“Remember the bit where I told you bad people wanted to kill Katie and her husband after they found out she was turned into a cougar?”
Panic seized Quinn from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She gripped Ingrid’s arm. “Are you saying someone’s going to want to kill me because I bit an apple that tastes like donkey’s ass?”
“How do you know what donkey’s ass tastes like?”
“I don’t. I’m just assuming that ass, in particular a donkey’s ass, leaves an aftertaste.”
Ingrid kept her voice low, turning her body away from the Greek goodness of Khristos. “I’m not saying anyone wants to kill you. Not yet. I just know from experience, after knowing Nina, Marty, and Wanda for a few years now and hearing all of their client stories, that there’s always some bad dude who wants whatever it is the client stumbled upon when they have the paranormal accidents. The last case they had, it was dragon scales. Those scales turned not one, but two people into dragons, and the scales belonged to very bad people, and they didn’t like that someone accidentally swallowed them. And then there was baby dragon—”
Quinn’s eyes flew open wide in horror, clapping a hand over her mouth. Okay, she’d been willing to suspend disbelief for the most part, but what was next? Were-bears? “Stop it! Dragons? Now you’ve gone too far, Ingrid. Dragons don’t exist. I was willing to suspend my disbelief with Nina and gang, but a baby dragon is too—”
Ingrid squatted in front of her and shoved her phone in Quinn’s face. “Don’t make me show you, Quinn! I told you I have pictures and everything.”
She blanched, throwing her hand over her eyes. “No! No physical proof. Not yet. Please.”
Ingrid, peeled back Quinn’s fingers from her face, an eyebrow raised. “How could you doubt what I say is true after what’s happened to you?”
Quinn sucked in a breath, yanking her hair over her shoulder and re-braiding it. Okay, so fair enough. Nina really could lift a car, and fly, and Marty was a pretty, petite blonde with impeccable fashion sense one minute, a hairy, snarling, jagged-toothed animal on all fours the next. And Wanda? Well, she was a combo pack of both vampire and werewolf.
Composed once more, she let her hand rest on Ingrid’s arm, squeezing it. “So just because something’s happened to me, you think someone bad is going to want what I have? How many bad guys want bigger boobs, Ingrid?” Ridiculous.
But Ingrid shook her head vehemently. “Oh, no. No, no. That’s not the entire story. I can guarantee you that much. He said you have the power of Aphrodite. That’s huge! And I’ve seen things because of Nina, Quinn Morris. I’ve seen some scary things and I don’t believe this Khristos is telling us the whole truth about that stupid apple. There’s more. I just don’t know what. Which is why we need Nina. She’ll beat it out of him if need be.”
Perfect. That was exactly what she needed to top this trip off. Nina. But she kept her lips pressed together.
Or at least she really tried to. “Do you think it’s wise to consult—”
Ingrid threw up a finger under Quinn’s nose. “Do not. Do not say a single word. Nina’s the expert on this, and we’re going to listen to her advice. We’re in a foreign country, with a crazypants guy who says he’s a descendant of Aphrodite instead of doing what we said we were coming here to do. Flipping Igor the bird while you text him pictures of you slugging back ouzo belly shots off some slick Greek dude’s hard abs. So shut it.”
She tried really hard to do as Ingrid asked, but honestly, could one call the most gorgeous man on earth crazypants when there was a Nina? “I think you’re being incredibly unfair, Ingrid. Why is it so crazy to believe this man is the descendant of Aphrodite if Nina can be Dracula’s kin?”
“She’s not Dracula’s kin. Now knock it off and let me handle this. Caution is the better part of valor. Don’t speak to him; don’t even look at him while I keep trying to get in touch with Nina. Understood?”
“Okay. I’ll just be over here looking at my new taters while I sparkle. In the shade, where the sun isn’t eating a hole in the top of my head.” She pointed to the steps of the Parthenon where the sun had begun to move away.
“Okay, but I have my eye on you, Quinn, and you, too, Made Out of Marble Man!”
Khristos tipped an imaginary hat in Ingrid’s direction and smiled at Quinn when she sat down near the column farthest away from him.
They sat silently for a moment, her absorbing and processing this madness; him, hands folded around his knees, staring off into the distance.
Digging in her bag, she rooted around for a bottle of water. “Damn,” she mumbled.
“Problem?”
Quinn pushed herself back against the columns, trying to make herself as small as possible before she answered, a little freaked out now that Ingrid’s story was beginning to sink in. “No more water,” she croaked, her throat dry and sore.
He nodded his head. “I can help.” Lifting an arm, he began to snap his fingers when she shouted.