2. Where An Imprecise Order Is Issued （She’s An Empress And She’s Tired, Give Her A Break…）
WHERE AN IMPRECISE ORDER IS ISSUED (SHE’S AN EMPRESS AND SHE’S TIRED, GIVE HER A brEAK…)
Hera sipped a vodka neat and waited. Her interlocutor was silent. Calm eyes watched her with disbelief.
“You want me to match Zeus.”
Hera nodded.
“You want me to match Zeus with someone.”
Hera rolled her eyes as if the statement was downright obtuse.
But she nodded again despite the Cupid not phrasing it as a question.
At the far end of the bar, a group of tall, muscly men moved uneasily around a pool table.
Her bears were clearly nervous. Well, they’d have to overcome their anxiety.
“Why?”
Sabine Goddard took a careful look at the still full tumbler in front of her, but reconsidered and did not touch it.
Hera couldn’t fault her fastidiousness.The glassware could use more polish around here.
As could the floors. Still, the privacy was unmatched.
And there was something Hera found charming about the ambiance.
If dirt, running commentary, and bear choir songs could be called that.
She considered her answer. Considered, in fact, not answering at all. But this was the Queen of the Perfect Match, and Hera admitted that some people did deserve at least partial answers.
“Because I need you to. And because I want the match to fail.”
Sabine blinked, clearly taken aback. Then she grimaced.
“I am having some kind of déjà vu. Have you been watching The First Wives Club or something?”
Hera started. “Why is this relevant? I happen to enjoy that movie.”
Sabine took a deep breath. “I knew this was all a touch eerily familiar in tone. The vibes, if you know what I mean.”
Hera just glared at her and Sabine’s shoulders drooped.
“Just to be clear, the match you’re proposing for Zeus needs to be a deliberately bad one? You know that’s not my purpose.”
Hera tsked. The bears almost fell to the floor. A cue was dropped. Someone stumbled in their haste to pick it up.
“You can’t still be after that Queen of the Perfect Match crown, Goddard. You must have a dozen of them by now. What are you using them for, doorstops?”
Sabine’s smile was patient. Hera allowed it.
“I’m just seeking clear instructions. And I have nineteen crowns. But who’s counting?” The Cupid took a deep breath and finally reached for the tumbler, taking a long swig.
“I promised Aphrodite that I’d made my final match when I fired my last arrow… And, last I checked, that arrow did not… Exactly strike correctly.”
Hera felt that Sabine was choosing her words too carefully, for an unknown reason. The Perfect Match between Erato and Demeter had been sealed months ago in Vegas.
Erato and Demeter were a resounding success, burning up every sheet and flat surface no matter where they went. The Cupid’s calculation and foresight, where they were concerned, had worked. Why be cagey now?
Hera wanted to ask her exactly what match she was talking about, but Sabine interrupted with a follow-up question.
“Let me rephrase this entire premise. You want Zeus to fall. You don’t actually care who he falls for. What is the purpose of whatever it is you’re trying to set up?”
Hera sat very still, her jaw muscles tight. She chose to remain quiet. The bear chorus behind her intoned an excited “Ooooohhhhh…” She glared at their timing, and they fell silent.
Finally, she gave Sabine a direct stare and lifted an eyebrow. The Cupid sighed.
“Are you actually ordering me?”
Well, if she put it that way. Hera allowed herself to smile. Their history was old. Full of trades. Full of exchanges.
What was one more?
“I am requesting.” She kept looking at Sabine. “I don’t care about your promises to Aphrodite. Your oath was broken before. Don’t be surprised that I know. You retired, came back, retired again. You’ve had more farewell tours than Cher. Aren’t you tired of this back and forth, Goddard?”
“Oh, I am. If only you Gods would leave me alone already. Even Zeus asked—”
Sabine closed her mouth abruptly.
Oh, this was too good to be true…
Hera knew her smile was probably a touch terrifying. “Zeus asked? Well, then. Let’s all do what the Mighty Zeus asks. The poor dear wants love. So give it to him. Really, am I asking all that much?”
Sabine grimaced again, then, resigned, reached for the alcohol.
“Honestly, yes and no. I mean, of all the goddesses you’d know best, making Zeus fall for literally anyone, or anything for that matter, is an absolutely nothing job. He’s a horndog with no morals nor regard for anything but his dick—”
Sabine closed her mouth, clearly seeing the color drain from Hera’s face. The bears snickered in the corner. Hera felt slightly nauseous. Still, this was progress. She no longer felt pain and rage when presented with her ex-husband’s philandering ways.
Hera lifted her chin.
“Then what seems to be the holdup, Cupid?”
Sabine sighed deeply. Then sighed again.
“I don’t trust that you have his best interests at heart?” Sabine’s voice lifted at the end of the sentence, as if she were asking herself and not Hera.
It was laughable. So Hera allowed herself a few seconds of levity, her laughter sounding rusty even to her own ears.
“Do you need me to have any kind of interest behind my… request?”
She knew that the last word would be interpreted as nothing short of a demand and didn’t care.
Sabine narrowed her eyes. With anyone else, the gesture could’ve been ominous. With Hera, it didn’t quite rise to that. After all, and for whatever time she had left, she was still the Empress of Olympus. Perfect Matches, arrows, and all that dross had nothing on her.
