Pol wanted her too. He was darkly erect, his eyes filled with frustrated need. Cas and Pol often shared women—for some reason women liked being pleasured by two men who looked just alike. But Cas felt a pull of possessiveness for the red-haired sorceress and wondered if he and Pol would have a rivalry for her.
“What’s the matter with her?” Pol asked.
“She is frightened.”
“Why should she be frightened of us? A good wine, a good fuck and we’re happy.”
“Let us follow her,” Cas suggested. “If there are those who would play tricks on her, she will need our protection.”
“I’m all for that. Where did she go?”
“Not far. I can scent her. We should move without being seen.”
Pol agreed, and the twins invoked their ability to slide between the very air itself to move quickly and undetected.
Cas was relieved to find they still had this skill. He didn’t like the idea that they’d been trapped in the vessel for thousands of years.
Anything could have happened during that time—the gods overthrown, their powers stripped. Zeus had once overthrown Kronos and the Titans, what was to say that Zeus himself hadn’t suffered a downfall and that Cas and Pol would be in danger?
It’s all a myth, she’d said. What that meant, Cas did not know, but it did not sound good.
They found their sorceress in a room crammed with shelves and shelves of dusty pieces of clay and ceramics. Each piece had a little card next to it with writing on it. A worktable stood in the middle of the room with a single glowing lamp over it, a cat calmly washing its face underneath.
The worktable was like nothing Cas had ever seen. It had a very smooth surface, but it was not made of wood or marble. Slim metal instruments were lined up carefully on a tray and a few oddly shaped pieces of metal stood nearby in positions of readiness.
Their sorceress stood in front of the table, staring open-mouthed at the jar that sat in prominent position on the table’s surface.
Pol sucked in his breath. Cas likewise felt a twinge of uneasiness. It was the amphora, the one the demon demigoddess had made to wreak her revenge on them. It was whole, unbroken.
Cas leaned forward and touched it.
Alerted to their presence, their sorceress jumped and swung around, her brown eyes round. “What did you do to it?”
Cas frowned, not understanding.
Pol rested his hand on the table, looking troubled. “Where did she go?”
A good question. If Cas and Pol were free, then Selena might also be free and alive to continue her vengeance.
Cas had no doubt that the red-haired sorceress who’d just freed them—the archaeologist—was powerful, but she’d need protection against Selena, a half-demon demigoddess with a temper.
“Are archaeologists more powerful sorceresses than most?” he asked.
Their goddess wasn’t listening. “What are you trying to do, make me a laughingstock? I worked so hard on this…”
Her words cut off at the sound of the door opening behind them. Cas signaled to Pol, and they made themselves unseen. Their sorceress, on the other hand, whirled around and clapped her hand over her mouth, suppressing a scream.
The woman who came in the door was nowhere near as beautiful as theirs. She was perhaps twice their sorceress’s age and her skin was weathered by the sun. She dressed in clothes that bared her arms and legs, and her graying hair was cropped short.
The woman stared at their sorceress then broke into a laugh. “Fiona, can’t you leave that thing alone for ten minutes? Next thing we know you’ll be sleeping with it.”
Their sorceress—Fiona, beautiful name—faced the intruder. She darted a glance to either side of her and didn’t see Cas and Pol, which seemed to both relieve and worry her.
“Joan,” she said in a breathless voice. “You know I’d never deliberately do anything to harm your work or your husband’s. Ever. Professional rivalry is one thing but sabotage is wrong. I would never do such a thing.” Her voice held tears.
“I agree,” the woman called Joan said. “That’s why I came back to find you. Bob and I and Dr. Wheelan went out to a taverna when the generator died, and I thought you might like to join us. The wine isn’t particularly good at this one, but after a couple of glasses you stop caring.”
Fiona stared at the woman in surprise and suspicion. “That’s the only reason you came back?”
“Yes, why else?”
“Not to take pictures or anything?”
