I nod. “Crouching Venus. The original is in the British Museum. This must be a reproduction, but a contemporaneous one—from the same time period. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
It’s my favorite Aphrodite. Usually, she’s depicted standing and naked, as if on display. Here, she’s crouched and covering herself with one arm while she looks over her shoulder, as if some unwanted intruder approaches. The upright nude statues speak to pride. Witness me, I am beauty incarnate. This one resonates with me more. Some see modesty in her pose and expression. I see exasperation and annoyance.
Stop looking at me. Stop chasing me. I am more than what you see.
“I forgot to ask what you’d like to drink,” Marius calls from the next room. “Beer? Wine? Spirits?”
“Beer is fine,” I say.
“I’ll take . . . a whiskey,” Connolly says.
A chuckle from the hall as Marius peeks around the corner. “Scotch, I’m guessing.”
“If you have it.”
“Oh, I have it. I have it all.”
When Marius is gone, I move to the statue in the corner nearest Aphrodite. As I approach it, my breath catches. Another one I know well.
It’s a young man, sitting on a chair. There’s a length of fabric wound around one arm and over one thigh, but he’s otherwise naked, showing off a perfectly muscled body. It’s the expression that gets me as it always does with this statue. His head is slightly tilted, looking away from the viewer, lost in his thoughts. The pose is casual, one foot resting on a helmet, his hands on the hilt of a sheathed sword. A shield leans against his leg.
“Another god?” Connolly says.
“You don’t recognize him?”
He shakes his head.
I reach out to touch it and stop myself. “That’s because he’s usually shown older. Bearded. Look at the objects with him. Sword. Shield. Helmet . . .”
“A warrior? God of . . .” He frowns. “Ares?”
I smile. “God of war. He looks different here, doesn’t he?” I nod at the Crouching Venus. “Neither is what we expect. They’re more nuanced portrayals. Deeper. More . . .”
More human.
I don’t finish the thought. My brain has already raced ahead, seizing something in these statues and running with it. Running to a place that makes me almost laugh, and then stop. Stop and think.
No, that isn’t . . .
That can’t . . .
I wheel on Connolly so fast he startles. “Hector was limping tonight. I thought he hurt his foot in the chaos.”
Connolly shakes his head. “No, he has a limp.”
“A twisted foot,” I murmur.
I just stare at the two statues and remember all the little things tonight that didn’t quite make sense. The undercurrents running through the gala. Hector and Vanessa. Marius and Vanessa. Hector and Marius. The last nudges hardest as I remember Marius when the necklace came out and then when Connolly declared it a forgery.
You don’t want to admire the craftsmanship?
Go have a closer look, Hector. You can clear this up. You are, after all, the expert.
Get off your ass, and check the damned necklace.
“Kennedy?” Connolly says. “You’re thinking something.”
When I hesitate, he leans in, breath warm on the top of my head. “If it’s a theory, you can share it.”
“However crazy it sounds?”
He nods. “I know I’ve made you feel . . . patronized. I hope you’ve come to understand that I don’t mean that. However wild the theory, I’d like to hear it.”
I still hold back. It really is wild. Crazy. Preposterous, even. He can say he won’t judge me for it, but he presumes my theory is just slightly off-the-wall. Not this.
Yet it fits. It all fits. The only alternate explanation I can come up with is that we’re the audience for a very elaborate performance. Which makes no sense. We’re a couple of twenty-something nobodies to these people. There’s nothing to be gained by such a setup.
Which means . . .
Oh, hell. I have no idea what it means. The only thing I can do is share it. A leap of faith in Connolly and how far we’ve come.
I tell him my theory. He blinks. That’s it. A blink that says he must have misheard. He looks from the statue to me.
“Did I mention the crazy?” I say. “Forget I said anything, okay?”
I start to turn away. He reaches for my arm, but I’ve moved, and his fingers land on my hip instead. They rest there lightly as he leans toward me.
“Tell me more,” he says. “Give me data. My mind isn’t like yours. You’ve seen clues I haven’t. Share those. Please.”
