Aimes leans her head against her hand. "Scroll back, Demi-god?"
"Child of an actual god. Who is dead now, by the way."
"They can kill gods?"
Katya purses her lips, like that isn't the point. "Iakov isn't known for making friends, making connections, or putting down roots."
"And you pointed a gun at him." Aimes ventures, suddenly exhausted past reasonable expectation.
Katya's face twitches, like she's not exactly proud of it but isn't gonna deny it. "Last time I ran into him, he was in process of detonating a supercomputer in Iceland, to erase evidence of something his brothers did."
"So he's an international criminal."
Katya nods, then shakes her head. "That feels misleading, but sorta. He's trouble. And..." she trails off, frowning at the stack of papers. "And he has a pretty ironclad way of staying alive, so either something changed or he got spooked."
"Well he did get shot." Aimes finishes off the water, sets it down with a clunk.
"Yeah that's confusing." They sit in silence for a few seconds, before Katya blows out a breath. "You want the weird version? Or the easy version." At one glance at her, she smiles. "Okay weird version."
Aimes shifts on the chair, the stack of papers too tall, a sense of dread sitting in her stomach.
"So there's this prophecy."
She lets her head thump against the bar. "Of course there is."
Katya cracks a smile for a brief second. "It's well known in my community, but...basically, it's a prophecy that him and his two brothers will band together to rule the world. Iakov has been known to...not be interested, for some reason, but his brothers...really would like to. So he remains alive, because his brothers would scour the earth if anyone took a shot at killing their possibility to be all powerful."
Aimes raises an eyebrow. "Doesn't want to rule the world?"
"Yeah we don't know why either."
"And now he was scared enough to think he needed..." Aimes gestures at herself. "And scared enough to do that on a whim at a bar in Kansas City."
Katya scowls, but it's her long familiar scowl of not knowing something. "Exactly."
"Huh. Demigod, though."
"Yeah."
"Huh."
They sit in silence, Aimes twirling the water glass in her hand.
"So do you know how to get in contact with him?" She blurts out as soon as the whim hits her. "I mean..."
Katya's already shaking her head. "He keeps...under the radar. Doesn't like people knowing who he is, or why he does what he does," she says. "As far as we know, our only connection to him for anything is..."
"Me." Aimes finishes.
"Yeah."
"Wow."
"Yeah." Katya slowly, ever so slowly, shoves the stack of paper at her. "I printed this out at a Kinkos, so my office wouldn't know who he was. Don't take it on the plane."
Aimes feels a rush of gratefulness that seems entirely misplaced. "Thanks."
"Seriously, though, he's not the best of people." Katya warns, voice heavy. "I don't know why he did that, or when you'll see him again. It could be...a while."
Aimes peers at the sheets, they're text dense and a brick. "Well, he was planning on just never telling me."
"And then you'd be alone, living longer than all your friends and family, and never find out why."
"That's rough."
Another moment of silence. "So promotion, yay?"
It's obviously one of Katya's attempts to be a normal person. "Possibly? It was sudden."
They chat all the way from Flasks to Katya's office, and it's just one step removed from gossip, but Aimes feels the knot in the middle of her shoulders start to relax as she holds the pile of papers.
Katya pushes open the door to the office, and her too-pretty secretary is there, packing up. "Hey Miri, why are you working so late?" she says, and it's just about the most casual Aimes has seen her yet.
The secretary gives Aimes an appraising look, before smiling and showing off her dimples. "Avoiding the roommates," she says, breezily. "I was reading." Her sharp eyes track the pile of papers. "Oh, you found him?"
Aimes looks at Katya, who glances back.
Miri laughs, and true to form it is among the most stereotypically beautiful laugh she's ever heard. "I recognize Katya's info packets anywhere." She makes the dimples at Katya, and there's a hint of heat behind them. Not anger, but something adjacent to it. "You didn't compile it here." The question is unspoken.
Katya shakes her head, unperturbed by the dimples or the response. "It's very classified."
