Chapter Four
I didn’t know what I’d expected, but I’d lost the ability to be shocked.
Nia’s backyard deserved a feature in Better Homes and Gardens . We avoided the front door altogether and unlatched the gate of their wooden privacy fence. Fauna and I headed toward the strings of twinkly lights pinned to the ceiling of their covered back porch where Nia, Kirby, and Darius were already happily chatting. An L-shaped couch with waterproof cushions surrounded a copper fire pit that was more for show than any source of heat. Fluffy clouds dotted the sky, each aglow from the soft red orange of the setting sun. A giant television, perfect for tailgate-style parties where sports boys played sports ball and drank sports drinks and talked about sports, was mounted to the pillar, though Nia had muted the sound the moment we’d arrived.
It didn’t surprise me when the Davis-Greenes lost the ability to speak as Fauna burst through the door like a hurricane. It didn’t surprise me when the Nordic nymph took over making the pina coladas, pressing the buttons on the blender and adding too much sugar while our hosts stared, slack-jawed, at my fae friend. It didn’t surprise me when Fauna ushered us all into the warm, late-summer night to enjoy the comfortable sunset. It didn’t surprise me when Fauna flirted with Kirby and caused their brain to short-circuit. It didn’t surprise me when we fumbled for the remote, needing to put on the television to fill in awkward silences as she said too many incomprehensible things to keep the conversation flowing organically. It didn’t surprise me when we all relied heavily on the pitchers of rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice after Fauna’s nonsense became a little more challenging than we knew how to handle. And it didn’t surprise me that, as with all things, Fauna did absolutely nothing in moderation.
“Do you have more?” Fauna asked, loudly slurping the frothy dredges of her tropical drink through a straw.
I would have been happy to enjoy the warm September evening with a nice buzz. Nia had the best patio furniture. It was probably the booze talking, but I was relatively certain that if I closed my eyes and relaxed into the cushion, it would swallow me whole, as if I was a chocolate chip tucked into bread dough.
Yeah, maybe I’d had a few too many. Fortunately, my years in sex work had trained me to maintain my composure after several drinks. I managed to put up a thin barrier between the facade of a fun night with friends and me drunkenly sobbing about how my demon prince boyfriend had been kidnapped by pagan deities.
“Pretty please?” Fauna’s request brought me back to the question.
My sigh was the long-suffering exhaustion of a parent. I just wanted to be a chocolate chip. “Who are you asking? You’re the one who broke into their kitchen and made the drinks. You know it’s empty.”
Fauna gestured. “Peaches hasn’t finished her drink. Does she—”
“They,” I corrected, too tipsy to have a strong reaction but nowhere near wasted enough to allow even a feral forest nymph to misgender my oldest friend. The patio couch swallowed me whole as I sank deeper and deeper into the cushion. The last lights of sunset twinkled out with an iridescent shimmer, leaving us alone with the embers of the grill and the glow of the outdoor television. The wafting smoke of cooking meat and fruit and vegetables smelled heavenly. My arms and legs already felt so heavy. I’d abandoned the outside world to drift into a comfortable nothing, but I had to keep just enough wits about me to play the role of owner at an off-leash dog park while keeping an eye on Fauna.
Undaunted, she corrected, “Right! Sorry. Kirby, peaches, were you going to drink that?”
“Be my guest.”
Fauna gave their fingers a grateful squeeze, and the touch sent their cheeks reddening. They were too easy to fluster.
Nia reached for Fauna’s empty glass. “We’re out of mixers, but I still have half a bottle of Malibu. Want to cut it with La Croix and pretend we’re drinking coconut water?”
“How responsible,” I muttered.
This is insane! How can you drink pina coladas and laugh with your friends while Caliban is trapped in another realm? A realm that’s demanding your presence?! the sober, reasonable voice within me screamed. I pounded the rest of my drink to cage her, begging the booze to numb me.
Darius remained several notches above us in sobriety. He facilitated the evening’s functionality while he played with the grill’s fire, dished up the shish kebabs, poured drinks, and overall continued to be the only human male who deserved rights, as far as I was concerned.
“So,” Nia said after her third shish kebab. She picked at the charred fruit, then looked at Fauna as she asked, “Marlow meets a gorgeous, long-lost friend that neither Kirbs nor I have ever heard about. The two of you vanished off the map. Marlow has no friends, so there’s no use pretending she has a life. Let’s cut to the chase. Are you seeing each other, or what’s going on here?”
