---------------------------------------------------------------------

"At least with Constantine all I had to worry about was
people trying to kill me."

-Tim Hunter to Rose Spiritus,
"The Books of Magic"

~*~

~ London, England ~

Tim Hunter hated Magic.

No matter what happened, it always came back to him.

Magic, the kind that came with faeries and demons and
creatures of myth. The kind of magic that could bring
down armageddon or bring about the greatest miracle.

And it was his.

Was.

Ever since he let go of the Magic, and vowed to be an
ordinary boy, ever since it cost him his girlfriend, his
friends, his family, Magic had been anathema. No more
crazed angels seeking revenge. No more love-struck
succubuses. No more fairies. Well, the Faerie kind, not
the...

Ick, he really didn't want to THINK about that.

"Awwww right, surrender, hos!" a small chorus shouted.

"You first, fatties!"

Dealing with two heavily armed deities was something new, he
admitted, but that didn't make it any more enjoyable.

He REALLY didn't want to deal with this. An army of little
Cupids and an army of little white-haired exotic goddesses.

"Wellllllll, kid... what do you suggest?" a sultry voice
whispered in his ear.

And he really didn't want to deal with a Demoness either.

Argh.

~*~

Rod M. & David Tai
present

The finale of the
Oh My Goddess / Vertigo Trilogy

Meddling Fates

Part 2

Blazing Guns of Love

~*~

Mara's worst nightmare had come true: a horde of heavily
armed Urds.

Fortunately, for her, they were all aimed at a group of
Cupids. Time enough for her to talk to the boy.

"Wellllllll, kid... what do you suggest?" she whispered into
his ear.

Tim only stared back at her owlishly behind his glasses, and
shrugged. "I've no bloody idea."

Mara frowned. "No?"

"Nope. Sorry."

"Tim Hunter, right?"

"Yes?"

"Tim Hunter, the Magus? Tim Hunter, the Opener?"

"Well, sort of."

"Uh-huh."

For Mara, it was strange enough. How could such a boy
possibly be a magus? With John Constantine, you knew enough
not to question him. She decided to take matters into her
hands. Perhaps getting him involved could make things easier
for her to work her way into his confidence...

After all, wouldn't it be a kick if she could manage to turn
a future magus to Evil?

Now if only there weren't so many Urds...

~*~

With the situation at a standoff, Urd pondered. Which was
in itself a rare thing for her. She knew full well that in
a competition between her and Cupid, one had to blink first.
Well, one of the many Urds/Cupids out there.

Fortunately, for her, at least, she had one in reserve. Why
not? An ambush.

"The Cavalry to the rescuuuuuuuue!!!" shouted one mini-Urd
as she kamikazed through a glass window and tumbled onto her
feet, rolling up to an completely off-guard mini-Cupid and
sticking the barrel of the Super Heavy Cannon Mark XXI to
the Cupid's head.

And simultaneously, all the other mini-Urds grinned in
synchronicity. "Surrender, fatso, or you get a new hole in
your head."

Wait. Why were all the Cupids grinning?

And then mini-Urd felt a -click- near her ear. Out of the
corner of her eyes, she saw Cupid smirk. "Why don't we pull
ourselves together, eh, chick?"

"Ain't this getting old?" one of the mini-Urd muttered.

"Hey, ain't my fault," grumbled a mini-Cupid.

~*~

Tim sighed a breath of relief as all the mini-Urds and
mini-Cupids pulled themselves into two entities once again.

The sigh was matched by Mara. Perfect. Less Urds to deal
with, the better.

Cupid and Urd were busy holding rifles at each other's
forehead. Not so perfect.

"Surrender!" Urd shouted.

"Not a chance, babycakes!" Cupid snarled, his finger
convulsing on the trigger.

"Put it down!"

"You put it down!"

"Drop it!"

"You drop it!"

