by P. C. Cast
"Remember, you're Phoebus Delos, a specialist in ancient Roman architecture. I called you in to help advise me on this project. And you're his sister, Diana. You—"
"Have the beauty of a goddess," she broke off Pamela's nervous repetition of instructions. "Yes, yes. We know our parts. We're immortals, not imbeciles."
"I was going to say that you are to remember to be nice," Pamela said.
"My words will be so sweet that they could make honey in my mouth like the brown bees of Greece," Artemis with an innocent bat of her long eyelashes.
"Okay, you're giving me a headache," Pamela told her. "Just be normal. Is that too much to ask?"
"She will keep her oath. You need not worry, sweet Pamela," Apollo said.
"Don't call me that. You're just supposed to be my employee," she said, and then hated the hurt that she saw flash across the god's handsome face. The god… How in the hell had she gotten herself into this situation? She was dating Apollo.
She was doomed.
She'd read the literature. Even though she didn't remember it too exactly or too well, she knew what happened to mortals who caught the attention of the gods—especially mortals were also happened to be females. Never a good ending, especially for the woman. Besides that, what was she going to do with him all week? She already knew the two of them had no money. She'd found that out when he'd reached into his pocket to pay the cashier for the shirt he'd worn out of the store and discovered that somehow (possibly during the hasty extraction of his clothes last night right before he screwed her against the marble column) he'd lost the four thousand dollars he'd filched from the slot machine. So he didn't have a dime. Neither did Artemis. And the portal wouldn't reopen for five really long days.
"Good morning, Miss Gray."
Pamela jumped. She hadn't even noticed that the silver vintage limo had pulled up in front of them.
"Oh, good morning Robert." He opened the door for her, and she paused, cleared her throat, and put on her best businesswoman's smile. "These two will be joining us today. They are my assistants."
Robert looked down his slender nose at the golden twins. He sniffed once.
"Very good, madam," he said, holding the door open and helping first Pamela and then the costumed woman to enter the limo. When the tall man hesitated, Robert gave him a very British look (cool and polite without being overly concerned). '"Is something amiss, sir?"
If Apollo still had his powers he would have used them at that moment to open the ground beneath him so that he could be swallowed out of sight. From the inside of the metal beast Pamela and Artemis were watching him with mirrored expressions of curiosity. Then his sister suddenly seemed to understand.
"It really is very nice in here," she called out to him. "It's nothing to be worried about." She patted the seat next to her.
"I am not worried," Apollo spoke with tight control. He took a deep breath and entered the maw of the thing.
"Please help yourselves to the mimosas. The trip to Mr. Faust's estate in Red Rock Canyon will take approximately thirty minutes." Robert closed the door.
To Apollo it seemed that he had only taken a couple of short breaths, and then they were moving forward, gliding like a smooth-limbed reptile out into the street. There was an awful rolling feeling in his stomach, and his ears were ringing. He couldn't stop staring at the world outside as it whizzed by at a dizzying pace.
"Are you okay? You look pale," Pamela said.
"She's right, you do," Artemis said. "Perhaps something to drink would help." She started to reach for the ice bucket, which held a bottle of champagne and a slender glass pitcher of orange juice.
"No! I don't want anything to drink." He had the oddest feeling inside of him, and he was afraid if he tried to drink something, it would come right back up.
"Carsick. I think you're carsick," Pamela said. "You might feel better if you sat up front with Robert. My friend V gets violently sick if she sits in the backseat of a car. Want me to have Robert stop so you can move?"
"I am a god," he said slowly from between clenched teeth. "I do not get sick."
"Suit yourself, but if you puke in Eddie's car, I can promise you as your employer I am going to be very pissed."
Apollo closed his eyes and tried to ignore the fact that they were hurtling across the earth inside a metal monster that could smash itself into something and disintegrate at any moment.
"What exactly is a mimosa?" Artemis asked.
"It's champagne and orange juice mixed together. It's pretty good, actually."
