Chapter 5

Rashel

Soon after Artemis had left, Rashel had quickly changed into some of her new clothes and evacuated the premises of the silently fuming god. With or without Artemis' assurances, she didn't want to be around someone who looked like he really, really wanted to smite her. Even if she was in no physical danger, the atmosphere was hardly encouraging to conversation and relaxed chat. As a result, she had displaced herself to a nearby station where she just sat on a bench, watching the world go by. It felt comfortable and safe, and reminded her of when she had been invisible to the world. Alone in a crowd of people.

She had originally come specifically to the station because most stations had a WHSmith, where she could pick up the stationery that she assumed a secretary would need, but she had been sidetracked by the prospect of reminiscing about her old life. Sure, it was a little bit lonely, sitting there on her own, but she was used to it. The noise kept her mind occupied, and she was free to think about the last day.

"Hey! You!"

Startled, Rashel looked up and peered around. She couldn't see anyone talking to her, and yet she was certain that the words had been directed at her. She waited a little longer, focussing on everything around her, but when nothing more was said she drifted back into her reverie. Hours passed as she ran through memories and ideas. She didn't even notice when the station emptied, and she eventually drifted off to sleep.

At some point her consciousness separated from her body, and she was as she had been before Apollo had taken her out of the monitoring facility, but for a thin thread that she could see connecting her to her body. It was silvery and only half there, and she was aware that it shifted as she did, not the type of thread that would tangle her up. She shrugged – no one seemed to mind her sleeping on the bench – and moved off while her body rested. She wanted to scope out her new place of work before tomorrow, mainly so that she wouldn't get lost around the building and getting to and from the area. She was still stunned that she had been offered a starting wage of sixty thousand pounds a year! She'd have Apollo paid back in no time!

"Rashel Alexander! Where on earth have you been?"

Speak of the devil. What awkward timing. She had nearly been at the building – she could even see it in the distance.

"Keep your voice down, Polly," she warned. "I'm not technically corporeal at the moment, so you might end up facing a spell in a mental asylum."

"I don't care!"

He looked quite sweet with his hair flying wildly all over the place, his cheeks flushed with anger and cold. His trench coat was wrapped tightly around him, and he looked like he was freezing, and yet there was fire in his eyes. Rashel had no idea if it was I'm-going-to-kill-you fire or just normal angry fire, and she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. She had never yet been harmed while in her 'spirit form' but she had never encountered a god before.

"Ow!" Well, that answered that question. She felt like she had just taken a blow to the gut. "What was that for?"

For a second, Apollo looked nonplussed. "What was what for?"

"You hit me! Somehow or other…"

"You're not even physically here. How could I have hit you?" He started muttering something about a certain woman's propensity to jump to conclusions.

Rashel frowned. She believed him, although she couldn't justify the 'why' of it to herself. Which meant that the reason she was gasping for air that she couldn't actually take in was probably something to do with her physical body. Which was several miles away. She didn't like where this was going.

"I'll meet you back at the hotel," she blurted, spinning around. She grabbed onto the near-invisible thread connecting her to her body and took off from the ground at breakneck speed, rocketing through walls and concrete in a bid to return to her body.

Suddenly, she was in her flesh, and forced her eyes to open, before wishing that she hadn't. She was slung over a strange man's back like a sack of potatoes. This was not good.

Apollo

She had gone. He had only just found her, and she had gone. It hardly seemed fair that he had spent precious time looking for her, and she had repaid his hard work and dubious concern by abandoning him again. It was just plain rude, that was what it was. When he got his hands on her, he was going to throttle her. Maybe lock her in her room for his peace of mind. She was more trouble than she was worth, and he was going to have words with so many people for bringing her into existence that their heads would spin!

"Apollo."

He glanced up and spotted a silhouette floating some distance above his head.

"Hermes. What're you doing here?"

"Your Oracle, Pythia Sandra-"

"I know who my own Oracle is!"

"-has a message for you, and I have to deliver it. It's what I do. I'll stop in for a social later."

"Thanks. Bring Helios along with you, I've got some Tartarian ice to play around with."

"You're both gods of fire…"

"That's why it's so much fun!" An impish grin lit up his face as he contemplated the skull-splitting pain that would soon come around.

"Anyone would think you were the trickster," said Hermes, rolling his eyes as he came down and landed on the ground. "Never, in all my four thousand and however many years, have I tried to get a fire god to go anywhere near Tartarian ice! That's bordering on abuse!"

"We're going to be drinking it." The grin turned slightly manic and if he had been in a bad B movie, Apollo would have cackled. As it was, you could tell that despite his age, he was looking forward to inflicting pain on himself in a new and innovative way like a school boy. And new and innovative is always a challenge for a millennia-old god.

