I have a new short based on Ken Hillerman, Nia's partisan guard in Mayhem. I had a lot of fun writing this story and drew on some of my experiences from working in a shopping mall and a healthclub during tornado season. I hope you enjoy this fun short story.
When I had walked into the Olympiad ninety minutes ago to start my workout, there’d been a hint of storm scudding low on the horizon. But the sun had been shining and it was otherwise, a perfect autumn afternoon.
I’d had a little extra time since The Muse of Astronomy, Nia Thanos, had defeated Pierus in the ongoing hostile takeover attempt of her family’s firm. She and her fiancé, Thomas, and his niece Hailey were on a picnic somewhere by the river trail.
Since she didn’t need my particular brand of protection at the moment. I’d decided to play hooky from both my jobs, as a climatologist with Olympus Enterprises and as Nia’s partisan protector, and hit the gym.
Now, despite the fact it was just past two in the afternoon, the building was downright gloomy. One of the benefits of being a demi-god was the ability to communicate with other gods without a cellphone, which I’d left in my locker. So I sent a mental message to Nia, instructing her to watch the sky and think about cutting the picnic short. Her ‘yes, mother’ response was immediate and sassy. I wanted to reply that it wasn’t polite to shoot the messenger, but I kept that thought to myself.
Climbing the stairs to the cardio level to finish with a punishing session on the stair climber, I passed Alex, another regular gym rat I considered a nodding acquaintance.
“Hey, Ken. You sticking around, or gonna split before the storm hits?” Alex asked.
As I mopped my face with the gym-supplied towel and shot a glance to the windows that made up one wall. Lightning flashed damn near the grounds and in that instant, a funnel cloud dropping out of the bank of storm clouds to the west.
“Uh—you’re too late, Alex. You’d better ride it out here,” I called over my shoulder as I raced toward the lobby to let the staff know they had a safety problem.
I skidded to a stop at the front desk. The employee glanced up. The kid’s nametag read Benji.
“Can I help you?”
A woman I recognized as the new Pilates instructor jolted to a stop at the desk in the next instant.
“Funnel cloud forming just to the west of the gym. Can you make an announcement for members to get to the shelter?”
The woman gasped.
The teen’s eyes went wide as he cast a frantic glance to the glass front doors. “I don’t know what to say?”
Beside him, on the desk, a weather radio squawked to life with an emergency alert.
“That thing has been screeching for the past fifteen and I can’t find the manager on duty.” The pasty-faced teen complained as he bounced on his toes. His knuckles were white as he waved a two-way radio in my face.
I held up my hand to catch all the pertinent information on the alert. Did the quick review of the map I carried in my head. The funnel I’d seen was on a direct course to us.
“Jeez, Benji. Hand me the phone and dial up the PA system.” The woman standing next to me demanded.
Her thick, auburn hair was caught up in a ponytail that swung on her shoulders as she pushed up on her toes, laid her torso on the granite counter and reached for the handset of the phone. High cheekbones, plump lips, and buckeye brown eyes created an exotic, sensual look. Her limbs were lithe but short—the crown of her head barely reached the top of my shoulder.
For the first time, I sensed I was in more danger of losing my heart to this woman than I was from the impending storm.
“How long do you think we have?” She directed her question to me.
At least this lifetime, and if I could convince Zeus, maybe he’d give me many more with this woman. Not the question she’d asked. “Uh…maybe five minutes. Probably less.”
Her brows knit as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Benji—intercom!”
Two short chirps sounded from the PA system just as the wind gusted hard, rattling the windows and forcing one of the outer doors open.
“May I have your attention?” The woman’s sultry tones echoed in the cavernous space, her tone practically demanding that everyone listen as this was some serious shit. “The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Warning for our area. Please proceed immediately to the designated tornado shelters in the locker rooms on the lower level. Remain calm. We’ll notify you when we receive the all clear.” She pressed the disconnect button and dropped the handset back into the cradle. Thunder boomed so loudly, even I cringed.
Benji started to move away. She stopped him. “Hang on. I need you to monitor the radio and let me know when they lift the alert.”
