She was going to need some answers, and fast. But in the meantime the Anise Stars were ready, the Cinnamon Daisies were ready to go, and she had people to feed. Answers could wait.
For the first fifteen minutes of their conversation, Shar had tried to get an explanation out of Sam that made sense, but all he knew was that Kammani had called him, as usual, and he’d risen in the room of the sun, as usual, except that now it was Shar’s bedroom and the temple was in Ohio. On that part, he was as confused as she was.
“So you just do whatever she tells you?” Shar said, annoyed.
“Everyone does what the gods decree. But I am a god, also, so first I do what is best for my people.”
Shar squinted at him, trying to find some clue that he was shining her on, but his face was serious, almost bland in its rough-hewn sincerity. “Your people,” Shar said. “Okay, about them. They’re not around anymore. I think they were in Turkey. About four thousand years ago.”
Sam looked around the coffee shop as Abby opened the doors and said, “The people will come, Sharrat,” and sure enough, the place began to fill up.
“For the last time, I am not Sharrat. My grandmother was Sharrat; she was probably descended from your Sharrat… .” Shar’s voice trailed off as a new thought hit.
Grandma Sharrat had known a hell of a lot about Kammani Gula. Without sources.
“So, your Sharrat,” Shar said uneasily. “Did she have any scars, any marks, any distinguishing—”
“A scar,” Sam said, drawing his finger down the side of his face. “A knife cut from a temple invasion.”
Shar felt cold. “She told me that was from a fall.” Okay, maybe it was from a fall. One lousy scar—
Sam nodded, unperturbed. “And marks from lamp sputters on her hands. All the priestesses had those.”
Shar thought of the shiny oval marks on the backs of her grandmother’s hands, of how there were no pictures of Sharrat before 1925, of how her grandfather had said that Sharrat was the most important treasure he’d found in Turkey—
“Oh my god,” Shar said as it all fell together. “He dug her up.”
EIGHT
“Dug her up?” Sam said as Shar tried to wrap her mind around the enormity of her family history.
“My grandfather went on a dig in Turkey in 1925 and came back with a step temple and my grandmother and her six sisters.” Shar put her head in her hands. “He brought everything Kammani needed back here. They weren’t sisters; they were Kammani’s priestesses. My grandmother was four thousand years old.”
“Shar?” Sam said, watching her warily.
Her mother must have known. They’d both known, her grandmother Sharrat and her mother, Sharon, but they hadn’t bothered to tell her. “Goddammit,” Shar said, thinking about forty-eight years of boring duty and non-stop study, and all the time this huge family secret was heaving under her….
She looked at the god across from her, mad as hell. Her life might have been boring, but it had been her life and now he was screwing it up. Yes, okay, she’d wanted change, but not this, not a god in a bowling shirt….
She looked at him more closely. He was wearing a vintage cream-colored bowling shirt with the name Dick embroidered in red over the pocket.
“Where do you get these clothes?” she said, and when he looked confused, she added, “The red flannel shirt yesterday and now this … Dick shirt. Where have you been going? What have you been doing?”
He looked down at the expanse of cream polyester. “Kar-en gave me the red shirt. And Lisa gave me this.”
“Karen. Who’s Karen?” And who the hell is Lisa?
“I met Kar-en walking down your road last night after I rose, and she took me to her home. She said it would be better in this world if I were clothed so that the people would recognize me as one of them.”
“ ‘Oh, yeah, you blend,’ ” Shar said. “She didn’t know you; she picked you up in the street; why would she …” Shar pulled back a little, remembering the gist of most of the myths that had gods dropping in to chat with humans. “Uh, you didn’t … have sex with her, did you?”
“Yes,” Sam said, with a lot of of course in his voice.
Shar closed her eyes. Karen was damn lucky the Mesopotamians didn’t go in for bulls and swans. “Tell me she had condoms. No, let me explain condoms to you—”
“Kar-en explained.”
“Oh, good. So was the sex her idea or yours? Because this world is different—”
“All women want to have sex with a god.” Sam looked at the empty cookie plate. “Fetch me another cookie.”
