Mortal Temptations Read online

Mending his bones hurt worse than the breaking of them. He clenched his teeth, holding in his agony. His bones cracked and snapped as they melded together, his wings spreading. Nausea kicked his gut.

  Patricia made a noise of anguish. He heard her footsteps, then felt her slim arms around him, her tears falling on his cheek. He tried to lift his hand to touch her, to soothe her, but the pain was too great.

  He heard Hera walk to them, felt the goddess stop and look down. “I could hurt you far worse than that, you know.”

  Nico did know. The punishments the gods devised could be cruel beyond imagining, such as Prometheus, chained forever to a rock while an eagle plucked out his liver every day. He wondered what endless horror Hera would bind him to.

  Right now, he enjoyed Patricia’s lips in his hair, her cool hands on his skin. I love you, he wanted to whisper.

  Bes came to them, the half-sized god’s body thick and strong. “I read the inscription. You know what you have to do.”

  “Tell me,” Patricia demanded. “What does the damn inscription have to do with all this?”

  “It’s a test,” Bes said, ignoring Hera’s splutters. “Nikolaus and Andrei are tortured for centuries, but if they pass Hera’s test, they will get free.” He shrugged. “Andreas is already free, of course. Death did that.”

  “The test?” Hera shrieked in an awful voice. “You dare challenge me?”

  Bes looked hesitant, his gaze straying to where the painting of Isis had been. “Yes,” he said.

  Hera smiled, looking suddenly happy. “Good.”

  Her smile widened as she gazed down at Patricia and Nico, and a dry, hot wind blasted through the tomb. Patricia screamed suddenly, and then she and Rebecca vanished.

  Nico started up, no longer caring about the pain. “Where did you send her? What did you do?”

  “The test has begun,” Hera said. Her fussy draperies fluttered in the wind. “Your bond to her is broken. How much do you care about her—really?”

  “Enough to want to save her from you.”

  “Truly? Well, then, you’d better get on with it.”

  She smiled, leaning closer and closer to him. Then she vanished, along with Bes and the rubble-strewn tomb. Nico found himself facedown in the hotel room in Cairo, cool tile pressing his face.

  A man stood next to him, neat shoes and crisp pant legs dust-free. “Nico, what the hell?”

  He lifted his head to find Demitri, his demigod friend who owned the hotel, staring down at him in great surprise.

  DEMITRI had dark hair that he wore pulled into a sleek, businesslike ponytail, which went with his well-tailored suit. He’d always been meticulous in his dress, no matter what the century.

  He was a son of Apollo and a longtime friend of Nico and Andreas, but when the slave chains were being handed out, he’d luckily been elsewhere.

  Demitri had become a good friend over the centuries, a help when they needed it. Nico felt a brother’s closeness with him, though they weren’t brothers by blood. When Patricia and Rebecca had decided they needed to come to Cairo, he’d known there would be no safer place to stash them than at Demitri’s.

  Now Demitri listened with shock in his brown eyes as Nico related the story.

  “Holy shit,” Demitri said. “What test was she talking about?”

  “I have no idea.” Nico rose to look for a shirt. Their luggage had mysteriously reappeared, as though it had never left the suite. “I have no clue what danger Patricia is in, or where she is. She could be anywhere in this world or maybe not here anymore. Hera could have magicked her to Hades. Who knows?”

  “I can check on that,” Demitri said. “Hera doesn’t rule there, as much as she thinks she does.” He sat in thoughtful silence a moment. “Andreas just took off?”

  “Yes, and I don’t blame him. He was dead, right in front of me, my best friend, and she just laughed. I thank all the gods he’s all right.”

  “Me, too. But I wonder what he’s up to. You never know with him.”

  That was true enough. “And Rebecca,” Nico said. “I don’t know if Hera sent her off with Patricia or killed her, or what. Both of them stood up to her. I’ve never seen anything so brave, but I wish they’d cowered in a corner and begged her to help them against us. Then they’d be all right.”

