Chapter Fifteen

Hephaestus, like the Reverend, was also coming to terms with going to Hell. In his case, however, he was not worried about the spiritual plane of torture, but rather the earthly plane of his house and roommate, along with his roommate’s girlfriend. And her fucking parrot.

There are three kinds of people in the world, when it comes to birds. Those who love them, those who will tolerate them because it makes their friend/lover/kid/parent happy to have one or twelve around, and those who wish that fucking bird would up and die already and give him or her a moment’s peace.

Hephaestus belonged to the last group. He liked birds in a general way, but not in his damn house. Scroat was in the middle group, edging towards the first for this particular bird.

The reason Scroat liked Sarah’s bird because it was nearly as fucked up as Sarah herself. Sarah had adopted the bird, a blue front Amazon, from a pet rescue organization. The unfortunate creature had witnessed it’s previous owner’s brutal murder, and would occasionally mimic the woman’s pleading and screams. Sarah loved the bird, and tolerated this awful habit because she understood the trauma the bird had gone through, and didn’t expect it to come through that unscathed.

Scroat, on the other hand, thought it was just wicked cool to have his own little true crime show.

Sarah had also spent a great deal of time teaching the bird, named Killer, a variety of unsavory phrases. Her personal favorite was “I’ll swallow your soul,” though Scroat favored, “Fuck you and the fucked up fucking horse you fucking rode in on, you fucker.”

What all this meant for Hep was any time he walked in the house he was either greeted by a parrot saying “JOIN US!” in a demonic voice while Scroat and Sarah made unnatural love in the back of the house, or he’d be greeted by Scroat and Sarah saying “Hi” and Killer, the fucking parrot, saying “I’ll swallow your soul.”
It was, honestly, a lot to take for a god used to a mostly peaceful home. He was also having a hard time coming to terms with Sarah feeling comfortable enough in his home that she felt it was appropriate to bring the damn thing over anyway. What kind of person, apart from himself of course, what kind of woman would keep hanging around Scroat for that long. He was worried he was going to wake up to an ice pick in his forehead one night. Except, apart from the ungodly (you know what I mean) sex, sea-worthy swearing vocabulary, and demonic bird, Sarah seemed like a sweet girl. Nice, even.

He had to admit to himself, he might just be annoyed because Sarah was change and change was, in Hep’s experience, extremely bad. Change always seemed to result in finding one of his friends dead on the sidewalk in front of his house, or a wild goose chase around the country trying to save an old friend’s ass from a god of chaos.

So you can see why Hep was a little wary when ever something in his life changed in a big way.

If there was one thing Hep liked about Sarah, it was that she was always game for going for a ride, no matter how many hours the three of them would spend out on the road. There were damn few people in general willing to log the kind of miles he and Scroat racked up every year, much less nice-seeming girlfriends with parrots. Speaking of the parrot, if there was one thing Hep liked about that confounded bird, it was that the bird enjoyed riding as much as Sarah. It sat, happy as could be, on Sarah’s shoulder as the rode. When the wind started getting too intense for the bird’s comfort, it would just climb down her back and hang out there until the wind eased up. Then it would pop back up on her shoulder like a Weeble.

So Hep didn’t entirely despise the bird, even if it did scream loud enough at dawn and dusk for Hep to hear it when he was out in the shop pounding away on hot iron.

And Hep hadn’t seen Scroat this deliriously happy in a long time. He was so ridiculously happy Hep was starting to wonder if he’d been kidnapped and replaced. Scroat, on the whole, wasn’t a gloomy guy - as long as there were people out there choosing short, filthy words when a longer, fancier word would have done, he was a happy guy - but he was practically floating now. Hep was wondering when he would develop a beatific glow.

This coming weekend, the four of them, Hep, Scroat, Sarah and Killer, were planning to take a trip up to Nevada for some good, old-fashioned lawless fun. So today, Hep was in the shop making sure the bikes were road-ready. Honestly, their bikes were always road-ready - one of the perks of being a god is not needing to maintain your bike - but Hep liked tinkering, and it kept him out of the house. He had been feeling generous the night before, and forged a wrought iron perch for Killer to mount on Scroat’s bike. To the untrained eye, the perch looked like a real tree branch, apart from the fact that it was black and had a low sheen of beeswax. Hep attached the perch to Scroat’s bike just behind the sissy bar, and stood back to admire his handiwork.

Yep, it made Scroat’s bike look dorky as fuck. Perfect.

That done, he spent a minute or two going over his own bike, looking to see if there were any parts he could easily make more black. There weren’t, so he gave it a quick dust with one of his shop rags and called it good.

He went back into the house, where Killer greeted him by saying “That’s right, just a few steps more.”

Hep wondered, briefly, if he was being too nice. Yes, he decided, yes he was.