Mara grinned. This was going to be fun, watching the two of
them get their brains blown out. Of course, they probably
didn't need them anyway. And it'd be amusing to watch them
be headless for a while. She stretched, placing her hands
on her neck. Ahh, life was good.

And then Tim stepped forward. "Hey! Wait a minute!"

Mara stared at the boy. Of all the approaches, she didn't
think he'd do this.

~*~

This was probably very stupid, just telling them to wait,
Tim admitted to himself. They could end up pointing those
things at him instead, but something had to be done. He
wondered how John Constantine would deal with this, but only
briefly.

"Wait a minute! Wait!"

The two combatants slowly and cautiously swiveled their eyes
to the approaching boy. Urd's brow wrinkled in confusion,
while Cupid's widened in recognition.

"Oh, hey Hunter," he said casually. "Whassup?"

"I really do hate to interrupt you two here, you have no
idea how much I do, but could you please have your gunfight
in a more isolated place? You're hitting bystanders, and
it's having a rather strange effect on them."

"Hey," asked Urd. "Who's the kid? Name sounds familiar."

"Tim Hunter," replied Cupid. "Magician."

"Oh."

This wasn't going quite like Tim was expecting, but at least
nobody was shooting.

~*~

Mara was unhappy.

Nobody was shooting.

The kid actually cooled the situation, and without magic.
Surprise, surprise.

This had to be fixed, and soon.

"The kid's right!" shouted Mara, striding confidently after
the boy. "Random shooting: bad thing! That's no way to
settle this, is it?"

Both deities had the decency to look a little bashful at
this point, grumbling, scratching the backs of ther heads,
and pulling their guns away.

"What are-" asked Tim, but the demoness cut him off.

"Now then! What I see here is a god and a goddess looking
to claim the title of Deity of Love, am I right? Am I
right?"

"Er-" said Urd.

"I dunn-" said Cupid.

"Of course I'm right," said Mara quickly. "What we need to
prove here is LOVE, people! Love!"

"I guess..."

"Well, maybe.."

"So here's the idea," said Mara. "Let's see some proof that
you're better at making other people fall in love. You
know, like in the old days. Zap with the arrows and all
that neat stuff, yeah?"

"Better than random shooting I guess..."

"Kinda makes sense, yeah..."

"Wait a minute!" protested Tim.

Mara grinned. The trick with using a silver tongue was to
never let'em have time to think about what she just said.

"We're agreed?" asked Mara. "Great! Okay! On your mark!
Get set! GOOOO!"

Startled by the sudden countdown, the two fumbled with their
weapons briefly, then disappeared. Mara sighed, a deep and
satisfied sigh, and leaned lazily against the wall.

"Yeeeep, still got the touch."

"I don't think that improved the situation," said Tim.

"Au contrare, mon ami," said Mara confidently. "They now
have _focus_! They're out to make people _happy_, aren't
they?"

"I guess."

"And I don't think you'd have liked the alternative."

"Alternative?"

"I _was_ going to suggest that they see if they can match
_you_ up with someone."

"No! No thanks!"

"Uh huh. That's what I thought." Mara stretched, then
rubbed her gloved hands together. "Now then, this is a good
time to do something about those two."

"Huh?"

"Think a moment. While they're distracted, we could work on
finding a solution." Gullible sucker.

"Uh." Tim thought for a moment, bringing his hand to rub at
his chin in thought. Oh, that was just too precious, him
trying to look wise.

Mara grinned broadly. "We could find Psyche."

"Eh?" For some reason, Tim looked terribly unenthusiastic
about this.

Mara could care less. She figured it would take a while to
locate Psyche, which would give her plenty of time to talk
to Tim. And that was just fine with her. "You see, kid, I
figure, hey, Cupid's upset. You know how it is. Frustrated,
frantic, and he ends up shooting all over the place? So, we
find Psyche, we patch things up, everything's copacetic."

"I guess so." Tim shrugged.

"So where to first?" Tim asked.

