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REYNA
Reyna couldn’t figure out what she was doing wrong.
For weeks, it had been Jason offering her kind words and advice, mentoring her. Like any good Centurion should when you were a Legionnaire. He’d showed her New Rome, complimented her craft, made a few choice comments on her resourcefulness.
Okay, more than a few. She thought as she walked along the railing where the vessel was docked and eyed the steel door a dozen meters down the sidewalk.
The light of dusk made the whole craft’s lead-and-steel skin shine oily black. Beautiful, in the way a sword was beautiful. The bronze plaque on the podium told the story of the ship. She only cared about the name and call-sign.
C.S.S. Hunley.
The daughter of Bellona could sense it in her gut. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of Imperial Gold in the form of torpedoes in the lower decks.
Now how to get to it?
A thought had been standing right behind it, which now filed through her head.
And how to get that thing to leave me and Jason alone?
Aurum and Argentum paced circles around her like she was a born leader. A Praetor-in-waiting. Not a little girl from San Juan who’d grown up in Hell, metaphorically speaking, and ran to C.C’s and from there to a dive in Cali and at the advice of a young Legionnaire by the name of Jason…ran from there to the Wolf House.
Aurum. Ha. She laughed softly to herself. Naming the dog after the Latin word for gold was just about the closest she could get to naming it ‘Goldie’ without raising eyebrows…more than she already did.
She kept her hands poised over her twin bronze blades. Jason was the planner. The Centurion leading this two-person quest.
Now that she had to make a plan of her own…
…she found herself drawing a blank.
You can go without your Centurion for five minutes. You owe it to him! She argued with herself.
The words ‘owe it to him’ only reminded her more of something Jason had said, but…one crisis at a time!
Her plan would be simple and straight to the point, like she was.
Go through the front door, and figure it out from there.
She walked up the sidewalk, hopped over the little fence they put up to keep out tourists, and crossed the bridge the maintenance crews used. She approached the door slowly.
Heavy. The metal was covered in grime and a hundred years of lead-based paint that definitely was not increasing her lifespan each time she inhaled the fumes.
Probably assuming that nobody was stupid and/or crazy enough to try to open it, the maintenance crew had apparently left the door unlocked. Fortunately, estúpido and louco had been the two candidates for her middle name before Avila had broken the narrow tie.
Not that Jason judged her for that. When she’d defied a direct order from him to join his quest to Sonoma for Bacchus’ leopard, after some negotiation, he’d dueled her sword to sword for her respect. When he’d won the duel, her swords straightened out of their old curves into proper gladii from the force of that final strike, he’d simply offered her a hand and pulled her up without a word against her.
”Have I earned your respect, Legionnaire?” He’d asked, like he wasn’t sure.
Not one word spoken on how absurdly reckless it was to assume you could take a lightning bolt point-blank and come out without heavy injury.
Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter, had seen her at nearly every lowest point…and never breathed a word of judgement. Only help. Only support. Only correction.
To a little girl from San Juan who had grown up in Hell, metaphorically speaking, that was about as close to an angel from on high as you got. He even flew like an angel.
Now the angel was hiding things from her, and she had no idea what to do.
Aurum barked at her, jolting her out of her thoughts and reminding them they were here on a mission, scratching his bronze paw against the metal door of the ship.
“I know, calm yourself, Aurum.” She ordered, and the metal dog quieted down as she pushed the door open and stepped into the lower deck it guarded.
The whole interior smelled of rust, dried blood, and pure dread. Not good.
She stepped through the door, and tried her best to ’figure it out from there’. Her head hit the iron ceiling of the corridor. She’d forgotten that this ship was built at a time when the average male height was 160 centimeters.
It was dark. Very dark. The interior lighting of the vessel had been kerosene lamps. The kerosene had probably ran out before the plaque she’d seen earlier had even been commisioned.
That was probably why the first sound she made in the darkness was a loud CLANG! as the shoulder of her Legionnaire gear nicked the doorframe.
“Well, if they didn’t know I was coming before, they certainly do now.”
She kept moving. Her eyes flitted back and forth between passageways, doors and dead men. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, Jason knew a LOT about boats. Making her way towards the ship’s armory was easy as long as her legs would cooperate.
Her legs weren’t cooperating. They were shaking. Not by much, but shaking. A deep breath in, a deep breath out.
Her eyes flitted back and forth, looking for ghouls in the non-existent light. Maybe San Bernardino hadn’t changed Jason, but it had definitely changed her. She hated confined spaces now. Anything that reminded her of that cave made her heart do laps in her chest.
She steeled herself, closing her eyes, trying to pay attention to those enhanced senses that had saved her life so many times before. Right as her ears focused on the small sounds of the ocean waves rocking the boat back and forth—
“Daughter of Bellona.” A voice boomed, and for a second she couldn’t tell if it was in her head or coming from the ship.
She screamed like a little girl, which Jason definitely had heard. The volume had landed in her ears jagged and rough.
180 degrees anti-clockwise. Unsheathe. Defensive stance.
What stared at her… was a man so beautiful she nearly dropped her blades.
He was around 170 centimeters, with short and curly hair that switched between blonde and oily black. His face was rugged, marked with scars as piercing blue eyes stared back at her. He was lean and fit. His muscles weren’t obvious, but she knew in her gut that he could be dangerous if he needed to be.
