Beside the garbage can I found Savannah’s backpack and the magazine I came to collect. The ad was still inside. In fact, she dog-eared the page.
I took Savannah’s books and the magazine to the kitchen, where I found Katherine staring at a grocery list like she’d lost the ability to read.
“I could return these to the school if you want.”
She nodded. “That would be fine.”
“Would you mind if I kept this, too?” I showed her the cover of the magazine.
Her puzzled expression told me she didn’t have a clue what was inside. “Sure. Take it.”
One ad down, one million three hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine to go.
Chapter 17
News of the contest spread faster than a forest fire. The school secretary gave me nasty looks every time she had to call me down to the office to pick up a stack of magazines. I purposely left my car unlocked at school, and most afternoons I found magazines littering the back seat.
After school Rory and I met at the warehouse. “So, where’s your demigod today?” he asked as he unlocked the door.
“I don’t know.” Aeas left my house last night and didn’t come back this morning. I didn’t know how he got around town, but somehow he managed.
Usually there were envelopes stuffed in the mailbox and stacked on the loading dock, but today there was nothing. We had nearly six hundred, well short of the million we needed.
My mind chimed, “I told you so.” Six hundred fans. That was all I could muster. Why had I believed we could get a million magazines?
I carried the ones in from my car. We pulled out the cards and dropped them into a circular kiddy pool Rory said was large enough to hold a million cards. Then we put the magazines in stacks of a hundred so they were easy to count. Today most of the back seat was covered in magazines. Our collection climbed to a whopping six hundred eighty-six. I felt like bashing my head against the cement floor.
“The video had seven hundred thousand views last night,” Rory assured me. “Mail takes a few days.”
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled.
“It’s too soon to give up.” Both Rory and I jumped at the sound of Aeas’s voice. When he unveiled he was standing only an arm’s reach away. He could have been there a minute or an hour for all I knew.
A fist pounded on the loading dock door. Rory stepped outside to see what the commotion was. A moment later he returned. “Mail’s late today.” He removed the metal pins holding the door in place, then pulled hard on the handle. The rusty metal creaked and didn’t budge. “Help me out here.”
Aeas took hold of the handle, too. At first the old door screeched an inch at a time, then the rust on the wheels broke loose, and it rolled up its track until it was fully open. The sunlight and the smell of diesel exhaust hit me at the same time. Parked outside was a semi truck with a US Postal Service marking on the trailer. The blue-uniformed driver opened the back of the trailer. Inside the trailer were white mail bags piled to the ceiling. “All of this is yours,” the driver said. He tossed me a bag, and the weight of it nearly knocked me over.
We emptied the magazines onto the floor of the warehouse. By the time the trailer was empty, the pile was twenty feet wide and four feet tall in the center.
“Um, Rory,” I said. “We may need help sorting and counting.”
He scratched his head. “This is just the beginning.” He immediately started making phone calls.
Aeas and I pulled out cards and counted magazines into stacks. We’d barely sorted a quarter of the heap when we heard another knock. This time it was the regular door, not the loading dock. I moved to answer it, but Aeas moved faster. He nudged me out of sight before opening the door.
“Is this where we drop off entries for the contest?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“It is,” Aeas replied.
“Here you go.” He handed Aeas a box eighteen inches square and six feet long. Then he offered him a stack of index cards. “And here’s my hundred cards.”
Aeas thanked him and shut the door. “Our first billboard.” He handed the cards to me. On every one was the contact information for Hunter McDowell.
A week before the contest deadline, we were two hundred seventy-five thousand magazines short, but we had fifteen billboards, and the kiddy pool was over half full. The counted magazines stood on pallets and filled half the warehouse. Along one wall were the billboards, which had been delivered in boxes that contained thick paper strips rolled together. If you unrolled them and laid them out on the floor, it gave you the whole billboard. On Main Street the Birth of Venus was replaced by a Budweiser. If nothing else came of Aphrodite’s tasks, at least my dad would never have to see that billboard again.
Somehow Rory convinced two dozen Dragonslayers to help us, and they had taken over sorting, counting and stacking the magazines. They also turned the warehouse into a hangout. Two tattered couches and some plastic chairs sat in a corner next to a space heater. Someone paid the Coke truck to deliver soda pop to the warehouse. It showed up every Friday. On the open floor between the couches and the loading docks, some guys set up a launch ramp and grinding rail. Between mail deliveries, they skated and even convinced Aeas to try it.
“I feel sort of helpless,” I said as the Dragonslayers moved through the day’s mail. “They’re so organized, like an ant hill.”
Rory chuckled. “We ants live to serve the queen.”
I punched him in the arm. “Seriously, is there something I can do?”
“Pizza. It’s crunch time. Rally the troops.”
“Okay, I’ll be back in an hour with all the pizza my car can hold. Oh, and Rory, will you let me know how many eighteen wheelers it’s going to take to deliver all of this? I told the trucking company I’d call tomorrow to reserve them. When Theron calls, I want to have everything ready to roll.”
“We’ll be ready,” Rory said confidently.
