“I don’t understand,” Roksana said. “They should be charmed. How are they not?”
“I think it might have something to do with her,” I said, pointing a finger at the woman’s head on the shelf, “though I don’t know who she is.”
“Watch them,” Malina said to the coven. “Roksana, with me.”
The two of them left the cluster and came back to where I was. Roksana turned on her phone’s flashlight and shone it at the head of the woman, who eyed them with the same contemptuous amusement she’d given me.
“Is that…?” Roksana began, but almost immediately trailed off, her eyes shifting uncertainly to Malina. Our coven leader stepped forward and cupped the left jaw of the woman, her thumb brushing softly across her cheekbone.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s her.”
“Why is she here?”
“We won’t get an answer until she’s gone,” Malina said. “They won’t respond to our charms until she’s taken care of.”
“Pardon me, but who is that?” I asked.
“She has several names, but is most often called Laverna,” Malina said. “Roman goddess of thieves and grifters. The fauns were protecting her. And she is protecting those phone scammers from our charms.”
The smirk of the goddess widened into a full smile of brilliant teeth. “Always a pleasure to know my work is appreciated,” she said, dry menace hidden behind a tone of wry amusement.
“Knowing your work and appreciating it are two very different things,” Malina said.
“How did you find me?”
“Divination.”
“I am shielded from divination.”
“That is no doubt true in most cases. But the goddesses who protect Poland are nearly impossible to deny when it comes to identifying threats in our lands, and we are blessed by them. Why are you here?”
“Why am I anywhere? For the money.”
“Money you cannot spend and which will never make you whole.”
“I simply don’t have enough yet.”
“There will never be enough. The world’s billionaires are obviously broken people incapable of recognizing their own immorality. And you are no different.” Malina turned to me. “Laverna is the reason this group was so effective. Remove her, and justice can proceed. Would you like to do the honors?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“She’s an Olympian. Unkillable except in the very short term. Destroy this current vessel, and she will respawn like monsters in a video game, because the Olympians are truly immortal. But she’ll respawn in Olympus, effectively ending her influence in our lands. That will allow us to make some progress with the scammers. If you want vengeance for your babcia, it should—no, it needs to—begin with her.”
“Good.” I wanted that very much. Stealing from an innocent woman, putting that strain on her heart for personal gain? Unforgivable. I held up my knife so that Laverna would be sure to see it. “One of your minions here preyed upon my babcia, the sweetest lady in Poland. I am not half so sweet—not even a little bit when it comes to her—so I will do what she could never contemplate. Your immortal moment in Poland is at an end. Do not ever come back. It is under our protection.”
The contemptuous smile disappeared. “Wait, who are—”
I did not wait. I shoved my knife into her eye and punched it through the socket to penetrate the brain, then I twisted the blade around to scramble everything well. Golden ichor spilled out of the wound, and the jaw went slack. If she was foolish enough to return, we would dispatch her again.
“Try the charms now,” Malina called over her shoulder, and soon the protests of the scammers died down and they said nicer things in softer tones, entirely agreeable and willing to confess their crimes. Which we would absolutely have them do in front of police.
Under questioning, the scammers told us that one of them had taken a road trip to Italy and come back with Laverna’s head resting in the passenger seat. The scam had been conceived and set up on the drive, and the fauns had been summoned over the course of some weeks to provide extra protection. Moreimportant, though, was the crypto wallet the leader handed over along with its password.
We would be draining all of that for sure; my babcia’s funds would be restored, and we’d try to return as much as we could to all the other victims we could find. Or rather, I would.
I volunteered for the project, as I felt that healing the wounds caused by such malevolent greed would be my grateful service to the Zorze in return for their aid to us. The goddesses above gave us the strength to defeat the goddess below. They were the keys that unlocked our dreams—a phrasing that I borrowed from another Szymborska verse in translation:
Dreams have keys.
