Brandywine Investigations Page 39

  Crrrrrrr. Kau hunched his head into his shoulders and flew to a bush to do his business.

  After Kau flew inside, Azeban closed the door, dropped his bundle of clothes by the flamingo-shaped umbrella stand, and galloped to the kitchen, where Uzume was making—oh heavenly scents—cookies.

  "Were you expecting us?" Azeban leaped onto one of the counter stools, knowing that she was one of the few people who would never object to his raccoon form in the kitchen.

  "No. But I've been hearing rumors and thought of you. Which made me think of cookies." Uzume flung her thick, black hair over her shoulder, pushed a plate of finished chocolate-chip cookies his way, and set a single sugar cookie on a plate for Kau before she turned back to drawing anatomy in blue icing on people-shaped sugar cookies. "So which is it, sweetie? Are you hiding out here or asking advice?"

  The Shinto goddess of the dawn, dance, and fun, Ame-no-Uzume had enough worshippers still that she could have been comfortable living in her cloud pavilion. But like Azeban, she enjoyed the company of humans and wanted to walk among them. So she had picked Medina in Minnesota as a happy human place and promptly opened a string of dance studios.

  Azeban took a cookie so he wouldn't start nervously washing one paw against the other. "Neither. I've done some really dumb things this time, Uzume. Some really dumb, awful things. And I had a great hiding place and the start of something special that probably can't go on if—once this gets fixed."

  Uzume bent to take a batch of cookies out of the oven, giving Azeban a beautiful view of her perfect dancer's ass, covered in nothing but red tights. She turned to regard him with a raised eyebrow when he remained silent. "Az? You okay? No propositions? Smart remarks?"

  "The view's as gorgeous as ever. Not a great time though. 'Zume, I broke death."

  "Oh, Az." Uzume settled on a stool opposite him and pushed another plate his way, this one of almond cookies. "Guess you better tell me all the things."

  Between bites of cookies—he ate all four kinds she'd pushed toward him but lost count of how many—Azeban told the story again. It went more smoothly this time, since he'd had practice, but somehow the telling never got easier. Uzume listened attentively, going back to her cookies when they needed attention, always glancing back at him to assure him that he had her attention.

  She took a few careful nibbles of a chocolate-chip cookie when he'd finished, her bare feet tapping a complicated rhythm on the kitchen tiles. "You've been busy, haven't you? Piss off a death goddess, break death, rescue Kau, and piss off the death goddess again. Oh, and fall in love with the ferryman. What are you doing for an encore? Hope you saved something big."

  "Ha. Funny," Azeban muttered to his latest snickerdoodle. "I— Wait. I didn't say anything about love."

  Uzume spluttered and guffawed. "You haven't lost a shred of timing. Hilarious as ever."

  "Wasn't joking."

  She reached across and scratched behind his ear. "That only makes it funnier. You get all twitchy and glowy when you talk about him, you know."

  "I do?"

  "Honey, you not only fell; you did a face-plant." Uzume picked up an iced sugar-cookie person and bit off his head. "But that's not why you came to me. Any god with sense could've told you that part. I'm always happy to see you, but why'd you come to me, Az?"

  "You remember when you got Amaterasu to come out of her cave?"

  Uzume bit off one sugar-cookie leg and part of the icing cock she'd drawn. "Nope. Doesn't sound familiar."

  "'Zuuuume…" Want some cheese with that whine?

  "Oh, that thing? The only reason why people remember me at all? That thing?" Uzume took the paw not engaged in clutching a cookie. "That's not going to work here, you know. Itz isn't in the mood for anything fun, and if people stand around laughing outside her cave while I do a crazy striptease, pretty sure heads are gonna roll."

  "I know. But isn't there something… like that? She's trying to protect the humans she feels responsible for. It's an awful way to do it, but she's so pressure-cooker furious, I think she's… well, lost."

  "Next eclipse is in a day and a half?"

  Azeban nodded, his heart stuttering as hope raged with anxiety.

  "There might be something. Maybe. I need every goddess and every genderqueer deity you can get word to—every single blessed one—to meet me at the entrance to Tamoanchan tomorrow. Just before dawn."

