Fates’ Revenge – Sneak Peek
Author’s Note
It’s not that Homer and the other ancient authors meant to deceive us, but their appalling lack of vision prevented them from anticipating how easy it would be to uncover the inconsistencies between various retellings of Greek Myths through a quick Google search. I know, totally JV.
As if playing fast and loose with the parentage, hierarchy, and illicit liaisons between the Gods wasn’t bad enough, their noted inability to continue writing after death leaves us with the impression the Greek Myths ended.
They didn’t.
The Gods live on, as do their feuds, and I’ve probably screwed myself by recording them here. The Gods are not known for their senses of humor, platypuses and Kardashians aside, and if I ever disappear while spearfishing or surfing you’ll know I hit a nerve.
If that should happen, it would be super if someone would avenge me.
Thanks,
Dan
Cast of Characters
Cosmic Deities
Eros: The Light half of duality. Some call him Yin or Day, but don’t call him Cupid. That dude was invented by Zeus as an excuse to bugger anything that moves.
Nyx: The Dark half of duality, sometimes called Yang or Night. Eros’ twin sister.
Ananke: Eros’ and Nyx’s mom, also known as Destiny.
Wind: Eros’ and Nyx’s dad. Ignored his wife’s objections and gave the kids the universe as a toy with explicit instructions not to touch it, thus ensuring they did exactly that.
Immortals
Mina: Short for Termina, the moniker she assumed because Atropos and Fate of Death sounded too weird in rural Mexico.
Dora: Short for Jugadora, the name Lachesis, the Fate of Chance, chose ostensibly for the same reason. Actually, she just liked the idea of a cool nickname.
Esperanza: Always left out of her sisters’ games, Clotho, the Fate of Life, didn’t get a cool nickname. She tried “Espy” and “Ranza,” but they sounded dumb.
Nereus: Titan Sea God deposed by Poseidon. Homer says Nereus just packed up and disappeared. Boy, he really screwed the pooch on that one.
Amphitrite: Nereus’ daughter and Poseidon’s overworked and under appreciated wife. She’s the only reason Poseidon’s mismanagement of the oceans hasn’t ended all life on the planet—yet.
Poseidon: Frat-boy-like God of the Sea crippled by an inferiority complex because Mom (and Hera) liked Zeus more.
Zeus: Head Frat-Boy, spends his time spying on mortal maidens while trying to convince Hera he’s not.
Hera: Runs the Olympian Patriarchy by carefully manipulating Zeus with flashes of cleavage.
Demeter: The original Cougar.
Dionysus: Demeter’s boy-toy and an absolute scream at a party. Terrible housemate, though.
Mortals
Sheriff Juan Vargas: Possibly the only honest public servant in Mexico and Esperanza’s platonic boyfriend.
Lee McMahon: Young Marine helicopter mechanic duped into a CIA drug-smuggling operation.
Hound: CIA helicopter pilot equipped with a perfectly functional, if variable, sense of right and wrong.
Taight: CIA helicopter pilot, oxygen thief, and prime example of a douche-nozzle.
Pirate Dave: Not really a pirate, just a perpetually-inebriated Vietnam veteran drifting through post-war life on a dingy sailboat. Rarely clothed.
Colonel Travis Rigby: Totally fictional character that bears an uncanny resemblance to LtCol Oliver North. But that’s just a coincidence.
Fernando and Enrique: Small-town thugs with delusions of cartel grandeur.
Tobi: Street urchin kidnapped by Dora to do menial labor around The Fates’ shop. Generally inconsequential until the end when he—sorry, you’ll just have to read it.
Prologue
Moments before “The Beginning,” Eros and Nyx poked their fingers into the forbidden orb while their parents snored in the next room. The primordial imps didn’t mean to create the universe, but once they discovered how much fun it was to make their new toys—Gaia and Uranus—do things, they were glad they did.
But after playing nicely for a few minutes, Nyx made Uranus do awful things to Gaia, then taunted her brother that he couldn’t make Gaia love her husband again.
