“I do not make cupcakes.” Not that there was anything wrong with anyone who did.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” He turned to glare at Patricia and Cullen. “Just look at her. This is not some game.” He turned his attention back to Gigi. “People are dying over this.”
“I’m well aware.” Her tone as frosty as she could make it. Did he not want her involved because she was a woman? Darcy. Copper. Patricia. They were clearly all involved in this mission.Or was it something about her personally that Nico Yanez had a problem with?
“Enough.” Patricia used her don’t mess with the Head Librarian voice. Silence falling abruptly. “Let’s sort out the staffing logistics later. If you have a problem, feel free to lodge your protests with Darcy. Now. Let’s talk asshole deities.” Using the infra-red dot emanating from the remote, Patricia pointed up to the far left hand corner of the first screen. “As far as we can tell, the first active step the Cabal took was to have Sek, Mot and Bal kill their father, Apep, God of Chaos. Note Bal’s name has a cross through it. He’s confirmed dead. For the next five thousand years…”
A lifetime, or possibly twenty minutes later, Patricia wrapped up the briefing.
“…Which brings us up to date. To summarise. We have a Cabal of Deities trying to take over the Earth. The majority of those we’ve been able to confirm are involved seem to be half-bloods; children or descendants of full blooded Gods. Mainly we think because they get stuck doing the grunt work or are considered cannon fodder. But in thwarting them, we have exposed their agenda. We are also able to confirm several full bloods are pulling the strings, though possibly they too are merely agents for someone really, really powerful up the God Chain. What makes this plot different from anything else we’ve faced, isn’t just the long term planning that clearly has been taking place for well over five thousand years, but just look at the colour coding of the names. We have deities from all the streams; war, love, chaos, balance, life, hearth. And perhaps many more we don’t know of yet. Deities are notorious for not playing nice with one another but someone has managed to bring them together, and point them all in the same direction.”
Cullen handed his meld mate a glass of water as she finished talking. Patricia gulping down the contents gratefully, smiling in sympathy at Nico and Gigi.
“I know it seems daunting. But you need to remember, the Southern Sanctuary has a lot of experience stopping apocalypses. We also have a very far reach and a lot of resources. Just like our enemies, we are coming at this problem from a lot of different directions.”
“That’s her way of saying welcome to the army, kids, you’ve been drafted.” Cullen interjected.
Silence descended with a thud. Finally Nico broke it. “Is there anything else?” His tone indicated he was clearly dreading the response.
“Yes. We’ve identified your dead body.” Cullen reclaimed the remote, clicking a button. Up on the nearest screen a sketch of a man appeared, a warrior, wearing little more than a loin cloth, a spear and a sword in his hands as he fought off four opponents. “Meet Aploonius Jekai, General of the Fourth Lion’s Paw Battalion. Conqueror of Idai and Marva. Single handedly he held back an army of invaders at Plonim until reinforcements could arrive.”
“He doesn’t look anything like the dude in my freezer.” Nico protested.
“Aploonius went missing soon after Plonim. The tattoo on your body matches his exactly. And just to be doubly sure I went by your freezer for a viewing.” Cullen clicked another button. The photo of a dark skinned, dark headed frozen man appeared.
“That isn’t… you have to believe me, that wasn’t what he looked like when I killed him. He had blonde curls, and glowed golden from head to toe.”
“It’s a mystery. Where has Aploonius been all this time, how did he change so dramatically, and why, once he was dead, did he change back?”
“What about the bodies in my freezer?” Damn, Gigi wished she had a camera to capture the look of shock on Nico Yanez’s face. Yeah, you heard that right, Mister, bodies, as in plural.
“We have a lead on the female, thanks to DNA. Not a bird-demon hybrid, as originally surmised, instead, she’s a descendant of one of Athena’s Owls of Wisdom.”
“Athena? Goddess of War, Athena?”
“Yes, her. But the assassin’s DNA was pretty diluted, we’re talking a very, very, distant relative. It’s way too early to say whether our semi feathered friend has anything to do with Athena’s current inner circle, let alone her multiplied by two-hundred grand owl sire.”
“And the other body?”
Patricia responded. “We’re doing both a fingerprint, photo and internet search. He doesn’t have any identifying marks, and the shadow clan are notoriously closed mouthed about their members and the contracts they bid on. There’s a good chance we may never know. We might have a better chance tracing the origins of the poisons they were carrying, thanks to that detailed list you gave us Gigi and our follow up analysis.”
“Your dead guys were packing poisons too? In syringes?”
“Yes.” Gigi was beginning to suspect why Darcy had partnered her and Nico up. They unfortunately had more in common than she’d thought. “So what’s our next step?”
Cullen and Patricia exchanged a look. “Darcy is listening to her web, which is telling her you guys are important somehow to one or more persons involved in this plot.”
“Okay. But what are we supposed to do?” Gigi glanced at Nico, he looked equally lost.
“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing. We know one or more of the Fates is involved in all of this somehow. So there’s no point in trying to escape this mess, or for that matter, activelytrying to manage it. Like I said, just keep doing what you’ve been doing. Historically, the trouble will find you.”
“That’s really incredibly unhelpful.” Nico sighed.
“It is what it is.” Patricia began making a shooing motion with her hands. “Time has gotten away from us. You guys better head back upstairs before they break for lunch.”
Gigi and Nico rose, taking the stairs side by side in silence. What was there left to say? All powerful deities wanted to take over the Earthly Plane. And somehow, someway, a chocolate maker and a bar owner were expected to step up and help stop the apocalypse. Or, as any of the local Enforcers would call it, just another typical day of the week, though for some unknown reason probably a Tuesday.
Gigi’s mind was in a whirl. Dead bodies in the freezer. Act normally. Which is exactly what she’d been doing already, so no change there. Except the briefing had now clearly spelled out the scope and magnitude of the dark cloud of doom hanging over the Sanctuary, the entire Planet.
