Immortals (Completed and Unedited)

22

"We'll be going separately from here," Hestia told me as soon as we got outside of her house and she locked the door. "Take these," she said handing Alexa a key chain, "Chance and I will go my way, once Chance is safely inside the Luxor and has escaped to find the Fates I will contact the two of you and you," she said with a quick glance at me. "Will be coming to the Luxor as well, I'll instruct you as we go okay?"

"Okay," I said wishing we had more of  a plan as I took a side glance at Alexa who took the keys with a steady hand, mouth set in a thin line. If I was to guess I'd say she was as scared as she was determined to get this done right.

"Let's do this," and she clicked the button on the little black thing on her key ring and a black Jeep's engine roared to life and the lights flickered on inside the garage. "Hop in," she instructed and I swallowed the lump my throat and opened the passenger door and buckled in.

"Go before I realize how stupid this is," I advised and I heard the garage door open and felt the Jeep shift into reverse and we backed out into suburban LA night. I closed my eyes as I felt the road under us and was grateful that this city never slept. The bright neon lights should keep Nyx away at least and I stared out at the bright lights, I wasn't close enough to see the shapes they took on, but the glow was visible even from here.

"You okay? Well as okay as you can be?" Alexa asked me as she drove, and I looked back over to her, the lights casting weird shadows on her face and pulled back hair. "You can talk to me, I'm probably not your first choice, I mean we're pretty much strangers, but..." she shrugged and gave me an apologetic smile. "If you want to talk I'm all ears."

"Thanks," I muttered, had this been a year ago I'd have been thrilled, I was alone in a sweet car with a hot blonde who happened to be really nice. But now...I didn't have time to be thrilled, I was too worried about what I was going to do. Aphrodite, she was a pretty famous goddess, what did  the myths say about her? Or rather, the stories? Couldn't exactly say she was a myth anymore... "Hey Alexa, what do you know about her? Aphrodite  I mean?"

"She's beautiful," Alexa said instantly, "but she's hard to indentify. She changes her appearance more than any other god or goddess. She might be a little person with red hair one time you see her, and then the next she's a six-foot, long-legged woman an afro. You can never really tell who she is until you get close."

"What happens then? When you get close?" I asked afraid of what her answer was and surprised she was giving me straight answers. If she was friends with Chance I'd have guessed she'd have just said "later".

"The common belief about the goddess of love is that she looks different to every person, it's not true, but you knew that already."

"Yeah, I did,"  I answered though it wasn't a question. "What are you getting at?"

"What I mean is that while she doesn't look different to every single person, the longer she spends with you the more she knows about what you find beautiful and then she may or may not adjust according to it.  That's where that myth came from, something about all those old stories, they aren't correct, but there is some truth in them you know?"

"Yeah, like how Artemis has a vendetta against the male population,"  I said recalling with a hint of pity and nausea as I recalled what Chance had known about her and how she reacted to it. "That's true, but the reason why is never mentioned."

Alexa's mouth twitched, and I heard a dark note enter her voice. "That's exactly right, but back to the love goddess. That can be a problem, her knowing what appeals to you, people tend to lower their guard around things they like but that's not what makes her dangerous."

"Then what does?' I asked hoping and praying to Alexa's μητέρα that she only had the powers her stories talked about. Looking great to everyone and sex. If she had anything else like being an automatic black belt I was in trouble.