A sucker for a challenge, Eros dissolved himself into the universe. Gaia’s anger was impenetrable, however, and offered his ethereal essence no purchase. Angry or not, Gaia’s lusty urges matched her husband’s, and Eros soon discovered a fool-proof way to slip past her rage so he could fix her from the inside. As he slipped his disembodied consciousness into the labyrinthine tubes of Uranus’ junk, Eros began composing victory taunts for Nyx when he returned home and didn’t notice Cronos sneak beneath his hiding place.
Eros was almost as surprised as Uranus when Cronos’ searing sickle sent his meat and two-veg spinning end-over-end into the ocean. Eros tried to escape, but the heat of the blade had cauterized the wound and trapped his liquid presence inside. As Eros’ prison split into thirds and sank beneath the waves, he realized Nyx had set him up, and began scheming how to get her back.
After tumbling around the ocean floor for ten-billion years—about fifteen cosmic minutes to him—Eros came up with a plan, and slipped his consciousness between the molecules of his now-petrified prison to locate what he’d need to pull it off.
Slipping into the nearest Olympian—it just so happened to be Poseidon—Eros found him easy to manipulate. Far too easy, in fact, to be any use. Scooting around to the other Gods, he was discouraged to learn that all immortals were unsuited for his purposes. If he could make them do what he wanted, so could Nyx.
Turning to mortals, he popped into the soul of a Greek warrior hogging the breathing hole beneath a giant wooden horse’s tail, and found the simple creature fascinating. Not only did he think the gods cared if he lived or died, he also had the temerity to promise them gifts if they’d intercede on his behalf in the coming battle.
Smirking at Odysseus’ hubris, Eros ordered him not to murder the Trojans in their sleep—and felt his spirits surge when the warrior dismissed him out of hand.
This was more like it.
Ignoring the carnage that followed, Eros probed the shield of free will Odysseus had used to block him, and found it as impenetrable as Gaia’s hatred. This will do nicely, he thought, if he could just figure out how to stuff Nyx into this guy. He was about to send his consciousness to find a solution to that problem when something grabbed his attention: Odysseus’ free will, seemingly rock solid, was actually an illusion. Every decision he’d ever made, or would ever make, was already woven into the pattern of his being.
Scarcely able to believe his luck, Eros spread his consciousness throughout humanity and found them all similarly delusional. Pleased that Odysseus was not unique, Eros began searching for the origin of these predetermined patterns, and, by the time the Industrial Revolution was raining coal dust on Europe, had discovered the four Fates.
Not quite divine, but far more than mortal, these four women served as repeaters for a cosmic force they called destiny. Three managed the fates of the living, while one handled the souls of the dead, and together they imposed order on chaos by keeping the boundaries between the universe and cosmos solid.
Shimmering blue joy rippled the length of his trapped essence as Eros realized he could kill two birds with one stone.
Predator and Lethal Weapon were battling for top billing in theaters, and the Reagan Administration was smuggling drugs to fund the Contras in El Salvador, when Eros turned his attention to a grumpy old lady in the seaside town of Huatulco, Mexico.
Then he sat back in the long, cylindrical shaft of his prison, and got ready to enjoy the show.
Chapter 1
1987, Huatulco, Mexico
Sheriff Juan Vargas scratched himself through his underwear as he bent to retrieve the envelope slipped beneath his door. He’d dreaded its arrival for months, and had almost convinced himself that it might not come at all.
Opening it above his kitchen table, a cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach as an eviction notice and handwritten note fell out.
Do it.
—COJ
There was no need to say more.
The note was from Carlos Obregon Jimenez, the Mexican Minister of Tourism, and he was the only reason Juan was Sheriff.
As the architect of the Mexican Government’s plan to turn the bays and beaches of Huatulco into a tourist mecca, not to mention his personal retirement account, Minister Jimenez had a very personal stake in making sure the local farmers moved off their newly valuable land quickly and quietly. And who better to shove the natives aside than one of their own?
Staring at the note, Juan slumped back in his creaking chair with a sigh. It was fate. How could he fight against it? Rubbing his graying temples, he tried to find a way to refuse to serve the notice, but knew it was hopeless. The Minister would just send his sons, and then there would be blood.
