Shafted (2 page)

Beyond the wall of trees at the water’s
frozen edge it was even colder and ice crystals the wind picked up
off the surface bit into Callie’s exposed cheeks. The lengthening
shadow of the mountain to the right, she couldn’t remember if it
was Turtle Mountain, or Crow, filled her with a sense of permanence
and peace, negating the minor foreboding the shadow encased path
had wrought moments earlier.

A blanket of cold stillness and majesty
filled her with awe and warmed her soul. The world was full of
wonder and beauty if one simply opened their eyes and looked for
it.

Whipping her mitts off, Callie framed and
shot photos as fast as her quickly freezing fingers allowed. What
more could a person possibly need? So why did people, her mother
particularly, think she needed a man in her life to be happy? With
a whole wondrous world waiting to be discovered, Callie certainly
didn’t.

Satisfied she had real treasure stored in the
body of her new Fuji HS20 she carefully tucked it back into the
inner pocket of her coat and blew on her cupped hands before
slipping her thick red mittens back on with a smile.

For the first time she was looking at her
future through a wide angle lens full of possibilities and suddenly
tomorrow morning didn’t seem so daunting. She’d face the reading of
her grandmother’s will, strange codicils and all then start her new
life. End of discussion.

With everyone convinced she was making a big
mistake, coming back to Bandit Creek hadn’t been easy, but in spite
of what they thought, she no longer doubted destiny. Something big
was about to happen, she could feel it, and somehow knew this was
exactly where she needed to be.

“Maybe you really were just a cranky old
crackpot Grandee, but seeing what love’s done to Mom’s life, I’m
with you, curse or no curse, it’s not worth the risk.”

Callie flung her arms wide filled with
optimism inspired by the endless beauty around her. “I can have a
fulfilling life all on my own, thank you very much. Who needs a
man?” Feeling better than she had in months a wide grin split her
face and spinning a circle Callie tempted fate head on. “Okay
Universe, bring it on!”

A low moan came from behind her and Callie
froze mid twirl. Arms still spread she listened closer and heard it
again. Holy crap, what was she thinking being down here at dusk.
Was she nuts! This was bear country...and wolf country...and cougar
country for goodness sake.

A tremor started in her knees working its way
up her body and with a deep gulp she forced her eyes to peek
sideways since her head stubbornly refused to turn toward the
sound.

A dark shape lay on the snow not far from
her, but at the angle she was looking she couldn’t be sure what it
was. Callie carefully started to straighten up, self preservation
and her innate compassion arguing, as she slowly stepped toward
it.

She was within a few feet when she discovered
it was far worse than she’d first feared. It wasn’t a wild animal
at all. It was a man.

She would’ve preferred a cougar.

Chapter 2

An obnoxious sound polluted the air, loud
enough to make Anteros wince. It took to the count of three to
realize the annoyingly repetitive groan was coming from him.

That couldn’t be good.

Had he gotten drunk with Charon again? His
brain cells were sluggish coming back online, but didn’t miss the
cold cramp of muscles and aching bones currently housing him. Shit,
he was probably on the crap end of another of his friend’s
oh-so-hilarious practical jokes.

The last one entailed a term of servitude to
the Furies before he was able to buy his way out of their lair.
Given the nature of his indenture, time with them wasn’t all bad,
but that wasn’t the point. No one wanted to piss off a woman
created to rip a man’s soul from his still breathing body, let
alone three of them, so wiggling his way out of that one had been
tricky.

Was he on the banks of the Styxx this time?
Why else would he be so cold? It wasn’t like the Underworld had an
air conditioning problem or anything. Or worse, had the bastard
dumped him on the shores of Acheron, the River of Woe?

A shard of dread lodged in his heart. In
either case being a god himself didn’t mean there wouldn’t be Hades
to pay – literally – and Anteros already owed his uncle too much
after that last ill fated poker game. Contemplating the
consequences made his head spin even worse.

A nudge in his ribs interrupted his
conjecture, shooting a spike of warning up his spine. It really
didn’t matter which of the Underworld Rivers he was languishing
beside, anything corporeal enough to touch him was bad news. Here,
only the damned, stuck without coin for the Ferryman, had
substance. To them anything that might pay their way to the other
side, especially some other poor sap’s soul, was fair game.

