Nocked Asunder

by Sam Cheever

  I had a feeling I knew what was coming next and I was soooo not ready for it.

  When I turned back around Damian was on Snuggles and the Harpy was lifting her powerful wings in flight.

  “Hey!”

  He turned to me, his face hard and filled with the loneliness he’d been carrying around like a mask when I’d met him. “This isn’t your fight, Athena. It’s too dangerous. You have no place there.”

  Snuggles lifted off the ground with a shriek, her powerful wings creating a backdraft that nearly blew me off my feet. I braced my legs and watched them leave, my stomach clenching in despair.

  His words cut me deep. Not just because he didn’t want me to be involved in the current battle, in the current place, in the current time. But because what he was doing was his life. It was his calling. It was what he would always do and be.

  And I had no place in it.

  Whether he lived or died on that mountain, I would remain alone.

  Without him.

  I watched him rejoin the battle, taking Snuggles high above Medusa and dropping down quickly so he could leap from her back and wrap his chain around the gorgon’s neck. Peter quickly followed his brother’s lead and wrapped his chain around Medusa’s thick, flailing legs, pinning them together so that she was well and truly trapped.

  Snuggles landed on Medusa’s back and clamped her deadly jaws over the gorgon’s massive shoulder.

  Simone landed on her chest and positioned the thin, deadly sword she carried against Medusa’s throat, holding it there in warning as they slowly drifted toward the ground. Medusa hung limp and exhausted between them.

  I sighed and glanced away, swiping at tears. I was glad it was finally over.

  A horrendous roar brought my terrified gaze back up, just in time to see Damian take a deadly blow to the chest. Medusa struggled a moment longer before finally succumbing to defeat and allowing herself to be taken down.

  But it was too late for Damian.

  My horrified gaze was riveted to his limp, lifeless body as it plunged toward the ground. I screamed and started running, sobbing his name as his body hit the rocky surface of the mountain and bounced twice, like a broken rag doll.

  My legs couldn’t carry me fast enough.

  My lungs felt as if they would burst in my chest.

  But somehow I never reached him.

  I felt as if I ran in the clouds, with no purchase for my feet to carry me forward. The scenery stayed the same, my body surged with effort and my heart shattered in my chest. But I never reached him.

  The Fates suddenly floated before me.

  “Stop, Athena!” Clothos’ beautiful, narrow face looked angry. Beside her, Lachesis let her pity show. “You must let him go, Athena.”

  “No!” I renewed my efforts to reach him. My legs growing rubbery and my feet numb against the cutting rocks. I stumbled finally and landed on my face, sobbing his name as pain rolled through me, pressing me helplessly to the ground.

  Atropos bent over me, stroking sweaty strands of hair from my brow. “It’s all right, Athena. It will be all right. Just try to breathe, child.”

  I threw back my head and screamed my pain.

  Just try to breathe, Athena.

  Damian’s words to me. Set into such a different context mere moments earlier. Sliced the last working chamber of my heart into tiny little, irretrievable pieces.

  I felt myself falling into a black abyss of depression.

  From which I had no desire at all to return.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Life Again

  I lay on my back, staring up at the fat, white clouds rolling by overhead. The birds of the Garden of Life sang happily, totally oblivious to the fact that my life was over. The trees whispered around me, fat with stories and gossipy tidbits they wanted to share with me about the gods and goddesses on Olympus.

  I closed my ears to them, immersed in the comforting cloak of my misery.

  The air stirred and a soft pair of slippers moved into view. I ignored her until she reached out and tapped my arm with the slipper. “Athena.”

  I sighed.

  The slipper tapped a little harder.

  “What, Clothos?”

  “You need to snap out of it, girl.”

  I narrowed my eyes on one cloud in particular, if I looked at it just right I thought I could see Damian’s eyes in its depths.