"Right. Well, I'll be right there, watching you scream in agony. But-"

"But?"

"Message."

"Message. Yes. I forgot about that." He didn't seem too concerned.

"That's why you're not the messenger. The Pythia wanted to tell you to have a little faith."

"In what?"

"In who. Your new roommate, I think."

"What, no cryptic verse? I'm going to have to have words with her."

"Where is she, anyway?"

"The Oracle? You've seen her more recently than I have."

"No, Rashel."

"Oh, she said something about me hitting her while she was incorporeal, and took off. Literally." He was about to wave it away as nothing when something occurred to him. It struck him like a blow, and he covered his face with his hands. "Something hurt her. While she didn't have a body. This isn't looking good."

"So where is she now?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" He paused for a second, trying to think, but only finding panic. "You have to help me find her, Hermes."

"Why? Don't you hate her?"

"NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW! GET YOUR FLYING-SANDALED FEET SEARCHING!"

Rashel

"Hey! Put me down! Now! Please."

She was unceremoniously draped over the shoulder of a heavily built policeman, who was carrying her as if she weighed nothing. She hadn't had a chance to weigh herself yet, but she was pretty certain she had substantial mass. It was disconcerting to be lifted this easily. The intense amount of physical contact was overwhelming her after so long without making contact with anything, and she was ashamed to think it, but she was a little bit afraid. She had never been scared before in her life.

"I'm taking you to the station, miss. Please stop struggling."

"I'll walk, if you like."

"We're at the car now. Please don't make a fuss."

"Am I being arrested?"

"Oh. Yeah. Your rights. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

"This is one heck of a day."

She was set down on her feet, and barely had time to brush herself off before she was pushed into the back of the unmarked police car. She stopped herself from experimentally trying the handles to see if the doors were locked, and instead ran her hands over the rough fabric. She didn't remember this sort of sensation, and had never tried to imagine it. She had never really thought she would be in a situation where she would be in the back of a police car. To be honest, she had never really thought she would escape her prison. She needed to thank Apollo properly for that.

"Hey, lady. Name?" A second police officer, in the passenger seat, turned around and looked at her with a cocky grin. There was something odd about him. In a bad way.

"Rashel Alexan…der…" She trailed off at the end, suddenly realising that her new identity was going to be put to the test sooner than she had thought. "Sorry, Rashel Alexander. I'm twenty-four. I'm currently living with my boss – well, ex-boss now, I suppose. Not in a weird way, he hired a hotel suite, and we both sleep there, in separate rooms, until I get a job and can afford to move out. He feels kinda guilty because he had to make me redundant, but it turned out well for me, I guess." She smiled nervously and shut her mouth before she said anything else freaky.

"Rashel, we're arresting you on suspicion of drug use."

"Oh, that's fine. I haven't taken anything."

"I've taken pictures of the track marks on your arms, and your unhealthy condition is a key indicator. You don't have to lie. We can get you into rehab."

"I'm clean. I've been in hospital recently. A bad virus. I had an IV, hence the marks, and that's why I'm so thin. I've even got a scar on my stomach from where they couldn't feed me solids and had to pipe them in."

She really hoped Artemis, or someone with superpowers, had been listening there, because otherwise she was going to have to lie an awful lot to get herself out of this, and she had never had to do that before.

"Why were you asleep on the bench?"

"I was waiting for someone. A friend. He never showed, and I must've dozed off. I didn't have anything except a coffee all day, which in hindsight wasn't the smartest thing to do." She actually hadn't. And she was starving, come to think of it. She really needed to get back into the habit of eating. Ooh, she could try junk food! Her parents had never let her eat it, and then she hadn't had the opportunity. And ice cream! And pie! She was tempted to buy a whole food shop, just so she could try out her taste buds.

And oh! She had a memory of caramel hot chocolate that she had whenever she was ill, and she really wanted to try making that again!

But as seconds ticked over into minutes, she began to grow suspicious of the lack of station. She didn't say anything, though, because she didn't want to aggravate the two cops. She was meant to be psychic, though, and she tried hunting for a prophecy, or a fragment of information that could help her.

Nothing came.

It wasn't frustrating because she couldn't do it. It was incredibly infuriating that she had been kept asleep for fifteen years for something that she now could NOT DO OF HER OWN ACCORD!

She was quickly moving past the realm of 'shiny-happy-fairy-land' and going into a small dukedom where the duke had a grudge against her and had put a price on her head, and was probably not taking her to a police station. She was gaining a strong sense of her own mortality, her own helplessness, and she didn't like it.

Being corporeal sucked.