Mara blinked. Hmmm...

And then she grinned.

"Italy."

"WHAT?!"

~*~

~ Elsewhere in London ~

High atop Big Ben, two snipers were setting up their nest.
The unsuspecting populace below would never know what hit
them.

Cupid whistled while polishing his sniper rifle, while Urd
flicked a few switches on her Super Heavy Cannon Mark XXI.

"You gonna use THAT?" asked Cupid.

Urd raised an eyebrow, then flicked a switch. The Super
Heavy Cannon Mark XXI suddenly compressed, transforming from
a massive cannon into a narrow tube. At the tip of the
barrel, a laser scope popped up.

"When accuracy is important," she said smugly.

Cupid's expression flattened. "Uh huh. Skuld made that for
ya, I bet."

Urd grumbled, but didn't reply directly.

"So, who goes first?" asked Cupid.

"Got a coin?" asked Urd.

"Oh. Right."

They tossed the coin.

Unseen, a mini-Mara watched from the shadows. No way was
she going to miss what these two lunatics were going to do.

~*~

~ Italy ~

He was in Italy.

It was a nice part of Italy, a large section of countryside
near the sea, but it was still Italy and very far from home.

Tim had no foggy idea why, except that the demoness Mara had
somehow dragged him there. Through some kind of CD network.
Yeah, CD network. Apparently Mara travelled through CDs.
It was just...very bloody stupid, but typical of his recent
lifestyle, he supposed.

"Remind me, why are we looking for Psyche?" he asked Mara.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "Oh, wait, you weren't here
when he blew his little temper tantrum."

"He blew a tantrum?"

"Nothing to worry about," said Mara. "Didn't miss much.
Anyway, seems that fatso's gone, pardon the pun, psycho,
when Psyche left him."

"Psyche?"

"His girlfriend. Has this thing with butterflies."

"Oh, her."

Mara was about to continue, but the tone of Tim's voice made
her curious. "Say... you met Cupid before?"

"A year ago," he replied. "San Francisco."

"Oh."

"So, we're here to find Psyche, are we?"

"Yep."

"Why Italy?"

"I... hrm. Actually, I have no idea. It just seemed like a
place she'd go to."

Tim crossed his arms and stared at her doubtfully. "Right."

"Hey! It's an old Roman story, you know. Beautiful Psyche
gets swept off her feet because stupid Cupid accidentally
scratches himself with an arrow... Well, he says it's an
accident, but between you and me, I don't buy that. I bet he
shot himself in the foot and made up this story to cover up
that... oh right, back to the point. Anyway, he takes her
off to this... um..."

Tim sighed. "A castle by the sea or something, a real
secluded place. Right. So how do we find it?" He rubbed
his head, looking towards the mountain range in the
distance. "I suppose you want to check that out."

Mara smiled. "Why not?"

They stood there, staring at the mountains for a while.

"So," said Mara.

"So," said Tim.

There was a moment of silence.

"You can't 'magic' us over there?" asked Tim.

"You mean you can't?" asked Mara.

"No, I can't."

Mara stared at Tim for a little bit, then shrugged. "Okay,
I guess we walk. It's a nice morning for it anyway."

~*~

~ Back in London ~

Both Urd and Cupid looked across the streets below with
their target sights, looking for the perfect target.

It was Urd's turn now, but there weren't any rules against
Cupid just looking around.

"Ah," said Urd. "Here we go."

"Whassup?"

"By the bus stop, bald boy about to walk by the Pakistani
girl."

She hesitated a moment, then pulled the trigger. Her weapon
buzzed with the energy release, sending a narrow beam of
pink energy right through the boy's heart. She fired a
second time, this one hitting the girl. As the two walked
by each other, they hesitated. Eye contact was made, with
shy smiles exchanged.

"Got it going, got it going," said Urd. "Here we go, here
we go aaand..."

