[Venom 01.0] Venom & Vanilla

by Shannon Mayer

  “I know. That doesn’t make it any easier. Why didn’t you just send a letter?”

  “No postal system here. Even our landlines and cell phones won’t call outside this area. We aren’t supposed to exist, so they are slowly wiping us out.”

  I struggled to believe him, simply because it was a long-standing argument with him. Paranoia ran deep in our family. Of the government, conspiracies, an asteroid sent by aliens to destroy our world, and of course the supernatural. Some of it was the upbringing with the Firstamentalists, but some of it was just the way our family thought.

  Everyone, and everything, was out to get us in one form or another if you asked any Budrene.

  “Really, Tad? Maybe it’s just that Super Dupers are too strong, too fast, and too dangerous to be a part of the rest of the world.” I was halfway up the stairs to check out the other clothes.

  “Do you know that Roger gets everything? Nothing is yours. In the law, you are dead. So even if you showed up on his doorstep, proved you were still alive, he would have to give you absolutely nothing. Not a single penny, not a single piece of that house you love.”

  Yeah, I’d not forgotten about that bit. “Yes, I’m well aware.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you in the least?”

  “Bothers me more that he’s boinking Barbie. That he’s selling Vanilla and Honey to fat-nosed Colleen—”

  “Excuse me?” Tad jogged up the stairs to catch up to me. I strode forward into the first room. I went straight to the closet and started to rifle through the variety of shirts and pants.

  “He’s got a new love. Her name is Barbie, and they’re opening a dog-grooming business together. And cats, they’re grooming cats too in order to make the business legit. And he’s selling my bakery. You know, the one you sat in front of for free food?” I’d said it to make him laugh at the absurdity of it, to take away the sting.

  “Oh, Lena Bean, I’m so sorry.” His soft tone and the old nickname from my childhood undid me, but I didn’t stop what I was doing. I rifled through the clothes through blurry eyes, going by feel more than sight.

  “Help me find something. Please. You know I have no fashion sense.”

  He put a hand to my back, just a gentle touch, and then he was in the closet too. After a few minutes we’d found me a pair of yoga pants, a long-sleeved shirt and hoodie, and a pair of runners that fit me reasonably well.

  Dressed in my new clothes, I felt more like myself than I had since waking up with this new body.

  We headed out of the house and crossed the street. “How far are we from the Wall?” I asked. I’d seen it only once and from a good distance when Roger and I had gone on a lazy Sunday drive. We lived in the Queen Anne area, near Kerry Park, where we’d met; the drive to the border, and the Wall, was easily two hours, so it wasn’t something I’d done often. Or ever, to be fair.

  “About fifteen minutes to walk.” Tad dropped an arm over my shoulder, and I wrapped one around his waist. “You remember stealing cookies from Yaya and getting caught? How she chased us with the wooden spoon screaming like a banshee?”

  “And how she used to make us believe she was a consort of Zeus? That she could handle a lightning bolt if she caught one.” We laughed, and that was how we walked to the Wall.

  “Did you ever wonder how she got mixed up into the Firsts? I mean, I understood Mom doing it, because she was always so afraid, but with Yaya . . .” I glanced over at Tad.

  He was thoughtful. “I overheard Dad and Yaya talking once. I thought it was nothing, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think Yaya or Dad really believe what the Firsts do. They said they only went to keep Mom happy.”

  I frowned. “Yaya has always done her own thing.”

  Tad nodded. “Since Uncle Owen died, though, Mom is all she’s got left. Maybe that’s why.”

  He had a point. Losing Uncle Owen when he was so young had sent Yaya into a downward spiral. It had been only in the last few years that her spunkiness had shown back up, and by then she was firmly ensconced in the religion her daughter had chosen.

  As we walked, we told stories about our parents and grandmother, reminiscing about the past and pushing away the fact that we walked toward a Wall that cut us off from those we loved.

  Who hopefully still loved us.