“Well, normally when I cast my arrows, I am the one who has to have intent. And it’s usually the best possible one.”
Hera smirked.
“Aren’t we all glad you are not me, then?”
The chorus gasped. Sabine set her drink aside.
“Hera, if this is some complicated, twisted enterprise to get your ex-husband back—”
Hera slammed her tumbler down, shards of glass flying in all directions. The bears dove under the pool table, hitting the floor with considerable force. The small earthquake they caused made the entire bar shake.
“Cupid, do not mistake my benevolence toward you for weakness. I have invited when I could have summoned. I have asked when I could have ordered. And you dare question me?”
Hera frowned, and the racks of bottles with liquor behind the bar exploded. Under the pool table, the bears whimpered. The bartender jumped out of the way. Sabine bit her lip, visibly shrinking from the glass shrapnel, as a shard sliced her cheek.
“I am the Goddess of matrimony, family, childbirth, and Olympus knows how many other imperatives. And I have never once demanded anything of you, Cupid. In fact, I blessed your marriage. Both of them, might I remind you. Do as I say and leave the questions for the mealy-mouthed Goddesses and Muses you are clearly used to dealing with.”
Sabine nodded jerkily. The darkness that had descended over the space cleared slowly.
Hera snapped her fingers, and the broken glass was swept up neatly into a pile by the door. Another snap and brand new bottles appeared on the racks behind the bar. The bartender stood up gingerly.
Sabine shifted in her seat.
“So one arrow? Just one?”
Hera drummed her fingers on the bar.
“Now you’re catching on. Just one arrow.”
Sabine exhaled slowly.
“Do I get discretion? Full discretion in terms of how I make your request happen? Tell me you don’t care how I use the arrow as long as I achieve what you’ve asked.”
Hera nodded breezily. What did she care who that man fell for?
Her heart no longer stuttered in her chest at the thought.
In fact, it sped up. Her plans were on their way.
The stubborn Cupid and her ethics had almost derailed them.
Thankfully, she knew how to make all manner of creatures see the light, so to speak.
Hera glanced at the clock on the wall by the door. Her next appointment would be here at any moment. She did not want the nosy Cupid to be privy to it. She waved her fingers at the exit, turning away from Sabine, who got the message fast enough.
Still, before she let her go, Hera reached over and almost carelessly touched the bleeding cheek.
The tissue knitted immediately, blood drying out, the sharp cheekbone looking no different than before the Cupid had set foot in the bar twenty minutes ago.
Hera smiled at her handiwork. It would not do to break her toys. Not yet.
Sabine winced, then got up from her stool, her high heels sticking a little to the linoleum, and, with a nod to the still-quaking-under-the-pool-table-bears, disappeared from the bar.
Hera exhaled, her shoulders drooping slightly. The scent of gun powder, steel, and spun caramel filled the space around her, and the bears whimpered loudly as sly footsteps approached. Her next appointment was right on time.
Good, she had been waiting too long. And while revenge was best served cold, this one was nothing short of the hottest person in the world.
In the muggy alley, Sabine watched as Nemesis crossed the threshold and headed towards the sticky bar top.
The failure from the Beltane Festival still stung.
And it was entirely inexplicable. Nobody should be able to deflect, much less catch a Cupid’s arrow.
No one was strong enough. And yet Nemesis seemed to have thwarted Sabine with ease and poise and dammit, sexy panache.
Sabine hated that. Absolutely hated that. And admired it just a tiny bit.
There were a few otherworldly instruments, the rarest of deity tools that were too formidable for any mortal or immortal to overcome.
The blindfold of Justice. The spindle, staff, and shears of the Moirai.
The arrows of Cupids. Sabine wondered what it was about the Goddess of Vengeance that made her as powerful as she appeared.
And to what end that power would one day be used.
Still, a Queen never surrendered. And she wasn’t nineteen times Queen of the Perfect Match for nothing. She kept watching the dimly lit bar, unseen to those inside.
And then, the same something she had noticed at Beltane showed itself yet again. It was the look on the Goddess of Vengeance that once again surprised Sabine. A hunger rested there like a predator in tall grass. Waiting, waiting, ready to pounce at the perfect moment.
Sabine wondered if Hera could see it. If she could sense that whatever her plans for this particular Goddess were, she might not escape unscathed?
As she watched Nemesis swagger towards Hera, Sabine had the distinct feeling that, despite reading clearly through the match she had caught earlier, she was missing something. Something important. And that she wasn’t the only one.
Still, Hera had all but ordered her. Her promise to Dite to never touch arrows again would have to wait.
The quiver in her hand materialized smoothly, and she ran her fingertips over the silky feathers of the arrow. But as a thought popped up in her mind, Sabine’s smile bloomed wide. Yes, she would do as she was told, but nobody had said she couldn’t improvise within the parameters of her task.
Her arrow flew silently, hitting its target, the Empress of Olympus, oblivious to its perfect trajectory.
As she threw one last look at Nemesis’s face, Sabine felt a frisson of excitement run through her.
She had been right at Beltane, even if she had needed Abby to make the shot.
Well, if things worked out the way she wanted them to, the way her years of experience and her heart told her they would, Sabine’s twentieth crown would be a joint one.
Yes, Hera had set the parameters, but some of them needed adjusting anyway. Zeus sure had a lot of things coming, and she did owe Hera for her marriage after all.