Crazy Cupid Love

by Amanda Heger

  “I’ve got a couple of weeks left.” Eliza bit the inside of her cheek to keep her impatience from showing and caught a faint whiff of rotten eggs and garbage again. I really need to find a new deodorant. “I think it’ll be fine.”

  With a tight smile, Mrs. Washmoore picked up Eliza’s ID and ran it through the scanner.

  Finally. Eliza took a step forward, ready to burst into the Agora as soon as Mrs. Washmoore opened the doors.

  Instead, the light on the scanner glowed red and the building stayed closed. “I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Washmoore said. “There must be a problem.” She didn’t look sorry. In fact, she looked downright giddy.

  Eliza tapped her fingers against the counter. “Can you try again, please?”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Washmoore ran the ID again.

  Red.

  She tried a third time. And a fourth. Red lights every time.

  “Maybe you’re putting it in upside down?” Eliza asked, nerves in a jumble. “Can you try—”

  The woman’s curls rattled. “I know how to do my job, Ms. Herman. Despite what the Erosians seem to believe.”

  Oh, shit. Fury on the edge. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. Would it be okay if you just let me in? I can sign on a piece of paper or something? Leave my license with you? It’s not like I’m a stranger.”

  “I’m not allowed to override the system. Maybe you should come back tomorrow.”

  “Mrs. Washmoore, I really, really can’t wait until tomorrow. Is there someone you can talk to? The IT department?”

  Mrs. Washmoore’s blue eyes turned cold as she narrowed them, and for a second, Eliza swore she was about to unleash the fury of her inner Fury. A gross overreaction considering how polite Eliza had been, but maybe the woman was just having a bad day. Maybe someone had switched her to decaf. But then Mrs. Washmoore’s expression calmed, bringing her back to the wrinkle-faced woman Eliza had grown to know over the past few weeks.

  “Let me see what I can do.” She disappeared into the tube with a whoosh.

  Eliza forced her shoulders to relax and took a deep breath. It was going to be fine. Mrs. Washmoore would return with some cute, geeky Hermesian who’d have the whole situation figured out in five minutes flat. And five minutes wasn’t going to make or break Eliza’s plans. She could even use that time to brainstorm how to get back on Mrs. Washmoore’s good side. After all, if the Fury was going to let Eliza take a peek at the Scroll so she could take note of the advanced Cupids and finally track down the maker of Egg Salad Saga, they were going to need to be BFFs—at least temporarily. Relax. Stay calm. Pull it in. Relax. Stay calm. Pull it in. Relax—

  “I’m very sorry, but there’s nothing we can do today, Eliza.” Mrs. Washmoore’s voice came from an overhead intercom. “Please come back tomorrow and try again.”

  “But I—” The blinking light above the intercom went dark. “Hello? Mrs. Washmoore?”

  Nothing.

  Eliza stared at the hole where the woman usually appeared, hoping against hope that Mrs. Washmoore would reappear at her post.

  No dice.

  “Gods damn it.” Eliza took a quick step away from the building. There had to be another way in. And she had to find it soon. Sooner than soon. She needed to be in the library yesterday. She power walked around the side of the building, scoping it out for breaches in security. Could she slide through an open window? Climb through the air ducts the way people did in the movies?

  “Wooooooooooo!”

  A fifteen-passenger van barreled through the parking lot. She gave the driver, a Satyr thinly disguised as a delivery driver, the stink eye. Getting run over by an unmarked van would be the cherry on this shit sundae.

  Two more vans passed in quick succession, and she caught a glint of a gold dolphin logo on the vehicle’s back door. Thursday. Eliza would bet her last dollar—which, coincidentally, was in her back pocket right now—that those vans were full of sea nymphs being shipped into Dionysus for Nereid Night.

  Eliza jogged around the side of the building, where a pudgy man with a clipboard pointed toward the Agora’s service entrance. “Bring ’em around this way. Careful now. That tank’s sloshing out the rear end.” Another group of men and women, too muscled to be fully human, carried long, rectangular tanks on their shoulders. Only a few feet of water filled the inside, but that was enough for the nymphs perched on the backs of sea turtles. Ten or so yards away, a group of twentysomething guys moved along a patch of grass. To the untrained eye, they looked like a group of bearded hipsters in ball caps playing Ultimate Frisbee. But every Descendant that passed could see them for what they were: a group of Satyrs using ball caps to hide their goatlike ears and Ultimate Frisbee as an excuse to graze while waiting for Nereid Night.

