“What do you mean?”
“Look, Glory.” Flo squeezed my arm and pointed to the edge of the clearing where the house had once stood. Sure enough Achelous was striding behind two men. You couldn’t miss the procession because of the ring of lightning bolts forming bars around them, like a moving jail cell holding prisoners. Apparently Rafe and Jerry had decided to join the party.
“Oh, no.” I started toward them.
“Don’t even think about it, Gloriana. You’ll get the shock of your undead life. And you might not survive it.” Jerry’s voice was hard. “He’s got us penned in.”
“Obviously we’re not going to be able to do you much
good. Sorry about that.” Rafe glared at Achelous as he brought the men to a halt a few yards away from me.
“Behold your honor guard.” The god laughed. “Still have that power, don’t you, Gloriana?” The lightning disappeared but when Jerry reached for a knife he was turned to stone, Rafe too. Neither of them could move other than to blink their eyes.
“What power?” I prayed Achelous didn’t mean what I thought he meant. If he did, then my relationships with Jerry, with Rafe, hell, even with Ray were totally bogus.
“You know exactly what power, Gloriana. I made you mortal but it seems even I couldn’t strip away your ability to draw men to you. A Siren is born to seduce. She can always get a man to worship her. You have the gift of enchantment, even at this very moment. Luckily, I’m immune to it, though you are still a tempting armful if I ignore those disgusting fangs in your mouth.” Achelous put his arm around me, something I didn’t dare shrug away from.
“I don’t believe you.” But I was very afraid Jerry and Rafe did. Though their faces were frozen, there was no mistaking the emotion blazing in their eyes. Fury. Impotent rage. At me? I didn’t dare analyze it. I prayed it was at this bastard. The weight of his arm felt like a chain holding me and I could smell the ozone surrounding him like a nasty aftershave.
“Face it, gentlemen. You would never have been able to resist this woman. She’s still a Siren where it counts and lured you like dogs to a juicy steak.” Achelous chuckled. “Aggie told me one of you actually played the panting dog for a while. How appropriate.”
“Stop it.” I wanted to cover my ears. “I don’t believe you.”
“Of course you do. Didn’t you ever wonder, Gloriana, why your men were so steadfast? One of them for centuries!” Achelous tugged on my hair. “Couldn’t get rid of your admirers, could you? But of course you didn’t try. And you, gentlemen. You never could seem to forget her, could you? Especially you, vampire. How many hundreds of years have you danced to her tune?” Achelous laughed again and swept
his hand toward the sky, a clap of thunder shaking the terrace. “My Sirens know how to hold a man until the day he dies! Of course usually that’s not but an hour after he knows her.” Achelous stepped away from me. “I have to say well done, Gloriana.”
“You’re lying!” I desperately blinked back tears even though he was saying exactly what I’d been terrified was true. “You’re just trying to ruin my life now. This doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense is that you’re still alive!” Achelous stomped away from me, each step another thunderclap. “Zeus’s toenails, but this infuriates me. How is it possible? I intended for you to have a short and mortal life. I planted memories of a disapproving family for you and watched you bewitch your first human, a poor actor. Oh, but you were ridiculous, learning to sew to help earn bread after he died.” He glared at me. “I assumed you would live out your ordinary little life in the gutter and that would be that. In a blink of an eye you would be gone forever.”
“But I didn’t have an ordinary life. I met Jeremiah Campbell.” I squeezed my hands together and begged Jerry with my eyes to forgive me.
“A fucking vampire!” Achelous threw up his hands and the clouds unleashed a torrent, dumping icy rain on us, everyone except him of course. There was no shelter anywhere and we had to just stand there and take it, the cold hard rain drenching us in seconds. “Conniving bitch. You persuaded him to make you immortal. You were supposed to die! I had no idea. Had quit watching you or—” He ground his teeth and sparks flew. “Hindsight.”
As quickly as the rain had started, it stopped. The clouds rolled away and the moon appeared, a brilliant white circle in the night sky. Stars twinkled above us in a breathtaking display.
“Gloriana didn’t die because I wouldn’t allow it.” The lilting voice seemed to issue from Heaven itself but instead came from a tiny woman who appeared at Laurie’s side.
“Circe!” Achelous stopped in his tracks. “What do you have to do with this?”
