Destiny of a Good Deity

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

One thousand and fifteen years later.

Mya walked down the long hall of the Babylonian temple, heading toward the main court. She had lost count of how many times Ishtar had summoned her back to scold her for the negative balance between the people she should have but couldn’t save and those she shouldn’t have but did kill.

This time, it was different. The call had been urgent. She hadn’t had any time to prepare and had no idea what was coming at her. One thing she knew for sure—her scorecard balance was way off. How much, she had no clue. She hadn’t been keeping careful records.

There were only so many failures her Goddess would tolerate. Mya might lose her head this time. The scene of her head being chopped off and rolling across the shiny golden floor played over and over in her mind.

Mya looked down, counting her footsteps and listening to the sound of her heels clicking on the hard floor.

“Oh damn!” she almost shrieked out loud. Her soft voice echoed off of the golden flooring and walls, and she cringed as it bounced around and ended up back inside her own ears.

She’d forgotten to change before she left Earth.

In her human form, she was Professor Mya Portman, Professor of Mythology at a university. She had been on her way to a lecture when she’d been summoned. She had scrambled into a nearby closet and closed her eyes, and here she was at the ancient Babylonian Court of the Gods, dressed in her smart, corporate suit.

“Mylittle! Mylittle!” a voice called out.

Mya was startled and whirled around. She found Leon standing next to one of the golden pillars covered in golden leaves and vines. He grinned until he saw the expression on her face. He recoiled.

Leon was the head of the temple guard. He was a handsome man with light golden hair and eyes that sparkled. Mya had wondered about his position more than once as there didn’t seem to be an ounce of toughness in him.

“How many times have I told you not to call me Mylittle?” she snarled.

Leon stared at her blankly. She stared back. Then she realized she had spoken to him in English. She had sunk so deeply into the vision of her head leaving her body that she’d forgotten that English wasn’t the language spoken here. She repeated her statement in the Babylonian tongue of the Goddesses.

He didn’t have a chance to answer her snide comment before she continued, “Take me to your chamber.”

“What?” he blushed.

She gestured at her outfit. “I forgot to change.”

He let out a sound of understanding, or maybe it was a sound of disappointment. She neither knew nor cared. Leon led the way to his chamber, which was nearby. As soon as he closed the door, she shrugged out of her clothes and put on the court outfit she always carried in her gigantic handbag—a golden bikini with dangling gold beads and golden leaves and other decorative items that only her Goddess Ishtar knew the significance of.

Her appearance changed a bit with the change of the outfit. Her hair grew longer and wavier and, like everything else in Babylon, it too held a touch of gold, and her skin bloomed with shimmering copper and gold.

Mya slipped on her golden sandals and shoved her suit into her gigantic handbag. While her hand was in the bag, she felt her cell phone buzz. The vibration startled her.

She was at the Babylonian temple, a place that didn’t actually exist in current human civilization. She had no idea how her travel between the two worlds worked or where the two worlds were physically located. Every time she needed to travel, she simply closed her eyes, concentrated, and channeled the path to her court. She did the same on the return trip.

Well, they must be pretty close by! Mya rolled her eyes. This was the first time she had taken any belongings from the modern world to the court. Perhaps she should give her Goddess Ishtar a cell phone. It would certainly save a lot of back and forth travel.

She pulled out the phone and looked at the screen. There was a text message that said, “Dan Chandler is in danger. Death by fire.”

“Oh hell!” Mya moaned. She cared for Dan. He was one of the very decent men she had come across on Earth. After the disastrous failure in the valley, she no longer took big cases. She stuck with Ishtar’s list, handled each subject carefully, and hoped her scores trickled in enough to make her balance of a thousand souls. Because she handled subjects individually, she got to know them well. She didn’t like all of them, but Dan was one of those rare cases she genuinely cared about.

She had to save him. There was no time to see the Goddess. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and transported back to Earth.