Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (103 page)

“That’s so sad,” Therese said.

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t he have any friends?”

Hip shrugged. “Our sisters, I guess.”

Therese bit her lip. “Well, I guess we can start with the tour.”

Hip moved in close to her again. “First I get my kiss.” He pressed his lips against hers. His breath was like mint. She closed her eyes and brushed her lips across his.

“Nice,” he said. “Let’s do that again.”

Therese pulled back. “First the tour.”

Hip took her hand and led her down to the river. A few feet away she could see the old man on the raft, his long white mustache, slight and slumped shoulders, and red peasant robe visible through the fog. He used his stick to pull away from the bank with two other passengers, one whom she recognized.

“That old man is Charon,” Hip said. “He ferries the souls across the Acheron River where it meets the Styx River at the gates to the Underworld. My brother retrieves the souls from the world of the living and accompanies them until they’re settled in.”

“Than!” Therese called.

He looked up at her, astonished.

“She wants a tour,” Hip explained.

Hip didn’t wait for his brother’s reply. He took Therese’s hand and pulled her past the raft, down the river to where it entered a dark cave. Sitting near the mouth of the cave was a creature about six feet tall, black as night, with a sweeping dragon tail, and three ferocious heads resembling those of a French bulldog: tall batlike ears, pug upturned noses, large frowning mouths with slight under-bites exposing white sharp teeth, and plenty of loose skin and wrinkles around the three necks. The eyes on the heads looked red and unfriendly, but Therese had never met an animal she hadn’t tried to befriend.

“That’s Cerberus,” Hip said. “He guards the gate.” A massive iron gate, maybe a hundred feet above the water, and who knew how many feet below, stood just past Cerberus tightly fastened. “Only the gods can go in
and
out, so I can’t take you through, but I can show you what’s down there by making the upper part of the caverns transparent.”

“Gods? You and your brother are gods?”

Hip gave her a smug grin. “That’s correct. Hades, the god of the Underworld, the gatekeeper, is our father, despite some misguided myths you people have about our origins.”

“I’ve heard of Hades, but I’ve never heard of you and your brother,” Therese stated matter-of-factly, which seemed to offend Hip.

He grabbed her arm in a tight grip. “Come on.”

“Wait,” Therese insisted when Hip pulled her onward. “Can I say hello to Cerberus?”

Hip’s mouth dropped open. “You actually want to?”

“Yeah. Why not?” She let go of Hip’s hand and floated closer to the creature. “Hello there, Cerberus. Are you a friendly thing? May I pet you?”

The three-headed dog leaned toward her and wagged its dragon tail.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Hip warned as he caught up to her. “He can be pretty vicious. And he’s always suspicious about being tricked, especially after what happened with Orpheus and Hercules.”

Therese wanted to ask about Orpheus and Hercules, but Cerberus now bared his teeth and uttered a low growl from all three heads.

“Why did you have to mention them? Look what you’ve done!”

“Come on.” Hip pulled Therese past the creature, above the enormous gate, and over the mouth of the cave. “There’s a lot more to see.”

They flew over rocky terrain with the night sky above them and the stars and crescent moon piercing through the fog now and then. Beneath them, the layers of rock vanished, and Therese could see several large chambers attached by tunnels through which five different rivers flowed. One of the rivers was alight with flames, illuminating the many chambers.

Hip explained that the first chamber, just passed Cerberus, was the room of judgment, where three judges worked together to determine whether a soul was worthy of the Elysian Fields. If a soul was found to be unworthy, the judges would then determine which punishment in Tartarus would be most fitting. Some of these punishments were terrible, like that for Tantalus, who stood in water up to his neck but could never drink and saw fruit above his head but could never grasp it. Others were laborious, but not too unlike the world of the living, like Sisyphus, who was doomed to roll a huge rock uphill all day only to watch it roll to the bottom of the hill where he must start again. Some souls were doomed to remain in Tartarus for all eternity, Hip explained; but others, after their debts were paid, could travel over to the Elysian Fields. Tartarus was narrow and long like a great hall, just past the room of judgment. It seemed to stretch endlessly in two directions further than Therese could see.

