Squad Goals

by Kate Karyus Quinn

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Shauna says, flitting off Tina’s shoulder and landing on the table by a glass.

  Dionysus’ lips twist into an almost smile. “Here, little pixie, this is the finest dessert wine ever bottled.” A smaller glass appears before Shauna and she takes a gulp.

  “This is…” She grins. “Maybe the best thing I have ever had in my mouth.” She glances at Tina. “Second best thing.”

  Dionysus focuses on me. “I think for you, a deep pinot noir. Something with a lot of complexity.”

  “Thanks, but we really just want to talk,” I tell him.

  “If you are in my house, you will drink,” he tells us, no room in his voice for argument.

  Soon we each have a glass in our hands. I really don’t want to drink mine. I need my head straight, but Dionysus’ eyes are on me so I take a sip. It’s the most delicious wine I’ve ever drank. I never understood when people would say a vintage has notes of grass or honey or cherries, but I can taste every flavor and can’t help but take one sip after another.

  Trevor appears before me. “Mavis, you are all getting drunk.”

  I pause and realize that as much as I drink, my glass never empties. I blink hard. Gods are just the worst. I look around. Tamika is sipping on a dark red, while Mac has some kind of sparkling wine. Griff is actually drinking out of a tankard. Knowing him, it’s probably honey mead, the bear shifter drink of choice.

  I slam my glass down on the table. “We know you have Pandora’s Box,” I tell him. “We need it back.”

  He laughs. “Why would I have it?”

  “Hermes told us—”

  “Hermes!” He laughs. “Why did I let him talk me into helping him reopen the portal to that awful place?”

  “It wasn’t your idea?” Tina asks, eyeing me.

  Dionysus shakes his head. He raises his voice into a falsetto. “Oh, come to Florida. Help me check on Tartarus, what could go wrong?”

  I look around. Everyone is still glugging down wine like there is no tomorrow. “Guys, I think we’ve drunk enough to be polite. You can stop now.”

  “No!” Shauna says, then in her tiny pixie form actually gets inside the glass. She treads through the wine while drinking.

  I look at Tina but she just shrugs and mutters, “She’s a free soul. What can a girl do?”

  Mac and Tamika still sip their drinks, either to piss me off, or they just don’t care. Blessedly, Griff has put down his tankard.

  “It was Hermes’ idea to open the portal?” I ask. Of course it was, the lying bastard.

  Dionysus nods. “He wanted to check things out, see what was happening. We hadn’t checked in on that world in eons. That’s why he wanted the seer. With her ESP she could communicate with…” He pauses. “Well, that idea went to shit real fast.”

  “It doesn’t matter. How can we open the portal back up?” I ask desperately.

  “Doesn’t matter?” he asks. “We poked the bear.”

  Griff lets out a low menacing growl.

  “And you know what happened? Pan died. A god.” Dionysus chugs from his never-ending glass of wine. “We have been safe here for thousands of years. We’re immortal. Even killing Zeus took a nearly impossible series of events. But Pan was dispatched as easily as crushing an insect.”

  A shiver goes down my spine at that. I’d sorta been burying the information about a god dying, telling myself it didn’t matter and if it truly had happened—good riddance. It does matter, though. Something that can kill a god as easily as crushing an insect would destroy the rest of us without even trying.

  “Who has the portal now?” I ask, desperately. One wild goose chase after another.

  There’s a sudden voice that fills the room and I realize it’s coming from the intercom on the wall.

  “Boss, we have a problem up here—” It’s the satyr who was at the gate when we came in, I realize. Before he can say more, there’s a horrific choking noise and the line goes dead.

  Dionysus stands, glass in hand. “If you will excuse me. It’s time for me to face my demons.”

  He stares past us at the cellar door.

  “What’s happening?” Mac asks.

  “I don’t know, but let’s be ready to fight.”

  Tina moves to my right and Griff to my left. Shauna does drunken loop de loops in front of us. Out of the corner of my eye I see Mac reach out and grab Tamika’s hand. She doesn’t stab him for his effort, but instead holds it back.

  “Where’s Trevor?” I ask just as he bursts through the closed door, his ghost form moving easily through the solid wooden object.