We were still way short of the total number, but whatever we had, we would deliver to Aphrodite on time. I called two pizza parlors and ordered ten pizzas at each, I grabbed my keys and pulled on my coat. “Anyone seen Aaron?”
Rory, who was carrying a stack of magazines to the sorting table, grunted, but the girl at his shoulder smiled. “He disappeared a couple of hours ago. Said he had errands to run.”
Her comment was funnier than she knew. Aeas kept his power to veil a secret. The volunteers believed he was just like the rest of us, only drop-dead gorgeous, unbelievably coordinated on a skateboard and downright mature for a fifteen-year-old. Several girls were openly smitten with Aeas, who went by Aaron among mortals. Most likely he was still around, but he’d stepped around a corner and hidden himself.
“Well, I’m going to pick up dinner, so everyone be hungry when I get back.”
There was a general murmur of approval as I hopped off the loading dock and turned the corner to the parking lot. No one but me saw the passenger door open and close on its own.
As soon as I started the engine, Aeas appeared beside me. “You were looking for me?”
“I didn’t want to haul all this pizza to the car myself.”
His nod was slight and habitual. Servitude was ingrained in him.
I took great pains not to take advantage of him. He wasn’t my servant. “If you ride shotgun, you get the first piece.”
His voice seldom showed any hint of emotion. “That’s a fair deal.”
One step into the pizza parlor and my stomach was rumbling like a freight train. Had I eaten at all today? I couldn’t remember. Until now nothing smelled good, but I knew I’d be lucky to down one slice of pizza before my body rebelled. Aeas was right about the effects of the dust. I couldn’t eat or sleep normally. Against my will I was wasting away.
With ten pizzas stowed in the back seat and the aroma making me salivate, we drove to the other shop, which had our order ready. I paid, and as I carried half the boxes to the car, my cell phone beeped the receipt of a
text message.
“What’s on top in your stack?” I asked.
Aeas lifted the lid. “Looks like pepperoni and olives. What about yours?”
“Sausage and mushrooms.”
“I’ll take one of those,” he said as we stowed the boxes on top of the others.
I took one for myself, too. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I checked the text. The number was local, but unfamiliar. The message was a series of numbers. “What is this?” I showed the text to Aeas.
“Coordinates? Possibly your delivery point.”
In reply I messaged: Theron? Call to confirm delivery point.
I pressed send and started the ignition. I really didn’t want to hear his voice again. Just as we pulled into the warehouse parking lot, the phone rang. It was the same number. Slowly, I brought the phone to my ear.
“How’s your hand?”
It felt like a cold hand gripped my spine. Theron was the most evil person I’d ever encountered, and his beauty only made him worse.
“I got the coordinates. Is there a street address, or would you like me to dump three million magazines on the roof?”
He chuckled. “The loading docks are on the south end. How will you be delivering?”
I had no idea where the location was, so I wouldn’t commit to anything. It was an island for all I knew. “I’ll get back to you. You’ll be at this number?”
“I will.” I heard the smile in his voice. “If every ad is not accounted for, I will personally let you know.”
Aeas snatched the phone from my hand and disconnected the call. “The less you talk to him, the better,” he said. “You must not let him threaten you.” He tossed the phone into my lap and unloaded the pizza boxes.
I lagged behind toting the few boxes Aeas left in the car. I went straight to Rory, handed him the boxes and said, “Grab your laptop. We have the delivery point, and I need you to Google it.”
A brush of excitement ran through his eyes. “When?”
“The text came while we were in the car.”
He handed off all but one box then steered me toward an empty table away from the volunteers. There we powered up the laptop and typed in the coordinates. The delivery point was on the coast in New Jersey. When we brought up the satellite photos, we were able to pinpoint one warehouse in a long row near the docks.
“So, we deliver by truck?” I asked.
“Sure, if we have time,” Rory said.
Aeas appeared at my shoulder munching another slice of pizza. “However you deliver, it has to be done swiftly and securely. This is Theron we’re dealing with. He may sabotage the delivery.”
“You should go with the shipment,” I told him. “You can see Theron and his men when they’re veiled. Plus, Rory and I have parents and school to deal with.”
Aeas nodded. “Tell the trucking company we’ll provide our own drivers.”
“Will they do that?”
“They should,” Aeas replied. “And I have people I can count on.”
Over the next hour we finalized the trucking route and the shipment date. Aeas disappeared to arrange drivers.
I turned to Rory. Helplessness made me fidgety again. “So, between now and then, all we can do is wait and hope another three hundred thousand magazines show up.”
“I’ll send another email to the fan sites. Then, yeah, all we can do is wait.”
Two days before the contest deadline, we were still two-hundred forty thousand magazines short, and Theron had not called again. The fleet of trucks was lined up outside the warehouse, all loaded and locked except the last two, which needed to be filled if I was to complete the task.
When the day’s mail arrived, Rory’s team jumped up ready to attack, but it was obvious there wasn’t enough. The mail truck delivered ten bags, not even half a truckload.
Aeas appeared beside me. “Are you okay?” He had been sitting there for half an hour, but only now unveiled. He was strange that way. Maybe it was more habit than anything.
