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Merry

Music blasts through her headphones. As the bass pumps from the speakers, she bobs her head and gyrates her waist to the beat. The movements steer the motorcycle, its wheels swerving over the pavement.

Across the ground, a puddle reflects the haze of sunset. Accelerating the vehicle, Merry cuts through the pool, water spritzing the air. She whirs past ornate buildings and courtyards dense with foliage. This historic city is alive, pulsing with drama. Its energy surrounds her, originating from the countless mortal and immortal heartbeats co-existing here. How perfectly romantic.

The next track plays through her speakers, the lyrics proudly chanting about being a god instead of a woman, while the motorcycle flies like a metallic blue dart. She belts out the song, her off-key performance inaudible to humans but not deities. The bike veers left and right, synchronizing with the shimmy of her hips. A tulle skirt flounces around her thighs, the breeze teases her faded halter top, a pair of fingerless fishnet gloves tickles her wrists, and strands of pink hair have come loose from her sloppy ponytail. She feels merry, so very merry.

That’s the impression Merry gives. Hopefully it’s working, though she doesn’t check to make certain. The figure prowling thirty paces behind will catch her peeking, for the demon misses nothing.

He’s stalking me again.

Sigh. So much for trespassing when his cult is typically snoozing until nightfall. She’d taken the least populated route to and from this sector, these isolated alleys rarely patrolled. Until a minute ago when he started following her, Merry had been savoring this joyride, the monuments of his territory consisting of unearthly cathedrals and entrances to sunken underground halls.

However, this is also what comes from taking the motorcycle instead of manifesting, regardless of how much energy instantaneous travel requires—energy she would need in case of escape—or how silent the engine had been until now. Merry had only turned up the volume on the vehicle, her headphones, and her vocal cords once she’d been spotted. Better to look clueless rather than vigilant.

She drives up an incline, cutting into Midnight Park. A canopy of branches arches overhead, the paseo spanning a walkway suspended over the streets. Flanked by poplars, hedges have been trimmed into leafy replicas of constellations—verdant sculptures of Centaurus, Virgo reclining in tufts of grass, and a looming bust of Atlas.

Dark Gods could have outfitted this otherworldly park with representations of the true mythology. However in a city of outcast deities, they’d rather insult the rulers who’ve discarded them.

Despite the music’s volume, resounding footfalls prowl toward Merry. He’s closer now, twenty feet behind.

A corner of her lips curl. Excitement and terror streak through her chest, a preview of things to come.

Feigning nonchalance, Merry cruises around the corner, her bike coasting past strolling humans. Her elbow sweeps through an elderly male, leaving the mortal clueless to the invisible bluster. Out of habit, she usually avoids ghosting through humans. It’s bad manners. However, there’s no time for etiquette. Not when a murderer is on her tail.

Skulking amid the mortals, several otherworldly figures fill in the gaps. While holding court, a small clan of deities observes Merry through slitted eyes. Among them are Hate, Scorn, and Calamity.

Damnation. Usually, they don’t terrorize the human patrons of Midnight Park until, well, midnight. Of all times for them to be early risers.

Outfitted in chain necklaces, the trio make up her stalker’s most loyal guard hounds, each of whom ogle her straddling legs like an invitation to either fuck or fight. The only reason they don’t pounce is their leader, who’s gaining on Merry. Nonetheless, she tosses the mutts a scathing look and turns up her chin.

Ahead, the illuminated Fountain of Aquarius rises three levels to where a tide of water spills from a slanted jug. Because thinking positive is better than being scared, she chooses the perfect soundtrack to accompany this moment and turns up the volume, the lyrics and inflections shifting from dulcet to astringent. Harsh and abrasive like the demon god pursuing her.

His pace quickens, predicting her next move. Or perhaps her next five moves.

Merry’s mouth lifts into a nervous but daring grin. The bike purrs as she hooks her fingers around the handlebar, her thumb stroking the throttle.

