by J. P. Rice
The invisible shield came to life and surrounded me like a clear drinking glass, as Hera opened her mouth. A wailing scream modulated into a menacing, high-pitched whistle. A few windows on my house blew out and the mighty oak tree swayed under the pressure, the tips of the branches tickling the gutter. Even inside my shield, the intense sound threatened to break my eardrums.
I staggered backward and dragged the sound shield that hugged the ground with me as I devised my attack. My body shook and convulsed as the haunting sounds finally came to a stop.
Hera’s devious smile returned, this time steeped in smug satisfaction. I dropped to my knees and dissolved the sound shield. I gagged and bit down hard on the inside of my lip. Salty blood quickly built up in my mouth and I let it gush out the corners, spilling down my chin and running inside the neckline of my shirt.
With Hera’s eyes focused on the bloody waterfall, I slipped my right hand behind my back. I conjured up a knife, and when I felt the handle in my palm, I cast a quick spell to inject ancient enchantment into the blade. Most of the Gods had body protection spells set around them and a normal blade would bounce right off as if she were wearing armor. I hoped my spell would be strong enough to break through.
Hera stalked over to me with a shit-eating grin pasted onto her ugly mug. With my eyes intentionally crossed, I kept spitting out blood and hoped my acting skills were better than that of the client on the cruise ship. Hera hovered over me and drew back her arm. She unleashed a quick right jab that connected just below my left eye. My head snapped back in reaction and I squeezed the knife harder, so I wouldn’t drop it.
Hera laughed. “All that tough talk and I killed you with my lovely singing voice. Just gotta know the right tunes,” she mocked, snapping her fingers and bobbing her head. “I’d say you probably have about an hour until your feeble brain explodes or your shaken organs shut down. And in the meantime, I’m going to drag you inside your house and torture you like you did to all those you stole magic from.”
I was going to enjoy this now. She leaned in and grabbed the mop of red hair on top of my head. My hand sprang from behind my back and slashed horizontally, across her midsection. I hadn’t much time to set the spell, so I suspected the knife would barely break through her protection and just scrape Hera, hopefully chasing her away. If I killed her, my days would be numbered.
The glowing milk-glass blade of the knife ripped through her protection spell, shredded her burgundy dress and didn’t stop. The unforgiving edge of the blade sliced through layers of flesh, biting deep and hard. Boiling hot, slick blood poured onto my hand, covering my fingers instantly and causing me to drop the knife. A sick feeling ran through me as I watched her viscera spill out of the gushing red sea.
Her hands raced down to catch her innards and stuff them back inside the enormous gash. She pinched both sides of the wound together and slumped away, leaving a trail of blood. She dragged her right foot as she continued down the sidewalk, away from my house.
Oh, fook me with a witch’s broomstick. That was the problem with my magic. I couldn’t fully harness it, and breaking a God’s protection spell took some serious freaking power. My strength and cunning had pleased me, yet I felt terrified for my safety. Hera had come after me, attacked me at my home, and I was simply defending myself. It wasn’t my fault I’d outwitted the Goddess.
If Hera could make it to Mount Olympus, she would run to Zeus and force him to send a hit squad after me. I’d slapped Zeus and gotten into it verbally with a few other Gods, but nothing close to what I’d done now.
I was the hunted with her acting as the predator, but that wouldn’t be what she told Zeus. I was certain her version of the story would have the Big Bad Junipher foaming at the mouth, fangs out and charging after her. And Wittle Misses Innocent was just trying to defend herself from my savage attack.
Best case scenario would be if Hera healed herself or found a doctor quickly. If she blamed me, I planned to deny, deny, deny. Nobody had witnessed the brawl, and I wasn’t about to put up any billboards. Hera’s jealousy and track record for misidentified mistresses boded well for me. But really, it was all up to Zeus—the man with a hundred thousand immortal warriors ready to die for him—to decide my fate. I could see him doing it just to get Hera to stop nagging him about the subject.