Her secretary's eyes light up, and she immediately fixes her gaze on Aimes. "Classified?" She says, her voice in a low purr, hitting her somewhere in the middle of her stomach. "Tell me more?"
For a second, it's like her mouth is about to speak without her bidding, then Katya snaps her fingers in front of Aimes's face, and she jerks back. "Miri, that's rude. Aimes, don't answer her."
"What the hell?" It's like someone doused her with cold water after being fast asleep.
Miri is now typing at her computer, her eyebrows innocently raised.
"She tried to charm you, which she's not supposed to do." Katya shoots Miri a dirty look, the sort of expression that Aimes doubts would ever happen without the glass of wine. She frowns at her secretary, who radiates innocence. "She's a succubi, remember?"
Aimes blinks at Miri, who flashes her a quick smile. "Right."
Miri fits her phone in her purse. "I wasn't seriously going to make her give up any info she didn't want to," she says, voice lyrical. "That's the good thing, I can tell if it's something you want to say or no." She leans over her desk. "Is it a Minotaur? Is that why it's classified?"
"Minotaurs aren't actually real," Katya says, breezy, pushing her way past to her office. "You know that."
"I still think they are!" Miri calls back, then smiles back at Aimes. "Good luck. If he's classified, he must be super weird."
And Aimes still doesn't know what exactly she should be feeling, so she fakes a smile. "Thanks."
At way too early in the morning, Trixie drives her to the airport, since there's really no point in getting an Uber to the Burbank one.
"When are you getting back?" For some reason Trixie whispers, the morning too quiet for real talking.
"Late tomorrow, have presentations pretty much every hour. Too many." She'll get coffee on the plane. Just lots of coffee. Over and over again.
They pull up to the familiar drop off zone and start to wait in the line. "Try to pick up another guy at the hotel bar, it'll be fun!" Trixie sounds forced.
Aimes doubts it, but halfheartedly shrugs. "I could try." And since apparently her guy/husband/Jake person is an asshole, there's nothing stopping her, but the thought sits weird. "But it's Maine."
"There could be firefighters in Maine. I think." Her voice almost chokes up, and Aimes sits up straight.
"Trixie?"
She sighs, as if deflating. "I'll text you about it, it's...it's nothing."
Aimes stares at the long line of cars in the waiting for drop off. "Sure, I'll have internet on the plane. Russ is springing for First Class."
"They have planes with First Class that go to Maine?"
"Apparently."
Trixie sits there, face pinched, before she turns in the driver's seat. "We had a fight. Me and… Kristopher."
Aimes figured. "And?"
Her face twists up. "He wants to work it out."
Aimes nods, but nothing else comes up. "That's a good sign."
"But I don't know how to do that!" Trixie bursts out. "He's great, but now we have to talk about feelings! And what we did wrong! And how to not do it again and I have no clue!" She smacks her steering wheel, eyes wide. "It's a trap, Aimes, it's like I have to figure out all the proper words to say and when to say them or else bad things will happen and it's such a trap. What if I just...mess it up."
"Do you want to mess it up?"
They move forward a few f
eet in line, and Aimes could probably get off and walk the rest of the way, but she stays buckled in.
"I don't think so?" Trixie's voice is small, as if she could shrink away. "I don't...think I do."
They pull forward again, and now it's really time for her to leave the car. "Email it to me, I'll help with words." She grabs her overnight bag, unbuckles herself. "Just tell him you don't want to mess it up and that you're worried about saying the wrong thing, that'll help."
"Can't I just have sex with him and be done?"
Aimes hesitates, her hand on the door. "I mean that can't hurt."
10
Funny enough, after the week she's had, the Maine convention is pretty much relaxing. They put her with small groups, they're all relatively young so they have no problem with computers, and all are pretty chill.
The hotel itself is adorable, with a tiny overcrowded bar and tiny rooms. It's about as un-glitzy as possible, with a view of the ocean from her tiny room that she immediately Snapchats to Trixie.
