We Faced a Goddess

The rest of that week was a breeze. I wasn’t completely okay, but Erik and Keres had my back. Saturday morning, we all felt the panic. We had all spent the night at Keres’ and we woke up to a note on the front door. It was all in Greek so Keres had to read it.

“‘Nicolau’,” Keres read from the letter, “‘by November first I will finish what I started. Enjoy your daughter while she’s here. See you soon.’ There’s no signature.”

“It’s gotta be from Nemesis.” I chimed in. “Who else would do this?”

“We need to prep big time.” Erik said. You could hear absolute panic in his voice. “We are going up against a goddess who has already killed Keres’ mother and is planning on killing her next. Shouldn’t we warn Ambrus?”

“Well he already knows she’s coming.” Keres said flatly. “Might as well tell him this.” We all made our way upstairs and Keres knocked on her father’s door. He answered. Ambrus was dressed but his hair was a wreck and he was scruffy.

“Are you guys okay?” Ambrus asked confused.

“We’re fine. For now.” Keres answered.

“We have a note from who we think is Nemesis.” I explained. “It isn’t good.”

“She’s going to try to kill me.” Keres blurted out.

“But she won’t” I stated.

“We just need to be extremely careful at this Halloween thing.” Erik chimed in. “Even if we somehow beat her, how will we know she won’t do anything else?”

“We can’t be sure.” Keres said in realization… “We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get there.”

“I think it’s time I told you all something very important. It’s probably something I should have told you when I heard about Firline’s warning but better late than never.” We all went to the living room and sat to listen to Ambrus’ story. “So, after I left home when I was young, I found a library to work at and I started discovering my family’s background and found out I actually am Greek so I started worshipping Greek gods and goddesses. It felt natural for me. I saved up and went to Greece where I met a very interesting woman.

“She and I went on a few dates. Then I found out who she was… Nemesis. Dating a goddess didn’t scare me at all. It was interesting in fact. However, I found she was very, well, rude. If anyone seemed ‘too happy’ she’d bring them awful luck. I couldn’t stand for it. She may have been a goddess, but she wasn’t my goddess. I left her and came home. Weeks later I met Chantale.”

“You left a goddess?!” I yelled. “A ‘rude’ goddess that gave people bad luck for little things like being too happy?!”

“Just a quick question,” Keres started. “Why the hell did I never know about this? I almost died as a kid dad! I blamed myself for getting mom sick for years! When were you going to tell me this?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.” Ambrus said quietly. Keres started hyperventilating. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this furious. Erik took her hand.

“I’ll help her.” Erik said. He led Keres to her room to help calm her down.

“Well, this has been the weirdest thing I’ve heard since I’ve been here and I was told I can see the future.” I said trying to crack the awkward atmosphere. It didn’t really work. “This is kind of heavy though. Your ex-girlfriend, the goddess, killed your wife and wants to kill your daughter. How does someone screw up their life this much, Ambrus?”

“I thought it would be over after Chantale okay.” Ambrus admitted. “I’m going to protect my daughter.”

“So am I.” I said. I made my way up to Keres room to check on her.

“I’ll be right back,” Erik said as he passed me in the doorway to Keres’ room.

“Can I tell you something?” Keres asked. “Like sense we’re kind of together but not really?”

“Go ahead.”

“I think I like Erik,” she said.

“Join the club, boo.” I laughed.

“You too?”

“He’s like an adorable puppy okay.”

“What do we do about it?” She asked me. I sat on the bed with her.

“Well, there is polyamory.” I said. “That’s if he’s interested.”

“Oh, he’s interested.” Erik said from the door.

“Saw that coming.” Keres laughed. Erik joined us on the bed. “So, the three of us. The three weirdest kids in town all in a relationship together. One of which has only been known for what a week? I’ve never had one romantic relationship let alone this.”

“Just act normal.” Erik said. “If you act weird in a relationship it won’t last. And I mean weird as in not yourself. All of us are weird.” We all laughed. “Funny how we’re laughing to avoid the fact we’re all screaming inside.” Erik finished. Keres and I nodded in agreement.

The rest of that weekend and that week was basically spent with us three trying to plan for what was coming. We couldn’t fully plan because we didn’t know how to ward off a goddess so when I say we were “planning” I mean we were distracting each other from what we were about to face. It was nice to know I had two people to walk through hell with.