Page 25 of Hooked on a Witch
Bythos’s lips curled into an amused grin. “How? Ah, the tough kid isn’t quite so ready to die, now is he?”
“Stay out of my head. And, fuck you.”
After a slow, lascivious scan, Bythos smiled. “You’re not my type. Don’t take offense. You’re all right to gaze upon. Now that fine lady ashore you keep avoiding… She could be my type. Blonde, busty.” He ran his hands in the hourglass figure of a shapely woman.
“You’re not her type.”
“I’m a god. Humans love me. I’m always their type.”
“Stay away from her. Just tell me whatever it is you need to tell me. Let’s get it over with.”
Bythos rubbed his hands together as if preparing to start a delightful project. “Good to know you’re not so apathetic about death. Get back to shore and make sure nothing kills the answer to your problem. I suggest you bind your life to hers.”
“What?” Laughter bubbled from deep within Merck. Inappropriate at the moment, but everything about matrimony when he was about to die felt ludicrous. He doubled over as the hilarity erupted. It actually felt good to laugh this hard.
“What’s so funny?” Bythos demanded.
Merck held up a hand, struggling to rein in his amusement. He swiped his weeping eyes. “You wantmeto marry Shannon?” He belly-laughed again. “In order to be foundpure of heartyou suggest I marry someone who you guys must deem to be so trying, so tedious, that I would be seen as a martyr?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“She’d be a handful, but…damn.” A solitary snort shot out of him. He shook his head and waggled a finger at Bythos. “That’s a good one. Cold, but a good one.”
“Those nameless dead girls washing ashore weren’t human. They were Pleiades.”
What?Amusement fled. “As in the goddesses? No one can kill a goddess.”
“They can if they stoleDeus Mortempoison from Circe. All the deities have a purpose. With the Pleiades murdered their human descendants become critical. Someone wants to wipe all trace of them out of existence.” Bythos disappeared.
Merck stood there, frozen, staring at the vacant spot Bythos had occupied moments ago. Someone murdered Pleiades goddesses? Six were dead. One remained alive. He tried to remember the exact purpose of the Pleiades goddesses but couldn’t other than there was a constellation named for them.
Shannon was in bigger trouble than he thought.
A few drops of rain hit his face. The wind shifted direction, plastering the thin windbreaker against the other side of his body.
The wind blew harder with rain pelting from above. He cranked the engine. It turned over, but didn’t catch. Damned battery was low. He bent over in the pouring rain whose droplets felt to be the size of oranges and hooked up the engine to the backup battery. Two cranks and it rumbled, but sputtered out.
“Oh, come on!” he shouted. He didn’t want to call Chad for a tow. Twice in one month was humiliating. He cranked once more. The motor rumbled to life.
He would help Shannon with whatever brought her down here, but he wouldn’t deceive himself by thinking doing so would solve his judgment-day problem. It was the right thing to do if her life was in danger. It’d be the first step in what promised to be a complicated, painful scenario the gods mapped out. He despised being manipulated but, apparently, she too had been sucked into their plan.