She rockets forward. The bike peels ahead, its wheels licking concrete, the engine growling. Beyond the headphones, boots pound into motion, followed by the twang of a bowstring.

Alas, fear wins out. Merry bends forward, her stomach flush with the fuel tank. Using the momentum, she vaults the motorcycle into the air, the vehicle spiraling to avoid a flying arrow. The universe blurs, the setting sun orbiting in her vision. A second later, the wheels smack the fountain’s first level just as her head cranes sideways.

A muscular shadow tears her way at a breakneck pace while nocking another arrow to his longbow. A corona of unruly, blond waves thrashes around his face, and sharp fingernails extend from his digits like blades.

Malice.

His face is sculpted from rock, his jaw chiseled to perfection, the cut of which enhances the pathological gleam in his eyes. In that tight leather jacket, unzipped and exposing his rippling chest, the asshole could be mistaken for a rockstar, despite having the moral compass of a serial killer.

The nemesis raises his weapon and croons like a high-voltage hornet, “Fuck off and die, sweet goddess.”

He releases. The bow shudders, the arrow whizzing toward her skull.

Merry tilts the bike at a violent angle, skids around the fountain’s circumference, and catapults sideways. Angling her body, she inverts the bike and flips upside down to avoid the shot.

She slams upright onto the next level. Her ponytail whips about, the pastel hues of her skirt rendering Merry a clear target.

Yet a swift death blow isn’t Malice’s style. The mad god likes to play with his dessert. He’s missing on purpose, hitting vulnerable areas for fun while prolonging the chase, toying with her nerve so that she’ll make a mistake. But eventually, he’ll strike hard. The endgame will have a painful effect and fling Merry to the ground, wounding her long enough for him to catch up and do permanent, hands-on damage.

Malice’s next arrow grazes past her cheek. Instead of beheading Merry, the weapon impales an Aphrodite hedge like a missile, its strike piercing the goddess’s heart.

Curse this feral monster! That’s her favorite hedge!

Merry swerves from the image. Glancing ahead, she yelps as a new figure appears from the sideline. Another member of Malice’s cult manifests from thin air. He’s about to fire when his leader hisses in outrage and lunges. In quick succession, Malice stakes an arrow through the interloper’s cranium, in one ear and out of the other, blood spurting the demon god’s face and torso. Without missing a beat, he flings the interloper with a single muscled arm, as if the deity weighs no more than a dried leaf.

The dead minion goes flying, his body cracking the cement path as he drops like a speed bump in Merry’s path. She shrieks. With no time to pivot, her motorcycle rolls over the carcass, bones crunching.

Nausea sloshes in her stomach. Merry’s conscience forces her to slow and glance over her shoulder, the grisly scene wiping away any remorse. Belatedly, the victim’s features come into view. It’s a deity known to violate other outcasts from her sector, stripping, poisoning, and torturing them to death for public sport. Apparently, the fiend disregarded Malice’s rule about not interrupting a chase unless given permission.

May The Stars have mercy on that butcher’s faded soul. Because Merry certainly won’t.

Malice shows zero guilt for maiming one of his followers. Likely, he’s already forgotten about the incident, mere seconds after hurling that corpse into the air like a shot putter.

The demon god retrieves his archery and releases more projectiles, this time targeting Merry’s brakes and tires. The headlight throws a fluorescent beam across the grass as she veers the motorcycle out of range, then aslant of the park’s high wall. Gunning horizontally along the slab, she lifts off the facade and strikes the fountain’s third level. From this vantage point, an arena glitters in the distance, crammed with flashing strobe lights that extend for miles.

The Moonlit Carnival.

Neutral territory. Most of the time.

Merry pauses and idles in place, assessing the drop from Midnight Park to the street level. Malice growls her name while bolting in her direction.

“Ah, ah, ahhhh!” he taunts. “Not so fucking fast.”

He’s right. She’ll go faster.

Twisting a knob on the headphones, she increases the bass, the device powered by The Stars. After fluffing out her skirt, Merry reels back while speaking to the motorcycle. “Fly like a steel goddess. And pleeeeease do not crash.”

