Wild game, p.18
Wild Game, page 18
“Fine,” Bullet groaned in agreement, throwing his arm over his eyes.
“Is relaxing such a hard concept?” Riot asked him drily, before returning his attention to me. “Maybe we should just catch up on sleep and go meet all these strangers tomorrow.”
“I want to go,” I insisted, giving Riot what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Yes, I’m nervous, but I’m always nervous meeting new people. And these aren’t just any ordinary new people. Aren’t you curious? Besides, it would be rude not to when Vasileios is letting us stay here.”
I glanced up at Wild just in time to see him reach for his pocket before curling his hand into a fist at his side. He’d done it a few times since we’d arrived, and I guessed he was reaching for the phone he usually used to communicate.
It was harder to tell this time around with Riot and Bullet’s complete bonds vying for my attention to notice to faint emotional insight I was getting from Wild, but I didn’t think I was imagining the hints of irritation I was feeling from him every time he remembered his phone was busted.
Wild looked down at me, my hand still tightly ensconced in his, and even though all he did was tilt his head and narrow his eyes slightly, I got the distinct feeling he was saying ‘if you’re happy to go, I’m happy to go’. But maybe I was just imagining things.
“Fine. If they’re assholes, we’re leaving. If they hit on you, we’re leaving. If the runaway agathos say shit about you, I’m throwing hands and then we’re leaving,” Riot muttered, dragging himself unenthusiastically to the front door of the cottage.
“Agreed,” Bullet said cheerfully, before breaking out into an honestly impressive rendition of The Music of the Night as the four of us meandered through the orange grove under the stars. Wild was a stalwart presence at my side, his grip on my hand a little tense, like he was ready to throw me behind him at the first sign of trouble.
Riot led the way, nonchalant as ever as the trees opened up to reveal a larger version of the house we were staying in with an enormous patio area, the bench seats either side of the long wooden table filled with agathos, daimons and humans alike.
Just sitting there. Relaxing. Chatting. Like it was the most normal thing in the world.
It was a little unsettling, but it gave me hope at the same time. Was this what the Fates wanted? The gods like Persephone and Nyx? Because while the idea of resurrecting the old gods that had interfered so freely in mortal lives was terrifying, this was… idyllic. A world where all mortals—regardless of which goddess they’d been brought up to serve, if any—sat around the same table, drinking wine and laughing together, was everything. It was a hope to hold on to when everything about what I’d been asked to do felt out of reach.
“Here they are!” Vasileios announced, standing up and ushering us towards the table. People moved down, making room for us in the center, and I sat between Wild and Riot, with Bullet on Riot’s other side. “Fresh meat. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Grab a drink, snack, relax.”
The driver who’d brought us here waved tentatively and I shot him a beaming smile in return that I could have sworn made him blush. Was he one of those ‘daimon worshippers’ Vasileios had mentioned? Surely, it was divine intervention that led us to him.
There was an impressive array of meze spread out over the table, a combination of vegetarian and meat dishes, and I was glad the chatter resumed before anyone heard how loud my stomach was grumbling. Without asking, Bullet piled a small mountain of meatballs on a plate and handed it to me with a wink before picking out vegetarian options for himself.
“So, our new American friends, will you introduce yourself to everyone?” Vasileios asked, sitting on the other side of the table from me. “You don’t have to—many of the people sitting at this table chose not to reveal their identities right away. We’re all here for our own reasons.”
The fact that the agathos men at the table had been silently staring at me from the moment we sat down hadn’t escaped my notice. There were five of them I could spot at the table by their eyes, and they all looked to be from different parts of the world. To my surprise, they weren’t all sitting together. Some sat next to daimons, some next to humans, and none of them looked particularly uncomfortable to be in mixed company.
They didn’t even look uncomfortable about my presence here, just confused.
“Um, well I’m Grace,” I said with a lame little wave.
