by S W Clarke
“The gods are gone, son of Zeus. All must make their way in this mortal world. And I?” Pythia pointed behind us. “I have chosen the guardians of Hera’s garden. The maidens of the west. They are my family.”
A soft thread of a voice emanated through the doorway behind us. “Hello, thief.” We turned and found Aigle, Erytheia, and Hesperia in the doorway, the latter two flanking Aigle with their bodies pressed to the frame as though posing for a photo.
“Do you three just … naturally stand like that?” Justin asked.
Cupid leaned toward him. “They used to be much more modest. Modernity changed them.”
“Ah, Cupid”—Aigle, the blue-haired dazzler, stepped through the doorway—“I thought that was you. Tell me, can those tiny wings still carry you now that you’re mortal?”
The other two tittered, which was kind of like laughing at your own joke. I would have said as much, but Cupid ripped off his wool jacket and pulled his shirt untucked. Before anyone could object, every piece of clothing had left the upper half of his body, and he rose into the air with his little chubby belly hanging over his jeans. As I suspected, he’d managed to smuggle his bow and quiver in, which hung crossbody. “Any other questions, Ai-gle?”
I had to give it to him: he enunciated each syllable of her name with admirable sass.
Erytheia the redhead stepped forward, one hand raising. “I have one. How many mortals did you have to shoot with arrows before you got one to look in your direction, Cupid of Eros?”
I glared at Erytheia; this was getting dirty. But before I could come up with a comeback in Cupid’s defense—I was always best at those in the shower, after the fact—Hesperia the purple-haired nymph pointed at me. “Figures he’d be running around with a human. Others won’t have him.”
Human? Me?
My mouth pursed to the size of a raspberry, and I could actually feel my IQ dropping as the heat rose up my neck. It wasn’t that I’d been mistaken for a human—it was that, despite all the awfulness humans had perpetrated through history, my best friends in the world and the man I loved were human. They couldn’t be classed with such broad, derisive brushstrokes.
Not on my watch.
“You mistake me, Hesperians.” I stepped toward them. “You think I don’t speak for myself. I do.”
Justin brushed my side as he came forward. “Ladies, please …”
But another voice overpowered his. “Enough, nymphs.” Hercules had turned away from the oracle, his fingers folded to fists, knuckles pressing white beneath the skin. “Tell me where you’ve hidden Hera’s apples.”
Aigle lifted one finger to her chin. “Oh! You mean the three you stole two thousand years ago? I could ask you that very question, Her-cu-les.”
This room had more emphasis on syllables than a grade school classroom.
“I brought them to King Eurystheus,” Hercules declared, fists finding the seat of his hips.
“Whereupon they promptly rotted,” Hesperia spat. “You knew what would become of Hera’s apples once they left the garden. Now you want more?”
Justin raised a point-making finger. It was rare I’d seen him so coolheaded, but he was the only one present who hadn’t been insulted—and somebody needed to be the logical one. “You know, I don’t think Hera would mind if we took an apple or two, seeing as how the gods all, you know ... left.”
All at once, the three nymphs hissed. Some Others were in denial about the gods having left, other Others accepted it but disliked the reminder of it, and some Others …
Well, some Others hissed at you like you’d slapped them.
I took hold of Justin’s finger and slowly lowered it, shaking my head. “Good try, honey,” I whispered just before the fracas started.
↔
Back in Montreal, I had defeated a creature called El Lobizon—imagine the biggest wolf you’ve ever seen, and then magnify its size by ten. I took one of his claws and had kept it for two reasons:
One, as a reminder of what I had endured to defeat such a fearsome beast, and the woman whose vendetta had led to her following me from Brazil all the way to Canada, and the dark curse she’d used to summon him.
Two, because that claw is 100%, indisputably badass.
You see, El Lobizon’s claws have the rare ability to nullify magic. I had been scratched with it once—barely an incision at all—and lost the ability to use my magic for a good hour. It was even more potent than whatever had been inside the dart the World Army had shot me with outside the tunnel into New York, because El Lobizon’s claw hadn’t just made me unable to change illusions … it had made me unable to feel magic altogether.