Even though yesterday’s wasn’t too dirty yet, he chose a clean uniform and dressed quickly, muttering a prayer his car would start as he walked out of his little apartment. The cinderblock building was already baking in the midmorning sun, and although it wasn’t a long walk to his girlfriend’s shop in the heart of the old town, he didn’t want to be a sweaty mess when he evicted Esperanza—and asked her to move in with him.
Two miles away, in their modest shop at the base of the new cruise ship dock, three old sisters toiled behind rickety wooden looms. They’d changed their names centuries ago, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos drew too much attention in rural Mexico, but their dominions over Life, Chance, and Death remained unchanged.
Dora finished her second rug of the morning, and leaned back to admire her work.
“Almost perfect,” she whispered.
Mina rolled her eyes, and slammed the wooden slat to tighten the weave of the rug on her loom.
“All are flawed,” Mina grumbled.
“Ignore her, dear. It’s beautiful,” Esperanza said without looking up.
They’d stopped specializing shortly after Poseidon banished them ashore, and while each spun their own threads and wove them into whatever patterns popped into their heads, the results were not equal. Esperanza spun the finest, tightest, and most brightly colored thread, while Dora’s patterns quivered with the unique intensity of the life-story contained within. And Mina never failed to cut every thread to the exact length prescribed.
A snort, followed by a fit of coughing, rattled the old man napping in a chair by the window. The three old ladies stopped to stare at him, their eyes assessing the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
“Any day now,” Mina predicted. The old goat was well into his eighties. Usually, he checked out earlier.
“Be nice to have the young one again. He’s always so fresh and funny when he’s young,” Esperanza said, smiling at Mina through a montage of memories from the old man’s extensive lifetimes.
“He’s a pain in the ass,” Mina replied, refusing her smile and turning to Dora. “Where’s Tobi?”
Dora stopped admiring her rug and closed her eyes. After a moment, she assumed the perspective of a passing seagull, and spotted the ten-year old boy handing a paper bag to a raggedy-looking man on a sailboat.
“With Pirate Dave,” Dora reported, releasing the bird.
“Better get back soon. I’m not mopping up his piss again,” Mina said, going back to her loom.
When the old man started suffering the tell-tale bouts of confusion six years ago, Dora went looking for a helper. She’d found Tobi wandering the streets, and snatched the urchin right up. No one ever came looking for him.
As far as Mina was concerned, kidnapping Tobi was the only useful thing Dora had ever done. The two sisters’ rivalry circled on a predictable loop throughout history, with each claiming their dominion was the most profound. Mina based her claim on the fact that all mortals dread her inevitable arrival, and Dora refuted it by pointing out that only chance, hope, and change made mortal lives worth living at all.
Neither deigned to include Esperanza. They considered her purview simple mechanics devoid of artistry or talent. Mina was fond of reminding her that “Even slugs fuck, Esperanza,” and Dora never missed a chance to highlight the drastic measures most mortals took to prevent Esperanza from sharing her gift. “Besides,” they both told her, “when was the last time anyone begged to be born?”
Esperanza didn’t mind being excluded from their pointless bickering. Lighthearted and carefree, she bestowed life through the endless centuries like a small-town homecoming queen tossing candy from the Harvest Moon float; Here you go, eat it if you’d like.
The uneven sound of a small engine on the verge of stalling drifted through the open door, prompting Esperanza to look up with undisguised excitement. Her Pavlovian response to the Sheriff’s arrival annoyed Mina, and she scowled at the door as Juan walked in.
“Good morning, ladies. How is my beautiful one?” He swept the battered straw cowboy hat off his head, and pressed it to his heart.
Esperanza giggled as he bent to kiss her cheek.
“Keep peeking down her shirt,” Mina threatened. “She pulls spiders out of there hairier than your ears.”
He froze, caught red-handed, before Esperanza let him off the hook.
“Oh, Mina. Our love is deeper than that, isn’t it, dear?” She batted her eyes, and Juan’s chubby cheeks flushed behind the curling ends of his mustache.
