Chapter Thirty-Five
NOVEMBER 8, AGE SIX
After a long day at first grade where the kids found a hole in my shirt and spent every hour after lunchtime trying to slide things through the rip in my clothes without me knowing, I was sent to the after-school program to do crafts and play until my mom finished work. The daily activities were generally sparsely populated, with me and other low-income students whose parents couldn’t afford private daycare. But having poverty in common didn’t make the others any kinder. If anything, it gave them more to prove in establishing a hierarchy.
At least, that’s how I saw it in hindsight. At the time, there were only the bullies and the underlings.
The rec room was in shambles as boys toppled over a toy kitchen and chucked Legos at one another from across the room when the supervising teacher sat down and cried.
It was jarring enough that we all stopped what we were doing to watch her, cross-legged on the floor, face in her hands, as she cried. We’d broken her.
By the tender age of six, I knew I never wanted to have kids.
If she couldn’t survive children for a few hours after school, I wasn’t sure how I could handle it every hour of every day if I became a mom. Besides, I never wanted to bring a life into the world who would have to go through the rejection, the cold nights, the spankings, the torn clothes, the jeers, the punishments, the pain I’d gone through. Society didn’t need someone new to kick.
SEPTEMBER 2, AGE 26
I thought of my lifelong vow to be childless as the technician wrapped a band around my bicep, preparing me to take vials of my blood. I smiled at the woman in her bright white scrubs, knowing Caliban would slap the needle out of the woman’s hands if he realized I was volunteering blood to a god. Then again, given the events of the appointment, I was confident this wouldn’t be the only thing that would make him angry. I’d failed him on roughly every promise I’d made.
But I’d been the one who’d insisted on meeting Doctor Ayona today since I was so desperate to get pregnant, so it would have raised more than a few eyebrows if I’d refused standard lab work to establish my current health and wellbeing. I could write a book on the ancient Canaanite religion as my fourth novel. Perhaps she’d done me a favor by taking the guesswork out of my future project. I’d had no choice. She hadn’t even needed to coerce me. I would either blow our cover or do whatever was required to get us what we needed. Besides, bloodwork was standard practice in any boring, human clinic. It should be fine…right?
“Make a fist for me?” the tech said, voice calm as gentle rain.
Cartoon pictures of Baal’s priests slicing themselves open in his honor flashed through my mind, my feelings about Sunday school were not unlike the traumatic flashes of a war veteran. Crimson illustrations filled my eyes as she pierced my skin. I inhaled sharply but did not flinch. I watched her fill one syringe, then another, then a third. She labeled them carefully with my name and case number.
When the technician finished with me, Jessabelle was waiting in the hall with a smile. Gone was the feral terror that’d been instilled in me in the moments her boss had called my intentions into question. I wasn’t sure if I’d been quick-thinking, lucky, or profoundly stupid. I guessed only time would tell. But for now, Jessabelle gestured for me to follow her down the stairs.
“We can’t tell you how excited we are to work with you,” Jessabelle said, voice practically glittering. Not only was she no longer trying to scare me, but even her professionalism had melted away into something that resembled fawning. “This means more to us than you could possibly realize.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said thickly. I didn’t want any of it. I didn’t want to have children or to have made deals with a true devil. All I’d wanted was to break the terraformed seal and set Caliban free.
Fauna was right. I was a goddamn idiot.
“We need twenty-four hours to get a few selections here,” Jessabelle said as she escorted me to the door, “but we’ll send planes for all of them to ensure you have the optimal experience. We’ll be ready for you tomorrow at five. Wear whatever makes you comfortable. We’ll provide alternate attire upon your arrival.”
“Sure, sure, five,” I agreed without looking at her. I just wanted to leave. At the rate of my recklessness, staying another minute longer would probably result in me bonding with Astarte and pledging my undying allegiance to the Phoenicians.
Unseasonable warmth hit me as I abandoned the air-conditioned museum to the Dumbass Formerly Known as Merit Finnegan. I tried to focus on my breathing, on the sound of my heels on the glittering black asphalt, on the absence of suffocating Juliet roses as cut grass and the distant scent of a freshwater lake wafted on the breeze. There was no way I’d get my pulse under control before I had to face the others.
I did my best to keep my pace normal as I walked back to the car, shooting a glance behind me to ensure Jessabelle had closed the door before I reached the car. Fortunately, the luxury vehicle had deeply tinted windows. I slid into the car and my eyes widened.
