“Get it yourself,” Pol growled.
“No.” Selena’s voice rang out, making Cas wonder why she was so adamant. Would the spell not work if she had to fetch the jar? What was she afraid of? “Give it to me and darling Fiona goes free.”
Cas remained still. Her letting Fiona go “free” might mean dropping her from the ceiling, which was thirty feet above them. They would be trapped and Fiona would be dead or dying.
He could not let Selena win. Fiona’s power was strong, crackling like lightning, but she did not know how to use it, however the hell she had acquired it.
He shared a glance with Pol. Together they ran at Selena again and bore her against the wall. She easily threw them off, slamming Fiona back against the ceiling with a wave of her hand, but a strange thing happened.
Selena—chipped. A small piece of her cheek fell from her and shattered on the floor, becoming dust. Selena slapped her hand to her face, and when it came away her cheek had reshaped itself.
Cas frowned, thoughts spinning in his head. Selena had disappeared from the jar. Fiona’s newfound power hurt her. Part of her skin had chipped like a piece of old clay.
He ran at her again, grabbing her arm and slamming her against the wall. He grinned savagely as she shrieked, another piece of her skin crumbling and falling to the floor.
It repaired itself immediately, but he knew now what he had to do, no matter what the cost, to keep Fiona safe from her. If they did not destroy her she’d grow stronger and stronger until nothing they could do would affect her.
Cas shared another glance with Pol. Pol had seen everything, and they didn’t need to exchange words or even thoughts to understand each other.
Cas walked to the shadowy corner and picked up the terracotta jar. In the painting he and Pol looked grim, which reflected how Cas felt now.
Pol met him in the center of the floor. They took up a stance, back to back, just as in the painting. The Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux, the equal and the opposite, forever together.
Above them, Fiona caught on what they meant to do. “No,” she screamed. “Cas, no, please.”
Pol looked up at her and gave her a sad smile. “Love you, sweetheart.”
Cas also sent her a smile, wishing he could touch her face and kiss her lips one last time. “I love you, Fiona,” he said softly.
“No!” Sparks flew from Fiona’s body and suddenly her hands were free. She pointed her fingers at Selena, but the power still eluded her, shooting past Selena and leaving a scorch mark on a random column.
Cas lifted the jar over his head and flung it hard against the floor. It connected with the marble and shattered into a thousand mute terracotta fragments. “Love you,” he whispered.
He heard Fiona scream before darkness blotted out his world.
* * * * *
“No,” Fiona sobbed as the twins vanished.
Selena turned her face upward. “You stupid bitch, you told them.”
Tears streamed down Fiona’s face, smearing the dirt already there. She had no idea what Selena was talking about, she only knew that the twins were gone and there was an unbearable void in her heart.
She reached out, trying to bring the power within her to bear, trying to focus it on Selena to destroy her. Sparks fizzled at her fingertips, guttering like a light bulb attempting to stay on. Selena laughed at her.
“It didn’t work, and you can do nothing.”
Fiona knew the truth of her words, though she was not certain what didn’t work. She wished Cas could have told her what he meant to happen instead of simply vanishing. She had seen pieces of Selena crumble, but she did not know how to use that to her advantage. Where was the gray cat when Fiona needed her?
As soon as the image of the cat and its orange eyes formed in Fiona’s mind Selena’s laughter cut off abruptly.
The demon demigoddess let out a long keening wail, the cry of a being in unbearable pain, and her hands went to her face. Fiona watched in amazement as Selena’s entire body split into tiny cracks, just like the jar. Crazed lines flowed all over her until she resembled a painted statue, poorly put together.
Fiona suddenly understood, or thought she did. Cas and Pol had risked that breaking the jar would shatter Selena, that so much of her magic had been put into the vessel that she could not survive without the jar. They had sacrificed themselves in order to destroy her.
Anger and power surged within Fiona, certain and strong, and she pointed it at the woman below.
