Dionysus was laughing. “You either told me the truth about not liking him, Tracy, or your method of getting his pants off needs practice.”
The man in the tuxedo shirt kept Leif handily restrained. Thad himself was busy brushing down his outfit and re-ruffling his hair. Tracy chucked the model’s keys straight at his stomach. They made a satisfying—albeit pointless—impact.
Thad pointed at Leif once he’d recovered. “Do you know who he is?”
“The towhead? I’m sure someone does, but . . .”
“He’s the guy you all wanted me to follow! Or at least that’s what my mother told me you wanted. You don’t recognize him at all?”
“Well he’s not much to look at, is he? Besides, I prefer this one.” The god lifted Tracy up higher and then glanced at Leif. “Though he does look a little familiar in an annoying sort of way now that you mention it . . .”
So their cover, such as it was, was definitely blown. Using force to escape was right out, and Tracy was loath to make any bargains Dionysus might come up with. She wracked her brain for a story that might get them out of the situation, some sort of lie that might fool a god and render Thad mute, but nothing sprang to mind. Don’t just hang there like an idiot, Tracy. Think of something! Anything!
Dionysus was a party god, so she needed more than a lie; she needed an entertaining lie. Something funny . . . No, she corrected, seizing upon a better idea. Not just something funny, something funny . . . with cyborgs.
She failed to think of a complete story, but she figured it was the thought that counted. It remained to be seen if her idea would work and how quickly.
“I found them last night,” Thad was saying. He tugged the amulet out of a pocket. “She had this! Said it was something important, something Apollo gave her, or something, so I grabbed it and brought it back here. I don’t quite know what it is, but it’s so valuable she didn’t want to take it off, not even for me! And obviously it was my plan all along to use it as bait so they’d follow and you could catch them.”
He tossed the amulet to Dionysus. Tracy’s grab wasn’t fast enough— or mounted on long enough arms.
The god peered at it, growing more serious. “Hrm . . . Now that you bring it up, I could have sworn your mother said you’d follow this guy to keep an eye on him. And do nothing else!”
“That was before she knew about that!” Thad pointed at the amulet. “And come on, they were out in the middle of nowhere where it’s boring and hot! You’re one of the cool gods, Dion—Lord Dionysus. You understand, right?”
Tracy thought the entire argument was far too clever to come out of Thad, but she was hardly one to judge while hanging by her belt as she was. The belt snapped a second later, and suddenly she was hardly one to judge while lying on the floor at a god’s feet as she was. She preferred the former. Better view.
The god looked down on her. She looked up, crawling slowly backward while he seemed to be pondering what to do.
“So you’re one of the conspirators?” Leif spoke up. “One of the gods who killed Zeus?”
Dionysus laughed smoothly, much to Tracy’s surprise. “Only an idiot would answer that question with a yes! And haven’t you heard? Ares did it!” He turned his attention back to Tracy, seizing her by the arm and lifting her back to her feet, but didn’t let go. “But why concern yourself with all of that, pretty one? What’s the towhead said to you to get you involved?”
“He hasn’t said anything,” she answered. “Not to get me involved, anyway. In other matters he hardly shuts up.”
“Ah, he sounds bothersome. I can do you the favor of locking him away, then, if you tell me more about this amulet. It isn’t just some family heirloom, is it?”
“That thing? I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
Thad laughed. “She’s definitely lying about that.”
“Shut up, model-boy, I’m talking to the girl.” Dionysus smiled broadly at her. Again she began to feel tipsy. “Tell me what I want to know. Why did Apollo give it to you?”
Tracy shook her head through the fog, managing to speak a “no” that sundered the god’s smile.
“You’ve an irritating stubborn streak in you. Not my favorite, as streaks go. But as you like, I suppose. I’m in no hurry.” He looked to the woman in the dress. “Cages!”
Cages?
Before she could voice the question, two narrow silver cages lowered from the ceiling on either side of Dionysus’s throne dais. “In you go!” he declared, tossing her into one.
