Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 3 Chapter 5

5

Turns out Stymphalian birds s**t. A lot.

I get back to my dorm room to find my roommate, Tina, sitting on her bed, staring down the bird who is perched on the footboard. Just as I walk in the door, the bird lets loose another stream of gluey gray s**t.

“Oh my gods,” I say, covering my nose. “That’s awful!”

Tina doesn’t even respond; she’s giving the bird the stink eye. But he’s definitely winning any competition involving stink.

True to its mission, it doesn’t even look at me. He’s honed in on Tina, his eyes locked onto her for the rest of her time at the Academy. The only living thing in the room that even acknowledges my presence is Vee—Tina’s self-aware Venus Fly Trap plant. She turns her head towards me, then back to Tina, clearly alarmed at her owner’s predicament.

“It’ll be okay, Vee,” I say to it, walking over to the window. I c***k it to let some of the stench out, and I swear Vee gives me an up-nod of thanks.

“Did you have much trouble getting back to the dorm?” I hazard the question.

I saw more than a few students with Stymphalian shadows getting razzed as they left the assembly. Tina hasn’t exactly been the friendliest vampire on campus, either. She touted her blood like it was ambrosia, all in an effort to cover up her true Moggy identity. Even if she escaped some ribbing today, she’ll have to face it in the morning, for the first day of classes.

“Hey,” I try again, even though she didn’t answer my first question. “I think I’m going to go down to the Archives, see if Merilee has any more information about this prophecy. Wanna come? Knowledge is power, right?”

Tina seems to believe that the silent treatment is power, because she gives me nothing. Not even a shake of the head. I’ve done my best to help her out in the past, even covering for her when she came down with the shifter plague—which as a full-blooded vampire she should have been resistant to. And she still can’t even acknowledge my presence? Whatever.

I slam our door on the way out. It reverberates in the hall, followed by the sound of a very large Stymphalian turd splatting against the floor.

Down the hall, Cassie’s door pops open. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing new,” I tell her. “Just reinforcing my very strong roomie bond with Tina. I was just going to come get you. Feel like visiting your mom?”

“Yes!” Cassie actually does a fist pump. “I love my mom!”

There’s a pang in my stomach at her words, a reminder of what I’ve lost. The memory potion that my mom took means she doesn’t know who I am anymore, even if I can remember perfectly. And my bio mom…I never even knew her.

Cassie links arms with me as we make our way to the Archives. “So, any big Moggy surprises today? Other than Val and Tina, I mean. That one…woah!”

She whistles and makes a motion, slicing her hand above her head. Cassie’s been raised her entire life on campus, and her attempts at real-world interaction often go this way.

“No,” I correct her. “That’s over her head. Like…she didn’t get that joke, it went right over her head. I think you want mind blown.” I mimic an explosion on either side of my temples.

“Oh, definitely,” Cassie says, doing it back at me, but still whistling instead of making a bomb noise.

“Thank you, for the distraction today, with Greg,” I say.

She nods. “I just wish we could have helped all the Moggies.”

“How’s your face?” I ask. “It looked like Greg headbutted you pretty hard.”

“It’s fine. Fern fixed it up.” She touches her nose as if to check that there’s no pain. “He felt so bad about it he kept apologizing. He really is sweet.”

I look at Cassie, who has a slight smile. Maybe it’s time for Cassie to move on from grieving Darcy. Maybe Greg is just the boy to help her do it. I push that to the back of my mind as we arrive at the Archives.

Merilee is nowhere to be found. Actually, it’s hard to locate just about anything here, even the Archivist. Merilee’s filing system is more of a stacking system. Piles of paper surround us, small unimportant slips of paper like doctor’s excuses from class resting on top of Annals of the Histories of the War: Volume 1 Where Monsters Went Wrong. All of this might make it seem like Merilee is scatterbrained, but the truth is exactly the opposite. She can remember everything she’s ever read, and files it away in her mind. She doesn’t need to refer to any of this stuff; all anyone has to do is ask her. Merilee figured out a long time ago that her skill made her irreplaceable on campus, and how to use that to her advantage—and Cassie’s.

When Merilee dies, all of her knowledge will pass to Cassie, guaranteeing a job for Cassie here on campus. She’ll never have to wander into the real world, which—let’s be honest—would eat her alive. Unfortunately, that’s also why she was kidn*pped by a splinter cell of monsters, to try and gain that knowledge. At least they never got a chance to hurt Merilee.

“Mom?” Cassie calls, her voice soaring out above piles of paper and stacks of books. “Where are you?”

There’s a sudden flutter, and some loose pieces of paper float through the air. Merilee comes around the corner, red-eyed and crying. She’s followed by a Stymphalian bird.

“Mom!” Cassie cries out, going to Merilee. The older woman sobs into her daughter’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she says. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“Wait,” I say. “But if you’re a Moggy, why isn’t Cassie one, too?”

Merilee shakes her head. “Cassie’s dad was a seer, like me. As long as your immediate parents were the same, you’re safe.”

