by Nicole Thorn
“Let’s not,” I said, before Kezia could say something that we’d all regret. She had issues with her mother right then, and I couldn’t say for certain that she wouldn’t try to punch the woman. It wouldn’t end well, and I refused to let someone hurt Kezia, after all the things that we’d been through in the last week.
My girlfriend stepped forward, and said, “Argus murdered the seers.”
Erebus lost his good cheer. The darkness around us seemed to grow thicker, heavier. I could still see, but it felt like the sun hid from Erebus. “Yes, I know,” he said, his voice low. “The giant wasn’t thinking clearly when he did that. Too concerned with his own revenge to think about the plans that he’s made.”
“What plans?” I asked.
“Don’t concern yourself with that,” Erebus said.
“I’m getting real tired of not being in the loop,” Kezia grumbled.
“Perhaps we are keeping you out of the loop for you own safety,” Erebus said. “Not everyone as old as the gods are as heartless as them.”
I knew that because of Medusa. She had been nothing but kind to us, though I wondered if she acted that way with everyone. She seemed to have a soft spot for Jasmine in particular.
“But we are involved,” Kezia said. “Keeping us out of the loop could be the very reason that the seers died. We could have stopped it.”
“And they would not be gods,” Erebus said.
“Look, I’m thrilled that Jasper is a god now, I am. I’m also furious over how it happened, and that’s not going to change.”
“Fair enough,” Erebus said. “So, you want Argus. You too, will be hellbent on revenge.”
“Yes,” Kezia said, before I could answer.
“Why should I help you?” Erebus asked.
“Because you like chaos,” I said. “If you help us, then you could play both sides. None of us will know who we can trust, it’ll make us more paranoid, and more likely to react to that paranoia. It’ll be everything that you wanted it to be.” And a recipe for disaster for the rest of us.
Erebus laughed. “I suppose that’s true, but what if I don’t want that kind of strife?”
“Then we’ve misjudged you,” I said.
Erebus went silent for a few seconds, and the darkness grew thicker still. It seemed to be waiting for his answer, and I didn’t like that feeling, that creepy feeling that moved up and down my spine. Nor did I like the memories of being in that restaurant, with things moving in the darkness. Did those things exist right then? Could they have been moving toward us while we stood there, talking to their master?
“I don’t know where Argus is at the moment,” Erebus said. “However, when he returns, I will let you know his location.”
Erebus disappeared, and the darkness went with him. I had grown so accustomed to it, that the light burned my eyes. I squinted at the sky and held Kezia’s hand tighter. She leaned against my shoulder, and said, “Good. That means I’ll be able to rip his head off his body soon.”
“Did we miss him?” Jasmine asked, running toward us. “Dammit!”
Zander followed behind her, and said, “What did he say? Is he willing to help us?”
“Yes,” Kezia said.
Looking into the faces of my family, I didn’t think any of us knew if that was a good thing, or bad.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Tick, Tick, Boom
Kezia
“YAY!” I HEARD Juniper yell from downstairs. “It’s fixed!”
Zander snorted. “And at the low, low price of me having to be the personal chef for Hephaestus.”
I had been in the middle of getting dressed, buttoning my shirt as I stared at a destroyed pair of shorts on the floor. Jasper had torn them in half, and that left me with not that many pairs in my dresser. Something would have to be done about it.
“Sorry,” Jasper said, nudging the shorts with his foot. “It got away from me.”
“That’s okay, I kinda like it.”
He smiled, and we left the room together.
After our sort of fruitless venture with Erebus, we had come back home and laid low for the rest of the day. We didn’t want Argus to find out that the seers were alive again, because it would have thrown off all of the aces up our sleeves. With any luck, we would be able to take him out, as well as whoever else he might have had on his team. We had six powerful people on this team now, and taking out some giants shouldn’t have been much of a problem. We could heal from anything now. That would be a fun one for the seers to experience for the first time. Watching a wound heal before their eyes.