Joan looked bewildered. “Pictures of what? Are you feeling all right? You’ve been working very hard. Exhaustion isn’t helpful on a dig.”
“And you haven’t touched my jar?”
Joan gave her an odd look. “Not everyone in the world is interested in your pottery, Fiona. I have the bronzes I found, you have your jar o’ hunky men. I call it square.”
Fiona deflated. “Oh.”
“I changed my mind. You shouldn’t come out with us, you should get some sleep. Ask Dr. Wheelan for a few days sick time. You look terrible.”
Shaking her head and without waiting for answer, the woman Joan turned and left the room, clicking the door closed behind her.
Fiona sagged and Cas caught her in his strong arms.
For a minute, he forgot about the vessel and the demon demigoddess Selena and the thousands of years of blank time, and basked in the soft armful Fiona made. Her leggings rubbed nicely against his rising cock, and her curves fit sweetly against his body.
She stared up at him, eyes stark in her white face. “You know, you really can’t run around the dig naked.”
“No one will see us,” Cas assured her.
Beyond her Pol lifted the vessel in his hands. “This might be a problem.” He sighed and set the jar carefully down. “Or not. Keep this well for us, will you Fiona? I fear what would happen if it came into the wrong hands. Or shattered.” He shot Cas a worried look.
“Fiona’s magic will protect us.” Cas slid his hand to the curve of her waist.
Her red lips parted. “Remind me which of us is crazy again.”
Pol rested his hands lightly on his hips. “The Joan-woman is right. You need rest, sweet Fiona. The best thing to do is return to bed.”
Cas’ pulse sped. “Bed, yes. Let us take care of you.”
“I can rub your feet.” Pol moved to the other side of her, his grin widening. “Cas will start at your head, and we will meet in the middle.”
Fiona gaped, and Cas felt her body temperature rise. She wanted them, he knew it.
But she pushed herself away from Cas and glared at them both. “No you won’t. You will leave me alone. You will go away, back wherever you came from—Athens, the constellations, to Bob and Joan’s friends—whatever. I will go to bed by myself and when I wake up in the morning, everything will be all right.”
Her voice was brittle, as though she was trying to convince herself rather than them.
Pol’s grin didn’t diminish. “We will protect you as you sleep.”
She uttered a little scream, fists balled. “Fine. Do what you want. Good night.”
She swung around and banged out the door, slapping her hand against the wall as she went. The light above them suddenly went out.
Pol and Cas looked at each other in the dark. “She has power over light,” Pol said. “Her magic is great.”
Fiona suddenly appeared in the doorway, her rage reaching all the way across the room. “It isn’t magic, it’s a light switch.” She stared at them a moment, then gave her little scream again and hurried away.
Cas and Pol went after her for her protection, but first they paused for about ten minutes to learn the magic of this light switch, while the cat watched with apparent glee.
* * * * *
Fiona did not get her peaceful night’s sleep alone. By the time she’d flung off her jeans and crawled back into bed, burying her head beneath the covers, the twins returned. She remained motionless under the blankets, for some reaso
n believing they’d disappear if she paid no attention to them.
But that was impossible, because they started playing with the light switch, flipping the overhead light off and on and off and on and off and… Then they started arguing about who got to flip the switch next.
Fiona flung off the covers and rose to her knees on the mattress. “Would you please leave it alone!”
The brothers stared at her, still absolutely and gorgeously naked. In the glare of the lamp, she saw every inch of them, broad shoulders, tapered waists, taut thighs, asses to make any woman, even a dried-up pottery specialist, drool.
Their black and curling hair swept back from their foreheads to the napes of necks. Their black eyes smoldered, Pol’s with wicked humor, Cas’ with something deeper and darker.
They were the spitting image of the men on the red and black vessel, down to their very large and beautiful cocks.
But they couldn’t be. Could they?
Maybe she had gone out with Joan and Dr. Wheelan, drunk too much ouzo and was dreaming all this.
Cas snapped the light off one last time. He came to the bed, Pol on the other side. “Fiona is right. She must sleep.”