“You’re Grace Bellamy,” one of the agathos said instantly, making Wild and Riot stiffen either side of me, their biceps pressing firmly against my arms.
“What? The Grace Bellamy!” Vasileios laughed, eyes going wide. “We have a celebrity in our presence, I can’t believe I didn’t realize earlier. This is the one causing all the trouble in America? I should have gotten out the good wine.”
Wild sat forward, leaning into my space like he was about to shield me from the table with his body.
“What do you know about Grace?” Riot asked, his voice absolutely lethal, also moving forward in his seat. I huffed slightly impatiently, pushing both of their elbows out of the way so I could see.
“We all keep an eye out on what’s happening in our home towns,” the agathos man said. Only after hearing Vasileios speak did I register this guy was definitely American. “It’s to protect the communities we form here, but also so we know when the outreach trips are happening so we can contact the exiles and offer them a place here if they want it.”
“And you’ve heard of me?” I guessed.
“My family is in New York,” he replied with an apologetic grimace. “I’m Foster, by the way. This is my, uh, friend,” he added awkwardly, gesturing to the unimpressed daimon woman next to him. “Estrella.”
“You’re the one they said the daimon stole,” she said with a thick accent, Spanish perhaps, staring coolly at me with purple eyes. She was beautiful—all dark hair and long limbs, the kind of interesting natural beauty that would have had modeling scouts chasing after her with business cards.
“Riot didn’t steal me,” I scoffed. I’d been sick of hearing that nonsense when we were Stateside, and it was even more offensive to hear it repeated an ocean away. “Riot is my soul bond. So are Bullet and Wild,” I explained, gesturing at each of them in turn. “The agathos in my hometown, the Basilinna, my parents… they all conveniently leave that part out.”
“You’re actually soul bonds?” Foster repeated, leaning forward and looking at me with wide eyes. “You can feel… you know. For daimons?”
It took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize he was talking about sexual attraction. That none of the agathos sitting at this table could experience physical arousal because they hadn’t encountered their soul bonds.
“Yes,” I replied, sympathy and embarrassment warring for dominance. “As far as I know, I experience all the things I would experience if my soul bonds were agathos with Riot, Bullet… and Wild.”
I glanced at my newest bond out of the corner of my eye, finding him looking down at me with another completely unreadable expression on his face. Did he like the fact I was attracted to him? Not like it? Did he wish I wasn’t?
“How’d you do it?” one of the other agathos asked in an Indian accent that briefly reminded me of monthly phone calls with my Indian-born grandmother who now lived in Saskatchewan next door to Mercy’s parents. She’d probably disowned me by now too, my mother would have made sure of that. This man was older than us, perhaps in his fifties, with dark skin and wrinkles around his eyes like he smiled a lot, though he definitely wasn’t smiling now.
“I didn’t do it,” I replied carefully. “It was predetermined by fate. By the Fates.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, face falling in disappointment. “My name is Aarav. I am fifty-five years old, and I was exiled from my agathos community decades ago.”
“We’re sick of living like this,” a younger guy said. He sounded like he had a Greek accent, and was the kind of handsome agathos man I’d probably dreamed about having as a soul bond one day when I was younger—all smooth olive skin, thick dark hair that curled slightly at the ends, and a jawline that looked carved from marble. The tattoos on his forearms were surprising though—I didn’t know any agathos back home with tattoos. “We’re denied our soul bond, then forced into a life of endless celibacy, attempting to recreate romantic relationships with non-agathos while our fucking biology gets in our way.”
“It’s fucked up, Orion,” Vasileios said to him, nodding in agreement. There were disgruntled murmurs and sympathy from the rest of the table, the daimons shooting the agathos pitying looks. “Agathos get a raw deal. We all do in our own ways, I suppose, but I wouldn’t trade places with an agathos.”
“Maybe with that agathos,” Orion replied, staring at me. “You seem to have a better deal than the rest of us.”
Wild was glaring at him like he was going to eviscerate Orion on the spot with his eyes, and I knew I had to say something.