  “Guys, we’re in deep shit—”

  The door explodes into a thousand shards raining splinters down on us.

  22

  In the doorway is an endless darkness.

  It’s both inky and smoky all at once.

  “Care for a drink?” Dionysus asks the monster, an ingratiating smile on his face. A glass appears in his hand and he holds it out.

  Even as Dionysus speaks the darkness swirls closer, enveloping him until he disappears from view. A scream comes from inside the deepest part of the black.

  “That’s not good,” Trevor observes.

  “I can maybe puppet it,” Tamika says. “I just need a bit of its blood.”

  “It doesn’t have blood,” Tina snaps. “Any idiot can see that.”

  “Everything has some sort of life essence,” Tamika counters. “Wet goo that holds it together.”

  “I’ll get it.” Shauna’s voice is small as she flaps her wings near my ear.

  “No,” Tina and I say together.

  The monster is done with Dionysus. It floats toward us, leaving a wet stain behind it that was once a god. With a roar, Griff shifts into bear form. Shoving us behind him, he stands before the monster. I curl my fingers into the fur at his back and tug.

  “Griff, he’ll kill you,” I say.

  Griff doesn’t budge. He lets loose another wild roar, loud enough to shake the walls around us. Several wine bottles roll from their racks and shatter against the floor.

  “Get back,” I order everyone else. They fall behind us, taking shelter behind the wine racks, while I glue myself to Griff, unwilling to leave him on the frontline alone.

  The monster comes closer and then stops in front of Griff, almost as if it’s examining him. Peering around Griff, I can almost make out a face in its swirling mass. It’s not the evil I expected. Rather, its expression is almost thoughtful.

  “Don’t move,” I hiss at Griff. “Don’t give it reason to attack.”

  In response, Griff makes a low noise deep in his throat. I’m pretty sure it means, ‘Yeah, I agree.’

  We hold still and after what seems like forever, the monster turns. It’s leaving! We’re—

  Before I can finish that thought a blur of pink zooms over Griff’s shoulder.

  “I’m gonna roll you down a hill!” it shouts as it plows straight into the center of the monster.

  “No!” I scream.

  But it’s too late. Shauna is inside the monster.

  A high-pitched scream comes from her as she disappears into the blackness.

  My hand goes to my mouth. That drunk idiot pixie. She didn’t have to die.

  Tears form in my eyes, and then the monster explodes. Along with every bottle of wine, drenching us and creating a river of wine.

  Shauna hits the ground, back to normal size, her pink hair gone grey.

  We all run toward her. Falling to our knees we surround her.

  “She’s alive,” Tina says. “But she needs blood.”

  “And sugar,” Trevor adds.

  Mac holds his wrist out. “Give her some of mine. I’ve been told I’m awful sweet, so she’ll get a little bit of both.”

  Without hesitation, Tina brings Mac’s wrist to her mouth and uses her fangs to open a vein. He puts his hand to Shauna’s mouth, letting the blood drip in.

  Meanwhile, Tamika has Shauna’s hands in her own
. It looks like comfort, but then I realize she’s actually wiping them clean of the black soot covering her. Using it like she does blood, Tamika draws a symbol onto her arm.

  I grab her elbow. “What are you doing?”

  Tamika jerks free. “Shauna isn’t dead and that monster isn’t either. You think a little pixie can defeat that thing?”

  She’s right, I realize. I take my attention off our group in time to notice the black splatters moving, forming together once more. We’ve probably got all of ten seconds before that thing is in one piece again. And I’ve got a feeling it won’t be in a forgiving mood.

  “You think the puppeting will work?” I ask Tamika.

  She smiles as she finishes drawing the last symbol. “I think it will work and that it will be my greatest moment. I’ve been waiting my whole life for something that finally challenged me. It’s too bad I have to destroy it.”

  “Yeah, but you are going to destroy it, right?” Trevor jumps into our conversation. “That’s not the type of thing you try to keep as a pet.”

  “We still need answers,” Tina reminds him—and me too. “Tamika, can you get it to talk, or communicate in some way?”