I do. As I talk, he doesn’t react. I think that’s my answer. He isn’t making the same connections. He’s right. Our brains work differently. I have the wild imagination, and sometimes that helps, my “outside the box” thinking. He’s the analyst. I’ve provided the data, and he’s processed it and found my theory flawed.
“How do you want to . . . ?” he says and cuts his gaze toward the hall.
It takes me a moment to realize he’s saying my theory is sound. That, as crazy as it seems, the explanation works. Before I can react, Marius comes in, carrying a tray of bottles and glasses.
“I brought Macallan and Ardbeg for Aiden to choose from,” he says. “I prefer the Ardbeg, but Vess says it’s too peaty.”
He notices the statue we’re admiring and nods but says nothing, just sets the tray on a table.
“Ludovisi Ares,” I say, gesturing to the nearest statue.
That makes his eyes light up. “It is.”
“It’s missing Eros, though.” I nod at the statue’s leg. “That was a later addition, I believe. From the Renaissance-era restoration.”
“It was. A rather ridiculous one, too. Who looks at that statue and says, you know what it really needs? Cupid.”
“Eros is Ares’s son.”
He rolls his eyes. “No, Eros is like that long-lost nephew they shove into long-running TV shows. You know what will spice this up? A cute kid.”
I gesture from Aphrodite to Ares. “I like your choices.”
“Do you?”
I nod. “They’re unique representations. Nuanced. Like real people.”
He wrinkles his nose and waves at Ludovisi Ares. “Not sure I’d call that nuanced. It’s an idealized version. A boudoir shot, all hazy lighting and filters. But statues are always that way, and I like this one best.”
He hands me my beer and a glass. When I wave off the glass, he grins and takes it back.
“Not sure I agree on the idealization part,” I say. “They’re gods, right? They should be perfect specimens.”
“Depends on your view of gods. You’re supposedly descended from them, right? You from the arae.” He nods at Connolly. “You from Fortuna. How do you reconcile that? Having gods in your family tree?”
I shrug. “My grandmother would say that it depends—like you said—on your view of gods. A mortal with powers could be mistaken for one. That works for the arae—a group, rather than individuals. When it comes to the actual named gods, though? The issue is time.”
His brows rise.
“Imagine one mortal woman has power, maybe a lot of it,” I say. “People revere her as a god. But are they still going to be doing that a thousand years after she dies? Two thousand? On a large scale, especially in prehistory, you’d need more. Godhood would need to be conferred by the greatest power of all: immortality.”
“Reasonable,” he says and then opens his beer. “Not gods residing on Mount Olympus then, but humans with gifts, one of which is immortality.”
“Yes.”
He sips his beer. Just sips it. He’s waiting for me to go on. That’s all I’m getting. All the steps are mine. All the heavy lifting is mine. If I don’t have the guts to make this leap—if my ego can’t risk the humiliation of a mistake—well, then I don’t deserve answers.
I look from the statue to Marius, trying to mentally find the
bridge. My natural inclination leans toward humor. A joke. A clever quip. I’m grasping for one when Connolly, who has been silent until now, speaks.
“Someone set up an appointment with Kennedy,” he says, “under the name Erin Concord. Erin for Eris, another name for Discord. Concord as another name for Harmonia. Alluding to the necklace with a little clever name play. I think you all have an affinity for that—plays on names.”
Connolly nods toward the statue. “Mars, also known as Ares.” A nod toward the other statue. “Venus, also known as Aphrodite. Hephaestus, also known as Vulcan. Marius Archer. Vanessa Apsley. Hector Voden.”
Marius throws back his head and laughs, the sound echoing in the giant room. Then he looks at us, still grinning. “Well, that took long enough.” He lifts his beer. “Bring your drinks, and let’s chat.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
We settle into the seating area by the fireplace. I take the love seat and Connolly sits beside me, close enough that our hips touch. I could read something into that, but I understand it’s protection. He’s staying close, presenting a united front in case of trouble. After all, we did just unmask the god of war. Even if he is chilling in jeans and bare feet, drinking an IPA.