  Eliza tucked herself behind a nearby car and watched as she pretended to rifle in her purse for a set of keys. If she could make it past the goat-men, the Kratosians, and the Nereids, she might be able to make it inside.

  “Tommy, I told you,” a familiar, melodic voice said. “He clashes with this outfit. You promised you’d help me out.”

  “I tried, but all the dolphins were booked tonight.” Muscle Man—a.k.a. Tommy—shrugged his gargantuan shoulders.

  Quinn sloshed with the movement and adjusted her purple shell top. “Listen, my tips are so much better when I look put together, and I have another student loan payment due next week. There’s really nothing you can do?”

  Eliza recognized the sweet, lilting tone Quinn was using. She’d heard it many times during their sorority sister days, and it never failed to get Quinn exactly what she wanted.

  “Okay, okay.” Tommy lowered the tank back into the van. “Let me go find Ben. Maybe he has an idea.”

  “Thanks, Tommy. You’re the best.”

  Why hadn’t Eliza been born a Nereid? Sure, there were cons, but getting whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it seemed like a pretty good deal.

  Wisps of an idea took shape in her mind, solidifying with each passing second.

  No, she hadn’t been born a sea nymph. But she had recently experienced life as a sea lion…

  Eliza forced herself to walk calmly and casually around to the main parking lot. As soon as she was out of sight, she burst into a run. She made it to Ron, panting and wheezing, and jammed her key into the trunk.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  Eliza took a deep breath. If she was really a techno-Cupid, this would be the moment of truth.

  “Come on, Ron.” She tapped her key lightly against the bumper. “We’ve been through so much together. All those bad jobs, all those bad haircuts, even a few bad kisses. Just give me this one thing, and I promise you can retire.”

  Nothing.

  She smacked her wallet against the taillight. “I promise to feed you premium gas from now on.”

  Nada.

  She kicked one of the tires with as much force as she could muster before leaning close to the keyhole. “I’ll never make you go through the car wash again,” she whispered.

  The trunk popped open with a groan.

  Her sigh of relief was so deep that it vibrated in her toes. There it was—her sea lion costume. The bodysuit, the fins and flippers, the mask with its horrible whiskers. It was no dolphin, but it was dark brown—and it wouldn’t clash with Quinn’s top.

  A few minutes later, Eliza waddled through the parking lot as inconspicuously as possible—which was about as inconspicuous as obscene graffiti on the wall of the Louvre. But by the grace of the Fates, she didn’t pass a single soul on her way back to the vans.

  The closer she got to the open door of the van, the tighter her stomach knotted. Quinn had to say yes. A Delta Iota Kappa never turned her back on a sister. Partly because the sorority was full of Descendants and no one wanted to turn their back on a Fury, but also because they looked out for one another.

 
“Quinn,” Eliza whispered when she reached the van. “Quinn.”

  Her friend looked her straight in the eye. Not the sea lion’s eyes, but the place where a thin piece of mesh let Eliza see out of its mouth. “I told you, Leroy, I’m not interested. Please stop showing up here. I’m working.”

  “No!” Eliza waved her fins and shoved the mask up onto her forehead. “It’s me.”

  “Eliza?”

  “Can you sneak me in with you? Please?” She hop-climbed into the back of the van. Or rather, she tried. It took her three failed attempts, two strings of curse words, and one pep talk from Quinn before she waddled into the vehicle. “I promise it’s for a good reason, but it’s a really long story and—”

  “Get in the tank.”

  “Really?”

  “A Delta Iota Kappa never turns her back on a sister.” Quinn heaved Eliza into the water.

  She slipped and slid against the slick glass at the bottom of the tank, and through the mesh of her mask, she could have sworn the turtle gave her a look that said, I know, right?

  “Stop squirming,” Quinn whispered.