TRIXIE (6:22 PM): Oh my god go to the bar, isn't it late there?
She spares a quick thought for Jake - Iakov - then shakes her head, feeling for a second like she's gonna jump out of her skin. If he honestly thought he could ...leave her forever, never show his face again, then she can flirt a little bit in a tiny hotel on the back end of Maine.
AIMES (6:32 PM): Should I tell Dave about Jake?
KATYA (6:33 PM): I wouldn't.
The bar is full of librarians, but the young hipster type of librarians. The type that still wears sweater vests but wears them ironically.
She gets a quick martini at the bar and tucks herself in enough of a corner that she's out of the way but not out of sight. One of the librarians she spoke to earlier waves, but doesn't come over.
It's enough deja vu that the back of her neck prickles, so she takes a sip of her martini and lets herself survey the room.
There's a broad shouldered guy who's sharply dressed, but something about his burly look suggests a lack of intelligence, despite the over-educated crowd. If she was looking for cheap sex without any flirting, he'd be her first choice. But she's at least the kinda girl who wants some chatting first. Or at least right now she does, where everyone feels kinda vaguely unattractive.
She takes another strong sip.
Her phone buzzes.
TRIXIE (7:40 PM): Please tell me there's good looking guys.
AIMES (7:40 PM): So many hipster librarians.
TRIXIE (7:41 PM): That's not bad.
AIMES (7:42 PM): It has potential.
Someone moves into view, and it's the burly guy, sliding into the booth next to her. "Hey."
She sits up, tucking her phone into her pocket. "Hi?"
He stares at her for a brief second, as if he expected the conversation to come from her. "You were a presenter, right?"
She nods, taking another sip of the martini and finding it rapidly empty. "The comp science and information technologies wing, did you come to the class?"
"My library rarely even uses a computer. Small town, still use handwritten records."
She squares off with him. "You're shitting me."
"We have a single computer, but we're out there. Don't get good cell signal, internet is even rarer. Half our patrons cross from Canada."
And that just can't be real. "No."
He shrugs, and she's trying hard to find his shoulders attractive but they're a hair too broad and a hair too...much. "Small towns, not what we dream of in college, eh?"
She finishes her drink, and he surprises her by grabbing her glass. "I'll buy next round?" And he's so hopeful that she nods, and he disappears off into the overcrowded bar.
It's like he's a librarian linebacker, and she chuckles to herself at the thought.
AIMES (8:01 PM): It's not bad. Guy is buying me drinks. Bar is adorable.
The bar linebacker tries to flail to get the bartender's attention for a bit, and Aimes scrolls on her phone, more bored than anything, only looking up when another body slides into her booth next to her, and...
And it's Jake. Iakov. Whatever.
They stare at each other, then he hands her a glass of champagne. "Figured I'd buy you a drink."
She sets it down, delicate, on the booth table. "I had one coming already."
His lips purse for a brief second before relaxing. "I was in the area, thought I'd say hello." And his voice is low, accented like before.
"In Maine?" She sips the champagne to control her expression, her heart suddenly pounding. "What happened to never seeing me and letting me die alone?"
"Katya tell you that'd happen?" He drinks from his own drink, which thankfully looks like a whiskey.
Aimes nods, staring down at the champagne stem, her heart pounding. "I'm just surprised." The moment stretches on, and there are a million questions racing through her mind. "Why the fuck are you in Maine?"
His face is unreadable, but she thinks - thinks - that she might detect a hair of discomfort in it. "It's my stretch of the woods." He glances around at the crowd, as if the crowd is what is unusual here.
"Canada?" She ventures a guess. The champagne seems to be much drier and much fancier than she's used to. "There's not much up there, and Montreal's not that impressive from what I know about you."
He shrugs, the thin lines of his shoulders smooth. "It can be impressive."
She takes another sip. It's her second drink and things just seem a hair too perfect in the tiny overcrowded bar in upstate Maine.
"Then impress me."