When I’d been scratched with his claw, I had reverted to the natural encantado form—a majestic, pink mermaid-dolphin hybrid—right on the bathroom floor of a coffee shop. Which is a very long story, but suffice it to say, El Lobizon’s powers terrified even the angels. If his claws could nullify magic for a time, imagine what his bite could do. (Answer: they could erase an Other’s ability to use magic for the rest of his or her mortal life.)
The claw hadn’t left my side since the night I defeated him. Sometimes, however, I needed to keep it in less obvious places.
When the nymphs moved at us, I knelt and pressed my fingers into the lip of my left boot. I found the leather grip and slipped El Lobizon’s claw out, rising with the iridescent dagger’s tip facing the ground, my fist tight around the leather.
I caught a glimpse of Erytheia and Hesperia sweeping out to each side, and Aigle moving straight at us in the center. None drew the weapons at their hips, and none seemed prepared for physical confrontation. In fact, they were doing the opposite: they opened their arms wide, fingers reaching to the length of their wingspan.
Whatever they were doing, they didn’t plan to take us down head to head.
I only had a moment to process this before the others were in motion. Almost by instinct, Hercules and Justin closed in in front of me, obscuring my view of them. And beside me, Cupid had already drawn his bow and nocked an arrow, preparing to fire.
“Don’t listen to them,” Hercules rasped, his warmth pressing into me. “They will destroy your mind.”
A thought flitted into my head: the three of them—Hercules, Justin and Cupid—had moved to surround me. To protect me.
And then the rejoinder came: Why me?
Why were they protecting me?
But the question was drowned beneath the most beautiful harmonizing I had heard in half a millennium—as long as I had lived—as those three sets of lips parted and a song came pouring from their mouths. It was different from what I’d heard out there on the stage. Bigger. Brighter. Glorious. It was so beautiful that it obliterated my understanding of song, of music, of sound.
It became the only song I had ever heard—the only one I ever wanted to hear again.
My eyes rose to the ceiling, where a glass shade covered the light, cast the room in pink. I blinked, and all at once I existed not quite in Nymphos, but not quite out of it, either. My thoughts came to me like leaves down a stream, and I at the bank, only able to observe them approach and then pass.
I could not hold on to them. Not a single one. And for a ruminator—a worrier, a thinker, a cerebral Other—the frustration was incomparable. I could not think on a thing long enough to form a decision.
And so I was left in perpetual indecision.
Why was I so affected? And the answer came at once: Because these are men of action. And you are a creature of thought.
Around me, Hercules, Justin and Cupid moved as though through jelly. I watched Hercules’s beautiful locks sweep into the air as he ducked, the tendons of his soles flexing as he came onto the balls of his feet. He intended to rush the nymphs, to end their song.
And there beside Hercules, Justin pressing right, his cupped hand—I loved those fingers, that hand—rising to cover Erytheia’s beautiful mouth. His jaw flexed in profile, and what glimpse I got of his right eye was focused not on her, but on … me.<
br />
He was worried about me. He hadn’t even noticed the shimmer of metal slipped from the breast of Erytheia’s mini-toga, the deadly edge that she poised now to slip right into the centerpoint of his chest as he came close.
Justin needed me. Except I couldn’t articulate a thought in my mind to speak it. I couldn’t converge my attention on my desire to swing El Lobizon’s claw long enough to activate the muscles needed to do so.
From my periphery, an arrowhead pierced the same horizontal space occupied by Erytheia’s neck. As it pressed through the room toward her, I observed Cupid’s signature—CUPID’S ARROW ♥♥—gleaming under the pink light, the feathering swaying in the air.
What a miracle of aerodynamics. In that moment I loved Cupid, adored the whittled piece of wood and metal and feather that would enter Erytheia’s neck, pour tendrils of desire into her. It would mean the difference between Justin’s life and death.
On and on it went, cleaving the air right to the spot where her unlined neck met her unspotted décolletage—and slid right past and on into infinity.