To say everything, because that was what these agathos wanted, wasn’t it? The truth. They wanted to know why I had something they didn’t.
“I’ll tell you my story. I’ll tell you everything I can,” I promised, my heart breaking for those who’d lived in the miserable loneliness that I’d experienced before I met Riot but for much longer than I had. “But first, I really need to know how we’re discussing any of this in front of humans. Sorry,” I added with a wince as the human woman next to Vasileios raised one perfectly arched dark eyebrow at me, flicking long dark brown hair back over her shoulder dismissively.
“The Kakodaimonistai aren’t regular humans,” Vasileios explained. “They are… initiated, perhaps. A leftover remnant from the olden days.”
He picked up a stoppered ceramic bottle in front of the woman he was sitting next to, shaking it slightly, and she snatched it away from him instantly, giving him a chastising look before returning her attention to us.
“This is kykeon,” she clipped, holding the bottle close to her chest, long red nails scraping against the ceramic. “So long as we drink it regularly, we can see and know things that we couldn’t before. We can see the truth.″
“That one hundred percent has drugs in it,” Riot snorted. Wild’s lips twitched as he gave a curt nod in agreement. “What is it? Some kind of hallucinogenic? Mushrooms?”
“It’s sacred,” the human replied primly, unstoppering it and taking a generous swig.
“This is Alesa, one of my lovers,” Vasileios explained. If it bothered her that he listed her as just one of his lovers, she didn’t let it show. “They drink the kykeon and then they can see us as we are—eyes and all—for days afterwards, and we can speak freely in front of them. It almost certainly has drugs in it.”
Bullet’s head was tilted to the side, observing each of them carefully. “Drugs, but a little of the Fates’ doing too. The trace of the divine on them feels the same as the Fates’ magic.”
The attention of the whole table moved to him, eyes wide.
“Bullet is an Oneiroi,” Riot drawled, piling pita and hummus on his plate. “He says stuff like that. You’ll get used to it.”
“You will,” Bullet agreed, flashing Riot a grin.
“Okay, we explained,” Alesa said, staring between us apprehensively. I don’t think I missed the awe in her expression as she looked at Bullet, and I tamped down an irrational surge of jealousy. “Now tell us your story.”
So I did. From start to finish—from being an agathos who’d never felt quite right, to my prayer to La Nuit, to meeting Riot and Bullet, my interactions with both goddesses, the way the agathos treated me, finishing with our journey to the underworld.
No one spoke while I did. They looked as though they were trying not to breathe too loud, hanging on to my every word, different individuals responding with their body language to different things. The agathos at the table were clearly uncomfortable when I talked about the agathos back home had treated me, and terrified when I talked about the goddesses interacting with me directly. The daimons were curious, and the humans were wide-eyed but surprisingly unafraid. Then again, they weren’t regular humans, I reminded myself.
“So, the gods, with the exception of Gaia, want to return the Olympians to glory,” Vasileios said slowly, swilling his wine glass absently in his hand. “They feel that Gaia has too much power, is growing restless and angry with the lack of worship she receives, and needs the others for… balance? Is that right?”
I opened my mouth to reply before closing it and looking to Bullet. I understood the gist of what I was meant to be doing, but the politics of deities was more his arena.
“I’m sure there are many motives, but that’s certainly one of them,” Bullet confirmed.
“And Nyx wants this?” one of the daimons asked uncertainly. “It sounds like it would benefit humans, which historically has not been her thing.”
Bullet shrugged. “Nyx doesn’t much care for humans, and I don’t see that changing, but she longs for the world as it was where gods and mortals interacted. Maybe even a world that is better for daimons, where we can live in the open. Where this earth belonged to more than just humans.”
There was a lull of silence, and I was sure they were all considering the ramifications of returning to that kind of world as much as I was.