His eyebrows flash up, then he smiles, wide and sudden, and it's like her heart stops from the beauty of it. He shifts closer, leaning in, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Do you really want to be impressed?"
Her heart pounding, she nods, and --
In a blink they're outside, and she stumbles.
Snow crunches underneath her shoes, and her feet immediately get soaked in her cheap flats. "Jesus Christ, what --"
"Easy," he says. It's so quiet, so very quiet, and his voice seems startlingly loud, echoing around the crystalline hills. His hand slips down into the small of her back.
There's trees all around them, like they appeared in the middle of a forest untouched by humanity. Her breath puffs out in the air in short pants, and she whirls to face him.
"Where are we?" The cold bites into her skin on her cheeks.
The hand on the small of her back dips her towards him. "Not that far away." He smiles, wide, and slips off his suit jacket and drapes it across her shoulders.
There's even snow on the tips of the pine needles above them, like it's some sort of Christmas propaganda from the Victorian era. She clutches the suit jacket to her, and it's far warmer than it should be.
And he's looking around, his smile lopsided, as if this is beautiful and not a nightmare for someone who didn't dress for it. "Here, be still, listen." He slides his hand up and down her back.
"What am I supposed to hear?" It's silent, so silent, like the very air is turning to ice and--
Off in the distance, faint, fainter than anything else, there's a dim calling sound, then an even fainter reply. It's not quite a roar, not quite a bark or a howl, but something lolling between. "What is it?"
He gives her a crooked smile, incandescently happy, as if lit from within. "Arctic wolves, calling for each other. Only place in the world you can hear it now."
And it's beautiful, it really is, but she can't feel her toes and her nose stuffs up. "How'd you bring me here?"
He gives her a sharp look, a quick one-two-three, then grabs her arm. Without even a blink they're back in the booth in the tiny inn in Maine. No one even noticed they were gone.
He leans in close. "Impressed much?"
Pain blooms in her toes, as the blood floods back into them, hot and sudden. "I think you froze my feet."
He sits back, sudden, blinking. "Oh." And it's awkward again, before he drapes his arm around her shoulders, casual and possessive. He surveys the c
rowd, eyes sharp.
It feels artificial, so she pokes him in the side. "Why'd someone stab you last week?"
He doesn't even blink at the direct question. "They didn't like me."
"Katya says your brothers protect you."
No change. "Katya doesn't know everything." He scans the bar, before smirking. "The boy you were flirting with found another target." He nudges, points, and indeed the burly librarian is flirting with a girl wedged up next to the bar. He's obviously drinking the martini he got for her.
"Is that why you came?" She asks, intentionally leaning into his space, and he presses into her side in an unconscious reply. "Were you jealous that some librarian was buying me drinks?"
He half smiles, the arm over her shoulders tugging her closer. "He's just a librarian." But his voice lacks the smug, smooth nature of his accent before, and she knows she hit it right on the button.
She stands and slips out of the booth. "Come up to my room?" Her heart pounds again, pounds for this man who had fucked her and then left, had slept injured in her bed and then left, and who thought that taking her to an icy wasteland was impressive.
He blinks up at her, slow, then slides out of the booth in one long motion, and they leave the crowded bar, up the tiny staircase in the tiny little inn, and to her tiny little room with a view of the starlight over the ocean.
He slips his hands underneath the jacket draped over her and slides it off, folding it over the chair, his hands warm on her skin.
"You're freezing," he says, his voice clipping over the consonants, accented. "I didn't think you'd get so cold so fast."
"I wasn't dressed for it." She toes off her sodden shoes, the carpet plush and dry.
"Next time I'll take you somewhere warm, somewhere tropical." His hand plays with the small hairs at the nape of her neck, and she tries hard not to lean into that touch. "Did you...did you change your hair? Since we..."
She nods, reaching out and fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. "Why'd you leave last week?" She asks, slipping the first button off.
He blinks at her, slow, eyes down at her fingers. "Why does it matter?"
Marked by the Demigod Page 8
