A Season of Gods and Witches

by Bloome, Alice

  My lips moved to whisper the chant under my breath, my fingers drawing the corresponding symbol in the air.

  Below me, Caren had reached the last step of the spiral staircase, but just as her feet touched the ground, a broom flew past her to shoot all the way up to where I was waiting.

  Good boy.

  Hopping onto the broom in a straddling position, I pointed its head towards Caren, who was already halfway to the parking lot. My jaw clenched as I worked hard to maintain my connection to the broom and communicate my next order.

  After her!

  If not for my fingers instinctively tightening around the handle, I would’ve fallen to my death at the speed in which the broom raced to my command. It was a terrifying thought, but there wasn’t even time for me to catch my breath. Caren had finally found an unlocked car, and when I saw her start to get in, I jumped off my broom without hesitation.

  Caren screamed as my weight fell over her from behind, causing her to drop to the ground.

  “You are under—-”

  The former queen threw me off her with a shriek of rage, and pain tore into me as my back hit the edge of the opened car door. She started to scramble to her feet, but this time there was nowhere to go.

  Troy captured her wrists with just one hand and forced Caren to her feet after securing them behind her back. She howled and fought like mad against Troy’s hold, but Troy’s grip didn’t even ease an inch.

  Philip helped me up, asking grimly, “Are you okay, thea?”

  “I’m fine.” My back hurt like heck, but I was alive, and that was all that mattered. “You guys came in time. Thank you.”

  When I came to stand in front of Caren, the former queen’s face was one of defeat. “You know everything, don’t you?”

  “About the stolen items being the key to the harpies’ throne?”

  “So you do then.” Her head hung low. “I will sign anything you want, I will not play any tricks – just please save my daughter.”

  Her daughter?

  “She promised me she wouldn’t push through with it. I told her this could only end with her death. But she didn’t listen. She just lied.” Her pained gaze sought my mine in mute appeal. “Please, you must stop her before it’s too late.”

  My heart went cold at the words. “What did you make her do, Caren?”

  “What do you mean what did I – oh, you think I am behind this?” A hysterical laugh spilled past her lips. “If only, oh, if only...”

  Confusion yielded to shock. “Are you saying it’s your daughter who’s behind this?”

  “She’s young. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s deluded herself into thinking that taking possession of the first three pieces make it her destiny to reclaim her birthright and be a queen.”

  A vague memory of Caren’s daughter flashed in my mind – a pale shadow of her mother, someone I had foolishly paid little attention to because she appeared normal.

  My phone started to ring, and I pulled it out of my pocket. “It’s Lana,” I heard myself say. “She must be calling about the BOLO we issued for you – they must have found your car.”

  “Then she has my daughter?” Caren’s voice was sharp with worry.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Seeing that I was about to answer the call, the former queen spoke in a frantic rush. “Please just get her to stop. The harpies will tear her limb from limb if they find out what she’s after.”

  One swipe on the screen to answer the call, and Lana’s voice came through the line. “Highway patrol found the car of your person of interest, but I’m afraid there’s a complication.”

  “What kind of complication?” I tried to keep my face blank as I asked the question, but it was no use, with Caren crying out at the words.

  “It’s been abandoned. We think the suspect’s gone into hiding, possibly in Sine Nomine.”

  Sine Nomine was the name of a nearby forest, and with such hostile features that they had remained uninhabited in the past two centuries.

  “They’re searching for her as we speak, but since they’re all humans...”

  They might as well as be searching for a needle in a haystack, I thought, since the forest was protected by both nature and magic.

  “If you want someone from our kind to take care of this, I’m afraid it has to be you,” Lana warned. “All agencies are still severely understaffed – no one’s going to take this case once they read the fine print of our BOLO.”

  “I understand.” After thanking Lana for her help, I reluctantly turned to Caren, saying, “Your daughter’s on her way to Sine Nomine.”

  Caren seemed to wilt before my eyes. “N-no. Gaea bewitched, but it can’t be. No. No. No.” She became hysterical in an instant, requiring both Troy and Philip to restrain her, and it was exactly the distraction I needed.

  Bending down, I picked up my broom from the ground and threw one leg over it.

  Let’s go, boy.

  Once again, only my tight hold on the handle kept me from falling me to my death as the broom shot up into the air. The sound of Philip and Troy yelling made me wince, but I knew I had no choice.

  There were too many lives at stake. I had to do something, or at least try.

  Chapter Thirteen

  From above, Sine Nomine looked like an adorable mass of fluffy green clouds, but I knew better than to lower my guard. This forest was home to the world’s most poisonous plants and most venomous creatures. The best way to survive in Sine Nomine was to keep your feet off the ground or walk in air – and now that I thought of it, those were probably the very reasons why one certain harpy had chosen Sine Nomine as his resting place.

  Podagre retreated into an unnamed cave and submitted himself to the care of Sleep.

  With this, the Fates’ prophecy had begun.

  The Latin words Sine Nomine translated to ‘unsung’ or ‘unnamed’, and it was clever of Caren’s daughter to have figured out the riddle behind Podagre’s resting place. I just wished she were also clever enough to realize that the path to the throne could never be as easy as, say, a game character collecting coins to make it to the next level.