The boy made a clumsy attempt at an opening line, not quite
working but still amusing the girl. She talked back to him
enthusiastically, and soon they were talking as if they'd
known each other forever.

Urd pumped her fist in the air, grinning. "Ba-BING! Point
t'me!"

Cupid was not impressed. "Wha'was dat?"

"The boy is a neo-Nazi. He'd rather have slashed her throat
than talked to her, and now there's a little more peace in
the world. Top that, chunky."

"Maybe I will," he said defiantly. Switching off the
safety, he took aim. "See them two down there? Boy in
blue, girlie in grey. S'a Montague-Capulet thang, see?"

"Family rivalries, huh?"

"Not anymo'." *BANG* *BANG*

"Feh, passe." She took aim once more, tagging another pair
through their hearts. "Girl was a lesbian."

"Oh yeah?" *BANG*BANG* "Those dudes weren't gay."

~*~

~ A road in Italy ~

Tim had to admit, it was a nice walk. The air was warm,
but with the steady breeze it didn't feel so bad. The
demoness Mara seemed to, for once, be quiet during the
walk, though that was about to change.

"Hey, kid, what's with you and magic? You don't seem to be
using it at all."

"Not going to," he replied.

"Oh? Why?"

"It's too much trouble," sighed Tim. "John might put up
with it, I think he enjoys it, but I can't and I won't."

"John?"

"Constantine."

Mara frowned. "Oh. Him."

Tim nodded. "He seems to get that reaction from a lot of
people."

"You don't know the half of it," she grumbled.

"I've enough of magic," continued Tim. "So one day I just
let it all go."

"Let it all go?" asked Mara. "What do you mean, let it go?"

"I just... let it flow out into the world, I guess," said
Tim. "I certainly don't use it anymore."

Mara gave Tim an appraising look, then shook her head. "If
you think you ditched the magic, think again kid. Nobody
shakes the magic. You've still got it in you."

Tim looked at Mara irritably. "You're the second girl to
tell me that, and I'm not believing it now either."

Mara thought about that for a moment, then laughed. "Ah, a
magus in denial, this day just keeps getting more amusing."

Tim stopped and glared at Mara. "What do you mean?" he said,
clearly nettled.

Mara put her hands to her hips, laughing. This irritated Tim
even further, as Mara brought a hand up to waggle a finger at
Tim.

"Come on. Magic isn't something that can just be let go of.
It's a part of you, and you know it. Just like good and evil,
there's magic."

Tim stuck his hands in his pockets, and grumbled, then walked
on without a word.

They spent the next few minutes making their way through
high grassy fields, with the only sounds being the roar of
the ocean, birdsong, and Mara humming something.

"What's that you're humming?" Tim asked, at last.

Mara replied, "ABBA."

Tim nodded. "ABBA?"

Mara nodded. "You ever been to a party where you hear a
song, and it's just STUCK in your head?"

"Not really."

"Ah. Sheesh, kid, you need to loosen up."

"That's funny. That's what John said." Tim kicked at a
pebble in his path.

Mara saw an opening. Was that a touch of envy? Something
to work with.

"How did you meet John?"

Tim paused, and looked at Mara for a moment. "He tried to
get me to use magic, him and a bunch of other magicians."

Mara pondered for a moment. "Lemme guess, four of them?
All wearing trenchcoats? One of them was blind?"

Tim nodded

"Aaah," said Mara. "The infamous Trenchcoat Brigade."

"Infamous?"

"Well, in my side of things, anyway. Those boys took down a
lot of my co-workers, y'know."

"Oh, I suppose they would be infamous, then," said Tim. He
paused in thought. "There was this one thing they showed
me," he slowly commented. "They showed me a future... it
wasn't nice."

Mara's brow wrinkled in thought. "You don't say? What kind
of future?"

"Oh, not much," said Tim. "Just a future version of me
leading an army of darkness and evil on a campaign of terror
and world domination." He thought about this for a moment.
"I guess I would've been your boss."

