Dogs and Goddesses

by Jennifer Crusie

  Abby tumbled into the kitchen after Christopher. The dogs were dancing around, barking in distress. “Fire!” Bailey yelped, jumping up and down. “Fire! Fire! Go!”

  Daisy ran to open the back door and the dogs scrambled out into the courtyard, into the pounding rain, barking at them to come, too, but Abby glanced back into the coffeehouse and caught a black shadow moving toward the front door. She yelled, “Hey!” and then the shadow escaped into the street and Abby could see her face in the light from the street lamp.

  “Mina!” Abby shrieked.

  “Come on!” Christopher wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her toward the courtyard door, and she grabbed Granny’s earthenware bowl off the counter as they passed.

  Daisy was soaked in the downpour, trying to calm the dogs as the lightning cracked, but she looked up when they ran out. “I called 911. What took you so long?”

  “Mina,” Abby said.

  Daisy looked confused for a second; then her eyes narrowed. “Should have known.”

  Something crashed inside and Abby’s mind whirled. Her world, her life, was in that coffeehouse. She started toward the French doors. “I have to see what I can—”

  “You can’t go in there,” Daisy said, blocking her, and Abby shoved open the back gate and ran down the alley in her bare feet, splashing through puddles as she raced around the corner to the storefront of the coffeehouse, Christopher and Daisy following behind. When she got to the sidewalk entrance, she saw that one interior wall was engulfed in flames, the smoke billowing out, thick and black and evil, impervious to the heavy rain.

  A blue SUV skidded to a halt in the deserted street, and Shar, her beautiful white hair wet from the storm, wrenched open the door and ran to her. Sam wasn’t far behind but much calmer, and behind him, in the windows of the SUV, Abby saw what she thought were four small dogs, all barking their heads off.

  “Is everyone all right?” Shar yelled over the barking and the crackle from the fire and the roar of the thunder above. “Did you get your dogs out?”

  “They’re safe.” Abby stared at the building as smoke began to curl against the windows inside, filling the place. “How did you know … ?”

  “Umma,” Shar said. “She’d been searching for one of us all night—”

  Ziggy’s keening wail cut through the cacophony: “Gen!”

  “Where’s Gen?” Daisy said, looking around frantically.

  “Gen!” Abby lunged for the front door, but Sam was there first, breaking the glass in the door and striding into the blaze like the god he was.

  Abby tried to follow him, shielding her face from the heat as she looked at the blaze, but Shar pulled her back. “It’s all on the mural wall, all in one place,” Shar said, but all Abby could think of was Gen; how could they not have noticed that Gen—

  Sam was back a moment later with Gen in his arms. She was covered with soot, her head was bleeding, and she was trying hard not to cry.

  “I’m okay,” she choked. “Mina…”

  “She was knocked out, on the floor,” Sam said, and Gen coughed.

  Christopher touched Gen on the arm, looking furious. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry.” Gen coughed, looking at Abby. “I tried to stop her—”

  “Sweetie, no,” Abby said, trying not to cry. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “Where the fuck is the fire department?” Christopher said.

  Abby looked at Daisy and Shar, despairing. Mina had hurt Gen. Her coffeehouse was burning. She had to do something—

  And then she remembered. She was the beginning.

  The rain pounded down on them, splashing into deep puddles in the street. She closed her eyes, held out Granny B’s bowl, and gathered the water to her, dark and dirty and swirling, filling the bowl, making it glow with golden light, overflowing.…

  “Okay,” Daisy said.

  Abby opened her eyes and watched Daisy pull the water from the bowl, wrapping it around a red glowing stick that appeared in her hand—a clicky pen? Abby thought—and she spun it out into the night air, arcing it in a stream high into the sky, faster and faster as Abby filled the bowl behind her.

  Then Shar stepped forward, and a sword of blue light sprang from between her hands, and she slashed it into the water and cast it into the coffeehouse, into the flames where it spattered and ran down onto the floor, and Abby gathered it again and Daisy spun and Shar slashed, the Three moving closer to the fire, a circle of Three that hummed with power, and by the third time the water returned to Abby, there was nothing but the hiss and smell of wet, cooling wood and the crash of the thunder above them as the rain kept falling.

