Maggie vanished, and Damien and Charlie both leapt to their feet. Damien hated to leave Audrey, but he knew she would be safe in Charlie's office. They ran through the center of the hallway, past startled policemen and staff, and took the stairs two at a time.
"Do we know where she went?" Charlie panted.
"No. She just said she was going to watch the policemen come and go."
"So she should be out by the front door."
They burst out of the stairwell by the ground floor entrance and startled the front desk personnel, but there was no sign of the goddess or of the nymph, either inside or out. Damien caught sight of light-colored tresses and thought it was Aphrodite, but it was only Maggie.
"I've been around the block, and there's no sign of them."
"Wait a second." Charlie bent over and put his hands on his knees. "How do you kidnap a goddess? Wouldn't she be able to defend herself?"
"You'd think so," said Maggie, "but her powers are attenuated here, and it may have been possible to trap her by using one of her other nymphs."
"So if someone lured her off the main drag and an accomplice snuck up behind her and knocked her out…?"
"She'd be helpless," Maggie finished for him. "And Nimue wouldn't know what to do with her mistress rendered unconscious. She'd stay with her."
Damien continued to scan the sidewalks. "Do we really know that's what happened to them? Could they have just wandered off?"
"I tried calling her but she didn't appear. She said we'd only have to say her name." Maggie balled her hands into fists like she wanted to hit something. "I can't believe I let this happen. I should've seen that Nimue being stuck here was the bait for a trap."
Charlie put an arm around her shoulders. "There's nothing we can do about it now. Let's go back up to my office and see what else we can figure out. It's our only chance of finding them."
"Crap," Damien said when they were all in the elevator. "We never got Nimue to I.D. Lyle Ames as the guy who came into the warehouse."
"That's going to make this investigation more complicated," Maggie replied with a sigh. "Now that they have Aphrodite, they're going to be extra careful when it comes to covering their tracks."
17
"Any luck?" asked Audrey, but the looks on their faces answered her. Damien gave her a tired smile and resumed his place on the chair beside her.
"No, they're gone," Maggie said.
"Who do you think took them?"
Maggie retrieved the marker from the floor and gestured to the dry erase board. "It's got to involve those two. But what does one want with a goddess? Zeus has a very jealous wife."
"So does Lyle, according to the service world gossip." Audrey felt Damien's arm around her again.
"But this isn't just any goddess," said Charlie. "This is the Goddess of Love, Her Radiance herself. What if all of this, starting with Persephone and all the others who fell through, was a ruse to get Aphrodite to come to this plane of reality?"
"But what do you do with the Goddess of Love?" asked Audrey. She looked at Damien, and an idea flashed through her brain. "What if there's some sort of unrequited love going on?"
Maggie tapped her lips with the pen. "With Zeus, there's always unrequited love, or at least lust."
"But what if someone wanted to market a solution to that? Just think, a love potion that works, but which is so expensive that it's only available to those who can pay top dollar? It's the ultimate luxury item." Audrey thought back to some of her exposé articles. "For example, what if you're in love with your best friend's husband, but he only has eyes for his wife, and any attempt to seduce him—other than being damn risky—would surely be met with failure, frustration, and humiliation? You'd be desperate for a solution."
"You're cut-throat." But the look Charlie gave her was admiring. And Damien… He scowled at Charlie.
Audrey stifled a sigh, more frustrated with herself. Wasn't this what she'd told herself she wanted with Kyle?
"She's thinking like a god, or a businessman." Maggie looked back at the diagram on the board. "Let's go at this in a new way. What do Zeus and Lyle Ames have in common?"
"Power." Audrey shivered and shoved away the memory of being helpless, first in the warehouse and then on Olympus. It wouldn't hurt to remember just how vulnerable she'd been so she'd be more careful, but she didn't know how she could.
"Powerful wives," added Damien. His arm around her didn't seem as much of an imposition.
"Virtually unlimited resources," Charlie added.
"Entrepreneurial spirits." Maggie wrote everything they said on the board.
Audrey thought back to the gossip column that had been her first freelance assignment. "Sketchy reputations when it comes to women. If you think about it, they're in the same good ol' boys' club, but some of the boys are older than others."
"And what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse," Maggie finished. "Remember, they weren't just kidnapping goddesses, they were going after nymphs and other female creatures. What would you do with a whole stable full of women?"
Charlie and Damien looked at each other and then away quickly.
"No, what?" asked Audrey. "We need to think like men to figure this one out."
Charlie looked at the ceiling, and Damien at the floor.
"One of us is going to have to say it," Damien said.
"Well, ah, what do you do with a stable full of horses?" asked Charlie. For once he wasn't smiling.
"You take them riding." Damien wrinkled his nose in disgust. "And that sounds like something Zeus would love."
"They might be on to something," Audrey said.
Maggie shook her head. "And here I was thinking that Charlie was such a nice, straight-laced kind of guy."
"Yeah, but I'm a guy."
The look he gave Maggie made Audrey wonder if he laced himself less straight than he let on.
Wait, that doesn't make sense. Back to the problem at hand… "So what if, instead of an unrequited love potion, they're planning on opening an upscale sort of fantasy fulfillment center?" Audrey asked.
