Chapter Twenty-Two
The next day, we met with the God Squad.
“You should have called us sooner.” Thor, seated at the head of the table in our dining hall, glared at his father.
“It was unnecessary.” Odin waved away Thor's irritation. “Even now, there may be nothing you can do. But we need to discuss what happened and try to come up with a way to fight this.”
“It sounds as if Agwusi will need a replacement for the mirror.” Horus cocked his head sharply, hinting at his other form—a falcon. “Any ideas on what she'll go after?”
“She needs another relic with Transformation Magic.” I looked at Torrent. “Torr, could you do a quick search for magical items with that power?”
“That's not as easy as it sounds.” Torrent frowned as his gaze went distant, scanning the Internet. Many items not known for having Transformation Magic could still be transformative. It just depends on your definition of transformation.”
“It could be a physical or mental transformation.” Blue, AKA Huitzilopotchli, took his wife's hand, rubbing it as a child might do with a blanket. “Even the earth can be transformed.”
“Rivers carve the land. Slow but steadily.” Mrs. E nodded, her long, dark braid sliding over her shoulders. As the Navajo Goddess of Change, she was familiar with transformation.
“All right, how about an item whose main ability is transformation?” Trevor asked.
I slid my hand onto Trevor's thigh. He wasn't doing so well after seeing Ty.
Torrent shook his head. “Nothing. There are items that can transform people, but their main magic isn't transformation.”
“Like what?” Viper asked.
“Things that can hide or shift people. Selkie skins can shapeshift a person into a seal, and there's a necklace Hephaestus made that can transform the wearer.”
“Selkies are Fey, so I doubt Agwusi will go after them. But that necklace sounds like a possibility.” Thor made a go-ahead motion at Torrent.
Torrent shook his head. “It's a messed-up story. The necklace is cursed. Hephaestus made it for Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, to punish her parents for their affair.”
“That tracks,” I muttered.
Torrent went on, “It makes the wearer beautiful, but also brings tragedy to their descendants. He gave it to Harmonia on her wedding day.”
“Talk about sins of the father,” Re said. “What a dick.” He glanced at me, saw my lifted eyebrows, and extended it into, “Dictionary. What a dictionary.”
I snorted a laugh.
“Hephaestus has always been jealous and vindictive about Aphrodite's affairs.” Hades grimaced. “Yet, he could never leave her. You did him a favor, Vervain.”
“Funny you should say that.” I glanced at Thor, whom I'd been dating when I'd killed ol' Afro. “While Aphrodite was torturing me, Hephaestus came in. He told her he was done with her and left. He was mad, not because she was torturing me, but because she wanted you.” I pointed at Blue.
“Ah, yes, I remember.” Blue shook his head and smirked at his wife's raised eyebrow. “She was insane. Aphrodite thought I was going to marry her and make her Queen of the World.” Blue rolled his eyes.
“And why would that make her angry with Vervain?” Eztli stared down her husband.
Blue stiffened and swallowed roughly. With a strained voice, he said, “I have no idea.”
I snorted. “Yeah, okay.”
Eztli kept staring at Blue.
“I was a different man then, my love.” He raised Eztli's hand and kissed it. “I had decided the Godhunter would make the perfect goddess to rule beside me.”
“In other words, he was insane too,” I said.
Eztli drew her hand away. “Now that, I believe.”
Blue grimaced.
“So, you don't think she'll take the necklace?” Trevor asked Torrent.
“I doubt Agwusi would put a cursed object into her divine machine.” Torrent made a wincing expression.
“Good point.” Trevor scrubbed a hand over his face. “I think my brother was right to stay with her. I'm hoping he'll convince her to shut down the machine.”
“So, this isn't about rescuing Ty.” Brahma, looking as slick as always in a suit, motioned a hand at Trevor. “It's about destroying the machine.”
“If we destroy the machine, we destroy all the god items inside it,” I said. “We need to remove the items first.”
“But ve can't do zat either,” Kirill said. “Removing zem destroys zem.”
“We have to separate the parts from the whole.” Odin sat back and crossed his massive arms. “Torrent, you're the expert. Any ideas?”
Torrent's eyes widened. “I'm the expert on the Internet, not machinery. I could unmake it, but I don't know how to dismantle it.”
“You put too much pressure on him!” Artemis slid her arm around Torrent's shoulders, her big brown eyes flashing.
“It's all right, Artie.” Torrent took her arm from his shoulders, put it in his lap, and patted her hand. “I want to help.”
“No, she's right.” I shared a heavy look with Odin. “We put a lot on your shoulders, Torr. If it's too much for you, please tell us.”
“It's not too much; I simply can't do it. You need someone who knows machines.”
“Hephaestus.” Hades moved his hand as if to say, obviously. Persephone had stayed home with their daughter, so she wasn't there to tone down his arrogance. “He may not build machines, but he builds automatons.”
“Have all of you forgotten that I was on the High Council of Atlantis?” Re looked around the table. “I have built many magical machines.” He glanced at me, leaving it unsaid that he'd also built robots. Very advanced robots.
“All right, sunshine.” Pan leaned forward onto the table, the motion disturbing his mop of brown curls to expose one of his little horns. “Impress us. How do we remove the items without harming them?”
Re explained, “To avoid damaging parts during removal, you need to power down the machine and take out its fuel source.”
“You couldn't have mentioned that when we were there?” Trevor growled.