  Eliza obeyed and took up her now-practiced sea lion position with her legs stretched behind her and her weight balanced on her palms. Quinn draped herself across Eliza’s back and rested her forearms on the edge of the tank.

  “Sorry, Quinn,” Tommy said without looking at Eliza. Instead, his eyes stayed firmly glued to the curve of Quinn’s shell top. “I asked around, but—”

  “Kyle found something.” Her voice adopted that melodic quality again. “Can you put Delores in another tank though?”

  Tommy reached into the tank, and his biceps bulged perilously close to Eliza’s front flippers. There was no way he wouldn’t see her. No way he wouldn’t realize Quinn sat atop a human dressed as a sea lion. No way he—

  “Oh, Tommy,” Quinn said, smooth as the finest silk. “I meant to ask, how did your powerlifting competition go last weekend?”

  The man was entranced. “Had a great squat and bench press, but I didn’t hit my goal on the dead lift,” he said with eyes locked on Quinn’s. His fingers grasped the edge of the turtle’s shell.

  “Oh no.” Quinn stuck out her lip in a perfect pout. “You’ll get ’em next time.”

  “Thanks, Quinn.” Tommy had gone full puppy-dog-eyed with gratitude. And the turtle looked almost as grateful when Tommy plucked it from the tank and laid it in the back of the van. “Let’s roll,” Tommy said when he returned.

  Suddenly, the tank was in the air, and they were on the move. Salt water sloshed over the sides, stinging Eliza’s eyes and nose. Her elbow cracked against the glass, and pain shot up her arm.

  Quinn must have heard the clunk, because she whispered, “Hold still.”

  Eliza tightened every muscle she could in an attempt to follow Quinn’s directions. Her abs, her biceps, her calves, even her butt cheeks. If only she’d gone to more of those yoga classes she’d signed up for last summer.

  “Well, well, well. Quinn Patel,” a male voice said.

  The tank came to a halt. The water did not. It rose into Eliza’s mask and into her mouth. The resulting cough that escaped sounded almost like a sea lion. She threw in two more barks for good measure, until Quinn jabbed a heel into her side.

  “Sorry, new lion. You know how they get excited.” Quinn shifted toward the bouncer, all charm.

  “I do,” he said. “I really do.”

  Eliza wanted to gag at the leery pitch in his voice. Was it possible to undress someone with your tone? If so, this dude was totally doing it to Quinn.

  “You can put her in tank seven,” the bouncer said to Tommy. “I get off in an hour. I’ll have someone check on you then, Quinn.”

  “Sounds great.”

  The next thing Eliza knew, she was fin-over-teakettle, flopping around in more than ten feet of water. Quinn grabbed her by the arm and swam them both to the rear corner of the tank, where she pressed Eliza up onto a rock.

  “Are you okay? Bark if you are.”

  Eliza blinked and sputtered, but finally she let out a raspy bark.

  “Thank the gods. I don’t think anyone saw. They were too busy watching Penelope do shots off a shark’s back.”

  Eliza whipped her head around. She wouldn’t mind seeing that—

  “Eliza, what’s going on?”

  Focus, Herman.

  Eliza told Quinn about Egg Salad Saga and the techno-Cupids as briefly as she could—leaving out her own status as one. She already half expected Quinn to demand that Eliza see a doctor, or at least an Asclepian. Or preferably a doctor who happened to be Asclepian.

  “I just have to get my hands on the Scroll,” Eliza said. “But Mrs. Washmoore won’t let me into the building.”

  And then she waited, searching her friend’s face for any clue of how her story had landed. Finally, Quinn spoke.

  “Techo-Cupids are real? For real, for real?” Her face lit up like a hundred suns.

  Eliza let out a half sigh, half laugh as relief worked through her. “For real, for real.”

  “Whoa,” Quinn whispered. “And you’re going to take one of them on? What about Mrs. Washmoore? You don’t think that old bat is a part of this, do you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?” Eliza ran her hand along the edge of the boulder. “I guess I’ll find out soon.”

  “Then you better get out of here and go save Cupid-kind.” Quinn gave her an encouraging smile. “See that ladder over there?”