She landed safely; it was a remarkably gentle throw. More jarring was the discovery that, despite her protests, she was suddenly wearing a cheerleader’s outfit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“No, the so-called ‘Idiot Ball’ doesn’t actually exist, silly. Can you imagine how dangerous a thing like that could be were it real? It’s just a concept, isn’t it, Polyhymnia?”
“An abstract concept!”
“It’s merely a metaphor. Muses or not, it’s not as if we can toss it around and play with it.”
“Even if we could, we wouldn’t.”
“Certainly not, because that would get us in the worst kind of trouble.”
“Dreadful trouble!”
“Grievous trouble! If we could.”
“But we cannot.”
“Right! Because it doesn’t actually exist! As we said.”
“Except as an abstraction.”
“Yes, precisely. Just an abstraction.”
“Um, would anyone like some tea?”
—Muses Calliope and Polyhymnia, Jet City ComiCon
TO SAY SHE LOOKED GOOD in the dress was inaccurate. Though the dress was itself spectacular (low-cut green silk with a diagonally asymmetrical hem, it wrapped her body like a seduced lover), it was more apt to say that it looked good on her. The dress was mere garnish, and she moved like she knew it. Given the stare from the security guard who was clearly picturing her without it as she approached, he had the same idea.
It was also possible he stared because she’d appeared from invisibility after flying up to the rooftop helipad of the Dionysian, but surely that was only a small part of it.
The click of high heels played Thalia across the rooftop platform toward the guard, who stood in front of the elevator that led directly down to Dionysus’s private quarters. She flashed her best grin to keep him focused on her rather than any thoughts of reporting her presence to anyone. It seemed to work. She did clean up well, not that she ever really got dirty. If he noticed her taking the small, heavy box out of her purse, he gave no indication.
The guard opened his mouth to speak, an action Thalia cut short with a finger to her lips before she unsealed the box. He hesitated, and she pitched the box’s contents at him with a playful cry of, “Catch!”
He caught the glowing object in one hand.
“Nice reflexes!” Thalia smiled and counted her blessings that of the two great groups of humankind—those who caught strange glowing things tossed at them and those who just got the hell out of the way— this man belonged to the former. The guard glanced between her and the object, and then reached down for his radio. She stopped him with one gentle hand on his wrist. “I’d like to go down and see the god. Discreetly.”
His hand relaxed, though the rest of him straightened. “I’m sorry, miss, but—Dionysus’s orders. Everyone has to enter from below unless he says otherwise.”
She pouted with a glance at his nametag. “I’m an Olympian . . . Leo. Can’t you tell? That rule can’t possibly apply in my case. I mean, look at me! Who wouldn’t love for me to stop by?”
He grinned and took the offered opportunity to ogle. “I . . . I ought to call down and ask, but . . . I suppose he does like surprises.”
“Right, surprises! It’s so much more fun that way, isn’t it, sweetheart?” She slipped the radio off his belt and waggled it at him. “Oh, and I need to borrow this. I’ll return it, I promise. Now be a dear and open the elevator?”
Leo grinne
d with a shrug before turning to swipe a keycard in the lock. “I can’t see the harm. Say, which Olympian are you?”
“That’s right,” she answered, stepping into the elevator. “Oh, and could I have that back now, please? Thanks so much for holding it for me, but you really shouldn’t hang on to it too long. It makes you sterile, you know.”
“Sterile!” He deposited the object back into the box with a start. “Just—just what is that, anyway?”
“Uh-huh!” Thalia answered. She dazzled him with a pixie grin and a wave as the doors closed.
Poor Leo. She hoped he wouldn’t get into too much trouble.
Thalia sealed the box and confirmed that its internal magnetic containment field remained active before slipping it back into her purse. (Great things, magnetic fields. So very sci-fi and grandiose.) So far, so good. She gave her hair a quick brushing and smoothed her dress, preparing herself. At least she was more suited to this sort of thing than running around the desert confronting Erinyes and hunting for jewelry in the dark. Finally a crisis she could deal with. Probably. At least this was fun.
