“Heard you’re out of a job, lover boy,” an obnoxiously delighted and familiar voice said from somewhere behind me.
“Interesting. I heard you’re an asshole,” I replied flatly.
“Touché. Someone’s in a poopy mood.”
“And this is why I avoid Mount Olympus like the fucking plague,” I muttered as I turned to greet the annoyingly pompous Apollo. With what barely passed as a smile plastered on my face and an extremely rude eye roll, I glared at my drama-loving childhood friend. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but it’s not.”
“Come, come now, Cupid,” Apollo shot back with a wide grin. “You can’t still be upset that I kicked your sorry ass in the Olympic archery competition. That was centuries ago.”
“You cheated,” I pointed out.
“Yes, well there is that,” Apollo admitted with a laugh. “So the old bastards finally did it. They fired you?”
“Apparently,” I snapped, slipping the wedding invitation into my pocket in preparation to leave for the Mystical Isle. However, I stopped to admire the ridiculous view. It was far too good not to.
All six feet of my cheating friend was dressed in flowing green robes. Apollo looked like the stem of a pumpkin standing atop a mound of bright orange sand. The bolt of lightning my ass would undoubtedly receive when Poseidon discovered his chambers covered in the day-glow orange hued dunes was worth it. Taking out my cell phone, I snapped a quick picture.
It would be going up on Instagram shortly. Gods and Goddesses had their own private channel. It would take my vain friend a few decades to live it down—especially after I put the likeness through Photoshop and made a few enhancements.
“You do realize that I’ll destroy you if you post that,” Apollo informed me with a raised brow.
“As that’s practically impossible, I say bring it, O God of Dancing and Singing,” I replied with a grin and an extended middle finger.
“You’re forgetting a few of my other attributes, former demigod Cupid,” he reminded me while returning the middle finger salute.
“And I’m quite certain you’re going to remind me,” I said, checking Poseidon’s desk for any other useful information. Perhaps the name of my fucking replacement…
Apollo joined me at the desk and handed me a dossier. The name on the file was Misty. Misty. Who exactly was this Misty? Was the mysterious Misty my replacement? If she was she had a rather large and unpleasant surprise coming. I would not be replaced. Ever.
“Not only do I dance and sing—very well, I might add—I also reign over knowledge, healing, plagues…” Apollo began to lay out the list I’d heard too many times to count.
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest? You make humans sick and then you heal them?” I interrupted, thankful all I had to deal with was the ridiculous notion of love. Most of the gods had a shitload on their plates.
“Yes, I suppose it is. However, I’m not done,” Apollo informed me with a grin.
“Of course you’re not.”
“I lord over manly beauty for obvious reasons,” he bragged, flexing his muscles. “And let’s not forget poetry and archery.”
“You suck at archery,” I pointed out.
“Beside the point,” Apollo stated with a shrug and a chuckle. “But my gift for prophecy is the one you should be most interested in at the moment.”
My perusal of the desk and the dossier came to an abrupt halt as I turned my attention to the one idiot with an ego that was possibly larger than mine. Apollo did have the gift of prophecy. Normally I never listened to what he had to say. I enjoyed living on the edge and knowing what the future held was not appealing. When you lived forever, you needed something liven it up the unending monotony.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I told him.
“I must insist you listen,” he countered, no longer smiling. “I don’t have a clear picture, which I find disturbing.”
I paused, glanced down at the folder in my hand, and considered what Apollo had just revealed. Blurry visions didn’t bode well. They usually meant violence or death for someone involved. Did I really want to know if I was walking into my own demise? Did I care?
I’d existed on this mortal plane for so long I was hard pressed to remember my own age. Eternity, while nice in theory, was tedious and lonely. I’d been fired from the only job I’d ever had—the job I’d been created for. Maybe it was my turn to go.
“I still don’t want to hear it,” I announced curtly. “However, I will say as much as I’d like to beat you to a bloody pulp that I’ve also enjoyed our dysfunctional friendship over the many thousands of years it’s lasted.”
“It’s not you that’s slated to die,” he said. “It’s someone you love.”
“Well, seeing as I only love myself, you’re wrong. Again,” I ground out.
Someone I loved? Ridiculous. I loved no one. Love was a weakness and I didn’t have those.
“You’re pathetic,” Apollo commented. “And you will listen. I’m not even sure what any of it means, but I feel compelled to share.”
