Page 37 of Marked by the Demigod

Katya rests her hands on a LARGE stack of papers, one that leaves a thick feeling in the back of Aimes’s throat. "How are you feeling?" Katya asks, and it's between the edge of friendly and professional, and Aimes sits on one of the booths with a slump.

"I just got promoted cause a guy at my company quit and my workload got doubled. Maybe." There's a glass of water on the bar, and she gulps it. "It's unclear."

"Well..." Katya drags out the word. "We finally solved the big mystery in your life right now." She stares down at the pages. "Couldn't have picked a less complicated guy to pick up at a bar, could ya."

The packet of papers is intimidating. "How bad is it?" Cause his sudden, literal disappearance still stings if she thinks about it head on.

Katya looks at her, with the blue screen of death eyes. "He's a Demigod with a fucked up family out of Russia." Her official voice is back. "He's not accepted in most non-human societies because they don't trust him or his family."

Aimes leans her head against her hand. "Scroll back, Demi-god?"

"Child of an actual god. Who is dead now, by the way."

"They can kill gods?"

Katya purses her lips, like that isn't the point. "Iakov isn't known for making friends, making connections, or putting down roots."

"And you pointed a gun at him." Aimes ventures, suddenly exhausted past reasonable expectation.

Katya's face twitches, like she's not exactly proud of it but isn't gonna deny it. "Last time I ran into him, he was in process of detonating a supercomputer in Iceland, to erase evidence of something his brothers did."

"So he's an international criminal."

Katya nods, then shakes her head. "That feels misleading, but sorta. He's trouble. And..." she trails off, frowning at the stack of papers. "And he has a pretty ironclad way of staying alive, so either something changed or he got spooked."

"Well he did get shot." Aimes finishes off the water, sets it down with a clunk.

"Yeah that's confusing." They sit in silence for a few seconds, before Katya blows out a breath. "You want the weird version? Or the easy version." At one glance at her, she smiles. "Okay weird version."

Aimes shifts on the chair, the stack of papers too tall, a sense of dread sitting in her stomach.

"So there's this prophecy."

She lets her head thump against the bar. "Of course there is."

Katya cracks a smile for a brief second. "It's well known in my community, but...basically, it's a prophecy that him and his two brothers will band together to rule the world. Iakov has been known to...not be interested, for some reason, but his brothers...really would like to. So he remains alive, because his brothers would scour the earth if anyone took a shot at killing their possibility to be all powerful."

Aimes raises an eyebrow. "Doesn't want to rule the world?"

"Yeah we don't know why either."

"And now he was scared enough to think he needed..." Aimes gestures at herself. "And scared enough to do that on a whim at a bar in Kansas City."

Katya scowls, but it's her long familiar scowl of not knowing something. "Exactly."

"Huh. Demigod, though."

"Yeah."

"Huh."

They sit in silence, Aimes twirling the water glass in her hand.

"So do you know how to get in contact with him?" She blurts out as soon as the whim hits her. "I mean..."

Katya's already shaking her head. "He keeps...under the radar. Doesn't like people knowing who he is, or why he does what he does," she says. "As far as we know, our only connection to him for anything is..."

"Me." Aimes finishes.

---