  They stood panting in shocked silence and stared at the blackened wall.

  “The mural’s still there,” Daisy said, and Abby went to stand next to her and saw the faces of the Three shining out from the soot and scorch marks that had crawled up the wall beneath them, and something seemed to snap within her; the tension was broken.

  “Way fucking cool,” Abby said in awed disbelief. “I mean, not the coffeehouse almost burning down, but that power! The sword and the spindle and the bowl! I’m still going to kill Mina, but still … Just amazing.”

  From a distance they could hear the fire sirens. “That’s fine, guys; we got it,” Daisy said, looking at her empty, dirty hands.

  Sam stood there, still cradling Gen in his arms, while Ziggy jumped up and down at his feet, trying to reach his mistress. “Gen!” he barked. “Gen hurt?”

  “I’m fine, sweetie,” Gen said. “You can put me down, Sam.”

  “No, he can’t; there’s broken glass all over the street.” Shar moved toward them, her hands empty now, too. “You’re going to the emergency room and we’re going with you. Let Sam hold you until the EMTs get here.”

  “You’re not going with me,” Gen said firmly. “You can’t let Kammani get away with this. Just call Bun and tell her to meet me there. And take care of Ziggy for me. He’s worried.”

  “Gen!” Ziggy barked, a little frantic.

  “I’m fine, baby. Help Bowser take care of the others for me.”

  They watched in silence as the paramedics surrounded her, and then Daisy spoke. “Okay, Mina’s crazy, but what the hell? Why would she try to burn down a coffeehouse?” She walked over to the doorway and peered through the broken window, and Shar and Abby joined her as the fire trucks pulled up in front.

  “Not a coffeehouse, a temple,” Shar said, staring at the burned mural. “That’s what Kammani sees. A threat to her power. All the damage is to the wall, to our version of the bas-relief.” She set her jaw. “I’m repainting that in the morning.”

  Abby looked around her as Sam went over to meet the firefighters, to tell them god knew what. “You know, it isn’t so bad. If the dogs hadn’t called the alarm, it might have been far worse. We can fix this.” She looked at Christopher, standing a little apart from them, with the look of disbelief on his face, and for a moment she panicked. He’d seen her use her power; it was too much; he was going to leave; he was going to turn his back…

  He had a blank look on his face, the kind he had when he was working on an equation. And then he blinked, shook his head, and managed a crooked smile, and all she wanted to do was lean against him, letting the fear and anger wash away.

  “Let’s get out of the way,” Shar said, pulling them back as the firefighters swarmed past them. “They need to make sure the fire is out.”

  “Where can we go?” Daisy said, sounding lost for the first time since Abby had known her. She looked like a drowned rat—the rain had soaked her hair, flattening it against her skull, and she looked miserable.

  “Out of the rain,” Shar said. “Into the kitchen. Because we need to talk.”

  “Talk?” Abby said. “We need to take that bitch down. And her little arsonist with her.”

  “We need a plan,” Daisy said, a spark of her old life coming back.

  Shar shoved her sopping hair away from her wet face. “Good.
A short plan. And then we go get her.”

  “Sonofabitch must pay,” Milton growled. And they headed in out of the rain.

  Daisy held back a little, letting everyone else head on down the street to the alley while she stood in the rain and looked at the smoking wreckage that was the front of Dogs and Goddesses. She wanted to burn the image into her brain, so that when they banished Kammani’s ass she wouldn’t waste any time feeling bad about it.

  That wench was going down.

  “Daisy?”

  She turned around and there was Noah, drenched to the skin in his T-shirt and jeans, stomping toward her through the rain. Her spirits lifted, just at the sight of him.

  Not the time, she thought, and stole another glance at the coffeehouse.

  “Are you okay?” Noah asked when he reached her. “I heard sirens and I thought…” He glanced at the smoking coffeehouse, then looked at her. “You’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Daisy said. “Come on.”