Hip then pointed out Erebus, a chamber just after Tartarus and much deeper, though also smaller in circumference, perhaps fifty feet wide at most. He explained that victims of terrible crimes were often sent there through the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, to forget the heinous crimes that tortured them in life. Mostly abused children and women, suicides, and prisoners of war went there before they were eventually led up and out into the Elysian Fields. Therese could see people below in the dim light lying in their clothes in a shallow pool of water as though sunbathing.

The fields were vast and amazing, covered in beautiful flowers of white, pink, and purple. There were trees and something like sunshine, but more of a purplish-pink veil of light that added beauty to all it touched. The Lethe River met its banks, and spread in small streams marbling through the fields, which meant that the souls who frolicked there had only the vaguest recollection of a previous life. Therese could see hundreds of souls all doing different things. Some read or slumbered under trees, others danced or swam or ate at huge tables covered with massive amounts of food. Others played sports like golf and tennis. A few children flew kites. Hip explained that the kites, the trees, the food, and the books and things were merely shared illusions, part of an ongoing dream for the dead. The Elysian Fields, like Tartarus, seemed to stretch infinitely in two directions, the boundaries invisible to her eyes.

She squinted at a couple sitting on the bank with their feet dangling in the river. They were her parents.

“Can I speak to them?” she asked Hip.

“They won’t hear you from up here,” he answered. “And we can’t go down to them below. Besides, chances are they won’t remember you.”

Therese couldn’t bear the thought of her own parents forgetting her. She burst into tears. “Take me to your brother, so he can tell me what I need to do to get my parents out of here.”

“I haven’t even showed you my parents’ palace. It’s the most fascinating place of all.”

She saw the old boatman docked at the gate just past Cerberus. She flew down to find Than.

“Therese, wait!” Hip warned. “If you follow the raft in, you can’t come out. You’ll die, and then there’s certainly no way to save your parents.”

She stopped and looked back at Hip.

This is only a dream, isn’t it, she thought. There’s nothing real about any of this.

“Therese! Wake up!”

“Wait!” Hip called. “What about my kiss?”

“Therese! Sweetheart, wake up!”

T
han left
Charon and headed to Mexico to escort the souls of three teenagers who had died in an earthquake. He would be making several more trips there over the next few days as the frail human bodies gradually expired. He had disintegrated and dispatched himself to four other locations--Turkey, Japan, Iraq, and Egypt. It was a busy day, busier than usual, and because of the disintegration, he found it a little more difficult to keep his mind on his duties.

Therese had come back, had called out his name. He knew she wanted her parents, like so many of the survivors whose family members he carried away. Than had learned to block those futile prayers, “Spare my sister,” “Bring my child back to me,” “Let my husband be alive when we find him,” and so forth. He had blocked them because there was nothing he could do about them. Therese’s prayers were no different. He could not help her.

Yet, he couldn’t forget the feel of her soulful arms around him, the sensations of her warm lips against his, and the scent of her sweet breath. No one—human or god—had ever touched him like that. His mother must have when he was a baby, but he had no memory of it. If Therese’s spirit were capable of making him feel so much sensual pleasure, how much more pleasurable could she make him feel in the flesh?

Only now did he become aware of what he had been missing.

He disintegrated and dispatched another part of himself to the poppy field beside Hip’s rooms. Than wanted to re-enter the dream world and talk some more to his brother, even on this busiest of days.

T
herese blinked
her eyes as Carol leaned over her saying, “Wake up, sweetheart. The lieutenant is here.”

Carol smelled like her mother. She smelled like Haiku perfume and Jergen’s lotion.

A memory of her aunt teaching her to blow into the flute distracted her for a moment. They had given one another manicures and pedicures, and when the polish had dried, Therese had asked to try the flute, which Carol had played in high school years before. She had the scent of Haiku and Jergen’s even then.