  "Every goddess?" Azeban blurted out. "Even Eris?"

  Uzume laughed. "We get enough together, and the rest won't be able to help themselves anyway. But, yeah, don't tell Eris just yet. Oh, and go human, so I can give you cookies to take."

  "The goddesses need cookies?"

  "Holy winds, you're so cute. No. The cookies are for you."

  Back in human aspect and with clothes replacing his fur, Azeban stuffed his pockets with the plastic baggies of cookies Uzume kept handing him. He held up a hand when he ran out of pocket space, kissed her cheek, let Kau settle on his shoulder, and raced off through the Ways again.

  He took the twists and turns back to Lord Hades' living room, following his own trail as much as feeling the paths, and had to throw his shoulder against the resistance from his lordship's domain. Hard arms caught him as he stumbled out.

  "Goddesses! Uzume says she needs all the goddesses!"

  Charon took him by the shoulders with a gentle shake. "Slow down, Az. I'm relieved you're all right and… why is your coat crinkling?'

  "Cookies." Azeban twisted toward the sofa. "Lady Hestia?"

  "My lady, I hope you understand, because I don't." Charon turned Azeban and wrapped him up in his arms from behind.

  Hestia rose slowly, as if the slow dawning of realization weighed her down. "The Goddess Dance. She wants— Did she say when, Azeban? Where?"

  Crrrrreeeh.

  "Just a sec, Kau. Explaining first, then cookies." Azeban blew out a hard breath. "She said before dawn at the entrance to Tamoanchan. Lady Hestia, will whatever this is work?"

  "There are no guarantees, my dear. But it's brilliant." She bustled over to the counter to gather up her tapestry bag. "I have phone calls to make and favors to call due. Charon, contact your trickster cabal and have them go to their pantheons. The more we have at the start, the more powerful it all becomes. This is not something to undertake lightly, but this is a dire situation. Let me through the library door, please. We've no time to lose."

  She turned at the study door and waited for Charon to catch up before she took him by the arm. "And if you have a phone tree or a social media group for death guides, tell them."

  "What do I tell them, my lady?"

  "To be in the places where people should have died tomorrow morning. To be ready."

  Azeban sank onto the sofa when goddess and ferryman disappeared into the study. Pocket by pocket, he emptied his coat of cookie bags and got out a peanut butter one for Kau, who croaked his thanks and flew off with it to the kitchen island. Charon's voice startled Azeban out of trying to decide it he wanted yet another one.

  "What did you do to deserve all those cookies?"

  Azeban squinted, trying to decide if the tart comment had been regular Charon acidic or something extra acidic. Jealous? Nah. "Uzume said she was sure I was coming. I don't know why, really. But we've had, ah, cookie dates sometimes."

  Now Charon's snowy eyebrows did that slow climb to his hairline. "Cookie dates?"

  "Yeah." Azeban squirmed and reached for another chocolate-walnut cookie after all. "It's fun baking with her. More fun eating the cookies."

  Charon settled beside him, elbows resting on his knees, chin on his folded hands. "You've slept with her."

  With a soft sigh, Azeban held out the bag of chocolate-chip and shook it under Charon's nose until he took one. "Char, I've slept with just about everyone in any pantheon who was willing over the centuries. I mean, you know that about me."

  "Yes. I suppose I'm just now understanding the implications." Charon shot him a sidelong glance. "There's no possible way I can satisfy
you. The vast variety and frequency. I can't give you that."

  Azeban shrugged out of his coat and slid onto his knees in front of Charon. "You've said it. I've always been a horndog. The king of casual sex but no relationships. And you? You've stayed light on the sex, but you've had really important long-term relationships. Something I've never managed."

  "Except Kau."

  "Okay. One. One single being who understood me and stayed with me." Azeban reached for Charon's hands, pleased when he was allowed to hold them. "I never thought I'd say this to anyone, but I want more than sex with you. Don't get me wrong; the sex was awesome, but even if you never want to do it again, I want… I want to be with you.

