35. Medusa

I wasn't lying when I said I'd probably need Cas to carry me back. I was delightfully sore after my night with Pax and Cas had definitely taken care of me. With all the stress in my life and everything I'd been through, that was exactly what I needed.

Cas's village was amazing. They had literally everything I could want or need and I could freely use magic here. That garden was spectacular. There were stone walls crawling with jasmine and ivy and there were beautiful koi ponds and fountains. I saw plants that I could feel were native to this area and some rare ones that had been imported that could grow here.

And what was more than that, all the houses I passed had beautiful gardens and the businesses had greenery in front of them. It was perfect here.

But now we had to get back to the real world. Cas puffed up and looked like he was insanely proud of himself when I asked if he could help me get back home. And honestly, he should be. I had just meant to let me take his arm because my legs were wobbly, but he scooped me up and carried me down the street cradled in his arms.

When we got back to the house, everyone was losing their shit. What in the world had gone on while I was getting my brains thoroughly fucked out?

"Get this!" Dionysus said. "Benji's mystery woman isn't just a politician. She's Pepper Crane! I love her even more."

Oh, holy shit. I was having a fan girl moment. Pepper Crane was known as America's Grandma. She ran for Senate in her district in rural Mississippi and took everyone by storm. Because she definitely had some ideas people usually had a problem with, but she had a way of presenting them that people usually went for them.

Both sides of the political spectrum adored her, and she was a firebrand on the Senate floor. She'd passed a good bit of bills that benefitted everyone and she did it like a total boss. We all knew she was working on some bigger ones and if that woman ever ran for president, it would be no contest.

And I loved that she was secretly following Benji and his crazy social media.

"Is she willing to help us?" I asked.

"Oh, America's Granny loathes the Gold Party. She said she gets along with most of the other politicians, even the ones she doesn't agree with politically except for the people in the Gold Party. Pepper said every time anyone on either side tries to pass a bill to benefit Americans, they try to pitch a bitch fit unless anti supernatural laws get inserted into the bill.

"There's not enough of them to really prevent any of these laws from getting passed, but she hates that they are one issue about literally everything. Pepper said the Gold Party politicians try to get something passed to round up supernaturals and expand the Coalition into every single bill that gets passed and when it doesn't, they vote against it, no matter what the bill is and how many people it would help," Pax said.

"Can I tell you that I'm utterly losing my shit that she was following me? I bought the T-shirt with her response that one time a reporter tried to get nasty with her and she insulted him in the most southern Grandma way possible. I also have a Pepper Crane for President because we all want her to run."

Fuck me. I had that shirt, too. It had been a fundraiser when a hurricane hit several states. A lot of people happily bought the shirts for a good cause and because we really wanted Pepper Crane as our president.

"Anyway, Pepper is in. She wants the Coalition outlawed and supernaturals given equal rights, but she's been doing some investigating. She knows who is Gold Party, but she's trying to ferret out who isn't, yet agrees that the Coalition is needed.

"She said there's also going to be some people who are going to stand on the First Amendment since they used to be associated with the church, but she said she's already handled that. Pepper said the Coalition keeps nearly everything top secret, even their donors and they can do that because they never registered as a nonprofit and aren't officially a church," Pax said.

"I get it," Dionysus said. "They basically had two choices. Pay taxes and be shady or avoid them as a nonprofit, but there would be things they'd have to disclose that would be publicly available. There are things they aren't going to want publicly available and a lawyer probably advised them not to try to be a nonprofit and submit anything doctored. There would be poetry in the Coalition going down for fraud like Al Capone and his taxes, but it's not going to be that easy."

"That was a problem I had in my math," Athena said. "The Coalition is a combination of misfits from many different creeds. They still call themselves by a specific denomination, but those churches have distanced themselves from them and don't want to be associated with that.

"I had assumed they'd come up with some kind of combined doctrine they could all agree on and formed their own official religion. Despite everything everyone knows they are doing, outlawing any type of worship is going to leave a foul taste in people's mouths and it would set a dangerous legal precedent for people trying to outlaw every religion but their own. But since they aren't an official religion, that solves a big problem with my equations."

Ugh. I used to love when she'd spit out logical problems she was having with her math because we'd all sit in the garden near her temple and brain storm how to fix them. Being a priestess was a tremendous honor and everyone had their reasons for the god they devoted themselves to. Most people chose Athena for her brilliance. The ones that chose her because they were hoping to snag one of her heroes as a husband were generally gently redirected out of being her priestess.

I was still trying to be mad at her, but this was just really bringing me back and for once, old memories weren't super traumatic. I enjoyed the shit out of being her priestess until that fateful day. Athena saw me staring at her and dropped her eyes.

"Sorry. Just trying to be helpful."

"It's actually a good point," Persephone said. "If they aren't an official religion or a nonprofit, we can use that."

"Couldn't you use your superpower and burn the Coalition to the ground so we can all start over?" Pax asked.

"Ooh, yes. Sometimes, I just want to be lazy and eat bon bons while watching cartoons. Instead of all the political coups and fighting angels, couldn't you just do the god thing and make them go away?" Benji asked.

"Doesn't work like that. I can't destroy ideas. Beliefs have power. They created me and your ancestors. People have been trying to figure out how to snuff those out long before I was created. There's no magic in any realm that can do it or it would be liberally abused.

"I can't repeat what I did to New Eden Asylum either. I mean, I could with the properties and records. It would be insanely easy. New Eden was on several acres of land and isolated. You can't see it from the road. There's no trespassing signs and armed guards. The people who lived in the vicinity probably never saw it unless they drove near it as teenagers as a rite of passage.

"It's not like that for the other Coalition facilities. They've all got security, but some of those building can be seen from the street. There would be too many people who saw and remembered a Coalition facility being there to pull the same trick.

"And everyone in the Coalition and who agrees with them would still have the same beliefs, so they'd try to rebuild but since they remembered those buildings, they'd just escalate and be worse than before because they know something powerful is at work. The only reason they aren't now is because it was one facility and they ended up going viral because of that press conference. It's been picked up all over the world. They have to play their next moves very carefully, so we have to strike while they are regrouping."

"Can Pepper do what we asked and fast?"

Benji just grinned at me.

"She's Pepper fucking Crane, America's Grandma. She's already got everything we needed prepared, she just wasn't going to do anything with it until she sussed out Coalition sympathizers and softened them up. She said we are the missing pieces she needed and she'll happily do it. She also wants a selfie that's just for her of Dionysus and me in just our boxers."

"The Coalition hurt my mates and countless supernaturals. I'll happily be spank-bank material for America's granny. I'll even send her a dick pic if she asks because she's the key to phase one and it would amuse me."

Honestly, I wouldn't even be mad if Pepper Crane asked him for a dick pic and he sent it. You couldn't be the jealous type when your mate was associated with orgies. Dionysus was devoted to me. The only time he had sex with anyone else was if we were sharing them. He was beautiful and people were always going to stare.

I wasn't expecting Benji's mystery woman to be Pepper Crane, but honestly, this was probably another Fate thing.

We had a much better chance of pulling this off with her.