My throat constricted at the question. Nia was such a good friend. She just wanted to be a part of my life. And I could do nothing but plaster on a fake smile and lie. When I remained mute, Fauna swept in with a response.
“Oh!” Fauna sparkled as if barely affected by what had to have been her seventh or eighth drink. I knew her well enough to notice how the beverages dulled her mayhem ever so slightly, but it was nothing like the impact it had on the mere mortals. “Gods and goddesses, no. Our sweet Marlow’s unbearable. I’d probably kill her if we dated.”
“Great,” Kirby said, perking slightly from where they’d melted onto the couch near Fauna. “Because I met someone who’s obsessed with you, Mar. He came into work not too long ago, ranting and raving about this really obscure niche series called Pantheon that we probably weren’t cool enough to know about. I feel like you’re the kind of person who’d want to date a superfan so they can follow you around in kiss-ass adulation.” They pulled up his profile on their phone, then turned the screen for us to see.
Nia leaned forward, sniffed at the picture, and relaxed back onto the cushion. “He looks like he drinks Mountain Dew.”
Fauna snorted. “I’m afraid our favorite dummy is taken.”
A hollow thump echoed woodenly through my chest. My eyes widened in time to match the others around us. Nia, Darius, and Kirby were all staring at me, but I only looked at the agent of chaos. The loose-lipped Nordic nymph was too distracted by her food to even notice how still the rest of us had grown. She finally caught my eye to see the daggers I shot her.
“My brother,” Fauna said easily, maintaining our smoke screen as if utterly unaffected by the devastation happening to the men we loved.
Wait . The sober voice within me was quieter, but still shocked. Is Fauna outing you? Did she really just say you’re dating her…? What’s happening right now?
Fauna ran her finger along the rim of her drink. “Those two go as far back as she and I do. We all fell out of touch for a long time, but…”
“When,” Kirby said flatly. It wasn’t a question.
Copper waves cascaded over Fauna’s shoulder as she tilted her head to the side.
“I’ve known Marlow since childhood. I know everyone she knows. When did she meet you—the brother-sister duo we’d never heard of before last week?”
Fauna looked at me apologetically. “How much do they know? Am I allowed to tell them…?”
I couldn’t breathe. Was she really about to ask me if she could explain gods and realms and demons? For fuck’s sake, I’d known coming here was a bad idea, but never in a million years had I thought it would be this bad.
Sure, Fauna, go ahead and tell my best friends that I can see behind the veil. Tell them I was gone last week because I was in Hell. It’ll probably be fine.
Fauna cleared her throat delicately. She twiddled her thumbs, eyes on her fingers as she said, “Marlow and I met on the job when I was offering…companionship.”
Three sets of shoulders unclenched.
Nia and Kirby relaxed the moment they’d received a satisfactory answer. Of course, Fauna is stunning , they must be thinking. She was a high-end escort, after all. Of course, this was why I’d never brought her up before. We protected one another’s identities in the industry.
My relief was separate entirely. Fauna deserved more credit than I’d given her.
Darius was busy at the grill, and either hadn’t heard what transpired, or was too polite to interject. Good man.
Nia redirected the conversation. “If your brother is half as good-looking as you…”
At last, I understood why she’d brought Caliban up at all. Fauna radiated a seraphic beauty. Perhaps she was doing me a favor by laying the groundwork, should I ever want to introduce Caliban—the only other one of my three otherworldly companions who could take corporeal form—to my friends. I was confident that even if Caliban was a thousand times more respectful and collected than my Nordic friend, he’d be far more difficult to be around. He was…distracting.
Kirby still hadn’t smiled. They’d never been a mean drunk, but the wounds in their voice suggested that tonight might be the night that changed. “Since when do you not tell us if you’re seeing someone?”
My heart sagged.
Because he’s a demon, Kirbs. Because he’s invisible, and I spent decades insisting he was a hallucination. Because I grew up in the church, and then became a devout atheist who mocked the sandbox of religions by writing mythology books. Because I love him so deeply it’s as if his blood is my blood, his bones are my bones, and right now he’s in trouble. He’s in another god’s realm because of my mistake. All of this is happening because I fucked up. And the only thing I want is to run to him.
I said none of that, of course. “Because it’s different with Cal—”
“His name is Cal ?” Kirby slurred, voice heavy with implication.
