The Kid Lich Book 2

The Kid Lich Book 2 8 Will P.

Phone a Friend

Billy and Khonshu had been on the road about five and a half hours when Khonshu suddenly went: "Shit!" It had been silent for the past half hour; the two of them were just getting tired and wanted to kill the music for a bit. "AH! Aw, geez. What man? You scared the hell outta me with that."

"We need to call the others and tell them to change direction." So far the current plan had been for everyone to head north up out of Florida, then Billy and Khonshu were heading west to get to an old friend of Billy's in New Orleans, LA. Artemis, Iris, and Sobek had more nebulous plans to see if they could find some gods in New York City, since a good number of the Greco-Roman pantheon lived there.

"'Kay, I'll call em, hold on." Billy plugged his phone into the car's speakers and called Artemis. She answered fast: "Hey Billy. What's up? Everything good with you guys? We're in the panhandle." "Hey, yeah, we're good, Khonshu mentioned he thinks he has some new directions for you guys."

Khonshu tilted his head up slightly to get his voice closer to the car's microphone in the ceiling above the driver. "Hey, yeah, so how close are you guys to the water?" Apparently Billy and Khonshu were on speakerphone because Iris replied, saying: "Umm, hold on, let me check." A few seconds passed. "Only about an hour south of us, why?"

"I have someone you guys should go visit. She's holed up in a fairly fortified compound in the Amazon Rainforest in northern Brazil." "Oh geez, this sounds hard. Okay, who is it?" Said Iris. "Yeah don't keep us in suspense." Sobek chimed in.

"It's one of yours, Artemis. Fortuna. Goddess of Luck? You know her at all?" Artemis replied: "I mean, I know of her. Never really met her and no idea what she's been doing for the past few centuries." Sobek pitched in again, saying: "Yeah man, I hope you have more information for us than a name and a vague location."

Billy saw that Khonshu looked like he settled and steeled himself to deliver some bad news. "I do... unfortunately. ...So, um, Fortuna is kinda like me, in that she is also an international crime syndicate leader who deals in just about everything the criminal underworld has to offer, except for of course the really despicable stuff: petty revenge murders for hire, human trafficking, that sort of thing."

"Well, I'm glad she's such a stand-up citizen, then." Said Artemis sarcastically. "Yeah. Sorry." Was all Khonshu said. "Sooo, do you know how to get to her then?" Iris asked, interjecting before Artemis could start chewing Khonshu out any further. "I mean, in principle I do."

"Dude! What does that even mean?!" Billy asked exasperatedly. "Well, like, I've been told physical directions using geographic landmarks for spotters and units of time for travel instead of distance, and then of course I only gave those directions to someone else to follow, but in principle, someone could follow those directions again to get to her."

"As dumb as that logic is, it also works for some reason, so spit it out." Billy and Khonshu couldn't see it, but Artemis had begun gripping the steering wheel tighter and gritting her teeth a little bit.

"Righty-o! So--" "What are you, British?" Billy teased Khonshu with a grin. "Ohmygosh who says righty-o?" Said Iris whose contributions then just became giggles for the next few minutes. "Oi, Oi'll be needing to shee yer crime loicense, bruv." Said Sobek, putting on an over-exaggerated British accent and poking fun at the nation's government's tendency to over-regulate what kinds of things needed a license to use or operate and why. If Billy wasn't mistaken, he recalled you needed a TV license over there? But like, why? It's TV? Anyway...

"You're all impossible." "Impossibly good-looking, maybe." Billy said nonchalantly. Billy couldn't see Artemis' eyes widen slightly, before a small smirk crossed her lips and she settled a little more contentedly in her seat. He couldn't see Iris blush either. "Billy, as your best friend I believe it is my solemn duty to inform you of the effect your comment has had upon the ladies--" Sobek began, but then: "No wait! Please don't!" From Iris, who blushed further. "You better not!" From Artemis at the same time as she glared at Sobek in the back seat through the front rearview mirror. "Uh, they liked it. Is all I'm at liberty to say." Said Sobek sheepishly.

Khonshu began snapping "People. People! Focu--" "None of us are people dude." Said Billy. He really was The Precise One, through and through. "OHMYGODS I-DON'T-CARE-CAN-EVERYONE-PLEASE-SHUT-UP-FOR-FIVE-SECONDS." Sobek saw his chance to agitate the Moon God further and began counting out loud: "One, two--" "Sobek! I swear to gods I will slit your jugular with a playing card the next time I see you, this is important!" "Um, okay. Sorry." It was almost quiet before Billy went: "Damn, bruh. He ain't cappin'. For real, for real. Bro is straight angermaxxing right now." Surprising Billy, it was actually Artemis who gave quite laugh at this. Sobek too, and he could hear Iris trying not to but laughing anyways.