“Hey? Are you…”

Knowing surprise was his best shot, Anteros
snaked his arm out and grabbed the prodding limb before it could
drag him into the river. Charon had been his friend longer than
either could remember, but if he ever got hold of a soul, there was
no way he’d give it back, even Anteros’s.

With a hard yank and a yelp from the thing,
he pulled his assailant down and flipped his body. Scissoring his
long legs, he trapped the other and pinned it beneath his superior
mass. A wave of corresponding vertigo hit before his besotted brain
caught up to the lighting fast movement.

Keeping his stomach in check wasn’t easy, but
he’d be damned if some soul-sucking vagrant was going to drag his
ass into in that disgusting water, especially hung over.

It took as much determination to open his
eyes as it did to beat back the lingering nausea, but he clenched
his teeth tighter and forced himself to blink away the blurriness.
He needed to see what he was up against before the thing regained
its equilibrium.

As his vision cleared, shock drove the
remaining miasma away. The thing was hideous! Its upper body was
bloated and lumpy, and there were stiff mangled strands where its
face should be. Though much smaller than him and vaguely human in
shape, it had enormous rubbery feet and red blobs instead of hands.
Had they been cut off before the thing died?

Worse yet, it was making a pitiful noise, as
though screaming with its mouth sewn shut. It was actually kind of
pathetic. Deciding the thing wasn’t such a huge threat after all,
Anteros began to lift his weight, planning to simply roll it back
into the river where it belonged and be done with it.

Before he could get a good hold, the thing
jerked violently under him and suddenly every molecule of air in
his body evacuated in response to the worst explosion of pain he’d
ever experienced in his life. Fireworks shot off, blinding him
beneath his puckered eyelids and his breath burst painfully from
his insta-paralyzed lungs. His beleaguered stomach filled with acid
and his limbs gave out all at once, dropping him to the ground like
a stone. Not in all his eons had he felt pain like this. Apparently
he wasn’t the only one who could use the element of surprise.

The bastard had canned him!

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are
you crazy? God I thought you were hurt. I just wanted make sure you
were okay and you freaking attack me!”

With the bells of Hades ringing in his ears,
it took a minute for Anteros to realize it wasn’t ‘Dead Soul Speak’
wailing at him, but what sounded suspiciously like the annoying
screech of a mortal female.

What was a mortal doing here? He must still
be drunk. That was it. He’d heard enough Ambrosia could make you
think things were real, which must be true because he could swear
the apparition fidgeting a few feet away was really there.

“I’m so sorry. Are you going to be okay? I
didn’t mean to hurt you, but you caught me off guard when you
grabbed me. Scared me, you know?”

Anteros braved another glimpse, cracking one
eye open; yup, an ugly one to be sure, but a mortal female
nonetheless. She hadn’t come any closer probably to stay out of
range should he retaliate. Smart girl, but he could hear the
genuine regret and concern in her voice.

“Mister? Hey really, are you going to be
okay? Should I call for help? A doctor or something?”

His tongue might as well have been coated in
cement for all the good it did him. “In fin, unky dorky. Kint you
till? Jus gim me a sick to gatch my bret.”

“Excuse me I didn’t quite get that.”

He flopped over onto his back, hoping his
lungs would remember what to do with the first full breath of air
they’d gotten in what seemed like an eternity, and cleared his
throat to try again. “I’m fine, hunky dory. Can’t you tell? Just
give me a second to catch my….”

The last word formed on his lips, but as his
eyes focused, he lost track of what he was saying. He was snared by
a pair of green eyes fringed in enough frost to stick their edges
together, giving them a disturbing mismatched shape. They were
peering at him out of a blotchy pink face, complete with a hint of
chapped lips, a runny nose and a mess of icicle spiked hair
sticking out in every direction like some frozen parody of
Medusa.

She was beautiful.

Huh? Where the Hades had that come from? What
in the Nine Hells was wrong with him?

As though struck by a God-bolt, his memory
came crashing back and with it the truth of how he ended up
here.