It does make sense. The clues were all there, not the least being that he’s an actual freaking arms dealer. Well, military technology, but it’s the theater of war, and that is his stage.
Still . . .
I begin. “I think we can be forgiven for not jumping to the conclusion that the people we’re hanging out with are actual Greek gods.”
Marius makes a face.
“Fine,” I say. “Not gods. Still the actual beings whose names and deeds we know two thousand years after the fall of Rome.”
“I’d be careful with the ‘deeds’ part. Think of mythology as classical tabloid stories and take them all with a boulder-sized grain of salt. Lacking actual celebrities in the ancient world, people pushed immortals into that gap. Who’s sleeping with whom? Who’s . . . well, mostly who’s sleeping with whom. Or who’s raping whom.” His lip curls. “Like the one about me raping a vestal virgin and fathering the twins who founded Rome. Did not happen.” He pauses. “Well, the twins, yes. And the vestal virgin. But it was consensual. Like I said, celebrity status. Some vestal virgins figured banging a god was a loophole to their vow of chastity.”
“So you and Vanessa . . . ?” I say.
“We were on a break. It’s been over three thousand years. There have been a lot of breaks. Like the latest one. But . . .” He fingers the label on his beer. “I need to tell you a few things about Vess before she gets here.”
“Is she actually coming?” I say.
He nods. “I did ask her to invite you here, and then I suggested she had plenty of time to change first. Before she arrives, you need to understand about the necklace and about Hector. She won’t want to talk about them, or if she does, she’ll gloss them over.” He gives a very-Vanessa dismissive wave. “Oh, it was nothing. The past is the past. It’s all fine now.”
“It’s not fine,” I say.
His lips tighten, and he glances to the side, looking so much like his statue that chills run up my arms.
“No, it’s not fine. It’s never been fine. That’s what I was—” He straightens. “More on that in a minute. What do you know about the Hephaestus and Aphrodite myth? How they got together?”
“Hera was caught in a magical trap. Hephaestus knew how to free her and demanded Aphrodite in payment. Zeus happily agreed because it kept the gods from fighting over her. Not only was she the most beautiful woman in the world, but well, she was one of the few goddesses who wasn’t a blood relative.”
He chuckles. “True enough.”
“So Hector really is your brother. Zeus is your father. Hera’s your mother.”
“Et cetera, et cetera. Yep. There are other immortals, but we were the one family that reliably bred them. Vess was the daughter of an old immortal, who brought her to my father for fostering when she was twelve. I was a couple of years younger than her, so we became friends, and I was definitely not part of the potential bridegroom pack—I was only fourteen when she married. As for the myth, yes, my mother got caught in a magical trap, which I suspect Hector devised himself so he could demand Vess. He wanted her. She did not want him.”
Marius’s gaze travels to the other statue, Venus covering herself as she looks over her shoulder at an unwanted intruder. “She was sixteen. Handed over as payment for services rendered. That was hardly unusual at the time. Hell, it was hardly unusual until the last century. Vess did what most women of her time did. Accepted her lot and tried to make the best of it. Put that in a story today, and she’d seem weak. Vess may be much older and wiser than she was then, but one thing she never was? Weak. Or stupid. That’s always the story, though, isn’t it? The gorgeous, empty-headed goddess of love. Like the handsome, dumb-as-dirt god of war. No wonder we ended up together. We can just sit and admire one another and never be expected to make actual conversation.”
He shakes his head. “The point is that Vess was not weak or stupid. She knew there was nothing to be gained by fighting the marriage. The problem was that Hector didn’t want Vess the woman. He wanted Vess the thing. The object. The prize. The most beautiful woman in the world was his, and he sure as hell didn’t want to have to talk to her, much less treat her like an actual person. She was the ultimate trophy wife. A trophy to be kept in a very tiny box and brought out for display. These days, people see control for what it is: abuse. Back then?” He shrugs. “The older immortals told Vess she should be happy. Hector didn’t beat her. He put her on a pedestal. He protected her. What more could she want?”