  When I continued to ignore her, a frustrated sigh emerged from the goddess of Fate standing over me. Her pristine silver and white silk gown rustled as she lowered herself to the ground beside me and lay down in the lush grass. “That cloud looks like Zeus’ penis.”

  I rolled my eyes. “As if you’d know.”

  She turned her head, her long, pretty face creasing in a smile. “I would.”

  I smiled too. I couldn’t help it.

  She took my hand. “The trees want to tell you a story.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not interested.”

  “Then I’ll tell you.”

  I started to get up to avoid hearing Clothos’ story but she held me down with her grip on my hand.

  The air shimmered again and Lachesis was standing there. “Is she still lying around moping?”

  Clothos and I rolled our eyes up to her.

  She shrugged and lowered herself daintily to the ground, stretching out along my other side.

  I’d become a Fate sandwich.

  Lachesis giggled, pointing. “That cloud looks like Zeus’ pe—”

  “Has everybody seen Zeus’ penis!” I objected loudly.

  The Fates looked at me like I was mad. “Well…yes…of course,” said Lachesis with a grin.

  I shook my head and tried to regain my previous calm depression. I wanted no emotions rocking my boat. Any emotion at all might swamp me. Take me completely under to drown. Irretrievably lost. Only a calm, unfeeling, flatlined existence was safe.

  “Go away,” I told them.

  The air shimmered and I sighed.

  Atropos stood looking down at us. “What are you ninnies doing lying on the ground?”

  “Looking at Zeus’ penis,” responded Clothos.

  Atropos looked up. “Oh, yes. There it is.”

  I closed my eyes, hoping they’d go away if I pretended they weren’t there.

  Atropos settled her delicate rear end onto a nearby concrete bench. “It is a beautiful day.”

  I felt her two sister Fates nodding in silent agreement.

  “The trees are full of stories today,” added Atropos.

  “I was going to interpret for Athena,” Clothos informed her sister.

  “Good. Proceed.”

  I sighed again. Apparently I wasn’t to be spared a story. I tried to fall asleep. Maybe I could doze through the whole thing.

  “Long ago a beautiful goddess fell in love with a demon god.”

  My eyes shot open. “Are you kidding me!”

  Lachesis slapped my arm. “Silence, child!”

  I lay there silently fuming.

  Clothos glared at me, angry at being interrupted. “Don’t kill the messenger, Athena.”

  I turned my head and scowled at her.

  Clothos sniffed and turned her face back toward the sky. “As I was saying. The goddess fell deeply in love with the demon, who’d been chosen by the gods for a very important task because of his bravery and strength and innate goodness.”

  That caught my attention. “Goodness?”

  “Well, of course, child!” Atropos was so obviously disgusted by my ignorance I was unwilling to pursue that line of questioning.

  “The goddess and the demon had many enemies, they fought them all bravely and eventually won. But their harshest enemy was not known to them. So they could not defeat it.”

  I nodded. “Death.”

  “If you say so, child,” Clothos responded.

  I frowned and opened my mouth but Clothos continued, cutting me off.

  “Because they could not see this enemy and did not acknowledge it, it
succeeded in separating them. They went about their business thinking all was lost and they would never find their way back to each other.”

  “What the hell has this got to do with Damian and me?”

  Lachesis slapped my arm again and I settled back into disgruntled silence, closing my eyes.

  “Then one day the kindly Fates intervened.” Clothos stopped and I imagined her grinning at her sisters, doing a virtual high-five over their mutual wonderfulness.

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever!”

  “The Fates urged the young goddess to rejoin life. To return to her responsibilities. And to forget about her demon lover.”

  I turned my head. “Is that what you’re urging me to do?”

  Clothos shrugged.

  “And did I… I mean, did she? The goddess? Did she return to her responsibilities?”

  “Yes,” said Lachesis, pushing herself off the ground and swiping lush grass off her gown. “She stopped moping around the Garden of Life and went back to Earth, where lots of people still needed her help.”

