Page 30 of Back in the Hunt

“What?”

Everly smiled as he realized how perfect his plan was. “Promise me we won’t have sex and turn into incubi,” he ordered.

“Okay… I promise we won’t have sex and turn into incubi,” Bryn repeated slowly.

“There!” Everly said before leaping at Bryn, laughing as he was caught and they stumbled up the steps. “Now, we’re safe!”

“You might be,” Bryn grumbled as he carried Everly inside. “But I’m in serious trouble.”

Ten

The following afternoon, Bryn left Everly in Arawn and Merlin’s care, claiming he needed to blow off steam and set off for a short run to the university. It wasn’t difficult to find the Anthropology Department and Nox’s classroom but Bryn was stopped in the hall by a young assistant professor who introduced himself as simply “Tony.”

“You’re a friend of Professor Mac’s?” Tony said as he barred the classroom door, his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed Bryn dubiously. “I know most of the professor’s friends and he’s never mentioned you.”

“I’m a newer acquaintance. I’m crashing at the professor’s place while he and Merlin help me with a…unique situation,” Bryn explained.

Tony made a knowing sound. “If Merlin’s involved, it’s definitely a unique situation but that doesn’t mean that Nox is cool with you interrupting his lecture,” he returned, striking Bryn’s temper. But he respected the fact that Tony had been trusted with several responsibilities as a fledgling professor and appeared to take them seriously.

“Swear I won’t.”

“Cool. I’m still going to need you to wait out here until I check with him. You don’t have a badge and he didn’t clear you first,” Tony said before gesturing for Bryn to wait in the hallway. It took close to ten minutes before Tony reappeared and led Bryn to a seat at the back of the room. “It’s a full house and the professor wants the freshmen in the front when he covers metamorphosis in mythology,” he whispered as they climbed.

A picture of a yellowed, ornately illuminated Latin manuscript was projected on the screen behind Nox. He was studying it, his back turned to his audience. All eyes were on him as Bryn lowered into a seat and waited to see if Nox lived up to the rockstar lecturer hype.

“Here, we have a depiction of the deification of Julius Caesar. In the year8,Ovid wrote this:Metamorphosis.” Nox turned and pointed at the screen over his shoulder. “As we discussed earlier, we have the hare and the lion. Ever abundant vitality, sexuality, and fertility in one, and courage, strength, leadership, androyaltyin the other. Two immediately recognizable codes based on nature and universal consistencies across numerous lores.” He clicked a remote hidden in his hand, enlarging the image.

“Looking closer, we see a cow’s skull and a god with ram’s horns in the border. We often see a cow or a cow’s skull in creation myths. But the Romans didn’t have any major gods with horns in their pantheon. There was Faunus or Inuus who was later conflated with the Greek god, Pan, another minor pastoral deity. Faunus was an old king who was raised to deity after his death. This is significant because the cult of Pan was concentrated to Arcadia and had no known connection to Caesar. In fact, Ovid makes no mention of either and while there are very few depictions of Faunus or Inuus, he is never depicted with horns.”

A hand raised and a young woman stood after Nox gave her the floor. “I read that Inuus was the embodiment of sexual intercourse. Is that why he was connected to Pan?”

Nox groaned appreciatively, as if he’d just tasted something sublime. “You get an A, mademoiselle.” He gestured for her to sit down and went to the long chalk board and quickly wrote out a single word.

INCUBUS.

“Now, watch what happens!” He crossed out two letters. “Tadah!”

INCUBUS

“Inuus wasn’t a god of the forest like Pan, despite the Roman’s success at merging the two. Inuus was a god ofsex,who the texts say engaged in acts withanimals. Andjustlike that, we see one god transforming across mythologies in the span of just a few hundred years. But, let’s get back to this horned god because his transformation—his metamorphosis—is particularly fascinating. Ovid didn’t mention Pan or Faunus because he didn’t associate those gods with these horns or connect them to Caesar. He was probably thinking of this guy.” Nox clicked again and a collage of images depicting a god with horns appeared.

“Meet Amun, the Egyptian god of air and creation. Aninvisiblegod, Amun was later referred to as Zeus Ammon and Jupiter AmmonafterCaesar defeated Ptolemy XII in 47 BC. That’s when we begin to see a god with horns, like this,” Nox said as he went back to the early illustration of Ovid’sMetamorphosis.“This poem about Caesar turning into a deity happened approximately fifty years before the first accounts of Jesus’s life. Jesus mentions Caesar many times in his teachings. He and his biographers studied the Greek and Roman gods and their legends. That’s why we do, too. We learn more about ourselves and our own beliefs when we study mythology. And mythology is essentially the study of cultural metamorphosisthrough language, symbology, religion, war, arts, and the stories people tell to make sense of the changing world around them.”

With that, the lights came on and Tony clapped, breaking the trance that had fallen over the room, including Bryn. “That’s it for today. Check the syllabus for this week’s readings and your first deadline. We’re doing peer reviews on Tuesday and you don’t want to come empty-handed. Three strikes and the Professor will assign an oral presentation on Sisyphus.”

There were laughs and excited whispers as bags were packed and students began filing out of the room. Bryn waited until the door closed behind the last student to make his way to the long desk at the front, where Nox was tidying his notes and scribbling in a planner.

“Excuse Tony, he’s an assistant professor now, but he still thinks he’s my TA. We’re coparenting a few classes until he’s stronger at the podium. But between you and me, he’s having a tough time. New job, a rough breakup, and his best friend turned out to be a twisted killer,” Nox said without looking up. “I’m all Tony’s got at the moment. Except for his mom, so you have to be nice to Tony too,” he warned and finally addressed Bryn with a wary, cocked brow.

“Understood. Do you have a few minutes, Professor?” Bryn asked, flashing Nox an awkward grin.

“I’ve got the next period free. What brings you here, soul catcher?” Nox asked as he hopped up onto the desk, his unlaced boots swinging back and forth. He looked more like a student than a professor, but Bryn no longer had any doubts about Nox’s abilities as an educator or a lecturer. “You can turn right back around if you want to tell me how to do my job,” Nox said and twirled a finger, making a shooing gesture at the door. “I promise, nepotism and divine luck didn’t earn me this podium. I had to prove myself as Lucas MacIlwraith’s son and those wereimpossibleshoes to fill.”

Bryn shook his head and waved. “You definitely know what you’re doing in here,” he conceded and took a deep breath. “You might be right about the other thing, too,” he admitted as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his track pants, grimacing at his feet. “I’ve been fighting the battle one soul at a time and waiting for my shot at glory for so long, that I’ve forgotten howrealthe stakes are for the living when gods and monsters fight.”

“Glory is a hell of a drug, though,” Nox observed. “Many have died chasing it and once you get it, there’s no coming down. I’d like to build my way up, you know? Start small with little wins in here, and slightly bigger wins on TV and in magazines, then prevent a few tragedies and catastrophes with the FBI, before I try to save the world. And I need time to build my team. I just found my spectral hounds,” he said with a finger gun, making Bryn laugh.

“Waiting and planning have never been my strong suit, but I’m learning.”

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