“Break,” she said quietly.
This time, she had no trouble directing the power. Sparks arced from her spread fingers and encased Selena.
The demigoddess exploded. Shards of pottery flew like bullets throughout the room, smashing into the walls and becoming nothing but dust. A few smacked Fiona’s flesh but bounced harmlessly off her to grind to powder on the floor.
Fiona shielded her face as the shards danced around her, becoming smaller and smaller until they fell to the floor in a rain of fine dust.
Selena’s magic vanished and Fiona plummeted downward. She screamed and screamed, pressing her hands out in front of her, desperately willing her body to stop.
She did stop about three feet from the floor. She hovered in midair as though a cushion had caught her, and she lay there, gasping.
When she caught her breath she swiveled her legs to press her feet to the floor, her heart still pounding.
The dank air was cold on her bare skin, but she scarcely noticed it. The shards that had been Selena had disintegrated to nothing, but the painted jar had broken into potsherds that remained scattered throughout the room. Hans’ clothing, not magical, lay in two heaps, with two pairs of worn sandals next to them.
Fiona fell to her knees and gathered the pottery pieces to her, tears raining down her face.
She found a fragment of Cas’ face on one, and she kissed and pressed it to her cheek.
They were truly gone.
She covered her face with her hands and gave herself over to grief. She’d loved them, Cas and Pol both. They’d granted her the gift of life, something she’d denied herself through her long years of study.
They’d made her come out of her shell and live. They’d made her be daring and bold and risk her heart. They’d taught her about wild and wicked sex, but they’d also made her see so much more. They’d looked on a world that was as strange to them as landing on Mars would be to her, and they’d embraced every aspect of it.
She sobbed into her hands, wetting the pottery fragment with her tears. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you.”
Something brushed her foot and she jumped. But it was only the gray cat, staring up at her with orange eyes. It was breathing hard.
Fiona’s anger surged. “I definitely do not want to see you right now. You could have stopped this.”
Not really. You had to do it.
“They’re dead and gone, consigned to oblivion. You told me to perform the ritual so it would give me power. You made them understand that to save me they had to destroy themselves.”
I did all that? Goodness, I was prepared.
“I don’t understand about Selena, though. Why did she crumble to dust? I thought that she was free of the jar.”
No, she was stupid. She put so much of her power into the jar when she created it, that she essentially became the vessel. Her picture didn’t disappear because she was out of it. It disappeared because her essence became it. The cat nudged a painted shard. Without the jar, she couldn’t hold herself together anymore.
Fiona lifted the shard under the cat’s paw. It was a fragment of Pol’s painted shoulder, which made her tears flow again.
“Why did the twins have to die too? Why couldn’t you save them? Why couldn’t this power I gained save them?”
The power can save them. The power is the magical part of them that infused you during the ritual.
Fiona rubbed tears from her eyes. “How do I know how to use it? And don’t tell me I have to search for the answer within mys
elf, because I might have to throw you across the room.”
The cat gave her a patient look. Fiona, you are an archaeologist. A pottery specialist. Do you know what that means?
She sniffled. “It means I’m underpaid, get my fingers dirty and have a permanent crick in my back.”
How amusing. It means you know how to find obscure fragments of pottery and figure out how to put them together.
Fiona stared at the shards in her hands, then at the cat. “Oh goddess.”
The cat intoned slowly, like she was teaching a child. Put the jar together again, Fiona.
“But…won’t that revive Selena?”
What was on the jar when it broke?
“Pol and Cas.”
What will be on it when you put it together?
“Pol and Cas. I hope.”
The cat said nothing. It waited, tail curled around its feet, eyes still.
Fiona scrambled for fragments. “Help me find them. Hurry!”
The cat wasn’t much help at all. She did bat a few of the pieces to Fiona then grimaced in cat daintiness and washed her feet.