  Clothos stood too. “You must write the rest of the story, Athena.”

  I sat up. “But that’s a stupid story. The trees didn’t tell you that story, Clothos.”

  The three Fates linked arms and strolled away from me, heading more deeply into the Garden of Life.

  Clothos had a long, green grass stain on her butt. “Did they not? How strange. I was certain they had.”

  The sisters’ laughter filtered back on the bright morning air as they disappeared into the garden.

  I sat for a few moments longer, no longer numb but somehow, not completely dead inside either.

  It had been a stupid story.

  But maybe that was because I had been acting stupidly.

  Yes, I’d lost Damian. And I was pretty sure I’d loved him. Though I had to be honest with myself and admit that I’d thought he wasn’t worthy of my love at the time. Being a demon and all.

  I’d been stupid. Damian was worthy of all the love in the world.

  I knew that now. When it was too late.

  But moping about would not bring him back to me. Two months of deep mourning was enough. And I was being selfish. I was needed on Earth and I had to return.

  I pushed myself to my feet and took off after the Fates.

  I’d say my goodbyes and return to Earth.

  And start trying to rebuild the pieces of my life.

  *

  I hugged Lila James and smiled at Chad Roberts. Fortunately for all of us they’d managed to hold their relationship together while I’d been missing in action and I’d just finished the arrow ceremony for them.

  They could barely take their eyes off each other long enough to say goodbye to me. I grinned widely. Glad that someone would get the happily ever after they’d been hoping and looking for all their lives.

  I climbed into the car I’d purchased upon returning to Earth, a shiny red Jeep Wrangler with a soft black top, and headed home. I had no idea what happened to my other car, which I’d abandoned alongside the highway when the gorgons attacked me. I’d rented the apartment when I’d returned too. It was stark and barely furnished, but I didn’t have the energy needed to try to make it into a home just yet.

  But I was working on it. I’d been getting a little stronger every day.

  The nights were another story though.

  My nights were long and lonely and filled with dreams of Damian, his strong arms and sizzling kisses. I’d wake up hot and bothered and sexually dissatisfied, my heart crying out for my demon lover and my arms clutching a cold pillow when they wanted to be wrapped around a hot, hard body.

  I stopped at a red light and turned my blinker on, intending to make a right turn toward my new apartment. But my eyes slid to the road ahead, straight through the intersection, which I knew would lead me out of town and up the mountain toward Damian’s house.

  Something drew me toward that house. I’d been fighting it since my return to Earth a couple of weeks earlier. I told myself it was simple curiosity but I wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

  The light changed and I went straight instead of turning, oblivious to the blaring horns of people who didn’t appreciate my surging across the road from the turn lane. Suddenly it was vitally important for me to go to that house and put the last demons in my memory to rest.

  It seemed like a small thing to make myself feel better. To put Damian behind me for all time.

  Though I secretly doubted that was possible.

  As I climbed the mountain I felt myself becoming excited. My hands clenched the steering wheel more tightly as I neared the last turn, until my knuckles were white and the tips of my fingers tingled from a lack of blood.

  I didn’t know how I would feel upon seeing the house until I made that last turn and it was there. It was perched just as I remembered it in a copse of huge, old trees, settled back a short way from the road.

  Looking as if nothing had ever happened there.

  I pulled into the short driveway and stopped the car, staring at the house.

  I wasn’t sure what to do now that I was there.

  Finally I opened the car door and stepped out into the bright, sunny day. I walked around the house, intending to sit for a while on the patio and then make my way home.

  The sound of the ocean met me as I rounded the corner of the house. Flowers spilled toward the narrow sidewalk from both sides, bright and lush and touched with sparkling drops of moisture, as if someone had just watered them.

  I stepped out of the relative shade at the side of the house and onto the sun-bleached and wind-scoured stone patio. The low rock wall on the perimeter beckoned to me.

  My memory flashed back to that last day, when I’d sipped my coffee and watched Damian and Peter discussing something important, judging by the intense looks on their handsome faces.