“Therese?”

“I’m still in the hospital? What day is it?” Therese tried to sit up. Her neck was stiff, but slightly better. She rubbed it and noticed the IV was still attached to her hand.

“It’s Tuesday morning. You woke up from your coma yesterday,” Carol said. “There’s a tray of breakfast for you here. Are you hungry? You slept through yesterday’s dinner.”

Therese looked across the room at a short, round man with gray hair and razor stubble. He wore a policeman’s uniform and looked to be in his late fifties.

“Maybe I’ll eat something later.”

“Hi there, Therese.” The lieutenant approached her bed. The smell of body odor wafted above her head. “How are you feeling?”

“My neck is stiff, but I’m okay.” She pulled the covers up around her.

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Look, I know what happened to you was pretty scary. I’m really sorry it happened. But I want you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to find out who did this, okay?”

Therese nodded as the tears welled in her eyes.

“I’m Lieutenant Hobson with the Durango Police Department.” Beads of sweat forming on his forehead dripped around his temples as if he had run all the way to the hospital.

“Hi.”

“What can you tell me about what happened? What do you remember?”

She told them what she could, and then cleared her throat, her mouth suddenly dry, her chest tight. “I couldn’t save them.”

Carol stroked Therese’s arm. “It’s not your fault, sweetheart.”

Therese grabbed Carol’s arm. Panic overtook her as it had beneath the water trapped in her mother’s car. Her throat burned, like it had when the water rushed through her lungs and she had hit at every space around her. “Tell me I’m dreaming!” Therese wailed. “Tell me I’m going to wake up and it will all be over!”

Carol kissed her cheek and started crying. “I wish I could.”

The lieutenant took a small notepad and pen from his front shirt pocket and gave Therese a moment to recover. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Can you remember anything else?”

The face. It popped into her head and startled her as much as it had the night her parents were killed. “I might have been imagining this, but right before the shooting, I thought I saw a gruff-looking face outside my car window. It was a man.”

“A man’s face? Can you tell me what he looked like?”

“His skin was dark.”

“Black?”

“No.”

“Native American?”

“No, oh, I don’t know. He had dark brown eyes, black hair, kind of short, like yours, and a scruffy beard.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“I don’t know. Not too old. Younger than my dad.”

“Would you describe him as heavy-set, thin, tall, short?”

“I just saw his face. I don’t know.”

“Do you think you can remember enough details about his face to work with an artist from my department?”

“I can try.”

“Anything else you can remember? Anything at all?”

“Right before I went out, I saw a bright light and someone swimming toward me.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Yeah, that would have been the rescue crew. They went in and pulled you out of the car.”

“Oh.” She wondered if they got her parents out then, too.

“Therese, do you know if either of your parents had any enemies?”

“What? You mean you don’t think this was just some random school shooting? An angry student gone postal? Like Columbine?”

“That’s a possibility, Therese,” the lieutenant said. “But your car seems to have been the primary target. Other people suffered some minor injuries when the perpetrator drove recklessly through the parking lot, but your car was the only one shot at.”

The hair on her neck stood up and she felt her heart go wild. She could hardly breathe. She never imagined someone would want to murder her parents.

“Do you know if your parents had ever received any threatening phone calls, emails, or letters?”

“No, sir. I don’t know of anything like that. My dad got letters and emails from his readers, but they were fans, not enemies. My mom’s students all loved her. Both of my parents were well liked by everybody, I think. I can’t imagine why anyone would want them, want them…” She lost her voice and broke into sobs again. “I’m sorry.”

The lieutenant closed his notepad and stuffed it back into his front shirt pocket. Then he added his ballpoint pen. “Thanks, Therese. I’ll follow up with you again soon. I’ll have an artist meet with you for that description later today, while your memory is fresh.”

A panicky feeling threatened to surge through Therese again. “Lieutenant Hobson?”