It wasn’t really a question. Of course their love was deeper than that—it had never been that.
Mina rolled her eyes. She knew what Esperanza was capable of.
“And the lovely Dora? How are your exquisite patterns today?” Juan continued.
Dora glanced up, surprised to find him standing there.
“Juan! So good to see you. I think this one might be it, I truly do.” Her hands paused for the slightest moment before resuming their rhythmic motions on the loom.
Mina’s irritation flared, aggravated by the Sheriff’s interaction with Esperanza, and the look of deep satisfaction his compliments elicited from Dora. Her sisters’ sheer contentedness grated like nails across a chalkboard, and took all Mina’s self-control to not scream at them.
“And Mina, your smile warms my heart,” the Sheriff said, wrapping up his greetings.
“I’ll warm it on the stove,” she growled, brandishing her scissors from across the room.
Juan let Mina’s retort chase the smile from his face. It was time to get down to business. Kneeling next to Esperanza, Juan took her hand, and pressed it to his lips before meeting her eyes.
“My dear, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your building’s been sold. You have to move out.”
Of course, it wasn’t really theirs. They’d simply been in it for so long everyone assumed they owned it. Minister Jimenez’ lawyer had located the deed listing a long-dead businessman as the owner, and his heirs, convinced the land was worthless by the smooth-talking lawyer, were happy to sell.
Dora stopped weaving, and looked over at Juan.
“What?”
Juan handed Dora the official notice without shifting his eyes from Esperanza’s.
“I didn’t want it to be this way, but do you remember what we talked about? Maybe now is a good time . . . ” his voice trailed off nervously.
Esperanza didn’t answer, looking away from his pleading eyes to where Dora sat reading the letter.
“What is it, Dora?”
“Eviction notice. Two weeks,” Dora whispered, letting the letter fall from her fingers. Mina, moving far faster than was wise, scooped it up.
Scanning the notice, Mina’s spirits soared.
Finally! she thought. After enduring centuries in these wrinkly old bodies, she’d begun to fear Destiny had forgotten about them.
“Well, that’s that. Start packing up.” Mina clapped her hands together. She didn’t try to contain her smile even as she saw tears welling in Dora’s eyes.
“No, it can’t be,” Dora’s voice quivered. Esperanza shook her hand free of Juan’s, and stood to embrace Dora.
They stood silently for a moment, the impact of their eviction becoming more real with every beat of their ancient hearts, until Mina had had enough.
“Oh, come on! It’s Destiny, remember? What are you ninnies getting all worked up about?” Mina demanded.
Juan opened his mouth to ask what she meant, then thought better of it. He’d feared she’d be the angriest of all, and her ready acceptance was an unexpected gift. Instead, he took Esperanza’s hand again as she released Dora.
“My love, move in with me. I won’t be Sheriff much longer,” Juan knew the Minister would appoint a more corrupt crony to the post now that he’d handled the sensitive matter of evicting the locals. “But that won’t matter. I’ll get a job at one of the hotels. We can move into an apartment in the new town. It won’t be as nice as this, but at least we will be together. Maybe your sisters, and the old man, can live next door?”
But Esperanza was already shaking her head.
“No. Everything would be ruined,” Esperanza said. It wasn’t that she disliked the soulless tenements the government erected for the displaced locals—well out of sight from the tourists they’d soon be handing towels and margaritas—but rather that she knew what would happen if they moved in together. Proximity and privacy would break down her restraint, and physical intimacy would soon follow.
Once that would have been her sole desire, but the last several decades of chastity had reawakened her to other sources of pleasure. Through painting, singing, and dancing, Esperanza discovered different, more subtle flavors of passion that the easy promiscuity of her youth had eclipsed. Being with Juan made her feel a dizzying mixture of all those passions, and she feared the ravenous onslaught of her unrestrained libido would overwhelm it.
Dora heard the pain in Esperanza’s voice, and moved to embrace her sister.
