Green Tea and Black Death (The Godhunter, Book 5) (3 page)

   “
Does your father exert enough control over you, that he could stop you from seeing Vervain?” Odin was trying very hard to be diplomatic and, surprise of all surprises, kind. “Could he stop you from loving her?”

  
Trevor roared in response. Hugin and Munin, Odin’s ravens, squawked and flapped. Geri and Freki, his huge white wolves, just added their howling to Trevor’s music, like it was some great game. I shook my head at the fracas as Odin tried to calm everyone, especially my wolf.

   “
I don’t want him as one of her lovers either,” he sent the wolves a look and they quieted… then they moved over to sit at my feet. “Traitors,” he sent them a scowl before smiling resignedly, “but who could fault you. I’d rather sit at her feet too.”

   “
Could we please focus here?” Trevor’s jaw was clenching and unclenching, making me concerned for his molars.

   “
Do you think I really want to share her with my
son
?” Odin suddenly looked exhausted. “I’ve no idea what to do. On one hand, like my wolves, I can’t blame him and for me to try to counsel him to forget her, is hypocritical. On the other hand, the thought of them together makes my blood boil and frankly, makes me want to vomit.” He sighed and looked over at me. “Either way, he’s my son and I love him. I don’t want him to suffer needlessly.”

   “
So do something,” Trevor sounded like he was about to burst a blood vessel.

   “
What would you have me do?” Odin looked like he had Trevor’s blood vessels on his mind too and he wouldn’t mind, in the least, helping the bursting along.

   “
Talk to him,” Trevor raged. “Tell him he’s being an asshole!”

   “
Trevor,” I stood and the wolves got up to follow me. “I think what Odin is trying to say, is that this is a complicated situation and it needs to be handled delicately.”

   “
Delicately?” Trevor turned to face me. “What the fuck does that mean? Are we supposed to baby him because he has a broken heart? He’s a god, for god’s sake. He needs to grow up and be a man!”

  
I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.

   “
What, may I ask, is so funny?” Trevor’s mood had not improved with mine.

   “
A god for
god’s
sake?” I giggled a little more. “He needs to be a man? I don’t think human expressions work well here.”

   “
Vervain,” Trevor growled, “this is serious.”

   “
Is it?” I looked over at Kirill and Vidar, so alike in coloring but so different in appearance, then over at Odin. “Cause it’s feeling pretty ridiculous right now.”

   “
Vervain,” Trevor’s eyes were beginning to glow.

   “
No. Enough, Trevor,” I waved my hand in disgust. “I let you drag me over here and disturb Odin. I let you rant and rage. I’ve had enough. You shout that Thor should grow up, while you throw a temper tantrum.
You
need to
grow up. The adults have important things to do like, oh I don’t know, stop a plague goddess.”

   “
So now I’m behaving like a child?” He totally bypassed the key message, big surprise there.

   “
VѐulfR!” Now, I was getting mad. Trevor quieted instantly at the sound of his given name. “I don't want to be with Thor, okay? You guys are going on and on as if what I want isn't the issue here but it is. What I want is the only thing that should matter because if I don't want Thor, he will never be my lover again, no matter what the rest of you want. Now, have you heard of the Black Plague of 1900?”

   “
The one that hit San Francisco?” He frowned, losing his anger to confusion.

   “
No,” I swallowed hard as old black and white photos flashed through my mind. “The one that hit Hawaii. Chinatown, to be exact.”

   “
The plague came to Hawaii?” He sat down hard, next to Kirill.

   “
You don’t remember that?” Odin’s tone was pure shock. “They were burning the bodies at the Iron Works.”

   “
They burned down Chinatown,” I added quietly. “It was pretty much martial law, although that wasn’t technically declared. There were over three-hundred deaths recorded but that number must be sorely inaccurate because the Chinese, who wanted their bodies sent home to China for burial, began hiding the corpses of their loved ones, to save them from cremation.”

   “
That’s horrible but what does it have to do with us?” Trevor was an amazing wolf but sometimes he was a little slow on the uptake.

   “
Who do you think started the plague?” I shook my head and resumed my seat across from him. “Who do you think brought it to Hawaii… to
Chinatown
?”

   “
Oh,” his face fell.

   “
Chinatown may not be the slum it once was but it’s still not the cleanest of places,” I rubbed a hand over my tired eyes. “I’m sure there are more than enough rats to carry the plague far and wide. Do you have any idea what an outbreak of bubonic plague would do to Hawaii? The Chinese never recovered, they’re now only 5% of the population there.”

  “
Doesn’t government take precautions?” Kirill’s face was suddenly more solemn and his face was normally pretty solemn to begin with.

   “
They still test the rats down at the waterfront every so often but the rat population is the highest it’s been in 30 years,” I had no idea that my men didn’t truly understand the ramifications of this particular goddess running amok on my island.

   “
But there’s vaccines now,” Trevor wasn’t going to give in easily. “There are antibiotics and ways to control disease.”

   “
True,” I wanted badly to take comfort in that but those old pictures kept popping up in my head. Scared people held back behind a line of armed military men, burning buildings sparking off to level the city, and then the worst, the only picture of a plague victim taken. It was an extremely painful, ugly way to die. “But bacteria have been mutating, finding a resistance to medicine. They say life will always find a way. What people don’t realize, is that death is just as tenacious.”

   “
I think she’s right,” Odin grimaced. “Xi Wangmu wouldn’t be haunting Chinatown if she didn’t think she had a chance of wrecking some havoc.”

   “
So now we come to the reason why I let Trevor drag us all over here to disturb you,” I looked away from Trevor’s astonishment, to Odin’s curiosity. “I need to borrow your library.”