“Well, I didn't think of it until just now, and also, the power core is in the center of the machine.
I don't know how to get it out without removing some of the other god items. I might figure it out if I had some time to study the machine. Also,” he held up a hand to stop anyone from speaking, “removing the power source may destroy it, and an exploding power source may injure the one removing it.”
“I can take you back to study it,” Torrent offered. “Though that won't help with the removing part.”
“It might help in other ways.”
“All right, why don't you two do that while the rest of us mull things over?” Thor suggested.
“Sure.” Torrent stood up.
Artemis stood as well. “Be careful.” She kissed him goodbye and remained standing to watch him leave the room with Re.
“He's got the most powerful magic out of all of us,” I reminded Artemis. “He'll be fine.”
She sighed and sat down. “He's so worried about this.”
“We all are,” Trevor said.
“Yeah, sorry.” Artemis slumped in her chair. “I just hate to see him stressed.”
“I'm glad he has you.” I was about to say more when my cellphone vibrated.
It was a text from my human friend, Sommer. I read it and frowned. Read it again. Then I Googled Hawaii news.
“What is it?” Trevor leaned in to look at my phone. “What da?”
I looked up to find everyone staring back at me. “Hawaii is experiencing strange weather.” I turned up the volume on my phone and faced it their way.
The gods leaned forward. With their powerful senses, they could see the small screen without me passing my phone around. On it, a news reporter stood on a street in Hawaii, gesturing at the sky.
“Here in Hawaii, we're used to odd weather,” the woman said. “But this is bizarre.”
The camera panned up to show a brilliant blue sky on the right and a storm on the left, complete with pelting rain and thunder.
There was a distinct line between them, with the cloudy side as dark as night, lit only by the occasional lightning bolt.
It reminded me of the Land of Dreams in the Greek Underworld.
Except there, the darkness was peaceful.
The camera moved back to the woman. “We often see rain coming in great sheets, traveling slowly and creating a clear division. But this phenomenon isn't moving. There is a storm hovering on the mauka side of the street.” Again, the camera moved. This time, it went sideways to show rain pouring down just four feet away. The camera returned to the reporter. It looks as if the sky has split in two. Our local weather experts cannot explain this. Several groups are blaming the Fey for this and demanding that the Faerie God provide an explanation.”
We looked at Azrael.
“Damn it all!” Azrael stood up and headed for the tracing room. “I'd better make a statement.”
“Religious groups believe this is a sign of the end of times. Many say the man who claimed to be King Arthur was not a fraud, and they should have heeded his words. She glanced up at the sky. “For now, Hawaii stands still with our sky, breath held as we wait for whatever will come next.”
I turned the phone around and stopped the video to text Sommer back. I didn't have an answer for her, but at least I could tell her it was likely god-related, and I was on it.
“It's the machine,” Finn said with his slight Irish accent. With his black hair flopping forward and his green eyes flashing, he looked like a movie star. You'd never guess it to look at him, but his only god talent was shifting into a swan.
Transformation. I could have smacked myself on the forehead.
“You think the machine is affecting the weather in Hawaii?” Pan asked.
Before I could answer, Horus did, speaking slowly, as if Pan were a moron, “It's a transformation—one kind of weather changing into another. The transformation was halted. Finn's right; it's the machine.”
“But the machine affects souls, not the weather,” Pan said.
Odin leaned forward. “If it is malfunctioning, it could affect other things, especially if it's crossing the Aether to send its influence over the world.” He looked around at our friends.
“We haven't considered the scale of this.
Agwusi built this machine to collect souls from Earth.
If it's already affecting the weather, what is it doing to the souls of the dead?”
Hades stood up. “I need to check on my territory.”
“I should text Jesus too.” I typed out a text and just as I hit send, Re and Torrent returned.
Hades paused halfway to the door.
I saw why—Torr looked worried, and Re looked furious.
“What happened?” Thor stood up.
“Nothing. It's gone,” Re growled. “They moved the machine.”
“And without the mirror in it, we can't track it,” Torr added.
“Maybe we should make an announcement,” Pan said. “My father could herald it.”
“What do you wanna say?” Viper motioned at Pan. “Should we tell all the gods that Agwusi has built a machine to replace them, and it's malfunctioning?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Thor leaned on the table. “You know exactly what that would accomplish, Pan. It would cause a panic.”
Horus shook his head at Pan.
Thor wasn't making a play on Pan's name. Pan held the magic of Panic. He was the source of the word. But panic wasn't always a bad thing.
“It would cause a panic, but the gods would direct their fear at Agwusi.
We wouldn't be the only ones hunting her.” I looked at my husbands as Re and Torrent sat down, and Hades leaned against the wall.
“We'd have thousands of gods after Agwusi.
If we have Hermes add a number for them to text if they see her, they'd do all the work for us.”
“She's never visible anyway,” Finn reminded me. “I don't think this will help.”
“Having a thousand minds on the issue is better than twenty,” Odin said. “Even if they don't find her, they may think of a way for us to catch her.”
Pan grinned at Horus. “Who's the idiot now?”
“Still you,” Horus drawled.
Ignoring his best friend, Pan pulled out his phone. “So, do we tell them everything or just the basics?”
“Tell them everything,” Odin said. “They have a right to know.”
Smirking, Trevor said, “Let's see if her god can save her from the fury of the entire God Realm.”