by K. C. Cross
I think about that for a few moments. My brain isn’t a hundred percent yet, but finally I catch up. “Wait. You didn’t act like that with me. You hated me immediately.”
“Yeah.” He breathes out a little sigh. “I’ve been thinking about that myself.”
I sit up a little, self-consciously rearranging my hair so it covers my breasts. “So”—I pause again—“you should’ve acted with me the way I acted around the sheriff?”
Pell and I stare into each other’s eyes for a moment. His are yellow, the color of lava, and they are asking the same question. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I should’ve… loved you.”
“And you didn’t.”
“I mean”—he pauses—“I just wasn’t prepared to wake up that night and find Grant gone. It was a shock.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t swoon over me. If I’m an eros, you should’ve swooned.” My mind doesn’t even need to be a hundred percent to take this idea to the next level. It’s just kind of obvious. “And if I was an eros, then I should not have swooned for the sheriff.”
It takes him several beats, but finally Pell nods. “Yep.”
“So. What am I?”
“I don’t know.” Pell has a look of ‘uh-oh’ on his face. Like he’s expecting some big freakout from me.
But I’m not freaking out. I nod. “I’m not an eros.” And then I smile. “I’m a human.”
Again, he pauses.
“What?” I ask.
“Maybe?”
“Maybe? There’s no maybe. I was born a human so I’m just human.”
“With magic moths and a talking bird.” He smiles. “Pie. I don’t care either way. I’m swooning over you now. Whatever you end up being, I love it.”
It’s a nice response. But it doesn’t answer any questions. “So why are you trusting me with this information now?”
“Well. The simple answer is, I don’t think you’re going to fuck me over. I think we’re on the same side.”
“OK.” I like this answer.
“And I’m telling you, the answer to my curse is not in that book, or I would’ve taken my chances at one point. It’s not in there. That book holds the spells of all the gods and it belongs to the great alchemist, Ostanes. But she didn’t put this curse on me. Juno did.”
“Juno?”
“The goddess. Saturn’s wife? They had a nasty divorce—”
“What?” I huff. “This curse is some kind of settlement issue?”
“Not quite. But a little bit, yeah. Saturn and Juno sponsored the chimera breeding program. Ostanes was the alchemist who did the work. This is her book and it holds a lot of secrets. Not just how to make chimera monsters, other secrets too. She belonged to all the gods—but Saturn and Juno head up the pantheon, so they were kind of her bosses.”
“And she didn’t want to take sides.”
He points at me. “That. And, well, you can’t ever trust a god, ya know? They have enough powers already. It needs to be spread around a little more fairly. Ostanes was the balance.”
“What happened to her?”
“I think they killed her. But I don’t actually know. She’s certainly not in here with us.”
“How did you get in here?”
“Juno. Well, it started with Ostanes banishing the gods from the sanctuary. Then Saturn got the eros involved and made sure they could get inside—that’s how I got caretakers. But then Juno countered with a spell to lock up the tombs so only I could get inside. Then Saturn hid the doors from me.”
“Oh.” It suddenly makes sense.
“Right. So we got ourselves a paradox.” He picks up the dragon scale and the flower. “This is the only way around that curse.”
I run his explanation back and forth in my mind for a few moments, then decide I have one more question. “Where does the Book of Debt fit in? And all those pleasure tasks?”
“Juno cursed the caretakers and came up with the Book of Debt to fuck them up.”
“That was her doing?”
“That was all her. That’s how I know that Book of Debt is real.”
“And the pleasure stuff?’
He shrugs. “I really don’t know. Payment? For me being stuck here?”
“Or”—I point at him—“a way to bond you to the caretaker?”
“Why would Juno want that? It makes it more likely that I would help the caretaker get inside the tomb, not less.”
“But that’s not what happened. You never liked them.”
“They were just not my type.” He’s grinning when he says this. So I know he’s making a joke. But he’s missing the most obvious part of this whole thing.
“Pell?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that I show up? A woman. A woman you like. You don’t swoon over me, you get angry. Then, over the course of a week or so, we do bond. We bond so well, we have sex. And then, right after that, you’re ready to hand over your secret.”
He lets out a long breath. “I know.”
“So. Maybe this is a bad idea? Maybe I was sent here to steal this secret from you, only we don’t know that yet.”
“Here are our choices, Pie. We do nothing and hope the sheriff doesn’t come back—”
“That’s not likely.”
“Nope,” he agrees. “Or we could go into town and kill the sheriff, I guess.”
“If there’s a secret family of eros living in Granite Springs, don’t you think they’d retaliate?”
“I do. So our only choice is for me to send you into the tomb to get the book from Tarq and we banish him.”
I reluctantly agree. But then I have another thought. “What happened to them?”
“Who?
“The gods. After the whole battle of Saint Mark’s.”
Pell shrugs. “I don’t know. I was in here, remember? I’m sure more happened.”
“They are gods,” I say.
“Vengeful ones too. It’s highly unlikely that they just gave up. Maybe Saturn gave his caretakers more power? And that’s why Grant didn’t age when he left? But I’m not buying it. Every caretaker before him left, right? And they all got old and died. So. That’s new.”
