So was I, although I had no intention of telling Chris that. He knocked back the rest of his coffee and stood. “I need to get back to the forge. I have an order for something a bit out of the ordinary.”
Chris’s day job, apart from looking after me, was to make custom bladed weapons. He had a house just outside of town, too, although his was remote because he had a forge attached to it. I’d looked up his creations online; they mostly consisted of strange, fantastical blades that looked to be about as much use in a real combat situation as a rubber chicken. Still, they were pretty, and he seemed to be in high demand.
“I’m going to go see Daniel,” I said. “Figure out if he knows something about whoever is hassling Jessica.”
“Look, Nate, this isn’t Murder, She Wrote. If you get involved in something bad, you’re not going to be able to charm your way out of it because you look like a harmless old lady. You look like someone who would, and I use this term with all due respect, fuck someone’s day up. The short hair, the short beard, and especially the expression of go screw yourself that often sits on your face. They don’t exactly scream I’m completely unthreatening. The fact that you don’t have any tattoos of skulls or teardrops is literally your only saving grace. If someone thinks you’re going to be a problem, they will try to kill you. Nazis aren’t known for their people skills.”
“Thanks for the warning, but I don’t plan on being involved with this . . . whatever this is,” I said, waving my arms around. “I just want to check Jess is okay. That’s it. If this is something she really can’t handle, the sheriff needs to know. Armed thugs walking around Clockwork isn’t good for anyone, especially if they are involved with Avalon.”
“Too true,” Chris said. “Just be careful. And don’t carry a gun.”
I kept my expression completely neutral. “I don’t like guns.”
Chris stared at me for several seconds. “Not liking them and not knowing how to use them aren’t the same thing.” Chris’s phone went off, and he removed it from his jeans pocket, activated the screen, and shook his head slightly as he took in what was shown. “Switch the TV on,” he said. “Any news channel will do.”
I switched on the large TV that hung on the wall of my house and turned it to one of the twenty-four-hour news networks. Hera’s face filled the screen, and I fought the urge to throw my remote control at it.
Hera was the same woman that most people had heard of from Greek mythology, although the stories and reality didn’t always mesh. She had been married to Zeus, although she’d helped her son Ares murder him, and she was an exceptionally powerful sorcerer, maybe one of the most powerful on the planet. She was also one of Arthur’s most ardent supporters. She’d been a thorn in the side of good and right for thousands of years, and now that Arthur had ascended to his throne, Hera appeared to have been given carte blanche to do whatever she wanted. Despite the government still officially being in charge of the country, Hera all but ruled London as her own personal territory. It was a city that had been neutral for millennia, and while most of its human occupants didn’t appear to have noticed much of a difference, anyone who had gotten in Hera’s way soon felt her wrath. She was an exceptionally awful person, and frankly, the day someone killed her would be the day that everyone on Earth became a bit safer.
Hera was sitting beside a news anchor who looked more than a little nervous. He welcomed his “esteemed” guest.
“Thank you, Declan,” Hera said, all smiles and sweetness. “I am here today to talk about the demonstrations that you’ve witnessed online over the last few weeks. I’ve heard all the conspiracy theories about how we were barbaric to a group of peaceful protesters in Paris. And I’m here to set the record straight.” She shook her head sadly, turning the full force of her manipulative personality to the camera. “Those protesters were terrorists. Our ITF forces were maintaining a perimeter to allow the protest to take place. Peacefully. However, the protesters had other ideas. Avalon has obtained original footage that shows several of these protesters starting the riot. We found several bombs littered throughout the area, and more than one protester was found with weaponry on them when searched. These people came to Paris, the city of love, with the intention to cause anarchy, to murder innocents.”
“Bullshit,” Chris snapped.
“I saw the news about it,” I said, ignoring Hera’s attempt to paint unarmed civilians as terrorists in waiting.
“I knew people who were there,” Chris said, looking at the TV in disgust. “They were protesting the treatment of detainees by the ITF. People snatched from their homes never to be seen again. Anyone who speaks out is arrested. And it’s not just Paris; it’s all across the globe. Since the Paris attack happened, more and more protests are cropping up.”
“I saw on the news about the ones in LA and Seattle,” I said. “They looked like pretty big crowds.”
“You hear about what happened in Denver?”
I shook my head.
“Protest. ITF turned up. Ten dead; about five times that number vanished. But every time one happens, two more protests start. Honestly, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. Avalon can’t paint everyone who disagrees with them as terrorists. More and more journalists have gone into hiding, too; they use the internet to get their messages across. I think things will get a lot worse before they get better.”
I looked back at Hera, who was wrapping up her little propaganda piece, talking about legislation to protect the people of this country, a fake smile on her face the whole time.
“You know, if she finds out you’re alive, she’ll risk everything to go after you,” Chris said. “You killed her son and grandson.”
“I know,” I said, remembering the deaths of Ares and Deimos. Both had deserved to die, and neither had died an easy death. “Did you want me to see Hera on the news just so you could remind me to behave?”
“Pretty much,” Chris said.
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” I promised.
“You know, when Hades told me that you were coming here and asked me to look after you, I assumed it would be a hard job. You’re well known for getting into trouble, and for . . . shall we say, speaking your mind. But frankly, you’ve been the perfect patient. You haven’t killed anyone, and if you have, you’ve disposed of them in a timely and efficient manner so that even I don’t know about it, and you haven’t drawn attention to yourself. Continue with this, please.”
“I haven’t killed anyone,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Right, so you’ll have no problems keeping out of whatever mess Jessica has gotten herself into, won’t you?”
“If I say yes, will you believe it?”
“I’ll tell you what, Nate—you say yes, and for a little while we’ll both live in the blissful ignorance of me believing the lie.”
“Then yes. Yes, I will.”
“See, that’s easy,” Chris said. “In the meantime, I’m going to go finish my chores for the day and then go to the football game tonight.”
“Antonio said there’ll be barbecue food.”