I exhaled slowly, closing my eyes.
“Where’s Caliban?”
Azrames leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, smoke and ash the only scent in the car. “Hello to you, too, Marmar. Don’t worry; the Prince is just doing reconnaissance for exit points as a fox on the property. He’s pretty sure he can reverse-engineer their wards if he can figure them out from the exterior. I’m confident he’ll be able to sniff them out. How’d it go in there?”
I swallowed, voice trembling slightly as I said, “Caliban’s going to be really mad at me.”
Az’s voice went from friendly to strained in a second. “I have a feeling that I am, too. What did you do?”
I started shaking before I could even spit it out. Each breath came out more jagged than the one before as fear pricked through me. “I fucked up, Az. I fucked up.”
“Tell me.”
I closed my eyes as I explained what had happened and what I’d done.
“Fuck,” he swore, flinching away from the information with closed eyes. He didn’t reopen them as he said, “You’re hers.”
“No,” I insisted. “It wasn’t a bond; it was just lab work and a book agreement—”
“You’re hers, Marlow,” he repeated.
“No,” I emphasized, agitated that he wasn’t listening. “I’m just going to write a book. That’s all! I have to write a book on mythology anyway! It’s my career! So what if it’s about her? It doesn’t matter. Maybe I would have done book four on them anyway; who’s to say? And bloodwork is standard practice. It doesn’t mean anything. It—”
“You’re hers.”
Thrice. It took three repetitions for me to truly hear him. I fell silent for the next few minutes, staring at the gray assassin in the back of the car. I hadn’t even started the car. Instead, we let the quiet press down on us until the passenger door opened. I jumped. Caliban slid into the seat and immediately to me, scooping me against him as much as he was able between the two front seats. He released me and frowned.
He cradled my face with one hand again, but I wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t. His voice stayed low. “I was coming back with a good report on the back staircase, but something tells me you do not have good news, Love.”
From the back seat, Azrames said, “What are the two ways to break a terraformed seal?”
Caliban frowned. He looked at Az, confused at the change in conversation. “Either someone who could freely come and go would have to destroy the seal’s integrity, or it would have to be done by the seal’s maker…one way or another.”
Azrames nodded slowly before saying, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we’re down to one option.”
It was worry, not anger, that filled Caliban’s voice as he his eyes fixed on me. “What did you do?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, face falling into my hands to cover my shame. The car crunched in on me, suffocating me, enveloping me in pain and darkness as I hid from Caliban, disappearing into my own self-loathing.
From the back seat, Azrames said, “I hope you’re ready to kill a goddess.”
I handed my keys to the valet driver of the downtown hotel I’d spotted while readying myself to meet the goddess. When a bell boy inquired about my bags, I informed him that I traveled light. The concierge had me checked in and sent to my room within a few short minutes. If I only had a night left of freedom, I sure as shit wasn’t spending it among the mold and dried cum stains of the Bellfield Inn. If we hadn’t arrived in town on foot, without a phone, and in the middle of the night and stopped, I wouldn’t have allowed us to settle for the first bed-bug-infested site we’d found. Still, I supposed it was a good thing we had. Thanks to the human roach’s encounter with Azrames, the clerk’s reign of terror had come to an end.
Tonight, I would sleep on clean, soft sheets.
Tonight, I would order bacon cheeseburgers with extra fries through room service and drink four bottles of beer from the well-stocked mini fridge.
Tonight, I would draw a bubble bath and drift off in the water while resting against someone who was very invested in keeping me alive. At least, that was the plan. I wished the others could see what I saw reflected back in the glossy, golden elevator banks as I approached in my designer clothes flanked on either side by gorgeous, otherworldly men. I was having a celebrity moment, and the pedestrians were missing out.
I punched the button to summon an elevator and sighed when the glow of the red device informed me that the elevator was on the twelfth floor. I missed my apartment and the always-ready modes of transportation.
“Well, lovebirds,” Az said, breaking the quiet. He looked at a human couple patiently waiting for another elevator, and I knew he was advising me not to respond. “I’d love to give you two some alone time, but as much as I know you want time together, I suspect you also want to survive the next forty-eight hours.”