I’d slapped him upside the head at our last encounter, which could come back to haunt me. My right hand was shaking out of control and my heart wouldn’t slow down. I had to put aside the traumatic experience and get to my friend Owen’s house.
But I couldn’t move. Frozen in panic. The impact of what I had done kept hitting me in waves. I could have just signed my own death certificate. My nervous foot finally moved. I unglued the sole of my shoe from the pavement and started heading toward my house.
First, I needed to patch up the windows and clean myself up. I had to look presentable to coax Owen into traveling to Seattle with me. My feline friend had never let me down before, but I also hadn’t seen him in over thirty years.
Chapter 11
A thundering echo boomed, and a hail of bullets screamed through the air. Every lead alloy projectile flew past its intended target, across the snow-covered yard and sailed into the woods behind Owen’s house.
I pulled my fingers out of my ears and sat back on the lawn chair on his back patio.
My dear friend Owen Masterclaw walked upright on two legs. The hybrid cat and sidhe (not to be confused with cat sidhe or cat sith) grabbed his pipe off the table and searched around for his Zippo that I could see next to his touch screen. He checked his pockets, tapping his chest and hips before getting frustrated. I let him go for a few moments and he finally spotted the silver Zippo, snatching it up.
He sparked the lighter and lit his pipe, the cherry tobacco smoke dancing around his haunting yellow eyes. Owen was a British shorthair with a midnight charcoal coat and a few random snowy spots. He had white fur around his mouth, eyes and on the inside of his ears, which stood up on the top of his head.
He wore a three-piece suit, always a black coat and pants with a white dress shirt and a gold tie like a fashionable Pittsburgher. An unbuttoned plaid trench coat with the collar up completed his Sherlock Holmes look. The only thing missing was the hat.
I continued our conversation. “I still think he should have killed Bucky. And he should have smacked Cap around more.”
Owen tapped his touch screen, adjusting the sights on his special guns. He spoke in his English accent, “Come now. Tony got all defensive, complaining that Steve didn’t deserve the shield because his father had crafted it. Also, I have a feeling Bucky has a huge upcoming role to play.”
I sipped my drink to chase away the flavor from the chili burps I’d been having since my brawl with Hera. “I know that too, even though I haven’t seen the last few, so no spoilers. But they could have let Iron Man kill him and then bring him back somehow.”
He stared at his touch screen and chased some smoke away from his eyes. “Eh. I know you love your Iron Man there, Team Stark, but it would cheapen the other deaths. You could never trust the deaths if people just kept coming back.”
“Well, whose team are you on?” I asked, swirling my Sazerac in my right hand. It was nice to have conversations like this with an old friend on a warm winter day.
Owen looked up with a goofy grin on his face. “I like everyone, but I rather prefer Ant Man.”
“Really? I was positive you’d say Dr. Strange.”
“It would appear that I’ve fooled you. Are you certain you don’t require ice for that eye?” he asked, pointing to my left eye with his pipe. “It’s really starting to puff up.”
I realized how lucky I was to escape my brawl with Hera with only a black eye, some marks on my neck and a fat lip. But how long would that luck last?
“No thanks. If I could just get the Morrigan to settle down, I’d be all right,” I said. I’d lied to Owen and told him that the Morrigan had given me the black eye in an impromptu wrestling m
atch. Nobody needed to know about Hera, not even a reliable old friend who probably wouldn’t tell anyone.
In fact, it was time to get off the subject. “So, Ant Man, huh?”
“Dr. Strange is an interesting chap as well. And, of course, my cousin, Black Panther.” He smirked as he held his finger over the screen and nodded, signaling for me to cover my ears.
As I set my drink down again, I looked at the row of fourteen lifelike cats, all different breeds and colors. The realistic looking cats were facing the targets across the yard, about a hundred feet away. The cats yawned in unison, and in a sudden burst, bullets streamed out of their open mouths, jolting the robotic felines backward. This round peppered the targets, quickly wearing out the red bull’s eyes in the centers.