“Listen,” I tried to clarify, realizing I was a bit too sloshed to be making any serious declarations. “This isn’t like Tech Guy or CFO or any of the nameless no ones. I didn’t tell you because he doesn’t belong in the category of dating-app-mocking opportunities. I was crazy about him back in the day. I didn’t want to bring it up unless it was something.”
“And?” Nia asked. “Is it? Something?”
I heated from my place across the patio furniture. An early-autumn breeze swirled through the party, offering the barest of reprieves. Between the overturned red plastic cups of downed fruity drinks, the stained paper plates from our meals, and the evidence of our partying, there wasn’t enough liquor in the world to hide my blush when it came to what Caliban and I meant to each other. I looked at my feet as my thoughts went to him. I took a break from my panic to think of how beautiful he was, how kind he was, how wise he was. I was scared for him. But I was also head-over-goddamn-heels in love with him.
“Holy shit,” Kirby gasped. “How dare you!”
I twisted the material of my shirt between my fingers, unable to look up.
Doing his best to deescalate the brewing storm, Darius attempted to distract us by grabbing for the remote. He was usually pretty good at creating a safe environment when the world grew hostile. He angled the remote toward the TV and began flipping through stations.
Kirby glared. “You’re not off the hook, Marlow Esther Thorson—”
“What’s with you all and your names?” Fauna asked through a mouthful of pineapple as she picked around the vegetables. “Peaches here is the only one smart enough to use a pseudonym.”
“While throwing around my full government name! And if they keep scolding me, I’ll tell everyone their middle name, too.”
Kirby wrinkled their nose. “It’s a family name! Leave Aunt Gertrude out of this.”
The couch didn’t get its chance to burst into whatever argument was sure to follow.
Darius interrupted. “Oh, fuck.”
The low shock in his curse drew our attention. He was generally a friendly, albeit quiet, fixture when we were hanging out. Our eyes followed the arc of his hand as he kept the remote pointed up at the muted TV.
My stomach twisted.
“Turn it up.” I inhaled sharply, recognizing my author photo over the anchor’s shoulder as the six o’clock news looked at us seriously. Darius in his pursuit of the game’s final score had stumbled across something unthinkable.
“Mar—” Nia reached out to grab me.
“Turn it up!”
I scraped my fingernails against my scalp as the Viking horn rang from my phone. Two low and high notes each time a text came in. Up, down, up, down, up, always followed by my mental completion of the battle cry: Charge! It had seemed like a quirky idea at the time, but it had been my text tone for seven years. I was so used to keeping my phone on silent that I forgot how annoying it could be when you belonged to a group chat.
I didn’t look away from the TV as I reached over to silence my phone.
(EG) 6 missed calls
“Darius, turn it off,” Nia said breathlessly.
“Don’t you dare,” I said through my teeth. The TV and its terrible glow burned into my retinas. Everyone looked at me, while I looked at the face staring back from behind the screen. “I need to hear what they’re saying. Turn up the volume.”
“Marlow, please,” Kirby begged, voice turning on a dime as it flooded with sympathy.
“The volume, Darius!” I got to my feet. I couldn’t take this news sitting down. My focus cut through the booze in my system as I made eye contact with the news anchor. Maybe it was the rum, but I peered directly into her as she spoke.
I pressed the redial button beside EG’s contact information. She picked up on the first ring.
“Marlow,” my editor said breathlessly. “What’s your status? Where are you right now?”
“I’m with friends,” came my numb reply.
“Don’t turn on the TV,” EG demanded.
“I’m looking at it right now.”
“God, Marlow, turn it off. Turn it off right now.”
I shook my head in disbelief as the screen changed from my author headshot to a politician’s stage and the image of a crying husband, wife, and child. I recognized the middle-aged politician immediately. I knew the way he looked while ordering the most expensive bottle on the menu. I knew the uncomfortable jokes he made about the working class. I knew the smug way he’d slip me envelopes bulging with cash, bragging about how half of my income was funded by taxpayer dollars. I knew the guttural sound he made when his face turned purple at the moment of orgasm. His blue suit, her white dress, and the baby’s red onesie completed the country’s flag behind the podium. Two children under the age of five also stood in front of their mother, gripping her leg, undoubtedly to garner public sympathy. How patriotic.
“It’s too late.”
“…Merit Finnegan, author of the bestselling Pantheon series…”
I spoke, but my words were so robotic, so detached, that I could have sworn they’d come from someone else. “He’s doxxing me.”
