Chapter One

BAD COMPANY

- Chapter One -

Dusk was approaching quickly. The setting sun shimmered on some dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the Deep South; it turned them golden in the fading light. The road stretched out for miles before him, swallowed up by the horizon on either ends of the Earth. Despite the lush green of the grass and the healthy vegetation, the area gave off an eerie kind of feeling; as if despite its every indication of life and nature, the place was dead. If E didn’t know better, he would have said the place was deserted; a barren, wasteland of old country �" neglected, abandoned. The only sign of civilisation was the ramshackle public house he was staring at, from the opposite side of the road. There wasn’t even a name to the place; it was just a rickety wooden hut, all patched-up windows and drooping gutters. E wouldn’t have even considered it inhabited in any way if there hadn’t been lights on in the building, and if he hadn’t already followed her here.

The door handle rattled in his hands as he entered the building. He had to duck as he made his way in �" more out of vanity than anything else (it took a while to get his hair looking this good). Instantly, he was overwhelmed by the stuffiness �" and business �" of the establishment. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the outside (the lone motorbike in the ten-space car park would have suggested as much) but the place was swamped with bodies; mostly drunken men wearing leather jackets, who seemed to have misplaced their dignity along with their motorbikes. However, he still saw her. She was hidden away in a small corner booth; able to see the room at all times, from every angle. The perfect spot. She never kept her eyes on one person for longer than three seconds.

A smirk twitched at E’s lips.

He didn’t even consider ordering a drink. Casually, he saddled up next to her baring a smile as warmly and as friendly as he could muster. For a moment, she looked at him with dark eyes full of steely indifference before they flitted back to the double whisky in her hands and then onto the rat that was scuttling around the floor, dancing around the mindless feet stomping about the place.

“E,” he stated bluntly as he extended a waxen white hand in her direction. She didn’t even look at him this time as she took another sip of her drink, eyes focused on an unconscious man being pushed off of a pool table. They moved to the bartender who’d also been watching the scene unfold.

E chuckled quietly under his breath, “It’s okay; you don’t have to introduce yourself, Diane.”

Her head whipped to face him, eyes suddenly full of questions, “Excuse me?”

“E,” he stated again, hand still extended in her direction.

“Should I know you?” she asked uncertainly, pointedly ignoring his hand. She downed the rest of her drink, placed the empty glass upside down on the table and turned to face him.

“Yes, you should. You don’t know me yet but you should know me.” He grinned at her with an air of arrogance that left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She rolled her eyes at him and moved to leave. His hand shots out to grab her wrist and pull her back, “Listen, Diane. I need to talk to you. You’re going to want to hear this so I suggest you follow me out the back.”

All eyes in the room were blind to the scene playing out in the corner of the pub. Diane frowned down at the stranger and tugged her wrist out of his grasp.

“I don’t think so,” she replied coldly, turning to leave. E got up and followed her as she dodged the unpredictable movements of intoxicated men on her way to the exit.

“Look, I understand this is weird �" also kind of creepy �" well, mostly creepy, but I really do need you to listen to me. I can help you if you help me. Scratch my back; I scratch yours.” Diane stopped listening to him at ‘weird’.

As she threw open the door to the pub, E needed to grind his teeth to stop from grabbing for her wrist again.

She was halfway towards her motorbike, with the saloon doors swinging shut behind them both, when E broke his cool out of desperation: “I can clear your name!”

This definitely didn’t go to plan.

Diane paused and slowly turned to face him �" partly interested to hear what he had to say but mostly curious as to why he even knew she needed her name cleared.

E could only have hoped none of the bikers �" bikers who had most likely committed crimes, who were most likely to be on some form of a wanted list in some county police office somewhere �" E could only have hoped none of them had heard that little exclamation.

“Why would you think I need my name cleared in any way?” Diane quizzed him smoothly, pulling her jacket tighter around her body. There was just a thin line of orange light dancing on the horizon; twilight had befallen them.

It was E’s turn to roll his eyes, “Oh, please. People talk, Diane. There is a network of criminal activity beneath the surface of this Earth, spanning across the entire globe. You may think you’re some nameless, faceless, occasional cat burglar but you’re not. People know you; granted, it’s not the people who want to know you but people do know you. You’re not impervious to the system.”

Mild concern began to ripple across Diane’s face, “What people? Who knows me?”

“Nobody important; people exactly like you, in a situation exactly like yours. Trust me, the police have no idea �" well, they have an idea about you but they don’t know you, so to say.” E smiled triumphantly at her. “I can ensure they never will know you.”

Diane scrutinised him carefully. Doubt filled her up until she was ready to burst, “And how exactly would you do that? Erase everything about me from their files? Kill me?”