A proud smile formed on Owen’s face as he nodded confidently. “Cheerio,” he said in celebration, pronouncing each syllable slowly. “That should do it.” He typed into his touch screen to lock in the sights and put his pipe back into his mouth.
My friend had been coming up with cat-themed creations ever since I’d met him over seventy years ago. He had originally called these beauties Catlashnikovs, but changed the name to A-Cat 47s, still paying homage to the Russian inventor.
He exhaled a lazy fog of smoke that momentarily hid his face. “Now that is taken care of, we can move onto the Cat Cams.” He spoke with a soft-toned English accent although he wasn’t English. He’d told me in confidence that he’d originally used the accent to sound more intelligent and sexier to women.
Silly me. I’d assumed it was because he was a British Shorthair. After some time, the accent had become ingrained in him and he’d been using it ever since. He didn’t use a specific regional dialect, more of a generic amalgamation, using random words and phrases from all over England.
Owen sat down in the chair across from me and hit his pipe, blowing a few smoke rings toward me. “Who have you seen so far?”
I swirled my drink in my hand and enjoyed the pleasing aroma of the cherry tobacco. “The agency, my father, Jonathan, Octavius and Tyr mainly.”
His eyes widened, and he removed the pipe from his mouth. “Tyr, eh? Was he swinging from Loki’s perfectly sheared testicles, clasping onto the teat by which he sups, by chance?”
I smirked. It appeared Owen was still full of strangely worded put-downs. Trash talking was not his forte. His proper manner of speaking only amplified the hilarity. I had tried to drop Tyr’s name in there toward the end, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
Many years ago, I’d made the mistake of telling Owen about my feelings for Tyr. Owen had become insanely jealous, almost ending our friendship over the matter. He’d called me a filthy barnyard whore chasing after the seed of worthless Gods, and many other oddly constructed insults.
It had taken us years to repair the relationship, but I was glad we had. However, Owen still hated Tyr because of it and always talked shit about the former God of War.
I said, “No. He told me he barely even talks to Loki anymore.”
Owen shook his head and blew a big cloud into the chilly air. “That’s quite a load of donkey feces he’s selling you. Hope you got a good price. I’ve heard the exact opposite and I’ve been around town for the past thirty years. When buying a car, Junipher, the last person you want to listen to...is the person selling you the car. He’s taking you for a ride in a lemon that will eventually break down and cost you. Only telling you because I care.”
I wouldn’t mind Tyr taking me for a ride. Wait, what? I got my mind out of the gutter and brushed it off as nothing more than Owen’s jealousy. He’d heard many things about Tyr over the years that had always turned out to be false. Why did men always want more than just friendship?
I tried to change the subject. “How many you got left now?”
Owen held two tiny fingers in the air and wiggled them, knowing he didn’t need to say anything. I understood. Owen had nine lives to use up before he ultimately died. His signal told me he’d already used seven of them.
“Wow. You must have had some crazy adventures over the past three decades.” He’d had four lives left when I’d last seen him.
He tapped out the pipe into his palm and threw a handful of ash and burnt tobacco into the yard. “That’s why I’m trying to get all these beauties up and running so I can just cheer from the sidelines. My days of sheer recklessness would seem to be over. How about you?”
I grinned and said, “Funny you should say that. Are you sure those days are behind you?”
Owen stuffed his pipe into the inside pocket of his trench coat. “What have you gone and done now?”
I took a gulp of my drink to give me some nerve to ask the direct question. “I received a tip about something and I was wondering if you wanted to come along. It will give us a great chance to catch up on everything.”
Owen rolled his eyes and looked away. “Considering I was the last person you came to see when you returned, are you sure you want to take me with?”
Owen was still a drama queen it seemed. “Stop with that. I already told you what happened. I had to track you down, unlike the others. I’m just glad you still live here.”
“What’s the job, my lovely Junipher?” he asked as he stood up and walked over to one of the A-Cat 47s.
