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Chapter 31
Pamela glanced at her watch and gasped, "Eddie! It's four! Didn't you say our dinner reservations are for six?"
"Quite right you are, Pamela!" Eddie bellowed from across the chaotic courtyard. He lurched up from his bench and lumbered over to stand behind Matthew, who was hastily putting the finishing strokes on the fountain sketch. Artemis stepped delicately from her perch and joined him. Pamela could hear them both congratulating Matthew on a job well done.
A job well done...
It was Friday afternoon, and this job was anything but done. How had two and a half days passed so quickly? Pamela ran a hand through her hair. She was exhausted and stressed beyond belief. Her days had been filled with the intricacies of designing Eddie's dream villa: juggling painters and stone layers, solving fixture problems and fabric glitches. Her nights had been filled with Apollo and the sun's love. She'd had very little sleep, and had been working her butt off. And they were still behind schedule.
She wouldn't have traded one single instant of it.
"Pamela, how is this for the faux design on the home theater room walls?" The faux finisher flamboyantly pointed the tip of his feathered pen at a mock-up board that had been covered with a deep burgundy paint marbled with delicate webs of onyx and gold.
"Absolutely perfect this time, Steve!" she said with relief. "This is the exact finish I meant for the room."
"Fabulous! It's going to be just fabulous, dahling." He waved the feather in triumph. "I'll start on it first thing Monday morning," Steve gushed.
"I'll be here," Pamela said.
Steve nodded and fluttered back into the house to happily clean up and leave for the weekend. Much more grimly, Pamela began arranging the day's notes neatly into her briefcase. She would be here Monday. In Las Vegas. The modern mortal world. And Apollo and Artemis would be in Olympus.
There would be no more dinners for them on the deck with the fantastically entertaining Eddie. No more late-night discussions with Apollo about the new marble that had just arrived for the master bathroom - and had been completely the wrong color. No more sketches that the two of them created together, which would soon become stone mosaics on the floors of Eddie's new bathhouse.
But still her lips tilted up in a secret smile as she thought about the past couple days. Besides working with the architect, in person and then later through the phone and a lovely little laptop Eddie had provided, which the god had taken to with remarkable ease, Apollo was becoming quite the movie buff. Ancient god or not, there were certain things that were very like a modern man about him. Like the way he enjoyed learning about electronics, and how he had taken to the remote control and channel surfing. When she came in from working at the villa last night, he had been totally engrossed in the second movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
"Aragon reminds me of Hector. And the little hobbit - the little hobbit has the heart of Achilles' faithful Patroclus."
"Frodo is like someone named Patroclus?" she'd asked.
"No. I was not thinking of Frodo. I was thinking of Samwise. But I hope in the end they fare better than Hector and Patroclus," he'd said solemnly.
Pamela couldn't remember enough mythology to know what he was talking about, but she assured him Aragon and Sam had happy endings.
He'd grunted at her and held up his good hand. "Do not tell me the ending. It will spoil it for me."
She'd almost told him anyway. It was a long movie, and he was running short on time. He may never see Return of the King.
They had made their decision late that night. No, she corrected herself, she had made the decision. She remembered the tension that had radiated through Apollo's body as he realized that she wouldn't, couldn't return to Olympus with him.
"I would be useless there, Apollo," she'd said.
"Useless? How can you even think such a thing?" He'd gestured in frustration with his still-bandaged hand and then sucked in a breath at the sharp pain he caused himself. "By the gods, I will be pleased to be rid of this affliction!" he rasped.
Pamela shifted her position so that instead of being stretched out beside him, she lay across his body facing him. Gently, she rubbed his right shoulder, feeling him relax under her hands.
"Better?"
He nodded and kissed her palm. "Your touch soothes me. It has been the only thing that has the power to relieve this unending pain. Do you see how much I need you with me?"
She smiled sadly at him. "Apollo, snakes can't hurt you in Olympus."
"No, but your absence will hurt me."
"I know." She bit her bottom lip. "It will hurt me to be without you, too."
"Then come with me. You are my soul mate; I am asking that you also be my wife."
Pamela swallowed down the sharp taste of a future devoid of him. If only it were that easy. "What would I do there on Mount Olympus in the middle of all you gods?" She shook her head and barely paused to take a breath when he opened his mouth to protest. "No matter how much you want it, I'm not an artist. I don't want some kind of divine studio where I could pretend I'm talented and interested in creating pieces of whatever for whomever." She shook her head again and sighed. "Apollo, do any mortals live there? Any at all?"