“I don’t care that you’re a Moggy,” Cassie says, rubbing her mom’s shoulder. “I’m proud to be your daughter, so I wouldn’t care if I were one, too.”

“Don’t say that!” Merilee lifts her head suddenly, eyes sharp behind the tears. “The birds are only the beginning. Zee has marked us, publicly humiliated us. Who knows what will come next?”

Nothing good, that’s for sure.

I wander away into the stacks, letting Merilee and Cassie have a moment alone. All this talk of blood and Moggies has me wondering about my own parentage. I can still feel the presence of Fern’s spell around me, like a soft film of cotton that I’m moving through. But it’s fading. If Mr. Zee employs any further experiments to test for Moggies and I’m caught unaware… I shiver, and my wings erupt as a bright silver. I wrap them around myself for comfort. It’s better for me to know for sure what I am.

Pages continue to settle around me, blown in the draft from the bird’s wings. They waft down as the now unfortunately familiar smell of Stymphalian bird poop fills the air. I snatch a piece as it drifts past my face.

Some cat shifters have secretly been growing catnip in their dorm rooms…

Ugh. Boring. It’s about to be legalized in the shifter community anyway.

I sift through some random piles, but find nothing more interesting than a student’s musings on whether Hermes was sleeping with Themis or not, and a bulletin from the Pure Prairie Vampire League: Mavens of the Midwest meeting.

No, if I want to learn more about my own parentage in this mess, I’m going to have to go to the source. That means interrupting Cassie, Merilee, and her Stymphalian shadow.

I wander back through the piles, following the easily identifiable scent of the bird. Merilee is drying her eyes, and Cassie is patting her mother’s shoulder. Again, I feel the stab of pain that I don’t think will ever dull. I’ve lost both my parents, and the bio-mom I never knew.

Time to find out who my real father was.

“Merilee?” I ask. “Can you recall the exact wording of the information we found regarding the day my dad fled campus?”

“Of course,” she says, wiping her nose and then tapping her temple, like she’s clicking on a link.

“Student Daniel Evans fled the grounds last night. He carries with him two secrets that could ruin the Academy forever, if their existence was known. Steps must be taken.”

I wince a little when she says my dad’s name, still remembering his face as Leviathan, a water monster, swept him away to his death, all because of a jealous love for my mother.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Merilee says. “I’ve cross-referenced his name, but no more mention of him, your mother, or the secrets they left with have been found.”

“I’m pretty sure the secrets were me, and my sister Mavis,” I tell her. “But I don’t understand why our existence could ruin the Academy.”

“Because you’re a Moggy?” Cassie hazards.

“She could be,” Merilee agrees. “But just being a Moggy wouldn’t ruin the Academy. Until recently, Moggies were tolerated on campus. No, there’s got to be something much more sinister in Edie’s past.”

“Great,” I say.

“Being a Moggy is sinister enough these days,” Cassie says, giving Merilee’s bird a glare. “At least you don’t have one of these tailing you.”

“No, I’ve got one pooping where I sleep, though,” I tell her. “It is beyond gross.”

“Stay with me,” Cassie offers. “I don’t mind.”

“Thank you. If it gets to be too much I will, but I don’t want Tina to think I’ve deserted her.” If everyone were half as good-hearted as Cassie the world would be a much better place.

“I wish I could help you out more, Edie,” Merilee tells me.

“What about the prophecy concerning Mr. Zee? The one that said he’d die by his own child, a Moggy. What were the exact words?” Cassie asks.

Merilee taps the other side of her forward, her eyeballs sliding back and forth under the lids while she speaks.

“He who throws the lightning will die by one born of his own diluted blood.”

“That’s it?” Cassie asks. “That’s like, twelve words. Twelve words and he’s got the whole campus in an uproar?”

“It’s fifteen,” Merilee corrects, eyeballs rolling as she counts. “But remember, it’s Mr. Zee. He’s a god. He’s the god. There are some ancient texts that refer to him as the very root of the entire universe. Any threat to the safety of the gods is taken seriously.”

I snort. “So seriously that they created an entire Academy in order to draw young paranormals to fight their battles for them.”

“Exactly,” Merilee nods in my direction.

“But can gods die?” I ask. “I mean, I know Mr. Zee is rattled but…”

I’d seen Hermes heal himself from a fairly serious burn once. The blink of an eye and his skin was fresh, eyebrows grown back in. It had taken only seconds.

“It’s…difficult,” Merilee admits. “In order to kill a god they’d have to be weakened first, drained of some of their power and faculties.”

Cassie locks eyes with me and I know we’re thinking the same thing.

Mr. Zee has always been a little off, but lately his behavior bordered on the mentally ill. And he’d been wearing some sort of stage makeup during the big production where the Moggies were identified. I’m willing to bet that under that foundation, his skin is as gray as my wings are right now.

I’m pretty sure somebody is poisoning Mr. Zee.

And I’ve got a good guess who it is.