E let out a loud, body-shaking guffaw. He patted his grey three-piece suit down as he regained composure, “Kill you? Gods, no. You’re no use to me dead. I can hide you.”

For a moment, Diane just stared blankly at him, unsure of how to process this information. It didn’t take long for disbelief to settle in and inevitably burst through her façade.

“Hide me? Hide me? What �" in the trunk of your car as we pass police vehicles on the highway? I can hide myself. I know how to use the darkness to my advantage. I know how to conceal myself.” Diane turned away from him and headed towards her bike. She shook her head in agitated disbelief as she moved.

“Yes, yes, I know you can, too. You’re a master thief; expert in camouflage. I know,” E stressed as he sprinted to catch up with her. “Can you do it in plain sight though?" He turned around, walking backward towards her bike, he continued, "Right in front of an officer’s face? No obstructions, no disguises. You, as you are, in perfect light. Can you hide yourself then?”

Diane paused, hands on her helmet as she pulled it out of the small boot of her bike, “That’s impossible.”

“Au contraire, my dear. However, to prove you wrong I would need you to agree to accompany me on a grand voyage to places you could only dream about.” E perched himself on her motorbike tentatively, one eyebrow raised suggestively.

“Yeah, no thanks. I have somewhere I need be,” Diane refused. “Now kindly get off my bike.”

“Not until you hear me out.”

“That’s really not going to happen any time soon.”

“What if I showed you this?”

E retrieved a small item from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. What Diane initially saw was merely light emanating from his clasped hand. It was a peculiar spectacle in and of itself though Diane easily convinced herself it was just a bloody torchlight or something similar. However, when he unfurled his fingers from around the item, it dawned on Diane that what rested in his palm looked strangely like a shard of lightning. A great number of questions whizzed through her mind as she peered at this curious object but only two questions found their way to her lips.

“Okay, who the f**k are you?” She roughly slammed her helmet down into E’s lap. “And what the f**k is that?!”

E smiled lazily at her, “The name is E. I’m a professor of Classics at Harvard University. I’m currently undertaking a sabbatical to find myself and explore new cultures �" amongst other things. And I have an agenda.” He motioned to the shard in his hand, “This is a lightning bolt.  Or, well, a small part of a lightning bolt. The real thing is very much bigger and much more dangerous.”

“E?”

“E.”

“E?”

“Yes, E, for goodness sakes. Is it a problem?”

“Well, yes; I feel like you’re already lying to me. Hiding your name suggests you could be hiding a lot more and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that.” Diane leaned against the handles of her bike and peered at E curiously. “Also, is that f**k a bolt of lightning. Nice try, Harry Potter.”

“I like a little ambiguity about myself, is that so bad? All my students called me E. ‘Professor E’, if you want to get technical. It’s like a stage name for me,” E replied coolly, “And it is lightning.”

“And why would you require a stage name? Do you have a hidden identity?” Diane looked at him dubiously, brows furrowed, her mouth a straight line. His hand which held the lightning was still open so Diane made a bold move and snatched it from his palm.

“Don’t we all?” E mused wistfully. He was fidgeting with the helmet, tossing it between his hands occasionally while Diane inspected the shard, “I, for one, know about yours; about your father, your upbringing �" what it’s turned you into.”

Diane’s eyes shot up to stare him down and her jaw set tightly when E mentioned her father: “And how the f**k would you know anything about that?” She snatched the helmet out of his hands and pushed it onto her head angrily while she juggled the lightning between both hands.

“People talk.”

“Nobody knows about my father,” Diane whispered defiantly.

E refused to budge when Diane made an attempt at pushing him off of her motorbike.

“Move!” she demanded. “And take whatever the f**k this is back!” She threw the lightning shard at him and it landed on the motorbike seat just before him.

“It’s a lightning bolt,” E mumbled dejectedly. “Let’s not get emotional now, Diane,” he continued as he picked the lightning bolt up and began thumbing it, “Your father is not important to me. I just wanted to get a point across: I know you. I know you don’t like that I do but I can’t change it �" and, out of selfishly personal reasons, I don’t want to. I need your help.” He was staring up at her with strikingly blue eyes set in desperation �" something that looked incredibly out of place on his stern, angular face.

“I need you to leave me alone,” Diane hissed, shoving him roughly in the shoulder. He didn’t respond.

“You need me to clear your name. You want to disappear, I get it; I can help you with this. Let me help. Just help me out as well �" an eye for an eye, and all that jazz.”

“I- I need to know what you want from me,” Diane demanded sharply. She said it more out of wanting to shut him up than out of being genuinely interested in hearing him speak. She pulled the helmet off of her head and held it between the crook of her elbow and her hip.

E smileds thinly, “This is going to sound ludicrous. It’s going to sound even more impossible than the promise I’ve made you. I know this. I need you to know it’s all entirely true, though. Got that? It’ll be a lot to take in so, please, just listen. Wait it out until the end �" can you do that for me?”

