Goddess of Light (Goddess Summoning 3)

Chapter 23

E. D. Faust's vacation home had been built to look like a charming Tuscan villa. Pamela was relieved. Yes, she'd seen the blueprints and read through the architectural notes James had given her, but after Eddie's bizarre request to make the interior look like The Forum, she had been leery about what to expect. Of course as they got out of the limo and approached the impressive double wrought-iron doors within which was set outrageously expensive, hand-blown, etched and beveled glass, she remembered that she'd thought that the outside of The Forum meant that the inside was modestly styled and classically tasteful. Please. Talk about mistaken first impressions.

She glanced at Artemis, who looked cool and beautiful in the morning sunlight. Her cheeks were attractively flushed, and one long curl of bright blond hair had escaped her elaborate coiffure.

The goddess smoothed down the skirt of her short tunic, hiccupped, and then giggled slightly. Pamela scrutinized her more closely. Oh, crap! She looked tipsy. Why in the bloody buggering hell had she not thought to keep her eyes open and on Artemis? Just exactly how many mimosas had she slurped down in thirty minutes on an empty stomach while she'd been sitting there obliviously clutching Apollo's carsick hand?

"Are you drunk?" she hissed.

Artemis gave her a bleary frown. "Immortals do not get drunk. Only mortals get drunk. Don't be a silly little flower." She shook her finger at Pamela.

Pamela rolled her eyes. "You're not immortal right now, remember!" She squelched the sudden urge to scream. Instead, she looked at Apollo for help. His face was an odd shade somewhere between white and green. She watched him wipe sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Are you okay?"

He nodded tightly. "Better now that we're out of that..." He shuddered and looked off in the direction the car had taken.

"Limo," she said. "It's a limo." She was stuck in a revolving nightmare. "All right. Here's what we do. You two try not to speak unless you're asked a question directly, and even then, I'll do most of the talking. Let's go. We might as well get this over with."

Pamela adjusted the strap on her shoulder briefcase and started purposefully up the lovely curving marble stairs. The twins followed her less purposefully. Just before she touched the antique doorbell, she heard a scuffling sound behind her and Artemis' very out-of-character giggle. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Apollo had his sister's elbow.

"She almost fell," he said under his breath.

"Impossssable," Artemis slurred.

"Oh, God," Pamela muttered.

The double doors opened, and James's smiling face greeted them.

"Please come in, Pamela. Eddie is in the courtyard waiting for you." His smile shifted to polite curiosity as Apollo and Artemis followed Pamela into the foyer.

"These are two assistants I've hired. Experts, really," Pamela said quickly.

"I'm sure Eddie will be pleased by your initiative. He has been eagerly anticipating your meeting all weekend. Come this way, please."

James led them across the foyer, a mammoth space from which two curving staircases with old-world marble railings ran up to a second level of the villa. But the marble railings were the only finished aspect of the interior.

Everything else was bare. The walls were still Sheetrock; the floor was still cement. The entire back wall, which they were approaching, was fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows, so new that they still had their orange factory stickers on them. But Pamela didn't see the rawness as she walked slowly through the unfinished space. She gazed around her, seeing only its unlimited potential.

"It is horrible," Apollo said under his breath to her. "There is no floor, no walls, no decoration whatsoever."

"No, it's perfect," she whispered hastily back to him. "The foundation is here, but the floors and walls are all unfinished; most of the fixtures have not even been installed. It's like a blank canvas. It's my job to choose wisely and to make sure this is turned into a masterpiece."

James was waiting patiently beside the glass door that led to what Pamela already knew from the blueprints to be the central feature of the mansion - the amazing courtyard around which the rest of the villa had been built in an open-ended square shape. When they reached him, James opened the door and motioned them through. It was only then that Pamela noticed the crowd of people who were gathered in the courtyard. In answer to her questioning look, James only smiled and pointed to the middle of the crowd where E. D. Faust was seated at a marble bench piled high with swatches of material.

"Ah, Pamela!" he cried when he caught sight of her.

Rising to his feet, he reminded Pamela of a movable mountain. Again today he was dressed exclusively in black, from his well-tailored slacks to his silk dress shirt, the sleeves of which had been fashioned to mimic the fullness of a painter's smock. Or, she thought as she noted the twinkle in his dark eyes, a pirate's shirt.

"Good morning, Eddie," Pamela said. "This is quite a crowd."

"All for you, Pamela!" He laughed heartily, his great girth shaking like a rumbling earthquake. "I've brought all the artisans to you. I thought it would save us time to have them here at our beck and call. They simply await our commands."