She blasts forward, slingshotting into a void, gravity sucking her down, down, down into a funnel. Gales of air rush through her clothes, music drums in her ears, and the last vestiges of dawn somersault in her vision. A thousand moving parts clatter as the star-blessed vehicle slams onto the pavement, the wheels grating against cement. The landing rattles her teeth as she skitters across a pothole covered in a filigree of overgrown moss, then pivots and halts.

With the engine rumbling, Merry plants the soles of her ankle boots on the ground and peers upward. Malice is nowhere in sight. Yet hyperawareness seizes her like a rope, the force yanking her gaze in a different direction. Guitars screech through the speakers as her attention deviates toward another building, where a silhouette stands vigil from a roof.

It’s a masculine outline. Tall with a broad stance and set of muscled shoulders backdropped by the sun’s final rays. Based on his ability to witness the action, this stranger is immortal.

How long has he been watching the pursuit? And what are those long shapes flaring from either side of his form?

Merry squints, focusing on the shingled edges of each panel. “Wings,” she whispers.

Impossible. Only one legendary figure has been known to possess that trait. And that entity is neither male, nor a deity any longer.

Yet. The appendages are wide, their likenesses unmistakable apart from the solid contours, as if they’re not made of feathers but something else. A hard, unbreakable substance.

With the glare of sunset blazing around his winged silhouette, the stranger looks as though he’s burning. Much like a figure from human mythology, a tragic entity who once tumbled to his downfall. Someone who has now crashed into this reality, landing in her city.

Like Icarus.

Merry frowns. Despite her fascination with mortal stories, he’s likely a newcomer in Malice’s cult, even if the male’s body language doesn’t imply malevolence or vitriol. At least, not from this range.

His eyes fixate on her. It’s a fact, even if she can’t make out his face.

Never mind. Merry rolls forward, about to vacate the premises.

Just then, Malice harnesses his archery and leaps off the park’s ledge, hitting the ground level with one knee bent and his right palm flat against the earth. His head whips up and flashes a maniacal smirk. “Ready or not,” he taunts.

Merry spins the bike in the opposite direction while his powerful limbs sprint fast enough to give a cheetah a workout, matching the motorcycle’s velocity. But if there’s one thing Merry does well, it’s move quickly.

She fires toward the carnival. With threads of hair flying in her face, she jets past the entrance of arched branches, which drip with vibrant bulbs. Within the ancient arena, rides spin like asteroids, their nodules flaring. Sounds from the Ethereal Arcade compete with track ten on her playlist as she careens through, inhaling mysticism and hairspray.

Veering behind the Constellation Carousel, she breaks and wrenches off the headphones, letting them cinch around her throat. A sea of human bodies crowds the amusement park, groups traveling east and west, oblivious to the conflict in their midst. It’s a rare night, with no other outcasts haunting this area. Deities only venture here to issue threats or settle disputes. Otherwise, few bother to appreciate such animated sources of human diversion.

Amid the bustling activity, messy blond hair and a leather-clad frame manifests into view like a cloud of smoke. Malice saunters around sightless mortals, an eager grin snaking across his mouth as if he’s posing for a long-overdue mug shot. Merry’s stomach curdles, the sight familiar from prior episodes when the demon god used humans for target practice, each horrific strike of his arrow shredding through vital organs. That is, until Merry drove her front wheel into the piece-of-shit, launching his body across the avenue.

As the minutes pass, the sun vanishes. Twilight cloaks the sky in purple shades and gleaming constellations.

Malice’s eyes skewer the masses, about to locate Merry’s hiding spot when a hand covers her mouth. She shrieks into someone’s palm as a pair of steel arms yanks Merry off the bike and drags her onto a shadowed lane. She thrashes against the plate of her captor’s chest, though she might as well be wrestling with a brick wall. The physique is masculine, robust like a machine.

