Page 23

Story: Hel Hath No Fury

And with that She was gone, leaving the golden, melodic tones of laughter in Her wake.

“I knew she was watching,”he mentally grumbled.“Laughing and having a good time at my expense.”Huffing the best he could with his tongue still plastered to the roof of his mouth, Hopper was getting more frustrated–if that was even possible.

How in God with a capital G’s green Earth had he ended up this way?Why had he been drinking–again?Why had he hadso muchto drink?Hadn’t he learned his lesson right before Valentine’s Day when he and Pat tied one on and suffered horribly for their efforts?

“Obviously not.We freakin’ did it again.”

Then it all came rushing back.He remembered the invitation on embossed stationary delivered by Fia, the Damselfly Queen in charge of delivering anything and everything for none other than his Cousin, Destiny.Right on its heels of that memory came the recollection of yet another conversation with Pat that went absolutely nowhere.

“Then I called Dionysus for the second time in as many months.”He thought the words and tried to say them aloud but once again only heard, “Mmmm mm mmmm mmmmm mm mm mmmm mm mm mm mmm mmmmm.”

Closing his eyes, Hopper slowly inhaled through his nose, filling every single one of those microscopic hairs that lined his lungs with as much fresh, clean, non-alcoholic air as he could.Then he pushed the ‘good’ oxygen to his brain.As things started to clear, he slowly exhaled while moving his jaw side to side and up and down.Through it all, he focused all his considerable Power on producing even the tiniest drop of saliva.

The irony of the situation was not lost on the Omnipotent Being known as Hope.He knew he was being taught a lesson and didn’t need three guesses to know who had been appointed as his teacher.Yeah, it was Mother Nature.He also knew that even at his ripe old age, matters of the heart could drive a man to do the stupidest most asinine things, and he was living proof.

However, the fact remained that he needed to pry his tongue from the roof of his mouth and get upright as quickly as possible.Then he had to confirm that it was his Cousin in his kitchen and not several Demons, Gremlins, and Hellhounds.Lastly, he had to devise a plan to escape the misery of yet another matchmaking party hosted by his well-meaning Cousin.Destiny.

Producing saliva at the rate of a dying rat in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, Hopper worked his jaw, his tongue and all the other body parts residing in his mouth that he didn’t know the names of and couldn’t have cared less.Little by little, drip by precious drop, the moisture returned.Every little bit spurred him on, made him work harder, made him clench and unclench his jaw until it ached and reminded him of the time Heimdall, the Guardian of the Asgardian Bifrost, punched him in the jaw for asking to touch his sword.

But he wouldn’t give up.

What seemed like forever, but was actually less than a minute, was long enough for the ugly cloud of doubt that entered his mind.It wasn’t working.He couldn’t get enough moisture to wet the head of a pin, much less unstick his tongue.

It was time to throw in the towel.Put a hash mark in the loss column.Call it a day and let whoever–had to be Pat, just had to be–was ripping his kitchen apart have one hell of a party.

“This is a new level of suck.”

Then it happened.Just when he was about to give up and put a big, old, glaring hashmark in the loss column, the single most important, yet utterly simple thing he’d accomplished in the last twenty-four hours happened and he was happier than he thought possible for the situation at hand.His mouth was instantly full of saliva, his tongue dislodged from the roof of his mouth of its own accord, and he swallowed for the first time since he’d opened his eyes.

“What the hell does Dionysus put in that hooch?”He croaked, his throat still so dry it felt as if it was lined with burlap, coated in sand with a long, thick bar of salt added in for the hell of it.

Turning over onto his knees, he straightened his back and put his right hand on the top of his desk.Using the heavy wooden frame as leverage and with a push of strength he hadn’t known had returned, Hopper was up on his feet in less than a single beat of his heart and feeling rather proud.

“Step two of my illustrious plan is…”

But that was as far as he got before the third prong–the extreme and immediate need to go to the bathroom–became even more extreme and incredibly more immediate.Running across his office as fast as his feet would carry him, Hopper jumped down the step, spun to the right the second the ball of his foot hit the ground and made a beeline to the guest bathroom in the hall.

When finished and after washing his hands, he looked in the mirror and sighed, “Andyouwanted to be more like the humans.”Huffing with such force that his lips flapped together like the ‘raspberry’ he’d seen a mother placing on the tummy of her infant daughter, he added, “Dude, you seriously have to start remembering that very human saying–be careful what you wish for ‘cause you just might get it.”

“You can say that…” Pat laughed right before the clatter of a jellyroll pan hitting the floor overshadowed everything else and the Omnipotent Being known as Patience spat, “Son of a bitch!Those were the best of the batch!”

Drying his hands, Hopper made his way to the kitchen with a smile on his face and a sarcastic comment on his lips.But the second he walked across the threshold, he stopped midstride, dropped the towel he had in his hands, and blurted out, “Did you drop a flour bomb in here?”

Disappearing behind the island in the middle of the kitchen then reappearing, Pat blew on the biscuit in his hand and smiled.“And that my friend, is called the three-second rule.”Tossing it in a basket on the counter, he added, “Oh, yeah,” before repeating the process until twelve oddly shaped, but nonetheless golden brown, perfectly baked disks of buttermilk dough were retrieved from the floor and placed in the basket.

With red cheeks and a tea towel thrown over his shoulder, Pat blew the hair off his sweaty brow and motioned toward the basket.“I was trying to make homemade biscuits for breakfast.I thought they might soak up what’s left of Dionysus’ Party Brew.”

“Good idea,” Hopper agreed.“But first, what the hell is in that stuff?”

“No idea, Cuz.”Blowing out another breath, he added with a shrug, “Jet fuel?Lighter fluid?Plutonium?Gorgon’s venom?”

“All of the above,” Hopper scoffed with a chuckle.

Closing the distance, he stopped right before the huge silver buckle at his waist touched the granite of the island top.Picking up a biscuit, he held it close to his face and inhaled deeply as he turned it one way then the other.When he was sure it was no worse for wear from being on the floor and smelled good enough to put in his mouth, he bit into the warm, flaky dough.

Savoring the succulent, buttery flavor that burst to life on his tongue, Hopper moaned, “Damn, Son, those are some seriously good biscuits.”

“I know,” Pat emphatically agreed with wide eyes and an overexaggerated nod.“Learned from an Elder of the Cherokee Nation in the Appalachian Mountains in the late eighteen hundreds.”Another nod, this one with a huge knowing smile and he added, “Just wait till you taste my sausage gravy, you’re gonna love me forever and then some.”