  In the world we lived in, we only had two levels to choose from: life and death, and the Fates had long ceased to grant extra lives to mortal players like us.

  Traversing Sine Nomine while balancing myself on a broom proved to be a death-defying act, and I found myself bending and contorting my body in a thousand different ways to avoid slamming into violently swaying trees and keeping myself out of the snapping jaws of aerobatic serpents. It was as if we were all auditioning for the circus here, and with Hades, our ringmaster, simply waiting to welcome the newest acts to the underworld.

  It also didn’t help that every few minutes or so, my phone would throw a fit inside my pocket, almost as if it was replicating the caller’s mood. It was Paul, of course, and I had ceased reading his messages after the first few ones.

  Paul: Please answer the phone before I end up wringing your neck.

  Paul: Tell me where you are or I swear by Cronos’ name I will kiss you in front of everyone at Hermes’ ball.

  Paul: Switch off your broom’s stealth mode or you will find me doing a TV interview for Iris, and I will be talking about our romantic relationship for an entire hour.

  All bad for my heart, and more likely to get myself killed in action if I let myself think too much about –

  Aha!

  A clamor of harpies was flying up ahead, and I raced after them until I was just a few meters behind. While I was sure my broom’s stealth shield wouldn’t fail me, I also knew there was a possibility that this set of harpies might have the ability of sniffing my scent.

  These harpies were so much larger than Marlee and the others, their features strong and almost hawkish, and their bodies built like Amazons. More harpy than human definitely, I thought with a gulp, which meant that their senses could be so much better than most of their kind.

  The harpies started to swoop do
wn one by one, landing at the edge of a plateau that was bordered by a ravine on one side and a colossal cave on another. Its entrance was heavily guarded, with harpies wearing honest-to-goodness armor that I was pretty sure one either had to steal from a Games of Thrones set – or order straight from one of Hephaestus’ authorized resellers.

  I anxiously scanned my surroundings, wondering what I could possibly do to get past the harpies’ tight security. A distraction wouldn’t work in this scenario. There were too many of them, and there was just one of me. I needed something else, something that would let me fly past them completely undetected –

  Gotcha!

  A beehive, just a few feet away from the entrance of the cave, caught my eye, and I whipped my wand out, took aim, and fired. The beehive exploded into countless sticky, fleshy pieces, and the sweet distinct smell of honey filled the air just as the harpies guarding the entrance started to yell.

  Pandemonium ensued as bees and harpies fought against each other, and I mentally apologized to both species as I flew past them and straight into the cave. Sorry, guys, it’s nothing personal, I just need to do my job.

  The silence inside the unnamed cave was tomb-like, the air almost icy cold. The torches nailed to the cave walls seemed only for show, with their flickering flames barely able to show the way. The slippery, uneven stone steps leading all the way down to the heart of the cave were also of the same ilk, too steep and precarious for any creature walking on two or four legs. Only a brainless fool would think they were actually passable – that, or someone desperate enough to get to the throne.

  “Aaaaaaaaah ooooooooh!”

  My heart stopped beating when I heard what seemed like a battle cry rise from the distance. Cronos save us, but please let me not be too late.

  The entrance to the cave’s inner chamber was narrow and crowded – there was no way I could fly past them without bumping into one or two harpies. Left with no choice, I slowly stretched my legs parallel to the handle all the while struggling to keep my balance. After, I carefully bent down as if reaching for my toes – and then off we went again, flying over the harpies’ heads while I fought hard to keep my legs from falling and hitting their faces.

  Any second now...

  Any second now...

  And done!

  The broom shot out of the entranceway, and I let out a sigh of relief as I let my legs fall and slowly pushed myself upright. I glanced up to see where I was –

  Oh...no.

  My head smacked right into a stalactite, and I tumbled off my broom. Cries of shock rose from the crowd of the harpies below, and I realized too late that the stealth shield apparently didn’t extend itself to passengers too stupid to hang on to their brooms.

  Oops.

  And then I was falling.

  No, wait, I had to be realistic.

  I was dying.

  I was falling to my death, I was about to cross over to Hades’ domain, and brooms and sticks, I had no coins to pay for a ride on Charon’s boat.

  Would it help if I told him I was dating – oh Gaea bewitched, what about Paul?

  Could a long-distance relationship work between us, with him above ground and me buried more than six feet –

  “Just in time,” a familiar and extremely dry-sounding voice murmured as I landed into a strong pair of arms.

  My eyes flew open. “P-Paul?” Gaea bewitched, but it really was him! And I was – NOT DEAD! I was ALIVE!

  “Breathe, sweetheart.”

  “I’m t-trying.”

  Gorgeous and well dressed as always, the truth god appeared as if he had simply stepped out of a private jet to pay his respects to the harpies’ most sacred burial place. And here I was, dirty, disheveled, and sweating a thousand times more than the average witch!

  “How – what – I can’t believe...”

  “Since you obviously didn’t want me along for the ride, I thought I would wait for you at your destination instead.”