Shar took a deep breath. “Here’s something that’s different about this world: women don’t fetch.” He looked at her steadily, and she got up and got a cinnamon cookie out of Abby’s glass display case—not a butter cookie—dropped it on the plate in front of him, and then sat down again. “Okay, another thing that’s different: you can’t just assume women will have sex with you just because you want them—”
“Hungry,” Wolfie barked at their feet.
“They ask.” Sam broke off a piece of cookie and gave it to Wolfie.
She regrouped. “So, this woman you spent the night with—”
“No.” Sam bit into his cookie. “I did not pass the night with Kar-en.”
“You had sex and left. Nice. And what did you do between earning your new wardrobe and showing up in my kitchen this morning?”
“There was a tavern.”
“A bar. You spent the night in a bar?”
“No,” Sam said. “There were women who said I should go with them.”
“And of course you did.” Shar rubbed her forehead.
“Did you tell them you were a god?”
“Yes.”
“And they said …”
“‘Prove it.’ ” Sam bit into the cookie again.
The Ghostbusters Theory of Dating: if somebody asks you if you’re a god, say yes.
Shar considered him in the dim light. As problems went, he was huge. Not only was he planning on helping a wingnut goddess gather followers, he was also sleeping with the general populace, and when women started to look for him again—
“Sam, how many women did you sleep with last night?”
He squinted for a moment as if thinking. Or counting.
“Oh, my god.” Shar went back to damage control. “Listen, when you find Kammani, you both have to remember that this is a different world from yours. You can’t use people; you can’t make them serve you. It’s … immoral.”
“But it’s our world now,” Sam said, looking perplexed again. “Kammani has been called to rule it, and we are all called to help her.”
Wonderful, Shar thought. Magic tonic and divine sex, that’s how they’re going to rule the world. She looked at Sam again and realized that it wasn’t a completely bad idea.
“Okay.” She kept her eyes on his shirt in case he could look into her eyes and read her mind, and then realized she was staring at the embroidered name above his pocket. “Dick?”
Sam looked down at the shirt. “Lisa gave me this. She said it was fitting.”
“Oh.” Change the subject. “So explain to me why Abby and Daisy have powers and I don’t—”
“Sam!”
Shar looked up to see her grad student Leesa coming toward them, a goofy grin on her pretty face, and the other shoe dropped.
Shar glared at Sam. “That Leesa?”
Sam looked at Leesa as she pushed past people to get to the table. “I think so.”
“Oh, for the love of god—”
Sam smiled at her.
“Not you,” Shar said. “Another god. Any other god.” Leesa arrived, beaming. “Sam!” Then she noticed Shar and lost some of her bounce. “And Professor Summer.”
Sam nodded to her and then said to Shar, “I must have another cookie. I will bring you one also.” He got up and walked into the kitchen, Wolfie on his heels.
Leesa watched him go. “He’s not, like, your boyfriend, is
he?”
Do I look like somebody who would have a god for a boyfriend?
“Because he was smiling at you,” Leesa said. “Like he knows you. Really well.”
“That was in another life,” Shar said. “Now about that thesis you owe me.”
“Ohmigod, you were married.” There was real sympathy in Leesa’s voice. “It must have been terrible when he left you.”
“I left him,” Shar said, losing her grip on reality, although she certainly would have left him, since he’d have cheated on her right and left. The bastard. “Now about finishing your thesis …”
Leesa looked past her, and Shar followed her eyes to the doorway where Sam was talking to Wolfie, looking magnificent and sweet as he conversed seriously with her dachshund. Shar turned away, hoping she didn’t look as dopey as Leesa did, only to see Ray standing by the table.
“Is that Sam?” he said, staring at the doorway, too.
“What are all you people doing here?” Shar said, and then realized that the coffeehouse was now packed with people who were paying to be there. She looked around and saw Bun and Gen waving to her, Mina scowling alone in a corner, the woman in the gray cardigan with Elbow-Patches Guy—
“Everybody’s here,” Leesa said. “Well, anybody who’s anybody.” She looked at Ray, puzzled. “And some other people.”