“Freedom. Agency.”
He smiles, warmth setting his face aglow. “Agency. Exactly. So eventually she took it, which included . . .” He points at himself. “The biggest so-called cuckolding in history.”
He shakes his head and sips his beer. “In the modern world, she’d have left Hector the moment she decided she wanted to be with me. That wasn’t an option. Hector was her husband. Zeus was her foster father. They owned her. So we started our affair as discreetly as possible but . . .” He shrugs. “We were young, and the young are never as discreet as they think they are. You know the story, I presume?”
“Hephaestus put a golden net over the marriage bed, which caught Ares and Aphrodite, and he then brought in all the gods to witness it.”
“I sure as hell never slept with Vess in Hector’s bed. And there was no magical net. Just my greedy bastard of a brother who wanted to humiliate his wife while demanding back what he paid for her. He found out where we had our love nest and brought witnesses. Then he demanded I repay the marriage price to her adoptive father, who is also our father.”
“That’s not complicated at all.”
“Tell me about it. According to the myth, I defaulted. I didn’t. I paid every last drachma—happily, because it meant Vess would have her freedom. Hector’s the one who defaulted. Took the money and refused to let her go. Said if she ever left him, he’d kill me, which meant she’d never leave him.”
“He still calls her his wife,” I say.
His jaw tenses. “A technicality. One can’t obtain a modern divorce when one can’t prove a marriage. They’ve been apart for over a millennium, and she still isn’t free of him. Wherever she moves, whatever circles she travels in, whatever business she does, he’s right behind her, elbowing his way in. Whole damned world to live in, and he’s two hours from her doorstep.”
I could say Marius lives even closer, too, but that’s different. While they may not be together, I get the feeling they’re never really apart, either, and that’s by choice. A romantic might prefer to imagine a love so deep that a couple stays together for eternity, but this seems more real. Friendship is what truly lasts. I see that sort of love in the way he talks about her, in the anger he’s struggling to tamp down when he discusses her past.
As for Hector, that absolutely isn’t
love. It’s obsession. Not active stalker-peeping-in-her-windows obsession, but a more insidious kind. She and Marius move to New England, make a home for themselves, start a business network, and Hector sees both a business opportunity and a chance to remind them they’ll never be free of him. I’m sure some people would ask why Vanessa doesn’t just move on again—the same people who’d ask an abused woman why she doesn’t leave the city where her ex lives, leave the firm where he works, leave her friends and her family and her job and let him have the satisfaction of driving her out. The question is particularly moot when I suspect Hector would just do it all over again. She has learned to live with him. Learned to be civil to him and enjoy her life despite having him in it.
“On to the necklace,” he says. “That’s the part you really need to understand.”
“Why she had to leave the room at the party,” I say. “Why she won’t be around it.”
He looks at his beer, then puts it aside, pours an inch of Scotch into a glass and downs half.
“Time . . . is different for us,” he says. “It passes differently, perhaps because we have so much of it. Some of our children are immortal. Most are not. Vess and I have seen our children grow old and die, our grandchildren grow old and die, great-grandchildren, too. I say our children. The myths say that, too. We consider them ours because . . .”
He finishes the drink. “Vess was still Hector’s wife, and for a very long time, he expected everything that comes with that. To my shame, I never thought much of it in the early days. You’ve seen how Vess is. That airy dismissal. This was the same. Sex was just another wifely chore like managing his household. She loved me, not him. I actually congratulated myself for being so forward-thinking, understanding her situation and not being jealous. I often wonder whether that’s the one thing she can’t quite forgive me for.”
He eyes the bottle but then sets down his glass with a decisive clink. “She was his wife. That meant she could not refuse him sex. So when I talk about our children, that’s because he refused to recognize any of Vess’s children as his, even when some very clearly were. I happily claimed them and parented them with her.”
Cursed Luck, Book 1 Page 26