“I know, my dear. It isn’t fair—we’ve done so well, come so close . . . If only we had more time,” Dora said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Mina looked incredulously at her quietly sobbing sisters, then to Juan, who shrugged.
“…had more time.”? Centuries banished among these stupid mortals, and they want more time?
Something about her sisters’ distraught reactions was seriously pissing Mina off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Turning her back on the tearful scene, she made a big show of looking for a particular color of thread, and tried to figure out what it was.
Stay. Go. It doesn’t really matter. Destiny will bring us home—but what if she doesn’t? Mina blinked, as stunned and confused by the thought as she’d been the first time a flasher waggled his willy at her across the town plaza.
No! She will. She has to, Mina assured herself. There’s just no way Destiny would abandon her faithful servants to suffer Poseidon’s cruel punishment for eternity.
Really? What’s taking Her so long, then? This time, the thoughts slid in from the side, like a stage director whispering lines to a nervous understudy, and surprised Mina with their sharp edge. It wasn’t her place to question Destiny, yet here she was, dancing perilously close to full-blown doubt. Selecting a spool of green thread, she pretended to consider it while a fusillade of insubordination bombarded her from just offstage.
Maybe She wants you to question Her? Maybe She wants you to help yourself instead of waiting around with your thumb up your—
No! Mina thought, trying to muzzle the treacherous thoughts. But they refused to be silenced.
This is your chance, don’t you see? Your sisters have abandoned you. They’re happy here, contentedly weaving stupid patterns, and playing house with this foolish Sheriff. They don’t care about going home, about regaining their youth, or even revenge. You’re on your own. It’s time you start acting like it.
Until that moment, Mina had considered their sisterhood sacrosanct. Now, the shock of their betrayal shattered the sacred bonds, and in their wreckage Mina saw her path to greatness.
Stunned by the audacity of her ambition, Mina dropped the spool of thread as a detailed plan of betrayal appeared, fully formed, in her mind. Scanning it quickly, she knew it would work, and wondered why she hadn’t thought of it sooner.
They want to be content? Fine. They can be content serving me. It’s for their own good, she told herself, scooping up the spool and replacing it on the wall.
Behind her, a heavy silence fell over the room, broken only by the old-man’s intermittent nose-whistle from the corner.
“I won’t leave,” Dora said finally, her voice muffled by Esperanza’s shoulder.
Esperanza hugged her in solidarity.
“Me, neither.”
Mina sensed their eyes on her back, and affected a bored sigh.
“Fine. Let them knock this place down around our fool heads. I don’t care.”
Juan looked at them as if they were insane.
“But, you can’t just ignore the order!? The Jimenez thugs will come,” he sputtered, his voice and eyebrows rising together.
The Minister of Tourism’s sons, Enrique and Fernando, operated outside the law to protect their father’s investment by beating, or disappearing, anyone foolish enough to resist eviction. They’d been very effective, and Juan trembled at the thought of what they’d do to Esperanza and her sisters. He couldn’t let it happen, even if it meant shallow graves for them all.
“Oh, Juan. Don’t get upset. We’ll be okay, you’ll see. Things have a way of working out.” Esperanza smiled and patted his arm.
Juan started to protest, but stopped. There was no reasoning with her when she got in her “things have a way of working out” mode.
Mina turned away from the wall of threads, her demeanor a sheet of ice over the river of deception coursing through her mind. Dora and Esperanza opened their embrace to welcome her into a three-way hug, but she walked past them.
“Come on, Mina. We’re in this together,” Dora pleaded, a little hurt by the rebuke.
But Mina couldn’t let them touch her—they’d know what she was thinking, then. Approaching the back door, the smell of warm piss saved her, and Mina pointed toward the puddle spreading beneath the old man’s chair.
“You let Tobi play—you clean it up. I’ve got work to do,” she growled, and stepped into the garden.
Mina had laid claim to the garden long ago, which suited her sisters fine. They had no interest in gardening, and their relief at being excused from toiling in the dirt and bugs prevented them from pointing out the irony that Mina did. Mina didn’t do it because she enjoyed growing things, though. She did it to be left alone.