"You know, Amelia did say something along those lines." Charlie flipped back through his notebook. "Right. That it was a new line of business, and that people would pay a lot for it."
"What did Lyle's wife say he was doing that was so suspicious?" Maggie asked.
"Staying late at the office, but the P.I. only saw him sleeping at his desk."
Audrey remembered how it felt to be in the Collective Unconscious, to have the freedom to act out her fantasies without consequences. "So what if he wasn't really sleeping, but rather going to the C.U. and experiencing the demo version of the product?" She became very aware of the heat between her and Damien's bodies where they touched and slid a look at him. He gazed at her as well, and she broke the eye contact first.
"But it takes talent to get to the C.U.," said Maggie. "It can't be done by just everyone. We'd be overrun."
"Which is why they're bringing the girls here. And Aphrodite to head the whole thing, because who knows more about pleasuring a man? And how to keep him coming back? She said that any man who had been with her would spend the rest of his life pining for her."
"So this isn't just a pleasure palace." Charlie leaned back with a frown. "It's a threat to all of the men in Atlanta with flexible morals."
Lyle Ames looked at the two women sprawled out on the plush black suede sofas in his private penthouse suite. Decorated in black and white with purple and gray accents, it was the image of modern chic, or it had been until they brought Aphrodite in. The goddess gathered all the light in the room—and the men's attention—and made the expensive surroundings look shabby. His men, especially Leland, couldn't take their eyes off her careless beauty. If she was that stunning in repose, he couldn't wait for her to awaken.
That's why he didn't scold the men who'd captured her and who were supposed to attend to other things while waiting for the drugs they'd given her to wear off. They just sat and stared like t
heir boss, who enjoyed the effect she had on them. If she could melt their jaded, hardened hearts, who knew what she would do to his colleagues, all of whom had a taste for the finer things in life and would pay top dollar for the chance for better?
She laid on her side, her hands beneath her cheeks, and her golden hair half-covering her to the waist like a spun silk blanket. Her little T-shirt offered a tempting glimpse of her stomach and pierced belly button over the low waist of her designer jeans. Although he considered himself to be satisfied in his marriage to a beautiful woman, Lyle wanted to kiss every inch of exposed skin and to uncover the bits that didn't show. The other girl wasn't bad, either, with her dark hair and delicate features, but she was like the moon—beautiful in her own right, but practically invisible in the presence of the sun.
Aphrodite's eyelashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes. He respected how she immediately snapped into calculating mode, eying each of them briefly, then returning to him. Good, she recognized his power. She stretched long and full, which gave him even more enticing hints of what she looked like underneath her attire. His mouth went dry when she sat up and fixed her steady autumn blue gaze on him.
Zeus had warned him about this—that she would immediately try to capture the advantage. He wondered what would happen if he let her.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen." Her voice, soft and husky, reminded him of the old films of Marilyn Monroe. It was a bedroom voice, and he pictured satin sheets, silk robes, coffee in white and gold ceramic cups on the balcony overlooking the skyline at sunrise…
He shook his head to clear the image. "Good afternoon, Your Radiance."
The other girl woke up and immediately scrambled to a sitting position. She opened her mouth to scream, but to her credit, shut it again when her mistress raised one perfect hand.
Lyle snuck a glance at his men. Leland's pierced tongue practically hung out, but Rufus continued to stare straight ahead like he stood guard outside the door. Good for Rufus, thought Lyle. He gets to guard her.
Aphrodite caught his attention when she rose and strolled to the window, where she stood in the watery light, her back to the men. She stretched and arched her back, her adorable back-side perfectly in view, her butt enticingly round in those dark wash designer jeans. She stood with her hands in her back pockets, her back slightly arched.
"So you want something from me?" she asked, her voice again taking Lyle back to his amorous younger days. He wanted to tangle the sheets with her, to fix her Eggs Benedict and spoon-feed them to her…
He stopped that train of thought by an act of sheer will.
"I'm afraid we need something from you, Your Radiance." Zeus had said that the goddess was most susceptible to flattery. Money wouldn't impress her, and anyone who dared use force while she was awake would likely die trying, or at least end up horribly disfigured, so he needed to tread cautiously. Zeus could keep her in this room, but Lyle needed to charm her to cooperate.
"You need something." She looked over her shoulder at him, her lips pursed, and fixed him with a cat-like stare. "You obviously need something so badly you've decided to kidnap me and my nymph and hold us hostage."
"I was afraid a woman like you would never listen to a man like me."
Her half smile and heavy-lidded eyes nearly did him in. "And what kind of man is that?"
"A humble man with wealth and power but who lacks one thing."
She arched an eyebrow. "And that is…?"
"The expertise that you have, Radiance. I am just one kind of man, but I need someone to tell me how to attract all of them."
She laughed, but the sound that should have delighted him sent shivers up his spine.
"Nimue, he's calling me a slut."
"No, Radiance, I swear I'm not." He tried to think of something to turn the conversation around. "Look, as a token of faith, I promise to return your nymphs to you if you'll help me."
"And you'll let me out?"
"Ah." He licked his lips. "Not for the time being. You see, it's going to be a process."
