ALL NOVEL 68. Divine Intrigue (Tess)
It was early evening when I finally straightened up in my chair. I stretched my back and flexed my shoulders, then winced at how stiff they were. My water bottle had been empty for the past two or three hours, I was thirsty and maybe a bit hungry. After spending around six hours at my desk, with my face either buried in books or glued to the screen of my computer, I decided that was more than enough work for the day.
I shut down my computer then got to my feet and stretched again, before emerging from the office to see what my girlfriend was up to.
"Hey love, how'd it go?" Amy asked as she looked up from her phone. She was sitting crosslegged at one end of the sofa, and there was an open can of soda on the coffee table in front of her.
I vaguely remembered hearing talking earlier in the day, but there was no sign of anyone else around now. Whoever she'd had over was long gone by now.
"It was good," I replied as I stifled a yawn. "Very productive. What have you been up to while I was busy? I thought I heard talking at one point, did you have someone over?"
She motioned me over to her and when I sat down she reached up and started gently rubbing and massaging my shoulders. As she did that she replied, "I've had a fairly productive day as well. Raven and I went out this afternoon and met a couple more demi-humans. There was a bunnygirl who's even smaller than me, and her tall wolfgirl girlfriend."
I let out a sigh as her fingers worked magic, maybe literally, on the knotted muscles across the back of my shoulders and neck. It took me a few seconds to realize what she'd said, then my eyebrows crept up. "Seriously? A small bunnygirl and a tall wolfgirl? Where'd you find them? And how'd they end up like that?"
Amy continued the massage as she told me about the visit with her angel, and relayed what the two demi-humans had told her about their transformations last year.
"Wow," I finally commented. Then I frowned, "So a couple old trans truck drivers got a new lease on life as demi-human girls. I have no idea what to think about that."
My girlfriend shrugged, "They're happy. That's all that matters. And Amethyst picked up a couple more worshippers I guess? I fixed their ID and financial records and stuff, so they're all set for now."
We were both quiet for a bit, while she continued rubbing and kneading my neck and shoulders. Then she continued, "Anyways after that me and Raven came back here, then we invited one of her angel friends over? Or a fallen angel anyways. She seemed nice, relaxed and down-to-Earth. She looked like a soccer-mom, and apparently she and her wife - who's also a fallen angel - settled down to have a family."
I couldn't help feel a little surprised by almost all of that. The idea of the emo goth college-age Raven being friends with a chill soccer-mom type was kind of hard to picture.
"Was that just a social call?" I finally asked.
"Nope," Amy replied. "We got a name from the bunnygirl, someone involved in the magic that transformed her and her girlfriend? Raven recognized it, apparently Tanya knew the person. It was a bit of a story though."
A glass of white wine appeared next to my hand, which meant my girlfriend wanted me to relax and listen while she continued with her story and my massage. And I definitely wasn't going to complain about any of those things. So I sipped my wine and enjoyed my massage while I listened to Amy talk about enchanted plush toys, a potentially dangerous Goddess of magic named May, and a banished Goddess of chaos named Socha who apparently was May's daughter.
"So that's what we know," she said as she got to the end, of both the story and the massage.
Amy moved to sit next to me and had a sip of wine from a glass she hadn't been holding a moment ago, before getting to the end of her story. "Tanya thinks the enchanted toys were created by someone familiar with Socha's work and her goals. And she thinks May Hawthorne is doing her best to clean up after her daughter. Tanya says she doesn't think May is evil, but she believes the woman is misguided. Or her judgement is clouded."
After another sip of her drink she summarized, "According to Tanya, May Hawthorne's been trying to make up for her daughter's mistakes for so long that she's no longer thinking objectively? She's so focused on getting rid of anything Socha or her followers have done that she doesn't realize some of those things can be positive. Plus, it sounds like she's maybe a bit careless? Some sort of accident with her magic sent Tanya's daughter to hospital last June, which is how they found out all these details about the woman."