The door banged open again. The kid jumped backward. “Hell no, Monica. I’m going to the shelter.”
“Get the radio and get under the counter.” Monica ordered. I loved a take-charge kind of gal, and this chick’s tone told everyone she was top dog for the moment. She grabbed a walkie-talkie from the cradle. “I’m not shitting you, Benji. Lock two of the front doors, but leave the third open, in case anyone is running in. Then get under the counter and stay put. You’ll be safe under there.”
She looked at me. “Can you help me? There are kids in the childcare. The employees will need help herding them to the locker rooms.” She moved away, as though she knew I’d follow.
Which, given my natural instinct to protect, I did. I chased her down the curving hallway to the large double doors at the end.
Monica was already tapping in the entry code on a security pad next to the door. “What’s your name?” she asked breathlessly.
“Ken.”
The exterior doors at the left end of the hall shook in their frames. Debris scraped across the roof, driven by the gale-force winds.
“Better hurry,” I offered as nicely as possible.
She blasted me with a fuck-you look and jerked the door open. The young employees were herding a line of fifteen kids toward the exit.
“Got the roster?” Monica asked.
The one employee who looked to be college age passed the clipboard to her. Monica pasted a smile on her face, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, spread her arms wide and asked the youngsters, “Who wants to take a walk with me?” Her voice was filled with bright, happy, and an undertone of urgency.
The room illuminated garish white as lightning flared. A couple of the kids whimpered. One of the kid center employees did as well.
Nearest me, a cute little cherub with a riot of blond curls whimpered. When I bent to pick her up, she wrapped her arms tightly around me, burying her face in the crook of my neck. Another little guy attempted to climb me like a tree, so I snatched him up as well.
“Let’s go, kids. Stay in line and listen to what your teachers tell you.” Monica picked up another kid, grasped a second older child by the hand, and led the tiny person parade through the exit.
Like a bunch of lemmings, we all followed her lead. She escorted us to the stairwell, pausing to hold the door until I got there and took over. Wind whistled around the building, and a particularly loud boom of thunder shook the foundation. Little Blondie tightened her grasp, her arms crushing my windpipe, making it difficult to suck in necessary oxygen. My hands were too busy holding her and the other kid to do more than tighten my grip on them, nonverbally telling them I’d keep them safe, while crooning soft assurances to both of them.
Mother Nature was an unpredictable bitch. She might shift her powerful winds away from the gym at the last minute or drop the full force of the fury right on top of us.
When the last employee and his two charges made it through the door, I let it bang shut, cutting the wind and thunder noise in half. But windows in the stairwell still allowed the flashes of lightning. There was no telling where one flash ended and another began. The short hairs on the back of my neck lifted and I smelled the tang of ozone.
As I pounded down the stairs after Monica, a question crossed my mind. Could this storm be more shit Pierus had thrown at mortals? He’d tampered with the weather in the first challenge, and in the second, Nia’s challenge, he’d caused a massive eruption on the sun. The lousy bastard. We’d been in a lull between the contests, so it was unlikely, but the god was a sneaky asshole.
I got a mental communiqué from Nia, informing me they were okay. They’d taken shelter at a restaurant near the river. I sent her my thanks for the update as I burst out of the stairwell clutching two kids tight against my chest.
“This is the secured room for the kids,” Monica shouted as she flung open the door to the Pilates studio.
There were no windows in the concrete room, which was a good thing, but every wall was covered in mirrors. Not so good. I set my two kids down, dragged their arms from around my neck and urged them to sit. What would have been nice would be to have one of the Muses’ gifts, the one to inspire calm. It would go a long way with setting these terrified kids at ease. But the best I could do was to offer an encouraging smile.
As Monica herded the kids into a circle in the center of the room, I grabbed the stack of towels from near the door. Tossed them to one of the employees. “Cover every kid’s head and shoulders. I’ll go find more.”
