Page 23 of Hooked on a Witch
Chapter Five
Merck powered his boat a few miles offshore until the boat’s tossing on the angry waves reached capsizing-risk critical. He cut the engine and swallowed against nausea, but not from motion sickness. His insides had been as choppy as the ocean ever since he’d driven away from Shannon a few hours ago. The wrongness of not helping her, of not finding out why exactly the warlock had tried to kidnap her, ate at him. Regardless of how ignoring his attraction to her drove him nuts, she was in trouble.
He was no one’s knight in shining armor. She had her own people who didn’t want him around, especially her father, who hated his guts. The moment her father found out where she’d been last night there’d be an angry druid on his front steps with a shotgun and no questions asked before blowing a hole in his chest.
Far off, the sky loomed with gray clouds. Details of the horizon were hazy where the rain had already started. Wind plastered the windbreaker against his body, carrying the smell of approaching rain. Two pelicans clung tight to a rocking buoy a few hundred yards away.
He leaned over the side of the boat to dip his hand into the choppy water. Instantly, information on the chaos below the churning surface swamped his mind. Animals were confused and panicking. Environmental conditions were unstable—fluctuating temperatures, salinity off, and algal blooms along the coastline. Energy from deep within him revved, demanding freedom to fix the chaos. On an exhale he released the surging power. Everything for miles around became stabilized. Even though still windy and choppy at the surface, the stability below relaxed him. He might’ve inherited some water abilities from his water-god father, but he couldn’t control the weather.
The animals in the ocean’s depths had been his companions through the toughest moments of his childhood—a selfish and sometimes abusive mother, an absent father, drug addiction, and his tendency for fights. The water healed his wounds, and the animals soothed his emotions. He’d do anything he could for them.
He’d have to return tomorrow, if he expected his stabilizing session to hold. Healing the whole ocean wasn’t possible. Just little patches. Why were things out here and on land so out of whack?
The darkening skies gave the illusion of an early dusk.
As he returned to the wheel he heard clapping.
He whipped around, reaching for the knife on his belt.
A familiarichthyocentaurreclined on one of the boat’s white benches. The creature had shed his part-merman, part-horse form to appear human, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and white silky pants. The shimmer in his purple eyes hinted at the masked inner god, but the outdated long dark hair and beard gave away his ancient-Greek origins.
Merck yelled to cast his voice through the wind. “Bythos. Why’re you on my boat?”
Merck tensed for an attack. Most times he saw this creature, it was coming at him with a big-ass sword in the name of “training.” A demand the mythological water creature take a flying leap back into the watery depths, back to Poseidon’s side as his right-hand man, might end up with them in a knife fight again. Given he had a six-inch blade and Bythos usually swung a huge sword, odds weren’t in his favor to win the matchup. Although Bythos looked unarmed today.
Bythos placed a dramatic hand over his heart. “Why the hate?”
“Maybe because the last two times you visitedme, you tried to kill me?”
“Not true.”
“Attacking with intent to cut off my head qualifies as intent to kill.”
“I needed to ensure you knew how to defend yourself. You’re still alive, aren’t you? Had I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be conversing. I don’t need to kill you. Your stubbornness will do the job for me.”
“What didDadfeel was so important that he’d send you above water?”
“You need a reminder of your impending judgment.”
Four days.“As if I could forget.”
“You’re doing all right at your on-land…” Bythos glanced around as if searching for the right word, “purpose. Now you must be judged if you are worthy of an ocean purpose.”
“I didn’t ask for this. Any of this.” An ocean job too? Shit. Maybe death as the outcome of the gods’ judgment was preferable. He could barely manage to take care of everything required of him as the Enforcer. In the hundreds of times he’d been reincarnated as the Enforcer this was the first lifetime he’d also been a first-generation Greek god’s child.
“None of us request our fate. We learn to live up to it.”
Merck folded his arms. “My life’s about to be decided upon by a bunch of power-tripping gods on a whim.”
Bythos showed no ounce of humor. “Do you not remember what I advised on how to improve your judgment?”
“Strike the path to become pure of heart. By the time you tossed that ambiguous pearl at me I’d already fucked up my life enough. I figured I’d be deemed death-bound regardless of what I do. I’m not a Medieval Templar knight, and I’m sure as hell not a religious fanatic who worships the Greek gods. I’m good with death.”
Bythos’s brow drooped and eyes narrowed. He gave a slow head shake. “Your little beloved ocean you oversee will go to hell without you. You’ll be shuttled to live with Hades when you succumb to your human-bound death.”
“Hades will U-turn me right back into my next reincarnated life.” Then he got the pleasure of remembering everything about being the Enforcer in his teens. That’s eons of bad memories of tracking and killing magical shits. He’d remember again the one and only time he had a family. They got tortured and executed by a coven of witches.
Merck said, “This time I might discuss a deal with my uncle to stay in the afterlife and give some other schmuck Enforcer duty. Poseidon can take care of the ocean. I just put a Band-Aid on it when she’s hurt. If having an active Enforcer is important enough, then the gods can find someone else.”
