Norrie pushed the lace aside, and Loa’s breasts spilled into her hands. Loa moaned and drove faster and harder at Norrie’s sex, pushing her dangerously close to the edge. Norrie dug her nails into the soft flesh and squeezed. She lifted her head to nuzzle Loa’s breasts, lapping at her nipples with broad strokes of her tongue until she felt her tremble with her own need. Loa’s scent was strong; she had paced herself to Norrie’s own needs. Norrie pushed once, twice, hard against her hand and exploded. Her body jerked in the tight confines of the car. She moaned quietly into the expensive leather both sated and annoyed that she had not pleasured Loa to the same degree.
“Oh my God,” she said when she finally sucked in enough air.
Loa was upright trying to rebutton her mauled blouse and smiling as if she’d won the lottery.
“You’re a beast.” Norrie struggled to pull down her dress with shaking hands. “A sneaky, sexy beast.”
“I don’t know what came over me.” Loa laughed. “I’m not usually so voracious. I swear it was like I was on fire or something.”
Loa tried to fix her hair with shaking hands, and Norrie reached over to playfully tug a runaway tendril. “I felt I was going to explode, so I damn well did. Even the car is all steamed up.” She rubbed a circle on the window and looked out. Luckily, their antics had not been noticed. “Let’s get out of here.”
She put the key in the ignition and started the motor.
“Would you like to come back for coffee?” she asked, just in case Loa had changed her mind.
She hadn’t.
Norrie pulled out of the restaurant car park and turned for home. In her rearview mirror she could swear there were sparks flying from the Lon Dubh’s chimneys. Then they turned a bend in the road, and Loa’s hand was on her knee, and she forgot all about it.
Chapter Twenty-six
“What the hell is going on?” Soul Selector’s angry pacing swished a yard-wide furrow. Her cloak swathed through the grass like a scythe.
“I don’t know. I can’t look once people get naked.” Death turned his blushing face away.
“I’m surprised. I thought this would be the moment you stole their clothes.”
“Sarcasm is a weak substitute for poor conversational skills.” He sniffed. “Even monkeys do sarcasm. They display their genitalia.”
“How would you know? You’d be too busy looking the other way.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Would you two stop bickering and help me?” Jesse rubbed her eyes dry. She had been quietly crying. “I need to get down there. Norrie is with the wrong person, and it’s killing me, except you two idiots have already seen to that.”
“Here we go again,” Death muttered under his breath.
“I’m so sorry to upset you by wanting to live,” Jesse yelled at them. “I want to be down there with her, and because of you I can’t. It hurts; it actually hurts.” She turned away. “It hurts like hell, and you just don’t get it.”
Soul Selector quietly indicated for Death to follow her. They moved a few steps out of Jesse’s hearing.
“I feel so bad for her, Soulie,” he said. “It can’t be nice to see the love of your life sleeping with someone else.”
“Don’t feel bad about that.” Soul Selector nodded at the pool and the images of Norrie and Loa between the sheets. “Feel bad that Aphrodite wants her tipped.”
“Tipped?”
“Dumped. Tipped out with the trash.”
Death gasped. “Not the slush pile!”
Soul Selector nodded. “The slush pile of souls.”
“But she’s a soul mate! She can’t be slushied. She has a destiny, a job to do, love to make, a universe to save.”
“Exactly what I said, only I said it better. Aphrodite wouldn’t hear of it. She says the kid has to go.”
“No. You can’t do it, Soulie.”
“Well, technically, I don’t do it. You do.” She gave him a stern look. He recoiled.
“I can’t do that to her,” he said. “I hate taking out the twash, even for defective souls. The slush pile scares me.”
Soul Selector shrugged. “Not my problem.”
“But I can’t, Soulie. I just can’t.”
“Then you’ll have to help me come up with another plan.”
“What plan?” Death said, his eyes slick with suspicion. “Have you just bamboozled me?”
“Easily. But apparently, death-defying dogs bamboozle you so I’m not going to brag about it. First we need to take her—Where is she?” Soul Selector looked around her, her panic growing by the second. Jesse was gone.