“I was sick of the way you treated your women, Achelous. Your handling of this problem with Gloriana was the last in a long line of intolerable acts. I could not stand by and let you get away with abusing this poor girl.” Circe, a goddess in her own right, had also stuck to the Roman look. I guess it was the norm up on Olympus.
She walked up to Achelous and, though she only came up to the middle of his chest, her regal air gave her an imposing presence. She had a breathtaking beauty, with mesmerizing vivid green eyes and her raven hair flowing down her back. But that wasn’t what made her formidable. It was the power that shimmered around her. I sure wouldn’t want to cross her.
“And how is that your business?” Achelous looked down his nose at her, obviously not intimidated.
“As a woman, I decided to make it my business.” She poked his broad chest with a pearl white fingernail. “You cast Gloriana out without proper resources.”
“Of course I did. She never appreciated the gold and jewels she had as one of my women. I wanted her to lose
everything
.” Achelous spat the last word.
“I couldn’t allow you to reduce her to such dire straits. She was close to starving. She had no way to earn a living.” Circe smiled and held out her hand, compelling me to come closer until I faced Achelous too. “Except whoring. And she was too proud for that, weren’t you, my dear?”
“I couldn’t—” I did remember
those
days. After my husband had died, I’d been tossed out of our lodgings. I’d begged Shakespeare to let me do the odd sewing and cleaning jobs around the theater. Those had barely paid for food but at least he’d let me sleep in the dressing rooms.
“Too good to be a whore?” Achelous laughed. “Why? What do you think a Siren is?”
The crack of my hand hitting Achelous’s cheek was as loud as a gunshot. And it felt good. That bastard had it coming.
For what he did constantly to Aggie and the other sisters. And what he’d done to me.
“You are truly dead now, you bitch.” Achelous’s eyes flamed and he raised his hands, static electricity crackling from his fingertips.
“No, she is not.” Circe thrust herself between us. “You must be stopped, Achelous. I proved I could thwart you when I took this man”—she pointed to Jerry and my heart sank—“and sent him into her path. He, of course, fell in love with her and made her vampire. I ensured she would have immortality and all the years you would have stolen from her, you pompous ass.”
“You dare talk to me this way?” Achelous unleashed clouds, rain and wind that almost blew us off the terrace. Flo and I clung to each other and even Laurie had to crouch down next to the stone wall or be thrown into the lake.
“You owed me this.” Circe stood toe-to-toe with him, raising her own hands to stop the deluge instantly.
“How is that?” He looked her over with what started as a sneer. While the rest of us were basically drowned rats, Circe’s hair dried instantly into beautiful curls. Her toga clung to her perfect figure in all the right places and Achy showed a typical male appreciation for it before he remembered he was furious with her. His face hardened. “I owe you nothing.”
“You didn’t keep your word to me about a certain matter.” She placed her hand on his chest and whatever she did must have hurt, because the god actually winced and jerked her hand away to hold it.
“This is not something to discuss in front of inferiors. Are you saying you deliberately used this vampire so that Gloriana would live forever?” Achelous turned to hit Jerry with a shot of lightning and I screamed his name when I saw him shudder with pain.
“Stop! She just said he was her victim.” Oh, God. All those years of Jerry’s devotion, protection, love. They had been because two gods had been playing games with us as pawns. Was anything in my life real?
“Deliberate or not, the result is the same, Gloriana. You are still here.” Achelous started to hit me with a bolt, I was sure of it, but Circe reached out to stop him.
“Tell her why you cast her out. She deserves to know.” Circe gave me a pitying look. Flo had her arm around me because I’d started crying. Who wouldn’t? But I shoved her away, out of the line of fire, when it looked like I might be getting hit.
“I already know. I’m not a killer or not much of one, am I? Move, Flo. If he’s going to zap me into oblivion, I don’t want you to be collateral damage.” I wiped my eyes. “Yeah, Achelous. Be a sport. Tell everyone what I did to get kicked out of the Siren sisterhood. For some reason I’m not ashamed to be your castoff.” My legs went weak but I managed to stay upright as I braced myself for the god’s worst.
Circe gave Achelous a look that made me think there was some serious mental messaging going on. “You have quite an attitude, Gloriana, and remind me…” Circe shook her head. “Speak, Achelous. Explain your actions to the girl.”
“Why not? Gloriana, yes, you were a failure as a Siren. And since Circe is so down on men, let me get a female witness up here. Someone she’ll believe.” Achy walked over to the stone wall, shoving Laurie out of the way. “What in the hell is a tiger doing here?”