"Well," she glanced at her brother's strangely pale face and then shrugged her shapely shoulders, "I'm going to try one. Would you care to join me, Pamela?"
"No, thank you," Pamela said.
Artemis helped herself to one of the champagne flutes. "See how polite I'm being?"
"It's truly a miracle," Pamela muttered.
"Just wait. The best is yet to come." The goddess sipped her mimosa and gave Pamela a wicked little smile.
Pamela decided Apollo had the best idea. She closed her eyes and prayed the trip, the day—hell, the week—would be over soon. But not before she slipped her hand within his and squeezed.
Chapter 23
E. D. Faust's vacation home had been built to look like a charming Tuscan villa. Pamela was relieved. Yes, she'd seen the blueprints and read through the architectural notes James had given her, but after Eddie's bizarre request to make the interior look like The Forum, she had been leery about what to expect. Of course as they got out of the limo and approached the impressive double wrought-iron doors within which was set outrageously expensive, hand-blown, etched and beveled glass, she remembered that she'd thought that the outside of The Forum meant that the inside was modestly styled and classically tasteful. Please. Talk about mistaken first impressions.
She glanced at Artemis, who looked cool and beautiful in the morning sunlight. Her cheeks were attractively flushed, and one long curl of bright blond hair had escaped her elaborate coiffure.
The goddess smoothed down the skirt of her short tunic, hiccupped, and then giggled slightly. Pamela scrutinized her more closely. Oh, crap! She looked tipsy. Why in the bloody buggering hell had she not thought to keep her eyes open and on Artemis? Just exactly how many mimosas had she slurped down in thirty minutes on an empty stomach while she'd been sitting there obliviously clutching Apollo's carsick hand?
"Are you drunk?" she hissed.
Artemis gave her a bleary frown. "Immortals do not get drunk. Only mortals get drunk. Don't be a silly little flower." She shook her finger at Pamela.
Pamela rolled her eyes. "You're not immortal right now, remember!" She squelched the sudden urge to scream. Instead, she looked at Apollo for help. His face was an odd shade somewhere between white and green. She watched him wipe sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Are you okay?"
He nodded tightly. "Better now that we're out of that…" He shuddered and looked off in the direction the car had taken.
"Limo," she said. "It's a limo." She was stuck in a revolving nightmare. "All right. Here's what we do. You two try not to speak unless you're asked a question directly, and even then, I'll do most of the talking. Let's go. We might as well get this over with."
Pamela adjusted the strap on her shoulder briefcase and started purposefully up the lovely curving marble stairs. The twins followed her less purposefully. Just before she touched the antique doorbell, she heard a scuffling sound behind her and Artemis' very out-of-character giggle. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Apollo had his sister's elbow.
"She almost fell," he said under his breath.
"Impossssable," Artemis slurred.
"Oh, God," Pamela muttered.
The double doors opened, and James's smiling face greeted them.
"Please come in, Pamela. Eddie is in the courtyard waiting for you." His smile shifted to polite curiosity as Apollo and Artemis followed Pamela into the foyer.
"These are two assistants I've hired.
Experts, really," Pamela said quickly.
"I'm sure Eddie will be pleased by your initiative. He has been eagerly anticipating your meeting all weekend. Come this way, please."
James led them across the foyer, a mammoth space from which two curving staircases with old-world marble railings ran up to a second level of the villa. But the marble railings were the only finished aspect of the interior.
Everything else was bare. The walls were still Sheetrock; the floor was still cement. The entire back wall, which they were approaching, was fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows, so new that they still had their orange factory stickers on them. But Pamela didn't see the rawness as she walked slowly through the unfinished space. She gazed around her, seeing only its unlimited potential.
"It is horrible," Apollo said under his breath to her. "There is no floor, no walls, no decoration whatsoever."
"No, it's perfect," she whispered hastily back to him. "The foundation is here, but the floors and walls are all unfinished; most of the fixtures have not even been installed. It's like a blank canvas. It's my job to choose wisely and to make sure this is turned into a masterpiece."