  CHAPTER 7

  “This is a big dang wall,” I whispered. The monument—and that was what it really was—stood over forty feet tall. Made of concrete blocks, it had natural handholds and breaks you could clearly see through. It made sense now why the Super Dupers were able to climb over so easily. But then why even make the farce of a Wall?

  I frowned and put a hand to the pale-gray concrete. “Now?”

  Tad hooked a hand through one of the openings and glanced back at me. “I’m going to climb first and see if there is anyone on the watch. To be safe.”

  I grimaced at him but let him go without me.

  He pulled himself up, hands and feet working in concert easily as he scaled the concrete blocks. I rubbed my arms and looked down the line of the Wall. A hundred feet away, several other people crept out of the bush and moved to their section of the Wall. I lifted a hand to them, and they turned away from me.

  “Snobs,” I muttered.

  “Let’s go!” Tad hissed down at me. Startled, I jumped and stumbled forward.

  I took his lead and started up the Wall. The rough concrete scraped at my skin, tearing off tiny bits and pieces; nothing serious, but enough to bleed. Halfway up the Wall I stopped and stared at where I’d nicked myself.

  “Alena, hurry up!”

  I couldn’t move, though. My hand, where the skin had been torn away, held my gaze as if I were hypnotized. Scales glittered up at me, shifting with every pulse of my blood flowing under them. Jeweled scales of purple, green, and blue flickered in the early-morning light.

  “Alena, move your ass!”

  Swallowing the roll of nausea rising in my throat, I forced myself to move again. Hand over hand, the glittering scales caught my eyes every time I reached over my head. I just couldn’t look away from them.

  Tad grabbed me as I drew close to the top and hauled me up the last foot or so. The Wall was ten feet across, and we were climbing down the other side before I had time to register anything around us except for the fact that Tad was not happy.

  We climbed side by side, and I tipped my hand so he could see the scales. “Is this like you?”

  “Shit. No. I’m going to kick Merlin’s ass for this,” he snapped. But really, what could he do? Could he make Merlin change me into something else? Call it a hunch, but I had a feeling that wasn’t possible.

  We hustled down the Wall and dropped to the ground. Tad grabbed my hand, and we bolted across an open section as shouts erupted behind us. I sucked wind hard and put everything I had into getting away.

  Until the screams started: the high-pitched cry of terror of someone who was about to die. I understood that feeling all too well. I slid to a stop and spun around. The three people who’d been waiting down the Wall were on the top, with three Supe Squad members coming in from either side.

  “Tad, we have to help them.”

  “They wouldn’t help us. That’s not how this works.” He reached for my hand, and I knew he would pull me away. Just like Roger had done when I’d told him about the old man who was hungry.

  “Let him starve. He put himself in the situation, he can get himself out.”

  If I’d listened to Roger, things would have been different. But I couldn’t regret my choice then, and I wouldn’t pander to Tad now.

  “No, I’m going to help them.” I ran back the way we’d come, angling toward the section of the Wall they stood on.

  Tad grunted, and then he was running beside me. “We don’t have magic powers, Lena. It’s not like that.”

  “We can help. Maybe we can distract them.”

  He didn’t answer me and I hurried, arms and legs pumping hard. A few feet from the Wall, I leapt and caught handholds.
I pulled myself up as fast as I could, not caring about the scrapes and bruises, hardly feeling them. Above us the three cornered Super Dupers pleaded their case, though after dealing with Smithy and Ober-whatever, I knew it would do them no good.

  “Please, we’re not sick. We have family on that side, and we haven’t seen them in years. They don’t even know we’re alive.”

  Their words tore at me, spurring me on. What the heck I thought I was going to do once I got up there I didn’t know. But I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

  I had to try to help.

  The SDMP didn’t seem to notice me climbing, so focused on those they were trying to capture that they’d blocked out everything else around them. I peered up over the edge of the Wall, right at the foot of one officer. Before I thought better of it, I grabbed his ankle and yanked him backward out into open space.

  He let out a yell and the other SDMP members spun. Still they didn’t see me. Tad grabbed an officer to the right of the group and shoved him off on the Supe side of the Wall.

