“No!” Venus reined in her enthusiasm. “First Achilles. Then I can dabble with matchmaking in the modern mortal world.” She grinned. “Again.”
But first things first. She needed to bring Kat from the modern world to Olympus, which would not be particularly difficult. The goddess raised her hands and began summoning the power that as one of the Twelve Olympians would eternally be hers to command. The air between her palms started to shimmer with tiny specks of energy brilliant as miniature diamonds. As soon as Kat was alone, Venus could reach through the oracle and transport her to the portal from the modern world to Olympus that stood open, but invisible, in Tulsa. Then Venus would simply zap herself there and speak with Kat briefly. The goddess tapped her chin as she considered. She'd probably have to work some kind of obvious magic to prove to the mortal that she was truly Venus, Goddess of Love. But that shouldn't take long. She'd get that over with, and then return to Olympus with the mortal and call Hera and Athena here to her temple so that they could all explain in detail to the girl what was needed from her.
As her mortal friend, Pea Chamberlain, would say, easy-peasy.
Still building the power between her hands, Venus looked down through the oracle to see a giggling Kat and Jacqueline making their way more than a little unsteadily down the front steps of Susie's pretty home to a waiting car. Venus laughed. “Good thing they aren't driving. Neither of them appears to be sober enough to handle one of those metal machines.” Nor were either of themâ specifically Katâsober enough to bring to Olympus that night. Well, that was probably for the best. She needed to get with Hera and Athena again and decide the best way to move Kat into Achilles' camp. Kat would need to have some kind of royal status . . . or perhaps one of them could appear to Achilles and foretell the coming of a priestess who would need his protection. . . .
Venus sighed. This might be more complicated than she'd originally thought it would be. But no matter. She'd just use the oracle to follow Kat homeâmake note of where the mortal woman livedâand then pay her a little divine visit on the morrow.
Smiling, Venus turned her attention back to the oracle in time to see the huge Suburban run through the stop sign and crash into the little yellow car that held Kat and Jacqueline.
“No! Stop!” Venus screamed, instantly throwing the power she'd been generating through her oracle to protect and surround the car, freezing time temporarily so that the scene looked like a gruesome painting. But even as she gave the command she knew it was already too late. Venus drew a deep breath and waved her hands over the oracle. “Let me see Katrina and Jacqueline,” she said solemnly.
The oracle's vision telescoped inside the crushed car. Venus's breath caught in a sob of sympathy. The women must have seen the accident coming. They'd thrown their arms around each other so that now they looked like broken dolls clinging to one another. Kat had a horrid gash on her head and her neck was turned in an unnatural angle. Jacqueline was closest to the spot of impact. Her chest had been completely crushed.
The two women were dead.
Venus felt a terrible sense of loss out of all proportion with how briefly she'd known the mortals. “I should have been paying closer attention. I should have been able to stop it from happening,” she whispered in a tired, broken voice. “They were so youngâso vibrant. Their lives were cut off too soon.” As the goddess watched, two glowing golden orbs lifted from the broken bodies of the mortal women. Venus's eyes widened. “Maybe there
is
something I can do!” Focusing her power she spoke the command through her oracle.
“Alight with life and love these spirits areâfree to begin anew, to travel far. So Love herself commands of youâspirits, come to me to complete the task I would have you do!” Venus threw more power into the oracle and, like a flame drawing the mortals fluttering spirits, the souls of Katrina and Jacqueline lifted immediately to enter the stream of energy the goddess created until, with a sound like a champagne bottle being uncorked, they popped through the marble basin to hover in the air in front of the goddess.
When she glanced back through her portal she saw the yellow car burst into fierce flame.
Venus sighed. “Well, darlings, now what are we going to do?”
CHAPTER TWO
"You did what!” Athena sputtered (unattractively, Venus noted) as she stared wide-eyed at the glowing orbs that held the two mortal spirits.
“Well, I couldn't just let them die!” Venus said defensively, patting the orb that floated closest to her. “It was just too awful and too soon. They're both so young.”