  She led him down the street to the alley, then through the courtyard and finally to the kitchen, where Sam, Shar, Christopher, and Abby stood huddled by the counter as firemen kicked through the wreckage in the dining room. The dogs milled about, too wired to stand still.

  “All right,” Daisy said, walking over to them. “It’s time we ended this.”

  “Past time,” Shar said. “Umma says Kammani has a new plan. A flood. If she brings the river up enough to flood Summerville, a lot of people are going to die.” She glanced at Sam, who looked equally grim. “We have to stop her tonight.”

  “We can.” Daisy looked at Noah, then reached into the pocket of her robe, where she’d stuffed the paper with the chant when she smelled the smoke. “Thanks to Noah.”

  She handed it to Shar, who took it and read it, then looked up at Noah. “Where’d you get this?”

  “One of my cousins,” Noah said. “I asked her if she knew of anything that could banish Kammani, and she gave me this.”

  “A Wortham wanted to banish Kammani?” Abby’s eyes widened and then she said, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Noah said, not seeming offended in the least. “She’s a little bitter that Mina was called and she wasn’t. I played that up to get what we needed.”

  Daisy looked at him, but he didn’t look back.

  “So, I say we memorize this thing, go to the temple, and banish her ass,” she said, squelching the ache Noah’s presence was causing in her gut. Bigger fish to fry. “Let’s get cracking.”

  “How is that going to work, though?” Abby said. “I mean, we just … chant? And that sends her away? It seems a little easy.”

  “Stand on the hot spots we marked,” Christopher said.

  “Hot spots?” Shar said; then Abby said, “Places of power in the temple. Christopher figured them out. If we stand on them when we chant, it might help.”

  “Can’t make things worse.” Daisy turned to Noah, focusing on the problem at hand. “Did your cousin tell you anything else about how we do this?”

  Noah shook his head, and Sam said, “Do it the way you put out the fire.”

  Daisy looked up at him. “What, throw water on her? Then what? She melts, like the Wicked Witch of the West?”

  “No,” Sam said. “The Three did what you did, with the bowl and the spindle and the sword. Ishtar’s priests sent men, but only that once and not again. The Three fought back and they got hurt, but they cast Ishtar’s men out of the temple, working together. Maybe you can cast Kammani out of this world the same way you put the fire out.”

  Daisy looked at Abby and Shar, then back at Sam. “Yeah, I’m not sure how we did that.”

  “We just kind of … did it,” Abby said.

  Sam frowned, as if trying to remember. “They stood in the temple, in a triangle—”

  Abby and Christopher shared a glance, and Abby said, “The hotspots.”

  “—and raised their arms above their heads and their symbols appeared,” Sam went on. “They spoke together, and a great wind came up, and the men disappeared from the temple.” He looked at Shar. “I asked Sharrat where they went, and she said, ‘Where they belonged.’ ”

  “Great,” Daisy said. “Christopher, you said you marked the spots?”

  “Yes,” Christopher said. “They’re on the wrong side of the altar, behind the altar instead of in front of it, but Abby and I marked them with chalk. You should be able to see them pretty easily.”

  “Okay,” Daisy said. “So we storm the temple, stand on the hot spots, and chant the … chant.” She looked up at Noah and gave him a small smile, and he nodded and looked away.

  “Okay then,” Shar said. “I love this plan.”

  “I’m excited,” Abby said, getting up from the table. “It could work. Let’s do it!” She grinned at Shar and then said, “I was a little worried we’d be running off to our certain deaths, but this is encouraging.”

  “Yeah, I’d say our odds of not coming to a brutal and untimely end are a solid fifty-fifty now,” Daisy said. “So should we rehearse? Or something?”

  Shar and Abby looked at each other and nodded, and Daisy picked up the paper and read out loud:

  “ ‘You must descend

  To the darkness beyond

  Into the sands

  Of the place without souls

  Depart from us

  Go where you belong

  To the place of despair

  We now cast you out.

  “ ‘We abjure you by

  The Great Goddess Who is Three

  Now you are bound

  Now you are sealed

  Now you are nightmare

  Now we awake.’”