It seemed like a good idea to stay in the house, but it only made me feel even antsier than before. I wanted to get out there and do something, or kill something. Argus could have been out there, planning for something that could devastate us again. Maybe he wanted to try to kill me and my demigod family now that the seers were out of his way. Though their deaths might have been revenge for what we had done to him already. Verin’s mother had been a warning, and this was something else. He should have understood that it would only make us fight harder, and he wouldn’t have a chance of getting away. Even if we didn’t get our seers back, we would have fought. Argus would have died, and then the rest of us . . . well, I didn’t know how that would have gone. It made me glad that I wouldn’t find out.
Zander stood at the stove, slaving away at the food he owed Hephaestus for all the work he did on the house. It probably took him all of ten minutes for the repairs, yet my brother would be cooking for the next two hours to pay him back. That meant Juniper got the horror or watching her kitchen get messy.
“I told you I would clean it,” Zander said, glancing over his shoulder at our upset in-law. “You don’t have to hover.”
“But I do, because I know for a fact that you kick stuff under the oven when you’re too lazy to clean.”
“One time.”
“One is enough!”
The backdoor opened, and Jasmine came in with Verin. I looked outside to see a happy Nemo, floating in the middle of the pool. He dipped his heads in the water, cleaning off in his little home. Jasmine had been trying to spend extra time with him since she . . . undied. Nemo got pretty upset, so she wanted to make it up to him.
“I’ll clean those,” Juniper offered, taking the buckets from Jasmine and Verin. She went to the sink, having the water on and soap pouring before Verin could even blink.
“We hosed them off,” he told her.
“Yes, and you did it poorly. I need something to do. I clean much faster than I used to, and I don’t want a bunch of free time on my hands. What will I do with it?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Hide drumsticks.”
She blushed, then cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jasmine had already made her way over to Zander, wrapping her arms around his body while he worked on something at the stove. I tuned them out, trying to think up ways to cook breakfast with the kitchen taken over. Eight in the morning felt like too early to order a pizza, so I had to come up with something.
“We can eat later,” Jasper offered. “Maybe I can catch up on some things in the studio.”
I didn’t especially want to go in there, since I couldn’t get those pictures out of my head. The nightmares didn’t let up a single time since Jasper and his sisters got back, and I worried that they would last for a long time. I knew they were safe now, and stronger than the rest of us. Somehow, that didn’t sink in enough to make me stop being afraid for them. One giant wouldn’t take out a single seer now, yet, I smelled blood when I closed my eyes.
“Already got food for you,” Zander said. He pointed to the counter. “That stuff is up for grabs.”
I went for it, weaving through the two other couples to get what Zander laid out. Everything to make breakfast burritos. Jasper and I sat at the table while Juniper cleaned with Verin, and Jasmine flirted with Zander.
I checked the clock a few times, feeling a little on edge.
Erebus had been no help, telling us pretty much to sit tight. We had to wait on that, the triplets had to pick new seers, and my and Zander’s mothers had insinuated that they were coming to talk to us soon. Time meant little to them, so soon could have been six months from now. Still, I didn’t want to deal with it.
“What’s wrong?” Jasper asked me.
I shrugged. “Kinda have that walls-closing-in feeling, and I can’t shake it. You have a few days left to pick your seers, and we still have more than one threat over our heads. I want to cut Argus into a million pieces, and I don’t like waiting. He gets to be out there breathing, and not suffering for what he did to all of us. It’s not right.”
Verin looked over from the sink. “My father is going to make sure he suffers for all of eternity once we take care of it. For what he did to Mum, Dad will not let the man have another moment of peace.”
“Once he’s dead,” I pointed out. “Hades can’t do anything until Argus is dead, and not even Erebus knows where he is. I don’t like the waiting.”
“It should be over soon,” Jasper said. “He’ll die, and we can have some downtime.”
“Until our moms come,” Zander said. He gave me a look. “What are we going to say to them? I would rather bury myself alive than have to look my mother in the eye right now.”