Caliban slipped his arm around my back, resting his hand on my hip. He rubbed a thumb on my hip bone while he said, “Planning comes first.” Then to me, he said, “We have nothing but time after that.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he squeezed my hip to remind me that it wasn’t in my best interest to talk to the air. I narrowed my eyes, disagreeing. I was quite confident that talking to the air was exactly the right move to get the human couple to select a different elevator. The moment the elevator dinged, I decided they couldn’t tell me what to do.
“I can’t wait to stand on the roof and talk to the birds,” I said to myself, “and sing them all of my favorite songs!” I saw the couple beside me halt as I pressed the button to close the door. “In fact, I think I’ll practice those songs now. Doe, a deer, a female deer…”
We’d been so tense that the single act of ridiculousness broke us. Azrames snapped like a rubber band, nearly crying as he laughed at their bewildered faces as the doors shut behind them. Caliban nipped at my cheek as he gave my ass a squeeze.
“This might be my favorite incarnation.” He smiled at me, moving my body so my back was against the elevator wall.
“Is it the fae blood?”
His chuckle rumbled against me. “I think the blood is working in my favor. But this is the first time you’ve chosen me like this.” The elevator dinged, and Azrames slipped out like a shadow, shooting an apologetic grimace. We occupied the elevator for a few more seconds as he said, “I’ve never let you hurt. I’ve never been able to stand by and let you suffer. Every time you pass, it kills me. Then I hold my breath and wait. But if something happens to you this time?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
The elevator doors closed, but the box stayed put.
He rested a hand on the wall beside my head, leaning his body toward me. My heart skipped at how close he was in the clear, bright light of the small space. I licked my lips and did my best to focus as he spoke. “I can’t take the risk, Love. What if this life is our shot? This is the life where you know who and what we are to one another, and we want the same thing? It will break me if the next cycle…”
His free hand followed my curves. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be turned on—this was serious, and no time for thinking of him picking me up and fucking me against the elevator wall. It was no time to envision those sensuous lips on my neck, my breasts, between my thighs. It wasn’t the time to wish he’d slide the free hand to my throat, or to the bundle of nerves that he knew better than anyone. My toes curled in my shoes as I focused. Recognizing a saddened emotion on his face brought me back to reality. His frosted brows gathered in the center, bundling against a deep wound. I felt like this might have been a pain he’d endured before. Perhaps not to this extent, but I recalled his father mentioning a cycle where he’d remained a fox for the entirety of my life. To love and be loved in return, to spend each lifetime making someone fall in love with you all over again, and to finally have her choose you back, only to have her life cut short…
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I repeated seriously as I returned his stare. I felt guilty for how selfish my body had been while he used those diamond eyes to look into every version of me who’d ever existed. Now was not the time for this moment. I brushed my hands across his face, appreciating how he looked in the luxurious lighting of a hotel elevator. No shadows. No dreams. Just him, real, mine. “Now, let’s go chat with the assassin. He’s pretty qualified to kill people.”
Caliban slipped his hand over mine as he punched the button to open the doors and we joined Azrames in the hall.
“Damn, Marmar,” Azrames said, following me into the suite. It was the sort of place I’d grown familiar with frequenting when clients would take me upstairs after dinner and drinks. With the gold-and-crimson wallpaper, the leather furniture, the thick curtains, and the enormous art, it looked like every Four Seasons: overdecorated and overpriced. Az murmured appreciatively. “How much do you make?”
My laugh wasn’t entirely humorous. “It isn’t Bugatti money, but I do all right. I think I may have had some help.”
Azrames lifted his brows and Caliban gave a loose, two-fingered salute. “I may have called in a few favors, but Love is immensely talented. She wrote the books and did the work. I just made sure it wasn’t ignored when it got on the desks it needed to get on. And I may have…influenced the advance and royalty rates. Because she deserves it.”
I blushed.
He’d always been so generous. Even when I was convinced he was evidence of psychosis, he’d been a wishful manifestation of all the good things I hoped might happen for me. He was the reason I believed in my ability to make it, despite my conviction that it had been a result of the law of attraction or whatever the new age documentary had told me about self-actualization.
Azrames flopped onto the bed and cut to the chase. “So, Marmar here made a binding contract with Astarte, and the goddess is currently in possession of her blood offering to cement the deal.”
I felt the way Caliban flexed beside me against the flash of anger. We’d gone over this in the car, but apparently it would be the sort of regret I’d need to relive a few more times.