  The remaining four SDMP members swung around, all holding those dang dart guns. Worse? One of them was Icy-Blue Eyes: Smithy. He saw me, lifted the gun, and pulled the trigger. I flattened myself against the Wall and the dart missed me—barely.

  I popped my head up, waved at the runaways. “Hurry up!”

  They didn’t need any more prompting. They dropped to the edge and shimmied over as the SDMP officers leapt for them. Icy-Blue Eyes caught the tiniest girl, a petite blonde who looked light as a feather. She kicked out at him, her hooves catching him in the knee. He snarled and dropped her. She fell, and rolled over the edge in that split second.

  Flinty Eyes glared at me. I gave him a weak smile. “Sorry we keep meeting like this, Smithy.” I scooted down the Wall, a part of me wondering why they weren’t chasing us. Because they really weren’t. Even the guy I’d tossed off the Wall just dusted himself off as he headed back to climb the Wall, ignoring us.

  Tad, the three Super Dupers we’d helped, and I dropped to the ground within seconds of each other and bolted away. No chasing, though, no pursuit from the SDMP.

  Fear and adrenaline drove me, along with a fair bit of euphoria. Tad and I had saved someone from the SDMP and their crooked ways. I couldn’t help feeling like I’d won a prizefight.

  Even if it was more of a schoolyard tussle.

  We ran for ten minutes until we hit a natural line of trees and bush that provided decent cover. I stopped, clinging to a tree as I panted for breath. “Tad, why didn’t they chase us?”

  “They’re too lazy,” the petite blonde gasped out. I looked at her, really looked, and realized she was not going to pass for human in any way, shape, or form. Two tiny horns curled out from the side of her head, ivory colored, so they blended in well with her white-blond hair. Her ears were pointed at the top like they’d been cropped, and they twitched every few seconds as though the wind tickled them. Her eyes were two steps off normal, the pupil running vertical in a slit imitating that of a goat. Maybe all those differences could have been hidden, but there was no way she could cover her legs. Under the jeans, her legs were a strange shape from the knee down, bent like a horse’s back leg and ending in two solid black hooves. Not exactly what I’d call easy to blend in, even in a crowd.

  I racked my brain for the right Supe denomination. “Dryad?”

  “No, satyr,” she said. “Natural.”

  That made me pause. “I don’t understand, what do you mean by natural?”

  She laughed. “You’ve obviously been turned. My name is Damara. I’m a natural, which just means my parents were satyrs. I was born like this.”

  “I’m Alena. I guess . . . not natural?” I wasn’t sure how else to denote myself. Turned sounded like I’d been turned to the dark side. I didn’t like the connotation.

  She laughed, her smile wide as her ears twitched, though there wasn’t a mean thing about any of it. “Good enough. Nice to meet you, Alena.”

  I glanced at the other two with her. Two men. Both with the same characteristics as her with the strange legs and eyes, blond hair, and curling horns. “Are they your brothers?”

  She grinned, her wide, expressive mouth giving me the impression that there was a joke I didn’t understand. “Boyfriends. Tim and Gavin.” They grinned at me in unison.

  “Oh my,” I whispered. She laughed softly and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Thanks for the help. You didn’t have to do that. It’s been a long time since Supes helped each other out.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Tad said.

  Damara glanced at him. “She may have saved the world by helping us.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

  Damara waved for me to walk with her. Tad tried to pull me away, but I wanted to hear whatever it was she had to say. A gut feeling, perhaps, but there was something about her that called to me.

  Like she fit with me somehow, which made no sense. I had no horns, no hooves. Yet the feeling persisted.

  “We’re going to see if we can’t find Zeus. He can fix this mess of a wall and the humans herding us behind it. He’s got it in him to rule, to show the humans we can all live side by side.” She pushed aside a huckleberry bush and held it for me, and I stepped through the opening. The cries of birds cut off in midtweet as we walked, and I looked up. The birds hadn’t left; they’d only gone silent as we passed. Why did I think it was my fault?

  Call it a hunch, but I was betting most birds didn’t like a snake near their homes.