“Fine. Share. I have places to be and things to do,” I snapped as a tremor of unease slithered down my spine.
The God of Knowledge closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. His body began to glow a shimmering hue of gold and time seemed to stand still for a moment. There was a slight ringing in my ears and my skin grew chilled.
Apollo’s voice was low, hypnotic and musical. Gone was the cheater and the braggart. Before me now stood a powerful God in every sense of the word.
Shit. I really didn’t want to hear this right now. If I was going to bite it, so be it.
“I see water,” Apollo said. “Crystal blue, bloody water and sunshine. Tears and feral screams of agony.”
“My blood?” I questioned.
“Your screams,” he replied with his eyes still closed. “Some sort of celebration—not sure. It’s unfamiliar to me.”
“A wedding?”
“Possibly,” he said, nodding slowly. “The clothing is odd—quite off for a human nuptial unless it’s Pirate-themed.”
Fuck. He was seeing Pirate Doug’s wedding. The vision was accurate as far as where I was headed.
“What else?” I asked, tersely.
“Not much else,” he admitted. “I can’t actually visualize that the potential death is of someone you love, but I feel it, which is far more powerful than what I can see.”
“Here’s the deal,” I told him. “I am indeed going to an island wedding for a Pirate—not exactly as a guest—more like a crasher. Since I love no one, I don’t foresee any problems.”
“Is this the wedding of Poseidon’s son Pirate Doug?” Apollo asked, his brow wrinkled in concern.
Nodding, I wondered if I was the cause of the carnage or if there was an outside force. Without missing a beat, Apollo answered my unspoken thought.
“It’s not you—exactly.” He opened his eyes and stared hard at me. “I do believe its demons causing the death.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” I demanded. Why in Zeus’ Universe would fucking demons be at Pirate Doug’s wedding?
“Nope, I’m currently boinking a lovely Dragon named Meg. Although, I’m thinking of cutting her loose. She’s not into Garth Brooks. That’s a real problem for me.”
Ignoring his ludicrous admission, I steered the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Why would Hades send demons to Poseidon’s son’s wedding?”
“Not sure it’s Hades at all,” Apollo said. “It feels more like an abyss in the ocean might have opened due to the lack of love in the world at the moment.”
For the first time in thousands of years, I had nothing to say.
Was this my fucking fault? Had my lack of attention to my job opened an abyss, letting denizens from Hell slip through?
Apollo had to be wrong. The vision was blurry. All of this could be wildly inaccurate… or not.
“I don’t think you should go,” Apollo said. “It doesn’t bode well.”
In a fit of rage, I slammed my hands on Poseidon’s ornate desk and shattered it to pieces. The dossier fell to the orange sand, now littered with shards of pink marble. The pages fluttered and settled all over the ground like confetti—each page a different shade of green. But it wasn’t the paper that caught my attention and made my blood run cold. It was a picture.
A photograph of a breathtaking emerald haired Mermaid—my Mermaid.
“She’s quite lovely,” Apollo commented absently, picking the photograph up and examining it. “Do you know her?”
Ripping the eight by ten glossy from his hands, I stared at it. My heart began to beat so loudly in my chest that I was sure the bastard would hear it.
“Is this the one who dies?” I growled.
“Do you love her?”
“I love no one,” I shouted at him. “No one.”
“Then maybe she will be fine, but you should stay here.”
Picking up the pages and slipping them back into the folder, I took one last look at Misty’s face and knew exactly what I was going to do.
“She’s your replacement. This Misty is the new demigoddess of love and that’s who the demons want. My guess from the vision is they want to destroy Cupid—hence all love. As you’re no longer Cupid—for the moment—it’s a win-win for you. You stay here. This Misty person dies. Bing. Boom. Bam. You get your job back.”
My fury almost blinded me. Something I’d never experienced in all my thousands of years consumed me until the blood in my veins felt like fire coursing through my body. That’s when I punched Apollo so hard I was certain I’d broken my hand. There was no doubt that I’d shattered his nose and torn his lips open.
“Gods,” I growled as I picked him up off the ground and shook my head, trying to clear it. “I didn’t mean to do that. Not that rearranging your face isn’t normally amusing, but I couldn’t control myself. I’m sorry, Apollo.”
Apollo stared at me and slowly a smile pulled at his bloody mouth. “While I will take retribution when you least expect it, I accept your apology for now. And I’d suggest you leave and find your destiny—be it on this plane or another. Clearly you have a few things to untangle in that warped mind of yours. Gods’ speed, Cupid.”