“I was backed into a corner,” I apologized breathlessly. “Once I’d recognized Anath, they came for me, physically. I did the only thing I could think to do to deescalate the situation. The agreements seemed so harmless. I’m so sorry—”
“You did what you had to, Helen,” Caliban said with a controlled laugh.
I blinked at him. “Helen?”
He nodded, “Of Troy—the most beautiful woman in the world, before you, of course. You’re the lynchpin about to set off two kingdoms into war.”
“War?” I repeated breathlessly. I seemed to be responsible for the echo in the room.
“Astarte is the goddess of sex, love, and—”
“War,” I said once more. “You’re already at war. I don’t need to have a PhD in history to tell you that split battlefronts rarely come out victorious.”
“Sure,” Azrames agreed for them both, “but that’s human history.”
I kept my eyes on Caliban. “If you don’t let her have me…”
“Anath is her sister,” Caliban said. “I don’t know who Jessabelle is in their realm, but her name suggests she belongs to Baal. When we stand against them, it won’t be a minor spat between civilians. This wouldn’t be like Fauna killing Az.”
“Fauna’s tried, but that’s a story for another time. Our Prince and their goddess? That’s royalty versus royalty.” Azrames finished for us. “Honestly…”
We both looked at him speculatively.
“Well, I was thinking, if it were anyone else in the realms, we might worry about them looking for a partnership with Heaven in a bind like this. Heaven has no friends, but they’re getting creative in looking for paths to victory. Thank fuck it’s the Phoenicians. Even if you kill their goddess, they won’t ally themselves with Heaven. Next to us, the Phoenicians are Heaven’s longest-standing rivalry.”
Caliban rubbed his brow as if a headache had blossomed behind his ice-white skin. “Thank fuck indeed. So, a split battlefront it is.”
Az interlaced his fingers behind his head, horns nearly brushing against the headboard as he kept his eyes unfocused toward the ceiling. “Our war with Heaven has been espionage and subterfuge at best. I acknowledge you know far more about the war’s inner workings than I do, Prince, but with the Phoenicians…I don’t know. Astarte has Dagon prisoner. There’s a chance they won’t mourn her.”
Caliban was unconvinced. “She’s Baal’s consort, and he’s the highest god in their realm. He won’t be pleased.”
Azrames pushed back. “But Dagon is Baal’s father. And for whatever reason, Baal hasn’t joined her here. When it comes to what’s left of the Phoenicians and their reactions, it might be a coin toss.”
“Anath—” I said, but Azrames cut me off.
“Is Astarte’s sister,” Caliban explained. “Some sources suggest she and Baal also had a thing, but it’s unconfirmed. Anath is almost exclusively prayed to for war. She’s like a…more powerful, singular Valkyrie. In your Norse mythology authorship terms.”
“It seems like the Canaanites were predisposed to violence,” I mumbled, trying not to take offense to how often everyone had to simplify things for me.
Azrames let out a singular laugh. “Yeah, good job on that one. You had to give blood offerings and sign a contract with Astarte, didn’t you? You couldn’t have made a bargain with Lord Mahavir?”
I winced against my own ignorance. I turned to Caliban with an apologetic face.
“Jainism,” Caliban whispered.
Ah, yes. The most nonviolent religion in the world. I suspected Lord Mahavir would not have backed me into such a corner. Or have opened a fertility clinic to rule over an earthly kingdom because his pride felt neglected in his respective realm. Or capture an agricultural god to force blessings upon his wealthy town. Or coerce couples into sex…
“Wait,” I said, remembering something Jessabelle had said. The men looked at me as my forehead creased. “I think she means to bring in a meat market tomorrow.”
Caliban looked like I’d splashed him with cold water. “Excuse me?”
I nodded for emphasis. “Men. I think she’s bringing in men. She handed me a binder to look through potential sperm donors. Then she started going on about how artificial insemination and Western medicine has a low success rate, and her methods were unconventional…but it was something the receptionist said at the end. She said it would take a day to get them here. Them. I didn’t consider it at the time, but…”
Caliban went statue-still. “But if she’s honored through prostitution…”
And in this case, I agreed with the use of the word. Prostitute was a slur. We both saw the extreme distinction between prostitution and sex work. My life as an escort was empowering. I’d been the queen of my domain. I’d built an empire, set myself up, and established my power over men. I decided who I saw and could charge them more and more if they so much as annoyed me.