“Fine.” I gnawed one fingernail down to the quick. I wasn’t okay. I was spiraling into depression and dread. Theron said he would personally let me know if I’d failed. I knew what that meant.
Aeas had rented an apartment near the high school, and for awhile he stayed there every night, but as the deadline drew nearer, he seemed to be lingering. He claimed it was because he didn’t trust Theron, but I wondered if it had more to do with the fact that my jeans would have slipped right off my hips if I hadn’t stolen one of Rory’s belts. My face was more angled than usual, and my arms were all sharp edges. I lived in a state of chronic fatigue and had become a caffeine addict, which only worsened the cycle. All this I knew, but my body was having its own rebellion, thanks to the dust, and my mind was unable to conquer it. And unwilling, too. When I looked in the mirror, I saw what I’d lost, not just Eros’s love, but myself with it.
I think Aeas sensed I was slipping, losing the will to fight, and he was keeping a closer eye on me. I doubted it was for me as much as loyalty to his best friend.
Rory started to close the dock door, but from outside came the distinct honk of a truck. He paused. I figured the mailman found another bag. Rory stood with his hands on his hips and peered into the dark. Two tractor-trailers pulled into the warehouse parking lot. The first swung around and backed up to the dock.
“What’s going on?” I hopped off a stack of pallets and joined Rory at the dock.
“No idea,” Rory replied. He motioned the driver back until the trailer was inches from the dock.
The air-brakes hissed, and the driver opened the door. “Had trouble finding you,” he said. He hopped out with a clipboard in his hand. “Who wants to sign for the delivery?” After I signed, he handed me a copy of the delivery slip. Then the driver unlocked the trailer and opened the doors.
I grabbed Aeas’s shoulder in excitement. The trailer was full of pallets of magazines. Unlike the magazines coming out of our warehouse with tattered edges and dog-eared pages, the magazines on this truck had never seen a newsstand. Their vibrant covers lay flat and clean beneath the plastic wrappings.
I pressed my finger through the plastic and tore it enough to pull out a single magazine. It wasn’t the September issue of Cosmopolitan. It was the November issue of Italian Vogue. I fanned the pages frantically, but the Venus ad wasn’t hard to find. It was right at the center and a stiff subscription card made the magazine naturally fall open to that page.
As the pallets were unloaded, the driver set a large box at my feet. It was too heavy for me to lift. I knelt down and opened it. Inside were three hundred thousand honey-colored cards, professionally printed with embossed black ink. One card for every magazine in the two trucks.
A stranger named Tyson Ewing just saved my life.
The following morning Aeas shook me awake in the dark. “Your dad just left. Let’s go.”
He drove, because I was too groggy to get us safely to the warehouse before six a.m. Rory and the drivers were already there. The trucks were locked, and though they had been guarded all night, we checked them again. The magazines were stacked and packaged the way we left them.
“Call me eight times a day,” I told Aeas.
He nodded amiably. “You can trust me, Psyche. I won’t fail you.” He climbed into the lead truck riding shotgun and took the radio into his hands. A moment later the trucks shifted into gear and rumbled toward the street forming a line.
Rory and I watched them until they turned the corner and the cloud of diesel exhaust cleared from the air. The next few days were sheer torture. Rory and I went to school like nothing changed. I copied notes and worked on an overdue lab report feeling like a caged animal ready to bash its brains against the bars.
When I got home from school on Wednesday, I found my dad unloading bags of groceries. “What’s with all the food?” I asked.
He set a heavy bag into my hands. “On Thanksgiving don’t we always make turkey, stuffing and your favorite—pumpkin pie with extra w
hipping cream?”
The task completely consumed me. I’d lost track of the days. Cursed be the dust for making me sick on one of my favorite holidays.
Because I couldn’t eat normally, I celebrated Thanksgiving the way any girl who was wasting away to skin and bones would: I ate only mashed potatoes, gravy and half a pumpkin pie. Usually, that sort of binge was nothing for me. This time, I really thought I might end up with my head over the toilet all night. By sheer will, I kept it down, and I was able to sleep a few extra hours, too.
Early Friday morning, the Lord of the Rings theme blared from my cell phone—Rory’s doing. I grabbed the phone hoping for Aeas, but I saw Theron’s number instead.
“Are you ready to admit defeat?” he asked.
“Nope.” I nudged the door closed with my foot so my dad wouldn’t overhear. “You’ll get them before the new moon.”
There was a long pause. “We will count them. You can’t trick the goddess.”
I rolled my eyes. Aphrodite really liked the whole goddess bit, even though I knew better. “You can count them. I even sent you a few extra.” I could almost hear him growing angrier. “What about the second task?”
“I’ll contact you after we count the ads.” The line went dead.
I shivered in the morning chill and got dressed. Rory picked me up half an hour later to film the contest drawing. Much as I dreaded it, it helped take my mind off the delivery.
The warehouse felt dead without the magazines and the Dragonslayers. The garbage bin overflowed with pizza boxes and empty soda bottles. The grinding rail and the couches were gone. All that was left was the kiddy pool full of cards.
Painted Blind Page 17