“Mortals die. Period. You shouldn't have interfered with what Fate decreed for them,” Athena said.
“Oh, please! These are modern mortals. They don't believe in Fate.”
Hera rushed into Venus's oracle chamber. “What has happened? I came as soon as the satyr gave me the emergency message and Iâ” The goddess broke off as she caught sight of the floating orbs. Her smooth brow wrinkled. “Are those mortal spirits?”
“They are indeed,” Athena said.
“Well, what ever are they doing here? Are they lost?”
“No. They are not lost. They are the spirits of two modern mortal women and Venus brought them here.”
Venus frowned at Athena. “Are you having regular orgasms, Athena? If not, that could be why you're always so grumpy and judgmental.”
“Venus!” Hera's voice was sharp, reminding the Goddess of Love that she was in the presence of the Queen of Olympus. “Why are the spirits of modern mortals in this chamber?”
“One of them”âVenus paused, studied the orbs and finally pointed at the one closest to herâ“this one, I think, is the spirit of the mortal woman I have chosen to help us out with our Achilles problem. The other is her best friend.”
“Which still doesn't explain why their souls are here in Olympus instead of in their bodies back in the modern mortal world where they belong,” Hera said.
“They can't be in their bodies because their bodies are dead,” Athena said. “Actually, burned to nothing but ash.”
“Burned? Dead? But how could you choose a burned-up dead mortal for Achilles?” Hera rubbed her temple with one hand; the other she waved gracefully before her, plucking the goblet of ambrosia out of the air when it appeared and taking a long drink of it.
“It's all really very easy to explain,” Venus said, sending Athena a dark look.
“Then explain. Please,” Hera said.
“I chose the mortal woman for Achilles when she was alive. Then there was an accident while she and her friend were leaving a party and, well, they were killed. I simply could not stand it. They were so young and happy. And,” she added pointedly, “Kat was so completely perfect for Achilles.”
“So you brought their bodiless spirits here?” Hera paused and sighed. “Venus, I understand how easy it is to get attached to mortals, but you didn't do these women a favor. They should be on their way to the Afterlife that awaits them. There is nothing we canâ” Abruptly Hera's voice broke off. A look of shock passed over her lovely face and the goblet of ambrosia slid through her hand to shatter on the marble floor.
“Hera! What is it?” Venus cried as she and Athena rushed to her side.
The goddess's face had gone horribly white. “My priestesses! They are sobbing for me.”
“Here, sit. Breathe deeply and tell us what has happened.” Venus guided Hera over to a soft chaise as Athena conjured a fresh goblet of ambrosia, which she held to Hera's lips, but the goddess waved the drink away.
“It's the Greeks. They are sacking my temple that rests just outside the westernmost wall of Troy.” She passed a shaky hand over her eyes as if to wipe the image from her mind. Hera looked up at the two goddesses. “I don't understand this. My temples do not get sacked. I am Goddess of the Home and Hearth, Goddess of Marriage and Family, Queen of Olympians. There is no reason to defile me.” Hera weaved a little like she was going to faint. “I have to sit down.”
“You are sitting down,” Athena said.
“What do I do?” Sweat broke out over the goddess's too white face. “My priestesses are beseeching me!”
“I don't know!” Venus sat heavily on the bench next to Hera, took the ambrosia goblet from Athena and drained it in one gulp. “I'm Goddess of Love. People fornicate in my temples, which I don't consider defilement. Once in a while a bereft loverâa slightly crazy one at thatâwill hurl himself on his sword, but that really can't be helped.”
“I know what to do.”
Venus and Hera looked up to see Athena putting on the war helmet that had just materialized.
“Do I need to remind you that I am Goddess of War?”
Venus and Hera shook their heads in tandem.
“Then let us go. No one defiles one of our temples and gets away with it.” Athena's hard gray eyes narrowed. “Or you two could stay here. Zeus will probably be angry that I've become involved.”