“She’s one of mine and fetched me. Touch her again and you’ll regret it.” Circe watched him closely.
“Whatever. Aglaophonos, get your ass back here!” He leaned against the wall near where Laurie watched him with narrowed eyes. “Let me see it. Change into your tiger. Should be amusing. Though your human form is not bad.” He was checking her out. Her soaked tank top would have made her a winner in any wet T-shirt contest.
“Not on your life.” Laurie raked him with a disgusted look then stalked over to stand next to me. “I’m not a circus sideshow.”
“Could have fooled me.” Achy had obviously gotten another
mental message from Circe. “You women are really on a roll tonight. Don’t think I’ll forget this, Circe. When we get to Olympus, we’re going to the top about this.”
“Sure, Achy. Let’s do that.” Circe didn’t look concerned.
“Yes, sire. What do you wish?” Aggie climbed out over the stone wall, her wet dress clinging to her body. I’m sure Jerry and Rafe appreciated the view; Achelous certainly did.
“Tell the group here how many kills you have. Since you became Siren.” Achy stroked Aggie’s wet shoulder in a familiar way that made me shudder.
“One million, seven hundred fifty thousand, five hundred six.” Aggie smiled apologetically. “It would be more but GPS and other things—”
“Okay, we get it.” Achy looked proud while I felt like throwing up. Over a million people killed? And she’d smiled, with no regrets except that she’d posted what she seemed to think was a low number. “Now I know you’ve been snooping in the archives about Gloriana here. Right?”
“Yes. Is it forbidden?” She blanched when he tugged on her wet hair.
“Yes, but I’ll let it go this time. Tell the crowd how many kills she had before I tossed her out on her fat ass.” He gave me an evil smile. “I made you wide on purpose when I tossed you, by the way. Bet that bothers you, doesn’t it, Gloriana? Look at this Siren next to me.” He ran his hand down Aggie’s hip. “Her body is perfect. I wasn’t about to let you have the same.” He frowned at me and I braced myself. “Go ahead, Aglaophonos, spit it out. Gloriana’s kill number.”
“It was an embarrassment to you, sire. A mere one hundred and thirty-three thousand, four hundred sixty-one. And she’d worked for you for over a thousand years!” Aggie gave me a censorious look. “She was a disgrace to the sisterhood.”
I hit the ground. Yep, my legs just could not hold me up. I’d killed over a hundred thousand men. And no telling how many more I’d seduced and let go. Thunder roared, lightning flashed and, for me, darkness fell.
• • •
“G
lory!
Wake up!” I felt hands on my back and groaned. Obviously Achelous had given me a parting shot of lightning as a going-away present. I sat up carefully, my feet and head Pain Central. I wasn’t surprised to see my boots were charred on the soles.
“Are you all right?” Flo brushed back my wet hair and stared at me anxiously. “That bastard. He hit you with such a jolt. I was afraid you were done for.”
“Yeah. He and Circe just disappeared after that. Aggie too.” Laurie paced around us. “What a nightmare. I’m pissed that I couldn’t do anything for you.”
“Are you kidding? Laurie, you brought Circe here. She saved me.” I reached down and unzipped one of my ruined boots, tossing it aside. The effort made my head throb but my feet were much worse. I hurriedly got rid of the other boot. Healing sleep would take care of my feet eventually but I dreaded the walk back to the car.
“Yes, well. You’re right. I guess I did earn that paycheck, Flo.” Laurie grinned then gasped when she saw my blackened feet. “Damn, but he got you good, didn’t he?”
“You’re going to need help.” Rafe stood behind Flo. “Let me carry you.”
“No, I’ll do it. I may be under a damned spell, but I still want to take care of Gloriana.” Jerry squatted down next to me.
“Jerry.” I reached out to touch his cheek. “What you heard…”
“I know we were both manipulated, Gloriana.” He carefully slipped his arms under my hips and lifted me. “I’ll carry you to your car. Florence can drive you home.”
“Can you ever forgive me?” I whispered this against his chest as he strode across the rough terrain to where we’d left my car.
“Forgive
you?
” He stopped and looked up at the sky instead
of down at me. “What have
you
done?” He started walking again, stopping beside my car and waiting while a silent Flo opened the passenger door.