by Angie Fox
“I’m tired, Marc. I’m tired of all of this.” I tried to explain, willed him to understand. “It’s like pieces of me keep getting chipped out or torn away. I can’t do this anymore.”
But Marc wouldn’t let it go. Couldn’t. “What do you want, Petra? Do you want him?”
“I want to feel whole again.” The sad thing was, I didn’t think I’d ever get any of it back. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So am I,” he said. Then he walked away.
chapter nine
The next afternoon, things got worse. I’d done my rounds, and I still hadn’t heard from Galen. We were alive—so far—when Horace accosted me on my way home.
“Have you heard anything?” he asked, his wings beating up a dust storm.
“No.” I stopped, bringing a hand to my eyes. “You?”
The sprite shook his head, setting off a cascade of glitter. “I couldn’t get Shirley alone.”
I’d never seen him this nervous.
“You weren’t at mail call today,” he said, as if it were a personal fault of mine.
I started walking again. “I never go to mail call.” My father had been the only one on Earth who knew I was down here, and with him gone, well, let’s just say I didn’t get many care packages.
The sprite’s forehead furrowed. “I picked this up for you,” he said, holding out what looked to be a shoe box wrapped in brown paper. “They’d had it for a week,” he added. That’s when I noticed the Greek writing on the side.
Oh, no. “What’s that?” An express delivery from the oracle?
Here’s your knife, I hope it doesn’t kill you this time.
I took a step back, then another. “No flipping way. You know what that is?”
He frowned. “It’s your mail. It’s heavy and I’m not going to carry it around for you all day.”
On closer look, it didn’t have a mailing label or postage marks and I really didn’t want to touch it. If I laid so much as a finger on it, it would be mine.
The air between us seemed to hum, as if the thing were calling for me.
“Fine,” I said, hefting it from him. It would probably follow me anyway, like it had all of the other times I’d been given the bronze dagger.
Darned if the package wasn’t vibrating.
“See if I do you a favor next time,” Horace muttered as he flew away.
Too many of these favors and I’d be done for. Okay, well, the least I could do was get this thing home.
It was less than a two-minute walk, but it might as well have been in another world. The box was heavy. I tore the end off the brown paper wrapping. The container inside was made of earthenware or some kind of stone. I couldn’t tell. I slung it under my arm, making sure to keep a decent grip on it. No telling what the oracle or the Fates or whoever was pulling my strings would do if I broke their precious box. It’s not like the prophecy had told me what to do with the thing.
It was mid-afternoon, and not a lot of people were out. Johnny Cash music filtered over from the enlisted tents. I’d bet anything it was the mechanics. Lazio had always said he wanted a boy named Sue. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t get a date.
I took the shortcut through the maze of officers’ tents, all the way to the edge of the tar pits to my new place.
Rodger was visible through the mesh windows. He sat on his cot, bent over a notebook, no doubt writing one of his endless letters to his wife.
I didn’t bother knocking. “Honey, I’m home!”
Rodger slammed the notebook closed and shoved it under his pillow. “Jesus!” His eyes were wild and his auburn hair was in serious need of a brush.
“What? You didn’t smell me coming?” I ducked around an I BRAKE FOR WOOKIES shirt drying on the laundry line. “I thought werewolves were supposed to know these kinds of things.”
Rodger crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “You think I want to smell any more than I have to around this place?”
Touché. “What’s in the notebook?”
“Nothing.” He gave an exaggerated shrug.
“You’re blushing.” Oh, this was just too good.
His whole face went even redder. “It’s just a letter for Mary Ann.”
Yes, well, that wasn’t enough to get all hot and bothered … unless. “Is it a dirty letter?”
The tips of his ears flared bright red and he started to cough.
“Well done.” I didn’t know he had it in him.
I walked over to the door-turned-desk that Rodger and Marius had set up between their cots. He had a half-dozen delivery boxes stacked on top, along with other assorted junk. “It looks like you made mail call.”
