CHAPTER ONE
Pop quiz, multiple choice: When is having a gorgeous naked woman coming after you a major problem? (A) When she’s your ex-girlfriend. (B) When she’s there to tear your arms off. (C) When she’s a Fury.
Why do I always have to be an “all of the above” kind of guy?
It can’t be Fate, the family I left behind. I’ve been off Fate’s roster ever since the goddess Necessity decided to transform me from a sorcerer of the hacking-and-cracking variety into an aspect of the Trickster. The Trickster . . . Yeah, that’s probably it. Nothing is ever simple for the Raven.
Which is why my involuntary vacation in the land of the Norse gods had ended with an equally involuntary deportation back to my MythOS of origin, the Greek pantheoverse. The process ended with my rather abrupt return to the Garbage Faerie Decision Locus, carrying my clothes rather than wearing them. I was accompanied on my trip by one small sarcastic blue goblin, one giant god-wolf recovering from an unfortunate piercing, and one disembodied but very perky hand. Dignity and grace in all things, that’s my motto.
I’d just managed to get my leather pants and one boot on, and was struggling with the next boot, when the unmistakable sound of someone tearing a hole in the universe announced the imminent arrival of one of the Sisters of Vengeance.
Since I was none too sure of where I stood with the Furies at the moment, I dropped the boot and reached for my shoulder holster. Not that I believed a .45 was going to do anything against one of the baddest goddesses on the block—I just wanted something vaguely threatening to hang on to by way of a security blanket. My magic sword, Occam, would have made a better choice if I hadn’t recently managed to break it. Sigh. They don’t make them like Excalibur anymore.
“Is Ravirn always this dignified?” asked the wolf from off to my left.
“You have no idea, Fenris. You have no idea.” My webgoblin familiar, Melchior, shook his head sadly.
“Said the laptop with delusions of grandeur,” I replied. I wouldn’t trade Mel for anything, but sometimes I wondered if we shouldn’t tone the sarcasm down with his next upgrade. Yeah, that was going to happen.
I’d have defended myself further, but the incoming Fury picked that exact moment to pass through from wherever she had been before she sliced a doorway in space and time. An ice-clawed hand was the first thing that emerged, telling me that this must be the replacement for Tisiphone—whom I loved and had been forced to leave behind in the land of the Norse gods when she chose freedom in exile over servitude at home. I couldn’t blame her; she’d seen a chance to shed the mantle of a power forever and taken it. I’d probably have done the same if I’d had the opportunity.
The new Fury entered my world fully, and I let out an involuntary gasp. Like her sisters, she disdained the use of clothing, going naked before the elements. She was tall and slender, with hair and wings that seemed to have been carved from living ice. Beautiful, too, beautiful and cold and deadly. More than capable of tearing me in half if she wished it. She was also desperately familiar.
“You!” I said, in the exact same moment as she did.
“Well, dip me in garlic butter and throw me to Cerberus,” said Melchior.
“Raven,” said the Fury, and her voice dripped scorn.
“Cerice,” I replied, giving her my best court bow. “How lovely to see you again.”
My ex-girlfriend Cerice had become the new Fury. Just as the ex-Fury Tisiphone had become my new and already-much-missed girlfriend. Naturally, I’d ended up close and personal with the wrong one.
She sniffed disdainfully as she alighted in front of me. In almost the same moment that her nostrils flared, her eyes narrowed. I couldn’t help but remember just how keen the Fury sense of smell was and relate that to the fact that I was barely ten minutes out of bed with Tisiphone. This was not going well, which meant I might as well up the ante. That’s how a trickster plays the game . . . whether he wants to or not.
“Oh, and you might recall that I prefer Ravirn,” I said.
“That name was taken from you by your grandmother. You remember her, right? Lachesis, the Fate who measures the threads?” Cerice’s voice sounded acid etched. “It no longer belongs to you. You are instead what my grandmother Clotho named you, the Raven, a power of chaos and a traitor to the Houses of Fate.” She picked that moment to snatch the pistol from my hand and twist it like a dishrag.
“Sounds like you two have some history.” Fenris’s tongue lolled as he gave a wolfy laugh.
Cerice turned a hard glare on him. “Who . . . or what in Necessity’s name are you?”