"Many of the nymphs and handmaidens are semi-deities," he said quickly. "And often a priestess or priest is allowed to visit his or her immortal patron."
"Semideities are not mortals. Priestesses and priests visit; then they go back to live their mortal lives," she said sadly.
"You will be my wife. I will ask Zeus to make you immortal."
Pamela pulled her hand from his. "So let's say that I marry you and that I am made an immortal. Then for the rest of eternity, what do I do? I have no realm, like your sister. I have no job, Apollo. I have nothing, other than what I am allowed to have through you."
She saw the flash of understanding in his eyes.
"It would be another cage," he said slowly. "I am not Duane, but that matters little. To you it would feel like just another cage, larger, more powerful, and better gilded, but..."
"Still a cage," she finished.
He took her hand in his again. "Then I choose to stay with you."
Pamela's eyes widened, and she shook her head violently. "No! You can't! You are Apollo, the God of Light. You can't leave your world - not permanently - you know you can't. What would happen to the people there? Wouldn't you be condemning them to darkness?"
"The sun can make its way across the ancient sky without me. My mares know the path my golden chariot must take; they follow it often without me guiding them."
"Apollo, it wouldn't be right. You can't leave Olympus. You can not be a mortal man."
"I have been a mortal man for this week. I can be one for a lifetime."
"And how long would that be? Just look at what happened - on your very first mortal day. You died!" The words burst from her lips. "No matter what you tell your sister or Eddie or yourself, I was there. I watched it happen. You saved my life, and then you lost yours. If Hermes hadn't shown up, you'd be dead right now." She took a breath, feeling herself tremble as she clutched his hand. "I couldn't stand that, Apollo. I can't watch you die again."
"Shhh," he murmured, pulling her into his arms. "There must be a way. We will simply find it."
"How?" she said against the warmth of his chest.
"I will take our case to my father. Ask that I be allowed access to your world."
"What if he says no?"
"I do not know, but Demeter and Persephone found a compromise. So, too, will we." He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. "I will not be separated from my soul mate. You have my oath on that, Pamela."
His mouth had closed on hers with such a fierce protectiveness that she could still feel his lips against hers there in the courtyard. She shivered and focused her attention back on the papers that she was clutching numbly in her hands. It was Friday. The sun would set in just a few hours, and Apollo and Artemis would go through the portal and return to Olympus. She might never see him again. The wash of pain the thought sent through her was her own personal poison.
"Pamela?"
She looked up over the open lid of her briefcase and into Artemis' eyes. The goddess looked like she'd slept very little last night, and even though she had painted on a bright face, thanks to the magic of modern makeup, Pamela could still see the circles that shadowed her eyes.
"You look tired," Pamela told her.
"My thoughts will not let me rest."
"Thoughts?"
"I worry for you. And for Eddie." The goddess's eyes found where the author was talking with his usual animation to one of the fabric representatives. "I find that as dusk approaches I am not as eager as I once thought I would be to leave your world."
Pamela smiled at her. Artemis was no less conceited or spoiled or bossy, but her relationship with Eddie had definitely softened her. She was warmer; less like cold, perfect marble, she had become a real woman.
"I'll miss you, Artemis."
"Then come with us," the goddess said. "If you tire of Olympus, you may visit my realm. My forests will always welcome my brother's wife."
"I can't," Pamela whispered, incredibly touched by the goddess's words. "I don't belong there."
"You belong with Apollo," she said firmly.
"If I go with him, I will lose myself. Eventually, there would be nothing left of me for him to love."
Artemis tilted her head and studied Pamela. "You have great wisdom, my friend. You would have made an excellent goddess."
"Ladies!" like one of the Titans, Eddie's presence shadowed them. "We must hurry. Phoebus awaits, as does our dinner. I have promised to leave you at the entrance of Caesars Palace at exactly eight o'clock tonight so that your own driver can take you from there to the airport."
Eddie frowned his displeasure at the story they had concocted so that the big man wouldn't follow Artemis into Caesars Palace. Artemis had told Eddie that their wealthy Greek family would send its own car for her brother and her promptly at eight o'clock (sunset, according to Pamela's Internet inquiry) at the Palace, and that she couldn't bear to say good-bye at airports. Apollo had, of course, blanched totally white when Pamela had explained to him that a plane was a lot like a big, flying car.
