come together
and in this Joining
find themselves again.
But only if each
agree
to sacrifice
who they were to be formed
anew.
Sometimes it
just
needs
to
snow.
“So? Anything? Anything at all?” Aphrodite asked.
I sighed. “Doesn’t mean anything to me—or at least nothing that hits me right away.” I glanced at Stark. “You?”
“I got nothing.” His eyes found Kramisha. “What about you?”
“No clue.”
Aphrodite snorted. “No clue at all? Are you or are you not a prophetess?”
Kramisha narrowed her eyes at Aphrodite. “I got to gets to class, so I don’t have time to take you out back and smack that smug champagne smile off your thin lips. So, I’ll just say this—do you understand your visions? All your visions?” She made a disturbing hissing noise when Aphrodite tried to speak. “No. They’s rhetorical. Don’t speak ’cause you is suddenly reminding me why we used to call you a hag from hell.” Kramisha stood and bowed formally to me. “Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again, High Priestess. Text if you be needing me.” Braids swaying in time with her slinky walk, Kramisha exited the room.
“Damn, she’s touchy. She should drink more.” Aphrodite glanced at her fingernails. “And I need a manicure. So, let’s hurry up this next part.”
“Next part?” I asked stupidly.
Aphrodite raised one perfectly plucked blond brow at me. “Seriously? Like you’re not heading to Woodward Park to check on Neferet’s grotto jail?”
“Oh, that next part. Yeah, I am.”
“We are,” Stark corrected.
“What he said.”
“Okay, hang on just a sec.” Aphrodite’s fingers tapped over her phone. Then she sighed, smiled, and delicately fluttered her fingers at the waitress. “Another champagne,” she said. Then, grimly, she picked up the untouched glass of orange juice, and—like it was a shot—gulped it down. Shuddering, she dabbed her mouth.
“Aphrodite, what in the hell are you doing? Like you said, we’re going to Woodward Park,” I said.
“Yeah, and like Stark said, you’re not going alone. I texted Darius. I just have time to suck down another glass of my morning grapes before he shows up. And please make note that I drank that orange stuff.” She shuddered delicately. “It was completely naked and not mixed with the salvation of alcohol.”
“You are such a piece of work,” Stark said.
Aphrodite’s grin was Cheshire. “Thank you, Bow Boy.”
4
Zoey
“OMG, who is that deliciously handsome Son of Erebus who just walked through that door?” Aphrodite cooed.
I didn’t bother to look over my shoulder. Stark made a noise between a snort and a sigh.
“Wait, I know who it is. It’s my man!”
Aphrodite tilted her head back, perfectly timed for Darius to bend down, murmur, “Hello, my beauty,” and kiss her. He straightened and shook his head slightly. “Champagne for breakfast?”
“Always, handsome,” Aphrodite said. She flicked her finger against the empty orange juice glass and added, “But I made it healthy with this.”
Darius glanced at me. “She actually drank that?”
I nodded. “Yep. Gulped it down like a trooper.”
“It was just orange juice. It tastes good,” Stark said.
“Then next time you drink it,” Aphrodite said.
Stark looked utterly baffled. I just shook my head and rolled my eyes. Sometimes—actually, most times—it’s easier to just go with whatever craziness Aphrodite spouts versus trying to actually make sense of it. Stevie Rae told me once that she listened to Aphrodite like she read Shakespeare—not actually getting every word, but eventually understanding the basic message. As usual, I agreed with Stevie Rae.
“What is the urgency, my beauty?” Darius asked after bowing formally to me and nodding to Stark.
“Kalona showed up in Z’s dream warning of danger. He told her to read Neferet’s journal. We did. It’s as bad as you might imagine. Now we’re going with Z to Woodward Park. Hopefully shit is not going to go wrong. Which would be the first time. So, I sent out the Bat Signal, and here you are. The end.”
I watched as several emotions flashed across the Warrior’s face—surprise, fear, anger. He glanced at me. I nodded. He sighed.
“And I was naively hoping the emergency was that the dining hall had run out of champagne.”
“That would be more on the lines of tragedy than emergency,” Aphrodite said.
“Has Neferet truly begun to stir?”
“We don’t know.” I spoke with much more bravado than I felt. “But we’re going to find out.”
“Tell me why we decided to walk again?” Aphrodite said as she leaned on Darius, lifting up her foot to study the red sole of her Louboutin stiletto boot. “OMG, gum? I stepped in some Neanderthal’s gum?”
Stark and I were walking ahead of them. I glanced over my shoulder. “We’re walking because it’s a beautiful December night—not too hot and not too cold—and midtown is all dressed up in holiday lights. Aphrodite, it’s pretty. I wanted to enjoy it.” I didn’t add, While we can, because if Neferet somehow gets loose we’ll probably all die, but my unspoken words hung over us.
“We told you to put on sensible shoes,” Stark added.
“Last season’s Louboutin’s are as sensible as I get,” she said as she scuffed down the sidewalk, trying to get rid of the last of the gum.
“Check out Utica Square. I love how it looks all lit up for the holidays. It reminds me of a giant snow globe,” I said.
“I’m averting my eyes,” Aphrodite said.
“Is she still boycotting Utica Square because of Miss Jackson’s closing?” Stark whispered to me.
“Yes, I am,” Aphrodite answered. “Fucking barbarians. Do they expect me to shop at Saks? Like the rest of the upper-middle-class people?” She shuddered. “No. I’ve resorted to online Nordstrom purchases.”
“But, my beauty. You just returned from a shopping trip to Dallas. You said the Nordstrom there was a paradise,” Darius said.