He held the covers for her and told her to lie down. Fiona did, too tired now for arguing and worrying and wondering. Gently, Cas shook the covers out over her, smoothing them, his hand soothing through the blankets.
He and Pol climbed back on the bed and lay on either side of her as they had before. Their bodies warmed her, making her relax against her will. Pol’s hand moved to her thigh at the same time Cas pressed at kiss to the line of her hair.
“Rest, sweet Fiona,” he breathed.
“We will care for you,” Pol murmured.
Fiona’s eyes closed against her will, and to her surprise she started to drift off to sleep.
Cas began to hum a tune she’d never heard low in his throat. It seemed ancient somehow, not music of her own century.
Pol joined in, his voice lending a haunting harmony to his brother’s. Under the influence of this music and their light touch, she fell deeply asleep.
When she awoke, Cas and Pol had vanished, the sun was high and Joan Whittington was knocking on her door. Fiona dragged on her jeans again and opened it.
“Dr. Wheelan is looking for you,” Joan said, looking smug. “Two men have turned up, saying they’re friends of yours from Athens. You little vixen. No wonder you’ve been looking so tired.”
* * * * *
Sure enough, Castor and Pollux were out in the Agora, both talking avidly with Dr. Wheelan. At least, thank God, they’d found clothes.
Both wore jeans slung low on their hips and thin sandals easily obtainable in the flea markets. Pol’s t-shirt, stretched tight over his chest, bore the logo of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Cas had wrapped a white and blue striped Greek blanket over his torso like a serape.
Dr. Wheelan was in what Fiona recognized as full archaeological-fever mode and didn’t seem to notice what either twin wore. Every woman on the dig, Fiona saw, made excuses to walk close to where the three men stood.
“Ah, Fiona,” Dr. Wheelan said when he caught sight of her.
He waved her over, looking in no way like he was about to give her a stern, fatherly lecture. “I didn’t know you had friends so familiar with the ancient Agora. They have so many ideas, it’s just amazing. Why haven’t I met you at conferences or read any of your papers?”
“Papers?” Pol asked blankly.
“They’re amateurs,” Fiona jumped in. “Not associated with any university or group.”
“Well, they certainly are knowledgeable. Whose work have you studied?”
Cas gave him a warm smile. “So many people. We live here, you see. It is home to us.”
Dr. Wheelan took this at face value. “Strange I haven’t seen you any other season. I’ve been coming here for twenty years.”
“We dislike interfering,” Cas said.
“Castor and Pollux,” Dr. Wheelan chuckled. “So amusing.”
“That’s us,” Pol said.
Dr. Wheelan clasped his hand and shook it hard, a ritual Pol looked upon in surprise. “Stay and look around as much as you like. I don’t have any funding to hire extra people, but knowledgeable volunteers are always welcome. Fiona will show you what to do. Right, Fiona?”
“Of course,” Fiona said faintly.
“Fine to have met you. We must talk again. Now I have to go calm down another government representative. Makes me wish I was a postdoc again with nothing to do but scrabble in the dirt.”
Still talking, he moved off to face the unpleasant duties of administration, leaving Fiona standing before the twins’ intense scrutiny.
“What were you telling him?” she demanded.
Pol grinned. “Where everything is. It’s been a long time, but I remember this place.” He gestured to a depression where a doorway had once existed. “Over there was Praxos’ wine shop, not very good wine but good company. Remember the time someone accused him of having another man’s wife, and Praxos nearly drowned him in a wine barrel? It was true—Praxos was having it off with the other man’s wife and the accuser’s wife at the same time.” He laughed hard.
Cas smiled in memory and then both trailed off.
“Everything’s gone,” Pol said, his voice suddenly quiet. “Nothing left but dust and bones.”
His words tugged at Fiona’s heart. She wasn’t sure she believed that Cas and Pol were demigods from her vessel brought back to life after twenty-five hundred years, but their sadness in viewing the Agora, the ancient marketplace, was real.