"What is?"
"I want to build a modern temple to you, Your Radiance. I want to bring the worship of Love and Light back into this dark, drab modern world."
She crossed her arms and turned away, but said, "Go on."
"I want to bring back the old rituals, the sex-rites, the dancing and the sacrifices. I want to free the world from the puritanical tyranny that has come with modern religion and to liberate the mockery of your virtues from modern hedonism."
She walked back across the room and sat on a stool at the black marble bar, her legs crossed. She leaned on one elbow.
"And what's in it for you? Besides a goddess and a bunch of nymphs in a gilded cage."
Lyle decided honesty would be the best policy. "I know men who would pay handsomely for the chance to participate in your worship, Goddess."
"Ah, money. Is that all you humans think about other than sex? And what's in it for me?"
"Besides having your worship reinstated?"
"Right. I got over that a long time ago." She waved a hand. "While I may require it for my strength in this reality, it means nothing once I return to my seaside bower in the Collective Unconscious, where I still hold power over men in their dreams."
"I promise on my life that I will return you to the outside world and access to the C.U. once I finish the temple and have everything up and running to my satisfaction."
"Your satisfaction." She snorted. "I can guess how that will go. And if I don't cooperate?"
This time it was Lyle's turn to cross his arms and try to look threatening. "I can keep you trapped here forever. If you don't have your worship, you won't have the strength to break free."
She examined her nails, but he could tell she was thinking. She would never let on, but he had her at a disadvantage, thanks to Zeus and the invisible chain Toady had wrapped around her while she slept. To Lyle's relief, the little man had left once he accomplished his task because Zeus didn't want Aphrodite to know about his involvement yet.
"Very well, but I shall require a few things to make my stay more comfortable."
"Anything you ask, as long as you swear that you will help me make this as authentic as possible."
"It's a deal."
Lyle hid a smile. This was better than he'd hoped. Having to keep her drugged the whole time would have made the ordeal impossible. He gave a nod to Rufus, who spoke something into his radio, which transmitted the signal to the basement, where the huddled, frightened nymphs waited to rejoin their mistress.
As for Aphrodite's bower in the C.U., when his plan was over, the pathways would be so eroded it would no longer be there, and she would have to stay with him and rule men's hearts from her temple in Atlanta. If she still didn't agree, well, he had another ace up his sleeve.
"Here's a list of Ames' properties." Charlie looked at the website he'd pulled up. "We can assume they've been taken to one of them."
The others gathered around him at the computer screen, and Audrey's heart fell when it scrolled and scrolled.
"And those are only the ones under his name." Damien looked at Audrey, and the expression in his gray eyes echoed her own sense of futility.
"Do you think she's in one of them?" asked Audrey. "Wouldn't that be too obvious?"
Maggie bit her lip. "At this point, we can't rule anything out. But he wouldn't dare put her in a shabby place. Not if he wants her cooperation."
Audrey shivered. "But won't he be able to make her cooperate?"
"Not necessarily," Maggie said. "Even though they're attenuated, her powers are very real. Look at, ah…" She glanced at Damien.
"Look at how she was able to charm the doctor at the hospital," Audrey finished for her before she said something awkward. She didn't want Damien to be embarrassed by his behavior, and although she could never date him, she wouldn't mind having him as a friend someday. After that little twerp's arrow wore off and the memory of the dream faded.
"So, anyway," Mag
gie continued, "she won't be impressed by money, and any coercion or violence will probably only backfire on the one who tries it. The only leverage they have is that they can keep her here with Zeus' help, and they'll likely try to make her cooperate through flattery and false promises."
"What about her son?" Audrey asked.
Maggie shook her head. "He does what he wants, but he avoids Zeus. He's caused too much trouble for him in the past and wouldn't risk his own hide, not even to save his mother. At least not unless she were in grave danger, which is highly unlikely. Remember, to immortals, a few years or even a few decades of entrapment is an inconvenience, not the horrible thing it is for humans."
"Is there some way you can see where Zeus is holding her?" asked Charlie.
"I wish I could." Maggie sighed. "It just not that easy to see that kind of energy or to distinguish it from a thousand other spells and protections."
"How much is out there?" Damien looked out the window with a frown as though concerned that a hail of magic was going to come through at him. Audrey stifled a laugh.
"A lot, but most people don't have the talent or sensitivity to recognize it."
"What can we do, then?" Damien asked. The frustration in his tone echoed that which had settled just above Audrey's diaphragm.
"We try using other means." Maggie straightened. "Damien and Charlie, why don't you talk to Mrs. Ames again? She should be familiar with her husband's nicer properties and may be able to give you some direction."
"We can try," Charlie said.
"And what about me?" asked Audrey. She gestured with her good arm to her injury. "I'm not up for much, at least not with pain killers on board."
"You can go home and rest," Damien said.
Audrey tried to cross her arms. "Oh, like you can tell me what to do?"
Maggie put a hand on Audrey's uninjured shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You and I will venture into the C.U. and see what we can find out there."
"Will it be dangerous?" Damien put a hand on Audrey's other shoulder. She braced herself—would they play tug-of-war with her?
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