Myth Gods Tech 1 - Omnibus Edition

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

I was trying to be as ladylike I could, but it was impossible. If I could find a clothespin I would use it in a heartbeat. I just held my nostrils tight.

Billy was talking to a merchant, right next to a big stack of those shallow wooden fish crates. Names were written at their side. As I waited, while holding my nose of course, I read some of the surnames from the fishermen who had brought them.

Afovos. Fearless. Armenistis. The wanderer. Anemos. The wind. OK, those were probably nicknames, not surnames. But the rest were ordinary last names.

The noise in the agora was intense. I couldn’t hear them speak three meters away. So I went closer to see what was up.

“I can’t let you go back, I’m sorry,” the middle aged man said. He was, in a word, weathered. Rough hands, rough face, gentle eyes.

Billy was gesturing wildly. “Come on Mr. Antoni, I just need a couple of minutes.”

Mr. Antoni’s eyes fell on me. At first I was rattled by that, but then I realised he was checking me out and whispering to Billy in approval.

So I did what I always do.

I struck a pose and took a selfie.

I put in my most seductive yet innocent face, as if for the camera. I could see in my peripheral vision Mr. Antoni softening up. Billy, his mind quick and sharp, admitted quietly that he had promised me to show around the back.

He let us go past, and I thanked Mr. Antoni as we went by, holding my breath in a nasal “Tenk yom”. He went back to selling his fish.

Billy looked under a dirty metal stool and found a key. He unlocked the back door and put the key back to its place. He kept the door open for me and I went inside.

“How do you know this man? This place?” I asked.

“I worked here last year,” he shrugged.

“You were selling fish?”

“I was mostly carrying them and placing them on ice, but yeah.”

A teenager that works. I didn’t know that about him. Me, I’d never worked a day in my life. What else didn’t I know about the people who I called best friends?

We went through tunnels. No, they weren’t really tunnels, but they were so dirty and smelly and thick in grime that they might as well be. Dangerous too, metal edges, discarded wires. People were carrying heavy loads back and forth with those handy two wheel lifters. They barely slowed down, I had to stand aside or get squashed down.

Then I stepped on something squishy.

We walked at the far end of the Varvakios agora and came up to the sunlight. The street was busy as always.

“Whoever it was, we shook them off for now,” Billy said while holding the heavy metal door for me.

I rubbed the soles of my feet on the pavement. I didn’t even wanna know what I had stepped on.