“Turn it off!” came the shrill, far-off voice from the phone that dangled at my side. EG continued to yell at me while the world around me crystalized, then cracked. I heard the high, bell-like tinkling of glass ring through my ears as the earth shattered.
On the screen was the slicked hair, hard jaw, blue eyes, and old money of one of my long-standing clients. We hadn’t met in over two years, but he’d been a thrice-monthly regular. Republican Senator Geoff Christiansen, father of three, distant relative of the Rockefellers, and staunch activist against the social issues for which I loudly advocated, had gladly shelved his morals to spend roughly twelve to fifteen thousand dollars on me every single month. His vices had paid off my car and bought me three of my favorite Gucci bags.
Face grotesque with false contrition, he forced a tremble into the hands that clutched his papers. His wife of fourteen years, mother to his three strapping sons, clutched his arm as he stood behind the podium and addressed the world.
The banner below him announced that the senator had been caught in a prostitution ring. The scrawling words proclaimed he was at the center of a defamation case regarding a sex scandal. I could hardly look between him and his wife as his thin lips moved again, eyes watering with theatrical penance.
EG continued talking as I ignored her and snatched the remote from Darius’s hands to turn the volume up further.
High-pitched feedback preceded his words. His insincere voice rang through the microphone as the news played his speech for the public. “My love for theology as a Christian and a family man—”
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered.
“—led me to an interest in world religions so I could better understand my faith, which extended to Merit Finnigan’s books. When we struck up a friendship over my desire to become a more educated person in global theology, to deepen my own faith, I had no way of knowing that she was a professional escort. I—”
“Marlow!” EG’s voice screamed from the dangling receiver. “Marlow, answer me right now or I’m throwing your contract in the shredder and dropping you from Inkhouse!”
I lifted the phone to my ear. I blinked, the haze of tropical drinks snapping away against the stark adrenaline as I demanded, “He’s going to claim we were…what? Lovers? His plan is to admit to infidelity on the grounds that he didn’t know I was a sex worker? Is cheating on his wife supposed to be better?”
Four pairs of eyes bore into me as my friends watched helplessly while my reputation, and with it, my career, fell apart.
EG exhaled loudly, clearly both glad I was finally on the phone and dismayed that it had ever reached this point. “Christenson is a scumbag. Our publicists are scrambling to get a statement together. We’ll have one within the hour. Our marketing team is confident you’re going to come out on top. What I need you to do right now is turn off the television. Lie low for a couple days—”
I looked at my friends to see if they could hear EG’s voice. I was too intoxicated to fully understand how loud or quiet any of the sounds around me were to others.
“Disappear?” I clarified.
My editor’s voice came back firm and maternal as she pressed, “Take a vacation, Marlow. Delete all of the social media apps from your phone. Don’t check your email. Don’t search for articles about yourself. Get on a plane. Go to Fiji. Go to a Tibetan monastery for a month. Take a trip. Is there anywhere you’ve been wanting to go? You don’t even have to write. Forget about deadlines. Between PR, legal, and me, know Inkhouse will handle this. Give me your green light and we’ll issue statements on your behalf. You know I can sound like you in a pinch.”
Fauna set down her plate and crossed the space to me. Kirby and Nia remained speechless as Fauna squeezed my hand.
“I can disappear,” I repeated quietly.
“Do not use that word. Do not say disappear . Repeat back to me that you understand I’m asking for a vacation. I am talking about mental health. Take care of yourself. I am talking about an extended stay in the Maldives. Tell me you hear me.”
I swallowed. “No, EG, I’m okay. I’m…with someone. A friend. She and I can…” I looked into Fauna’s concerned doe eyes before saying, “We can get off the grid. She has a place out of cell reception. And EG?”
My eyes burned as I stared into the static of the screen.
She inhaled sharply. “Yes?”
I closed my eyes, letting the bullshit from the senator and the commentary from the news anchor wash over me in the background.
“Thank you for not saying I told you so .”
EG’s voice softened. “No use crying over spilled milk, angel. That’s what paper towels are for. Now, you’re with a friend? You promise?”
I wanted to bury my face in Caliban’s chest and cry. He was the one I needed, and in his absence, I searched Fauna’s face for comfort, but she’d already taken the remote from Darius and found something entirely more interesting on TV. She’d lost interest in me enough to find a worthwhile cartoon. An old man and a little boy jumped into a spaceship on the television, and she was utterly enraptured. I looked between her and the TV and almost choked between a laugh and a sob. I knew that if I looked at Kirby or Nia, I’d cry for sure. “Yeah, I’m at a barbeque right now. A friend has been staying at my place.”
