Chapter 10.

Alright! I put TONS of stuff in this sobrina! hope you and trice like it! LOL.

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10.

“Uhm, Oh Great Zeus, ruler of Olympus… could you let me off?… pretty please with sugar on top?” Jime tried to act humble and sweet but failed miserably, with her legs locked in place she even lost her balance a little bit, but she still held on to Suri with steel force.

Zeus chuckled while running his lewd gaze up and down them. “The little people, how they ask and ask and demand things from me, without giving me the appropriate retribution”

He sighed and mock-cleaned his fingernails.

The withering mass of naked bodies started to detangle themselves and one by one left the room, they acted like sexed-up zombies, spooking Suri and Jime even more.

Zeus was suddenly clothed and sitting on a throne in the middle of the room, gazing intently at the girls. When It was only the three of them left, he said with a thundering voice, “I HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU”.

Jime felts her limbs unlock and she and Suri stumbled a bit, startled, but then righted themselves with all the aplomb they could muster, which wasn’t much.

Figures Zeus would start playing mind games right from the start. That’s how all the greek gods were, thought Jime. “Is that so?” she murmured.

“SILENCE.”

Suri looked at Jime sideways with her it’s all your fault look, Jime responded with her don’t give me attitude now look.

Zeus drank from a glass of wine that suddenly appeared in his hand, doing the whole sommelier bit, taking his sweet time to continue.

“It was brought to my attention some time ago that the two of you were on a quest, looking for a certain something that eludes you at the moment,” He focused on Jime. “YOU want the All-Delivering Potion, do you not?”

Jime was shocked he knew, how did he know? She didn’t exactly tell anyone, did she? The only time she had recollection of  that she might have let it slip was getting drunk on raspberry vodka blood at Jack’s vampire night club… oh God, the Bastard. She bit her lips but eventually capitulated.

“Yes, I do.”

Suri was breathing hard, finally getting an answer to the question she had been wanting to ask since the beginning of this crazy road trip but never had the time to worm out of Jime. The All-Delivering Potion. Now, what the hell was that? And what did Jime want with it?

Zeus was looking pretty smug and full of himself. That spelled trouble. He smiled a half smile at Jime and leered.

“You will have to give me something in return for my help, vampire.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Jime gulped, please, please, anything but sexual favors, please. “I realize that.”

Zeus’ devilish laugh exploded all around them. “You are too easy to read, La Reina.”

Jime’s blood boiled, “If you must use Spanish, please use it correctly, it should be just Reina, not La Reina…”

“First you sass my awesome joke and now you dare correct a GOD’s grammar? You are too much, little one; your saving grace is how easy on the eyes you and your friend are to me, but don’t be mistaken, try my patience one more time and you will regret ever coming to existence.” His eyes flashed with menacing thunderbolt.

After a breath Jime asked, “What will you have us do, Oh Great One?”

“Well, that’s more like it.” He rubbed his chin, “Let’s see… I find myself… a bit bored as of late… I think… YES, I’m in the mood for some entertainment. You will have to perform a series of tasks for me, whilst retrieving the ingredients for the Potion too, of course. When you are finished you will come back to me and we’ll go from there.” He rubbed his hands with glee, “This will be good!”

Now Jime and Suri audibly gulped, their faces paling.

Series of tasks? Suri thought, if he wanted to re-hash his glory days why not go make Hercules re-do his Labours? They were not semi-gods, for crying out loud!.

Jime was sure he was playing some personal card in between somewhere here, the gods were always doing stuff against each other, she was probably going to have to steal something from someone she didn’t want to piss off, she just knew it.

Zeus shuffled in his seat, accommodating himself and concentrating, looking serious. He ceremoniously spread his hands, golden light blinded Jime and Suri for a second, a scroll magically appeared in his palms.

“Ah!, It has been a long time…” He chuckled, “Well little girls, here is the list. Keep it. Own it. Live it.”

Jime walked forward and was given the scroll.

“Now, in the interest of the tasks I command you to do coming to successful fruition, I shall give you a little piece of information. We the Greek Gods, among Others, are still alive and well, living among mortals. Some are even in the spotlight, moonlighting as pop singers and such; someone even came out recently. Now off you go.” He shooed them out, now completely uninterested in them while a new line of women and men started to come into the room.

“Greek gods as pop singers? Who-” Jime murmured then gasped, “Ah! Kylie! Aphrodite!”

“Who?” Suri whispered.

“Kylie Minogue, dear niece, remind me to fiddle with your new Ipod when you get it.”

“I will put a password, and a spell, on it.”

“Party pooper.”

