by Amy Sumida
“Yes, all right,” Hades snarled as he yanked off his dark sunglasses to glare at the Porno God. “You've made your point. Now go away, horny god.”
“You think those eyes scare me?” Pan scoffed. “I just saw Vervain go flamey over food, your underworld fires are nothing compared to that.”
Hades grimaced, glanced at me, and replaced his sunglasses in irritation.
“Don't worry, Sizzle-Butt, we can make out later when we're on stakeout,” Persephone kissed her husband's cheek. “A stakeout make out.” She giggled.
“I love you to Hell and back, Bunny-Nose,” Hades declared with a straight face and a sincere tone.
I looked over at Austin and found him staring back at me with wide, horrified, and fascinated eyes.
I chuckled and shrugged. “Yep, that's the powerful God of the Underworld and his not-so-reluctant bride. I know, they threw me a bit too when I first met them. The really horrible part is that I was the one who gave Hades that nickname.”
“You came up with sizzle-butt? That's pretty good.” Austin tipped his beer bottle at me.
“Thank you.”
“So, what do you call Zeus?” He shot back with a smirk.
“Dead.”
“What?” Austin gaped at me.
“Zeus is dead,” I clarified. “He was Persephone's dad.”
“Damn.” Austin's gaze shot over to Sephy. “I'm so sorry for your loss.”
“It's all right.” Persephone waved off his concern and flung her long, chocolate-brown hair over her shoulder. “He wasn't a nice person. Most people think he deserved what he got.”
“Barbecue,” I whispered to Austin.
“Do wut?” He blinked in bafflement.
“That's how he died.”
“Zeus died from eating BBQ?”
“No, Zeus was the BBQ.” I laughed my ass off at his expression.
Hell, all of us laughed, even Sephy.
That may sound callous, but Zeus had been a horrible person. So had Demeter, for that matter, but at least she had loved Persephone. I'm not so sure about Zeus. I have no idea how Sephy turned out as sweet as she did. I just know that I'm grateful to her parents for having her and for being dead. Horrible but true.
Chapter Seven
There weren't a lot of people on the streets of Lexington after 10 PM. There was only one bar in town: Mom and Dad's Icehouse on Third Street. When that closed at midnight, a stream of stumbling citizens poured out its doors, several choosing to walk home instead of risking the drive. They'd make easy pickins for a snake-shifter.
Keep an eye on the drunks, I said to Odin through our link.
I see them, Odin replied in my mind. Stay alert.
That last bit was unnecessary—we were all alert—but I didn't remark on it. It was just one of those things you say, like: be careful or drive safe. It was more about conveying love than caution. Although, with Odin, it could have been both.
I'd brought some Intare to help us patrol the town. With them adding to our numbers, none of us had to actually patrol; we could hold our positions and just wait for Odin to spot something. My position was in front of a hardware store, but I didn't expect anything to happen there. I didn't expect anything to happen around the bar either. I assumed the snake would wait until someone wandered away from the main part of town, down a street where they would be absolutely alone.
I see him, Odin said. He's on Tenth Street.
I flipped on my real two-way radio and asked, “Who's on Tenth Street?”
“Oh! Oh! That's me!” Pan said excitedly.
“Heads up; he's on your street.”
He's following a woman in a yellow dress, Odin went on.
I relayed the information to Pan, then added to everyone else, “The rest of you, get over there and help him.”
There were too many responses to hear any one of them clearly, but I got the message: our team was closing in. I traced to Tenth Street to do my part. Austin had driven us all over the town, pointing out street corners so we'd have images of each one that we could use for tracing. It sounds like a lot to memorize but it really wasn't. The town was the size of a postage stamp; we saw all of it in less than an hour, even the houses on the outskirts. However, my lions hadn't gotten the tour so they'd have to use their cellphones for GPS and make a run for it.
I came out of the Aether onto the curve where Main turned into Tenth.
“I see them,” Pan said in a more serious tone. “Moving in to intercept now.”
“Intercept? Really?” Horus' saturnine voice followed. “All right, Joe Friday.”
“I think he's turned off his radio, Horus,” Morpheus said. “And who is Joe Friday?”
A loud silence followed that. Horus and Pan had a relationship based on mutual and friendly animosity. Basically, they ragged on each other at every opportunity but it was all in fun. Except it wasn't so much fun if one half of the duo couldn't hear the other's taunts.
She just started running, Odin said. Is someone with her?
Yeah, Pan's there and the rest of us are close, I assured him.
She made it; she's inside her home. Then, in a baffled tone, he added. He's walking away.
“Hey, he didn't attack her. Do I apprehend him?” Pan came back on the radio.
“Yes!” I hissed as I started running. “Grab him!”