Rodger had brought back a crap-ton of sci-fi geekdom from his time on leave, but now he’d gotten even more stuff.
He had boxes stacked shoulder high next to the front door.
There was Captain Kirk, Spock, Bones, red shirt guys, yellow shirt guys, aliens, the K-7 space station, a Romulan-Bird-of-Prey (I know because it said so on the box). “Must be a bitch not having shelves anymore.”
“Just”—he clenched his fists—“be careful.”
“Says the man who kept swamp creatures in his footlocker.”
He snorted. “At least I resisted the urge to smuggle a few home.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
He gave a half grin. “As far as you know.”
I held up my mystery package. “Look what Horace just gave me.”
Rodger glanced over his shoulder at the box, still mostly wrapped in brown paper. “Okay.”
“It’s freaking me out.” Even if it was the knife, it’s not like I knew what to do with it. Yet. Of course, I’m sure whatever it was would be dangerous and horrible.
Rodger cocked his head. “Why?”
That was the trick. I couldn’t tell him. Rodger didn’t know the real reason the bronze dagger had followed me around all those months before. And he didn’t know anything about me seeing the dead. It was the way I was going to keep it, for his safety and mine.
So I settled on the obvious. “Who sends a stone box? And look at the scrollwork.” Or writing, or whatever it was.
Rodger and I tore the rest of the paper off. “Ahh…” he said, studying it top to bottom. “Ancient Sumerian. And look.” He pointed to a weird-looking owl/eagle creature. “It’s cursed.”
I bolted upright. “Really?”
“Nah. It could be Klingon for all I know.”
“Don’t do that,” I said, taking the box from him.
“Why?” He grinned. “You should have seen the look on your face.”
The box had a simple latch. It shouldn’t be too hard to open. “Don’t look,” I said, forcing him to give me some space. An enchanted dagger is hard to explain.
“Go for it, Pandora.”
I moved to Marius’s side of the room. No sense letting an ancient Sumerian curse loose all over Rodger’s shrine to the seventh fleet.
“Is he in here?” I asked, taking a seat on Marius’s footlocker. Last I heard, the vampire was in the middle of renovating his lair. Word had it he was adding a game room.
“Who knows?” Rodger shrugged.
“Right.” I ran a finger over the scrollwork and said a quick prayer that the alabaster box didn’t eat me alive. The delicate gold latch did nothing to soothe my anxiety. Sometimes, the more harmless something looked, the worse it could bite.
“You want me to do it?” Rodger asked.
“No,” I said quickly. I could do this. I knew what was inside.
I took a deep breath, held it, and opened the latch.
The top of the box flew open and flames shot out. “Holy hell!” I dropped it on the ground and both of us scrambled out of the way as it hissed and spun, shooting fire and sparks. It bounced off the iron stove and skidded in front of Rodger’s cot.
Bang!
It exploded in a shower of hot glittering pieces.
I gripped Rodger’s arm, my heart beating wildly, as we stared at a charred
black cylinder amid the smoking rubble. I froze as a flame zipped across the spiral wick. There was no time to move, no time to run. Panic seized me and time slowed down.
It was a bomb. I’d unleashed a bomb on my friend. Rodger grabbed me, we clung together, and bam!
I slammed my eyes closed, waiting for the fire and the pain, and … nothing happened.
Swallowing hard, I looked down. A pink bear had popped out of the cylinder.
The air held the tang of sulfur and gunpowder.
I held fistfuls of Rodger’s scrub shirt and blinked a couple of times. “What the fuck?”
“One more second and I would have needed new underwear,” Rodger said, peeling me off his arm.
“You have any water?”
“No.”
We waited for a second before venturing forward. I toed through the wreckage. The box had broken into little hearts. Anatomically correct ones, with mini aortic valves sticking out the top.