Mara smiled. Now THIS was interesting. "Guess so," she
replied.

"But, as I said, I don't do the magic anymore. Don't care
what you or anyone else says."

"If you say so," she replied pleasantly.

At last they reached the mountain range, and within its
shadows they found a small but elegant stone house. The
architecture was that of classic rome, with perfectly white
walls and cobblestone walkways.

Tim looked at Mara expectantly, who was looking at him in
the same way. He shrugged, then knocked on the wall next to
the archway leading into the house.

"Um, hello?"

There was no answer.

Tim peered through the archway. Still no answer. As he
started to step in, Mara brushed past him, and yelled, "YOO
HOOOOOOOOO! ANYONE HOME?!" She looked over at Tim
briefly, and shrugged, giving a false smile. "Looks like
nobody's home. Another place?"

Perfect, more time to spend on bringing young Mr. Hunter to
his true potential.

Tim was about to respond, when a lone butterfly flew in.
And then another. And then another.

"Hey! What's this?!" Mara shouted, trying to cover her face
as a swarm of butterflies suddenly filled the air, flowing
in through the open-air house. The lack of a roof let in
the sunlight and the butterflies, creating an air of magic,
which consolidated...

Tim stood there with a smirk, knowingly.

In a moment, a young lady with eyes as old as the cosmos,
and wings of gossamer, much like a butterfly, stood in the
center of the swarm, a butterfly nestled on one finger.

"You called?"

~*~

~ Back in London ~

Both Urd and Cupid had taken a timeout on the day's
competition, writing in their scorecard and tallying up the
totals thus far.

"Okay," said Urd. "Counting the twenty on the bus, I come
out to a total of a hundred and sixty-eight." She nodded
happily and scribbled the number on her scorecard.

"Not so fast," said Cupid. "Ya got penalties."

"Penalties?" asked Urd. "What the heck for?"

"Leeeet's see," said Cupid. "You missed 12 of your shots,
deduct six points. You made a dude fall in love with a fire
hydrant, minus two. You hit a happily married man and now
the punk's havin' an affair, minus ten. Few other penalties
too."

"Oh. Damn." Urd crossed out her earlier score, thought
about it, then wrote down a new score. "A hundred and...
thirty-eight."

Feeling better about it, Cupid started to tally his own
score, scribbling imaginary numbers in the air and mumbling.

"Lesse... the two on the bridge... suicidal guy and the
girlie cop... that boat on the Thames... a hundred and...
ninety-three."

He was about to write that number down, when Urd coughed
loudly. "Ahem. You forgetting something?"

Cupid was humble enough to look a little sheepish, pulling
his pencil back. "Oh, yeah. Lesse... missed four... hit
the dude and his dog... two passing seagulls..." He paused
and asked Urd, "Hey, those two seagulls fell in love. S'at
really a penalty?"

"We weren't aiming for wildlife, Q-boy," replied Urd.
"Points off."

"Aw. Awright." He muttered a little longer, drew a few
more imaginary figures in the air, then wrote down his
tally. "A hundred'n sixty-eight."

"Ah, damn." Urd tucked her scorecard away and sighed.
"Hour break for lunch?"

"Hour break."

"Don't be late, fatboy."

"I be here if you be here, bimbo."

~*~

~ Psyche's home in Italy ~

"You called?" the young lady with the butterfly wings asked
again. She seemed unusually somber, as she studied the slow
fluttering of her butterfly.

"Psyche?" Mara ventured.

Psyche tilted her head, ignoring Mara, to give Tim a glance
with one arched eyebrow. "What brings you here?"

Tim lifted a hand to wave timidly. "Hello, Psyche. Ah,
we're here, you know, to talk about..."

"Cupid!" Mara cut in. She couldn't let the boy take
control, not till she had him primed. Tim blinked at her
owlishly.

Psyche, however, shook her head, a small frown crossing her
delicate face.

"Cupid? What has he done now?"