  "I'm trying to say I want mornings with the sun peeking in to make your skin glow, and shared dinners, and nights snuggled up in your arms, and reading, and all the things besides sex. Things I've never even thought about with anyone else. I… I want a place to come home to, with you being home. Is that really sappy?"

  He dared to glance up and found Charon's eyes nearly brimming over. "Char?"

  "Terribly sappy. The sappiest thing I've heard all year." Without letting go, Charon wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "I can't ask you or expect you to change though. And you can't expect me to either. If snuggling becomes nothing but an expectation—"

  Azeban laid his head on Charon's knee with a sigh. "I'm serious when I say I like snuggling on its own. I'm never gonna be one of those creeps who makes you feel bad for saying no or not this time."

  "Hmm." Charon took him under the arms to pull him onto the sofa again. "I need to process. And we need to get cracking here. I'll contact the death guides—"

  "Is there like some secret communication thing?"

  "We have a Facebook group. You go tell all of the New World goddesses you can think of. I'm certain Lady Hestia has the rest of the world covered." Charon kissed his cheek and pulled him into a hard hug. "This first. We'll figure us out later."

  Azeban stood to pull his coat back on. "I'm just glad there's probably going to be a later. And an us. Be back in a few hours."

  Trepidation shivered in his stomach, thinking about Charon changing his mind, concluding that Azeban wasn't worth the time and trouble, but he gave Charon a grin and a cheeky wave before he stepped back through the Ways. Cocky had gotten him far, and it sure as rain in November was going to get him through the next couple of days.

  SOUL GUIDES AND PSYCHOPOMPS

  Secret Group

  * * *

  Karl Stygian

  4hrs – Wilmington

  * * *

  ***Vital for all soul guides***

  By now you all know that death is not working within normal parameters. If you need more info/background, PM me. This thread is not the place. You may have also heard from your various goddesses that they've been called to dance at the entrance to Tamoanchan. Please encourage them to attend. This is our last chance to set things right before further damage is done.

  * * *

  At an hour before dawn (CST), go to where you feel the greatest concentration of lost souls near you will be once the gateways to death are reopened. We can't help everyone, but we can help with clearing the backlog. We're going to have our hands full.

  * * *

  Epona: Can't decide if I should guide or go dance

  Ankou: U cld do both, lol

  Daena: If you can't even bother to spell, no one cares, Ank

  Azrail: Probability that this will work? I don't want to waste my time.

  Uriel: Like we have anything else to do right now? Seriously?

  Azrail: Some of us have other things to do besides carry baskets of kittens.

  Uriel: Ouch. What got up your butt today?

  Jizo: No need to be speciest here. We can all spare a few hours, IMO

  Papa Ghede: Where's Anubis? Has anyone heard from him? Worried…

  Epona: I heard he died when the gates closed

  Oya: Where did you hear that? Source, please.

  Karl: Worse than a bunch of humans. Listen up: Goddess psychopomps will have to make an individual choice, but fwiw, it sounds like they'll need all the power they can get at the dance. That's the more crucial piece. The rest we can clean up later if we need to. I don't have probabilities. This is most likely a long shot. Just be ready in case, for the great mother's sake. Anubis is trapped in the palace with Osiris. He won't be joining us.

  Ankou: OK, but is he ded? LOL

  * * *

  Charon sighed and closed the app. He'd check on the group later, but he didn't have the patience for them sometimes. Anubis really should have set someone else up besides himself as an administrator so that someone could turn off commenting, but the jackal god was such a control freak sometimes.

  Five seconds later, his phone buzzed.

  * * *

  Yama: So – you said you had background and back-story?

  * * *

  He put the phone in his pocket and headed toward his lordship's bedroom. It was going to be a long night, and he'd rather explain things to Ti and possibly, if awake, Lord Hades before he started the endless rounds of texting. It was going to be a long and ridiculous night.

  Azeban buttoned his coat and pulled his hat down hard on his head as he addressed Kau. "Sure you don't want to climb inside the coat?"

  Crrek-clack!

  "You could've stayed in the condo. Nice and toasty warm, you know."

  Caw! Crrrrr.

