THUNK!
I opened my eyes and, for the second time in as many days, wondered if this was heaven. If it was, then the place had been badly misrepresented. I was surrounded by cardboard boxes. I sat up and found I was on the back of a truck. A truck stacked high with what seemed to be empty cardboard boxes.
No way.
Just; no way.
The odds against dropping onto a truck were pretty long. The odds of dropping onto one loaded with conveniently cushioning items were beyond calculating. What the hell kind of truck transported empty cardboard boxes anyway?
As I pondered my good fortune, the truck started to move. I waited until we'd travelled a few blocks, then hopped out while we were stopped at a signal. As I landed on the sidewalk, safe and sound and with the sapphire still secure in my purse, I glanced towards the cab. In the light of a streetlamp, I saw the driver's reflection in his mirror. He saw me looking, smiled, and touched his cap.
Chapter 6
I'd arranged to meet the guys at a spot a safe distance from Kray's building and I hurried there now, wondering if they had gotten out safely. I sort of assumed that they could deal with pretty much whatever, but given that I was a wanted criminal at Kray's and they were my employees, they might legitimately have struggled to get out. But I needn't have worried, a few minutes after I reached the rendezvous point I saw the three, back in their street clothes, hurrying towards me.
"Cat!" Nico looked amazed and delighted to see me. "I thought you... How did you... What the fuck?"
"Nico said you fell off the fire escape," said Alexei. He punched his comrade in the arm. "What are you doing, scaring us like that?"
"I could have sworn…” Nico was completely blindsided.
"I did," I said. "I was okay."
"How?" asked Christoph.
I told them the story.
"The driver acknowledged you?" asked Alexei, when I was done.
"That's certainly how it looked," I replied. "Like he had known I was there all along."
Alexei took this in, stroking his chin. "Well," he said finally, "that's something to think about, but not tonight."
"Damn right," said Nico. "Tonight, we celebrate."
No one likes a celebration more than me but... It still felt wrong somehow. Working with the guys was one thing - that was about saving the world - but having fun with them was something else. We weren't friends…or anything else. Not after what they had done.
"Cat?" asked Christoph.
On the other hand, I felt like I deserved a celebration. I had just successfully robbed an arms dealer and cheated death – twice, if you counted the close call in the elevator. Didn't that entitle me to a drink? And there was no one else I could celebrate with.
It didn’t mean a fucking thing. They were a means to an end, but there was no point in making things more difficult than they needed to be. Besides, there was still a good chance I was going to fail, and if that happened, there were very few celebrations left in my future, or anyone else’s, for that matter. I wasn’t about to look a gift drink in the mouth.
"Look," said Alexei, "things have been a bit heavy recently, and that's our fault. But we've still got a long way to go on this and we're going to be going through it together. A few drinks and a laugh won't hurt, in fact, they might help."
Well, he was right about that. I couldn't bear this intensity and the awkwardness between us through three more tasks. I'd get an ulcer. A drink sounded good, a laugh sounded better. I didn't think I'd laughed, not really, since the truth about my mom came out. Punishing myself wouldn't help my mom.
"Give me a minute."
I had a change of clothes ready in the car, as anyone looking like Ursula was not going to be going anywhere tonight.
Irish bars are a tradition in New York, a city in which a sizable percentage of the inhabitants feel some kind of connection to a country they've never visited and probably never will. But however spurious a cynic like me might find that, you can't argue with the quality of bar they produce.
"Johnnie Walker Blue," announced Nico as he placed a tray down on the little table around which the four of us were huddled. "I won't tell you how much four glasses of this cost but I'm not buying another round this evening."
I've always kind of suspected that the only difference between good whiskey and normal whiskey is the price, but damn! Johnnie Walker Blue was something special. It seared deliciously down my throat, warmed me from within, and buzzed in my head.
Besides the drink, the other great thing in an Irish bar is the music. The landlord got up on a cramped stage in the corner and waved his hands in a vain hope of silence.
"Will you welcome please... WILL YOU WELCOME PLEASE! The Muscovies!"
A folk quartet struck up one of those tunes that could have been written yesterday or a few centuries ago. It was the sort of tune that you feel like you know already, even if you've never heard it before, as if it was coded into your DNA. Your foot starts tapping automatically, your heart starts racing, and a big, dumb grin settles across your face.
Another tray of drinks, this time bought by Alexei.
"Looks like people are dancing," noted Nico, as casually as he could.
"That's how it looks," agreed Alexei, watching as chairs and tables were moved to turn the center of the little bar into a dance floor.
Christoph's round came and went.
You can't feel bad when there's music like that in the air. There's something in it - something to do with life. And it's best enjoyed with good drink and good... friends. There was a cold moment when I thought the word, but in the convivial atmosphere and with the whiskey chasing away the bad feelings of before, “friends” was the only word that suggested itself. I liked these men. I couldn't help it; they made me as happy as the whiskey and the music. We chatted, we laughed, we joked, we bought more booze, we regularly checked to make sure the sapphire was still in my purse and we laughed at the fact that we had brought it to a bar. We laughed at the way Nico's feet, fingers, head and knees all bounced in time with the music involuntarily. We roared when Alexei knocked his glass off the table with his elbow and then gasped as Christoph caught it without spilling a drop. We joined in the old songs with the rest of the bar, even if we had to make up our own words. And then, as the band called everyone onto the floor, we abandoned our seats with Nico at our head and joined hands for a jig.
