Qebhet (coolwaters) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2021-04-09 01:28:00 |
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Qebhet had known something wasn’t right almost from the moment she’d heard Athena’s smooth tones on the other end of the line. Gods died and gods were reborn, and Qebhet did what she could to ease their way, using the cover of her funeral home to liberate their bodies from morgues and unmarked graves. She had done as much for Hecate only a few months ago. But Athena had not been calling about a dead god. She had spoken with surprising empathy, with a concern that Qebhet had thought genuine. Her sister had loved the man, she’d said. Had been recovering from a difficult childbirth when he had arrived at her home acting erratically. He had killed himself, violently, in front of her, leaving her bereft and confused and overcome with agony. Nowhere had Athena said anything about making a body disappear. The death was a tragedy. Her sister wanted to know he would be treated with care and dignity. And discretion. Especially discretion. Athena had not said anything about making a body disappear, but she’d made it plain that the body would be removed one way or another, and the foreboding had stolen over Qebhet like the dark billows of a dust storm. This was more Greek intrigue; she was sure of it. But how could she abandon a dead mortal to rot unmourned? Ronan Murphy was the young man’s name – and he was heartbreakingly young, not yet twenty years of age. There’d been a fight, Athena had explained, before his suicide: that was why they didn’t want to involve the police. She had made it sound like a screaming match. But laying out the body bag beside Ronan, Qebhet saw the dark blood that had soaked through the boy’s jeans, the violent slashes that had ripped through fabric and flesh and tendon. He’d been hamstrung before he’d died. Once again, a terrible unease prickled the back of Qebhet’s neck, a stinging spray of sand carried on an ill wind. Whatever had happened between Ronan and his goddess, it had been far uglier than a lover’s quarrel. Since Ronan himself was not around to ask, once she returned to Harlem with his body, Qebhet delved into the paperwork Athena had emailed through. It offered little – the man’s name was unknown to her and the medical report was entirely a fiction – but when she came to his place of residence, the full force of the storm had slammed into her. She knew that address. She knew that crossroads. She had been there twice, both times recently— Kaden. Oh, merciful stars, Ronan was Kaden’s brother. Kaden lived with two older brothers, she knew. Both were hardened gangbangers, worshippers of Ares. One had manhandled him into a stolen car one dark December day, had pressed a gun into his hand and told him it was time to become a man. The other had seen him take reluctant aim and had fired first, blood on his own soul so that Kaden’s might stay clean. Qebhet had never known their names. Ronan could be either one. She returned to the cool room, drew down the zipper of the body bag and studied the young man’s face with a new horror. He was muscular, fair-skinned, with a buzzed head, more or less what one might expect of a Greek war god’s adherent. Blue eyes, vacant and unfocussed in death. An open, bloody gash where his throat should be. This man had killed Hecate – had either planned the murder or fired the weapon. Some would call his death justice. But Qebhet looked on Ronan’s body and thought of Kaden, thought of a boy who had already known far too much of violence and loss in his fifteen years. Thought of a boy consumed entirely by the war he worshipped, and a boy who would throw himself into war for the people he loved. Qebhet looked on Ronan and she saw only tragedy. Much later, in her apartment, Qebhet gazed at her phone, a thumb hovering over a number she had promised not to call, not without express consent. He might not know. The Greeks had moved swiftly to cover up… whatever had happened to Ronan at their sister’s apartment. Would anyone think to tell him? In the end, she tapped out a brief text: Kaden, are you safe right now? Please call me if you can, it’s urgent. When she hit send, a stylised spinning wheel laboured beside her message for a full minute, before the phone returned an error: Unable to send. Retry? Qebhet’s breath hitched in her throat. It didn’t send the second time, either. Nor the third. The dread settled thick and heavy in Qebhet’s chest. |