Tim rubbed his neck. "Ah, he..."

"He's been out spreading love in all the wrong places, if
you know what I mean," Mara cut in, with a grimace.

Psyche shook her head. "He needs time to find himself."

Now Mara looked confused. "But I thought you left him," she
said, while Tim thought darkly about the whims of the gods.

Psyche shook her head. "No... I sent him away." She sighed,
returning her gaze to the butterfly on her finger. "If he
couldn't live with himself, how could I?"

Tim blinked. "What do you mean?"

Psyche turned her attention back towards Tim, frowning.
"Cupid's been trying too hard to prove himself."

"In what?"

"In love."

"Um... why does he have to prove himself? He's the God of
Love."

Psyche raised an eyebrow. "He wanted to prove he could
still cause people to fall in love." She made a face.
"Hollywood and that musical bed-swapping was bad enough. I
won't even go into what happened with that rock star and the
rock star's daughter, and what he did in Washington DC was
just sick. But when that thing with the basketball player
fell apart the morning after... well, that was it." She
sighed. "He was out of control, and I couldn't do anything
to stop him. So I kicked him out and told him he was going
to have to pull himself together, because I certainly
couldn't do it for him."

Mara took a step back, letting Tim converse, chuckling
mentally. From the sounds of it, it sounded like a typical
male tantrum because he couldn't recognize when he was
overcompensating and resented being told so. Now how could
she turn that to her benefit? She motioned for Tim to
continue, when he looked at her hesistantly, a bit confused.

Tim looked uncomfortable. And why not? Love hadn't been a
successful thing for him these days. Still, he gave it a
shot, seeing as he was the one on the spot. "Ah... well,
he's... um..." He rubbed his neck, unsure how to bring up
the subject of love with Cupid's ex, and ended up looking
back towards Mara for advice.

Mara caught Tim's glance and saw she wasn't about to have
much time to think of something, so she shrugged, throwing
off a casual explanation. "Well, Cupid's busy shooting up
London at the moment."

Now a hint of anger crossed Psyche's face. "Of course he'd
react that way. I should've known. Typical male
pigheadness." She released the butterfly on her finger,
and turned to Tim. "Take me to him."

Mara frowned. Not much more time to work her way into Tim's
confidence either, it seemed. Ah well, it couldn't be
helped. But... maybe if Cupid and Psyche remained on the
outs...

"I'll take you to them." Mara said.

Tim regarded her curiously.

"What? I'm keeping an eye on them already, and they're not
doing anything. Much. Lardass's scarfing himself, and Urd
looks like she's guzzling sake by the gallon. Oh, I think
they're about ready to start up again... yep."

Psyche looked up towards Mara, and nodded.

"Then we depart."

~*~

~ London once again ~

Urd blew on the smoking barrel of her weapon, grinning like
a cheshire cat. "Top that, hotshot."

He had to admit, that was a pretty good one, for the guy to
fall back in love with the girl that chopped his... well...

Cupid just grumbled, and began to scan the city for
something adequately impressive. With that last shot, Urd
was almost even with-

"And may I remind ya, I've now got the lead," said Urd
smugly.

Cupid frowned. "Ho'up! Wha'cha mean you got the lead?!"

Urd pulled her scorecard out and pointed at the latest
score. "See?"

Cupid squinted as he read the numbers, then scowled.
"Waiiiit a minute! That ain't right!"

It wasn Urd's turn to wrinkle her brow and scowl.
"Whadayamean it ain't right? The damn math is right in
front of ya."

"You counted THAT as a triple score?" he asked skeptically.

Urd looked at what Cupid was pointing at and snorted. "Of
course it's a triple score!"

"Bull-shee-ite!" spat Cupid. "A woman pregnant with twins
should only count as ONE!"

"Bullshit your own fatass self!" yelled Urd.

