Mortal Temptations (19 page)

Andreas snorted. “Our slavery is based on the idea that we never fell in love—didn’t understand what it was like. She thinks we never did anything but satisfy our lust, so she had to teach us what the pain of love was. But that isn’t true. I fell in love, and lost, and hurt, long before all this started.”

“Me, too,” Nico said. “And because of Hera, I lost everything I could have had.”

Rebecca and Patricia exchanged a look, both stubborn, both so sure they could solve any problem if they picked at it long enough. He squeezed Patricia’s hand, a dull ache in his heart as he realized that he was going to lose everything that could have been.

“It’s over, Patricia,” he said. “You and Rebecca should go soon. We’re going to lose you anyway—might as well get it over with.”

“If we did that, what would you do?” Patricia asked.

Andreas turned around again, his face hard. “What we always do. Exist.”

Existence, not life. Nico felt the familiar burn in his heart, the pain that never quite went away.

Bes scanned the wall, his friendly face distressed. “There must be something in this you can use.”

“I don’t know what,” Rebecca snapped.

Bes turned hopefully to Patricia. “Maybe it says something to you, as you call it, psychically?”

Patricia studied the wall as she had many times since their arrival. “I’ve tried that, but it’s just an ordinary wall. I mean, ordinary for an intact tomb painting from three thousand years ago.”

“I was so certain.”

Andreas smoothly stepped to Bes, grabbed his lapels, and lifted him from his feet. “What is your interest in all this, Bes? Did Hera send you to watch us? Are you going to report how upset we are so she can gloat?”

Bes squeaked as he hung from Andreas’s grip. “No, no. I promise.”

“Why, then? Why should you care whether two Greek demigods got free of a curse?”

“Because it is unjust.” Bes looked indignant, his dark eyes flashing. “When I heard you were trying to break the curse, and I found out what kind of curse it was, I was so angry. She is a great goddess, such as our own Isis, but she is too arrogant. How dare she punish you like this?”

“And if you can get us free, you can rub her face in it?”

Bes wet his lips. “Something like that. She cannot have it her own way all the time.”

“Thwarting Hera is dangerous,” Nico observed.

“Yes, but it needs to be done,” Bes said. “Perhaps I am the only one brave enough to do it.”

Andreas shook him. “What you mean is you think you have the weight of your pantheon behind you, that Isis and Osiris will protect you.”

Bes shrugged the best he could. “If that is the only way. Isis would not openly defy a head goddess of another pantheon, but she would not let Hera hurt me.”

“And it would give you so much more clout with the other gods,” Andreas suggested. “They might even have to take you seriously.”

Patricia advanced on Andreas. “Oh, leave the poor man alone. He tried to help us. If it had worked, you’d be praising him to the skies and buying him beer.”

Andreas returned the man to his feet and stepped back, scowling but knowing Patricia was right.

Nico came to Patricia and slid his arms around her from behind. She leaned back into him, but she was angry; he could feel it thrumming through her.

“You tried,” he whispered. “I’ll always remember that you tried. Thank you.”

Patricia gave him a glare. “I’m not giving up yet. If we do this together, Nico, we’ll—”

She broke off, staring at something behind Nico. At the same time, Andreas snarled and shifted into his leopard form, shaking off the clothes that ripped from him.

Nico turned. The room had filled with Dyons.

Bes drew himself up. “How dare she? This is
my
domain.”

The Dyons stood in a row, about a dozen of them, shoulder to shoulder, a wall of muscle. Bes crackled with light and threw it at them with his hands.

The Dyons flinched, but the light deflected from them. They were being protected. But that meant . . .

Nico felt it first. He dragged Patricia to the floor, shielding her with his body as the air rent and everything inside the tomb exploded.

The wall paintings cracked and burst into a million pieces. The stone sarcophagus, which Rebecca had been using as a desk, splintered, the dry mummy inside crumbling instantly to dust. Pieces of limestone and alabaster, and chips of paint showered down on them in a needlelike rain.