I sigh and lie back down. “I don’t have any room in my head for that stuff. It’s confusing me.”
“That’s OK. I’m gonna let you rest while I cook up the spell.”
“Don’t you need my help?”
“It’s not that hard, actually. Boil the flower, extract the oil, rub it over a scale, then you put the scale on and wear it like armor and boom. You can walk into the tombs.”
“I’m having mixed feelings about that.”
Pell chuckles. “This is the easy part. Tarq’s a cool dude. You’re gonna like him. And you’re so cute. He loves cute. He’s gonna help. I know he will. Then we’ll ward off the sanctuary, none of those townie assholes will be able to get in, and then…” He sighs. “Then.”
“Then what?” I look over my shoulder so I can see him.
“Then… back to normal, I guess.”
“Normal?” I snort. “OK.” It’s not normal. Nothing about this place is normal. But… on the other hand, it’s not bad, either. I don’t mind it here. Hell, who am I kidding? I had a chance to leave yesterday and I put the damn ring back on.
The truth is, I don’t have a home. Have never had a home.
Until now.
And maybe, just maybe, this place is worth all this trouble. And I get it. Pell and I aren’t even the same species, but there are forests and party rooms upstairs that kinda smooth out all those wrinkles.
We could make this work. Couldn’t we?
I must fall asleep after that because the next thing I know Pell is shaking me by the shoulder. “Wake up, Pie. It’s time to go.”
I sit up. I’m topless—and don’t have all the extra hair I did in my wood nymph chimera form to cover my tits—and Pell is handing me a new shirt. It’s not the red one that said Come Hell or High Water. That o
ne must’ve burned up. This one is a too-big baseball jersey that I bought to wear to bed.
I make a face at the shirt, but put it on without making a big deal.
Then Pell hands me the scale. It’s big. Big enough to actually wear like a plate of armor. And he’s attached a silver chain to it, so I just put on like a necklace and the scale hangs down my front. “It smells good,” I say, picking it up and putting it to my nose.
“That’s the bloodhorn oil.” Then he’s pulling me to my feet and leading me out the door.
“Whoa. We’re not gonna, like… discuss this first?”
“There’s not much to discuss. Just go in there, talk to Tarq, explain the situation, and get out as quick as you can. Make any promise he asks of you. Just get that book and come straight back. I’m anxious to get this part over with because we still need to make the spell.”
We’re already walking down the stairs and for some odd reason, the bottom is coming very quickly. Every other time I go up and down these stairs it feels like it takes forever. But the next thing I know, we’re nearly to the bottom.
Pell stops, looking out the massive windows at the tombs. Then he points. “Do you see that tomb right there? The one in the middle? With the dome?”
I see it. But I don’t say anything.
Pell just continues. “That’s the one.” We resume walking down the stairs and soon enough, we’re walking across the hall and he’s pulling the cathedral door open for me. “Just walk right up to it and go in.”
“Those are your final instructions?”
He smiles at me. “You’re gonna be fine. I swear. Tarq is a good guy.”
My face crinkles up into a dubious expression. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s Tarq. We’re tight.”
“Pell—”
“Two thousand years, but—”
I stop listening. I’m gonna die in there. And if I don’t, that’s OK too. Because then I’ll just get pitchforked by the townies.
I start walking. But when I look back, Pell isn’t following.
“I can’t come,” he explains. “Or you won’t be able to see the door.”
I sigh, giving in. Because what choice do I have? It’s not like I could come up with a better plan.
So I give him a little wave, turn to the cemetery, and start weaving my way through the tombs. I try not to look at all the monster statues, but it’s kinda hard not to notice that they are all chimeras. Almost all of them look like satyrs, their oversized dicks a dead giveaway. But some of them are four-legged, like a… centaur, and some of them have wings.
When I finally find the tomb with the gold dome, I pause and take in the statue of the monster called Tarq.
He’s sleek. Nothing about him is shaggy. He is jet black from head to toe and his horns are definitely those of the infamous Minotaur. They are thick and span out and upward over the top of his head. He’s holding a whip in one hand and some kind of plant or flower in the other. This might be a crocus bulb. It’s hard to tell, since it’s been carved out of black marble, so maybe it’s an onion. Could go either way.
Against my better judgment, I glance over at the dark shadow that is the door to his tomb and stop breathing for a moment, so I can listen for sound.
But there’s nothing there.
Slight variations of light tell me that’s not true, though.
There is definitely something inside that tomb.
I take one more look over my shoulder in the direction of the cathedral and spy Pell hanging off one of the gas lampposts. He salutes me.
And with that, I turn away and step through the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - PELL
I don’t realize that I’ve been holding my breath, watching her, until she disappears—just disappears in front of my eyes—and then I let it out in a rush. Really, really hoping that this won’t somehow backfire on me.
It won’t. I say that again in my head. It won’t.
Pie will come back with the book, we will get knowledge, we will banish the sheriff, and she will bring news of Tarq. This thought alone is enough to make me hope. Because I want to talk to that bastard again so bad. I don’t mind Tomas. And lately, I sorta like the dude. But he’s got issues that will always stand in the way of a closer friendship. I can’t trust him. And it’s not just his dragon form, either. He’s opportunistic. Always has been. And hey, isn’t everyone? Aren’t we all?