I was pretty drunk by this point but the pace of the jig as it reeled about the dance floor gave me that lightheaded flirtation of sobriety that only comes when you're really enjoying yourself. I passed from person to person, linking arms and spinning around with each. I don't think I stopped laughing throughout the reel, and when it ended, we all applauded, hands in the air, for more.
I found myself in Alexei's arms as the music kicked up once more, and I hugged him tightly, as much for support as anything, as we bounced across the floor. With the alcohol numbing my better judgment, I could not ignore swell of feeling inside me as I felt his body against mine. It felt good. More than that; it felt right.
Alexei spun me out to his right as we all changed partners and I danced awhile with a strange, but smiling, man, who had clearly done this before and whose feet executed complicated maneuvers mine could not imitate even if sober. After him, I was spun into Christoph's arms and I could not help thinking that the last time we had been this close - in fact, closer - had been in bed. I caught the scent of him through the heat and sweat of the room, and felt his strong hands on my body, familiar but tense, the air crackling with the chemistry between us. Without meaning to, I let my hands move across the strong contours of his torso, and suddenly it was as if our clothes had evaporated and we were in bed together once more, moving with a different rhythm to that of the dance. It was almost a relief when the next change came and I was spun into the arms of another of the bar's regulars, then to a woman, who I danced with just as enthusiastically. Eventually, I worked my way around to Nico, who had been a popular partner for every woma
n in the room - as had Alexei and Christoph, but Nico was by far the more enthusiastic dancer. With Nico, I did not have the sexual history I had with Alexei and Christoph and so I hoped the dance would not be so redolent with tense comparison. But of course, with Nico, I had an unfulfilled passion. The heat between us was as sharp as that I felt with the other two guys but with them it had had some outlet, with Nico, there was a pressure cooker of frustration building up, which dancing together only made worse. To feel his strong body next to mine just made me want it more, to feel his hands on my hips made me want them to go further. He moved with surprising grace for a man of his size, and that sinuous elegance, combined with his strength and stamina, made me yearn to know how those qualities would serve in bed. My eyes never left his as we danced, and the heat that burned between them made me breathless with anticipation for something that I knew I could not allow to happen.
In an attempt to drown my ravenous libido, I drank more. Which was dumb, because all it did was lower my inhibitions and numb my good sense. It would be wrong, but it would be so wonderfully good. How could something that would feel that good really be wrong?
Fortunately, there were more strangers in the bar with whom I could enjoy a dance without that unbearable sexual frustration. They were a mixed crowd; a few proper Irish New Yorkers amongst them but the numbers filled out with a variety of humanity; different races, different ages, different heights and weights and appearances. I jigged awhile with a thick-set man in his late seventies who moved like Michael Flatley, and then with a skinny teen who tripped over his feet. A man with a squint and wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt sang his own made up lyrics as we danced. A chubby Latina woman dancing beside me started adding Flamenco steps into the mix. It didn't matter that many of us didn't know the moves, the point was to participate and to enjoy, and the prime part of that was dancing together.
We were an odd bunch, and none of us were winning Dancing With the Stars anytime soon, but it was as happy a party as I could remember attending in a long time. This was what humanity was all about. The variety, the quirks, the weirdness. Our imperfections are part of what makes us special.
These were pretty deep thoughts for a party, and perhaps the drink was having its affect, but they were pretty normal thoughts for someone charged with saving mankind. I had been struggling to justify saving the human race from the wrath of the gods, but suddenly, thrust in amongst people in all their variety, it made so much more sense. For all our flaws - and they remained many - there were some amazing people out there. Some were bad, for sure, but most were just a bit weird in their own wonderful ways, and that was something to be celebrated and to be protected.
A steely resolve came upon me as I whirled about the dance floor with my fellow human beings; I would save them. I would save them for nights like tonight, or I’d die trying.
Chapter 7
The night continued, as did the dancing, but my recollections of it were not worth relating as they became less focused and more fragmentary. I wasn't sure what time we left but recalled the guys taking it in turns to half-carry me through the streets as my feet refused to walk in a straight line.
Sunlight streaming like a rainbow through the multi-colored skylight above my bed woke me in the morning. The problem with a skylight is that it can't have curtains because they would just hang straight down, although, that wasn't my primary concern that morning. My head felt as though someone was inside it with a sledgehammer slowly demolishing my skull from within. Johnnie Walker Blue is good to drink but leaves you with one hell of a hangover.
Through the pounding, the dry mouth, and the fact that my eyeballs felt like red-hot billiard balls, I began to wonder how I had gotten here. Obviously the guys had brought me back to the apartment and to my room, but had I had the wherewithal to put myself to bed? I lifted the covers and peered down at myself to find I was wearing my onesie, which had been folded up under my pillow. It seemed very unlikely I could have undressed myself and put that on last night. By rights, I should have woken up fully clothed and face down on the bed. Or possibly the floor.