Suri and Jime stepped out, almost power-walking, aiming for the outside, eager to be done with the place. They by-passed the smiling servants, pushed open the doors, jugged down the front steps, blazed by the front gate guardian and ran like bats out of hell all the way to the place where they teleported from. Not even speaking with each other until oceans separated them from Zeus.

*********

“You gave your necklace to the witch? What is wrong with you?” The steam coming out of River’s nose was quickly over-saturating Toren’s room, as it always did.

Toren straightened with reluctant indignation, “I can do whatever the hell I want with my possessions! I AM the boss her-” He was cut off by a female voice floating in the air that could suddenly be heard with the clarity of the sharpest swords.

 Toren! Warlord of the dragon clan. Find me before I find you. If you make me search for you, I’ll wipe out your entire nest in the process.

Jime’s angry words were silently considered by Toren and his right hand. The momentary interruption help River cool off his anger and once again regain his calm exterior. He crossed his arms and leaned on the wall, snarling at Toren, “Huh, at least it’s fortunate that love letter came after Jack Jammer of the Sinn-Jammers came and went, otherwise…” he let that thought trail, not having to explain the consequences.

Toren relaxed on his bed, weighting the pros and cons in his head. It would serve him to have Jack’s alliance be more hands-on now that the werewolf edge was a bust. He was one of the very few that knew if you called on Jack in battle the chances increased in your favor exponentially. Well, the old Jack that is; he didn’t exactly know how it would go with the relatively new, vampire Jack.

He looked at River, knowing how angry his friend got whenever Toren acted like a spoiled Lord; he really had fun making River angry. But right now he had to think, to plan, to carefully strategize his next move, and for that he needed to be alone.

“Alright, my friend, I will rest what I must to recover, don’t be such a sour puss,” He couldn’t help riling River after all, “Go see to the people, they must be spooked by the love letter, as you call it.”

“My Lord.” River bowed and left for the common rooms. After belittling Jime’s message to the people, making it seem like a personal vacuous threat not really intended against the nest he retired to his own room.

River had much to owe to the Dragon Clan, he owed his life. He would die protecting them all in a heart beat. Even though their traditions were considered too old fashioned for today’s world, and even though Toren was trying his hardest to change some of them, to ensure the nest’s survival, River was grateful for the role they had had in his case.

The old ones had accepted him in their mist without a moment’s doubt. If you were a dragon, you belonged. As simple as that.

River had always had problems belonging. It was always like that for people like him, half this and half that. His mother had been a human descendant of Korean dragons, his father an Aztec warrior. Mother had thought mating with Father would not affect her progeny, they would come out like her she thought, but big and strong, like the Aztec warriors; but more importantly she had married her husband for love. Something like that was just not done at the time. She had been cast out and had happily gone to live with her husband’s family in the Central-american jungle.

No one could have foreseen what River had come out as. Sure, he was big and strong like an Aztec warrior, his face was said to be beautifully Korean, almost female-like. Though, turns out the Korean dragon genes mixed with the Aztec genes had made his body actually go back, magically speaking, to a time where the Aztecs were powerful gods and not human at all. He was a new mixture of old. His dragon form was magnificent like the feathered serpent Quetzalcoalt, but his powers were more like Tlaloc. He was all about the water, the earth, and the dead.

Needless to say, he had been feared since childhood. Ostracized or revered, everyone had always had extreme reactions to him. He had learn by force to control his powers and thus himself since infancy. He could even say he hadn’t had an actual infancy, in fact. Such opposites had distanced him from everyone, and eventually his own family.

He had floated adrift aimlessly throughout the world since. Always the foreigner, the odd one out, the new arrival, he had gone to Korea looking for some kind of root, but had found none.

He had then fallen into a downward spiral of depression and jaded despondency he could not climb out of… until he met Toren and the Original Dragon Clan.

The Dragon’s secrecy had become so zealous with the passage of time because of the unrelenting continuous massacre of its people that even their human descendants had thought them extinct.  

An oddity amongst oddities, he was suddenly welcomed with open arms.

There are no words to describe the joy he felt.

Nowadays, he worried about Toren. Sometimes he thought his friend and Lord wasn’t taking seriously the cause. Sometimes he was awed at Toren’s foresight and respected his power and leadership. He hadn’t seen him act so recklessly since they were young ones. He wondered what it was about the witch (and the vampire) that made Toren act like that.

********

 Jack Jammer of the Sinn-Jammers was back at work. He strode like an insanely tall catwalk model through his night club, flirting with the clientele, making sure everyone was having a good time, buying tons of alcohol and the other specialties he had available for the usual creatures of the Lore who frequented. As always, women flocked to him like bees to his white-blond honey.

He put up with it. He wondered for a moment when he had stopped caring about the scene, about having fun , wenching and gambling, fighting, winning, the glory of it all that was due to him and nothing else.