  “Y-You—-” The last thirty minutes flashed rapidly in my mind. Chasing after Caren, escaping Troy and Philip, performing on-the-spot acrobatics to avoid Sine Nomine’s death traps, and most recently, my terror-filled, seppuku-inspired mission as I flew into a cave filled with possibly hostile harpies –

  I looked over Paul’s shoulder, and lo and behold, it was Podagre himself / herself standing behind the truth god, and the full-blooded harpy was smiling.

  “The former nymph queen’s daughter is also safe and sound,” Paul murmured under his breath, “if that is what you’re thinking.”

  Oh, cast me!

  Looking back at Paul, I said stiffly, “Let me down, please.” As soon as the truth god lowered me to my feet, I crossed my arms over my chest and said politely, “Go on.”

  He raised a brow.

  “I give you full permission to brag and say stuff like ‘I told you so.’ It’s obvious that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? If I had simply asked for your help instead of letting my pride and need for independence win, there would’ve been no need for me to risk my head in Suicide Forest version 2.0—-”

  “Sine Nomine,” Podagre corrected.

  I poked my head past Paul’s broad-shouldered frame to give the royal harpy a polite smile. “With all due respect, Your Harpy-ness—-”

  Paul choked, and so did most other harpies.

  “If you knew what I had to go through just to get here, you’ll say the same thing. This is definitely Suicide Forest 2.0, and—-” I clamped my mouth shut, realizing too late that shock – and possibly just a bit of trauma – had reduced me into having an emotional outburst.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in a small voice. “I think I’m still in shock.”

  Paul pulled me close, and just this once I let myself draw from the strength of his embrace, closing my eyes as I laid my head against his chest. I breathed his scent in, and tension further loosened its hold from my body.

  Vaguely, I heard Paul and Podagre talk, but since it was in Ancient Greek, I didn’t even bother listening. I could get him to translate everything for me later on, anyway.

  “Can you walk,” the truth god asked after a few minutes, “or do I carry—-”

  I sprang away from him – too fast, actually, that the world around me spun for a moment, and I felt myself swaying, too.

  Paul’s gaze narrowed. “Blair?”

  “I’m okay,” I said quickly and placed my hand in his.

  “Let us see each other again when you are feeling better,” Podagre said kindly. “We have much to talk about.”

  “Yes, Your Har—-” I heard Paul cough. “I mean, yes, umm, sir? Ma’am?”

  Podagre chuckled. “You are indeed a funny little thing.”

  I could only smile back, unable to decide at that moment whether being a funny little thing was a compliment or not.

  Harpies bowed as Paul and I walked past them, and I had to fight against the urge to do the same thing.

  As if sensing my inner turmoil, Paul glanced down at me, asking, “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m just thinking about what Podagre said. Does he want to talk to me again because he thinks I’m Kris’ arresting officer?”

  “Not quite.”

  My gaze narrowed. “Whenever you’re hedging like that, it’s usually because you don’t want to lie to me.”

  “How well you know me, sweetheart. This bodes well for our future, do you not think?”

  My stupid toes curled at the look in his hazel eyes. “Yes, it does, but—-” I pursed my lips. “It’s not going to work. What are you keeping from me?”

  “Patience, Blair.”

  I made a face. I knew I was acting like a child, but I really hated it every time he spoke to me like a god would address a lowly mortal.

  When we emerged out of the cave, a harpy standing on guard by the entrance held out his hand.

  My broom!

  “Thank you so much,” I said awkwardly as I took the broom from him.

  The harpy w
ent down on one knee and bowed her head, saying, “It is my pleasure to be of service, rejhina.”

  I swallowed back a laugh at the realization that she must’ve confused me for someone else. Oh well, whatever. I decided to let it slide, thinking it was better than to correct the harpy in public.

  Paul sat behind me on the broom, and as we shot up into the air, I simply leaned against him and let the truth god take full control of the reins. I had enough of flying, and for now, I simply wanted to enjoy the ride as a passenger.

  “Paul?”

  “Mm?”

  “Don’t you think it was funny that the harpy mistook me for royalty?” Rejhina meant ‘queen’ in English, and it was one of the few Ancient Greek words that I recognized.

  “It is funny,” Paul acknowledged, “since you will soon be a goddess.”

  I made a face. “Now that’s what’s not fun—-” Paul pulled me back to steal a kiss from behind, and the rest of what I had to say was forgotten. His kiss was harder and rougher than usual, but I loved it. After my latest of brush with death, I actually found myself needing it, with every movement of his lips affirming that I was alive, and I still had endless days to enjoy with the man I loved.

  When the kiss finally ended, I could only drew a shaky breath, and when I lifted my gaze to his, the emotion that burned in his hazel eyes made me swallow hard.

  “You were scared for me,” I realized.

  “Always,” he said gruffly. “But I also knew that if I kept insisting on helping you out, I would only be hurting both of us in the process. If I kept you from taking risks and making mistakes on your own, you might never be strong enough to keep yourself safe for me in the instances that I’m too far to help you.”

  Tears stung my eyes. “I’m sorry – I never meant to make you worry.”

  “But I always will, until you become immortal.”

  My lips parted in shock. That sounded so very much like...a proposal. Didn’t it?

  Chapter Fourteen