  “I’m sorry, Zeus? Greek god of thunder and lightning?” Tad bit the words out with more than a little edge to them.

  Damara nodded as if he hadn’t been rude. “We need a leader for the Supes who is not a vampire. Someone impartial who can actually do the job. Someone who can advocate with the human government. Remo is strong, but he isn’t strong enough, and the humans will never fully trust him because of what he is. We need someone who’s done this job before. Zeus ruled Olympus for a long, long time. He defeated a lot of bad shit out there and kept the supernatural world running smoothly for thousands of years.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Did he not also cause his own amount of trouble too? From what I recall of Greek mythology, he was hardly a saint.”

  Damara sniffed. “Most leaders aren’t, Alena. And if someone in charge says they are a saint, they’re a liar.”

  Tad grabbed my hand. “Well, good luck with all that. You know, finding a god that no longer exists.”

  The two satyr boys shared a glance, and Gavin shook his head. “You don’t understand. There have been sightings of the old heroes. Someone is bringing them back to life.”

  A laugh burst out of Tad. “That doesn’t mean shit. Someone who dresses up like Hercules and straps a sword to his waist does not make him Hercules. Makes him a nut.”

  Damara didn’t seem bothered by his assessment. “The heroes only arise when there is a need. Think of it as being woken from a deep sleep and called out of retirement.”

  “Wait.” I held up a hand. “I know the stories. The heroes all died at some point no matter how strong they were. Even those who were demigods like Hercules. So how can they be called out of retirement?”

  Damara shook her head before I even finished my question. “A true hero never really dies; neither do the old gods, for that matter—but I’m getting sidetracked. The heroes only show up when the monsters—the true monsters—begin to revisit this world. Heroes and monsters, they are tied to one another. Which means we need to be on the lookout for the big bad uglies. Someone is changing the game, and we need to take advantage of it.”

  A shiver ran through me. “What kind of monsters?”

  “Hydra, Drakaina, Cerberus, Gorgon, Medusa. They are the ones the heroes were brought forth to fight in the past. If the heroes are showing up, that means the monsters are going to show up too, if they haven’t already. Can you imagine the human government trying to figure out how to deal with Medusa as she turned
people to stone around her? The humans would go mental and bomb every Supe in sight simply because they found a really bad apple.” Damara lifted both eyebrows.

  She had a point. Turning people into stone when you tried to have a discussion with them would be a problem. “And finding Zeus could fix this?”

  “He could manage the relations between humans and Supes. That was his job description back in the day,” she said.

  We came to a small clearing where two paths branched off. Damara, Tim, and Gavin headed to the left. Tad tugged on me to the right. “Let’s go.”

  Damara turned and lifted a hand. “Good luck, you two. And thanks. If you ever have need of me, you can call on me.”

  I waved back, but before I could say anything else they melted into the foliage as if they’d never been there.

  “Do you think they’re right?” I asked Tad as we walked along the slowly widening path.

  “No. The old gods are gone. They have been for a long time, even assuming they existed in the first place. We’re on our own, and they’re on a wild goose chase.”

  “Then how do you explain Damara? She said she’s a natural. She isn’t like us, turned into whatever we are.”

  “I know what I am.” Tad glanced at me. “It’s you we have to figure out. And there are naturals in every species, except vamps, of course. You do know how babies are made, right? You and Roger did have sex at least once?”

  “I am not discussing my sex life—”

  “Or lack thereof,” he interjected.

  “—with you.” I glared at him.

  He went on as if I weren’t trying to pin him to the ground with my eyes. “Didn’t you wonder why Damara had two guys with her? Those satyrs are known for their sex parties. Not that I’ve ever been, of course; Mother would disapprove, and I’d never do anything to make her upset with me.”

  That was a total lie, but it took me a moment to realize what he’d implied.

  I blanched, moral outrage making me splutter. “You’ve . . . been . . . to one of the parties, haven’t you? Tad, that’s awful!”

  “Actually, awful is not exactly the word I’d use.”