Wild gave them a moment to think, leisurely helping himself to more pita and hummus before straightening and surveying each of them. He didn’t need to say a word to get everyone’s attention as he pulled out a notepad and pen—where had he even got those?—and scribbled a message on it. He reached over to show it to me, tilting his head towards Vasileios in a clear request of approval to share it.
It was… sweet. He clearly wasn’t someone used to sitting back and waiting for things to happen. Wild made things happen.
′You’ve heard our story, you know what the gods, what the Fates themselves want Grace to do. You’ve heard how the agathos have treated her so far. Where do you stand?′
I nodded in a sort of bemused acceptance, and he handed the note across the table. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know the answer, but I had intended to give them five minutes or so to contemplate their position because it was a lot to take in.
Vasileios took a long drink of his wine, scanning his eyes over the note before glancing up at Wild questioningly. Wild gave a curt nod, gesturing to the rest of the table. I hadn’t disclosed his curse in my story because it wasn’t mine to share, and I was relieved that no one at the table looked inclined to give him a hard time about not speaking.
It probably helped that Wild looked like he could squish any one of them like a bug.
Vasileios read the note aloud before setting his glass down and leaning back, stretching his arm of the back of Alesa’s chair. “If Nyx wants this, then that’s what we do, surely. I am but a humble servant of hers and whatever the fuck her will is. Is that not what all daimons are?”
“Is that what you feel like?” Bullet asked mildly, reaching for the jug of water in the center of the table. “You never look at older generations of daimons—or agathos—and wonder if you’re built differently?”
“We know we’re not the same as our parents’ generation,” Orion replied quietly, shooting an apologetic look at Aarav, who was easily the oldest at the table. He didn’t look too upset though. “And maybe if there were other gods around for balance, none of us would be ‘humble servants.’ Maybe we could have some semblance of control over our own lives. I’d fight for that future.”
“As would I,” Foster agreed. He shot a longing-look at his impassive daimon “friend,” Estrella. Her full lips pressed into a thin line as she caught his glance. “There are a lot of agathos who feel left behind, ones who were never given soul bonds, ones who resent the obligation to make sacrifices for every human in need we stumble upon. Those agathos in Auburn, the ones you grew up with, they’re the ones who got the best end of Anesidora’s deal. Don’t assume that the rest of us will be as willing to uphold the status quo.”
A little bubble of hope formed in my chest at the idea of having agathos on my side. I’d resented a lot about my community, but I’d never hated all agathos. Leaving them behind, abandoning that part of myself, still hurt.
“Do you think we could have daimon soul bonds? Or human ones? If we prayed hard enough,” Aarav tacked on hastily. “Would Nyx give them to us?”
“That is the Fates’ domain now,” Bullet replied thoughtfully. “Gaia got bored of assigning soul bonds and gave the job to them. Perhaps we can… negotiate, using that as a bargaining chip. They’re Team Prophecy, after all. Maybe we can show them that there are agathos who will be Team Prophecy too if they gave them something in return.”
I wasn’t as convinced in the wisdom of bargaining with the Fates as Bullet was, but I guessed he’d “talked” to them plenty of times over the years through his card readings and knew them better. And I did want better for the agathos and daimons, even if I worried that would come at the expense of the comfort and contentment that humans had been enjoying for centuries if we fulfilled the prophecy.
I worried about everything. That my hair hadn’t turned gray overnight at some point in the past few weeks was a small miracle.
“Why not?” Vasileios asked, filling up his wine glass before topping up everyone else’s within reach. “A world where humans can know about us and all these agathos bastards at my table get to have boners? Where my life has more purpose than just making humans fuck? Sure. I’ll fight for that future. But for now, we drink. To new friends and old gods, may neither fuck us over.”
“May neither fuck us over,” Bullet repeated cheerfully, while I held up my glass to join the toast, my throat thick with emotion. This felt significant. Important. Life changing, even.
We’d been drifting aimlessly, the gods buffeting us from either side with their opinions and will, but now we’d set a course and we weren’t sailing alone.