   “
Of course,” Odin stood and made a gesture to indicate I should precede him. “What are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

   “
I need to know how to stop a plague goddess,” I smiled grimly.

   “
Oh, that’s easy,” Odin smiled back but his smile was more on the vicious side. “You kill her.”

Chapter Five

   “
Do I even want to know?” Krystal picked up a horrendous peek-a-boo, black, strappy dress and glared at it. But she wasn’t talking about the dress.

  “
No, you don’t,” I continued our conversation about what I’d been up to lately. “It involves Chinatown and rats.” Okay, that was a bit misleading but I didn’t want to scare the shit out of her. “Just stay out of Chinatown for the next… well, until I tell you its safe.”

  
Krystal was an Interior Designer who bought a lot of my paintings for her clientele. We'd become good friends when we discovered that we were both witches. Because of her witch status, I'd finally told her about my situation and, to my utter amazement, she hadn't laughed. Or called the looney bin to come pick up their missing patient. The friendship had only gotten stronger after that.

   “
Rats?” She scrunched up her nose. “No problem, I hate rats. You know I'm a cat lover.”

   “
Good. Brilliant,” I got in line behind a lady who looked liked she should be shopping at Chanel instead of Nordstrom Rack.

  
My cart was full of shoes, clothing, and underwear. Dating a werewolf and a werelion could be hard on the wardrobe, so Trevor had handed me a bunch of cash that morning and told me to go crazy. You don’t have to tell me something like that twice.

  
Even though I’m the bad-ass Godhunter -insert laughter here- I’m still a woman, and I enjoy being female. So the clothes were classy but very feminine, with only one pair of jeans in the bunch, and they were designer. My small bit of Japanese blood likes good quality; it’s just the rest of me doesn’t like paying a lot for it. Thus, I shop at Nordstrom Rack.

  
We were nearing the counter, Krystal pushing her own heavily laden cart, when a flash of gold caught my eye. I looked up to see Anubis walk in the double doors, like a king strutting to his throne. Women gasped, men shuffled uncomfortably, and children started asking their mothers if they could go get an autograph.

  
I just groaned.

   “
Whoa,” Krystal, it seemed, wasn’t immune to Anubis' charms either. “Do you think they’re filming a movie around here? Oh, or maybe he's some kind of foreign royalty.”

  “
Neither,” I shifted and tried to pretend I didn’t notice his entrance, “that’s Anubis.”

   “
Anubis?” Krystal was still adjusting to the fact that I battled gods as a hobby… and occasionally dated them. “The guy who abducted you and then fell in love with you?” She looked at me like I’d gone insane and started giving away all my Jimmy Choos. “And you didn't forgive him, why?”

  
I sighed. I really didn’t want to rehash things and I really, really didn’t want to have to do it as the object of my hashing was strutting through Nordstrom Rack ruining my shopping spree. Things with Anubis were complicated, to put it lightly.

   “
He tortured me for over a month,” I tried to keep my voice low but the woman in front of us was lifting an eyebrow in my direction.

   “
Yeah, with
sex
,” Krystal eyed Anubis' sleekly muscled form. “He can torture me whenever he wants.”

  
Then he spotted me.

   “
Here he comes,” Krystal sighed, “Fuck, just look at the way he walks. That boy is sex on a stick.” Then she narrowed her gaze on me. “Didn’t he try to make things up to you?”

   “
Yeah but I'm with Trevor, who he almost killed by kidnapping me, I might add,” I started to pile my clothes on the counter, even though check-out had almost stilled to a stop because the salesgirl was gaping at my ex-jailor/torturer/lover, the God of the Dead.

   “
Vervain,” his rich scent snaked around me and swept through my head, like thick incense smoke. The gold flashed again, thick tubular beads strung through his glossy, obsidian hair; they clicked when he moved. I tried to ignore the ache his voice started low in my belly. Oh, my lioness magic liked him, even though she'd been repressed by him for over a month. I think she respected his dominating nature. Damn females, always falling for the bad boys.

  
The lioness I could deal with though. The thing that really threw me for a loop was my love magic. The butterflies rose up inside me like the tide, almost spilling out of me in their haste to reach Anubis. What the hell? They'd never behaved like this around him before. When had Anubis become worthy of Love?

   “
Anubis,” I concentrated on moving things from my cart to the counter, “what are you doing here?”

   “
Shopping for new shoes,” he grimaced as he smoothed his immaculate black silk shirt. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m looking for you. Do you know how hard it is to find you out without an escort? They never leave you alone.”

   “
Well here I am,” I gave the salesgirl a look that stated clearly, I wasn’t in the mood for her type of delay, and she started ringing me up… with quick glances at Anubis in between beeps. “But as you can see, I’m not alone. This is Krystal, Krystal meet Anubis.”

   “
It’s a pleasure,” Anubis turned the full weight of his black eyes on her and I was thankful she had the cart to lean on. At least they weren't shimmering with colors like they usually were. I don't think the oil-slick effect over Anubis' eyes would have gone over well with regular humans.

   “
Pleasure, definitely,” Krystal mumbled as she slumped forward into her pile of clothing.

   “
That’s two-hundred, fifty-six dollars, and forty cents,” the salesgirl intoned while she stared at the small bit of sleek chest exposed by the top of Anubis' shirt.

  
Anubis pulled a few bills out of a pocket and handed them over before I could even get my purse open.

   “
What do you think you’re doing?” I tried to whack his hand away but it was like hitting rebar. “Don’t take that,” I said to the girl.