The immortal apprehends her with vigor, which means he’s an ally of Malice. This assailant and the demon god will take Merry prisoner, then torture her like a true heroine until she meets her untimely end. It’s a cataclysmic vision, one for the history books. Maybe The Dark Gods will share tales about her so-called lost potential and grievous end, then come to their senses about their own shortcomings.

Except she remembers the part about being tortured and losing her chance to make a difference in their world. Such a penalty, merely for crossing into Malice’s territory, because he’s just that homicidal, because sometimes his theatrics exceed even hers.

I’m a leading lady in this death-defying scene. If I escape the enemy’s clutches, I’ll still be an outcast—but alive. Alive is a pleasant thought. Alive grants more opportunities to break more rules, continue what I’ve started, and finally succeed.

She can finish the narration later, envisioning a thrilling outcome when she’s safe. Her incisors retaliate, chomping on the offensive hand. Whoever has captured Merry disengages from her mouth and unleashes an aggravated “Fuck!”

She’s about to turn and ram her knee into his groin, however that same hand smothers her anew. Merry flails, but he’s too strong. And he’s statuesque, his height surpassing the other repugnant beast who’s hunting her, which is saying something considering Malice is anything but small.

“For fuck’s sake,” her captor hisses. “Shhh.”

Merry freezes. His baritone is intense, as if it comes with a speedometer and a loaded tank of fuel. The sound knocks the wind out of her, makes her feel a little wild, a lot amorous.

Her grand imagination runs rampant. She pictures herself taming that alpha voice, slowing it down, lowering it to a husky inflection. Possibly a groan.

With his free hand, the stranger points ahead, his digit extending past her nose. She snaps out of it. The leather fingerless gloves set this newcomer apart, since no other immortal in the city dons that accessory except for Merry.

Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe they’re kindreds.

The mysterious index finger aims toward Malice, who’s scanning the carnival with a glower, his patience waning. When Merry doesn’t fight back, the stranger releases her. She’d like him to put a pedal to that voice again, rev that engine into her ears, provided she makes it out of this mess alive.

And provided this isn’t a trick, some ruse between him and Malice to corner her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s had to polish off several members of his gang at once.

Without her bike, she lacks a weapon. But from the sound of it, this male is packing arrows and a longbow, which he unharnesses once something else retracts behind him. Merry darts her gaze to their shadows reflected on the grass, the flash of two wings vanishing into his back.

The rooftop. The spying figment who’d witnessed the chase. The wingspan splaying on either side of him, as if he’d been about to take flight, which he must have done instead of manifesting here.

Merry had been right. Except for one notorious goddess, not only is this feature unheard of among their kind, but the shape of those appendages is indeed smooth instead of covered in plumes. Heavy, sturdy, and dark.

She forms a guess about the wings’ anatomy, as well as another theory. This Icarus impersonator could be a fresh exile from The Dark Fates. Somehow, he’s aware that Malice is after her, but whether Merry can trust the stranger is another matter.

Malice must sense his quarry nearby, because he nocks an arrow. At the same time, a quiver rattles as the stranger’s own weapon levels in her periphery, the archery skimming her earlobe. With fatal calm, the mysterious god nudges her out of the way.

On her motorcycle, Merry had evaded Malice. Also, he’d been trifling with her for amusement. But in general…

“He doesn’t miss,” she warns under her breath.

“Neither do I,” the voice murmurs.

“Who are you, rebel?”

The moniker surprises him, stunting his grip on the bow. “I’m no rebel.”

“A savior, then,” she improvises. “A gallant hero.”

“I’m none of those things.”

“But why not? That’s such a pity, as it would render this scene far more enticing. I’ve always thought—”

“Do you ever shut up?”

Rude! She’s hardly said anything, yet his question crackles like dynamite. For some reason, it provokes defiance in Merry. “It depends on to whom I’m speaking,” she retorts. “But in your surly case, I have a mind to—”

“Duck,” the stranger commands.