The Moon God, to his credit, had closed his eyes, was taking a few deep breaths, and seemed to be mentally counting to ten. Not to his credit, he was driving. "Dude! What the hell are you doing!" Billy said with almost no pauses between the words. "Meditating, wh--" "The road, jackass!" That set everyone off again, laughing way more than the no cap comment.

"Stop, I'm dying! I'm not supposed to be doing that! Ohhhh my gods, I can't." From Iris. "Oh! Oh! I second the motion that Khonshu is a jackass!" This from Artemis. Sobek had been laughing too hard to speak, and was now laughing harder. Big hearty guffaws pushed out by his diaphragm, gasping for a breath or two between them. After one long finale inhale, he crossed into laughing-so-hard-no-sound-was-coming-out territory, just that weird little wheeze while he waved his hands in the air back and forth to vaguely signal guys, stop, I'm dying over here.

Meanwhile, Khonshu had his hands at ten and two on the wheel and was scrunched forward with his shoulders near his ears. He was grimacing in a manner reminiscent of Ebeneezer Scrooge. "Okay, Okay, as fun as this has been, lets get you guys your directions and get off this call. Khonshu and I will be out of cell tower range soon, we're somewhere in Southwest Georgia, there's hardly any signs of civilization. In fact, monsters love this much dense forest..." Billy trailed off.

Iris, who had seen Billy do this the most often, said with a good deal of concern in her voice: "Billy, hey, listen to me. Don't catastrophize for me, okay?" "Huh? Oh, right. Thanks. Sorry." "It's fine, babe." It had just slipped out. Sobek's eyes went wide, then began darting between the two women in front of him. All Artemis said to express any annoyance at the slip-up was "Okay, we got one grumpy Moon God and one close to joining him. Let's all just calm down, focus, let Khonshu give the directions, and we can all back to our solo car ride chilling activities. Alright?" "Okay, okay, yeah, you're right." Said Iris, nodding a few times. "Thank you! Someone buy her a beer for me." Said Khonshu with some genuine gratitude in his voice. "Uh, pass." Was all Artemis said.

"Alright, Khonshu, what are they doing?" Billy prompted. "Alright, so while raiding an extremely well-manned and fortified crime compound in the middle of the jungle probably isn't the most fun mission for y'all, a good portion of getting there should be pretty damn cool." Their car's microphone barely picked up Sobek in the backseat chanting under his breath: "Pleasesayyacht. Pleasesayyacht. Pleasesayyacht." Artemis and Iris had heard him, and we're now looking at each other grinning. "Ohhh I think he's gunna say it!" Said Iris. "He is! For sure!" Said Artemis.

"Well, as you may have already guessed, at least y'all can travel in style on my luxury yacht." Many whoops and shouts of affirmations from the other car. "Although, once you actually get to the Amazon you'll have to use the smaller speedboat to head up the river for about three hours at twenty-five miles per hour, then you'll see two thick trees that kind of look like football goal posts, you wanna walk through them, then after that start counting your walking for thirty minutes, then just stand around until Fortuna sends someone out to collect you. Got it?" He'd tilted his chin down a little bit, raised his eyebrows, and was pointedly looking at the car's microphone. "Yeah, I got it all! Wrote it down!" This from Sobek, in their back seat. "Kay, she'll make you burn that, but assuming she doesn't become hostile she'll send y'all an escort to get back to your speedboat and guide you up the river."

"Is there anything else we should know about her?" Artemis asked. "Yeah, so, uh, basically when you are around her everything will always go her way." Said Khonshu cryptically. "Huh? What does that mean, though?" This from Iris. "I think he means like things that are up to chance." Sobek added. "Yes, you've got the right idea Sobek. If y'all get in a fight with her and try to throw something at her it's going to ricochet in the most bat-shit crazy impossible way you could ever possibly imagine and hit you instead. Weird stuff like that. It's hard to describe; but you'll know it when we you see it." Khonshu finished.

"Alright. Thanks, inferior moon deity!" "Hey--!" Artemis had hung up before Khonshu could argue. End of Pt. 8