  Tamika stands, a smile curling the edges of her lips. “I’ll get it to roll over and we can all take turns rubbing its belly.”

  The monster is in one piece again.

  “I own you,” Tamika tells it. She turns in a circle, demonstrating. The monster turns too. “Good monster,” she coos. “Now—” Before she can say anything else, the monster jerks upwards, hitting the ceiling. Tamika does the same, her body moving unnaturally as if someone grabbed the back of her shirt and slammed her against the hard cement overhead. She sticks there for a moment and then the monster falls to the ground and Tamika follows, her body hitting hard.

  “Plot twist,” Tina says. “It’s making Tamika the puppet.”

  “Get out,” I tell them. “Tina, grab Shauna.” Tina doesn’t hesitate. She moves lightning fast, using her vampire strength to throw Shauna across her shoulders. Without looking back to see what everyone else is up to, she takes off up the stairs.

  The three boys aren’t quite so quick. They stand with me, watching as the monster drags Tamika through broken glass and spilled wine. “Go!” I bark.

  They start moving. Mac leads the way. I give Griff a hard stare. “Go! If anything is up there, the rest of them will need your help.” He grumbles low in his throat, but finally turns and climbs the stairs out of the basement.

  Only Trevor is left, hovering at my side. “What are you waiting for? We’re snookered.”

  “Snookered is what happens when teenagers break into their parent’s liquor cabinet.”

  “No,” he corrects me with all his haughty Britishness on display. “That’s snockered. Snookered means game over, we lose. Let’s take the chips that remain and flee, so we might live to fight another day.”

  I say nothing. Tamika has stopped responding to the monster batting her around. I think...

  “You can’t stay,” Trevor says.

  “I can’t leave her behind,” I tell him, wincing as Tamika bounces between two walls, her head smacking against them, finally cracking open.

  Trevor floats in front of me, blurring my view. “She’s dead, Mavis. Do you want everyone else to die too? They won’t leave without you.”

  Tamika’s bloodied and broken body lies on the floor, her empty eyes staring at me. Damn it. He’s right. I know he’s right.

  “Can you stay here?” I ask Trevor. “Keep an eye on the monster. Follow wherever it goes.”

  “I will,” Trevor nods. “Now leg it, Mavis.”

  I wipe away the tears wetting my cheeks. Whirling away from the monster and what’s left of Tamika, I run up the stairs as fast as my legs will carry me

  23

  Back at the cabin, Dodi makes a sad trombone noise when we all stumble out, except for Cassie who’s softly snoring in the passenger seat.

  I lean against the driver’s door and start to cry as everyone else files into the cabin, heads down. Tina and Shauna have their arms around each other. Griff stops, turns and sees me crying. He takes a couple steps toward me, but then seems to change his mind and goes into the cabin, Mac on his heels. It just makes me cry harder, and I feel Dodi warm up against my skin. Whether it’s the sun or the van trying to comfort me, I don’t know.

  Tamika is dead, her brains splattered around a wine cellar, and that’s my fault. She might have been a menace to society. Hell, she might have been a menace to our own squad, but she still died trying to protect us.

  I sob against the window, my breath fogging the glass. There’s a weight on my shoulder, and I turn to see a heavy bear paw resting there. Griff came back after all…and apparently I forgot to re-activate everyone’s collars in my grief. But I don’t care about that right now. I don’t think anybody is in a mood to make a run for it. I turn into Griff’s warm, hairy chest, and bury my face in it.

  “Why did I think I could do this?” I ask. “I have no business being in charge of a lemonade stand.”

  Griff makes a noise low in his throat.

  “Yeah, I know,” I reply. “I was in charge at Underworld Reformatory. But newsflash, that was pure nepotism. My sister pulled strings with her former mentee, BJ, to get her pathetic PTSD of a mess sister out of the house and into the workforce.”

  Griff makes another noise, which I interpret just as easily.

  “Yeah, I was pathetic. The whole world fell apart and I tried to pretend everything was fine. I started going out on missions, helping Edie hunt down the potential inheritors of Zee’s powers. But then...I hit a wall. One morning, I just couldn’t get out of bed. And that morning turned into a week, turned into a month, which finally turned into Edie bringing Cassie to see me.

