“Maybe too well,” replied Teri. “Would you like to come in?”
Bonnie hesitated, studying the giant serpent in their living room. She leaned in and whispered, “He’s not going to eat me, is he?”
“Him? Oh, he’s harmless.”
Sensing Bonnie’s discomfort with the feathered serpent on the couch, Teri led Bonnie into the dining room. That plan failed, though, when Quick slithered in to join them.
“Let me grab my husband,” said Teri, leaving Bonnie alone with Quick.
“Hi, I’m Quick.”
He extended his wing, and she gingerly shook it.
“You don’t have to worry.” He offered a sharp-toothed grin. “I filled up on waffles at breakfast, so you’re perfectly safe.”
Both were quiet until Teri returned with Phil.
“Bonnie is having some goddess problems that she says have something to do with Lucky.”
Quick’s colorful plumage fell flat. “Not Syph again.”
“You know about this?” asked Phil.
“Oh, sure. It’s been a thing she’s had going for quite a while now. He was hoping she’d moved on this time.”
Bonnie filled Teri and Phil in on the dangers of being an unwilling follower of a heartbreak goddess. Quick offered his own insight.
“It’s something of an anomaly,” he explained. “We gods don’t fixate romantically. Not usually. It’s just not in our nature to have long-term relationships. It’s why we used to obsess over mortal lovers. Even if it’s a lifelong commitment, it’s only a mortal life. Over before you can get bored with it. Then again, most of us get bored long before that. But Syph is different. She just can’t let it go.
“It’s become her nature now. She can’t help it. Every time Lucky starts dating, Syph just shows up. I don’t think she even plans it. It just happens.”
“Can’t you stop her?” asked Bonnie. “Don’t you gods have rules you have to follow? Isn’t there some sort of peer pressure you can throw at her? Maybe an intervention?”
“I guess it’s possible. But she’s not doing anything serious. She’s just killing a few mortals. Nobody is going to notice.”
“I noticed,” said Bonnie.
“You’re right. It’s important. I wasn’t implying that you aren’t a victim in all this, and that nobody should care. But the gods, most of them anyway, are far too irresponsible to get involved.”
“What about you?” said Phil. “Can’t you do something?”
“I wish I could. But I’m not Bonnie’s god. There are rules in place to keep divine infighting to a minimum. And the most important is that a god will not directly intervene in the lives of another god’s followers. Or even in the lives of those who have chosen to remain unaffiliated. Hands off. It’s damage control. Too much bad press in the old days came from just doing whatever we wanted. So now we wait to be invited before we do anything. Most of us, anyway.”
“But I didn’t invite Syph,” said Bonnie. “She chose me.”
“That’s kind of a gray area,” admitted Quick, “but any sensible god will probably err on the side of caution. Better to let a few unfortunate mortals perish than get our hands dirty.”
“That’s terrific.”
“There has to be something we can do,” said Teri.
Quick smiled.
Bonnie scowled, thinking the god was getting off on her predicament. “What’s so damned amusing?”
Quick said, “It’s amazing. It really is. You mortals live such inconsequential lives, confined in tiny bodies, bound in tiny universes. Your time is so brief, and who could blame you if you decided to indulge your flicker of existence on every hedonistic impulse that entered your minds? But you still find time to care about each other, even strangers. It’s inspiring.”
“Does that mean you’ll help me?” asked Bonnie.
He hesitated.
“You just said that gods live without consequences.”
He flapped his wings in a shrug. “I’m just a minor deity at best. If I overstep my bounds, they’d probably make an example of me. I feel bad for you, Bonnie. But-”
“Just not enough to stick your neck out,” said Bonnie.
He folded his wings and studied them rather than look at her. “Prometheus threw you a little fire and look what happened to him.”
“I get it. Just another mortal screwed by the system. Why should you care?”
He mumbled an apology. The mortals stared across the table at each other for a few moments.
“That’s it then. There’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Bonnie stood. “I’ll let myself out.”
“Wait.” Teri said, “We can at least talk to Lucky about this. He may not be your god, but he’s mine, and this does involve him. And he’s dating a friend of mine, too, so-” She turned to Quick. “You said this happens every time Lucky starts dating someone?”
“That’s right.”
“What happens to the mortal he’s dating when this goddess enters the picture?”
Quick didn’t answer.
“What happens?”
“What you think happens.”
“You knew about this?”
He nodded.
“And you didn’t warn us?”
“You’re not my followers,” he said.
“That’s pretty low, Quick. I expected more from you.”
The serpent god laid his head on the table and covered his eyes with his wings. “I wanted to tell you, but Lucky’s my friend. I didn’t think it was my place. I talked to him about it, and I’m pretty sure he was going to let you know.”
“When? After my friend was blasted by a bolt of lightning?”
“Lightning isn’t usually Syph’s style,” he replied.
She glared. The glitter went out of his scales and his rainbow feathers paled.
“I told you this god thing was a bad idea,” said Teri.
That was only half-true. While Phil had been the one to come up with the idea, she’d been the one to convince him to go through with it. She stormed away before he could say anything, though that was just as well as this would probably be a bad time to remind her.
“I’m sorry, Phil,” said Quick. “I thought about telling you, but it’s complicated. There’s a code of ethics.”
“It’s fine,” replied Phil. “I get it. Lucky’s your friend.”
He deliberately avoided sounding judgmental. He couldn’t blame Teri for being upset, but he couldn’t help seeing it from Quick’s perspective. Phil knew secrets about his friends and coworkers that he kept in confidence. And they knew things about him. There were secrets he even kept from Teri. Embarrassing bits from his past that he didn’t deliberately hide but never mentioned. None of those bits were earth-shattering, but it was all a matter of scale.
“You’re a good guy, Quick. Teri’s just upset now. She’ll get over it.”
Quick smiled. “Do you really think so?”
“Sure.”
Phil didn’t qualify his statement by adding that he wasn’t quite so positive that would be true if anything happened to Janet. He didn’t see the point in saying it. It was just another thing left unsaid to make someone feel better. The irony didn’t escape him.
Teri tried Janet’s cell number. There was no answer. She tried Janet’s home number next. Still no answer. She left messages, not saying too much, fearing Lucky might listen in on them.
She tried not to think the worst, but she couldn’t stop thinking of Janet lying smote somewhere. And Lucky, that inconsiderate bastard, running off to Valhalla to pick up chicks without giving her a second thought.
Teri dialed again.
The doorbell rang. She thought of Lucky, coming home from an all-night bender after casually discarding another mortal life for his own amusement. She’d let him know just what she thought of that. Screw the consequences of a rebuked divinity. She didn’t care. It was time to stop being pushed around by the whims of the gods. It was time for mortals to take a stand.
Her face twisted into a righteous scowl, she threw open the front door. Two men in dark blue suits greeted her. One of them was tall and balding with a pockmarked face, vaguely sinister. The other was unremarkable except for a pair of thick glasses.