Tenth wasn't a long street and it terminated in someone's house. The entire length of it stretched before me so I saw the man immediately. There had to be more gods than him on the street—at the very least, Pan was there—but they were invisible like me. So, I didn't know how far away they were. I found one of them by running into him.
Strong arms caught me and righted me before I fell. I lost sight of the snake in the shuffle and when I looked up, he was gone.
Damn it! Odin snarled. Why didn't you grab him?
I just knocked into someone from our group. We were both invisible, I grumbled as I dropped my glamour.
The man holding me revealed himself too: Finn. He grimaced at me in commiseration.
“Son of a psycho Siren!” Pan hissed through the radio. “I was nearly to him when he traced!”
He's on Fifth Street, Odin said urgently. The end near the trailer park.
“He's on Fifth towards the corner of Yagua,” I relayed the info into the radio.
“You have a good memory,” Finn's slight Irish accent had an impressed tone to it.
“Thanks. You remember the corner or do you need a lift?” I held out my hand.
“I'll take a ride if you're offering.” He grinned and slapped his hand in mine.
We went invisible and I took us to the corner of Fifth and Yagua.
He's behind a guy in a cowboy hat, Odin reported. Just grab him this time, don't wait.
We weren't waiting before, I muttered back. To everyone else, I added, “He's trailing a man in a cowboy hat.”
This time, I went visible so I wouldn't run into anyone. Or at least they wouldn't run into me. I spotted the men just a block ahead of me; they both had their backs to me. A lone dog barked but he wasn't on our street; this road was quiet except for the hollow steps of cowboy boots and the harder crack of the snake's footsteps. He was making himself heard. By contrast, Finn and I ran up on the balls of our feet like ninjas, but just as we reached them, the man in the hat turned to see who was making all that noise behind him. Before he'd completed the turn, the snake-shifter had transformed into a huge, pale-green snake that resembled Viper in his snake form but wasn't nearly as vivid in color.
The human's eyes went wide as he saw his pursuer and he froze, his hand on the holstered gun on his hip. Yeah, pretty much everyone in Lexington carried a gun; I'd seen ladies pull them out of their handbags. But this guy was too startled to use it. The snake reared back, rising several feet to strike, and I leapt for him. A whole lot of gods leapt with me. I managed to grab the snake just below its head while everyone else got a piece of tail. Sorry, that didn't sound right.
�
�Run!” I snarled at the man in the hat.
It said a lot about how much he was scared that the guy followed my order and ran instead of finally pulling his gun. I watched him for a few seconds, just to make sure he continued to flee, then focused back on my target. The snake writhed in our hands and managed to draw itself up, above our god pile. His scales turned a putrid green in the light of a nearby streetlamp and his eyes flashed pus yellow. A feeling of revulsion came over me, my hands going clammy.
The snake met my stare and hissed one word, “Godhunter!”
Then he sprang free of us like a wet noodle and slithered into the grass. We ran after him, but he seemed to vanish into thin air. Or thin grass, rather.
“Fred Flintstone!” Re snarled. “He traced.”
“Did he?” I asked as I wandered into the field behind the trailer park.
I sniffed deeply: I had his scent and it rapidly became visible. My dragon always translates smells into colors for me and with the color came a general sense of the person the scent belonged to—their height and build. I don't know why a scent can tell me those things but it does. The physical impression didn't matter since I already knew what the snake-shifter looked like, but his scent lingered, and that helped immensely. I followed a jagged ribbon of acid-green through the grass and everyone else followed me.
“What happened? Where is he?” Austin asked as he came running up.
“We've got a scent.” Trevor held up his hand to hold Austin back.
“Here,” Kirill lopped ahead of me.
I grimaced at him. “I was getting there.”
Kirill grinned. “Not fast enough.”
“Impatient Intare,” I muttered as I joined my husband.
Kirill kicked down some of the tall grass and revealed a hole in the ground. A large hole. I knelt before it and took a deep whiff.
“This goes deep,” I growled, a little dragon rumbling through my voice. “I can't delve it entirely.”
Trevor crouched beside me and sniffed as well. “I'd say at least twenty feet. I lose the trail a little past that.”
“If you'd both just move aside, I could go in after him,” Viper suggested.
Kirill, Trevor, and I swiveled our heads to stare at Viper, then at each other. We shrugged and stood up.
“Shit, we're gonna have gawkers soon,” Austin said as he looked off toward the mobile home park on our right—a light had come on in one of the trailers.
“Go back to your truck,” I told him. “We'll take care of this and meet you at your house.”
“I'm not leavin' now,” he hissed under his breath.
“Then wait in your truck. Cause you can't do this, Cowboy-Cop.” I went invisible.