  “I can see that.” Demitri sat up, his pristine suit a sharp contrast to Nico’s T-shirt and jeans. “I’ll help you look, Nico. We’ll find her.”

  Nico wished he could be so confident. He stood looking out of the window over the Nile and the city beyond, so many houses and buildings and people, millions of them. Patricia was out there somewhere—maybe.

  He loved her with every part of himself. Whether it was the curse or not, he didn’t care; he loved Patricia, and that was all there was to it. He loved the way she groaned when he pleasured her, how she’d laugh and bite the tips of his feathers.

  He loved her riot of blond curls, the pucker she’d get in her forehead when puzzled about something, the aquamarine sparkle of her eyes. Even if she never returned his love, if it was only magic, he didn’t care. His love for her would never die.

  “That bad?” Demitri stopped beside him, looking out over his adopted city.

  Nico nodded grimly. “That bad.”

  Demitri clasped Nico’s shoulder. He didn’t have to say anything; his friendship and support radiated from him.

  The door of the suite banged open. Nico and Demitri whirled, poised to fight, then Nico stopped, heart beating in relief as Andreas slammed his way in.

  He’d dressed in a ragged caftan he must have picked up along the way. His hair was sandy, his face creased with dirt.

  “Where the hell is she?” he demanded of the two of them. “Where’s Becky?”

  IT was dark where Patricia was, and she had the horrible feeling of aloneness. Not alone as she might be in her apartment above her store at night; there she was aware of the churning, teeming city around her, people above her and down in the street. Now she felt utterly alone, as though she’d been buried alive.

  She hadn’t been. She could move and sit up and even stand, and there was air here, cool and fresh, as though the place was ventilated.

  Patricia explored what she could, walking around with arms outstretched, and found that her prison was six paces by six. The ceiling was beyond her reach, even when she jumped.

  When she stretched out her psychic senses, the walls began to glow and pulsate with the auras of people long past, hundreds and hundreds of them. She was someplace very old, but not a tomb, which would be quiet with the passing of ages.

  This place had seen much activity, and the people here had been excited, bored, hopeful, worried, and happy. She could feel no powerful godlike aura, so she thought perhaps it hadn’t been a temple.

  “Not that this is helpful,” Patricia muttered to herself. “I’ll still starve to death. Or perhaps die of thirst.”

  Very cheerful.

  She rose again and paced the confined space. One, two, three, four, five, six . . . seven, eight?

  Patricia stopped, confused. It had been six paces before, she’d sworn that.

  “Now I’m losing my mind,” she said out loud. “This just gets better.”

  No doubt about it, her prison was now eight paces by eight. Moving walls? Patricia pushed at the stone blocks, but they were solid. She banged on them once with her closed fists, then slid to the floor again.

  She sat quietly, frustrated, but not in panic or despair. One thought came to her over and over again: Nico will find me.

  She knew this deep down inside. This was the test Hera and Bes had argued about: whether Nico and Patricia would love each other enough to find each other again. She knew the answer was yes.

  She did hope that the test of her and Nico’s love wouldn’t be like some of the weird myths she’d read in which the beloved object was turned into a rock or tree or something, in order to make a point. She had mixed feelings about spending eternity as a symbol of true love.
/>   “I’d rather have the reality,” she said, grinding her teeth. “Hurry up, Nico.”

  “WE need Bes,” Nico concluded.

  The other two had dragged him out to a coffeehouse in a back alley, feeding him potent Egyptian coffee. The streets were teeming as usual, men filling coffeehouses or strolling, enjoying the cool darkness. Two men shared a water pipe in one corner, and at any other time, Nico would have found the pungent scent of spiced tobacco and the slow bubbling of the pipe soothing.

  He’d wanted to fly away and search every corner of the world for Patricia, but Demitri convinced him they had to do this logically.

  “Bes knew the story on the wall,” Nico continued. “What this test was. What I’m supposed to do.”

  Demitri turned to Andreas. The leopard-man had lost his habitual bitter look, his throat free of the gold chain he’d worn for millennia. But he was still angry and desperately worried about Rebecca.