  "No, I get it. We both have a stake in this. Just wish it'd been summer."

  Near the top of Cerro Mohinora in Chihuahua, a bowl-shaped depression led to a crack in the mountain, one that could hardly be called a cave entrance. Humans never found it, since dread overcame them and sent them running before they got near the area. This was the physical entrance to Tamoanchan, where Azeban had only been once before.

  He stood on the outcropping above the bowl where she had, framed by the moon, beautiful and dangerous. The memory was tainted now with blood, violence, and fear, and Azeban shivered in the biting wind as a few white flakes drifted by his nose.

  Well, fuck me. Of course it's starting to snow.

  The dark of predawn was no hindrance to raccoon eyes. Deities had begun to arrive down there by whatever means they traveled—the doors of the Greek gods, the Ways he himself traveled, on the backs of mythical beasts, or simple 'porting, as Charon did. Goddesses, yes, but also those deities who were neither male nor female, and those who were both, and those, like Dionysus, who served as goddesses in some part of their powers and rituals.

  "Well, that's showy," Azeban muttered as Dio made his entrance on the back of a fire-scarlet dragon. Not his dragon, of course, but his older brother's boyfriend. Azeban had to squint to be sure of the other figure. The looming, horned figure. Huh. Leander had come along too.

  Fafnir made sure his passengers were safe before he launched again, huge wings thumping the air. Probably making his magic-dragon way back to wherever Hermes is waiting for him to make a door back home. The wind of dragon passage ruffled goddess hair and clothes, though no few of them paid avid attention to his flight. Even goddesses could be jealous of having a dragon.

  Down in the bowl, Dionysus pointed up at where Azeban crouched on his rock. Leander squinted up the slope, and Azeban waved to make himself more visible. He got it. The librarian needed to be out of the way of the working, and they might as well keep each other company.

  More goddesses arrived as Leander made his careful way up the slope. Shining Amaterasu flew in on the back of a Kirin. Artemis circled the bowl twice and landed her silver moon chariot with its gleaming horses on a plateau below. Isis flew in under her own power in her aspect as a black kite, her powerful wings outstripping Hecate, who had taken owl form. Innana arrived on the back of a huge, winged lion. Angry and fully armed, Innana marched up to where Hestia and Uzume were greeting new arrivals and demanded to know what had happened to her elder sister Erishkigal.

  Of course, the death goddess was trapped in her
realm of Kur. Azeban held his breath as Hestia explained the situation to Innana, hoping she wouldn't turn his way.

  Leander reached him and settled on the rock beside him. "Good morning. You look worried."

  "A gazillion goddesses down there, and most of them have a relative I've imprisoned in their own homes or one I've blocked from getting home when they need to." Azeban pulled his knees up to his chest. "Probably a good idea to stay worried right now."

  "You have a point." Leander pulled a thermos from the huge inside pocket of his overcoat. "Tea?"

  Azeban took the offered thermos cup. "Thanks. I don't mind the company, but why are you here, Mr. Librarian?"

  Leander pulled a second cup, a collapsible one, from another pocket to pour himself some tea. "Dio tends to get carried away at things… like this. He may need to be carried home when it's over."

  "You're good for him. I know you don't need me to say that." Azeban held his chilled nose over the steaming tea as he watched Ometeotl arrive in a wave of dark light. Both male and female, Chaos and order, they were the only deity where that vehicle made complete sense.

  "It's mutual." Leander's rumbling voice was soft and gentle as he tracked Dio's movements. "I'm so much more now."

  "You think you've changed?" Azeban didn't want to admit that was the biggest reason he never got involved. The date friend of whatever gender would want to change him.

  Leander tilted his head, always careful of his horns. "Not changed, really. I'm still me. More of an expanded me, if that makes sense."

  "Hmm."

  Kau settled on his shoulder with a soft croak, fluffing himself up against the cold.

  "Not too much longer. I think they're starting now." At a clack and crrek from Kau, Azeban shook his head. "I don't know why she hasn't come out yet. Itz probably isn't home if she's scouting her first eclipse route. She wants to snatch as many souls as she can, it sounds like."