agreeing with his patient. “That pesky Brotherhood of Zeus …” He indicated the body with an annoyed gesture. “Misguided fools. It seems some of them managed to escape my chimeras. Very well. Anything else?”
“Ask for world peace,” Simon said.
Garfunkel yawned. “Nah. You could go bigger. Private jet?”
“That’ll do for now,” I said. “What makes you think you can grant them?”
Typhon said simply, “I have many friends.”
I scoffed. “You’re a crime boss.”
“Is that what my adversaries have said about me?”
I shrugged. “I just thought it was common knowledge.”
“Ah. Common knowledge. In today’s world of instant connection … social media … a single untruth can be spread to millions of people in a second. Back in my day, that would be considered magic. But it’s not. It’s technology.”
“I’ve done my research on you,” I said. “Are you denying that you run Other trafficking operations the world over? And Other prostitution rings? And rumors are you’re getting into the drug trade?”
“Who am I to deny the masses what they want? I don’t judge. I’m a businessman. I go where the opportunities are.”
“You ruin people’s lives.”
“Ah, but if you only knew.” He paused. “Tell me, Theo. What is it that you’re all about? Deep down in your core? What gets you fired up in the morning when you wake up?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Recovering lost relics of the past? Infiltrating impenetrable security systems? Cooking?”
“How did you …”
Typhon tapped his forehead. “I’m a man of vast resources, among them, my many friends, remember?”
I shook my head. “What are you all about?”
The businessman rubbed his palms together. “Glad you asked. However, I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you just yet. Needless to say, it involves showing up the gods … reinventing the skyscraper, you might say. Hah, reinvent the skyscraper …” He turned the words over on his tongue, glanced up at me. “I like the ring of that. A hard-hitting slogan I can really get behind. Inspire others. Like Mr. Jobs and his ‘Apple’. A big fan. Sorry now, I went off on a tangent. I do that occasionally. Ask my wife …” He chuckled.
My hands balled up into fists at the mention of the woman in the leather beast tamer outfit who had nearly killed Orion in the Arena pit after the lava axe heist.
The phone on Typhon’s desk rang. “Speaking of my wife …” He smiled and pressed the speaker button, a smile passing over his face.
A silky soft female voice came over the speaker. “Typhon, dear. Dinner is almost ready.” It didn’t sound like the same confident, vicious woman who had singlehandedly incapacitated Orion.
Typhon flashed me a look that might have said, Gee, ain’t she a darlin’? “Ah, thank you, Sweet-ums. Just finishing up in the office. You know how it is.”
“Has Theo arrived yet?” his wife asked.
“She has. And can you believe it, I didn’t kill her?”
She laughed good-naturedly. “Oh you and your joking.”
Typhon’s stern face suggested he wasn’t. “We having turkey or salmon this evening?” he asked.
“You’ll have to wait and see, dear.”
Typhon smiled. “You know how I love a good surprise. Be up shortly.”
“Love you, dear,” Typhon’s wife said.
“Love you too, Sweet-ums.” Typhon terminated the call. He beamed, glanced down at the polished floor and then back across the table at me, folding his hands in his lap. The sunlight glazed off his short, swept back hair. “My wife. Echidna. She’s a real doll.”
I clenched my teeth. “Considering how she attacked Orion, I sincerely doubt it.”
“Oh, that?” Typhon said. “Business. I know you’ll just love her—especially her cooking. Don’t ever let anyone tell you the gods leaving was a bad thing. It gave us Others a second chance at life, allowed us to try our hand at new ac
tivities. Before the GrandExodus, my wife couldn’t cook worth a darn. Now, well …” He raised his hands, still folded, and leaned in conspiratorially. “Let’s just say, her KETO meatballs …” He brought his forefinger and thumb together and kissed them. “And her sugar-free apple pie …”
“Let’s cut to the chase,” I interjected, starting to feel physically ill from this vile couple’s cutesy displays of affection. “I told you what I want. Now what do you want from me?”
He looked me dead in the eyes without malice or deceit. “Theo, I will never lie to you. You ask what I want …” He paused for dramatic effect. “If you may allow me to say so, you look a bit … ‘hangry,’ I think the term is these days. I’ll admit, the answer to your question may … upset you. Perhaps you’d rather wait until after dinner?”
It was the Nyx scroll. It had to be.
“No. Tell me now.”
“Very well.” Typhon steepled his fingers together. Met my eyes like an equal. “I want to acquire your familiars. I want the constellation Libra.”
“Hell’s Kitchen”
Well that hit me in the gut. Just the thought of Typhon touching my familiars made me sick. Kinda wished I had waited until after dinner.
“You wouldn’t think of it, Theo!” Simon pleaded.
Garfunkel cleared his throat. “Yeah, you know I jest, right, Theo? I’m a jester. I jest. Mostly.”
I just looked at Typhon, amazed at his brazenness. It felt like he’d just cut into my heart with a blade. If I had the lava axe I’d plunge it into his heart right now just for speaking the words. “Why would you even ask me that? The nerve …”
“Now Theo,” he said, dropping his voice to a level almost of mild berating. “You asked what I wanted. I told you. I would have just taken them from you, but it is my understanding that the only two ways to separate them from you is for either you or your familiars to intentionally break the bond … or your death. And Theo, I see a potentially bright future ahead of you. I don’t wish to see you die.” He gestured absentmindedly. “Also, I did promise my wife I wouldn’t kill you.”
Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1) Page 35