With that, my longtime friend disappeared in a golden mist leaving me alone with my chaotic thoughts. I loved no one. I couldn’t. Love was a weakness. Vulnerability was for fools and humans. Eternity didn’t breed monogamy. Everything about love was nonsensical—not that I’d always believed that. In the beginning I regarded love as the most important truth—as the greatest gift one could receive.
Now? Now I believed love was a temporary myth.
However, I couldn’t deny the unfamiliar sensation inside me at the thought of Misty dying. Unacceptable. The emerald-haired Mermaid who occupied most of my waking thoughts was not going to die because demons thought she was Cupid.
Plus, I’d never gotten my kiss.
If they wanted Cupid, they were going to have to come for the real one.
Me.
Period.
The buzzing of the priceless emerald didn’t surprise me. However, the fact that I’d been carrying it in my pocket for fifty years still did. Little did the caller know I was within a few miles of her, but that was information I wasn’t prepared to share… yet.
“Yes?” I said, speaking to the jewel. “How can I help you, Sheena?”
“You’re a gaping asscrack,” she shouted. “What kind of imbecile are you to steal from the gods?”
“I’m sorry. What?” I asked as my grin widened. Her rudeness was positively invigorating. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Archer,” she hissed. “You stole that fat bastard baby’s magic and it got all over me. And then to make matters more horrifying, the diaper-wearing pickled assmonkey of the freakin’ Seven Seas saw it and now I’m supposed to take over for the arrow shooting chubby butthole of an infant. It is all kinds of bullshit and every kind of your fault.”
“I’m slightly confused here,” I said wondering what the hell she was talking about. “Clarify, Misty.”
“What did you just call me?” she screeched. “How do you know my name?”
“Is that really important right now?” I replied smoothly, covering my ass. This woman threw me off my game. Not good. “Seems to me you have bigger problems. And I still have no clue what you’re babbling about or why it’s my fault.”
“First off, I’m not babbling, jackwad,” she informed me as my pants grew uncomfortably tight at the thought of seeing her soon. “However, I can see how my explanation might have been a little vague.”
“A little?” I inquired with a laugh.
“Shut it, Archer… and listen to me. I know you stole Cupid’s magic and now we’re both in huge trouble. I have to take over for the porcine toddler, which is total bullshit since I believe love is a stupid joke. And you… you’re gonna be in a butt load of hurt when the gods find out you stole the magic.”
Speechless was the only way to describe my state at the moment. How in Zeus’ warped world did she come up with this fucked up scenario?
“Are you still there?” she asked.
“I am,” I choked out, trying not to laugh.
“So here’s the deal. You’re going to return the magic to the potbellied, dimpled-assed, kinky-haired baby so this nightmare can be over. You feel me?”
“Umm… that might be a bit of a problem,” I said, trying hard to swallow her wildly inaccurate and insulting description of me.
“Did you use it all up?” she yelled, making me wince at her volume. “Sweet Poseidon on a bender at Happy Hour. If I have to take over for that chunky, tubby dwarf I’m gonna lose my debatably sane mind. Please tell me you didn’t use it all up and can return it.”
“I definitely didn’t use it all up,” I promised. “But returning it to the rightful owner is unnecessary.”
“Oh my starfish,” Misty bellowed. “You and your Johnson-man-tool are the biggest mistake I ever made. I hate your stupidly-good-looking guts and if I ever see your sorry ass again I will blast it straight to Hades—unless the pasty faced overweight nard gets to me first for stealing his fucking job.”
Well, that was something to look forward to…
“Listen to me, Misty. I’m coming to you right now.”
“No! You can’t.”
“And why is that?”
“Beeeecause, Poseidon is here. If he finds out you’re the one who pilfered Cupid’s magic, you’ll die.”
“And you care if I die?” I asked, feeling something unusual in my stomach. Was that fucking butterflies? Impossible.
“Well… yes,” Misty snapped. “If anyone gets to kill you, it’s gonna be me. Not some drunken Sea God and not some beer-bellied baby arrow shooter. Besides you don’t know where I live… or do you?”
“I’ll see you in fifteen minutes. Go to the beach.”
While she was still shouting obscenities at me and tearing me another impressive asshole, I ended the call. Misty, the gorgeous emerald-haired Mermaid, was in for a big surprise.
However, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was too.