Diane nodded hesitantly as she gently placed the helmet in his lap again and returned to leaning on the handles.

“Anything you’ve ever learned about gods and religions and mythologies is true. They are all true. They are all real. Each and every god depicted in literature and the likes �" and other gods most people will have never even heard of �" exist. They exist in our dimension. They roam our planet. They look strikingly just like you and I. Now, I’ve previously mentioned that I’m a professor of Classics, so I naturally lean towards the mythology of ancient worlds more than anything else. And it’s through my education and interest in Greek mythology that I’ve come to learn of the real existence of Mount Olympus �" not just the physical mountain itself but the grand marble home of the Greek gods themselves. I know it exists �" I’ve seen it. And because I’ve seen it, I know the difference between Mount Olympus on any regular day and Mount Olympus under threat. And it is, Diane. It’s under great threat right now and I need you to help me resolve the issue.”

Diane had heard a lot of bullshit in her life but this really blew everything else out of the water.

She laughed quietly to herself at first, soft and disbelieving; a laugh that soon morphed into an exhausted groan, “I really don’t have time for this. I can’t believe I listened to you. I can’t believe I, for one moment, trusted that you could help me. I can’t believe you expect me to believe that! Mythology is named as such because it is derived from myth �" myth being a widely held albeit false idea. I can’t believe this.” She threw her hands up in exasperation then brought them down to rest at her temples, rubbing in slow circles.

E was still settled comfortably on her motorbike with no intention of leaving.

“Diane, please, I am not some deluded human being. I know what I have witnessed. I know what I’ve experienced and I know everything I have just told you to be true."

E placed a hand on Diane's elbow but she jerked back from his touch sharply, eyes focused on his face.

"Look, I don’t know what’s possessed you into believing this nonsense �" be it drugs or some mental disorder you’re not getting treated for �" but don’t you dare try to bring me into it. What you believe you’ve experienced isn’t true and there is no Olympus to be saved �" it is all a figment of your imagination. And I’m going to leave, right now. I’m sorry; I hope you deal with whatever demons are plaguing you. I can’t help.”

Diane tapped her foot against the asphalt impatiently as E continued to refuse to budge from the seat of her motorbike.

“Please, get up,” she pleaded as she took her helmet back once more.

“Remember the lightning bolt,” E pointed out as he held the small shard out to her, “You didn’t even ask why I showed you this - this part of a lightning bolt.”

“I didn’t ask because I know it’s not a f*****g lightning bolt. Lightning is pure electricity �" extremely powerful, dangerous electricity at that. If you were holding a lightning bolt in your hand you’d be a frazzled shell of a human being. It’s not lightning because it makes no f*****g sense.”

“Then what is it?” E asked curiously. “What on Earth could this possibly be if not what I tell you what it is?”

He kept his hand extended out toward her with the lightning bolt resting in its palm. Diane had definitely never seen anything like it before and it did look remarkably like a lightning bolt �" or at least what she imagined a lightning bolt looked like. It resembled a small, starched white tree branch which fed off into smaller branches. It was jagged and sharp and it was glowing radiant white. It still made no sense though; it was physically impossible for him to have been holding a lightning bolt in his hands.

Noting her hesitant and thoughtful expression, E leapt at the opportunity, “Zeus is the god of the sky and weather. He’s renowned for his thunderbolts; they’re like his logo or something. Now, just think about it. I found this little shard of lightning amidst a flurry of others atop Mount Olympus. Why would Zeus just drop a bundle of uncharged lightning bolts to Earth if he wasn’t in any immediate danger? Seriously, just think about it.”

“He’s not in danger because he’s not real and I don’t where you got your glowing white tree branch from but I’m not interested,” Diane responded resolutely.

“Can you at least give me an opportunity to prove you wrong? We just have to go visit one person and then you can decide for yourself how true my words are.” The peculiar desperation in E’s eyes had returned and Diane had to scold herself for almost having felt bad for this stranger.

“Look, I don’t know you. I’m not someone who runs off with complete strangers. So, no, I won’t go meet someone with you in the hopes you can convince me of the existence of a bunch of mythological characters. I’m not going to lie, that’s just a little out of my comfort zone. And I really need to be in Tennessee by tomorrow morning.” Diane smiled thinly at the pale gentleman.

“I’m going to better my offer for you then,” E replied, his tone deflated and reserved. He didn’t want to have had to resort to this but he should have guessed he would need to.

Diane only rolled her eyes at him.

“What if I told you, you could see your father again?” E sucked in a shaky breath and held it in anticipation.

There was a minor bout of silence. Diane stared him down fiercely.