I knew what he meant. My mom knew half my family would die, and she didn’t say a word. She could have hinted, or done something. Instead, she let it happen, all for the sake of not meddling. She did that to avoid a potential scuffle with the other gods. It wouldn’t have had any consequences for her ultimately, and it didn’t change a thing. Mom would have let the people I loved die, so that she didn’t have to go to any trouble. I couldn’t get past it.
“I hate them at the moment,” I admitted. “Our moms were almost the least helpful people there. Fucking Apollo fought harder for us than they did. It doesn’t make sense.”
Jasmine turned from the counter, crossing their arms. “I wish I could say I believed there was a good reason for it, but I can’t see it. We needed help, and they didn’t want to give it.”
“They thought they could replace us,” Verin snorted. “Because we wouldn’t serve them if we were mourning. As if I could be replaced.”
Juniper kissed his cheek, holding up her sudsy gloved hands. “Never. I think the gods are not very smart, thinking that they could work through the loss of all the people who care about us. I would hate to see what Medusa would do if she knew what happened. It would have been stone people everywhere.”
I agreed with that one. “Honestly, I think this would bother Persephone too. She spends half her year with Hades, and the other half topside. She’s not out of touch like the Olympians.”
“Not so sure about Eros,” Zander said. “He works with Mom all the time.”
“But you’re his baby brother, and Jasmine is your soulmate. That means something to your brother. It should mean something to your mom too, but she’s got her head in the clouds.”
“Most of them do,” Jasper reminded me. “It surprised me, the ones that took our side.”
“They need us,” Zander said cynically. He turned the burner off and started setting the food into containers. “I have some things to deliver to a waiting god. I’ll be back in an hour. Jasmine, you wanna go get ice cream for breakfast?”
She jumped up and down. “I can do that now because I’m all godly and shit and I don’t have to conform to society’s rules!”
Juniper scoffed. “You never did before. I’ve seen you sit at the table and eat a whole package of sliced ham.”
Jasmine started gathering up containers of food, glaring. “Don’t judge me, for I am a god.”
“So am I.”
“Yeah, but . . . ” And then she started running out of the room.
Zander turned to Juniper, holding the rest of the food. “I’ll be back to clean. Don’t touch a thing.” He left the kitchen, and I heard him grab his keys before he and Jasmine took off.
Juniper seemed unwell with the order, and stared down the dishes all over the kitchen. I could practically read her mind as she thought up how she could get it all clean before Zander and Jasmine came back.
“No,” Verin said. “This is Zander’s mess, and he said he would clean it. Let him.”
Juniper’s nose wrinkled. “But he won’t do it as well as I do.”
“No, of course not. It still shouldn’t fall on you.”
I stood up, gathering the plates Jasper and I used. “Don’t worry, Juniper. I’ve got it. How about you go tell Verin where those drumsticks are?”
Verin smirked at Juniper. “Yes, I would like to know where you’ve hidden them. I am not afraid of taking a very swift and merciless revenge on you.”
“Meaning?” Juniper asked.
Verin chuckled. “You can only find out the hard way.”
Juniper pulled the gloves off of her hands and set them down. “Fine, I’ll trust Kizzy to clean up.” She brushed her hands together. “I am finished.”
Verin picked her up, not warning her first. He threw her over his shoulder, making her yelp. “To make sure you keep your word.”
“I’m stronger than you now,” Juniper reminded him.
“You can assume that, but I’ll still win. Come along, luv. We can go re-spackle the guest bathroom like you wanted to.”
He marched her off, and I had to keep myself from laughing as Juniper complained the whole way upstairs. She did it casually, like she didn’t actually want to be put down. Though she probably assumed Verin would have put up a fight.