Heart pounding, knowing from the change in pressure in my eardrums that the tornado was on us. I sprinted around the corner to the towel desk. A couple of stragglers raced by, hustling into the other designated shelter, the locker rooms. I swept up all the spare towels on the corner of the desk, then raced back to the studio.
The kids were all seated in a tight circle. The second I re-entered, I threw the towels at the teenage employee. They hustled to draped the thin protection over the kids.
I located my little cherub, picked her up and found a spot in the circle, next to Monica. She was talking quietly into her two-way radio, asking Benji for an update. My knee bumped hers as I settled next to her and arranged Little Blondie on my lap. She gave me a grateful smile, her eyes alight with something in addition to concern. I was going to take the gleam, and the burst of electricity between our knees, as a sign that I should ask her out for coffee.
“All the kids are present and accounted for in the Pilates studio.” She held my gaze as she relayed the information. “As soon as we get the all clear, we’ll head back to the kid’s center. Parents can collect them there.” She dropped her radio into her lap with a heavy sigh.
“There will be a lot of frightened parents, eager to get to their kids. Will we make it back there?”
“I have you to protect us, in case we’re mobbed.” She dropped her gaze to my chest, then lifted back to my face. “I bet not many people tangle with you.”
A chuckle built in my chest. “Well, they try, but few live to tell the tale.” Little Blondie whimpered again, and I tightened my arms around her.
Monica’s gaze softened, and she reached out to stroke the blond curls, just as I went to press a kiss to the child’s head. My lips caressed the backs of her fingers instead.
Monica gasped, her eyes flashed up to mine. “Oh!”
My lips were tingling, and every molecule in me strained to lean into the woman and see what might happen if I kissed her plump lips. “You felt it too?”
She nodded, but before she could say anything her radio blared.
“Monica, we got the all clear.” Benji’s voice trembled with relief. “The warning has been lifted and the sun is out.”
Her shoulders slumped and she leaned into my chest. “Thank God.”
I wrapped my free arm around her shoulders and drew her tight against my side, trying to tame the adrenaline rampaging through my system. Pressing a kiss to her hair, the contact inspired a little lightning in my chest.
“Thank you for your help,” she said. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
“If you really wanted to thank me, you’d say yes to a protein smoothie in the café once we get these kiddos back where they belong.”
Her sweet smile hit me right in the libido. “I’d like that very much.”
I’d had a little extra time since The Muse of Astronomy, Nia Thanos, had defeated Pierus in the ongoing hostile takeover attempt of her family’s firm. She and her fiancé, Thomas, and his niece Hailey were on a picnic somewhere by the river trail.
Since she didn’t need my particular brand of protection at the moment. I’d decided to play hooky from both my jobs, as a climatologist with Olympus Enterprises and as Nia’s partisan protector, and hit the gym.
Now, despite the fact it was just past two in the afternoon, the building was downright gloomy. One of the benefits of being a demi-god was the ability to communicate with other gods without a cellphone, which I’d left in my locker. So I sent a mental message to Nia, instructing her to watch the sky and think about cutting the picnic short. Her ‘yes, mother’ response was immediate and sassy. I wanted to reply that it wasn’t polite to shoot the messenger, but I kept that thought to myself.
Climbing the stairs to the cardio level to finish with a punishing session on the stair climber, I passed Alex, another regular gym rat I considered a nodding acquaintance.
“Hey, Ken. You sticking around, or gonna split before the storm hits?” Alex asked.
As I mopped my face with the gym-supplied towel and shot a glance to the windows that made up one wall. Lightning flashed damn near the grounds and in that instant, a funnel cloud dropping out of the bank of storm clouds to the west.
“Uh—you’re too late, Alex. You’d better ride it out here,” I called over my shoulder as I raced toward the lobby to let the staff know they had a safety problem.
I skidded to a stop at the front desk. The employee glanced up. The kid’s nametag read Benji.
“Can I help you?”
A woman I recognized as the new Pilates instructor jolted to a stop at the desk in the next instant.
“Funnel cloud forming just to the west of the gym. Can you make an announcement for members to get to the shelter?”
The woman gasped.