A miss. Cupid had missed. It would take another eon for the arrow to strike the pink-padded far wall and buzz there with the force of his shot.
And because Cupid had missed, Erytheia’s little blade drew closer now to Justin’s chest. Closer and closer.
Warmth seized my hand, familiar fingers squeezing my own. Justin’s fingers. I didn’t have the wherewithal to squeeze back, or even to look down, but that green eye was still on me with worry.
No—not worry. He squeezed harder, sliding his fingers in under my grip on El Lobizon’s claw. In one super-human moment it entered his possession, the iridescent curve of it rising into my view and up to Erytheia’s bird-boned forearm.
She had overextended to get to him, and now she would receive her punishment. Such a small cut he delivered, even as he curved his body in and away from her blade—oh, Justin, what did Russo do to make you like this? Was it worth it?—and only the very tip made it past his jacket and pierced his own chest.
El Lobizon’s claw never failed. A drop of blood issued from the cut on Erytheia’s porcelain arm, inching down like condensation. I watched her comprehend in half-time what Justin had done to her. Her pretty mouth opened wider, eyebrows drawing together, and her chest expanded in preparation for what I knew was a scream.
But El Lobizon’s magic worked faster than that. Much faster.
Just like that, the music ended. The world resumed at pace, and Pythia’s voice poured into my ears.
“Kill the human first,” she was saying. “Kill him now.”
Chapter 14
I blinked, gasped in real-time. Around me, a drag-down fight ensued at what felt like an impossible pace.
Justin lunged toward Erytheia, the knife edge of his palm connecting with her wrist. The blade flew from her hand, disappeared into the pink shag carpet. But I couldn’t comprehend the fistfight that ensued, only the noises—the shuddering sound of bone on bone as she kicked, met his shin. The sound of Cupid’s hummingbird wings buzzing by my ear and his cherubic face appearing beside me. The creak of his bow as he nocked another arrow, aimed across the room. The sound of the arrowhead missing its target, penetrating the plush wall.
On my left, a roar from Hercules. A woman’s growl in return, and I turned in time to catch him in a wide-armed sweep as though to catch Aigle and Hesperia up in both arms like a father gathering his two girls.
Except these girls didn’t want to be gathered. They slipped easily away, thin limbs carrying them with the flexibility and agility of warriors—guardians, I remembered—turned into dancers in the modern world.
Hercules stayed low, one leg sweeping out to catch Hesperia, who leapt over it. Behind him, Aigle had produced metal discs between the fingers of each hand, and they flew with a single flick, their pointed ends blurring as they hurtled toward the demigod.
I didn’t have time to warn him properly. So I whistled, a single thwip between my teeth, and Hercules reacted at once, flattening his body and rolling right once, twice before he found his feet. The stars lodged in the edge of the sofa, right where he’d been.
Remarkable. He’d defeated an odontotyrannos with incredible strength, but I didn’t expect him to have this kind of agility, too. He looked, well, too big. But right now he moved just like the nymphs, meeting the two of them blow for blow and dodge for dodge.
All of this had happened in about five seconds. I had no idea how fast the world moved until I’d been stuck in half-time. Meanwhile, Pythia had managed to scream, “The human first!” what felt like two dozen times in that span.
I understood why: he was the one who had undone their spell. He had the tactical foresight that Hercules and Cupid didn’t.
I ignored her, because Justin grunted. He and Erytheia had dropped to the floor—somehow she had disarmed him, and El Lobizon’s claw gleamed from the shag carpet some three feet beyond their heads—and they writhed in what I felt embarrassed to think was an erotic meeting of bodies. (Hey, when you’re an encantado, sometimes you’re that one friend who’s always making the bad boob jokes. It’s just on the brain.)
Then it got serious. Erytheia somehow managed to straddle Justin at the neck, her thighs at either side of his face as she attempted to pin his arms beneath him. It wasn’t just the illness—she had gotten that single stab in at the center of his chest, and blood bloomed there now, seeping into his shirt. And there was another wound in his side that I didn’t know the source of. But he was definitely injured in multiple spots.