  When Simone had told me I had to let Damian go. Because I didn’t belong in his world.

  I jerked as I realized I’d agreed with her. Not consciously of course. But deep in my heart I’d known that what she said was true.

  His world was not my world.

  And I hadn’t believed we could integrate our worlds.

  I’d been a fool.

  Our worlds integrated seamlessly the day I tasted his lips and felt as if I belonged in his arms. We hadn’t needed anyone or anything else to make us work.

  Only our own, undying belief that it was possible.

  Looking back now, I thought that maybe Damian had found that belief. He’d been waiting for me to find it too.

  But it had taken his death for that to happen.

  I sat on the low wall and stared out at the ocean. The water rolled blue and white under a bright sun, frothing at the edge of a rocky beach that no longer contained evidence of the battle we’d fought there. It was peaceful, soothing and made me very sad.

  Tears slid silently down my cheeks as I pondered everything I’d lost.

  “Hello, Athena.”

  I spun, gasping at the sound of his voice.

  “Damian!”

  My first instinct was to run to him and fling myself into his arms. But something in his eyes held me back. Tears slid down my cheeks and my hands lifted toward him. “How?”

  He smiled but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The sad loneliness I’d seen in his dark blue gaze when we’d first met was back and if anything it looked deeper. “You know your gorgon history, don’t you, Athena? Blood from the right side of a gorgon’s face can restore life. Blood from the left side is like poison…”

  My hands flew to my mouth. I should have known it was possible. I’d watched him save his brother in exactly that same way on the beach. “You’re alive?”

  He laughed. “Yes. I’m alive.”

  “I’ve been so miserable. All this time I…” My hands dropped to my sides and clenched into fists. Anger filled me.

  He’d been alive and he hadn’t come for me. Hadn’t told me. The Fates had to have known he was alive
and they hadn’t told me either. The anger leeched away and my knees buckled. I dropped to the rock wall, staring at my clenched fists.

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” The words came out in a choked whisper.

  Damian didn’t move any closer. I felt a new coldness between us as he said, “You weren’t ready to hear it.”

  My gaze jerked toward his face. “Are you kidding me! I’ve been in deep mourning for months. I’ve barely been able to function. How dare you all keep this from me? I’ve been in such pain!”

  His eyes softened a little but his face stayed hard. “Maybe that was the price you had to pay.”

  “For what!” I threw my hands into the air and stood up.

  Damian finally moved, closing the space between us quickly. He grabbed my hands and pulled them to his lips. “For love, Athena.”

  I shook my head, my lips moving but no words emerging. What in the world was he talking about? I’d already found love. With him. I didn’t need to be tortured to near death to find love. I had it already…

  But a little voice inside my head begged to differ.

  I’d had love within my grasp. But I hadn’t really decided to reach out and grab it. I’d told myself he was too different. He was a demon. Demons weren’t worthy. And besides, he was called by the gods to serve and his life couldn’t include me.

  I didn’t want it to include me.

  Or did I?

  I’d told myself we could just enjoy a short time together and then go our separate ways.

  I hadn’t committed my heart to him. Not until I’d thought he was dead.

  I reached a hand toward Damian and touched his face. “Oh my gods, Damian. I’m so sorry.”

  He smiled and this time the smile washed some of the sadness from his beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, Athena.”

  Joy surged through me, filling me with a light and warmth the sun could never match. I leapt into his arms and lifted my lips to his, consuming his mouth in a kiss that demanded as much from him as he could give and offered everything I had right back. I pulled my lips from his only to tell him that I loved him too and then recaptured his sweet mouth with renewed intensity.

  My hands rose and twined through his hair. My body strained toward his. Damian put his hands under my buttocks and raised me into the air, carrying me into the cool, dimness of the magic house and to his huge, soft bed. I wrapped my legs around his hips and held on, enjoying the ride.