The teen’s eyes went wide as he cast a frantic glance to the glass front doors. “I don’t know what to say?”
Beside him, on the desk, a weather radio squawked to life with an emergency alert.
“That thing has been screeching for the past fifteen and I can’t find the manager on duty.” The pasty-faced teen complained as he bounced on his toes. His knuckles were white as he waved a two-way radio in my face.
I held up my hand to catch all the pertinent information on the alert. Did the quick review of the map I carried in my head. The funnel I’d seen was on a direct course to us.
“Jeez, Benji. Hand me the phone and dial up the PA system.” The woman standing next to me demanded.
Her thick, auburn hair was caught up in a ponytail that swung on her shoulders as she pushed up on her toes, laid her torso on the granite counter and reached for the handset of the phone. High cheekbones, plump lips, and buckeye brown eyes created an exotic, sensual look. Her limbs were lithe but short—the crown of her head barely reached the top of my shoulder.
For the first time, I sensed I was in more danger of losing my heart to this woman than I was from the impending storm.
“How long do you think we have?” She directed her question to me.
At least this lifetime, and if I could convince Zeus, maybe he’d give me many more with this woman. Not the question she’d asked. “Uh…maybe five minutes. Probably less.”
Her brows knit as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Benji—intercom!”
Two short chirps sounded from the PA system just as the wind gusted hard, rattling the windows and forcing one of the outer doors open.
“May I have your attention?” The woman’s sultry tones echoed in the cavernous space, her tone practically demanding that everyone listen as this was some serious shit. “The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Warning for our area. Please proceed immediately to the designated tornado shelters in the locker rooms on the lower level. Remain calm. We’ll notify you when we receive the all clear.” She pressed the disconnect button and dropped the handset back into the cradle. Thunder boomed so loudly, even I cringed.
Benji started to move away. She stopped him. “Hang on. I need you to monitor the radio and let me know when they lift the alert.”
The door banged open again. The kid jumped backward. “Hell no, Monica. I’m going to the shelter.”
“Get the radio and get under the counter.” Monica ordered. I loved a take-charge kind of gal, and this chick’s tone told everyone she was top dog for the moment. She grabbed a walkie-talkie from the cradle. “I’m not shitting you, Benji. Lock two of the front doors, but leave the third open, in case anyone is running in. Then get under the counter and stay put. You’ll be safe under there.”
She looked at me. “Can you help me? There are kids in the childcare. The employees will need help herding them to the locker rooms.” She moved away, as though she knew I’d follow.
Which, given my natural instinct to protect, I did. I chased her down the curving hallway to the large double doors at the end.
Monica was already tapping in the entry code on a security pad next to the door. “What’s your name?” she asked breathlessly.
“Ken.”
The exterior doors at the left end of the hall shook in their frames. Debris scraped across the roof, driven by the gale-force winds.
“Better hurry,” I offered as nicely as possible.
She blasted me with a fuck-you look and jerked the door open. The young employees were herding a line of fifteen kids toward the exit.
“Got the roster?” Monica asked.
The one employee who looked to be college age passed the clipboard to her. Monica pasted a smile on her face, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, spread her arms wide and asked the youngsters, “Who wants to take a walk with me?” Her voice was filled with bright, happy, and an undertone of urgency.
The room illuminated garish white as lightning flared. A couple of the kids whimpered. One of the kid center employees did as well.
Nearest me, a cute little cherub with a riot of blond curls whimpered. When I bent to pick her up, she wrapped her arms tightly around me, burying her face in the crook of my neck. Another little guy attempted to climb me like a tree, so I snatched him up as well.
“Let’s go, kids. Stay in line and listen to what your teachers tell you.” Monica picked up another kid, grasped a second older child by the hand, and led the tiny person parade through the exit.
Like a bunch of lemmings, we all followed her lead. She escorted us to the stairwell, pausing to hold the door until I got there and took over. Wind whistled around the building, and a particularly loud boom of thunder shook the foundation. Little Blondie tightened her grasp, her arms crushing my windpipe, making it difficult to suck in necessary oxygen. My hands were too busy holding her and the other kid to do more than tighten my grip on them, nonverbally telling them I’d keep them safe, while crooning soft assurances to both of them.