“She’s very good at teleporting.” Death did his own three-sixty turn. “She learns fast, much faster than you ever did.”
“Can we just focus on the fact she has gone?”
“Let’s face it; she had little to stick awound for. She’s dead, her girlfriend has another squeeze, she’s stuck here with you—”
“Shut up and help me find her.”
“What can I do?”
“You check out the Titan marshes, and I’ll run over to Aphrodite’s temple to see if she’s grabbed her.”
“I don’t like the Titans. They pick on me.”
“Do you want to go to the temple instead?”
“No. Aphwodite picks on me more.”
“Then go strike a pose with the big boys.”
With a sad sigh, Death dematerialized. Soul Selector walked back to the pool. She stood by its edge for one last look, as if she could somehow divine Jesse’s whereabouts. It was useless. She simply hadn’t the skill.
Loa Ebele came into focus. She was curled up on a settee surrounded by a million cushions, reading a book. There was a glass of wine by her elbow, and a fat ginger cat slept right on top of her feet. This was the fastest Soul Selector had ever managed to call up a vision. Had she called Loa? It was Jesse she should be concerned about, and yet she found herself settling on the grassy bank and leaning back against one of Jesse’s jacaranda trees. The purple blossoms hung over her head, and blue jays, no doubt Jesse’s latest addition to her pool, sang in the higher branches. Soul Selector sat on, steady and unblinking, fixed on the woman with the book and the cat on her feet.
There was something else she should be doing right now. Oh yes, looking for Jesse. But she was tired to the point of exhaustion. So tired she didn’t really care.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Death found the first worthwhile clue. Eros was sulking in the family room at the foot of Mount Olympus. By the time Soul Selector arrived, his sulk had become a full on attitude problem. It seemed Eros lacked an audience to whine at. Now he had the two of them so he let rip.
“Fucking Valentine cards and girly kitsch, that’s all I am. Look at that fat bastard Ares. War and mayhem everywhere and he won’t move his ass to deal with it. He’s not doing his job, man. I’m the one with the arrows. I should be a war god not some sappy kissogram.”
“Ewos! That’s your father you’re talking about.” Death was appalled.
“Fuck him.”
Death gave a prissy little gasp. “He’s been in a mood all day,” he told Soul Selector.
Soul Selector wasn’t surprised at Eros’s outburst. The Olympian Gods were trash. There was not one pleasant personality between them, and Death fell for it every time. He was always looking for the good in people so he could whisk them away to a nicer yonderland. If gods could lie down and die then it would be straight to the slush pile with this lot, and she would drag them there by the heels herself! This happy little fantasy reminded her of Jesse’s fate if she didn’t find the kid as soon as possible. The afterlife was no place for her to be wandering around lost. Gods were not always the nicest people.
“What were you doing firing arrows at my soul mate?” she said. If the little snot knew anything, she’d wring it out of him with her bare hands. “My people are out of bounds to the gods. You can fuck around with everyone else but not my lot.”
“And fuck you,
too.” Eros was as scintillating as ever. Aphrodite or Ares, it was hard to say which obnoxious parent he took after the most. Death clucked his tongue. All the swearing was distressing him. He hated unpleasantness; for him, everything had to be cheesecake shaped with cream pies on top. Soul Selector could see he’d be next to useless with this interrogation.
“Tell me what you were up to or you’ll be pulling arrows out of more than your quiver.” She put on her best intimidating look and Eros deflated like the voided bladder he was.
“Mom made me. She said to shoot ’em up. She wants them to fall in love.” Then he turned toxic again and said, “Ask her, not me. Like I give a shit about any of it.”
“Considering you failed after about a million shots, I’d say your mom’s pretty miffed with you,” Death said. He hit his mark. “Is that why you’re hiding here, hurting on the inside?”
Eros reddened. Aphrodite must have already torn a scab off her spotty teenager.
“That was your fault, not mine,” he shouted at Soul Selector. “I can’t touch your shitty old soul mates’ hearts, and I don’t want to either. I wouldn’t waste an arrow on your losers.”