I grabbed my drink, got up and followed him out onto his lawn. “I need to go to Seattle. My father told me that Arawn and Maeve have set up shop out there and they have Lugh’s Spear. Not only that, but they are cloning armies of cross-breeds from the worlds of Fae. Unchecked and with the spear in their possession, they present a formidable force.”
“And this is all hearsay that you need to check out for yourself?” he asked as he inspected the face of a Savannah cat, assessing any structural damage from the shoot.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Exactly. I figured taking someone along couldn’t hurt. But I’d understand if you wanted to sit this one out too.”
“Let me have a think while we check out the Cat Cams.” He pointed, and said, “I think you’ll like this one.”
Owen led me over to a shed near his patio and opened the double doors. Shelves of lifelike felines filled the shed and Owen grabbed a snowy Persian cat. He opened a small panel on the body and pressed a red button. He closed it back up and set it down on the ground. He picked up a remote control from the shelf where the cat had been sitting and closed the shed.
“Our Cat Cams are controlled remotely and can be placed anywhere we like,” he announced proudly.
Owen pointed toward the back patio and we walked over. The Persian cat followed us, and its movements were natural. The spry machine jumped up the steps to his patio and sashayed over to a sliding glass door. I peered inside at Owen’s business partner seated at his kitchen table.
Oddly enough, his partner in the cat accessory business was a pit bull shifter. Roald Von Claus was in human form talking on his cellphone.
The Persian cat got close to the sliding door and Roald’s voice came through the remote.
“He’s a good guy though. So who cares if he smells like mothballs?”
Owen laughed and shut off the remote control. “Oh, heavens. I wonder who he’s speaking of.”
Oh, you poor thing. He didn’t know Roald was talking about him. I’d always assumed Owen had forgotten to take the mothballs out of his jacket when he took it out of the closet.
He picked up the Persian and held it up facing me. “These babies are selling like hotcakes right now. The fact that they can record sound through glass has them flying off the shelves.”
“How much does one of those things run?” I asked and finished my drink.
“Due to some advanced features, I charge ten thousand apiece,” he said and looked away smiling.
I nodded. “Not too shabby.”
Owen turned back to me and shrugged his shoulders. “Not at all. Our last order was for fifty of them and just shipped a few days ago.”
I did some quick math in my head. “Half a mil?”
“That’s right. I could provide us a comfortable living, you know.” He winked and took my empty glass.
I knew it was a joke, but I had my own money. “I’m good on that, thanks. So what do you say about the trip to Seattle?”
I didn’t have a backup plan in mind if he said no. Owen and Tyr were probably my only true friends in Pittsburgh. Of course, my only two friends hated each other. I wouldn’t drag Tyr into something he didn’t want to be a part of. I commended the former God’s ability to walk away from the hunt. I wished I had his fortitude.
Instead, I was planning a trip that could change my life forever. I waited with bated breath for Owen’s answer.
Chapter 12
As I strolled down the street, I stopped in my tracks when someone who looked exactly like Thor walked past. I turned around and sized him up as I followed him. He was the right height and build with cascading golden hair trailing down to the small of his back.
The wild orange Viking beard hanging to his belly was the dead giveaway though. Although it was longer than he’d normally worn it, I’d never seen another man with that unique combination.
Dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a plain white T-shirt covered in stains, he was drinking from a 40 Ounce of Olde English, partially obscured by a wrinkled brown paper bag. The frosty chill in the air didn’t seem to affect him one bit.
I tried an old trick, and called out, “Thor.”
I looked away but kept watch out of my peripheral to see if he stopped. The man didn’t deviate from his staggering walk and hooked a right into an alley. He stopped near a dumpster and chugged the rest of his malt liquor. The vicious crosswinds of the dumpster funk and a rotten stench coming from the sewer made for a formidable combination.
I leaned down and pretended I was getting a rock out of my shoe. The man who looked like the God of Thunder belched loudly and tossed the bottle and bag into the receptacle, shattering the glass.