Mother Nature was an unpredictable bitch. She might shift her powerful winds away from the gym at the last minute or drop the full force of the fury right on top of us.
When the last employee and his two charges made it through the door, I let it bang shut, cutting the wind and thunder noise in half. But windows in the stairwell still allowed the flashes of lightning. There was no telling where one flash ended and another began. The short hairs on the back of my neck lifted and I smelled the tang of ozone.
As I pounded down the stairs after Monica, a question crossed my mind. Could this storm be more shit Pierus had thrown at mortals? He’d tampered with the weather in the first challenge, and in the second, Nia’s challenge, he’d caused a massive eruption on the sun. The lousy bastard. We’d been in a lull between the contests, so it was unlikely, but the god was a sneaky asshole.
I got a mental communiqué from Nia, informing me they were okay. They’d taken shelter at a restaurant near the river. I sent her my thanks for the update as I burst out of the stairwell clutching two kids tight against my chest.
“This is the secured room for the kids,” Monica shouted as she flung open the door to the Pilates studio.
There were no windows in the concrete room, which was a good thing, but every wall was covered in mirrors. Not so good. I set my two kids down, dragged their arms from around my neck and urged them to sit. What would have been nice would be to have one of the Muses’ gifts, the one to inspire calm. It would go a long way with setting these terrified kids at ease. But the best I could do was to offer an encouraging smile.
As Monica herded the kids into a circle in the center of the room, I grabbed the stack of towels from near the door. Tossed them to one of the employees. “Cover every kid’s head and shoulders. I’ll go find more.”
Heart pounding, knowing from the change in pressure in my eardrums that the tornado was on us. I sprinted around the corner to the towel desk. A couple of stragglers raced by, hustling into the other designated shelter, the locker rooms. I swept up all the spare towels on the corner of the desk, then raced back to the studio.
The kids were all seated in a tight circle. The second I re-entered, I threw the towels at the teenage employee. They hustled to draped the thin protection over the kids.
I located my little cherub, picked her up and found a spot in the circle, next to Monica. She was talking quietly into her two-way radio, asking Benji for an update. My knee bumped hers as I settled next to her and arranged Little Blondie on my lap. She gave me a grateful smile, her eyes alight with something in addition to concern. I was going to take the gleam, and the burst of electricity between our knees, as a sign that I should ask her out for coffee.
“All the kids are present and accounted for in the Pilates studio.” She held my gaze as she relayed the information. “As soon as we get the all clear, we’ll head back to the kid’s center. Parents can collect them there.” She dropped her radio into her lap with a heavy sigh.
“There will be a lot of frightened parents, eager to get to their kids. Will we make it back there?”
“I have you to protect us, in case we’re mobbed.” She dropped her gaze to my chest, then lifted back to my face. “I bet not many people tangle with you.”
A chuckle built in my chest. “Well, they try, but few live to tell the tale.” Little Blondie whimpered again, and I tightened my arms around her.
Monica’s gaze softened, and she reached out to stroke the blond curls, just as I went to press a kiss to the child’s head. My lips caressed the backs of her fingers instead.
Monica gasped, her eyes flashed up to mine. “Oh!”
My lips were tingling, and every molecule in me strained to lean into the woman and see what might happen if I kissed her plump lips. “You felt it too?”
She nodded, but before she could say anything her radio blared.
“Monica, we got the all clear.” Benji’s voice trembled with relief. “The warning has been lifted and the sun is out.”
Her shoulders slumped and she leaned into my chest. “Thank God.”
I wrapped my free arm around her shoulders and drew her tight against my side, trying to tame the adrenaline rampaging through my system. Pressing a kiss to her hair, the contact inspired a little lightning in my chest.
“Thank you for your help,” she said. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
“If you really wanted to thank me, you’d say yes to a protein smoothie in the café once we get these kiddos back where they belong.”
Her sweet smile hit me right in the libido. “I’d like that very much.”