He hadn’t been drinking with Charon at all.
No, he’d been coming in after a particularly painful fix of another
of his brother’s careless mistakes…. Suddenly the last piece of the
puzzle clicked into place, filling him with an overwhelming sense
of dread and anger.

The miserable little shit shafted him!
HIS
OWN BROTHER!

He’d barely entered his temple home on
Olympus when something behind one of the marble columns had caught
his eye. He lived alone, and rarely did any care to visit, so he
immediately recognized the movement for the threat it was.

He remembered reaching behind his shoulder
with one hand and bringing his black titanium bow to bear with the
other, but not fast enough. Flickering torchlight caught a golden
flash flying straight at – no, through – him. Anger turned to
bitterness as the memory played across his mind.

As darkness pulled him under, Eros had
emerged from the shadows, still holding his own glistening bow, a
triumphant grin on his handsome face. Not a moment later their
mother had materialized directly behind him, her face void of
emotion, but her words had said it all.

“Perfect shot, my son, you’ve done well.”

He’d been shafted all right. The love of
Psyche, Eros’s wife, had proven too much for his brother, causing
his fall to ambro-fever, an irreversible condition many gods
developed after an overload of what they personified. The result in
Eros’s case was him periodically running amok, so drunk on love he
couldn’t see, let alone shoot straight, willy-nilly nailing any
poor sucker who got in his path.

It had fallen to Anteros as the God of
Requited Love to run damage control by canceling out his brother’s
diamond-tipped silver arrows with his opposing obsidian-tipped lead
ones. Instead of being the final reckoning for those who
deliberately preyed on the hearts of others, it became his job to
save mortals suddenly in love against their will with people who
would never love them in return. Anteros was the only one able to
free Eros’s shooting-spree victims but it meant absorbing their
heartache as his own to do it.

And what thanks did he get for spending the
last several centuries drawing in and carrying the pain of all
those hearts? His beloved brother, the one at fault in the first
place, shot him - and on their mother’s orders no less! And not
with just any arrow either. No, it had to be one of his thrice
cursed golden ones. His fate was sealed.

Within twenty-four Olympian hours, roughly
one week on earth, his heart would be hopelessly lost to the first
creature to cross his path. Anteros’s eyes were involuntarily drawn
back to the lumpy-limbed figure in front of him. He could feel the
pull starting already. Hades Balls! He’d imprinted on the hideous
creature with the rubbery feet and runny nose. A mortal! A groan
escaped his pursed lips. Why a mortal and why’d it have to be so
damn ugly?

Anteros’ heart bashed up against his chest
wall and the last of his fog cleared. Zeus’s beard, they might as
well have condemned him to eternal torture in the lowest levels of
Tartarus as this.

He was doomed. With the use of a golden
arrow, not only was his heart forfeit, his soul would soon be
irrevocably tied to hers. When she died, she’d take him with
her.

Not only had they ruined his life, they’d
killed him by robbing him of his immortality!

Anteros couldn’t decide which was worse, the
burning in his heart from the arrow’s path, the hole in it from the
enormity of his family’s betrayal, or the fact he would never know
a moment’s freedom from the monstrous ice encased mortal currently
hopping from one foot to the other screeching like a banshee as she
hovered over him.

“Hey Mister? I’m sorry, really. Oh gosh, what
can I do? Can I help you up maybe? Do you need a doctor? Or is
there someone else I can call?”

The concern in her eyes pulled on his heart
strings and, to his horror, other things as well. Stupid arrow was
working all right.

“Who are you? Can you tell me your name?”

Uh, tell her his name? Come to think of it,
probably not. Hmm, let’s see, how did one explain such things to a
mortal?

Hello, I’m a pissed off god who’s been shot
with the equivalent of a super love potion slash aphrodisiac by
‘Stupid Cupid’ and you, you lucky thing, are now the target of my
every superhuman desire. Something, by the way, that will build in
potency to a point I’ll no longer be able to resist and will very
likely jump all over you. Which really isn’t working for me because
the second I do, the arrow’s magic will pierce you too - lovely
little golden bugger that it is - and you’ll fall for me against
your will. In turn, my immortality goes up in smoke and I’ll die
the second you do.