El Lobizon’s claw might have nullified Erytheia’s magic, but it didn’t stop her from using her body. And, surprise surprise, she was GoneGodDamn good with it.
On my left, Cupid had distracted Hesperia, flitting around her and forcing her to dodge his arrows. He got off three shots before she managed to get close enough to him to grab his chubby arm and swing him into the wall, which he hit with a grunt and a thud.
Three feet off, Hercules and Aigle were both on their feet, trading blows and kicks, dodging and both struggling to get the upper hand. But I saw now that two of the stars had lodged in his side; he’d just kept fighting with them lodged in his body, but he wasn’t blocking as well on that side. And then there was the knife wound Justin had taken in the center of his chest, which had appeared now on Hercules’s chest.
Their fates are entwined. If one fails, the other dies.
Hercules had taken the stars in the side and Justin had been wounded. Justin had taken the knife to the chest and Hercules had been wounded. They shared wounds, just as they had shared that blow to the nose in the motel room.
Hercules was moving slower, too, blood dripping into his mustard corduroys. Both legs had ripped, and though anyone else would look like a pirate who’d spent too many days at sea, he just looked … magnificent. Studly. But hurt.
And through it all, I was ignored like the non-threat I was. They would get to me last, after the real warriors were taken care of. Frustration rose in me; I wasn’t a fighter like these other three. Maybe five seconds had elapsed, but so much had occurred that I didn’t know how any of them could process it all.
Training, I thought. Training and constant exposure. Neither of which I had. But I did have something equally important: cleverness. We weren’t winning this fight with me trying to engage the nymphs. But I didn’t need to engage them.
I wasn’t the only non-fighter in this room.
Behind me, Pythia’s cries had risen to a screech. That same line was getting really, really old. I lunged past Justin and Erytheia for El Lobizon’s claw, dropping to one knee to swipe it up off the carpet. Pythia hadn’t even noticed me, her hands raised with the palms upward, eyes filled with manic fervor.
She might have been talking to the gods, if they were still around to listen. Unfortunately for her, it was just us mortals. One of whom was getting increasingly pissed off.
I crossed to Pythia, grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward me. Her frail bod
y felt like a bag of bones in my arms, and she practically tripped toward me with a yelp.
As soon as my arm went around her chest, I brought El Lobizon’s claw to her throat. “Everyone freeze or the oracle gets it.”
↔
To my surprise, everyone actually froze. Well, the nymphs did, at least. Because Erytheia cried out, “Pythia! The dagger is infused with vile magic.”
In Hesperia’s moment of shock, Cupid managed to get a sucker punch off with his tiny balled fist. Her hand rose to her jaw, brow creasing. “Ow. You sneaky …”
Cupid tutted. “Uh-uh. That doesn’t count as freezing.”
Hesperia turned back, her mouth closing and her hand lowering. Aigle dropped out of her fighting pose, straightening and turning to me.
“You wouldn’t kill the oracle,” Erytheia hissed. From between her thighs, Justin coughed.
“Get off my boyfriend,” I instructed, nodding my head once toward the nymph atop Justin.
“Why? He was liking me better than you,” she quipped, but did as told.
Hercules plucked a throwing star from his side with a wince and tossed it away. He pulled out the second one as he pointed at Aigle. “Sit. Now.”
She sat right where he pointed, crossing her legs to reveal thigh all the way up to where the two halves of her toga joined. “What, a little pointy bit of metal hurt the big demigod?”
“Quiet for once, nymph,” he growled, unslinging the vial I had noticed earlier from around his neck. He unstoppered it and allowed a single drop to drip onto his tongue. Hercules replaced the vial before he lifted his shirt to reveal where the stars had pierced his side. The wounds glowed with white smoke as they healed at once.
“Water from the River Styx,” Aigle hissed. “How is it possible?”
“The River Styx?” I repeated. Wasn’t that a river in the Greek underworld?
“Forbidden!” Hesperia yelled beside me. “Heracles, what have you done?”
“The human will live,” Hercules said. “He is bound to me, after all.”