“Who the hell…?” I squatted down to take a second, then a third look at the pink teddy bear. No way was I touching it. The smiling bear held a lacy baby shower invitation, complete with bottles and a stork, and written in dried blood.
Rodger crouched next to me. “Looks like it’s a girl.”
I didn’t get it. I was so sure this would be the knife. “I don’t know anyone who’s having a baby.”
Rodger plucked the card from the bear and flipped it open. “Aww … it’s from Medusa.”
My jaw slackened. “The gorgon?” Sure, I was giving her prenatal care, but, “I don’t really know her.” Only that she had a temper and lived on an island surrounded by a poisonous lake. “I’m her doctor, not her gal pal.”
Rodger shrugged, handing me the card. “Maybe she doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
Had he met the woman? “Of course she doesn’t. She’s the serpent-goddess, executioner of men, scourge of Kisthene’s plain…”
Bottles and skulls
stone heroes and more,
let’s shower the baby
with gifts galore!
Please come to a baby shower for
Medusa, serpent-goddess, executioner of men,
scourge of Kisthene’s plain,
on Sunday, March 5th, at noon.
Isle of Wrath and Pain,
Western edge of the world.
*If you encounter the Bottomless Pit of the Furies, you’ve gone too far.*
Rodger plucked the RSVP card from the mess, grabbed a pen out of his pocket, and checked the “yes” box for me.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you out of the house. I’ll take this to mail call tomorrow.”
He had to be nuts. “I’m not going to Medusa’s baby shower. I don’t even know how to get to the Isle of Wrath and Pain.”
He held up a little yellow piece of paper. “It says here she’s sending you transport.”
I didn’t like that one bit. “I don’t want any winged monkeys.”
“That’s the Wizard of Oz. You know—the shit that’s not real.”
Fair enough. Still, “What is she sending?”
“Who knows?” He stuffed the RSVP card in his pocket. “I’d go with you, but no boys allowed.”
“This isn’t funny.” Not that I thought Medusa would kill me. She needed me to deliver the baby. But come on—the dagger was still out there. I was surprised it hadn’t turned up in my pocket yet. Or on my table in the middle of surgery.
I didn’t have time for hearts and flowers and … babies.
Once the knife started following me, it was impossible to lose it. And anyone who saw me with a bronze dagger might start putting two and two together.
There might be goddesses at the shower. I really didn’t want to have to endure eternal punishment over a party and a power and a knife I couldn’t control.
Gods. I sat down on Marius’s cot. What if I were talking to an investigator and the dagger showed up?
I would be done. Finished.
Rodger dug around in his footlocker and pulled out a warm can of Dr Pepper. I didn’t know how he could stand to drink those things. “That would have been good to put out the fire.”
“What fire?” He shrugged, popping the tab. “You know what you should get Medusa? You should get her one of those baby wipes warmers. Or a Diaper Genie!”
“I don’t even want to know what those are.” I sighed. Knowing my luck, she’d want a real genie. It didn’t look like there was any way to get out of this thing. “I suppose onesies would be out of the question.” Based on the last ultrasound, the little gal had quite a snake’s tail.
How would you even diaper that?
Rodger sat up against the camp stove. “We used to have these finger puppets we’d use with the kids in the bathtub. First time I showed Gabe, he chomped the rabbit. Ate it in one gulp. We knew right then he was a go-getter.”
I stuffed the invite into my pocket. “I wish you could go home.”
He took a long drag of Dr Pepper. “Me too.”
We sat in silence, listening to the tar bubbles in the swamp.
Sure, living with Rodger could drive any sane woman to drink occasionally, but he was fun. He was my best friend.
He was easy.
I eyed him as he scratched his belly and contemplated his soda can. “I missed you,” I said.
“You should.”
I shook my head. “I missed this.”
That got his attention. “Things with Marc finally get to you?”
I sat, elbows on my knees. “He wasn’t the one.”