“F**k right off,” she simply replied, face flat and eyes furious, “Just f**k off. You need to stop using my father as some sort of sick bargaining chip. You have no right �" absolutely no right. He is dead! He is dead, for f**k’s sake! If I want to see him, I can look at a f*****g picture of him. Don’t… just don’t try that.”

“I understand �" it’s a terrifying, parasitic idea I’ve just implanted in your head. But it’s an idea that can be realised �" just like the idea that I can hide you from any police body. And the idea that this really is a tiny bolt of lightning. I only ask you that trust me for a couple of days. We don’t have to go far �" just a state away. Just trust me for this one trip. If you’re not sold, you’re free to go. Just one trip.”

Diane took in a deep breath and exhaled shakily, praying that the tears which brimmed her eyes wouldn’t fall.

“Why me?” she asked quietly as she held his eye contact with bloodshot eyes, “Why do you need me?”

“You’re the best at what you do and I’m going to need your expertise at some point. I won’t lie to you: this won’t be easy. You’ll visit places you’ll never want to return to. You’ll meet a lot of tempestuous people �" and I mean that more literally than you might think. And you’ll participate in something far bigger than anything you would ever do if I had never approached you. This is a brilliant �" but dangerous �" opportunity I’m offering you. And I’m offering it to you because I know how masterful you are at your work, how silent you can be. I need those skills.”

“My work?”

“As I previously mentioned, you are an experienced, occasional cat burglar, yes?” Diane didn’t respond and so E took this silence for affirmation. “I’ll need you to steal something for me. And this thing will be protected in ways beyond your comprehension. So, naturally, I need the most skilled thief in the business to acquire it for me.”

Diane’s eyes narrowed, “What did you say you do for a living?”

“Classics professor, currently undertaking a sabbatical.”

“A Classics professor currently undertaking a sabbatical. A Classics professor. Sounds pretty prestigious in terms of employment. Why would somebody of your status be interested in the illegal acquisition of someone else’s property?”

“To save Olympus.”

“Right.”

E fidgeted uncomfortably and impatiently through a short silence as it befell the pair.

“So, what do you say?”

“Just one trip? Just a couple of days?” Diane asked with little conviction, biting her lip. Frowning, she took one last lingering look at the shard of lightning that was still in E’s open hand.

“Two days at most; one destination,” E promised.

“Okay.”

With an expression filled with far more triumph than Diane liked, E hopped off her motorbike and clapped his hands excitedly, “This is going to be so much fun!” Diane merely stared at him with a flat expression before she reached into the boot of her bike and retrieved a black satchel bag.

As E lead Diane to his Chevy Impala on the opposite side of the road, he turned to look at her abandoned motorbike momentarily, “I’ll also buy you a new bike for all your troubles because gods know that won’t still be there when you get back.”

Diane couldn’t even commit to a laugh as she opened the car door and sat in the passenger seat. E switched the headlights on and exacted a U-turn in the road and headed west.

Reviews

[Gaelan_Hamilton]

BAD A*S.

Seriously though, outstanding! Wasn't too sure this was going to be my cup of tea until E used the word "Gods", instantly knew mythical stuff was going down!

Brilliant characterisation. Intriguing concept. Outstanding description.

Well friggin done :D

[carynolivia]

Muchas gracias Gaelan! Glad you enjoyed it. Making my way to Charge of Gods update as I type!

[Gaelan_Hamilton]

You're welcome! HAHAHAH cannot WAIT to see what you think - this is the BIG explanation bit :P

[Stefanie Holmes]

This was so intriguing! It drew me in immediately and I can't wait to see where you take this story!
Your characters play off each other well and you incorporate great descriptions so readers can easily picture what is going on. I'm excited about this one. :)

~Stefanie

[Shaquana Adams]

E and Diane seem to play off each others energy like two actors in a movie. Right when I thought the story was moving too slow for me, it sped up. Great work! Thanks for sharing! :)

[carynolivia]

Glad you liked it! E and Diane's dynamic is one of my favourite things about it and so writing it is super fun!

[shannon_writes]

I love the descriptions, especially at the beginning! E is great- in the douchebag way- and I'm really intrigued to learn more about Diane, she seems badass as hell.

And I like the Chevy Impala of course.

[carynolivia]

Thank you Shannon! Glad you're like E's douchebaggery, it gets even better as the story progresses, haha!

And what's a story without a Chevy Impala?!

[Brittany Zedalis]

This is amazing. I'm definitely reading more. The story just pulled me in, and it's definitely something I'm interested in. Also, you had me at Chevy Impala.

[carynolivia]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying it :) And who doesn't want a Chevy Impala, let's be fair?!

[Brittany Zedalis]

A '67 Impala is my dream car. I am determined to have it one day. xD

[carynolivia]

It's mine as well!