I was quiet for a few seconds as I drained the last of my wine. Then I responded, "It's a pretty amazing story, and honestly a little bit freaky finding out about all this divine intrigue and infighting going on around us, while the mortals just think everything's normal and mundane."
"I know," my girlfriend replied with a grimace. "Tanya and her family live about thirty kilometres north of us, and apparently that's where May Hawthorne was up until last June, living as a high-school teacher. And we know Kai is in Toronto, and I used to be roommates with Mike? Counting me and Raven that's three gods and four angels all living less than a hundred kilometres apart. Makes me wonder what else is living here around us? Like demons, or fae, or even vampires or werewolves."
That left me wondering the same thing, about how many supernaturals there were living in secret around us. I thought about that for a few moments, before my mind drifted back to something she said earlier.
I commented, "You mentioned Raven's angel friend had a family, but you didn't count their daughter along with the other supernaturals around here? Or is their child not an angel? Actually, can angels have children, do you know how that works?"
Amy smiled, "I actually asked Raven the same thing, after Tanya left. That was an awkward conversation, and it was stuff I 'should' have already known."
She finished the last of her wine as well, then filled me in on the subject. "So angels can only be created by a god or goddess. When we do that, we're taking a piece of ourself and imbuing it with sentience and agency, basically breathing life into it. So Raven was literally born of Amethyst. The key thing though is only a god can create an angel, and that means two angels can't have kids together."
She continued, "Male angels can impregnate female humans to give birth to half-angels, sometimes called nephilim, but that can get complicated and usually requires the angel's god to participate or at least bless the union since the angel was created from the god? Raven didn't mention if human men and female angels could do the same thing, but if they can that would definitely require the god's blessing. And fallen angels can't do any of that, because they've rejected their gods and become truly independent."
"When they quit they take that piece of their god with them," she added, "So they retain whatever strength and power they had. And their god becomes slightly weaker since they lose that piece of themself forever."
Then she wrapped it up, "Anyways, back on topic, Tanya didn't want to talk about her family, she said there was some stuff going on that she wanted to keep secret."
"That's a lot to take in," I replied. A moment later I added, "Ok so angels can't have kids, but obviously Gods and Goddesses can. You said Socha is May's kid. And mythology is full of stories of Gods having kids with each other and with humans."
Amy blushed, "Yeah. Apparently gods and goddesses can have kids all kinds of different ways. Mostly with each other, or with humans. When it's with a human the child can be a god, a demi-god, or a human with some supernatural gifts or talents? It's rare but some gods can have a child just on their own. And even more rare would be gods coupling with other supernaturals, like fae or werewolves for example. About the only thing that's impossible is a god and a demon. Apparently divine and demonic energy clash or cancel each other out or something, so there aren't any half-god half-demon kids out there."
All that took a few more moments for me to process, and while I was thinking it through my girlfriend got a distant look on her face.
She gave me an apologetic look as she got to her feet, "That's my cue, Ada's started praying for Amethyst to make an appearance. I'll go do the goddess thing and reveal myself to her family, declare Ada is who she says she is and that she received my blessings or whatever. Then I'll be back here again as soon I'm done."
Before disappearing she suggested, "Why don't you order dinner for us? This should only take a minute or two."
It was kind of amazing and maybe a little bit mind-blowing in a way, listening to her talk about making a divine appearance as a Goddess in such a casual relaxed way. She was treating it as a minor errand, about as special as having to go to the little shop at the corner to pick up some cream for our morning coffee.
Meanwhile some mortals were about to have their sense of reality challenged as a real live Goddess appeared in their home, but to the Goddess in question it was just a minor inconvenience She had to take care of before She could relax and enjoy Her evening.
"Sure," I finally nodded. "Chinese ok with you?"
Amy smiled, "Sounds perfect. See you in a couple minutes."