“Yes?”

“What do you know so far? Who do you think did this?”

“I shouldn’t discuss the case with you, Therese. You just focus on getting better.”

“That’s not fair.” Therese’s voice was desperate. “I have a right to know. They were my parents.”

“Get some rest, and I’ll come back and tell you something when I know more. Maybe your description of the face will give us the lead we need.” The lieutenant reached out and took her hand, shook it, patted it, and said, “You take care, now. Call me if you think of anything else.”

“Okay.” She wiped the tears streaming down the sides of her face.

The lieutenant handed his card to Carol.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Carol said.

Just as the lieutenant walked out of the hospital room, Therese’s three best friends—Jen, Ray, and Todd—walked inside carrying balloons and a toy stuffed animal lemur.

“She’s really awake!” Jen cried, rushing in and grabbing Therese’s hand.

“Hi guys,” Carol said. “Therese? Are you sure you’re ready for company?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I need some cheering up.”

“Well, if you’re really sure…”

“I’m sure.”

“Then I’m going downstairs for a bit. Enjoy your visit.”

Once Carol left the room, Ray said, “Todd wanted to get you the lemur. You should have seen him moaning and groaning in the shop if either one of us picked up anything else. So if you don’t like it, blame him.” Ray was tall, chubby, and Native American.

“I love it. He’s cute.”

“His hands have velcro,” Todd said. “You can wear him around your neck, like this.” Todd put the lemur’s long, skinny black arms around his neck and attached them. “You can wear him here in front,” he moved the monkey to his back, “or back here. It’s quite a fashion statement.” Todd was tall and thin with sandy-blonde hair and a face full of acne.

“Just what everyone wants, Todd,” Ray said. “A monkey on their back.”

Therese and Jen laughed.

“I like him guys,” Therese said. “Let me have him.” She was glad they hadn’t said anything about her parents. For a little while, she wanted to pretend everything was normal again.

Todd handed the lemur over. “He’s going to miss me. He wants me to come visit.”

Therese smiled. “I guess I can allow visitations.”

“When I called yesterday, your aunt said your neck has been hurting. Are you any better today?” Jen asked as she tied the balloons to the railing at the foot of the hospital bed.

“Some. Still stiff.” Then she thought,
please don’t say anything about my parents
. “How did we do at the championship meet?”

“Pagosa Springs won by thirteen points,” Jen said. “We came in second. Bayfield got third.”

“Did Lacey swim breaststroke in the first heat?”

“Yeah. She got first. You would have beaten her though, I just know it,” Jen reassured her.

“Maybe. I guess we’ll never know.”

“There’s always next summer,” Todd said. “Hey, listen. I finished rebuilding the engine for my truck.”

“The fifty-seven Chevy?” Therese asked. “Are you serious?”

“You should see it,” Ray cut in. “He painted it yellow, of all the colors in the universe.”

“I like yellow,” Therese said.

“It looks awesome,” Jen added. “Todd’s going to take us for a ride as soon as you get out.”

“Hey,” Todd said, coming close to her, his face taking on a more serious expression. “I haven’t told you yet how sorry I am about your parents. I know you already know it, but I wanted to say it, you know?”

“I know.” Therese clenched her jaw as she fought off tears. She supposed she couldn’t go on pretending, and it was nice to know he cared.

“Me, too,” Ray murmured. “What he said.”

“Me, too,” Jen said, taking Therese’s hand.

“Thanks guys.”

Her three friends stood there now in awkward silence, brushing away tears they didn’t want one another to see. Luckily, Carol eventually returned and asked the visitors how they were doing, shifting the focus from Therese. She lay there in the bed wiping more tears from her face.

Her friends chatted with her and her aunt for a few more minutes, and then they said their goodbyes. Therese put the lemur’s long, furry arms around her stiff neck and closed her eyes.

Carol said, “Your lunch is here. You never ate your breakfast. Do you think you can eat something now?”

