Page 5 of Monsters of Midlife

“Semantics,” I pointed my finger at him. “God has a nicer ring, don’t you think?”

“Look,” Ratchet said. “I’m not going to argue with my best friend, okay? You know your dad was the god. You’re the demigod. You’ll live a long time, probably forever, but it doesn’t make you a god.”

“What if they have Caroline?” I asked.

Ratchet sat up from his reclined position.

“How could they find out about her?” he asked curiously. “I thought I was the only one who knew about her.”

“You’re the only one I told about her, but they must have known I was gone when Cougar Creek called.”

“And you think they went through your house while we were here?”

I looked at him, my brows knit in consternation. “Either here or Jackson Hole or any of the other thirty places we’ve been in the last twenty days fighting monsters.”

“Well, they found you in Cougar Creek,” Ratchet pointed out. “That demon didn’t seem like too bad of a fellow. Definitely trying to help you out. There’s one thing I don’t understand, if the witches didn’t want demigods to know, why did they call you out here?”

“They didn’t want the demigods involved.” I explained.

“You’re a demigod,” Ratchet rolled his eyes.

“The Demigod Corporation,” I spelled it out for him.

“You know a lot of people like the DGC,” Ratchet said. “As a matter of fact, I used to be in the DGC, an officer of the court and everything.”

“Until you realized it was much more fun to hang out with monsters,” I said.

“Do you know if they have Caroline?”

“That’s what we’re going to have to figure out.” I could feel my heart racing at the thought of Caroline being in the hands of the cambions.

“Does she even know what you are?” Ratchet asked.

“No,” I said, pressing my lips together. “It’s always been my goal that she will never find out what I am. She undoubtedly hates me enough as it is, much less letting her know she was married to a monster for a couple of years. It’s not information she needs.”

That would be the last thing she would want. I had kept it a secret from her for the couple of years we were together, telling her I traveled for business, but it had gotten too much for her because I’d been gone so many times.

My actual job was to stop the monsters from infiltrating New Attica from the rift. Sometimes I would go outside New Attica and deal with Fae country but in principle I was focused on New Attica. Still, I would spend weeks away from home gathering a crowd of monsters to deliver back to the rift. My father, Typhon, was the god of monsters, so I was able to hold a certain amount of sway with the monsters and able to live in New Attica.

One day I had returned home from a trip and Caroline was suddenly convinced I was having an affair. That could never happen. She was my soul mate. My one true love. I could never have her again, but it didn’t change how I felt. The only affair I ever had was being married to my work.

It was hard protecting human lives from ravaging monsters, and sometimes when I was alone with Caroline in our bed and relaxing, I would feel guilty. I knew there were monsters breaking through the rifts and coming into earth to create chaos and wreak havoc even as we lay there together. It was my job to stop the chaos. Every time I took a rest and respite from fighting the chaos, it seemed to get worse. It required all my attention. So, when Caroline had filed for divorce, I hadn’t fought her on it. I’d let her file the papers and let her think I had fallen for some other woman.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. From the first moment I saw Caroline, there had never been another woman for me. Even now when we’d been apart for years, three years, one month, two days, and half an hour to be precise, even though we were apart, we were still together in my head and my heart. I would always belong to her. There would never be another.

“Have you narrowed down where she might be?” Ratchet asked.

“We don’t even know if they have her,” I countered. “I need your help to figure out what happened and if she’s okay.”

“Why don’t you just call her?” Ratchet shrugged.

I deadpanned him. “What am I supposed to say? Hi Caroline? Any half demons from hell chasing you lately?”

“That would work,” Ratchet nodded like I was being serious.

“No. That is not going to happen.” I pointed out. “She doesn’t know about the supernatural world and she’s never going to.”

“So, you want me to call her?” Ratchet offered.

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