“That’s Sam,” Ray said. “I don’t understand this, Shar. You just met him. What do you even know about him?”
“A lot,” Leesa said to Ray. “She was married to him.”
“Married?” Ray stared down at Shar, stunned. “When were you married?”
There’s a good question, Shar thought. This is why fantasizing in front of others is a bad idea. “Uh, when I was on that dig in Ur.”
“That dig was only for six months,” Ray said, suspicious now.
“Well, it was a damn good six months,” Shar said, and then Sam came back and sat down at the table with Wolfie beside him.
“Wolfie wants to go out with me,” Sam said, handing her a butter cookie.
“You’re going to take him bar-crawling?” Shar said, appalled.
“No,” Sam said. “I must find Kammani.”
Shar started to say no and then realized that Sam was going to find Kammani sooner or later anyway, so it might as well be with Wolfie. Wolf’s long-term recall probably wasn’t great, but he was still eyes in the other camp. And Sam would never let anyone hurt him.
She looked down at Wolfie. “You want to go, baby?”
“Noisy,” Wolfie said, scrambling to one side as somebody almost stepped on him.
“Okay, you go with Sam then.” She ruffled the fur behind his ears. “Show him the way to the temple.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Shar, you’re acting like you can understand that dog,” Ray said.
“She can,” Sam said, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
Shar sighed. “Thank you for your concern, Ray. You can go now.” She turned back to Sam. “Can you bring Wolfie home when you’re done?”
“We will return to your temple,” Sam said.
“Good,” Shar said. “Because we need to talk. I still don’t understand …” She looked at Leesa and Ray, listening avidly. “We need to talk.”
Sam nodded. He stood and nodded again to Leesa and Ray, and then he took Wolfie with him into the kitchen, the little dachshund looking small but raffish trotting next to him. She could almost hear Wolfie saying, Yeah, I’m with the god, how about that? He was so proud—
Leesa said, “Wow. He loves you.”
“Well, I rescued him from a puppy mill—”
“No. Sam.” Leesa sighed. “He’s never forgotten those nights in Ur.”
“Ur?” Shar said, brought back to reality again. “Right. Those nights in Ur. I’m pretty sure he forgot them immediately. I bet if you mentioned them to him, he’d draw a complete blank.”
“No, he cares,” Leesa said. “I think he still wants you. Is he coming back here?”
“No,” Shar said, and when Leesa looked back at her, surprised, she realized she was angry. As ridiculous as it was, she was jealous. “Go finish your thesis,” she said, thinking, I’m the priestess of finishing. Go finish something. That isn’t Sam.
Leesa blinked at her.
Abby came through the archway again and said, “Shar—,” and Shar stood up, powerless as ever. “I have to go, Leesa—”
“I do, too,” Leesa said, sounding confused. “I have to finish my thesis.”
“Really?” Shar said, and watched her walk straight to the door, past friends who called to her to party, as if she were sleepwalking.
“Good for you,” Ray said, watching Leesa go. “She shouldn’t—”
“Go home, Ray,” Shar said.
“I have to go now.” Ray stood up. “I have papers to grade.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it, then turned and left.
“I need you to run the cash register,” Abby said. “Daisy’s so distracted, she’s overcharging people.” She waited a beat and said, “Shar?”
“Sure,” Shar said, staring after two people whose free will she was pretty sure she’d just violated.
Abby went back to the kitchen and Shar thought, This isn’t good, and followed her.
Abby and Daisy were both there, but so was Sam, polishing off a last cookie.
“Look, all of this has to stop,” Shar told him. “It’s wrong. We have powers we don’t understand and they’re making people do things against their wills. So tell Kammani that she’s just going to have to make do with four priestesses, because the three of us aren’t coming.”
She looked to the others for backup, and Abby said, “You got that right,” and Daisy nodded and said, “Damn straight.”