  Eliza squinted through the wet mesh. Finally, she saw the ladder nestled between the corner of the tank and the boulder. She barked.

  “You can just say yes.”

  Eliza barked again.

  Quinn rolled her eyes. “You’re freakishly good at that. Anyway, I’m going to cause a distraction. It’s dead in here this early, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Once I do, you climb up and over.”

  Eliza squeezed her friend’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Quinn floated to the far side of the tank and pulled herself up. “Who wants to kiss a Nereid? It’s good luck!” Her singsong voice rang out across the bar, and soon there was a line of Descendants stretching from Quinn’s tank. Eliza could swear half of them hadn’t even been in the place a moment ago.

  It didn’t take long before the first sounds of a scuffle rang out. Shuffling feet and a few dude-bro Descendants muttering variations of “Move out of the way.” Quinn threw a wink over her shoulder at Eliza and mouthed, Go.

  Eliza went. She swam across the tank as fast as her fins could take her, praying no one looked too closely at the oddly shaped sea lion dog-paddling in the background. Her hand caught the edge of the ladder, and she pulled herself up. Her masked head poked above the waterline, and she fully expected someone to notice that the sea lion had grown feet and was getting the heck out of here. A real Little Mermaid–type situation—except she was running toward a library instead of a hot prince. Potato, po-tah-to.

  But no one paid her any mind at all. All three Nereids were now running impromptu kissing booths, and even the bartender had abandoned her post to get in line. Eliza could have lumbered out of the tank belting songs from The Minotaur, and no one would have given her a second look.

  Instead, she tiptoed the rest of the way up the ladder, got to the top, and froze. Her tail was not cooperating at all. The fabric was too tight along the thigh to let her get a leg over the edge of the tank, which left her with two choices: belly flop over the side of the tank like an actual sea lion or rip the tail in half.

  My sea lion days are over.

  “One, two, three.” She yanked on “three,” and the fabric of her tail ripped straight up the middle. That gave her just enough leeway to haul one leg over the side of the tank and then the other. Halfway down the other side of the ladder, her tail snagged on a rung, and fueled by the knowledge that she was a
ctually getting away with this, Eliza tugged. The tail gave a satisfying riiiiiiiiiip before setting her free.

  When her feet finally found solid ground, she ducked into a nearby dark corner, ditched her mask, and wrung the water from her hair. But it was only when she glanced down at the tatters of the costume that she truly felt the breeze on her lady bits.

  Chapter 25

  “Reiterating the importance of appropriate attire: proper legwear cannot be stressed enough. Contrary to popular depictions of Cupids, diapers are highly discouraged.”

  —Erosian Weaponry Fundamentals

  Not only had Eliza’s tail ripped, but it had also taken a good chunk of her bodysuit with it. In fact, the bottom half had been reduced to a strip of elastic with a hunk of floppy black fabric attached to the front. Thank the gods she’d left her underwear on.

  Even if Quinn managed to distract every Descendant in the Northern California area, someone would notice the pants-less Cupid sprinting toward the library. Don’t panic. Do not panic. She scanned the room for anything that she could wrap around her bottom half. A discarded T-shirt, a curtain, a starched white tablecloth…

  Eliza snatched the tablecloth from the booth, secured it around her waist and between her legs as best she could, and slipped into the nearest hall, then up the stairs. At every echoed creak and shuffle, she held her breath and prepared her story: she’d gotten carried away at Nereid Night and jumped into a tank before getting thrown out of the bar. She was just on her way back to the car. No big deal. Probably happened every Thursday.

  Maybe the gods were looking out for her after all, or maybe they were just too busy laughing to send anyone to stop her. In any event, Eliza only ran into one person on her way to the library—a Maenad wearing a mink stole and a dress made to look like ivy.

  “Oh, hi,” Eliza said, diving into her story without being asked. “Great dress. Mine isn’t so great. It’s been a really long night. See, I was at Dion—”

  The Maenad held up her hand, nearly blinding Eliza with her diamond-flecked nails. “Honey, if a Cupid doesn’t end up wearing a diaper on Nereid Night, it wasn’t Nereid Night. You know what I mean?”