Swirling golden light enveloped her before she'd even finished talking, then a second later the light was gone and so was she. I slowly shook my head as I found my phone then put in a delivery order with our favourite take-out place.
When that was done I went over to the fridge and poured myself another glass of wine. I made a mental note though, when we got to the fun part of celebrating the full moon together I wanted to ask Amy about being able to use the conjure-wine spell more than once a day. Even if it meant having to ask embarrassing questions about levelling-up or whatever other game-terminology she wanted to use.
I sat back down and had a sip of my wine as I waited. In fact I was surprised she hadn't returned already, I'd spent at least two or three minutes ordering our dinner, and another minute or two had passed since then.
As a couple more minutes slowly ticked by I couldn't help but worry. I was positive Amy would be fine, she was a Goddess after all and there was no way some mortal humans could harm her. But her 'one or two minutes' was now approaching ten minutes, and I couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone wrong.
I was just about to try and text her when the column of swirling gold light appeared next to the sofa, then faded to reveal my girlfriend. She let out a deep sigh and slumped back on the sofa next to me, then conjured up a full glass of wine for herself. From the sigh, her expression, and her body language, it wasn't hard to guess things didn't go as planned.
"What's wrong hon?" I asked as I shifted close enough to slip an arm around her shoulders.
Amy had a gulp of wine then with a dark look in her eyes she replied, "When we met her last night, Ada neglected to mention that her parents were both fairly religious. She was out to them about being trans, but they weren't happy about it. And they hadn't realized she'd already started to transition. The situation she summoned me into was a bit of a shit-show before I even got there. And having me show up and announce that I was basically competition for the bearded white guy they pray to was about as helpful as throwing gas on a fire."
"Oh crap," I sighed as a cold heavy feeling settled in my stomach. "What about your divine aura thing?"
My girlfriend shook her head, "They felt it, but I think they interpreted it as something evil?"
After another gulp of wine she continued, "In the span of a few minutes they called me a whore, a demon, a succubus, a tramp, and I forget what else. The bottom line is, rather than convince them I'm a goddess and that I granted their daughter a miracle, they've decided I'm a devil who's tempted and corrupted their 'son'."
"I know I joke sometimes about smiting people, but this is the first time I've actually been sorely tempted to do it," she added with another dark look in her eyes.
I gulped, "But you didn't. Right?"
She sighed, "No, I didn't. I summoned my angel instead, in her full angel of death get-up complete with flaming sword. I left her to protect Ada while she packed up her stuff. She's moving in with April."
"Amy I'm sorry," I said as my shoulders slumped.
I kept an arm around her, but I couldn't help feeling guilty. My first attempt at a miracle ended up with Ada getting kicked out of her house, April was probably mad at me, and my girlfriend had to suffer a bunch of verbal abuse.
Her arm wrapped around my waist as she insisted, "It's not your fault Tess. If I'd done the miracle myself I would have done exactly the same thing. That's what Ada wanted, I wouldn't have denied her."
"Thanks," I replied quietly as I pulled her closer against me. "I still feel bad about it though. It sounds like Ada's being kicked out, or she has to flee her home because of me. And I'm sure April's unhappy with me. You saw how she reacted last night, now she's got Ada moving in unexpectedly. This probably isn't going to help her grades any, being a huge distraction right when she should be studying the hardest."
My girlfriend hugged me a little tighter as well. She replied softly, "It's still not your fault. Ada knew what she was doing, she made the decision to do it now. And April was in a rush as well. They could have held off a month, they could have waited till after graduation, or until they were already living together at their new place. And Ada knew what her family's like, she's the one who didn't mention any of that ahead of time."
"Anyways," Amy added before I could respond, "The rest of tonight is just you and me, right? After we've eaten we can celebrate the full moon together. We'll see if some private time with Amethyst can help you forget all those other concerns for a while."
That put a smile on my face, and left a little flutter deep in my belly. I leaned closer and gave Amy a kiss, then teased "I'll hold you to that, my Goddess."