“Fine,” Austin muttered as he headed back to the street, past vanishing gods and demigods. “It's my operation but sure, I'll just go wait in the truck like a useless Yankee.”
Viper was the only one who didn't go invisible. Instead, he stripped and held out his clothes. “Vervain, can you hold onto these for me?”
“Sure, honey.” I took the clothes and his boots.
“Viper, I felt something off about snake,” Kirill's voice held a warning tone. “Something... evil. Death doesn't like him.”
A shiver ran down my back. “I felt it too. Something slimy. He gave me the creeps. Be careful.”
“Don't worry. He may be big, but I'm bigger.” Viper grinned and shifted immediately—going from muscular, gloriously naked star god to a massive, glistening green snake.
“Bigger doesn't mean better,” I whispered.
“That's a man's line, La-la,” Re said from somewhere on my right.
I would have said something snarky back but a man came out of a trailer with a flashlight and started shining it in our direction. Luckily, Viper was already in the grass, completely hidden. Within seconds, he was gone—slithering down the same hole that the other snake-shifter had escaped through. The man with the flashlight—not the same man who the snake had been following (I doubt he'd be emerging from his trailer before morning)—gave up after a few minutes and went back inside. Little did he know that his backyard was full of gods.
I sought my bond to Viper as we waited for him. He felt me touching his mind and spoke before I could.
This might take awhile. There's a whole system of tunnels down here and my sniffer isn't as good as yours.
Maybe I could—
Hold on, he interrupted me. I just needed to put my tongue into it.
Excuse me?
You do know that a snake smells with his nose and tongue, right?
Ah. Yes. I just wasn't sure what you meant.
Viper chuckled. We'll talk about putting my tongue into something else later. Right now, I've locked onto our guy.
Good. Let me know when you find him. To everyone else, I whispered, “He's found the trail.”
He's making a run for it, babe, Viper said. Maybe you should head back to Austin's house to wait.
I don't want to leave you here.
You're not. I'm not there anymore, he pointed out. And I'm sure Austin's place will be closer to my destination than that field is.
Fair enough. I'm going. But remember what we said and be careful, sweetheart.
You know it.
“Viper says this is going to take awhile and we should wait for him at Austin's,” I relayed to the others. “Everyone trace there; I'll ride back with Austin.”
“I'll go vith you.” Kirill's invisible hand slid into mine as everyone else traced away.
“Worried about me being alone with Cowboy-Cop?” I teased him.
“It vouldn't be first time you vent off vith friend and returned vith boyfriend.”
“Hey,” I huffed.
Kirill chuckled under his breath, then said, “Come on, let's give Austin a little scare.”
“You are so mean,” I said but grinned. “Okay.”
We found Austin waiting impatiently in his truck, his stare scanning the street and moving right over us. His expression was both grim and annoyed, his shoulders tense, and one hand tapped the steering wheel. I squeezed Kirill's hand as we silently stepped up to Austin's open window. He took the hint and let go of his glamour with me.
“Whatchu lookin' at?” I asked in that abrupt tone children employ to startle people.
Austin shouted wordlessly and jerked back in his seat as Kirill and I burst into laughter.
“Very funny. I thought Viper was supposed to be the one still maturing?” Austin growled.
We laughed harder.
“Get into the damn truck before people start investigating my shout with shotguns.”
“I zink it vas scream, not shout,” Kirill teased him but he did it as we hurried around to the other side of the truck.
“It was a shout,” Austin insisted. “I don't scream.”
As soon as we were in, Austin pulled away from the curb and while he drove away, lights started to come on in nearby homes.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Austin glared at Kirill and me. “You go and startle me while we're huntin' a killer? On a public street? Well after midnight?”
“Sorry.” I continued to chuckle. “We couldn't resist.”
“Damn Gods,” he grumbled. “What's the news on the snake guy?”
“Viper's chasing him through the tunnels,” I reported. “He says there's a whole network of them beneath the town.”
“There's a network of snake tunnels beneath my town?” Austin looked aghast. “Great. Just fuckin' great.”
I frowned as something occurred to me.
Yes, that occurred to me too, Odin's voice startled me, and I jumped.
“What just spooked you?” Austin scanned the street.
“Odin. Sorry. He spoke into my mind when I wasn't expecting it.”
I'm sorry, Vervain, Odin said. I thought you knew I was still with you.
It's okay, honey.
“Not so fun, is it?” Austin asked smugly.
“I don't mind a little
shiver once in awhile,” I countered with a brow waggle.
Austin rolled his eyes.
“Odin and I were wondering something,” I went on. “The snake didn't trace. Once he was free of our grip, the smartest thing for him to do would have been to trace away. But he didn't. He ran, or slithered, for his tunnel. Why?”