“I think so.”

A different nurse was standing over Therese with a tray. She moved a few things on the rolling bedside table and set it down. “Today we have a turkey sandwich, vegetable soup, fruit cup, and chocolate pudding.”

“Thanks,” Therese said.

The nurse studied the machines near Therese’s bed. “Everything looks in order. My name’s Letty. Just call if you need anything. How’s your neck?”

“Better. Still a bit stiff.”

“I can give you something for the pain.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll bring it in a while, give you time to eat.” Letty left the room.

Carol gave Therese an update about her pets while Therese ate. They chatted about school and Therese’s friends. Therese really didn’t feel like talking, but she could see it made Carol feel better. The food tasted good. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. Not long after she finished her pudding cup, Letty returned with the medication.

“Thank you,” Therese said.

“You’re welcome, mija.” The nurse removed the empty tray and left the room.

Carol must have noticed the tears welling in Therese’s eyes, for she leaned over the bed and took Therese’s hand. “You know, when your grandpa died, even though we knew it was coming, it was so hard. It felt like a part of me died with him. And then when your grandma died two years ago…gosh, I can’t even believe it’s already been two years. Then all I had left were you and your mother. Now that my big sister’s gone, well, Therese, you’re all the family I have left.”

Therese sucked in her lips as she watched the tears slide down her aunt’s cheeks. “And you’re all I have left.”

“I’m coming to live with you, Therese. I’ve already moved out of my San Antonio apartment. I hope that’s what you want.”

Therese hadn’t thought that far ahead. She was still trying to get used to the idea that her parents were, that her parents had....she couldn’t even think the idea through in her mind.

“I mean, I could take you with me to San Antonio, but you have your life here, and I can live anywhere. Since I work from home, my boss has no problem with me coming to Durango. Now that grandma’s gone, there’s really nothing keeping me there.”

“What about Richard? And I’m sure you have friends.”

“Richard and I will work something out. We’ve dated long distance before. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know.” Carol gave Therese a smile.

“I do love my house,” Therese murmured.

“I do, too,” Carol said.

“I guess we can see how things go, right?”

“Oh, sure. We don’t have to decide anything today.” Carol kissed Therese’s cheek. “You know, I’ve always been so grateful for you in my life. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever have children, and having you for my niece has kind of fulfilled that maternal part of me. I know I can’t replace your mother—and I don’t want to—but I want you to know I will be there for you. I’m not just a babysitter. I’m not just a temporary fix. I’m here for you for the long haul, through thick and thin, and the works. Okay?”

Therese nodded, more tears piling up in the corners of her eyes again.

“Now, sweetheart, I can ask them to bring me one of those hideaway beds and sleep here with you tonight if you want me to. I’ve been staying at the house because of Clifford, but he can go a night without me if you want me to stay here now that you’re staying awake for longer periods of time.”

“No,” Therese said. “I’d be worried about Clifford. Go ahead and go home. I’m just gonna go right back to sleep.”

“Good. You need the rest,” Carol said.

Therese sighed, nodded.

Carol nodded too. “I’ll come back this evening to check on you again. Go to sleep.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Carol kissed her forehead and stroked her hair. Then she crossed the room and waved one more time before disappearing through the door.

T
herese sat
in her ninth grade AP English classroom with the rest of her classmates taking a multiple choice exam, but none of the questions made sense. They seemed written in a different language. Therese pressed her pencil into the bubble next to “E. None of the above,” but the lead on her pencil broke. She raised her hand. Mrs. Spencer stood with her back to the class writing something on the dry erase board and didn’t notice.

“Excuse me,” Therese said.

When Mrs. Spencer turned around, Therese saw she wasn’t Mrs. Spencer at all. Her eyes were red, her ears pointed, and when she opened her mouth to ask, “Yes?” blood dripped from her lips.

She’s a zombie, Therese thought, frozen in her chair.

She looked around the room. They were all zombies.