  It was Cassie who coaxed me out of bed and into the shower. And then down to UWR. She said they needed me. That I could make a difference.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “I didn’t want to be the hard-ass who decides who gets locked up forever. But Greg was overwhelmed and disorganized. Cassie’s a walking talking bleeding heart. Which left me. As if I had any business judging anyone else.”

  “Hmph,” Griff says, which roughly translates to, ‘Yeah, that’s tough.’

  I give Griff a watery smile. “You’re easy to talk to. I mean, it’s mostly because you don’t talk. But also, I’ve never been in a relationship where I wasn’t hiding myself. My father told me I was a shifter when I turned eighteen, but I actually found out on my own years earlier. Edie used to call me a little Nancy Drew. I always knew what we were getting for birthdays and Christmas. And when Mom got a promotion, I found out before even my dad did.”

  I sigh remembering my early spying days. Looking back, I can see that I always sensed something was wrong or off about myself. The sneaking around was my way of trying to find some control. But instead I found an answer I never expected.

  “I was eleven when I overheard my parents discussing what a cute little kitten I had been. When I realized they meant literally, I started trying to shift. And then I did. I was excited. For a minute. Then I was terrified and too scared to tell anyone. But once the cat was out of the bag”—Griff snorts at my pun— “I couldn’t not shift. After a few days it became painful. So in high school, I was popular, perfect, and a liar—afraid to let anyone get too close. Then at MOA, I was undercover, secretly working for the monsters. The one person I finally confessed to, my boyfriend Derrick, got killed escaping with me. So you can see why our relationship—where I word vomit my whole life story and you just listen—is really different.”

  “Relationship,” Griff says. Funny, it’s his first actual word and it’s also the first thing I’m not sure how to interpret.

  “Right, sorry,” I hold my hands up. “We’re not in a relationship. I just mean you’re a boy and I’m a girl and we talk—”

  It’s a relief when Griff shifts back into his human form and places a hand over my mouth, stopping my babbling.

>   “Virgin,” he tells me, his breath warm on my face.

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, we went over this already. I’m a virgin.”

  “No. Me.” His hand slides away from my mouth and up into my hair, tilting my head back. “Only White Tail. Only bear mating.”

  I frown confused. “Only bear mat…” And then suddenly I get it. “Oh my gods, you’ve only had sex as a bear with another bear. You’ve never done it as a human. You’ve never…” Griff’s mouth lowers, coming closer to mine. “Never kissed,” I say just before his lips softly connect with mine.

  I might be a virgin, but I have done a lot of making out in my life. Grabbing hold of his biceps, I do my best to teach him everything I know. When Cassie was giving Griff his ‘how to be human’ classes she told me he was a quick learner, able to pick things up easily. I gotta agree with her there. I also kinda remember the girls in the dorms at MOA gossiping about bear shifters having the most amazing skillful tongues. That was also true. Actually, they might’ve undersold.

  I slide my hands beneath Griff’s shirt, finding the ridges of muscles that make up his stomach.

  Suddenly, he gently pushes me away and takes a giant step back. We’re both breathing heavy.

  “Sorry!” I say. “I know. This is inappropriate—”

  “Not it,” Griff interrupts.

  “Oh.” I pause, wondering what his problem is. “You wanna go for a run?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No. Shower.” He turns and starts walking back to the house. There’s a certain stiff-leggedness to his gait that makes me think he’s gonna need a cold shower.

  I let him go, reminding myself that he just lost the love of his life a few days ago. She’s the one that he wants.

  And me? I’m just a cat shifter who’s better at getting people killed than saving them.

  “Okay,” I say, scanning the faces in the living room. “We need to regroup.”

  Shauna’s head is in Tina’s lap, sucking Tina’s finger...which I’m pretty sure means that Tina is feeding Shauna her blood. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not. Tina’s other hand strokes Shauna’s hair; with every pass a little more of the pink returns to Shauna’s greyed out locks. Cassie snuggles in beside them, definitely edging into Tina’s personal space. They were never exactly friends at MOA, so it’s weird that Tina isn’t threatening to bite her head off.