Her lips could only form one unspoken word.
Wow.
Then the thought glided across her mind.
This guy is straight off the cover of the romance novels on my bedside table.
“I figured this form would put you at ease.” He said, with a voice that made her melt just a tiny bit.
She found herself nodding without thinking much about it.
“I am Venus.” He said, and for a few seconds, those words just washed over her as she nodded along.
He’s fine. He can’t possibly be a threat— wait.
She reached into the tide of her mind and grabbed the thought to look more closely.
Charmspeak. She thought, then corrected herself. Not just Charmspeak. The strongest Charmspeak I’ve ever seen!
“You…are Venus? But you’re…” She sputtered, oddly unable to form coherent words. One part of her hated being told what to do, the other appreciating this man—confident, attractive, her heart racing.
“I suppose you would see me as a male.” He said, smiling subtly.
See you as a—oh. She realized.
“Even my eyes are being Charmspoken.”
He…or maybe the better word was they…laughed softly. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, daughter of Bellona. If I am beauty, then I appear to every mortal and demigod differently.”
Why am…here, again? Something about a ghost?
The thought hit her like a whip cracking.
Mission. Right. That thing I’m supposed to be doing right now instead of gawking at the goddess of love. She reminded herself.
“What do you want, Venus?” She demanded, stepping back and raising her blades.
Venus sighed, laying back against the wall.
Or is that Venus? She thought, her fingers tightening on the hilts. Any ghoul or mania can make themselves look like—
The thought hit her.
The cover. It imitated the cover!
“I want to warn you that you are—” It said, but Reyna was too fast.
In a fraction of a second, she unsheathed her blade and swung hard and fast. Right for the chest. Even if she missed, she’d still do a lot of damage.
If it’s a monster, it’ll kill it. If it’s a goddess, it won’t do anything. She justified to herself.
“—oh for the love of—” It sputtered.
Venus caught the blade mid-strike, and held it between their fingers. “Your…attitude…is that of your mother. Honorable, but presently only interfering.”
Solid. They are solid. Not a mania. Just a very annoyed goddess.
She was tempted to try her left blade, just in case it was another illusion, but knew it was a fool’s errand. She fought to suppress the part of her that screamed That’s why they sent a fool!. She took back both, and re-sheathed them.
“Yes, I know a thing or two about somebody only interfering.” She muttered.
“…you are going about this pursuit the wrong way.” They said. She could sense…something like pain in their voice. Her heart ached to relieve it, but she caught herself mid-thought.
GET IT TOGETHER ARELLANO!
“The wrong way, huh?” She asked, trying for a smirk, but it wouldn’t take.
Because she realized in her gut that she knew exactly what they were talking about.
The average 15 year old isn’t reading romance novels to understand the appeal, but…surely it’s not that bad…
They nodded.
“Love is not a test, Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. You don’t score full marks on intimacy. It’s an emotion, it’s mutual desire. I fear that…well, you have wolves, perhaps this metaphor will be apt…you are attempting to Pavlov yourself into enjoying what you simply don’t care for.” He said.
Pavlov. The study where they gave dogs food and rung a bell until they enjoyed the bell just as much as the food.
“I…I am not ‘Pavlov’-ing myself into anything!” She argued, putting that p-word into air quotes. “I’m a Roman! We study what we don’t understand until we master it. Then, once we have it down to a science, we hone it to perfection. That’s not the same thing!”
They sighed again, and the sound crushed her.
“What does ‘honing it to perfection’ mean in this context, Legionnaire?” They asked.
Reyna paused. She hadn’t thought about it that way before.
“Before you decide to romantically pursue the son of the Lord of the Sky, think it through. What are your reasons? Is this genuine romantic attraction? Dare I say, lust? Or…” They said, an image shifting in the back of those blue eyes like a flame, “…are you pursuing this because you despise being left alone with the demons you buried in Puerto Rico?”
She stiffened like she was being held at sword point.
“Vengeance, anger, guilt. They are subtle. Yet if you let them control you, they will take you where you do not want to go. Give into them long enough, and they will rule you. And once they rule you, you will find yourself on the other side of the Imperial Gold…no discharge required.”
The other side of the Imperial Gold. No discharge required.
The image of her father winning the war overseas only to lose to the bottle at home, remembering the way she’d had to put him down in his anger with that blade…
She shuddered despite herself.
That isn’t…I’m not…I’m not using romance as a new kind of rum…am I?
She thought about it, and hated Venus with every fiber of her being because she knew, in her gut…
…that she could not answer, with certainty, no.
“No demigod will heal your heart, daughter of Bellona. You will not find love where you wish or hope. The life you seek waits for you, but only in moments like this where you are content in being alone.” They said.
The goddess of love is accusing me of using love as a drug. That’s rich.
Then the daughter of Bellona paused.
Anger is a subtle poison. She realized. Maybe…I do have some demons left to conquer.
Then corrected herself.
No, I do have demons. Old ones. Fierce ones. And if I can’t conquer them…
Her fingers shook so badly she nearly dropped her gladii as she looked at Aurum and Argentum.
Somebody is going to have to put the wolf down.