Be the Bird
Without speaking a word, Shar and I stumbled out of the alley and waved down a cab. I was too tired to try to be environmentally friendly, and I wasn’t feeling too compassionate toward Mother Nature—otherwise known as Demeter. In fact, I think I hated her.
Shar huddled into the back seat and swathed her scarf around her mouth and nose. She kept lifting her sunglasses to wipe her eyes, but then the twitching made it hard for her to get them back on. She poked herself in the eye at least once. I was clothed from head to foot, but it didn’t seem to prevent my Siren dander from seeping through her scarf. We were both wretched.
Then an awful realization dawned. I felt my voice catch in my throat and I started sobbing.
“Oh no,” I cried.
“What now?”
“I used the gift on Jeremy for nothing, and I didn’t release him! How long does the enchantment last when you use it on purpose?” I searched frantically in my bag for the iPhone, but after a few moments, I gave up. I wanted to crawl into bed and never come out again.
Shar peered at me piteously from her burka-esque head wrap, not daring to loosen it even a little for fear of feathers. We rode the rest of the way in silence.
“God, I need sugar,” she said when we got home. “Please tell me there’s chocolate somewhere in this place.”
I strutted into the kitchen and opened a few random cabinets. If there was one thing we could count on, it was the constant presence of distracting, sinful food. I took some gourmet hot cocoa down from a shelf and a chocolate torte from the refrigerator while she filled a kettle. Trying to ignore the clocklike tick-tick-tick of the gas stove as it tried to ignite, I fished dessert plates and forks from a drawer. Shar cut pieces of cake, definitely not the suggested serving size, then slapped a huge dollop of whipped cream on each slice.
The kettle whistled shrilly. I turned off the gas and poured the scalding water into two large mugs.
“I want an extra marshmallow!” Shar called as she carried the plates into the pristine living room. At this juncture, I didn’t think a whole bag would help either of us. I placed the two steaming mugs on a large tray and followed her. Shar took a cup, blowing on the hot cocoa, then twitched violently as if she was pecking at the floating marshmallow. She ended up with some on the tip of her nose, but wiped it off with her talon, foregoing the napkin. We drank quietly for a while, listening to the noises of the city below.
Eventually I let go a string of curses. “We were so SO close!” I wailed.
“Tell me about it,” Shar said, digging into her cake. She seemed to have worked out the timing of the twitches so she could manage small bites and sips, but every once in a while she’d wear her food. She seemed beyond caring, an indication of how depressed she was.
“Have you noticed that this has happened two times?” I said crossly. “First, we couldn’t get Arkady across a hallway because Hades conveniently forgot to tell us that we can’t use our gifts on him because he can’t see or hear us. And then Demeter shows up just as we’re ready to send Arkady on his merry way. Do you know what this means?” I demanded.
“That we’re doomed? Set up to fail?” Shar spit crumbs out, then cradled her head in her hands. “You know, I was trying to forget that doomed possibility. But you’re right. They seem to know what we’re doing. All the time. I always feel like Hades is watching us.” She slapped the couch. “Such a beast!”
“Should we even bother to try again?” I asked.
“You know what they say, ladies—the third time’s the charm.”
Hades posed in the living room, decked out in black jeans and a shimmering black shirt, its collar open at the throat. He helped himself to my untouched hot chocolate. Was nothing sacred?
“Since you’re just sitting around, why don’t we watch a movie? How about From Here to Eternity? Mmm, this is quite decadent,” he mused, taking another sip. The mug he was holding changed—it was still huge, but now it had his picture on it with the words “Kiss Me!” Please, I prayed, don’t let it be one of those trick mugs where the clothes disappear and we see what we shouldn’t! Thankfully, nothing changed. Hades poofed some whipped cream onto the top and took another sip.
I shot a tight-mouthed glance at Shar, and she angled her body away so as not to look in his direction.
Hades eased himself into a leather club chair next to her. “Another failure today, ladies. Really, I’m surprised—”
Shar jumped up and stuck a finger in his face. “You’re surprised ? Oh please, Hades. Everything would have been fine if your mother-in-law hadn’t showed up and whisked Arkady away. But I suppose you had nothing to do with that!”