Slowly Hera stood. Her knees were clearly unsteady, but her voice was sharp as flint. “Zeus and his orders to stay out of it be damned! No one who attacks my priestesses will go unpunished.”
Venus and Hera exchanged a glance. “We're going with you,” said the Goddess of Love. “If Zeus is going to be angry, let him be angry at all of us.”
“So be it,” Athena said. “Stay close to me.”
Before the three goddesses disappeared Venus waved her hand in the direction of her oracle and a shimmering circle appeared around it, holding the two spirit orbs safely within its shell.
They materialized in the aftermath of destruction.
“Oh no!” Hera sobbed. Then she straightened her spine and pressed her lips tightly together. “These are
my
women. I cannot fail them,” the goddess said grimly before beginning to move toward the first of the crumpled bodies.
“Stay with her. I'll deal with the butchers who are still here,” Athena told Venus before striding swiftly from the room toward the distant shrieks and muffled cries that were coming from the exterior of the temple.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Venus joined Hera as she bent over a woman's broken body. As were the rest of the women in this interior room of the temple, the dead mortal was wearing the sky blue linen robes of those who swear to the service of the Queen of Olympus. Venus thought that the fresh scarlet of her blood looked grotesque and a supreme defilement in this temple of Hera's that was usually filled with the soothing colors of pastels, the lovely scent of sweet incense and the music of women's laughing voices.
“She was one of my most elderly priestesses.” Hera's voice was thick with tears. “She tended this temple for more than forty years.” The goddess touched the dead woman's head. “Let your journey to the Elysian Fields be swift and peaceful,” she murmured, and the air around them stirred with the power of Hera's prayer. Hera looked at Venus. “We must bless all of them.”
“Of course.” Venus squeezed her friend and queen's hand, and then the two of them began to make their way from body to body, bestowing on each fallen priestess an eternal blessing for peace and happiness.
It was at the base of Hera's statue in the innermost sanctum that they found themâtwo young women who had died with their arms wrapped protectively around each other. The dark-haired woman had a ghastly head wound. The blonde who had joined her in death had been skewered through the chest by a sword.
“Sacrilege! Blasphemy!” Hera hissed the words, her sorrow and horror at last being replaced by righteous anger. “These two aren't even my priestesses. Clearly they were here beseeching my blessing.” The goddess pointed to the spilled goblet of wine and the broken jar of honey that lay discarded and ruined beside their bodies.
“She looks familiar.” Venus pointed to the dark-haired woman. “Isn't that lovely purple and gold trim on her stola worn only by those of the royal house of Troy?”
“Hera!” Athena's shout interrupted them. The gray-eyed goddess burst into the inner room. She was spattered with blood and carrying a young, blue-robed woman in her arms. The woman groaned and, with a strangled cry, Hera rushed to her, helping Athena to lay her gently on the marble floor. The Queen of Olympus used her lap to pillow the fallen woman's head.
Venus peered down at the womanâand realized she was really only a girl, barely out of puberty. She had a terrible sword slash in her upper arm, which was flooding her and Hera in bright rivulets of fresh blood. Her eyes were closed, but she moaned again, proving she was definitely alive.
“Who did this?” Hera's voice was cold and hard.
“They were Agamemnon's men. This girl told me that most of them had already taken the priestesses of their choice and returned to the Greek camp. I made sure that the few who lingered will be camping in the darkened regions of the Underworld tonight,” she said fiercely.
“We must heal her.”
“Heal her?” Athena frowned.
“Yes, the three of us. We must heal her,” the Queen of Olympus repeated, looking beseechingly at her two friends.
“Did you want us to turn her into a graceful tree or perhaps an ever-flowing fountain to symbolize your weeping?” Athena asked.
“No, I want you to help me
heal
her. She stays as she is.”
“Very unusual,” Athena said. “We usually save mortals by changing them into something else.”
Venus rolled her eyes. “You really need to loosen up.” Resolutely she grasped Hera's hand, then held her other hand out for Athena. “Yes, healing the child is exactly what we will do,” Venus said.