"Don't be callin'me a fatass!" Both sensed a snapping point
in tension and reflexively lunged for their guns in a
spinning motion. As they turned around, they both found
themselves staring down the business ends of sticks that
went "boom".

And then a butterfly drifted betwen them, landing on Cupid's
barrel.

They both could sense there was something amiss about that
butterfly, though Cupid was fairly sure what was going to
happen next.

"Aw man."

Suddenly, the air was filled with a blizzard of butterflies,
turning the afternoon sky into a myriad of rainbow colors in
the sunlight. There was a subtle scent of flowers in the
air, and then an elfin female figure emerged from the
butterfly blizzard, looking at Cupid with sadness and pity.
Tim and Mara followed a second later.

"What are you doing here?" Cupid snarled, glaring at Psyche.
The sentiments were echoed by Urd to Mara. Tim stood off to
the side, looking rather embarrassed.

Mara retorted, "Just helping out," before motioning for Urd
to shut up and watch the two reunited lovers.

Psyche crossed her arms just a bit, her eyes full of
disappointment. Cupid wanted to hide. But he managed to
suck in his considerable gut and stand up. "See, I'm
getting along just fine without you, eh?"

Psyche's voice was as cold as the dark nights of winter.
"Spreading love and joy around the world, aren't you?"

"Um, right, dear, I can explain."

Psyche tapped her foot, crossing her arms, and Cupid, for
that moment, suddenly realized he wasn't facing the quietly
passive Psyche he'd been with the last few centuries. Here,
then, was the Psyche who'd undertaken three nearly
impossible tasks for Aphrodite for love. The Psyche who had
bewitched mortal men, to the point where she'd drawn
Aphrodite's attention and jealousy. The Psyche that Cupid
had fallen in love with.

Cupid was dizzy. He just had to sit down.

If only he could get out of this. There just wasn't
anything as bad as a woman making you feel like you'd done
something very wrong when you hadn't...

She had to be wrong. No. She was the one who left him.

~*~

Mara was frowning to herself. The guy still had it bad for
Psyche, even if he hadn't really cared all that much about
how she felt the last few years.

But fortunately, she had a way to make sure that things
wouldn't go too smoothly. Men were so easy to deal with.

Mara sauntered up behind Urd, a carefully planned move, then
said to Cupid, "Hey, come on. Be a man. Go apologize."

Cupid's head jerked up to stare at her, and by virtue of her
position, Urd's smirk as well. This didn't help calm things
down at all, which was (to Mara) the entire point.

And of course, Cupid immediately reacted as she'd hoped.

"Hell, no! I didn't do anything wrong!"

And Cupid immediately grabbed for his rifle.

Perfect.

Urd aimed her cannon-rifle at Cupid. "Put that down, fat
boy!"

Even better.

"Make me!" Cupid snarled.

Tim took a good step back.

Mara grinned. High tension moment. Had to yell just the
right word... nothing that would diffuse the situation, but
nothing too obvious either. Oh, this would work...

"Hey!"

At her yell, Cupid twitched and opened fire by reflex. Urd
dove to the side, nailing Cupid right between the eyes.

"Stop it!" cried Psyche, "both of you!"

"Say," said Tim. "Aren't those the guns..."

Mara ignored them both, staring at her chest. Chocolate
splattered all over her clothes. Hah. She looked back up,
ready to deliver a tongue-lashing to the big fat idiot. She
locked eyes with the deity, then froze.

Now why hadn't she noticed what a handsome man he really
was? That little beer belly was just so perfect. Oh, and
the chocolate splatter on his chest just set off his eyes so
perfectly...

Dimly, she heard Urd cry, "Oh damn."

But Mara didn't care.

She was in Love.

And, judging by the look she saw in Cupid's eyes...

So was he.

- end part 2 -

----------------------------

LOVE, n.

A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of
the patient from the influences under which he incurred the
disorder. This disease, like caries and many other
ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living
under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing
pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its
ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the
physician than to the patient.

-The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce