Sterling was human once, too, but the vampiric transformation probably changed his biology in a way that wouldn’t make him very palatable to carnivorous beasts, mimics included. Part of the reason why zombies don’t eat other zombies, for example. Plus he wasn’t exactly going to be a permanent fixture in Artemis’s domicile. He sure was good at making it seem otherwise, though.
Hanging from trees spaced evenly apart were three hammocks. Artemis clambered onto hers after she finished her inspection of the mimic, sighing as she sank into the netting. And there they swung happily in the breeze, side by side, Artemis, Priscilla, and Sterling. Priscilla had on a pair of oversized sunglasses, her lips working busily on a straw connected to a massive and extremely fruity cocktail. A coconut shell was balanced on Sterling’s stomach, the skin of his bare torso as pale as the coconut’s meaty flesh.
Florian had gone on a date with the Hand who healed him, someone named Becky, I think. He was apprehensive, at first, but Artemis and I rooted him on. “Just don’t be weird” was the best advice the goddess of the hunt and I gave him, an ancient deity and a single-from-birth nephilim, the both of us clearly qualified relationship experts.
He went happily in the end, excited as a puppy as he slicked his hair back and stepped out of the portal from Artemis’s home. Scratch that, from our home. He told me that he’d realized how both he and Beatrice had things to figure out about themselves. Maybe it was best if they tried to stay friends, at least for the moment.
It was weird, seeing him vacillate so wildly between being a consummate flirt and a blushing teenager, but I was coming to accept that about Florian. He was steadfast and dependable, like an old oak with its roots set deep in the ground, but somehow still temperamental, changing like the seasons. Too sappy and poetic? Probably. I blamed Raziel. It was all his influence.
Raz actually did decide to show up to come and see me, shortly after we returned to the domicile. He even brought Artemis those offerings she wanted. Where Raziel found the money or learned the modern social interactions necessary to buy fifteen jumbo packs of Snacky Yum-Yums from a supermarket, I’ll never know. He dumped them sheepishly at Artemis’s feet when he appeared – this time, through the front door.
As the three musketeers swung languidly under the sun in their hammocks, Raziel spent his time poking and prodding at my skin, examining my sigils, running his finger across my collarbone, humming curiously the whole time. We’d put down a woven mat like a picnic blanket so I could hang out in the sun and get some fresh air. Don’t get me wrong, I felt mostly okay, but summoning that stupid cannon had taken a lot out of me.
“Ouch.” I slapped at Raziel’s hand when he started digging the end of his fingernail at a spot just under my throat. “Hey, quit that.”
“Sorry.” He retrieved his hands, examining the tip of his finger. “I had to make sure it was one of your glyphs, and not just a smudge of dirt.”
I scratched at my forearm, sulking. “I’m really not as filthy as everyone makes me out to be.”
Raziel sniffled. “That is debatable. Now tell me again how it happened.”
I rolled my eyes, leaning back on the mat on my elbows, very much aware of how my weight against its woven surface was printing textures into my skin. “I closed my eyes, and I imagined this long, tubular thing, okay? As best as I could reconstruct it in my mind from whatever I’d seen in books and movies. Then I opened my eyes, and wham! There it was. I wish I could tell you if I called it out from the Vestments or somehow made it on my own.”
The smile that spread across Raziel’s face crept slowly, turning into something that made him look very much like a proud parent, or a teacher who knew that they’d done the right thing. “Mason? You’ll be quite pleased and alarmed to know that the armories upstairs do not, in fact, have stocks of cannons and cannonballs.”
My breath left my lips in a gust of warm wind. “You’re joking. Do you mean that I – the thing and the ammo, I did all that?”
Raziel nodded so quickly that his hair started bouncing in time with the rhythm. “Precisely. You created them. And this could really only be the beginning.”
“Holy shit.” I clambered onto my knees. “Could you even imagine all of the things I could – ” But I faltered, stumbling forward, barely catching myself as I planted my palms onto the mat. This creatio ex nihilo business had sucked away more of my strength than I thought. I grunted as Raziel helped me back down. “I’m fine. It’s okay. I just – need to rest. I think.”
“That would be prudent.”
The little cube of jelly wriggled up to me then, snuggling up against my legs. “I think I’ll call him Box,” I said. Raziel blinked at me, his eyes dimming with confusion and maybe a little disappointment. “Fine, I’m not creative, don’t look at me like that.”
“But,” he protested. “Creativity is in your nature. Creatio ex nihilo.”
“Shut up, Raz. Just – please. Let me enjoy this.” I patted Box along the top of his surface. Head? Whatever. He quivered slightly, which I took as a sign that meant he was okay with being petted.
Raziel sighed, then handed me another coconut shell. “Anyway, drink up, eat up, whatever it takes to regain your strength. And it’s exactly as you said. Imagine the things you could do, Mason. Granted, the cannon didn’t even last a minute in existence, but with time, with practice? Who knows what wonders you’ll manifest?”
Sterling groaned, then ripped the sunglasses off his face, glaring at the two of us. “Well, can he manifest a muzzle for you? Angel of mysteries, my ass. More like angel of never shutting the hell up, if you ask me.”
Raziel pressed his lips together, too good and pious to fire back with an insult, but he shook his head
when Sterling turned away, then bent in to whisper to me. “How is he staying alive?” Raziel pointed up at the sky. “With all this, you know.”
“Artificial sun. Artemis’s specialty.” I pressed my hands against either side of my mouth. “Yo, Sterling. How long are you gonna bake over there with your shirt off? Are you trying to get a tan?”
I laughed as I dodged the coconut he threw directly at my head. It hit the ground and splashed its leftover juices onto a quickly darkening spot on the earth. Priscilla shook her head disapprovingly, but kept on sucking down her glorious cocktail.
“Kiss my entire ass, Mason.” He leaned back into his hammock, slipping his sunglasses back on. “Just sunning myself.”
Like a cat, I thought, conniving, and snippy, but so sporadically affectionate. If there was something to be said for Sterling, it was his loyalty, to his friends and his chosen family. That much could never be denied.
And despite all my whining about Raziel and his celestial spontaneity, I had to admit, the guy was teaching me more than a couple of new tricks. He might have been awkward, really just learning the ropes when it came to human contact, but his heart was in the right place. I couldn’t begrudge him for trying.
“Everyone just shut up and let me nap.” Artemis snapped on her bikini in irritation, twanging it like she would a bowstring. The gesture was somehow very successful in making me nervous, in various ways. “I said you could all come over and hang out, but I didn’t invite you to – to my. Hmm.” She sat up, pulling off her sunglasses. “This place needs a name.”