Only a short while earlier, she’d returned to her hotel suite―back from a nice deserted hilltop outside the city, where she’d spent a few hours’ concentration in summoning the object from her sisters on Olympus and hoping they all wouldn’t get into a desperate mess of trouble for sending it to her. She’d been about to call down to the front desk to schedule a massage for a bit of relaxation when she suddenly got the sense that Tracy was trying to spin a funny story for Dionysus. Featuring cyborgs. It was a clever attempt—in terms of alerting Thalia, anyway; the story itself was sheer offal, and cyborgs were passé these days anyhow. Yet it was enough to tell Thalia they were in trouble and compel her to fly onto the Dionysian rooftop minutes later.
Did they somehow offend the playboy god about an unrelated matter (Tracy really wasn’t his type, she supposed), or had Thalia actually sent them directly into the clutches of an enemy?
She giggled at her own melodrama. Clutches. Not that Dionysus couldn’t get pretty grabby after he had a few drinks in him (a state that had begun around five thousand years ago and continued unabated). But she hoped he wasn’t involved in this. If he was actively aligned against Zeus’s return . . . Well, that’s why she’d run her errand in the first place, wasn’t it?
As the elevator bell announced her arrival, she patted the box through the side of her purse and hoped she knew what she was doing.
Well that was silly, she amended. Of course she knew what she was doing. She switched to simply hoping it would work. At least it was an excuse to wear the dress. How often did she get out to Vegas, after all?
The elevator doors slid open with little fanfare. Before her was the god’s balcony with its colossal plasma screen and other accoutrements. The leather back of his recliner throne stared at her in that blank way leather often stares when it thinks a person isn’t looking. Also staring at her were Tracy and Leif, each locked in narrow silver dance cages on either side of the throne dais.
The cheer outfit wasn’t really Tracy’s color, which was likely why she’d looked so unhappy before spotting Thalia.
None of the other five people on the balcony—Dionysus included— even noticed her arrival. All were focused on the screen, paying no attention to any private elevators that had no good reason to be opening. She slipped out before the doors closed.
“I can wait just as long as you two,” the god was saying. “Longer, in fact. I doubt you can accomplish whatever it is Apollo wants you to do while you’re locked up here, after all.”
Dionysus spoke without turning his attention from the screen. So far, so good, Thalia thought. She could still be sneaky. She adored being sneaky. She didn’t get to do it nearly as often as she liked, and obviously it wasn’t as enjoyable as being funny, but it tickled her when she got the chance. A finger to her lips and a glance at the two captives later, she slipped off her heels and crept forward on delicate footsteps.
“I may,” Dionysus continued, “even let you go without telling anyone about it, if you’re nice enough—though you’ll have to go without the amulet, of course.”
“What about Thad?” Tracy asked with the slightest of glances in Thalia’s direction. “He’ll be reporting back to—who’s his mother, again?”
The god laughed. “I’m not drunk enough to fall for that, girl. And I’m sure he will be reporting to his mother. That’s incentive to tell me everything before she shows up. She’s got quite the mean streak when she’s riled.”
Thalia reached the back of the dais without being noticed and then drew the box from her purse once more. What would come next would take finesse. After a moment’s wait to avoid being too obvious, she began making her way toward Tracy, staying low. Skillful, quiet, a stealthy vision in a green dress, she deftly closed the distance, nearly making it completely undetected until she struck her toe on a half step in the floor and pitched forward onto her face with a comical yelp. The box tumbled from her hand.
Not quite enough finesse, she noticed; Tracy didn’t even have the courtesy to laugh.
Thalia shifted invisible a moment later, but Dionysus had heard enough to think to look for her. “Hel-lo, what have we here?”
Thalia turned toward the god and his entourage, all of whom were looking at where she lay sprawled. She shifted back to visible, casting about nervously with a giggle. “I meant to do that.”
Dionysus’s laugh swiftly gave way to a leering stare as he turned his throne toward her. Wearing either Tracy’s amulet or a remarkable forgery, the god spread his arms wide in a delighted greeting. “Polyhymnia!”
