A quick hush of silence ran along the table. They were all waiting for Thor to come back with a semi-lame, but still laughable comeback, or for him to reach over and bang me on the head.
“What I lack, Details, is something you will have to find out.” He smiled, grabbed his ale, and tipped it down his throat.
This grew only a smattering of laughter.
Damn him, I thought for the millionth time. Damn him for being who he was. Damn him for being powerful, damn him for being assigned to me, and triple damn him for bloody existing.
I rose. It was a quick move and my chair tumbled out from behind me. I turned sharply. I was sick of this bloody—
Thor grabbed my wrist quicker than I could blink. “You aren't going to go get yourself in more trouble, are you, Details?” he asked almost languidly, and he slowly turned his head over to stare up at me (though across at me was more accurate, because though Thor was still seated, he was a man of godly proportions).
The groupies cooed and chuckled. Ah yes, they had all heard about my escapade in the flood drains several days ago, if not my recent adventures in Egypt and Greece. They were all under the impression that Thor was begrudgingly protecting me from some small-time immigration-officer-hating divinities. The begrudging bit was right, but the small-time bit was totally wrong.
This was huge, this was enormous, this was terrible. I was being hunted for god knows what reason (because, presumably, some god did know the reason). Yet here Thor was, taking it as seriously as 200 ales and a happy-hour party could allow for.
I yanked at my wrist, intending to pull it free. I could hardly move it. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I snapped at him.
He held my gaze, almost looking like the Thor who had saved me from his perpetually evil, once best friend. He grinned. “Be sure to scream if any sea monsters try and attack you from the toilet.”
The god-groupies howled with laughter. Apparently toilet humor was still comedic gold for all-knowing divinities.
He let my hand go. I could have bloody slapped him, if it weren't for the fact it would shatter my arm. Still, the sentiment was there.
I walked away so stiffly that my muscles were twanging.
By the time I made it into the bathroom, my jaw was so tight my teeth felt as though they would pop from my mouth like a spring under strain.
The bathroom of the Ambrosia wasn't what you would expect. It was a bath house, for one, and not a set of toilet stalls. Gods didn't need to go to the bathroom – they didn’t, to put it delicately, expend waste common to humans and animals. Gods were sustained on belief, not high-fiber cereals.
Gods still had bathrooms. They had a few more baths, pools, palm trees in pots, and candles than your usual toilet stall.
The bathroom of the Ambrosia was modeled on one of the old baths of Rome. There were beautiful frescos and statues everywhere. There were also, inexplicably, palm trees in pots. It was funny how gods picked up the apparent wealth-indicators of whatever time they were in. In Rome, a couple of nice gilded statues and a sweet many-roomed marble palace were usually enough to indicate how posh a place was. In modern times, however, it was palm trees in pots. Lots of them.
I’d put off coming to the bathroom the moment we'd gotten to the Ambrosia for several reasons. Firstly, I had stupidly harbored the hope that all of this had been part of Thor's plan. Perhaps he was coming here to get some god gossip – to try to find out from the other divinities what the word on the street was. The second reason, however, was that... I hated going to the public goddess baths. Why? I was unpopular wherever I went. Also, I was wearing human bed ware, I was hideously dirty, and everyone would know by now that I'd been saved recently, and humiliatingly, by Thor.
I blew air through my teeth as I walked through the doors. They were gilded, of course.
The bathhouse was huge – impossibly huge considering the small space the Ambrosia took up from the look of the building outside. This room alone sprawled more like a complex, with interconnected domed-ceilinged rooms housing baths of varying shapes and sizes. They were all magnificently decorated and smelt of wonderful oils and scents.
They were also full of the kind of goddesses I didn't want to pull off my jacket to reveal my clothes in front of. There was a certain type of goddess who frequented god bars like the Ambrosia. The kind who would hang off a certain type of god's arm – like Thor – and giggle, twitter, and hiccup cutely every time said god said anything at all.
I sucked at my teeth, my hand hovering over the tie in my jacket. I was a mix of angry, worried, embarrassed, and uncaring.
A tall, slim, beautiful flower goddess walked past me, her skin glistening like the morning dew on my white roses. She looked down at me, her bright eyes lingering on the protruding bottoms of my dirty pants. She raised a single eyebrow, swallowed a smile, and walked off with a single high-pitched twitter.
Twittering – it was something that birds did, I replied in my head.
Damn it. I gave a heavy sigh, patted the tie on my jacket, and let my hand drop. If only I could return home and have a bath in my own modest non-gilded bathroom. I could hop into some clean, non-sea-monster ripped clothes, and climb into a simple, non-godly bed.
Except I couldn't. I had to... what? Return to Thor's side and watch him drink the night away while all I could do was imagine what would happen to me next? Not that I could imagine it – I could only become bogged down by the details until they....
I put a hand up to my head. The damn thing was throbbing with a familiar pain.
I waited until it subsided, then shot several blinking glares at the room and the swanking goddesses around me. Sod this, I decided, and turned on my heel to leave.
Someone grabbed my wrist. A tingle escaped across my back, but then the tingle died when a face came down by mine.
Dear lord, it was Hera. Hera, known official wife-kind-of-thing of Zeus. Their relationship was complicated – everyone knew that. They had been on-again off-again for millennia.
The same Hera had one manicured hand clasped around my wrist, and it was clasped tightly. Any tighter and I'd have to get some bolt cutters to snap her fingers loose.
I took a quick look from her cast-iron grip up to her face. “Um,” I began.
In all my time as Immigration Officer for Earth, I'd had precious little to do with Hera. Hera was a permanent resident. She rarely travelled away from Earth at all. From what I'd heard, she ran a successful wedding-planner business and had a couple of posh places scattered across Greece and Italy. She was what you might call one of the better-integrated gods. She had many dealings with the humans, and she kept all of them civil and within the non-interference rules of the Integration Office.
Before her recent vise-gripping moment, I would have called Hera one of the better goddesses out there. She wasn't a walking bimbo, like some of them, and she stuck to the rules without complaint, unlike most of them.
She was, however, staring down at me, her peacock earrings jingling as she shook her head from side-to-side. She looked angry, exquisitely angry.
“What have you been up to?” she said, her lipstick-clad lips puffing out with each word. Her eyes glittered not in a pleasant, star-like way, but more like diamonds reflecting a ravaging, all-consuming fire.
I stared up at her. Really? Could I add Hera to the growing list of gods who had it in for me? What had I done to her?
Other goddesses started to gather behind Hera, and most of them had their arms crossed and their eyes narrowed. They were Hera's groupies, I realized with a swallow. Just as Thor had a table-full of his own giggling yes-men, Hera had a gaggle of yes-ladies. Most of the powerful gods and goddesses did.
I slowly tried to pull against Hera's grip. It didn't work. She had a hold of me and had no intention of letting go. “Umm,” I answered, “I haven't been doing much,” I said, though it was a lie. I'd had an extraordinarily busy couple of days. Except, for my part, I’d only been running from things. I hadn’t been building things
, destroying things, plotting things, or kissing things – I’d just been running.
From the look in Hera's eyes, I could tell she thought differently. “Understand that he is my husband,” she said slowly. She obviously thought she was either talking to the hard of hearing or the extremely stupid.
I blinked slowly back at her – confirming everything she thought about me. “Sorry?”
“Even in this form, understand,” she leant in, “That he is mine.”
Dear god.
Hera's groupies all narrowed their eyes, several of them tapping their long fingernails against their bare arms. They looked ready – should it come to it – for a one-sided cat-fight.
I gave out a pop of a laugh. I knew – hell, everyone knew – of Hera's extraordinary jealousy. Once upon a time I'd thought the goddess had been justified. Zeus was legendarily disloyal to his on-again off-again official wife-thing. That Hera put up with him was a miracle. Except now Hera was tightening her grip on my wrist and staring into my eyes, one lip kinking to the side like a sneering caricature.
“Oh, I'm not with Thor,” I said in a high, almost wheezing tone. Also, I wanted to point out, Thor was not Hera's husband. Different pantheon, dear. But I knew Hera's legendary jealousy wasn't going to be put off by the fact her apparent husband had grown a couple of feet and had a yellow beard. Plus, the exact demarcation between gods with multiple identities was a confusing one at the best of times.
I kept silent and tried to smile encouragingly.
Hera pushed her face closer to mine, her peacock earrings brushing against my cheeks and making me blink. “Listen to me, you small-time goddess. I will not have—“
I pulled at my hand. Guess what? I broke free. It was a sudden thing. Just as I’d momentarily been able to resist Thor dragging me back through the Door of the Dead, I was able to break free of Hera's grip. Which was somewhat surprising considering who she was and who I wasn't. Hera was a big-time goddess. As Zeus’ maybe-wife and as one of the official goddesses of Olympus, she was powerful, very powerful. As the numerous sea monsters that had attacked me recently had proven, a divinity or creature's power was what mattered when it came to strength. It wasn't going to be down to who had bigger biceps. It was down to who had bigger belief. So Hera should outweigh me, hands down....
Except with one simple tug, I broke free.
Hera looked pallid with frustration. Whether it was from a small-time goddess somehow besting her, or from the prospect that the same small-time goddess was wooing one of the functional god-identities of her maybe-husband – I didn't know. I did see her gaze shift ferociously from my hand to my face, though.
I took several hearty steps backwards, bringing my hands up in a plea of defense. “Look,” I said as I continued to back towards the door. “I didn’t... I have not – I never would,” I tried to force the words out, but they were all frightfully jumbled. “There's nothing going on between us!” I managed as my back rested against the doors.
Hera didn't seem ready to take my jumbled plea as fact, and marched towards me, her arms held stiffly at her sides and her fingers curled wickedly.
I ran. Again. This was starting to become a habit of mine. As someone who usually went from work straight back to feeding her cat and mulching her roses, I rarely had the need to run or jog. Sometimes I had to walk somewhat fast when I smelt my muffins burning, though.
I pushed against the doors, opened them easily, and darted back into the main room of the Ambrosia. I headed unashamedly straight back to Thor's table. Though I did, for a split second, entertain the possibility of bolting from the joint. All this business of interacting with other gods was what had seen me being hunted, I was sure of it. Until that fateful day when I'd met up with Tolus and hopped down into the flood tunnels, I’d been a normal, decent, and self-contained goddess, always dressed sensibly and neatly. Now look at me? Running from the semi-wife of one of my current protector's other identities – this was the junk plot the pulp-fiction gods would churn out over too much coffee and too many giant chocolate-chip cookies.
The thought of running home and trying to ignore everything until it went back to normal lingered. But I found my legs pulling me back to Thor's table. I was in such a state of confusion that I ran right into my chair. The only problem was, my chair was being occupied by a rock god. I ran into him and it was very much like running into a solid wall. I rebounded immediately and fell flat on my back with a resounding thud.
Bloody hell.
Thor leaned over the table and peered down at me, as the other gods laughed heartedly. It would have looked funny. One messy goddess in an overly large mysterious-overcoat running right into a giant rock-man and falling flat on her butt.
Ha, ha, ha.
I put a hand up and covered my face, blocking them all out as I lay there.
Yes. That's it, I was going to stay here with my hand on my face, lying on the floor of the Ambrosia until everything went away.
I heard Hera stomp up beside me. I heard her, because somehow those amazingly high high-heels she always wore made a distinct and angry clicking noise, somewhat like a fashionable and angry crab.
I kept my hand over my face.
“Details,” Thor snapped at me, and he almost sounded concerned, “Sea monsters in the bathroom?” he quipped, then his voice seemed to die in his throat.
I fancied, though I still had my fingers clutched over my eyes, that he’d looked up to see Hera stamp over to him. Oh, the look on his face would be priceless.
“Hera?” Thor's voice took on a controlled tone.
“Thor,” Hera lingered on the th sound for too long.
I was more than willing to continue to lie still until everything erupted, then crawl off under some table somewhere to curl up into a ball of abject pity – but then something kicked me. It was sharp, it was quick, and it was the pointy end of a shoe.
“Ow,” I dodged to the side, removing my hand from my face.
Hera stared down at me, her make-up clad eyes so narrowed they almost closed. Hera was one of the only other goddesses apart from me who regularly wore human clothes. Except whereas I tended towards sensible business apparel that could be bought for reasonable prices at the local clothing store, Hera wore high-end fashion. She was currently wearing a well-fitting, swanky high-cut skirt and flouncy blouse with a pair of monstrously pointy high-heels. She also had a shiny, expensive golden choker around her throat. Oh, and a wedding ring on. Zeus and her were obviously more on-again than off-again. Which would explain the malignant look she was giving me.
She went to kick me again, but I dodged out of the way.
Sea monsters, evil gods, and being kicked by divine wedding-planners – what next?
I pushed to my feet, not wanting to get into a goddess cat-fight with Hera in front of a table-full of Thor groupies. They would take bets, cheer inappropriately, and ask the god of maize for some quick popcorn.
I need not have bothered. Hera had her full attention turned on Thor.
Thor slowly crossed his arms and stared at her. It was hardly an endearing, lovey-dovey move. Just the opposite. “How many times have I told you, Hera, when I’m Thor, I’m not Zeus,” he said his words slowly and clearly. It gave the impression that this was something Thor had repeated often in his life.
“Don't you give me that multiple identities crap,” Hera spat as she clamped her hands around her middle and tapped one of her shoes over and over again. “When you are Zeus, you are my husband. And darling, underneath, you are always Zeus. The golden beard and hammer doesn't change who you are. It doesn't give you an excuse to be hanging around with tramps.” Hera sliced her gaze my way.
Tramp? I was a tramp now? Technically, in my current garb, I did resemble one meaning of the word, but not the one Hera intended. The divine wedding-planner was suggesting that I – clean loving goddess of details who spent all her nights at home with a book and a cat – was the divine equivalent of a loose woman.
I was wearing my PJ
s, for Pete’s sake. Any of the other golden-skinned, twittering, tiny-toga-wearing goddesses sitting at Thor's table were a better candidate for trying to catch the Nordic god's eye than me.
Thor started off with a low laugh which only got louder until it boomed out in great whoops. “Tramps?” He slid his gaze over to me, caught my eye, then laughed louder.
It was when everyone else – minus Hera – joined in that it happened. I snapped. I pushed to my feet stiffly.
Screw it. I'd had enough with being the butt of his ridiculous jokes. Enough of waiting around with Thor as he drank away precious time that should be used saving me/the entire freaking universe. If he was this irresponsible, then so be it. I wasn't going to wilt in his company and receive volley after volley from his maybe-wife.
“This small-time goddess—“ Hera began. Her tone was vicious on the word goddess.
“Shut up, Hera,” I said firmly. There was such a note of... authority in my voice that the beer mugs on the table beside us rattled. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to your insults. I have told you there is nothing going on between your possible husband and me. If you don't believe me, that's an issue you are going to have to take up with your overactive, paranoid imagination. Now get out of my way.” I didn't puff out my chest as I spoke, I didn't glare, I didn't clamp my hands on my hips. I let the words flow. The details of them... seemed to flow together somehow – the tone, the timing, the volume.
A terrible pain snaked through my brow, but I wasn't about to follow up on my single act of defiance against Hera with an “Ow, I've got a headache.” Instead, I held her gaze and walked off.
Hera didn't lash out at me with her high-heels, nor did she call up her godly powers and try to zap my head off. Nope, she looked... shocked. It was probably the first time a so-called small-time goddess had stood up to the precious maybe-wife of Zeus. She must have been momentarily overcome by the suddenness of it... and the exact tone I’d somehow hit. It had been authoritative. It had suggested a power I didn’t have. It was the same tone Odin might have used to shock and awe anyone who dared scratch his throne.
Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One) Page 15