“You wasted hundreds of them, you dweeb. I could see you. I have a scrying pool, remember?” Soul Selector tapped her forehead to underline his stupidity. “Loser.” It was childish, but it was fun.
Eros flipped her the bird and dematerialized. His adieu of, “Fuck you all,” evaporating in the clement afternoon air.
“Pestiferous little shit.”
“Sh!” Death even held a finger to his lips and looked around with huge, nervous eyes. “This place could be bugged.”
“It is. It’s full of divine cockroaches. Now we need to go see Aphrodite and find out why she tried to ping my people. And we still need to find Jesse.” Her headache was returning worse than ever, and again she wondered at this new phenomenon. She also noted she had begun to bite her fingernails. She scraped the ragged edges against the ball of her thumb in morbid fascination. Her body was breaking down and had been since the moment Jesse Colvin appeared dead on the doorstep.
“She wasn’t at the Titan marshes,” Death said glumly.
“Rough, eh?”
“They said my hair was stupid.”
“The agony.” Soul Selector was disinterested in whatever torture the Titans had heaped upon Death’s dainty shoulders. “Where could she be? If you were wandering the Elysian Fields as a prematurely deceased teenager, where would you go? It’s not as if we have a mall.”
“I know.” Death sighed heavily. “Why do all the big corporate retailers have to go to hell? We have no decent shopping here.”
“Think, man. Where would she go?”
“I don’t think she’d go anywhere. I think she’d have been picked up by now. She’s too obvious. Too out of place.”
“Picked up?”
“By Zeus. You know what a control fweak he is. He has spies everywhere.” Death looked around nervously. “Lovely god that he is,” he added.
“What on earth would Zeus want with an orphaned soul mate?” Soul Selector sounded scornful, but her stomach fluttered uneasily; another new physical feeling. She was falling apart.
“That’s what the Titans said, and they usually know what’s going on.”
“The Titans! When were you going to spill this little gem?”
“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” he said.
“When did they tell you this? I thought they pulled your stupid hair or something?” He refused to catch her eye. “You burst into tears, didn’t you?” she said at last, truth dawning. “And they felt sorry for you, didn’t they?” Still he refused to look at her. “So they told you stuff to shut you up.” She gave a snort of derision.
“So, why can’t you scwee for her, Soulie?” He stomped his cowboy booted foot. “Why do we have to go through all this unpleasantness with Ewos and the Titans?”
Soul Selector didn’t want to admit that every time she went to the pool all she could summon up was the woman hanging out with Norrie, the one who wasn’t even a soul mate. Somehow, she was wrapped up in this mess. Was she a trap? The bait in some elaborate game Aphrodite was playing? Each time the woman appeared in her scrying pool, Soul Selector’s worries receded until she almost forgot about Jesse and Norrie. That was bad, very bad. She was close to neglecting her duties, and that was exactly what Aphrodite had accused her of. This woman’s presence was a distraction. There had to be something sinister behind her appearance in Norrie’s life. Soul Selector’s left eye began to tic in perfect rhythm with the pulse in her temple.
“Scrying won’t help if she’s up here on the Celestial Plain. My pool is pointed toward the earthly sphere.” It was a fudged answer, but she could see Death didn’t notice. His pixie dust mind had floated off elsewhere.
“You need to go up there.” Death pointed vaguely to the spiraling snow-packed peaks of Mount Olympus and Zeus’s lair. He did not sound very enthusiastic.
“Me? I think you’ll find it’s we,” she said.
“How long am I to be tortured? You’re as bad as the Titans! Haven’t I paid my debt?” He actually wrung his hands at her.
“You’re to be tortured for as long as it’s fun. Like the Titans, I enjoy a good laugh. You slaughtered my soul mate and you started this mess. Believe me, you are not the one suffering here.” She laid it on thick. She couldn’t afford to lose him, not at this point. “Jesse’s suffering. I am suffering. I have Aphrodite pissing on my picnic blanket because she’s short on manna, and it’s all your doing. I was a highflyer until you showed up with your quack houses and non-dead dogs. Now I’m the cruddiest of the crud on the sole of her shoe.”