“Thalia,” she corrected, and blew a strand of hair out of her face. Save for Erato, he never got the Muses’ names right. “Greetings, Dionysus.”
“Greetings, yes! Greetings to all of us on this fine Tuesday—”
“Thursday,” corrected the woman in the black dress at his side.
“What? Already? I suppose time does fly when you’re stupendous. And speaking of which, nice dress, Thalia. And what, pray tell, brings you to the Dionysian? No one here is spinning any tales of history, I’m sure. Is this a social call?” He beamed again, looking her over.
She ignored his portfolio mistake and concentrated on standing without looking at the box that now lay near Tracy’s cage. “Quite social, definitely! I had a skosh of free time and thought, ‘There’s little to do this morning, why not visit Dionysus? He’s always a good time!’”
“Sneaking around behind me to do so, mm?”
“It’s much more fun that way, don’t you think?”
“Oh, maybe, maybe. Care for some champagne? Dom Pérignon 1995, courtesy of that lovely girl in the cage over there. The outfit was my idea; stubborn one, that.”
“She doesn’t look very happy,” Thalia observed with a step or two toward Tracy’s cage. So far no one but Tracy had noticed the box, but it was out of the caged woman’s reach. Thalia bumped the box with her heel, trying her best not to be too obvious. “Why a cage?”
“Why a cage?” Dionysus dismissed the question with a wave. “Why this music? Why all the booze? Why anything?” He took a newly filled champagne flute from another cheerleadered woman beside him. (Hey, cheerleadered; I made a new word!) He waggled the flute at her with a lascivious grin. “How’s Apollo these days? I’m afraid I haven’t seen him.”
“Apollo? Apollo who?” She pushed the box just a little closer to the cage.
“What’s that by your foot, Thalia?”
“My other foot! See?” She lifted it, toes wiggling.
He chuckled. “Ah, so you missed the box you’re nudging toward my new friend there.”
She feigned disappointment. “Now, Dionysus. Do you mean to tell me I squeezed this spectacular body of mine into this almost-as- spectacular dress and all you can look at is the floor? You’re not getting shy on me, are you?”
He winked and held out his hand. “Bring it here.”
“Bring w
hat there?”
“That box you’re so subtly pushing.”
“I’m not pushing a box. Are you seeing a box? Maybe you’re drunk!”
“Plastered. Rex?”
At the god’s motion, the large man in the tuxedo T-shirt moved forward to grab Thalia by the forearms. He lifted her off her feet, carried her kicking to Dionysus, and set her down on the god’s lap. Thalia stuck her tongue out at the man and got only a smirk in return.
“Now,” Dionysus went on. “You see that little box there on the ground? What do you suppose that is?”
“I didn’t have to let him pick me up, you know.”
“What’s the box, Thalia?” It flew into his outstretched hand just as Tracy made a try for it herself.
“That thing? I’ve never seen it before so I really don’t know, but whatever it is, you really shouldn’t open it.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t, should I?”
“Uh-huh. You know how boxes are; it’s always a bad idea to open them! Why would you put something in a box if it shouldn’t be in a box in the first place? Name me one thing that’s in a box that ought to be let out! Go ahead, try. Bet you can’t do it! Better just to throw it away, really. Do you want to be another Pandora, is that it? I mean, you can have what’s in the box, or you can go for what’s behind this door!” She pointed flamboyantly, humming a game show theme.
He chuckled. “I know what’s behind that door: a completely kick-ass private bedroom, and it’s already mine. Now if you were behind the door . . .” He pulled the box away from Thalia’s grab. “You really don’t want me to open this, do you? Just what are you trying to sneak to my captives?”
“Sneak to them? I’ve never seen them before. And since when do you care about captives? Isn’t this a party?” She beamed and wished he’d just open the darned box. This reverse psychology was growing tiresome.
Dionysus stood suddenly, gathering her up in both arms to deposit her in Tracy’s cage. The door slammed shut at his whim just as swiftly as it opened. “I know you were with them last night, Thalia. I know you’re involved in all this.”
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