Pamela couldn't believe it. She looked around the group, and her eyes widened as she noticed that each little cluster of people had beside them mounds of what were obviously samples of everything from more fabric swatches to pieces of marble and other raw stone and paint boards that held paint and faux finish samples. Eddie had turned his courtyard into an interior designer's minimarket. It was mind-boggling and more than a little intimidating. Then she remembered she'd brought her own entourage. Well, such as they were.

"Good." She recovered control of her vocal cords semi-smoothly. "You're right. That will definitely save us some time. And let me introduce the assistants I brought with me today."

She angled her body so that Apollo stepped up beside her. Artemis, who had been standing behind her brother staring with tipsy focus at a speck of lint on the back of his shirt, suddenly realized that there was an audience to play to, and she moved languidly to the other side of Pamela.

At the appearance of the golden twins, the gathering let out a collective sigh of appreciation.

"This is Phoebus Delos, an expert in ancient Roman architecture."

Pamela was pleased to see Apollo incline his head politely at Faust, but the author barely glanced in his direction. His eyes were blind to everything except the beautiful goddess who stood at her other side. Pamela drew a deep breath, mentally crossing her fingers.

"And this is his sister, Diana. She is a model who is renowned for her beauty throughout Greece and Italy. I realize that you told me that you preferred to retain Bacchus as the model for the central figure of your fountain, but I thought that perhaps - "

Her words were broken off when Artemis moved forward with a loose-hipped, languid stride until she stood an arm's length from the bulky author. There she stopped, raised one perfect hand to the elaborate twisting crown of her hair, and with a slight pull she freed its golden length so that it spilled in a thick wave to wash around her waist. She shook her head, and it glistened hypnotically in the morning light.

"Pamela thought that perhaps you would rather model your statue after a goddess," she purred.

Pamela had to hand it to her - Artemis was one excellent actress. Just like during her performance in Zumanity, she had the crowd totally enamored. Faust looked like he'd been knocked over the head, then he blinked, and his face was transformed into a wide smile. He executed an amazingly graceful bow, flourishing his arm rakishly.

"Well met, Diana!" he boomed. "My home is honored to be graced by the presence of the Goddess of the Moon, Forests and Glens." He spared a glance for Apollo. "And you, my fine fellow, must be the God of Light. How divertingly entertaining that your mother thought to name you after the immortal twins."

Pamela's stomach twisted. Of course a man who made his career out of writing fantasy would instantly recognize the poorly hidden truth in their names. What the hell should she say? Could Faust possibly realize who they really were?

Apollo smiled and spoke smoothly. "You have found us out, sir."

"Please, there is no sir here. Call me Eddie." His eyes swung back to the woman who still stood in front of him. "Pamela, already you have proven that you are the genius I thought you to be. Now that I am face-to-face with a goddess, I heartily agree with you. The center statue of my fountain shall be changed. Bacchus is banished, and the beauty of the Goddess Diana embraced in his stead."

Pamela breathed a sigh of relief, and Artemis performed a liquidly graceful curtsy.

"No! It is not seemly for a goddess to bow," Faust reached quickly forward and pulled Artemis up from her deep curtsy.

"Finally," Artemis said breathily, "a mortal who knows how to treat a goddess."

Pamela bit her lip, but Eddie chuckled with good humor, took the goddess's hand, and raised it briefly to his lips.

"But of course I do." He looked over the crowd of workers gathered around them. "Which of you has the talent to sketch this lovely goddess so that a stone master can then carve her immortal image into marble?"

"Wouldn't it be easier to have some digital pictures taken of her in different poses, and then the sculptor could work from them?" Pamela asked hastily.

"Easier, perhaps, but it feels wrong to me. Too cold. Too impersonal."

"But Diana will only be available until Friday. After that she has a... uh... prior commitment that she can not break," Pamela said.

"Then we must work quickly, because I wish to have my goddess immortalized in the ancient way. Phoebus, you're an expert in ancient Rome. How would it have been done then?"

"You are quite correct. The sculptor would have sketched his model and then worked from his sketches." Apollo paused and quirked one eyebrow up. "That is, unless you have hired Pygmalion. I believed he worked from the image of the woman he saw only in his heart." He suddenly shifted his gaze to Pamela and sent her a scorching look. "But few of us are lucky enough to have our heart's desire granted."

Pamela forced herself not to squirm. He said he was cut off from his immortal powers, but when Apollo looked at her like that, she felt hot and cold and tingly all at once.

Faust didn't seem to notice the byplay going on between his designer and her assistant; his attention had been captured by his own immortal. "Ah, but we have Diana with us, not Galatea, so a sketch of the model it shall be."

"Galatea was not a goddess. She was only stone brought to life by one," Artemis said, sounding vaguely annoyed.