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“Why the difference?” I ask.
“Some gods, like many from the Greco-Roman pantheon, were beings who possessed supernatural powers. Most of us are from other dimensions or other planets. Then there are the start-up gods, like Instant Karma.”
“Other planets?” My eyes widen. “Are you an E.T.?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, although most of humanity hasalienDNA.”
“Crap!” I chew on my lip as I think about it. “Is Mount Olympus real andin another dimension?”
“Yep.” He smiles because I’m catching on. “Anyway, as our reputations grew, we learned how to feed off the power belief and worship created. The other gods, who aren’t from another dimension or plane, are spirits, which, in a way, is from another plane. They are more etheric and don’t often or can’t maintain a physical body for long or at all. They originally seem to resonatewith a certain energy, then they did the same thing the Greeks did by drawing on the energy of thoughts and prayers to become more powerful.”
“Dude,” I say, since nothing else seems to fit this revelation.
“Dude,” he agrees with anactualtwinkle in his eye.
My mind spins as he accomplishes the supernatural trick. “But gods can die or disappear?”
“We can. If another god murders us, we usually come back, eventually, if our following is strong enough. I have the whole Valentine’s Day gimmick that keeps me in people’s consciousness. If our following forgets us over time or through generations, though, we might not come back. If we can’t find enough energy, then we fade away.”
“That sucks,” I say. “But I guess you live a long time, so maybe not. As a human, I only get eighty years or so, if I’m lucky. Which I suppose if you didn’t catch me, I wouldn’t even have had that.”
“And I’m glad I was able to snatch you up.”
“But you… you’ve truly been around a few thousand years?”
“It isn’t all it is cracked up to be.” He frowns, and I sense that he’s a bit weary.
“Why not?” I ask, genuinely curious about how an immortal deals with a never-ending life.
“First of all, most of my family are jerks or tyrants, so I’ve had to deal with that. Then there are the love matches I’ve made for humans… I get attached and then I have to watch them die.”
“Have you been in love?” I remember something about a woman named Psyche, but who knows what’s real in these myths?
“I thought I was… once,” he answers wistfully.
“It wasn’t real?” I ask. My heart goes out to him a bit. An eternity without love when you are a love god? That has to suck.
“You know some myths around gods, so you probably heard of Psyche,” he says with a sigh.
“A human, right?”
“Yeah.” He pauses. “Aphrodite was jealous of Psyche’s beauty. She sent me to deal with the woman. As I was going to shoot her to fall in love with some asshole, I pricked myself with the arrow, like an idiot,” he says with no small amount of irritation.
“So you weren’t attracted to her?” I ask. “Wasn’t she the most beautiful woman in the world?”
Eros looks over at me, and his eyes study my face for a moment longer than necessary. “Sure, she’s beautiful.” He laughs harshly and without humor. “Now there are a billion women who are just as hot. You areeasilymore attractive than she is.”
“What?” I shake my head over that line. Apparently, the god of flirting can’t stop. “So you didn’t find her attractive?”
“Sure. I didphysically.” He grimaces. “But she’s a snotty, arrogant piece of work. Istilltried to keep her safe from Aphrodite’s wrath. However, I couldn’t show my face in public with her.”
“Wait.” I stop him. “The story says you kept your identity a secret from her, then her sisters or someone made her think you were a monster. She snuck in with a lamp and saw your face. You got mad at her for not trusting you.”
Eros chuckles softly. “Not quite. She knew who I was, and she grew bored with our arrangement since she couldn’t party anymore and get attention. She wanted everyone to know she had caught the god of love. However, I didn’t want Aphrodite to know I didn’t follow through with her plan to ruin Psyche, so she cheated on me with other gods. If she was honest with me, I would have let her go, even if it broke my heart, but she didn’t care and broke my heart anyway. After a few hundredyears, the potency of the arrow wore off, and I didn’t long for her anymore.”
I can’t imagine yearning for someone for a fewhundredyears. Five years with Carl was becoming too much for me.
“Is she still around? Didn’t she become a sort of god?”
