Page 54 of A Subtle Scar
“What are you wearing?” I asked. I had to. At this stage in our relationship, Ronny was bound to take it as a compliment.
“Only because I have class and you don’t doesn’t mean you get to ridicule me. Or finish my puzzle. What the fuck, Hermes?”
I shook my head. “Forget about the puzzle. Or your tight pants. I have an idea.”
Ronny snorted and crossed his arms. “By all means, entertain me.”
I cleared my throat and crossed my arms as well, then lifted my chin. “We solve the crime for him. We find the insolent human who’s been trying their hand at poor puppet spells and bring them to Chandler so he can…what exactly do they do with the bad ones these days? Do they only collect the whole lot in prison until they die out? That seems ineffective.”
“Hmm.” Ronny looked thoughtful. “That’s a good idea, actually.”
“Well, duh.”
“It’s not centered around how you might get laid, so excuse my surprise.”
“Don’t be mean, Ronny, we agreed,” I said and tried looking cute.
Ronny waved me off. “Yes, you are a genius. Let’s see if Lucy answers his pocket phone for me as well.”
“Fuck, Ronny, don’t go around talking like a geriatric human where Chandler can hear you, please. Our boyfriend will think that all gods are lame and can’t go with the time,” I said as Ronny pulled his phone out and called the Devil.
The Devil picked up. “One human, two of you. How is it that you’re incapable of getting your shit together and making the double-plus-one date I want Nelly to look forward to happen already? Also, I amstill shopping.”
“We’re on track for that date,” Ronny said. “We just have a question you should be able to answer. About what to do with despicable and despicably criminal humans. Chandler is hunting one or more at the moment, and we had the idea to do the hunting for him.”
“It was my idea,” I said.
Ronny sighed. “Fine. It was Hermes’s idea. What does one do with human criminals, Lucy?”
“Oh, that’s a tough one. Hold on.” On the other end, a door fell shut. “All right, so you cannot kill the human, and I advise against making them vanish. People like my Nelly and Chandler always want their cases closed, which means they need the human offender in custody, meaning delivered to their respective agencies where other people then get to handle said human. However, if you deliver the murderous human in a burlap sack, all you have to say is you did that so they wouldn’t hurt themself.”
I frowned. Ronny did too. “But…wouldn’t it be nice if they hurt themself? Because then we wouldn’t be responsible.”
Lucy sighed. “I know, and yes, it would be very nice. But there are human rules for our law protecting boyfriends about that sort of thing. They don’t make any sense, but they exist.”
“That sucks,” Ronny said.
“So much,” Lucy agreed.
“Humans get up to the weirdest shit,” I added, and in that moment, I could feel it: kinship. Here were three gods who had human boyfriends and had given up on all good reason and common sense to make them happy. It definitely meant Chandler was ours now.
“They very much do, but there is no changing them.” Lucy sighed. “We can only love our human-raised demigod boyfriends and mage boyfriends and look past all the weirdness.”
Ronny and I hummed in agreement. This time, Lucy wished us luck before hanging up.
“How did you plan on doing this?” Ronny asked after…pocketing his phone.
I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, but under no circumstance would I tell Ronny that, so I said, “I will drop you at the station where you can look after Chandler and maybe find out about his therapist. Then, I’ll teleport around the dump sites and look for that human magic.”
Ronny nodded. “It was very weak human magic, Hermes.”
“I know,” I said, thinking back to the evidence unit and the whiff that had remained of all the not very potent human spells. “But unlike your tightly packaged and bus riding ass, I am fast.”
Ronny grinned at me. “Noticed my ass, did you? Well, for now, I don’t have a better idea, and if it makes our boyfriend happy, we have to try. Your ass doesn’t look too shabby either by the way.”
It was totally inappropriate and puerile, but I felt my cheeks heat. “Thanks. And sorry about the puzzle.”
“Ah, it’s fine. I have others.” He indicated the pile on the table—and a second pile on a tiny side table I hadn’t even noticed before.