But self-import wasn’t what made gods crave prostitution as a devotional offering. Gods of sex, love, and fertility wanted bodies in submission to them. Astarte wasn’t looking for agency or union or lovemaking. She was looking for the power of intimacy in taking our innermost expressions of being and making them her own.
“She means for you to get pregnant tomorrow with one of her whores,” he said, voice cold. I thought of the binder and its smiling faces, their numbers, their statistics, their ascribed values. I thought of Jessabelle’s comment about finding something for me to wear. “If I’m not wrong, she’ll want to be…present.”
“Present?” I repeated, voice hoarse.
“Come on, Mythology,” Azrames said from the wall. “Tell me you don’t know enough from your book on the Greek and Roman gods to understand group sex as a favorite brand of pagan worship. And yes, before you ask, I read your books. Very steamy stuff, Marmar.”
“You really think Astarte—no, she can’t! She’s posing as a doctor! She has to at least play the role of professional. She’s done this with other people…she—”
“I don’t know the extent of her involvement,” Azrames said as he shrugged. “I’m not saying she’s going to strip down and ride your face while you’re getting railed—”
“Hey,” Caliban warned. The friendship they’d built evaporated for a single, tense moment. All the blood in my body rushed to my cheeks, cooking me from the inside out with its embarrassed heat.
“Sorry, sorry.” Azrames made a face, apologizing with his hands. He seemed to remember who he was talking to. He amended, “As a medical professional, she might be able to justify her presence in the exchange as an overseer, to add legitimacy. Sexual studies have been done throughout human history. It’s not out of the question, or even out of the realm of mortal science. This might not raise as many brows as you’d think.”
I turned red as I stammered, unsure of what point to address first. In the end, I was too flustered to speak directly to him and settled on the definitive statement. “I don’t want to get pregnant.”
Caliban’s humor returned, if just barely. With a single, mirthless laugh, he said, “Yes, that’s a common theme with you. I have to say, in all your lives, I never would have put my money on you selling your soul to have a baby. Quite the twist.”
I balled my fists. “I don’t want a goddamn crotch goblin.”
“The deal is the deal whether you want it or not. But I might have an idea.”
Azrames and I both looked at him expectantly.
He shook his head and said, “Obviously we can’t call for reinforcements. No one knows we’re here, and it’s best we keep it that way. More flies in a web won’t kill the spider. But I think we can fix this from the inside.” Looking at me seriously, he asked, “Do you trust me?”
And I didn’t need a single heartbeat to consider my answer.
“Implicitly.”
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep a wink that night. I got my cheeseburger, but something about room service always ruined the flavor. Burgers were meant to be eaten out of greasy wrapping paper on top of picnic tables that had been welded into parking lots. Fries needed flickering streetlights and the hum of traffic and the late-night pleasant feeling of coming home from the bar. Five-star hotels, with their jalape?o jam, their bacon chutney, and their Wagyu beef, took the magic out of a good burger.
I’d taken longer than necessary in the shower, knowing Caliban and Azrames had things to discuss. They’d had very little time together since I’d dropped the bomb that I’d ruined all hope of breaking the seal under the radar. I would not be taking a shovel to a secret hill and disrupting the integrity of the trap. We would not be escaping without bloodshed.
I managed to finish two of my beers, but the men took the others. I realized with some disappointment in myself that Fauna was constantly eating in my presence and that I should have been more considerate of their needs, but they assured me that, as they weren’t in corporeal form like my Fauna, they did not operate the same. Alcohol was a common offering to spirits regardless of the realm. And with a toast, Azrames had taken the far bed and I’d crawled beneath the covers to face the blank wall.
The dark was not comforting.
Caliban wrapped his arm around me, enveloping me in the heavy hold of strength, of the forest, and of affection. I felt safe, I felt loved, and I felt the most profound regret I’d ever experienced in my life.
I’d spent eighteen years in a physically and emotionally abusive household, rarely granted compassion. I’d rejected the only companionship that had been consistent in my life until it was too late. And when we had each other at long last, the first thing I’d done was fuck it up.
He must have sensed the painful spike as my emotion shifted.
Wordlessly, he used the hand that held me to brush away my tears. I snatched his hand from the shadows before me and pushed a kiss into his palm, feeling the way his body tightened around mine, encompassing me wholly. And though I’d been certain I’d lie awake in a fit of stress and worry, I was swept up in calming visions of a misty forest, of deeply olive ferns, of moss-covered logs and the calming smells of gin and cypress, and I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.