His arrow launches, intercepting Malice’s incoming shot. The shafts collide and vanish, one of them reappearing in Malice’s quiver, the other presumably returning to the stranger’s cache.

A shower of projectiles surge in their direction. She and her companion dodge, flinging themselves out of harm’s way like shrapnel and landing on the grass. The stranger tears to his feet and storms into the throng.

Malice falters, confusion warping his face. Apparently, he doesn’t recognize this newcomer either.

The stranger takes another shot, missing by a hair’s breadth as Malice twists. Another aim, and this one strikes true. When the demon god’s bow skids across the ground, he charges with his fists. His opponent averts the punch, crouching and then whipping upward with his own blow.

Such endurance! That punch could have uprooted a lamppost.

Unfortunately, Malice rebounds. Enjoying himself, he pummels the stranger’s abdomen, the attack mighty enough to crack cement.

Merry races to her motorcycle, straddles the seat, and torpedoes into battle. She may lack archery, but she’s not about to let her companion—or whatever he prefers to be called—perish because of her.

The bike spins like a disc. She spirals from Malice’s arrows, her wheels ramming into him mid-rotation and whipping his head sideways with enough force to snap his neck if he were mortal. When Merry lands, she flings out one leg and boots into him again, pitching his weight into the air like a bowling pin.

The god’s whipcord body smashes into the ground, the brunt of his landing fracturing the concrete. “Motherfuck!” he hisses.

The demon tumbles like a log, then blasts to his feet, ready for a second brawl. The stranger indulges, and the pair tear into each other with knuckles instead of arrows, pivoting and swinging, their weapons abandoned across the lane.

Out of nowhere, Malice backs off. His expression contorts, inspecting his opponent, whose form quakes with the lingering, pent-up aggression of a cannon about to blow. Although the wings had vanished before Malice had the chance to see them, sudden recognition dominates the god’s features.

He pans over to Merry, who skids the motorcycle to a halt beside the stranger. The sight of her allying with this rebel becomes the focal point of Malice’s sniper pupils, which obsess over the sight for approximately ten seconds. Indeed, Merry keeps count, which is also ten seconds too long for her comfort.

As Malice gives the stranger a full-bodied appraisal, his eyes spark like explosives, and his devious lips crook. He slithers backward, then offers a mocking inclination of his head. At which point, the demon god snatches his archery and vanishes.

Dammit! It’s a retreat that’s not actually a retreat. Merry has known him long enough. Malice wouldn’t turn the other cheek without a reason, nor without a plan festering in his mind like a toxic chemical.

The carousel whirls. It cranks out a jarring, repetitive melody that’s far too jovial, even for Merry.

Not once has she seen her ally’s face, the skirmish having robbed her of the opportunity. But now she turns, burning with anticipation. “Thank y—”

The god crashes to the grass at her feet. As if falling from a greater height, perhaps from the sun itself, he hits the pavement with the magnitude of a crater.

Gasping, she lands beside him. “No! No, wait! Don’t pass out. You haven’t told me your name, or where you come from, or why—”

Oh.

Cradling his head and lolling it toward her, she sees him. She sees all of him. And she’s speechless, her vision glowing brighter than the cotton candy tint of her hair.

Her heart turns into a battering ram. Gracious, he’s stunning. The unconscious deity looks about her age, or maybe a few centuries younger. His chiseled countenance is akin to a mortal in his late-twenties, which puts him someplace just under three-thousand years old.

He has an olive complexion, a stubbled jaw carved from granite, and dark hair that hangs to his shoulders, with the upper half knotted at the back of his head. Hoops dangle from his ears, and instead of modern attire, the archer’s wearing a sleeveless vest. Plus, the fingerless gloves—similar to her own pair—which stretch over a pair of forearms tattooed in flames. And lastly, he’s got strong hands, which is the most divine thing about him.

She loves those hands. She loves him .

Merry falls hard and fast for this mystery-god, her pulse accelerating from zero to ninety. It happens at first sight, all or nothing beneath The Stars.