Sam looked unimpressed. “Kammani will not relent. She needs the Three.”
“Why?” Shar said, exasperated. “She’ll have Fertility, Birth, Life, and Death. What does she need us for?”
“You are the most powerful,” Sam said.
“Sex is more powerful than life or death?” Shar said. “I don’t believe it.”
“The others are mortal,” Sam said patiently, as if explaining to a small child. “You are goddesses.”
Abby stopped mixing batter and Daisy lost her scowl.
Shar looked at them. “We’re goddesses.” My head is exploding again.
Abby nodded. “That would explain a lot.”
“I’d like to revisit my con artist theory now,” Daisy said, looking a little wild.
Abby looked at her, as exasperated as Sam. “You have a clicky pen.”
“Goddesses don’t use clicky pens,” Daisy said, sounding frantic.
Sam took a step back toward the door. “I must go to Kammani,” he said to Shar. “I will return to your temple with Wolfie.”
“Oh, good,” Shar said, hearing her voice as if it were very far away, and then he was gone and she and Abby and Daisy were alone. “So. We’re goddesses.”
“What does that entail exactly?” Daisy said, sitting down.
The noise rose from the coffee shop and Abby said, “Right now it entails one of you running the register.”
“That would be me,” Shar said, and went numbly out into the coffeehouse and began to take money from people buying magic heart’s-desire cookies.
I’m a goddess.
She’d wanted a change, but this was ridiculous.
“It’s just not plausible,” she said to a woman who wanted non-magic cookies to go.
“Cinnamon cookies aren’t plausible?” the woman said.
“Ten bucks,” Shar said, and took her money.
I’m a goddess, she thought, and rang up the sale.
Daisy sat on a stool by the counter, her body humming with the music as Noah jammed on a bluesy guitar riff. The rhythm ran right through her, from the base of her toes all the way up, making her feel loaded with power and potential, like a …
Like a goddess.
She shooed the thought away—
ridiculous—and watched Noah, his dark hair falling over his forehead as he played, his deft fingers pulling music out of the guitar strings with practiced ease. On an ordinary day, she would have dismissed her little crush with extreme prejudice—no real job, no ambition, no 401(k)—but today was not an ordinary day. She’d skipped out on work, broken into a temple, and been told by a four-thousand-year-old Mesopotamian god-king that she was a goddess. She leaned back against the counter and let herself soak in the loveliness that was Noah; this was not a day to live within her limits.
Abby came by with a fresh tray of lust cookies and Daisy snatched one and bit into it. Damn, they were good.
Abby glanced at Noah playing, then looked back at Daisy and spoke in a low voice. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Let’s not forget my kitchen counter episode with the math professor.”
“Good point.” Daisy took two more cookies, feeling almost giddy from the recklessness. She didn’t have to be reasonable, or sensible, or even rational. Not tonight. Tonight, she thought, watching Noah, I get a pass.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Abby said, and went off, delivering goodies to customers as if she were the Goddess of Hunger. Which was, of course, patently absurd, because goddesses weren’t real.
“Cookie!” Bailey hopped at Daisy’s feet, the tip of his nose reaching almost to her chin as he leapt for pure joy. “Cookie!”
Daisy took one of the cookies and knelt down to give it to him, then kissed the top of his head, said, “Don’t hump anyone’s leg,” and straightened up as he darted off to hang with Bowser in the kitchen.
The song ended and Daisy bit into another lust cookie. She didn’t quite understand how the magic in the cookies worked, but as she watched Noah finish jamming with his buddy, she figured they couldn’t possibly make her want him more, so she really had nothing to lose.
Noah settled on a stool by the microphone, adjusting it for his sitting height, then spoke into it: “Is this thing working?” The crowd came back with the affirmative and he nodded and said, “Let’s get it going then.”
Daisy leaned against the counter to watch him. Despite the overall weirdness of the day, in that moment she felt right, comfortable and secure, and she decided to live in that space for a while, to just be a smitten girl in a coffee shop watching a cute guy play guitar.
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