Shortly after her refusal to snip Nereus’ thread led to their falling out with Poseidon, Mina had secretly attempted to create ambrosia, the food of the gods, in a hollow tree behind the garden’s shed. She’d never told her sisters because she’d dreamt of walking nonchalantly into their midst, restored to radiant beauty by bootleg ambrosia, and watching their mouths fall open like caves on wrinkley-faced mountains. She’d cultivated the right plants, and encouraged the right bees to pollinate them, but her attempts at alchemy produced only ordinary honey. Eventually, she gave up on the idea of counterfeit ambrosia, and turned her attention to the artistry of making pulque—the sour, alcoholic drink of their adopted culture. The bees’ descendants still buzzed around, but instead of jars of honey lined up inside the shed’s leaning walls, it now housed Mina’s pulque vats.
And the rugs.
Countless thousands were stacked neatly in the dank interior of the shed—which was much larger than it appeared. In fact, the back wall was only hinted at in the darkness, even though from the outside the shed looked to be about ten-feet deep. It was within the musty shed that the fruit of the old ladies’ looms manifested their mystical properties, and, once they deposited them inside, the sisters never touched the rugs again.
At least, they weren’t supposed to.
Their role was to simply channel Destiny’s will into the rugs, and place them in the shed. The passage of time did the rest. The complex connections made by countless, slightly unraveling, threads turned the sisters’ original patterns into an intricate, ever-changing grand design beyond the capacity of even the Fates to comprehend. Interfering with that design was taboo; unspoken and unwritten, but forbidden nonetheless.
Protected by a zealot’s certainty of righteousness, Mina moved quickly into the gloomy shed. Trailing her fingers across the stacks of rugs, she felt for the essence of one particular life—not by name, of course. She recognized lives by their negative, by the impact their end would have on those left behind.
This life was new enough for its rug to be high in the stack, but she still had to bend to reach it. Mumbling a curse at her protesting back, she shoved her knobby fingers between the rugs, and seized the thread she sought.
Unfortunately, it was entangled with another, and her arthritic fingers couldn’t get them apart. Twisting awkwardly to try to see what she was doing, a spasm in her lower back told Mina if she didn’t straighten up soon, she never would. If her sisters found her dead-bugged on the floor of the shed, her plan would collapse before it even began.
So, she gave up trying to separate the threads, and snipped them both.
Stifling a groan, she heaved herself upright—then waited, nervously monitoring the energy around her for the ramifications of her transgression to manifest.
Crows cawed in the treetops outside the shed. A fly kamikazed into one of the vats of fermenting pulque, and backstroked drunkenly into oblivion. Other than that, nothing happened.
Not there, anyway.
Across the barrier between realities, Nyx froze as her mom coughed, not daring to move until her mom’s breathing resumed its regular rhythm.
Sitting on the floor of living room, with the pulsing evidence of her guilt in plain sight, Nyx knew she was screwed. Mom would wake up, see the universe, and blame her for everything. Then she’d do something simple to bring Eros home—making Nyx feel even stupider because she couldn’t do it herself—and probably smash their new toy just to be mean. Then the kids would be back to playing with her brother’s homemade action figures.
Nyx grimaced. She hated his booger-sculptures, and stared into depths of the universe feeling sorry for herself. She didn’t regret playing the trick on Eros—that had been awesome. But she did regret that she was going to get in trouble for it.
If only there was some way for her to get inside and bring him home, then he’d be here to take his fair share of the blame. Even if she got trapped inside too, at least they’d both be missing when their parents woke up.
She could always say Eros tricked her into playing with the orb. Dad might believe her, anyway.
Nyx tapped the surface of the sphere, but its rigidity mocked her feeble optimism. Just after Eros had passed through, the jello-y barrier they’d poked their fingers through to create the universe had turned rock-hard. Realizing it was hopeless, she gave up, and let her head fall forward against the unyielding orb with a solid thud.
Then something strange happened.
One moment the barrier was there, stubbornly rigid against her forehead, the next it was gone. Nyx didn’t even have time to be scared before she was yanked into the universe in a brilliant orange flash.