Patricia coughed as the tomb filled with dust and crumbling, ancient paint. The tomb itself didn’t fall, the stone blocks strong and enduring, but everything else was gone.

As the air cleared, he heard Rebecca wailing. “No, not the wall painting!”

Nico sat up. Bes was coughing, his black hair coated with yellow dust.

Rebecca huddled in a ball by the remains of the sarcophagus. Andreas, still a leopard, paced at her feet, stopping to shake the dust from his fur.

Patricia gasped. “The Dyons.”

They were melting, collapsing in on themselves. Their bodies spun down into dust, returning to the clay from which they’d been shaped.

A tall woman rose from the middle of them, a large, stout matron wrapped in Grecian robes. She had very black hair, large dark eyes, and a cold hauteur that froze the molecules in the air.

Bes ran at her, enraged. “This tomb is under my protection. You don’t belong here.”

“Oh, please,” the matron responded. She waved her hand, and Bes tumbled back across the room. Andreas snarled, fur rising.

“So you almost found the secret,” the woman said to Nico. “But you didn’t know what to do with it.”

Nico raised his brows. “It is here, then.”

“Yes, but gone now. Some stupid priest in this backward land liked the story, and he wrote in the solution. If you had been smarter, you would have understood immediately.”

Andreas’s growls grew loud and long. Nico hoped he wouldn’t do anything stupid like leap on her, because Hera could kill him. They were demigods, not gods. Their tainted half blood meant that the gods could kill them if they saw fit.

“But I am compassionate,” Hera went on. She adjusted the cloth over her ample bosom, her eyes narrowing. “I have come to end your suffering.”

“How?” Patricia demanded. “You’ll break the curse?”

“No, my dear. I will end their long, miserable lives. That will free you as well, to get back to your little store.”

“No.” Patricia broke from Nico’s hold. “You can’t; I won’t let you.”

Nico seized her. “Patricia, don’t.” Hera in this form looked like a harmless woman out to do her shopping, but she was the most powerful goddess in the pantheon, bad-tempered and unpredictable.

Hera looked at her in pity. “You poor thing. Bow to me and thank me for relieving you of this pathetic fixation.”

Patricia’s knees bent, though she obviously tried to hold back. She stiffly sank to the floor, and her body folded over until her face touched the dust.

Nico gave in to anger. His wings split the shirt from his back, and he sailed across the floor and bowled into the goddess.

Hera threw Nico across the room. He landed hard on his back and felt the snap of bones, both wing and body.

He heard Andreas growling his leopard growl and rolled over in time to see Hera slam him to the ground in another burst of power. Rebecca screamed. Andreas’s paws scrabbled on the stone floor, then suddenly he went limp and still, his eyes clouding over.

Rebecca crawled to him, crying. She flung herself on him, stroking his dust-choked fur.

Hera fixed her attention on Nico again, and through his pain, he sensed her power draw to a point. She was going to release it at him, and then Nico would die.

“Patricia,” he croaked. “I love you.”

Hera let fly. Her power was too mighty to look at, a huge golden light that was a deadly missile. Through his blurred vision, Nico saw Bes step quickly in front of him and take the entire brunt of the blast.

BES’S body absorbed Hera’s power, expanding hideously, then he exploded with light. The whiteness of it filled the tomb, burning fire on Nico’s retinas. He wanted to reach Patricia, to protect her, but he couldn’t move.

When the light died, Bes stood upright in front of Hera. He no longer looked like an Egyptian but a short man with a lionlike face with horns in his dark hair.

“This is
my
jurisdiction,” he said. “I told you.”

Hera regarded Bes in fury, her matronly form elongating to something powerful and huge. “And those two lascivious demigods are my creatures. Guard your mummified man and give those two to me.”

“No,” Bes said. “I read the story on the wall, too, a long time ago, and I know what it means.”

Hera’s face went white. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“It’s all about love being stronger than lust.”

She drew herself up, thrumming with power. “What of it, little god?”