“Good,” EG reiterated. “She’ll be your person on the outside, and you have a team of friends on the inside. You’re not alone, whether you’re Maribelle, Merit, or Marlow. We’ve got your back.”
“You’re one of the good ones, EG.”
“I know,” EG said with an audible smile. She confirmed for a final time that I was fine, waiting until Fauna called dismissively into the line to confirm her existence before EG agreed to get off the line.
The moment the line disconnected, Nia and Kirby joined me on their feet, pacing with rage.
“What a piece of shit,” Kirby burned. “What a worthless lowlife! What a bastard! What a—”
“Listen.” Nia flattened her hands until they were parallel to the ground. “I’ve lived a good life. I’m not afraid to go to jail. Give me his address.”
Kirby snapped, “At least we know why she’s dropping off the face of the earth this time. This tragedy cancels out your wrongs, Mar. I might even find it in my heart to forgive you for leaving us hanging.”
Nia jutted a thumb toward Kirby and said, “While I’m in a murderous rage, I’m also willing to kill Kirbs if they don’t shut the fuck up. If I’m going to get the death penalty, I might as well get it twice.”
The ends of my nerves tingled as if my entire body had fallen asleep. I hardly knew what I was saying as I looked at the back of Fauna’s head, watching how the coppers and silvers glistened against the television and the black of the dark night sky beyond. “We—Fauna and I—we were talking about going to hang out with her family. I might just turn off my phone for a little while,” I said slowly. “Please don’t call my mom, even if it’s two weeks or more.”
“More?” Nia demanded, looking like she might throw things. “How long are you planning to leave the grid?”
Kirby turned on her. “Nia, you called her fucking mother. She gets four weeks without us calling the police on her this time.”
Nia shot daggers. “I’m already killing you, Kirby. At this point you’re just making the mode of death worse for yourself.”
“It’s okay,” I sighed. “I’ll be with Fauna.”
“And…her brother?” Nia’s lethal anger softened ever so slightly.
I nodded. “That’s the plan.” I touched Fauna’s arm lightly, trying to get her attention as if I were talking to a toddler I’d been babysitting as she stood too close to the electric glow of the screen. “How are the cartoons?” I asked.
“Amazing,” she responded, unbothered by the shitstorm unfurling behind her.
I tested my words carefully as I said, “Fauna, I’m under strict instructions to fall off the face of the earth.”
“I know you’ve been wanting to take a trip, ” Fauna said through clenched teeth, “but we promised we’d wait to go on that vacation.”
“This is different,” I said firmly. “We aren’t taking a vacation to go get a tan. We’re going to go visit your family because Nia is threatening to murder someone, and I’d rather your sister take the fall for it. Do you have any family members who want to kill a Republican?”
Fauna’s eyes became slits. She shifted away from the television to study me.
Her expression said: You’re really asking me to go now when I made an oath?
The anger that flickered across my face replied: We aren’t going to the Nordes to gather troops. We aren’t breaking any promises. I’m part Norde, and one of their own is being doxxed. I reserve the right to demand help from my gods.
Either she was excellent at reading facial expressions, or she had some form of telepathy that she had yet to share. She sighed. “Fine. You’re right. This is a great reason to go see my family.”
“Are you ready to leave?” I asked. “I’d like to start packing.”
“That depends. Do you have the button so I can watch this episode when we’re back at your place?”
My fingers flexed in frustration. “Yes, I have the streaming service with all of these cartoons.”
“Great!” she said merrily, returning the remote to Darius’s hands. She hugged Nia and Kirby deeply while I called the rideshare. We were lucky to have a driver accept our trip with a car only three minutes away, sparing us the awkwardness of explaining anything further. Nia and Kirby barely had time to walk us to the front of the house before the vehicle pulled up. I gave them each another brief hug.
“I love you both,” I said, not looking over my shoulder as Fauna dashed off to claim the car.
“We know,” Nia answered for them both. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Or do,” Kirby said, “but live to tell the tale.”
“Also, Fauna seems—”
“Batshit? I know,” I said.
“Is her brother…?”
“Cal is very sane, and indescribably wonderful, and if I make it through the next two weeks, then I promise you two can meet him.”
“As long as you promise to make it through the next two weeks,” Nia confirmed with a sisterly squeeze.