Page 57 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
“I get it,” Dionysus said. “They basically had two choices. Pay taxes and be shady or avoid them as a nonprofit, but there would be things they’d have to disclose that would be publicly available. There are things they aren’t going to want publicly available anda lawyer probably advised them not to try to be a nonprofit and submit anything doctored. There would be poetry in the Coalition going down for fraud like Al Capone and his taxes, but it’s not going to be that easy.”
“That was a problem I had in my math,” Athena said. “The Coalition is a combination of misfits from many different creeds. They still call themselves by a specific denomination, but those churches have distanced themselves from them and don’t want to be associated with that.
“I had assumed they’d come up with some kind of combined doctrine they could all agree on and formed their own official religion. Despite everything everyoneknowsthey are doing, outlawing any type of worship is going to leave a foul taste in people’s mouths and it would set a dangerous legal precedent for people trying to outlaw every religion but their own. But since they aren’t an official religion, that solves a big problem with my equations.”
Ugh. I used to love when she’d spit out logical problems she was having with her math because we’d all sit in the garden near her temple and brain storm how to fix them. Being a priestess was a tremendous honor and everyone had their reasons for the god they devoted themselves to. Most people chose Athena for her brilliance. The ones that chose her because they were hoping to snag one of her heroes as a husband were generally gently redirected out of being her priestess.
I was still trying to be mad at her, but this was just really bringing me back and for once, old memories weren’t super traumatic. I enjoyed the shit out of being her priestess until that fateful day. Athena saw me staring at her and dropped her eyes.
“Sorry. Just trying to be helpful.”
“It’s actually a good point,” Persephone said. “If they aren’t an official religionora nonprofit, we can use that.”
“Couldn’t you use your superpower and burn the Coalition to the ground so we can all start over?” Pax asked.
“Ooh, yes. Sometimes, I just want to be lazy and eat bon bons while watching cartoons. Instead of all the political coups and fighting angels, couldn’t you just do the god thing and make them go away?” Benji asked.
“Doesn’t work like that. I can’t destroy ideas. Beliefs have power. They created me and your ancestors. People have been trying to figure out how to snuff those out long before I was created. There’s no magic in any realm that can do it or it would be liberally abused.
“I can’t repeat what I did to New Eden Asylum either. I mean, I could with the properties and records. It would be insanely easy. New Eden was on several acres of land and isolated. You can’t see it from the road. There’sno trespassingsigns and armed guards. The people who lived in the vicinity probably never saw it unless they drove near it as teenagers as a rite of passage.
“It’s not like that for the other Coalition facilities. They’ve all got security, but some of those building can be seen from the street. There would be too many people who saw and remembered a Coalition facility being there to pull the same trick.
“And everyone in the Coalition and who agrees with them would still have the same beliefs, so they’d try to rebuild but since they remembered those buildings, they’d just escalate and be worse than before because they know something powerful is at work. The only reason they aren’t now is because it was one facility and they ended up going viral because of that press conference. It’s been picked up all over the world. They have to play their next moves very carefully, so we have to strike while they are regrouping.”
“Can Pepper do what we asked and fast?”
Benji just grinned at me.
“She’s Pepper fucking Crane, America’s Grandma. She’s already got everything we needed prepared, she just wasn’t going to do anything with it until she sussed out Coalition sympathizers and softened them up. She said we are the missing pieces she needed and she’ll happily do it. She also wants a selfie that’s just for her of Dionysus and me in just our boxers.”
“The Coalition hurt my mates and countless supernaturals. I’llhappilybe spank-bank material for America’s granny. I’ll even send her a dick pic if she asks because she’s the key to phase one and it would amuse me.”
Honestly, I wouldn’t even be mad if Pepper Crane asked him for a dick pic and he sent it. You couldn’t be the jealous type when your mate was associated with orgies. Dionysus was devoted to me. The only time he had sex with anyone else was if we were sharing them. He was beautiful and people were always going to stare.
I wasn’t expecting Benji’s mystery woman to be Pepper Crane, but honestly, this was probably another Fate thing.
We had amuchbetter chance of pulling this off with her.
Pepper told us to give her three days and then get our asses to Washington DC. Everyone was nervous because this was probably the closest anyone had gotten to outlawing the Coalition here and we had some pretty big cards to play.
I was doing what I did best andheavilydisassociating. Like, I could have paced and pulled my hair our stressing about this going ass up, but then I’d get diarrhea and be in an even worse mood. With Calamity here, I finally wasn’t the youngest person, but I was old enough to know myself quite well. I was a delicate flower who didn’t deal with stress well.
So, I was plotting how to take the best selfie possible for my favorite politician. She’d been secretly following me for a whileand commented on a lot of my posts. Pepper wasn’t super dirty in my comments when I was posting thirst traps. She had a lot more to say when I was making videos about social issues that pissed me the fuck off and shelovedfilthy books.
This was a lot of work. I didn’t have the bandwidth to stress about what we were going to do. Cas, Pax, and I couldn’t be there just in case Saul invited Hannibal. We were too recognizable. I’d be creeping in the shadows like a good little shadow demon.
He wouldn’t recognize Medusa without her snakes. I was guessing if they didn’t know who she was after they captured her, they figured it out pretty fucking fast and got her down to the basement. Cas and Pax said there were no photos in the patient files. They didn’t give a shit what we looked like. Hannibal hadn’t laid eyes on her since she ended up in the basement and even if he could remember, I doubted he could picture her without the snakes.
All the gods were plotting. Yeah, blessings to them. All this was hinging on them. I didn’tneedthat kind of pressure. I was biting my cuticles stressing about this selfie and I’djusthad my nails done.
What if Pepper didn’t like it and decided to call this whole thing off because I wasn’t sexy enough?
Medusa slid into my lap and nuzzled her face into my neck.
“What’s wrong? I can feel you’re bugging out harder than anyone here.”
I squeezed her and kissed the top of her head. I explained why I was stressing. I had to trust that since she was my mate, she wasn’t going to judge me or banish me from the pack because I was losing my shit over a fucking selfie instead of the main quest.