“What are you going to do with that one?” Bes asked, pointing at Andreas’s still body.

Nico’s grief hit him hard. The one constant in his life had been Andreas, his snarling, snarky, smart-ass companion in hell. Andreas lay lifeless on the tomb floor, his eyes staring sightlessly.

Rebecca had draped herself over him, moaning incoherently. Patricia sat against a wall, her knees drawn to her chest, crying, dust smeared on her cheeks.

“He’s nothing to me,” Hera said. “A bastard fathered by my promiscuous husband.”

“If you don’t want him,” Bes asked her, “will you give him to me?”

Hera’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“As a treat. To compensate me for destroying my tomb.”

Hera regarded him wearily. “Do as you like with him. I resign all claim. Will you mummify him?”

“No.” Bes grinned at her, his low stature and the horns making him look cocky. “Do you give up all claim on him?”

“If you insist. Not much more vengeance I can take on a dead leopard.”

“Excellent.” Bes beamed.

Nico could only watch, broken and in pain, as Bes went to Andreas and put a kind hand on Rebecca’s shoulder.

“My dear, I think you should go sit with your friend.”

Rebecca clung to Andreas’s body. “Leave him alone.”

Patricia staggered to her feet. She went to Rebecca and pulled her up, letting the smaller girl cry on her shoulder. She led Rebecca away and they both sank down next to Nico. Nico watched Patricia, unable to reach for her.

Bes straightened Andreas’s limbs, which were already stiff. He shook his head in pity.

“He didn’t deserve to die.”

“He is a male creature who gave female creatures much misery.”

“And yet, this little one weeps for him.” Bes pointed to Rebecca, being soothed by Patricia.

Hera shrugged. “She was caught in my curse.”

“But she is free of it now, yes?”

“She should be.”

“And yet, she still grieves.”

Hera did not look impressed. “She will recover soon.”

“I must think how to ease her pain.” Bes rubbed his hands together. “I’ve always wanted to try this.”

“Try what?”

“Reanimation.”

Hera snorted. “You need much power to do that. Get it wrong, and he’s a zombie leopard—not pretty.”

Bes gave her a
Well, maybe
look and continued to position Andreas’s body.

Patricia looked up in horror. “Can’t you just leave him alone?” She glared at Hera. “There’s a difference between taking vengeance and torturing someone because you enjoy it.”

“Patricia,” Nico whispered.

She didn’t hear him, or at least she pretended not to. She cradled Rebecca against her and bravely faced the most powerful goddess in the Greek pantheon.

Hera got a gleam in her eye Nico didn’t like. “I see.” She turned back to Bes. “Well, get on with it.”

The room dimmed. Nico wondered if the generator power was tied to Bes, and now that he needed to use more of his magic, the lights were going. Or maybe it was Nico’s vision. He was in so much pain he couldn’t tell if he was dying or not.

Things had definitely gotten darker. White light concentrated around Bes, and the small god closed his eyes, lips moving silently.

Hera watched, a smirk on her face. The light coalesced around Bes, touching Andreas softly and making his open eyes shine.

Bes’s power burst out from him in an incredible wave, ripples sending the rubble bouncing around the floor. Patricia drew protectively closer to both Nico and Rebecca, and Rebecca lifted her head to watch with dull eyes.

Andreas’s body leapt as though electricity had licked through it. The leopard jerked, limbs stiff, and then slowly came upright, as though dragged by puppet strings.

Rebecca started to crawl forward. “No, please, leave him alone.”

Patricia dragged her back again, urging her to keep still.

Hera laughed. “There is a difference between reanimation and resurrection. You obviously have them confused, Bes.”

The leopard was on its feet, not alive, but standing on its own. Nico felt sick to his stomach.

“You are correct.” Bes smiled. “I can’t do a resurrection, but my friends can.”

He pointed to something high up on one wall. A painting still clung there, having miraculously escaped the explosion. There were two figures: a woman with long, thin horns on her head in a transparent dress, and a man facing her. Isis and Osiris, Nico realized, the goddess and the husband she’d brought back from the dead.