  “Andreas,” Demitri began. “If you spent all your time with Rebecca, you saw the inscription the most. You were with her when she finished her rough translation. Do you remember anything about it, especially at the end?”

  Andreas ran thick fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t paying attention to the damn wall, if you know what I mean.”

  Demitri nodded. “You, a woman—I know what you were paying attention to. But do you have anything, remember anything?”

  “Nothing helpful,” he growled. “It was the sad story of Nico and me getting caught by Hera’s spell, and how we were eternally punished for our lust. After that it was stuff about how lust dwindled and love was stronger, how love could shine through where lust failed.”

  “All right, that’s good.” Demitri tried to sound reassuring. “What does that mean to you?”

  “That love is stronger and more important than lust,” Nico said. “Love has great power, where lust fades. I already knew that.”

  Demitri agreed. “What I think it means is that if you truly love Patricia, not just want her, you’ll prevail.”

  “That’s helpful,” Nico said in an ironic voice. “Wasn’t there anything on the wall that said, Start looking here?”

  “No,” Andreas said glumly. “It didn’t say anything about whether Patricia and Rebecca would be together, either.” He sighed. “I have to find Rebecca. She doesn’t know how to handle goddesses. She’s too blunt. She’ll get herself killed.”

  Demitri looked at them both and raised his brows. “I think you’ve both gone way beyond the lust part. Now it’s just legwork.”

  Nico shook his head. “This is Hera we’re talking about. Nothing will be that easy.”

  “I know. But I have some ideas and friends who might know things.”

  “It’s good of you to help,” Nico said.

  Demitri looked offended. “How long have we been friends?”

  “Four thousand years. Give or take.”

  “Exactly.” He clapped Nico on the shoulder. “I won’t leave you in the lurch when things get tough. I say we draw up a battle plan.”

  20

  NICO insisted that they try to summon Bes. In ancient Egypt, the god Bes had defended homes against evil spirits and other dangers like snakes and wild animals. He was a protector of hearth and home, a handy god to have around.

  Modern-day Egypt had thoroughly embraced Islam, but statues of the old gods, copies of those found on archaeological digs, were plentiful. Demitri had one.

  The statue was squat and square, Bes’s legs stubby. His face was almost lionlike, his horns two tiny bumps on his head.

  “He looks better in person,” Andreas growled. “Barely.”

  Demitri studied the statue as it reposed on the table in the middle of the suite’s living room. “If anyone hears I’ve been conjuring pagan gods in my best guest suite, I’ll be run out of business.”

  “We’ll keep it down,” Andreas assured him.

  He was as restless as Nico, pacing and growling all morning. His movements were jerky as they surrounded the statue with greenery and candles. Gods liked offerings, but Nico wasn’t sure what Bes would enjoy. Wine? Fruit?

  “Coffee,” Andreas said. “Remember, he was so proud of his coffee machine.”

  Nico decided it had as good a shot as anything, so Demitri sent for a tray of hot, fresh coffee with four cups. The waiter who brought it tried to look into the room to see what they were doing, but Demitri grabbed the tray and slammed the door.

  “He probably thinks we’re having an orgy,” Demitri said as he set down the tray.

  “An orgy with coffee?” Andreas asked.

  “He has a vivid imagination.”

  “I wonder what he’d think if we asked for some DVDs?”

  Nico looked up irritably from where he was arranging the altar. “Can anyone who’s not still a slave please shut up?”

  “Sorry,” Demitri said at once.

  “Just relieving the tension,” Andreas added.

  Nico finished and sat back on his heels, still wondering how to do this. He’d never actually conjured a god before, mostly wanting them to leave him the hell alone.

  He started to chant in an ancient tongue that was not Greek or Egyptian but the language that had existed before those civilizations rose. It was a language of the gods, when they walked the earth, before leaving humankind to have contact with them only through worship, through rituals like these.

  “God of hearth and home, I summon thee,” Nico said. “Proud god who faced down the queen of my pantheon, hear my plea.”

  Nothing happened. Andreas moved restlessly. “Where is he? It’s not working.”