“I have as little interaction with her as possible,” Hades said with distaste. “But even so, this is your deal. There were bound to be some problems. I never promised it would be easy.”
“The words ‘simple, no?’ come to mind,” retorted Shar.
He laughed. “The whole concept is simple—I never said a word about the execution of the concept. And why should I make it easier for you two? What have you done for me lately?”
Shar turned scarlet and looked away.
“First,” I said, jumping to her defense, “we don’t expect, and don’t want, any help from you. But you left out some crucial details. It would have been nice to know that Demeter can ruin things at will. Doesn’t she have any restrictions?”
“We all have rules to abide by, and if she breaks them, I can assure you that Zeus will have something to say about it. But I’m afraid I have no control over Demeter’s doings—”
“Don’t think we can’t see where this is going,” I interrupted. “Let’s see—if we get Arkady, you collect on your contract, but if we don’t, you get us. We knew that from the beginning. But this task is proving to be impossible because of ‘divine intervention.’ It seems you’ve got quite the operation going on.”
“Demeter is hell-bent on us failing,” Shar interjected. “She wants me in Tartarus because she thinks I’ll be a distraction for you and then you’ll forget about Persephone, but no way. Not happening!”
“Margaret, I’m a man of good business,” Hades said to me with a wink, before turning to Shar. “Sharisse, you have no idea how I suffer. I’m not one to sit on a dark throne, brooding. I want excitement, a challenge. For six months, I’m devoid of feminine charms, so I’m—”
“Lonely, I know,” Shar rolled her eyes. “Heard it before.”
He rose slowly, like a sleek panther ready to strike.
“Don’t mistake my attraction for permission to indulge in disrespect,” he said through pursed lips. “You try my patience, Sharisse. It’s about time you learned you shouldn’t interrupt a deity. Especially one who’s done so much for you. I saved you from incarceration and gave you all the material things you could wish for.”
Shar inhaled deeply to argue, but suddenly sneezed several times.
Hades chuckled. “Perhaps you should invest in one of those flu masks. And you, Margaret—pick up some pet dander shampoo at the vet’s.”
A mirror hovered before her and Shar shrieked. Then she turned to me. Her lips had puckered, pointed and paled, and had fused to her now pointier nose; a beak! I looked at my hands; they matched Shar’s, and my shoes felt tight.
“Oh my God, oh, caw!” I clasped my wing over my mouth.
“You two have been very busy with your gifts,” Hades said smoothly. “I guess you’re realizing now that sometimes the changes take a while to manifest.” He rose and carelessly tossed his cup into the air. It vanished. “Now I’ll give you another piece of advice; I’m simply too kind to you. I warned you before to only use your gifts on Mr. Romanov. The more you use them, the more you hasten the transformation”—he looked pointedly at our trembling bodies—“and bring other attention. The Divine knows when its power is being used. You don’t have much time. If you keep using your powers indiscriminately, you two can expect to be completely avian within a day or two. However, maybe this little eye-opener will increase your motivation. I’m sure you’ll be able to get Mr. Romanov near a portal again.”
“How?” I squawked.
“Y-yes!” Shar chirped. “The gifts don’t work on him. He won’t wear his glasses, so he can’t s-see me, and he can’t hear, s-so M-meg … damn it!” Her head twitched. She took a deep breath and then spoke slowly. “She even tried shouting, and that didn’t work.”
“Siren powers are gifts of subtlety!” Hades shook his head and tsk-tsked. “You can’t shout and get into people’s faces. Oh no, my dears, your gifts will work, but you’ll have to get close to him.”
“We were right next to him.” Exasperation laced my voice.
Hades twisted his large ruby ring, aligned the stone, then admired his reflection in its glossy surface. “Not close enough.”