To a degree, yeah. We think of ourselves first.
But trusting Tomas comes with… consequences. It’s like making a deal with the devil. You know you can’t trust him, but you want to. So bad. Because the devil has what you need.
And in Tomas’s case, it’s friendship. It’s company.
But I know better.
My point is, it was me and Tarq. And I know he’s probably thinking, That fuckface Pell left me here in this tomb to rot. And he’ll have feelings about that if Pie and I can find a way to get him out. But I actually crave that fight. I want that argument. I just want something from my old, real life to come back.
I want him, in his natural satyr chimera form. Because he is like me.
I want to be with my own people.
The rooms upstairs are great. Without them, I’d be insane by now. But it’s fake. It’s all fake and it’s all been fake the entire time I’ve been in this curse.
Just give me something real, ya know? I don’t care if it’s an argument. In fact, an argument would be just fine with me. Arguments are overflowing with feelings. I want those emotions again.
I want to see my friend.
I also want to go down that that tomb and pace in front of it until Pie comes back, but I’m afraid that my presence there will block her exit.
But I do walk down the hill a little, just until I’m at that rise that allows me to see over the wall and the caretaker’s cottage, and find the lake. I sit down on my favorite crumbling tomb base and just breathe. Trying my best not to look over my shoulder in the direction of Tarq’s tomb to see if Pie is on her way back yet.
Time might be different in there, I don’t know anything about Tarq’s tomb.
Time is not different in my tomb, but that’s not saying much.
So I just gaze out at the lake.
When I first got here in the New World, I used to come to this spot and sit on this tomb every single morning and every single night. I wanted to go out to that lake so bad, but my caretaker at the time was a dick of a man called Ignacious. He never let me leave the sanctuary. If I tried to follow him out the gate, he’d just refuse to leave. So there were no lake trips and by the time he left and Michael took his place, I had forgotten that I even wanted to go out to the lake.
Tomas joined me once in this lake trip planning though. His imagination came up with a whole day out there. We were gonna go swimming, and have a picnic, which was a big deal back in those days. And we were gonna make a canoe and paddle around. Then just lie on the shore and soak up the sun. Tomas always did like the sun.
This makes me chuckle.
And this chuckle makes me realize that I’m… happy.
How did that happen?
Pie, I think. And that trip upstairs. Seeing her as a wood nymph chimera. God, she was pretty. And even though I was convinced up there that she was some kind of goddess, I realize now that I was just drunk on hallway doors.
Something moves out by the lake. A deer, maybe? It’s skulking through the woods on the north side of the water. But it’s too far away for me to really get a good look at it.
That would be nice though. To see a deer today.
A deer. Like Pie was.
I get up off the tomb, take one look over my shoulder just to make sure Pie didn’t come out of the tomb—she didn’t—and then start walking down the hill. I’m going to go up to Pie’s second-story window and look out at the lake until she comes back.
When I enter her cottage, the scent almost overwhelms me in the best way.
&n
bsp; I like her. I like her a lot.
I’m glad she’s stuck here with me. I could live in this curse forever if she had to be stuck here with me.
I take the stairs two at a time and then cross the room, throw the curtains aside, lift the sash, and breathe in the lake air.
It’s got to be the same air as I breathe inside the sanctuary, but it feels fresher. Crisper. The November day is both cool and warm. The sun is out and it hits the lake at such an angle that it shimmers gold.
I am caught up in this shimmer when the figure steps out of the woods to the left of the lake.
I just… stare at him for a moment. Unable to speak. And then he’s walking towards the sanctuary.
Then he’s there. Just below me in the parking lot.
“Hello, Pell.”
Grant is young again, just like Pie described. So fucking mid-century perfect. Slicked-back hair. Khaki pants, a style from decades ago. Plain, white t-shirt with a button-down, not buttoned down, over it. Plaid, of course. In light blue and gray. His shoes are loafers, his face clean-shaven.
He is something out of the past but wholly here in the present too. He is my Grant. Not the old man he should be after fifty years inside this curse. Especially since he had fifty years of debt when he left.
I narrow my eyes at him and call down from the window, “What do you want?”
He shoots me one of those aw-shucks shrugs, his shoulders high, his smile broad, his hands doing a mea culpa. And there it is. He did this. It was a plan. He knew, probably from the very moment he walked into my curse, that he was somehow… immune.
“I knew she would come,” Grant says.
“Who? Pie?”
“Who else?”
I huff. “You couldn’t have known that. The bloodline—”
Grant chuckles, cutting me off. “The bloodline? How are you so stupid? After all these years, Pell? How?” His laughter is bigger now. Louder. “You’ve had two thousand years to figure it out, and still—here you are!” Now he guffaws. “I mean, dude! Get a fucking clue!”
This is where I would usually say, What are you talking about? Please explain. But I don’t need to. Because for some reason I cannot fathom, this is the moment when I realize I’m wearing a veil.