Fiona put on one of the discarded shirts then almost cried again when she realized that Cas’ scent lingered on it. Pushing tears firmly aside she pulled the fragments into a pile and then began figuring out where each would fit.
She worked well into the night. She had to leave once to find the motorcycle and a flashlight stashed in its saddlebag. She found a forgotten candy bar in there too, still wrapped, and ate it for the sugar rush.
Fiona knew her job. She had to be painstaking and patient, fitting each piece into its place, calmly setting aside what didn’t fit until she could reason out what went where.
It was tedious work, and her hands were shaking with fear. What if she did it wrong or it didn’t work or she couldn’t find all the pieces?
That kind of thinking didn’t solve problems, she told herself.
She lined up the pieces by shape and design, just as she did when putting together a simple amphora or perfume jar. She bent over her work, her back aching, her eyes straining to see in the gloom. She didn’t dare carry everything out into the open, fearing she’d drop it or leave a vital piece behind.
The night grew cold. She covered herself with the clothes and kept on working. The cat curled up on her lap, warming itself and her at the same time.
Morning came, June sunlight penetrating the staircase opening and sliding across the marble floor. The cat woke, stretched and bounded off after a lizard. The slithering of the lizard made Fiona think of snakes and the fact that vipers existed in Greece. But she hadn’t time to worry about things like that, either.
By midmorning, she had the jar assembled except for one piece. Her heart beat faster as she beheld the painting of Cas and Pol, standing back to back. There was a slight difference in the painting, and she had to lean close to detect it.
Whereas before the two had been scowling, now they wore looks of smug satisfaction.
“Hang on,” she told them.
She steadied the jar as she groped around for the last missing piece, fearing the unstable jar would crumple in on itself. She had no glue handy, just dampness mixed with dust and the fact that the pieces fit together tighter than a jigsaw puzzle. The jar stayed together, to her surprise—perhaps the power that infused her from Cas and Pol was helping.
But she could not find the missing piece. She hunted all over for it, feeling her way across the slimy floor and pointing the flashlight into every corner. She had no way of knowing if it was just missing or had shattered to powder as the fragments of Selena had done.
Tears were flowing from her eyes again when the cat sat down in front of her.
Don’t panic, it’s right here.
The cat dropped a shard from its mouth. It wrinkled its nose then busily began to clean its face.
Fiona cared less that the shard was covered with dirt. She kissed it and set it into place and then sat back.
Nothing happened. Fiona clenched her hands, willing herself to be patient, but she waited and waited and waited. The strip of sunshine crawled across the floor. The cat yawned, tucked its feet under itself and closed its eyes.
Just when Fiona had decided the cat was wrong and putting the jar together did nothing, the vessel began to shake.
A faint glow surrounded it, then suddenly something reached into Fiona and yanked the electric power out of her body and into the jar. She screamed then clapped her hand over her mouth in case she upset the process by making noise.
The cracks sealed themselves, rendering the jar complete and whole, the painting glowing as brightly as it did when the potter had first painted it twenty-five hundred years ago.
A brilliant light burst from the jar, knocking Fiona flat on her back, and then—darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
Fiona woke to whispers.
“She’s so beautiful.”
“And so sexy in a t-shirt and nothing else.”
The first voice softened to a chuckle. “I saw her first.”
“The fuck you did,” Pol answered.
Fiona’s eyes flew open. They lay nude on either side of her, stretched out in lazy contemplation. Cas had propped himself on his elbow and trailed his hand down the curve of her waist, while Pol lay on his back, one knee bent, running his foot sensually over her leg.
She gasped and sat up. “It worked.”
“Told you it would.”
Fiona stared across the room at a tall young woman with ringlets of blond hair held back by a bandeau. She wore a short blue tunic and sandals that laced up her slim legs and had a bow slung across her back. She lounged on a slab of stone, one foot dangling negligently, watching Fiona and the twins.
Fiona recognized her voice. “You were the cat.”