“Oh, skeeve!” Shar snapped, the image dawning. Hades meant real close. Bodily contact close, butterfly-kiss and whisper-in-the-ear close. The cake in my stomach threatened to throw itself onto his shoes. My face must have looked green because Hades stepped back warily; maybe he remembered my reaction to Jeremy’s unlucky fate in the subway.
“That’s the only way it’ll work. And once you have him under your spell, Demeter can’t do anything. She can’t reverse a Siren’s power. Rules are rules.” Hades winked and sat down. The chair spun once, and he was gone.
“R-remind me n-never to sit there,” Shar stuttered.
“Steady there,” I said. “When you talk fast, you start to caw.”
“So now what?” Shar fumed, trying to speak slowly.
“You heard him—we have to get close.”
“I don’t want to.”
“We have no choice. At least we can get to him in the office.” I shivered, trying not to think about just how close I’d have to get to Arkady.
Shar cringed and pushed the half-eaten piece of cake aside. “We’re not going to be alone.”
“If we have to, we’ll entrance Reynaldo just to get rid of him, and Jeremy still might be under the thrall,” I said. “Once we have Arkady entranced, he can give the orders for everyone to get out of our way—they won’t question him.”
Shar shook her head. “We can’t do this without some kind of a plan.”
“Well, when Jeremy goes in, I’ll stop him and entrance him again if I have to. He’ll let us in, and then we both get close enough to do our thing.” The thought made me feel like gagging, not just because of the condition and contents of the ear I’d be whispering into, but because I didn’t want to use the power—again—on Jeremy. The effects of the first use were still unknown to me. “I’ll tell Arkady to put on his glasses, so he’ll see you. Then we can both work on him; he’ll be assaulted from all possible sides.”
Shar absently rubbed her beak. “I don’t know. Then we have to get him out of there. There’s going to be a lot of people in the way. Are you sure there’s no other way?”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
She twitched her head, and I took that as a no. It was going to be a bad day.
For the first time since this affair started, I slept deeply, and when the alarm rang, I was reluctant to get up. Lazily, I stretched, and noticed that my blankets were gone. My bed was lined with molted feathers. My feathers. I leapt out of the bed and backed away. Feathers, talons, bird seed, and now nesting instincts! What was left? I didn’t want to look at Shar; our transformation was dangerously close to completion. Arkady had to go, and something told me that if it wasn’t soon, I’d be digging for worms and shiny objects.
At 7:30, we were out the door and headed toward the office.
“Third time’s the charm, third time’s the charm,” Shar chanted as we walked along. I could hear her practicing slow speech, even through the scarf she wrapped around her beak. We stopped at a Duane Reade and picked up a package of surgical masks and more allergy pills.
“It’s my turn to be sick,” she said. “Not that it will earn me any sympathy, but it might make Reynaldo keep his distance.”
“And it’s not like Arkady can catch something,” I reminded her.
Deftly, she slipped the surgical mask on under the tangerine pashmina that she’d wound around her face. The weather was drizzly and raw, so she wouldn’t look too out of place; neither would I when I kept my hat on all day. Ruefully, I had to admit that the feathers were very warm; if only they didn’t keep poking out.
How good would it feel to let the wind ruffle them?
Stop thinking like that!
“Think they’d mind if we showed up to work in burkas?” I mused. Everything I wore was tight. My wings made it impossible for me to wear my coat, so I donned baggy sweats and plopped on a short cape.
“We will finish this today,” Shar said in a determined voice. “I’m not walking around with a beak. And I think it’s turning orange!”
We reached the House of Romanov, and went in and up with no problems from the security desk. Everyone was similarly bundled up. I was ready. I didn’t care who was there—I was ready to march right down to Arkady’s sanctum and deal with him. No one was going to stop me.
But when we got upstairs, it was deathly silent. There was no one there to stop us.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Well, the runway show’s done. Maybe this is their down time,” Shar rationalized.
“But I know they had to go over the runway show, the reviews, and the orders,” I pointed out.
“Then where are they?”
Slowly, we made our way through the elegantly papered hallways. Only the scuffing of our feet on the plush carpeting could be heard. Everything was open. Lights were on, computers were running, there was even a steaming coffee cup and a brownie with a hasty bite taken out of it on Reynaldo’s desk.