  “Shh,” Demitri admonished. “Let Nico finish.”

  Nico tried to block out their words and focus on the statue. Bes looked back at him blankly, the stone remaining immobile.

  “Maybe he’s not positioned right.” Andreas grabbed the little god and turned him to face the window. As he lifted his hand away, he knocked against the small cup of coffee, which overturned an spattered all over Bes.

  “Damn it,” Nico muttered.

  Swearing, Andreas reached for a towel, but Demitri stopped him. “Wait.”

  As the coffee dripped from the statue, the stone flushed with warmth. Life trickled into it, inch by inch, until at last a tiny figure stood amid the garlands. The three men leaned forward to look at him.

  “No, no, no,” the small Bes said, waving his arms. “I can’t give hints. It’s against the rules.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your hints or your rules,” Nico said. “Where’s Patricia?”

  “I can’t tell you. If I do, I’ll void the test.”

  “Screw the test. I’ll be a slave for eternity if Hera releases her. I don’t care. I just want her to be all right.”

  “That isn’t the answer,” Bes said.

  “I told you, I don’t care . . .”

  “Staying a slave isn’t the solution to the test,” Bes said. “You have to find it on your own.”

  Nico clenched his hands. “What is the test? What did the wall painting say?”

  Bes looked pained. “I can’t tell you.”

  Andreas leaned forward and poked the little god. “Listen, you. I’ve had enough of games with gods and goddesses. Give back our ladies and stay the hell out of our lives.”

  Bes’s expression turned mournful. “I can’t. I wish I could help you. I have no desire to see Patricia hurt.”

  Nico’s heart felt like lead. “Are you saying that if I don’t pass the test, Patricia will be hurt?”

  “Yes, unfortunately. I can make things better for her if you do the right things, but if not . . .” He trailed off with a gesture of helplessness.

  “What about Rebecca?” Andreas interrupted. “She’s not part of Nico’s test, is she? Where is Rebecca?”

  Bes jumped back a foot, nearly tripping over the garlands. “She’s safe. She’s safe, I swear it. In Greece.”

  “Greece?” Andreas stood up. “What the hell is she doing in Greece?” />
  “She’s in the land of Odysseus and Penelope,” Bes said, perplexed. “In Ithaca.”

  Andreas let out a long growl, his claws emerging. “Not Greece, you little stone idiot. New York. She works at Cornell—in New York.”

  “Oh,” Bes said. “I just heard Ithaca. I hope I sent her to the right one.”

  “You’d damn well better have sent her to the right one.” Andreas reached down and grabbed Bes in his big fist.

  The little god shuddered and froze into hard stone. Andreas started and dropped the statue, which shattered on the tile floor into three large pieces.

  “Damn it,” Andreas said. “Nico, I’m sorry.”

  Nico shrugged, his heart aching. “It doesn’t matter. He wasn’t going to give us much more than that.”

  Demitri retrieved his broken statue and tried to fit the pieces together. “What did he mean, he could make things better for Patricia if you did the right things?”

  “Who knows? I don’t know what the right thing is.” Nico stared at the tangled garlands and spilled coffee, the statue Demitri was trying to repair. “I have to find her.”

  “What’s the phone number for Cornell?” Andreas broke in.

  Nico looked up. “I don’t know. Patricia’s cell phone is in her room. She might have it from when she first called Rebecca.”

  Andreas was out of the room before Nico had finished speaking.

  Nico rose to pace. His back itched, his wings wanting to break free of their confinement. He wanted to soar over the city, blast open every building with his half-god magic, and find Patricia.

  He couldn’t; he knew that. He sensed that if he resorted to brute force, he’d never see her again, or he’d kill her in the process.

  Where could they hide her that a normal search wouldn’t find her? A living woman couldn’t be taken to Hades and survive, the legend of Persephone notwithstanding. He’d met Persephone, and he had no doubt she had the god of the underworld wrapped around her little finger.

  It had to be somewhere magical, mysterious, but someplace she could exist and he could find. That let out any of the god realms; she must still be on the tangible earth.