So the guys had undressed me, redressed me, and put me to bed. I now noticed a glass of water on the side table - from which I gulped gratefully - and a bucket by the side of the bed. It was not just that they had refrained from taking advantage of me last night, which would have been easy given my drunkenness and the heat of the dance, but there was something indescribably sweet about them putting out a bucket in case I needed to hurl - which, thankfully, I had not. That was not something you did for the piece of ass you were banging, it was something you did for someone you cared about.
I didn't like this train of thought and was glad to hear the discreet tap at the door, enabling me to think about something else.
"Come in!”
Nico's head appeared around the door, looking adorably apologetic. "I didn't wake you, did I?"
"No. Come in."
He smiled with relief and entered, carrying a tray. "I've been checking every half hour or so. Didn't want to wake you. You needed your sleep."
"I needed to be able to hold my liquor," I said ruefully. "You seem fine."
Nico shrugged. "Human effigy. There's no point in a god building a servant that gets incapacitated by every little thing, so we don't get hangovers anywhere near as bad as you. Don't get sick much, either."
"You're lucky."
Nico shrugged. "I suppose. But you do need the lows in life to experience the highs. Anyway," he placed the tray onto my lap, "I'm told this is the best hangover cure there is."
There was a glass of water and another of orange juice - freshly squeezed - cut up honeydew and a bowl of oatmeal. I wouldn't say that it was the most spectacular breakfast I had ever had, and I couldn't speak to its properties as a hangover cure, but I was floored to realize that this was the first time in my life that a man had brought me breakfast in bed. I thought back to what Remi had said about me always picking the wrong guy - the jerk. Perhaps he had a point. Now there were three nice guys in my life, who made me breakfast in bed, who didn't take advantage when I was drunk, and who would put a bucket beside me, just in case.
They were also three guys who had destroyed my mom's mind. The horrid dichotomy returned to tear me in two once more. I wanted to hate them, but how could I after how they had treated me? I liked them, but how could I after what they had done to my mom? But of course, it was only partly right to say what they had done to my mom; they had been the instruments of Dolos, and I did not know how much choice they had had. And however badly they had gone about getting in touch with Mom, they had been trying to save mankind.
I decided to shelve these thoughts for now. There was perhaps no good answer to them and if I did not complete Zeus's tasks, then I only had a few months of existence left anyway - no point in spending that time in an agony of indecision. I had to work with the guys, and that would be easier to do if we all got on.
I took a sip of the orange juice. "That's good."
"Have some of the oatmeal, it'll help settle your stomach."
For someone who had never experienced a real hangover, Nico knew his stuff. My tummy had been churning since I had woken, but as I ate my bowl of oatmeal, it began to calm and I started to feel a bit more human. Nico watched solicitously as I ate, and I couldn't help grinning.
"Last night was fun. You're a great dancer."
He waved away the praise. "I enjoy it. You've got some moves yourself."
I laughed into my oatmeal. "Sure. Not graceful ones. But 'moves'."
"Well, you looked pretty good to me." There was a slight catch in his voice as he spoke, and I saw in his eyes the heat of the night before. "I'm glad I got to dance with you."
Did he know that he was the only one of the three I hadn't slept with? Boy, that really didn't make me sound good.
"I'm glad, too. I hope we get to dance again sometime."
Nico nodded, his eyes going dark as they trailed over my mouth. "I don't feel like yo
u've seen my best moves yet."
The subtext was killing me, and it occurred to me that if he wanted me even half as much as I wanted him, then last night must have been all the harder. I had been vulnerable. More than that; when I'm drunk, I get a bit flirty and a bit handsy. It would have been so easy for him to make a move and I would have been right there with him. But Nico - and the others, too - had known that it was not something I would have done when I was sober, and so they were respectful. They had been gentlemen.
I needed to focus on the tasks. When I got to the end of this crazy road, then... Well, then we would see.
Thinking about the tasks gave me a sudden, horrible thought. "What happened to the sapphire?"
Nico raised the napkin that sat on the tray to reveal the gem underneath. "I thought you'd like to be the one to 'send it on high to the mountain above'."
"It had to be a sacrifice to Zeus," I said, recalling the text of the task. "How do I do that? I mean, we don't have time for another trip to Mount Olympus."
"No need for that," said Nico, his lips hitching into a half-smile. "Pick up the jewel in your right hand and hold it up above your head."
I did so.
"Now say 'I pledge my fealty to all-powerful Zeus, highest of the Olympian gods'."
"I pledge my fealty to all-powerful Zeus, highest of the Olympian gods'."
"'And ask humbly that he accept this offering, worthless though it is, and unworthy though I am, as my sacrifice to his greatness'."
I rolled my eyes, privately wondering if there was any further way I could abase myself to suck up to Zeus and generally make him feel big by making myself seem small, but I repeated Nico's words.
Her Immortal Harem Book Two Page 5