“They’re here. Or they were.” Shar took off her coat, but kept her scarf tied firmly around her lower face. “But where are they now?”
“Let’s check the king cobra’s nest.” I pointed in the direction of Arkady’s office.
The doors at the end of the hallway were shut as usual, and a sliver of bright light cut across the purple carpet. As we got closer, we heard muted voices.
“The meeting today isn’t supposed to start until nine thirty,” said Shar, slipping out the folded schedule we’d printed out previously. I peeked at the paper; nothing was supposed to be going on during this early time slot. Shar looked at me as if she expected an explanation, but all I could do was shrug.
At that moment, Reynaldo burst through the door, slamming it behind him. He bustled down to his office, his hips swinging. He didn’t seem to notice us skulking off to his right.
I cocked my head at Shar and we followed him at a discreet distance.
“Find out what’s going on,” I whispered.
Shar knocked on Reynaldo’s door. He was in the midst of shoving the rest of the brownie into his mouth and nearly choked when he saw us standing there.
“Oh!” He plopped what was left of the brownie back on his plate. “What are you doing here?”
“We work here,” Shar said through her scarf. “Did we miss the meeting?”
“Oh no no!” Reynaldo laughed—no, giggled. Whatever was going on in Arkady’s office had put him in a good mood. I wondered what type of treatment could make him that jocular? I could use some.
Reynaldo shoved some papers into a briefcase then drained his coffee. He put on his coat and grabbed his Euro-bag.
“Where are you going?” Shar demanded. “What about this morning’s meeting?”
“Oh, it’s been canceled. I have to run, chicas!” Reynaldo waved at us and floated away.
Arkady’s door opened and shut again, and then it sounded like Jeremy was on the phone.
“Stay here and see if you can find anything in Reynaldo’s office about what’s going on,” I said excitedly. “I’m going to talk to Jeremy. With Reynaldo gone, that’s one less person we have to deal with. This might be easier than we thought.”
I scurried down the hall, but slowed down as I got near the door to Jeremy’s office. I stopped in front of it and sidled my head around the door frame with trepidation. Jeremy was sitting in front of his computer, his eyes moving back and forth quickly as if he was scanning the screen in front of him. He looks normal. I let out a breath and he looked up. My stomach did flip flops.
Was he still entranced?
A smile spread across his face when he saw me and his eyes softened, but they weren’t glazed over.
“One sec,” he said, tapping a few things into his computer that I couldn’t see. “Oh this so great, Meggo, I think we’re going to actually spend some more time together. Looks like things are going to slow down here—at least for a little bit.”
He remembered me! And he seemed like himself. But I wondered what he meant by slowing down. I didn’t like how that sounded.
I chanced one word. “Why?”
He jumped up and hugged me.
“You’ll never guess what just happened!”
I pulled away slightly, cocked my head at him, and creased my brows.
“Oh, how could you know? Mr. Romanov called an early meeting to let us know that he’ll be doing some traveling. But”—and here his whole face lit up—“I don’t have to go with him. You have no idea how awesome that is!”
Oh, I think I do. You do NOT want to go where he’s going. But what did he mean, Arkady traveling? And when?
I grabbed a paper and pen and wrote where, when, and why?
He leaned in close. “Apparently there’s this really wacky treatment for skin renewal or something like that. They only do it in Europe. Switzerland, I think.” He made a disgusted face. “It’s totally sick. Involves sheep placentas. Anyway, as soon as he heard about it, Mr. Romanov insisted on going.”
Jeremy shut off the computer. “Wait, it gets better. I’m not sure how long he’ll be gone, but from what Demi said, it’ll probably be a while.”
Demeter.
My smile faltered at the mention of her name. I could venture a guess as to where Arkady had heard about this miracle cure for his deep-tissue wrinkles.
“Demi’s going with him, and she’ll escort him home tonight. All I have to do is get them to the airport—they’re flying out tomorrow !”