She knew what it was like to return to a place that contained fond memories only to find the building abandoned or torn down to make way for a mall.
Great, now she was feeling sorry for her crazy men.
“The archaeologists are preserving the past,” she explained. “We work to understand exactly how everything was and tell everyone about it so it will never be entirely gone. We make sure the world knows and understands the history.”
The brothers surveyed the ruins, hands on hips. Cas’ eyes were somber. “Even the archeologists’ magic cannot restore what has been lost.”
“Is the entire world in ruins?” Pol looked up at the crumbling columns of the Acropolis standing on its flat bluff high above the city. “With only the archaeologists to live in it?”
“Of course not,” Fiona said. “Athens is huge and thriving, and there are plenty of towns in Greece and its islands. Not to mention the rest of the world.”
“Do they have wine shops?” Pol asked.
The sudden hope in his eyes amused her. “Plenty.”
Pol exchanged a glance with Cas. “Good.” He started to stride away and Cas, after winking at Fiona, followed.
“Wait a minute, where are you going?”
Cas spun around. “To find life. To see Athens thrive.”
Alarm trickled through her. She imagined Cas and Pol strolling through Athens, smiling their devastating smiles and proclaiming they were demigods to everyone they met.
She took two steps forward, mouth open to call out. The gray cat from the pottery room took the opportunity to twine itself about her ankles and the mundane feeling brought her to her senses.
Why should Fiona worry about them? They’d broken into her room and refused to leave, and they must have sabotaged her jar.
That was the only explanation she could think of for the change in the painting. They’d stolen the real jar and substituted this fake. Why they should do this, she had no idea, and she really didn’t have the energy right now to puzzle it out.
So why should she care if they wandered around Athens by themselves in clothes they likely stole?
They looked so good in the clothes, though. She cocked her head to study them. Every female in range would turn in their tracks as they passed, hoping for one glance from their molten eyes. The women would follow the twins around and every man in town would be after their blood.
Their own fault for being so sexy. Fiona watched them walk away, backsides cupped lovingly in tight jeans, bodies tall, curling hair blue-black under the sun. They were overfull of confidence and about to go out and play in traffic.
She suddenly caught sight of Swedish archeologist Hans Jorgensen on his way to start his daily work. Hans was the only man on the site who came close to Cas and Pol in size. Tall and blond and in great physical shape, he was the official hunk of the dig. In fact, a photographer last year had asked him to pose for a calendar entitled The He-Men of Archaeology. Hans had done it, thinking it a good joke.
It suddenly occurred to her that the jeans and shirt Cas and Pol were now walking away in looked suspiciously like the clothes Hans normally favored.
“Damn,” she muttered. “I’m going to hate myself for this, I really am.”
“Fiona?” Hans stopped and stared at her with his fine blue eyes. “What is this you say?”
Fiona snapped her attention to him. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.” She shot him a feeble smile, stepped over the cat and scuttled off after Cas and Pol, who had already vanished around the corner into the city of Athens.
Chapter Three
Cas gazed around in astonishment as they strode through the city. The ruins of the Agora had saddened him, but this new Athens was a cacophony of color and sound that surpassed imagination.
Pol was just as impressed. “Holy mother goddess,” he said.
Here and there Cas caught glimpses of old Greece, crumbling walls of stone and roped-off areas containing a forlorn column or two. The Acropolis reared above the city, crowned with the temple to Athena that Pericles had erected not long before Cas and Pol had been trapped in the painting.
But what Cas mostly saw were monoliths that rose into the sky in all different shapes, sizes and colors. And the vehicles—they moved faster than the best-made chariot pulled by the swiftest horses, and there were so many of them.
The vehicles emitted a strange-smelling smoke and sounds louder than anything he’d ever heard. Once in a while the people sitting inside them would wave their arms or shout swear words out of the windows at other vehicles, a ritual that seemed to be common.
Planetary Passions 6: Double Trouble (Gemini) Page 2