Jasper helped me put all the dishes in the sink, and we stood side by side for the cleaning. Hephaestus hadn’t gotten around to fixing our dishwasher yet, leaving us to do it by hand. Something about making sure he got us what he called the Cadillac of dishwashers. I got the scrubber, and he dried and put the clean dishes back in their rightful place. Juniper would be happy, and Zander would be confused. He’d done a lot of cooking in order to pay off the house getting fixed, so I felt like I needed to do my part.
I flicked soapy water at Jasper, and then looked off before he could catch me red handed. He didn’t have anyone else to blame, but I had to go with the game in my head. My punishment was Jasper slipping a wet hand up my shirt, soaking my back.
“Ah! You hooligan,” I declared.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as he dried a plate.
“You know what you did.”
“I did nothing. I’m cleaning. Maybe you huffed too many bubbles and started seeing things.”
I gasped. “Oh really? Can you see this?” I scooped up a bunch of bubbles and squished them on the top of Jasper’s head. He took it like a man, only smiling at me for what I did to him.
Wet hands grabbed my hips and pulled me against Jasper’s chest. Without Zander in the house to get annoyed, I could freely make out with my boyfriend in the kitchen. I felt like it was part of any good relationship to sit your girlfriend on a kitchen counter and get her legs around you. Which Jasper did. It took me by surprise, how easily he picked me up. I kept forgetting he could do that as if I weighed no more than a pillow.
I held Jasper tightly, knowing it wasn’t possible for me to hurt him like I could have before. I didn’t have to be careful or worry that a bone would break. He didn’t have the same luxury, and I felt the hesitation when he held me back.
“We technically have to finish cleaning,” I said against Jasper’s mouth.
“Do we? I think we have to go unmake our bed.”
I glanced at the sink while Jasper kissed my neck. “This should only take another ten minutes if we hurry.”
I watched him contemplate, and then he set me on my feet. “Good point.”
We got back to it, with a little more urgency than before. Jasper started making a pile of dishes, intent on putting them all away at the same time. It would have been quicker that way.
I kept bouncing on my feet, giddy all over. Even with all
the bad stuff that happened, I had so much to look forward to.
“I’m absurdly happy,” I said. “Is that weird?”
“For us, maybe. But I understand. Everything kind of got fixed after this terrible thing that happened.”
I smiled. “Yeah, it did. We don’t have time limits anymore. There’s all this stuff we get to do, and we can do it whenever. I don’t even know where to start.”
Jasper put a plate on the counter, and then bumped my side with his. “We can get married.”
My face got all warm. “Well yeah, but we would have done that anyway, even if you were still human.”
“No,” he said. “I mean, we can start with getting married. Now.”
It took a few seconds for me to register what he said, because we were doing the dishes and it took me by surprise that we went from that, to him proposing.
“Really?” I asked. “You want to get married?”
“Do you not?”
My eyes went wide. “No that’s not what I meant. I do want to marry you. I guess I assumed that would be later on. There isn’t really a reason to wait though. We’re not getting any older . . . pretty much. And I love you, so . . . ”
He smiled down at me. “I love you too. So, was that a yes then?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
I pulled Jasper back down to me, ignoring the wet hands that I put all over him. He ignored it too, picking me up so that I could wrap myself around him. The dishes didn’t matter anymore, and I decided they could be done later.
Jasper and I made it to the living room when the bell rang. We paused, and I thought about telling him to ignore it before I heard rapid knocking that followed the bell. I didn’t think it would stop, so I hopped to my feet.
When I looked through the peephole, I saw the top of a redhead, but I couldn’t see a face. I opened the door and smiled. “Callie!”
The girl hugged the life out of me, and her voice ran at a mile a minute. “I’m so sorry about what happened! I heard the gods talking about it when you were all up talking to them.” She shoved me away, and then hurried over to Jasper to hug him too. “If I knew, I would have told you. I had been listening since you came to see me.” Then she let go of Jasper to take a breath. “I couldn’t understand anything they said before, and then I heard them talking. You’re gods now,” she gasped. “That’s never happened before with your kind.”