James was waiting patiently beside the glass door that led to what Pamela already knew from the blueprints to be the central feature of the mansion—the amazing courtyard around which the rest of the villa had been built in an open-ended square shape. When they reached him, James opened the door and motioned them through. It was only then that Pamela noticed the crowd of people who were gathered in the courtyard. In answer to her questioning look, James only smiled and pointed to the middle of the crowd where E. D. Faust was seated at a marble bench piled high with swatches of material.
"Ah, Pamela!" he cried when he caught sight of her.
Rising to his feet, he reminded Pamela of a movable mountain. Again today he was dressed exclusively in black, from his well-tailored slacks to his silk dress shirt, the sleeves of which had been fashioned to mimic the fullness of a painter's smock. Or, she thought as she noted the twinkle in his dark eyes, a pirate's shirt.
"Good morning, Eddie," Pamela said. "This is quite a crowd."
"All for you, Pamela!" He laughed heartily, his great girth shaking like a rumbling earthquake. "I've brought all the artisans to you. I thought it would save us time to have them here at our beck and call. They simply await our commands."
Pamela couldn't believe it. She looked around the group, and her eyes widened as she noticed that each little cluster of people had beside them mounds of what were obviously samples of everything from more fabric swatches to pieces of marble and other raw stone and paint boards that held paint and faux finish samples. Eddie had turned his courtyard into an interior designer's minimarket. It was mind-boggling and more than a little intimidating. Then she remembered she'd brought her own entourage. Well, such as they were.
"Good." She recovered control of her vocal cords semi-smoothly. "You're right. That will definitely save us some time. And let me introduce the assistants I brought with me today."
She angled her body so that Apollo stepped up beside her. Artemis, who had been standing behind her brother staring with tipsy focus at a speck of lint on the back of his shirt, suddenly realized that there was an audience to play to, and she moved languidly to the other side of Pamela.
At the appearance of the golden twins, the gathering let out a collective sigh of appreciation.
"This is Phoebus Delos, an expert in ancient Roman architecture."
Pamela was pleased to see Apollo incline his head politely at Faust, but the author barely glanced in his direction. His eyes were blind to everything except the beautiful goddess who stood at her other side. Pamela drew a deep breath, mentally crossing her fingers.
"And this is his sister, Diana. She is a model who is renowned for her beauty throughout Greece and Italy. I realize that you told me that you preferred to retain Bacchus as the model for the central figure of your fountain, but I thought that perhaps—"
Her words were broken off when Artemis moved forward with a loose-hipped, languid stride until she stood an arm's length from the bulky author. There she stopped, raised one perfect hand to the elaborate twisting crown of her hair, and with a slight pull she freed its golden length so that it spilled in a thick wave to wash around her waist. She shook her head, and it glistened hypnotically in the morning light.
"Pamela thought that perhaps you would rather model your statue after a goddess," she purred.
Pamela had to hand it to her—Artemis was one excellent actress. Just like during her performance in Zumanity, she had the crowd totally enamored. Faust looked like he'd been knocked over the head, then he blinked, and his face was transformed into a wide smile. He executed an amazingly graceful bow, flourishing his arm rakishly.
"Well met, Diana!" he boomed. "My home is honored to be graced by the presence of the Goddess of the Moon, Forests and Glens." He spared a glance for Apollo. "And you, my fine fellow, must be the God of Light. How divertingly entertaining that your mother thought to name you after the immortal twins."
Pamela's stomach twisted. Of course a man who made his career out of writing fantasy would instantly recognize the poorly hidden truth in their names. What the hell should she say? Could Faust possibly realize who they really were?
Apollo smiled and spoke smoothly. "You have found us out, sir."
"Please, there is no sir here. Call me Eddie." His eyes swung back to the woman who still stood in front of him. "Pamela, already you have proven that you are the genius I thought you to be. Now that I am face-to-face with a goddess, I heartily agree with you. The center statue of my fountain shall be changed. Bacchus is banished, and the beauty of the Goddess Diana embraced in his stead."