“What kind of shoe?”
“Shut up. You’re helping, and that’s that.”
Soul Selector cricked her neck and stared up to the summit of Mount Olympus. The Celestial collective gathered on the utmost peak. Somewhere up there stood the great temple where Zeus resided. He was a bored, idle god who used anything or anyone that wandered within range for entertainment. The peaks were milk white and ragged as broken teeth. The home of the gods gave out no light and no hope. No happiness emanated from it. Its crags were sculpted into scowls, its crevices gaping wounds. Birds of prey circled, and their harried cries echoed down the mountainside.
“Can you teleport us up there?” she asked Death. It took a lot of energy even for an entity such as herself to breach the divine walls of Olympus, and she didn’t have it. It scared her that her energy levels were so low. Power had been slowly seeping out of her since the aches and pains arrived, lending weight to her suspicions of sabotage.
“Why? You should be able to do it easily.”
“It’s easier for you. Death knows no door and all that.”
“That doesn’t mean I pick locks. Zeus will flay us alive and then make us eat our own skin. He’s done it before.” Death’s eyes grew large and panicked. “I heard there was this guy once with bad psoriasis and Zeus made him eat his own skin and he poisoned himself to death.”
“Of course he died. He’d been flayed! Now concentrate, you idiot. We need to find Jesse and get her to a safe place. She is not going to end up in a trash can,” she said. “You’re the one who thinks she might be up there so you can lead the way.”
“And you need to find out why Aphwodite is trying to hook up your little soul mate with a mortal.” Death was kicking back. He was not going to be the only one with a task.
“Yes. That, too,” she conceded. The difficult questions were piling up all around her, and they all concerned Jesse. Zeus might have the answer to at least one, her charge’s whereabouts.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Mount Olympus hovered over the Elysian Fields the way a hungry raven hangs over a newborn lamb. The more she thought about it the more Soul Selector was convinced Death was right. A strange, unattached soul like Jesse would be plucked out of the fields like the dewy eye out of a baby lamb. Zeus had to have her. She’d rather it was Zeus
. He was more likely to stick to the rules than any of the other gods, demigods, and monstrosities that wandered the Fields, if only because he made the damned rules.
“Ah. You’ve arrived for your audience.” The great god’s chief administrative nymph, Thalia, greeted them with approval and an armful of papers.
“That was quick.” Soul Selector was astounded; she’d only completed the forms five and a half years ago.
“You were fast-tracked.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Special dispensation. Your case caught his attention.” Thalia nodded toward a huge granite throne at the end of a humongous hall. “You were designated as a HI, or High Interest. Zeus likes his highs.” She made it sound as if high interest was not a good thing.
Like Aphrodite’s temple, the wind roared through Zeus’s great hall at an uncomfortable velocity. It was basically a wind tunnel. Thalia clung to her clipboard as papers tried to twist out of her grasp. Sleek marble columns soared into the night sky and plunged into the Milky Way. The intended effect being that they actually supported it. A prime example of Zeus’s PR.
Starlight lit the temple like a celestial chandelier. It shone with a hard crystalline light that hurt the eyes of the undivine. Everything lit up flat and hard edged so that shadows became eerie, fathomless places. While the soft glow of the Galaxy pulsed all around it, the temple itself was a stark place of contrasts.
Soul Selector squinted. She was far from divine and the light hurt. The beginning of another headache began to brew. On top of the nagging pain came the nagging worry that something was awry. She had never had an audience with Zeus before. He was one of those gods she avoided. Okay, so she tried to avoid them all, though she was beholden to report to Aphrodite once in a while, as she was the CEO of her department. Everyone knew if you caught Zeus’s eye there was always a chore involved. He loved to invent work for others. Gargantuan work. Tasks and quests and epic adventures that killed, and maimed, and caused all sorts of psychological damage while he sat back and spectated as if he were in some amphitheater.
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