If he was being truthful with himself he could pin-point the exact moment.

The second he set eyes on Jime.

Damn her.

Jack was suddenly impatient to be left alone, he locked himself in his office after demanding his substitute manager to continue taking care of it all and not let anyone bother him. He slumped on his chair and stared at the ceiling.

He had been so sure of everything, ever. What he wanted in life, death and undeath (when the opportunity to become a vampire had crossed his path). He missed the snow of Asgard, the bone-cold wind cracking his face while he skied into battle, never failing to kill his enemies with his bow and arrows. The speed of it all.

The speed. His skis, which he had had transmutated into his car. He will rue the day he ever told Jime his secret, and his old name. Ullr.

To this day he didn’t understand what had gone wrong with Jime and he. She hated him.

He had proposed to her, so sure she would fall to her knees with gratitude, he was so crazy about her, he would have forsaken everything by giving her the honour of his hand… but she had said no. With a straight face she had rejected him like he was nothing. It hurt deeper than he ever had thought possible.

And then she had had the audacity to go on about her undead life like nothing had ever happened. The nerve of that woman!

He would never forgive her, could never… AAHHHH!!!! Jack rubbed his face and stood up. The problem was inaction, he needed to move. He needed to hunt.

He would find her, and then they would have it all out in the open, he could not go on feeling stuck in one place while she moved on. He would make her explain herself. By force if necessary.

In the meantime, he had had fun poking into her business, she had mentioned the All-Delivering Potion in between drunken giggles to one of his bar’s patrons, who in turn had told him the bit of information. Jack had then mentioned it in passing to Zeus, it did concern him, after all it was a greek potion. Jack had no idea why she wanted the thing, but he couldn’t wait to find out.

When he had been informed Jime and her niece Suri had left and the Dragon Warlord Toren had followed he knew he had to keep taps on her. That woman was dangerous. Too bad he hadn’t been at the bar, otherwise he would have followed too.

It didn’t matter, he was sure the dragons would contact him sooner rather than later. And then… watch out Jime, your number will be up.

*********

Suri and Jime found themselves sitting inside Jack the car once again. Breathing with relief.

“All in all, we came out pretty good with our audience with Zeus, right?” Jime tried to be positive.

“Fuck that, we could have ended up like so much space dust and you know it!” Suri, the ever-realist yelled.

“There was nowhere to go but onwards! We couldn’t avoid it.”

“Yes, we could have! By not gone looking for the All-Delivering Potion in the first place!” Suri tried to calm down, “The time has come Tia, be truthful with me, what the hell is it and what do you want with it?”

Jime looked at the scroll in her hands, putting her thoughts together, while Suri waited expectantly for an answer.

“I don’t know what words I can use to express the importance of the following so I’m just gonna go ahead and say it in the simplest way” she breathed, “I want to see the sun again, the potion will make that a reality.”

Suri absorbed that, realizing the unsaid truths behind it. Jime had been falling in one of those mind traps all the old ones fall into, she was obsessed with the sun, all the clues finally fitting in, the wistful looks, the little comments, the freaking sunglasses at night. There was just no way to make her un-obsess with the sun. Suri resigned herself. With a half growl half sigh she relented, “Ok. Fine, you and I against the world it is. So what are the tasks, or ingredients, or whatever says that scroll?”

Jime slowly unrolled the scroll.

Zeus’ Excellent Dodekathlon Adventure!

If you want all your girly wishes come true you must complete the following twelve tasks!

1.      Steal one Golden Apple of the Hesperides (recycled, I know, but it’s gonna be harder this time! They didn’t like them getting stolen that other time!).

2.      Obtain one kilogram of Dragon scales.

3.      Obtain one Feather from each of the following: Phoenix, Hippogriff, and Snake (Yes, this is a 3 in 1, so sue me).

4.      Capture a Kage Inu Yokai.

5.      Obtain one cup of a Cockatrice’s saliva.

6.      Capture the Naga that guards the Ganges River.

7.      Obtain one ball of a Mountain Troll’s hair.

8.      Steal a fairy’s underwear.

9.      Obtain a First Edition of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones hardcover book, signed by the entire cast of the HBO series by the same name (don’t forget the girl that plays Daenerys Targaryen’s signature!).

10.  Harvest an entire corn field in Iowa while wearing bikinis (By yourselves, by hand, no cheating! I’ll be watching!).

11.  Obtain one white hair off of Hera’s head.

12.  Steal one Alien artefact that works out of Area 51 (I got this one out of a cartoon, but it’s still relevant! So DO IT!).

The crickets could be heard all around the still night.

Slowly, Jime and Suri looked at each other and said “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”