Pamela breathed a sigh of relief, and Artemis performed a liquidly graceful curtsy.
"No! It is not seemly for a goddess to bow," Faust reached quickly forward and pulled Artemis up from her deep curtsy.
"Finally," Artemis said breathily, "a mortal who knows how to treat a goddess."
Pamela bit her lip, but Eddie chuckled with good humor, took the goddess's hand, and raised it briefly to his lips.
"But of course I do." He looked over the crowd of workers gathered around them. "Which of you has the talent to sketch this lovely goddess so that a stone master can then carve her immortal image into marble?"
"Wouldn't it be easier to have some digital pictures taken of her in different poses, and then the sculptor could work from them?" Pamela asked hastily.
"Easier, perhaps, but it feels wrong to me. Too cold. Too impersonal."
"But Diana will only be available until Friday. After that she has a… uh… prior commitment that she can not break," Pamela said.
"Then we must work quickly, because I wish to have my goddess immortalized in the ancient way. Phoebus, you're an expert in ancient Rome. How would it have been done then?"
"You are quite correct. The sculptor would have sketched his model and then worked from his sketches." Apollo paused and quirked one eyebrow up. "That is, unless you have hired Pygmalion. I believed he worked from the image of the woman he saw only in his heart." He suddenly shifted his gaze to Pamela and sent her a scorching look. "But few of us are lucky enough to have our heart's desire granted."
Pamela forced herself not to squirm. He said he was cut off from his immortal powers, but when Apollo looked at her like that, she felt hot and cold and tingly all at once.
Faust didn't seem to notice the byplay going on between his designer and her assistant; his attention had been captured by his own immortal. "Ah, but we have Diana with us, not Galatea, so a sketch of the model it shall be."
"Galatea was not a goddess. She was only stone brought to life by one," Artemis said, sounding vaguely annoyed.
"How true! How true!" Eddie exclaimed. "Pygmalion was not as fortunate as I."
"I can sketch your goddess, sir." A young man disengaged himself from the crowd.
"Excellent," Eddie said. "We have our artist; we have
our model. I believe I have some photographs of the original fountain in The Forum. I suppose the artisans can work from that whilst our goddess is being sketched."
"Actually," Pamela said as she opened her briefcase and hurriedly pulled out her sketch book, "I thought that you might like something unique, so I worked up some preliminary sketches of a new fountain—based, of course, on the one you like so much in The Forum. I just didn't want to fill in the central statue without your approval. I think you'll be quite happy with them."
"Pamela conferred with me on the sketches, and I can assure you that the fountain she has created is one that even the gods would have welcomed on Mount Olympus," Apollo said.
"Well done, Pamela!" Eddie took the sketchbook from her and nodded appreciatively. "Mount Olympus." He chuckled, "I would expect no less for a fountain boasting a sculpture of our Diana. Please, share these sketches with our artist." He glanced expectantly at the young man.
"Matthew," he supplied. "My name is Matthew Land."
"Come, Matthew, Pamela, Phoebus and my lovely Diana. Let us sit and decide upon the details of my home." Eddie offered Artemis his arm. She smiled sweetly and rested her fingertips on the top of his silken sleeve. "Is there anything you require, Diana?" he asked as he led her around the marble bench.
"Yes. I have recently developed a liking for something called a mimosa."
Pamela tried not to groan as Eddie shouted for James to have his chef prepare mimosas for everyone.
Pamela glanced at her watch. She could hardly believe that it was after 4:00 P.M. The day had passed in a busy blur. It had certainly gone worlds better than she had anticipated. Ironically and irritatingly enough, she knew she had Artemis to thank for that. Pamela looked up from the glossy catalogue page of old-world-styled lighting fixtures the representative from Shonbeck was showing her. Eddie was pretending to pay attention as Apollo and the architect went over the latest version of the bathhouse sketch they had been working on for most of the day. In truth, Eddie was doing what he had done for the past several hours—he was gazing in rapt adoration at Artemis.