  Somewhere deep inside, in a part of her experience so primal she couldn’t name it, she recognized the words, knew their power. She could see in Abby’s and Shar’s faces that they felt it, too, and the knowledge heartened her.

  “Can I see that?” Shar said, and Daisy handed it to her, then turned to Noah.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “No problem. I’m glad it helped.”

  “It did.” Daisy sighed. “Well. Okay. I guess I’ll see you around? I mean, if we don’t get killed?”

  Noah didn’t move. “You say that like I’m not going with you.”

  Panic raced through her at the thought of Noah being in Kammani’s line of fire, and she sputtered, “You’re not.”

  “The hell I’m not,” he said, and went to stand by the back door with Sam and Christopher, his posture stiff and angry. Daisy wanted to run after him, to explain and apologize and make it all better, but she had to stay focused. Getting into it with Noah was not going to rid their world of Kammani, and that was the priority.

  She pulled her eyes away from Noah and turned to see Shar reading the chant. “What do you think?”

  “It’s good,” Shar said. “It reads like it’s in three parts, with a chorus after the second part. Based on what happened this morning, I think we should chant it in parts and read the chorus part together. That’ll make it easier and faster to learn. And then we pray that the bowl, the spindle, and the sword show up again.”

  “Works for me,” Daisy said.

  “One more thing,” Abby said, and both Shar and Daisy looked up.

  “What?” Shar asked.

  Abby motioned for them to follow her and led them to the far counter where a big urn sat. She grabbed three cups and filled them, then handed one each to Shar and Daisy.

  “You figured out a tonic?” Daisy said, looking at the swirling colors. “Uh, this is different.”

  “I realized I didn’t need to match flavors so much as the essence of things, and I went with what felt right. What felt like us. At first I didn’t think it worked, but when I came back to it and tried it again, it was suddenly magic.”

  Daisy put the cup to her nose; the scent was heavenly, and goosebumps broke out on her skin.

  “Oh my god,” Shar said, sniffing her own cup.

  “I don’t think that phr
ase is usable for you anymore,” Daisy said.

  “If I’m right, if this is our version of that tonic, then it should boost our powers,” Abby said. “And if it doesn’t, it’s not like it can make things worse.”

  “Good point,” Daisy said, lifting her cup. “Here’s to positive thinking.”

  Shar raised hers in the air, too. “Here’s to Dogs and Goddesses.”

  Abby raised her glass and smiled at both of them.

  “Here’s to us,” she said, and they all clinked and drank it down.

  Daisy swallowed, the flavors crashing in her mouth, a mystical warmth rushing through her as the liquid found its way to her core, but it was more than warmth that she felt. It was strength. Confidence.

  It was power.

  And Abby and Shar glowed with it—bright amber around Abby and deep blue around Shar—they almost vibrated with it, and Daisy looked down and saw bright carnelian glowing around her hands. Then it faded, for all of them, but the power was still there. Daisy knew that whatever the tonic had awakened, it was there, within them, it was—

  “One.“

  She heard the whisper and, not sure if it was Shar or Abby, raised her head to look at them. “Did you—?”

  “One,” the whisper echoed in her head.

  They watched one another for a moment, frozen as they listened, and Daisy heard: “One,“ a third time and saw in their eyes that they heard it, too.

  Shar set her empty glass down. “If that’s the weirdest thing that happens to us today, I’ll be happy.”

  “Me, too.” Daisy shot one last look at Noah before turning her attention to Abby and Shar, her best friends, her goddesses. Whatever happened next, they would get her through it, and together they’d save the world.

  If nothing else, she was sure of that.

  EIGHTEEN

  An hour before sunrise, Abby stood behind Sam as he pushed the room doors open and walked into the cavernous temple. She followed him in with Daisy and Shar, Noah and Christopher right behind them with the dogs. There’d been no leaving anyone behind, and there was a worried kind of relief that they were all together. It put everyone in danger, coming to Kammani’s temple to do battle, but it had its own power, in the unity and core of their family.