Improbable Cause (An S4J Bonus Story)

Chapter VI

It wasn't really a fall. One moment Hermes was in a boat. The next he was in a small iron cage clearly made for someone or something much smaller than him. It was as though reality had simply changed its mind and left Hermes, unwilling, to figure out the rest.

There was a lot to figure out. Though the cage was small, the iron gleamed from top to bottom, like it was either unused or meticulously maintained. Hermes sat down to keep from hunching over, peering through its bars. The room around him was dim, lit only by gas lamps lining the ivy-covered stone walls. And though it was dim, it was as decadent as a sixteenth century castle. The cage faced an open sitting room like an exhibition in a museum, and from within it Hermes stared back at claw-footed couches the color of rubies, high back chairs that were more like mountain back chairs, a flickering and hungry hearth against the far wall. Brimming bookcases pressed in from either side. It was cozy and close and smelled of autumn—cinnamon, sage. More faintly, wet dog. If he were not so disoriented by it all, and if not for the cage thing, Hermes would actually feel pretty relaxed.

Hermes realized Conny was nowhere to be seen. Hermes was not relaxed.

The second this dawned on him, he jumped as a jumble of bays and howls and general canine caterwauling sounded from somewhere in the distance, like he was in a Victorian animal shelter of some sort. Then the bookcase to Hermes's right began to swivel into the wall.

When it turned all the way around, it produced a beautiful woman. No, Hermes knew his own. She was a goddess. Hermes vaguely recognized her; something about the deep burgundy curls tumbling to her waist and the dark eyes slumping under even darker eyeshadow was familiar to him, like he'd seen her before in a photo. Her skin was deep russet and there was a shimmer of glitter down her cheeks in an ostensible imitation of tears. The gloriously fluffy mink coat around her shoulders both blended her with the garishness of this strange place, and was a mismatch to its cloying warmth.

Hermes looked at her expectantly. The goddess returned her gaze with a lot less expectance and a lot more boredom. "Oh. Hermes. You made it."

"I'm sorry," Hermes began, "but you really caught me at a bad time. My boyfriend and I were working on something and it'd be really inconvenient for me to just disappear. This is lovely, but can we talk later?"

The goddess sighed. As she moved towards him, the clack of her heeled boots echoed off the dense walls. Producing a cigarette from somewhere in the nebulous mink coat, she asked, "You really don't know who I am?"

Hermes exhaled in exhaustion and looked closer. He heard the dogs yelling again, and finally the lightbulb turned on. The Goddess of Magic, Sorcery, Necromancy and a lot of other vaguely unpleasant things—she technically worked with Hades, though from what Hermes knew, they weren't the best business partners. "Hecate?"

Hecate smiled ghoulishly, but her voice was flat, her amusement begrudging. "Oh, good boy."

Hermes grimaced. "You can't blame me for the delayed reaction. Your hermitness puts even Hephaestus to shame, you know."

"I'm not a hermit." Hecate blew cigarette smoke through the bars and right into his face. "I just have priorities, and they are not other gods."

Fair enough. A lot of Hermes's problems came from dealing with other gods, especially if other gods were his father. "What am I doing here?" Hermes asked. "Where's Conny?"

"Conny?" Hecate repeated, shifting her weight to her hip and placing her free hand on it. "Oh. Is that the little blond demon?"

Despite the situation, Hermes smiled to himself. He couldn't help imagining Conny's reaction to that description. "That's him."