Read Online Mythos by Kelly McCullough - Free Book Online Page A

obsessive. Tisiphone and I had taken a bedroom near the end of the hall, with Melchior opting to take laptop shape on a table outside so as to avoid our “inevitable banging and moaning.”
    Because of Tisiphone’s injuries, it was more like a few lingering kisses and some high-intensity makeup snuggling. In either case, I appreciated the privacy Melchior had given us under the guise of being surly.
    A few hours later, I ended up having one of my periodic reflections on insomnia. Ever since the black slits of my pupils had become tiny windows filled with Primal Chaos, sleep has become an elusive companion at best. There is something about being able to read by the light of your own eyes that makes even a sleep mask fairly ineffective. On the plus side, any use of chaos magic, say shapechanging into a raven or using a faerie ring, recharged my batteries at least as effectively as forty winks used to. But sometimes I really missed the oblivion and freedom from thought provided by regular visits with unconsciousness. Maybe I was going to have to learn to meditate.
    Tisiphone sprawled beside me, her hair framing her face in a cloud of fire, her wings sticking out from under the covers and trailing on the floor. It didn’t look all that comfortable, but she slept with the total relaxation of a well-fed house cat. Awake, she was a study in dynamic tension, always ready to pounce. Asleep, the tension was gone. I reached out and absently stroked her cheek. She didn’t move.
    I still didn’t know whether I was in love with her or she with me, but that seemed less important than it once had, less important than taking moments like these and treating them as the treasures they were. Maybe that was because I was growing into the role Necessity had thrust upon me when she had Clotho name me Raven and made me a power. While Tisiphone and Ravirn might be able to snatch moments of erotic companionship and to maintain a deep fondness for each other, the Raven and the Fury had other loyalties that would forever come first.
    I admired the high cheekbones and the delicate network of blue veins visible in Tisiphone’s slender neck. A goddess nearly four thousand years old, the living embodiment of vengeance, and able to tear me in half as easily as I might a tissue paper—what on Earth did she see in me? Again I caressed her cheek, gently. I didn’t want to startle her awake and buy myself a new set of scars. . . . Wait a moment.
    I slid out from under the blankets and shifted around so that I could both kiss her temple and jump away if I had to. I leaned forward, pressed my lips above her ear, and . . . nothing. She neither moved nor woke. I’d never seen her sleep so deeply. By all rights she should have caught my wrist in her hand in the same second my fingers first touched her cheek. After the slice she’d given my thigh, she’d made a real effort to train herself not to gut me when she woke up, but she always woke up.
    I added another question to the list that started with “Where were we?” What was being here doing to us? Chilled, I gave up on sleep, grabbing one of the thick guest towels Ahllan had left us and wrapping it around my waist as I slipped into the hall. I ran a fingertip along the edge of Melchior’s casing as I passed on my way to the sitting room, where I flopped on the chaise. Five minutes later I was wishing I’d brought my shirt as well. I’d forgotten how much having Tisiphone in a room warmed things up—talk about your hot flashes. I made do with a floral throw wrapped poncho-style around my shoulders.
    What I really wanted was to rev Melchior up and have a look at the local cyberscape, to see for myself the locked network Ahllan had mentioned. But if Mel hadn’t woken when I passed, it was because he was deep in electronic dreams. Dreams which I had no right to deprive him of regardless of my own worries and sleeplessness.
    “Damn.”
    “And hello to you, too,” said Loki from the chair beside the