“Isis and Osiris,” Bes shouted. “Lend me your strength.”

The painting began to crack. Before it crumbled into nothing, a shaft of light lit up Bes, which he transferred to the leopard.

Nico held his breath. Sudden animation sprang into Andreas’s eyes, and the big cat yawned. The new life rippled down his body from ears to tail—Nico could follow the wave all the way down. At last Andreas did a full cat stretch and shook himself.

Still bathed in light, Andreas rose on his hind legs and took on his human form, stretching tall. Rebecca’s eyes lit with joy.

The thin gold chain around Andreas’s neck broke with an audible snap, and the pieces clinked to the floor. Andreas put his hand to his throat in wonder, then he laughed.

“Ha!” Rebecca shouted to Hera. “You said you resigned all claim to him, which means he’s no longer under your curse.”

Hera’s eyes blazed, and she raised her hand, power gathering in her palm.

“No,” Bes said quickly. “You gave him to me. He is my creature now, protected by the power of Isis.”

Hera stared at him, then folded her hand, and the light faded. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. He is nothing. An unimportant demigod.”

Andreas laughed again. He closed his hands around his throat, his blue eyes dancing with mirth.

“In that case,” Andreas said to Hera, his voice strong and powerful, “I have something to tell you.”

He grew taller, his demigod divinity filling the chamber. He changed again into a leopard—his true leopard form, huge and powerful and painfully bright.

“Fuck you.”
Andreas ended on a very leopard snarl, then he leapt straight upward and vanished.

Rebecca was on her feet. “What did you do to him?”

“She didn’t do anything,” Nico said. His heart lightened, joy that Andreas was beyond her reach mitigating some of the pain inside him. “He’s free.”

“But where did he go?”

“Who knows?” Nico wanted to laugh. “It doesn’t matter.”

Hera’s outrage faded, replaced by a knowing smile. “How does it feel, Nikolaus? Your friend, bound to you for millennia, deserting you when you most need him?” She switched her gaze to Rebecca. “How does it feel for you, dear? You see, he never loved you, never even liked you. He used you with absolutely no thought of caring for you. Does that make you angry? Would you like me to punish him?”

She watched Rebecca hopefully, but Rebecca only looked back at her.

“No. I’m happy he’s free of you. Let him run wild if that’s what he wants.”

“How disappointing.” Her look hardened, and Nico understood that Rebecca had changed in Hera’s eyes from Andreas’s victim to Hera’s enemy.

“How does it feel?” Hera asked her again. “To know that the only man who found you beautiful was a liar? He didn’t think you beautiful at all. He only wanted you to translate the inscription for him, and he’d have done anything to make you do it.”

Rebecca watched her expressionlessly. Nico wanted to smile his encouragement.

What Hera couldn’t see in Rebecca was her courage and strength, her fortitude. She was not a woman who would crumple and fall because another woman told her she couldn’t catch a man.

“You know,” Rebecca said mildly, “my dissertation advisor was much better with insults than you. And still I got my PhD with honors.”

Hera’s brows rose. “You are quite amusing, my dear. Andreas has just deserted you. It doesn’t matter whether you care about the truths I tell you. He’s left you.”

“If he would only come to me because he was compelled, then I don’t want him,” Rebecca said.

“How brave you are.”

She sounded like she was losing interest. Hera glanced over at Nico, who couldn’t move for pain. “The question now is not Andreas, it is what I will do with you.”

“You’ll do nothing.” Patricia said. She’d gone to stand with Rebecca. “Nico is still under the power of your curse. Isn’t that good enough?”

“Not really. Someone has to pay for Andreas escaping me, and Bes is beyond my reach.”

“He’s already hurt. He can’t even move.”

Hera smiled sadly. “I see that. Poor little demigod. I will have to repair him.”

She raised her hand and sent a ball of light to Nico. He gasped as the shock of it hit him.

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.”