I stared at the postcards Rodger and I had tacked up on the wall. Los Angeles, Topanga, Malibu—all of the places he and Mary Ann were going to show me once we got out of here. God, I had more happy postwar fantasies with Rodger and Mary Ann than I did with my almost-fiancé. “Now Galen’s back in the picture.”
Rodger choked. “What?”
“He’s back. I’m hiding him.” Sort of. When he wasn’t avoiding me.
My roommate stared at me. “When were you going to mention it?”
What was he? My father? “I just did.”
“Oh, well, naturally,” Rodger muttered.
I ignored him. I’d believed that Galen was the one man I could love with all my heart, but that wasn’t going to work. I had no idea how I could ever trust myself to know anymore.
Not when I’d fallen so hard, and hurt so bad. I blew out a breath. “How do you know when it’s right? You know: the One?”
He contemplated a second. “You don’t.”
Talk about a bullshit answer. “I’m serious.” Rodger and Mary Ann had a fantastic marriage, one that kept him sane when everything else was going to hell. “Don’t stand here and tell me it was all a happy mistake.” Not when I needed a plan. “I want what you have. So give it to me straight. How did you know Mary Ann was the right one for you?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Did I ever tell you about her dimples?”
I was so not in the mood for a ramble down memory lane. “Rodger…”
He sat down on his cot and wadded up his pillow behind him. “Mary Ann has the cutest dimples. She can really light up a room. So at the end of every date, I’d ask her out again right away. And she’d smile and show off those dimples and she’d say, ‘I suppose we could go another round.’”
Just shoot me now. “That’s not even witty.”
But he was already in another world. “It was perfect.”
“Oh, barf.”
He gave me a knowing grin. “You want it straight? Here it is. You may not be able to communicate worth shit, but you’re ass backward in love with Galen. Stop overthinking it and be with him for whatever time you have.”
My stomach hollowed. Maybe I didn’t want what Rodger had—to love so deeply, but be kept apart.
“Petra?” Rodger leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “This isn’t a microbiology test.”
My head buzzed with a million issues and worries and fears until I blur
ted out the most important one. “I can’t lose him again.”
Rodger sat still for a moment. “It’s better than cutting you both off.”
“No it’s not.” I stood. I had to move, walk, do something. “Galen isn’t even pretending that he can stay, that he can love me, that he’s not going to walk away tomorrow or next week and get himself killed because he gave up his immortality for me.”
He tilted his head. “And what are you willing to risk for him?”
“Shut up, Rodger.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at the tar swamp. We were on two different roads. I never should have asked Rodger his opinion.
I stared at the swamp until I didn’t even see it anymore. “You don’t know how hard it is to have him right here.”
“No, but I know you.”
I did my best to ignore him.
He folded his letter and placed it back in its envelope. “Come on.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s grab some dinner.”
“Good. Yes.” Anything to get my mind on something else.
Before we left, we scooped up the box fragments. “What are we having tonight?”
“Meat loaf surprise.”
“What’s the surprise?” I dumped a handful of stoneware hearts in the trash.
“No meat.”
We wandered over to the mess tent and grabbed a few trays. They were always wet. In the desert. I shook some of the drips off mine. I didn’t know how the cafeteria staff managed it.
I did feel better—sort of—after unburdening myself to Rodger. I just wished things could be simple, or at least easier to take.
And it turned out Rodger was right about one thing—I didn’t detect much meat in the loaf. We moved down the line and I noticed he stuck to the buttered noodles.
The place was only half full. Rodger and I found a spot at a far table with Holly and Father McArio.
“How’s Galen?” Father asked.
My tray rattled as I dropped it the last few inches and grabbed a chair. “You told him?” I asked Holly.
She shrugged, chewing her meat loaf. “I’ve told him worse than that. Besides, Rodger doesn’t look too surprised.”
I peppered my meat. Took another look at it and peppered some more.
“Galen is a big guy,” Rodger said, shoveling in a forkful of buttered noodles. “He can handle himself.”