“Yes, and I’m glad you finally figured everything out, because I was tired of all that fur. It needed constant attention.”
Cas laughed softly. “I should have known a huntress would choose to be a cat.”
“Who is she?” Fiona asked.
“Artemis,” Pol answered for him. “Goddess of the hunt and the moon. What are you doing here?”
“Looking after my favorite half brothers. When Fiona began to unearth you a few years ago, I knew there was a chance to finally set you free.”
Fiona sat up, anger surging. “You sat back while they were trapped and never helped them?”
She made a face. “I did help. I was thrilled when someone actually had enough interest to finish the jar, no matter how long it took. Once you brought them back, I kept Selena at bay and pointed you toward the right way to free them completely. Of course, I had to tell you point blank to perform the ritual. Humans can be so dense.”
“That’s what set them free of the jar, the magic I got from doing the ritual?”
“Almost.” Artemis hopped to her feet, adjusting the bow. She was very tall for a woman, probably as tall as the twins, and moved with a leggy grace. “Selena was a half-demon, and demons are extremely self-centered. When she forced Cas and Pol to perform the ritual all those years ago, it was performed in anger on their part, gloating on hers. That’s why the ritual backfired and trapped them in the painting on the jar. Not in ecstasy, but in oblivion.”
“But when we performed it…” Fiona began.
“You performed it in love. The magic of their love filled you and helped you fight Selena. Then when you put the jar together, it returned to them to set them free. Selena’s purpose was to trap them, but you wanted to free them, even if it meant you lost them. And you two.” Artemis pointed a long finger at Cas and Pol. “You were ready to consign yourselves to oblivion to save Fiona’s life.”
“Worth it,” Cas said.
“Well, good thing Fiona’s a genius and or you’d still be pottery fragments.”
Pol nuzzled Fiona’s ear. “She has the magic of archaeology. Very powerful.”
“It’s science, not magic,” Fiona protested.
Artemis
scowled. “Humph, I always thought it was looting. That rude Heinrich Schliemann digging up the place and stealing everything not nailed down and thinking he found Agamemnon—he wasn’t even close. The bronze age princes he did find were quite unhappy to have their burial goods stolen. Humans have such short memories—they believe if a culture has disappeared its spirituality is gone, too. It must be handicapping to see only one spectrum.”
“She likes to lecture,” Pol confided to Fiona.
“Why did you remain in cat shape?” Fiona asked her. “Selena would have been much more frightened if you had appeared in your true form.”
Artemis rested one hip on the stone ledge behind her. The twins seemed unembarrassed to be naked in the goddess’s presence, perfectly content to stroke Fiona’s skin and press kisses to her in front of their sister.
“This isn’t my true form, either,” Artemis said. “I appear to you this way because you would not be able to handle looking at my true form. It might shock you to death, and Cas and Pol would be very upset with me. I was the cat because I couldn’t interfere, not directly. There are rules.”
Fiona raised her brows. “Remembering mythology, I’d say the gods interfered all the time.”
“The stories are the exceptions about us fighting amongst ourselves. We guide, we advise, we protect. We don’t do things for you. But now that you have figured things out, I can appear to you in a more understandable form and say goodbye.”
Pol leisurely sat up. “You’re leaving? Too bad. We found this taverna—you could dance the night away and slay the men who try to touch you.”
She smirked. “Nice. Some of us have work to do.”
Fiona climbed to her feet, hating to slide out from between the twins but wanting to be standing up, relatively clothed, in front of a goddess. “This might sound rude, but why did you come? Why the goddess of the moon? Why not Aphrodite, the goddess of love?”
Artemis barked a laugh that rang through the small temple. “Oh please. She wouldn’t lift a finger if she thought it might ruin her manicure.”
On the ceiling high above them, one of the overly lush, cavorting women suddenly turned her head and looked down. “I heard that.”
Planetary Passions 6: Double Trouble (Gemini) Page 16
