By Jove (21 page)

Julian’s voice became low and venomous. “But it happened that one day we disagreed. My dearest friend, my wise elder brother had found something he cared for more—something noisy, troublesome, and crude. When I would have rid creation of this pestilential thing, he defended it and gave it the one thing that would keep it from perishing of its own stupidity—stole it from me. Some say he had help” —he glared briefly at Olivia— “though that has never been proven.”

“Oh, get over it, Julian,” Olivia sighed. “So he gave fire to man. You got more than your own back on him. Thirty thousand years chained to a rock while a vulture eats your liver out every day would seem to me more than adequate punishment for any crime.”

Theo felt Grant jerk and nearly dropped him; only her new divine reflexes kept him upright, for her mind was wheeling. She stared at him, and read the truth in his eyes.

“Yes, Prometheus’s punishment was sweet to me. And it was sweet to let my son Heracles be the one to release him: it made me look magnanimous. But even thirty thousand years of torture could not wipe out the insult. He had defied me. I let him come back to Olympus after Heracles set him free, let him resume his seat of honor. But he never resumed his place in my heart: as before I had loved him, so now I hated him. When our reign as the gods ended, I didn’t weep to see him leave. In time I assumed he had faded away to nothing, like so many other gods have.”

Grant looked up at Julian and his back straightened. “I, fade away? I was probably the one Olympian least likely to do that.”

“Why should I assume that? I thought you’d been dead for fifteen hundred years. I knew when you arrived here that you were an immortal. But the world is crawling with little gods who slink from life to life like beetles, trying to keep from being squashed. Only when it was clear you were interfering with Theodora did I take the trouble to learn which stinking little insect of a godling you were.”

“A stinking little insect of a godling whose bite still stings, doesn’t it?” Grant shot back. “And you didn’t learn who I was till just recently. So much for being all-seeing.”

Theo expected Julian to attack Grant; his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed to slits as he glared at him. She drew herself up, prepared to shield Grant with her body if necessary. But then Julian’s face relaxed, and he smiled an unpleasant smile.

“Yes, you are right. I did just find out who you are. But I found out a few other interesting facts about you as well. Once you were among the mightiest of the Titans. But I hear that things have changed lately. Not feeling quite the thing any more, are you? You should be more careful of your choice of beverages, my old friend. One doesn’t really know where those fancy bottled waters come from, what nasty river flowing out of—”

“Julian! You said you wouldn’t tell!” Renee cried suddenly, throwing herself at him. “You said you wouldn’t tell them I told you. Now you’ve dragged me into the middle of this mess. You
promised
!” She burst into tears and started to beat on his chest with her fists.

“Go, quickly!” a voice said in Theo’s ear. She looked up and saw that it was Olivia. She was staring at Renee. “Get Grant and go. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I think you two need to talk before anything else occurs. I’ll try to keep the interruptions going after Renee calms down.” She pushed at Theo’s shoulder.

Theo did not need to be told a second time. She grabbed Grant’s hand and began to sidle away from Julian and Renee.

My office is open
, a voice said in her head. She looked up and saw Dr. Waterman staring at her. He nodded at her, and she nodded back.

“Come on,” she murmured to Grant. “Upstairs.” Halfway across the room she broke into a trot, still tugging Grant behind her. Passing the bust of Octavian on the stair landing, she resisted the impulse to give it a savage kick.

She pulled the unresisting Grant into Dr. Waterman’s office, closed the door, and shoved him toward a chair.

But he did not sit down. He stood still, staring at the floor for several seconds. Then he slowly raised his eyes to her.

“You’re wearing the stola,” he said.

Theo stared at him. “What?” Then she remembered. Only married women wore the stola. Unmarried girls wore the toga. She flushed. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“No?” His voice was dry.

“No, I hadn’t,” she replied angrily. “I’ve barely noticed anything lately, because Julian’s kept me so drunk on his ambrosia wine that I haven’t been able to think two consecutive thoughts.”

“It’s true, then. He’s given you ambrosia. Marlowe said so.” Why was he looking at her like that?

“He tricked me into it. He—” A sob filled her throat as she remembered. “He came to me in the sh-shape of a cat. A cat, on a rainy night, so I h-had to let it come inside and curl up on the foot of my bed—” She turned away from him, struggling to regain her breath.

“Oh, Theo.” Grant’s arms were suddenly around her. She turned and buried her face against his chest and let her tears flow. How could she have forgotten this? How could she forget his scent, his touch? The thought made her cry all the harder. He held her tightly, stroking her hair and murmuring under his breath until her sobs quieted.

After a few minutes he pulled away and looked at her. “Well, you do make a beautiful goddess,” he said, with a ghost of a smile.

“Grant—don’t—”

“Ssh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry again.” He pulled her back against his chest.

After a few more minutes she was able to ask him, “Is it true? Are you really—who he said you were? Prometheus?”

“Yes, I am. Or I was. I haven’t used that name in centuries.” He sighed and continued stroking her hair. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“Prometheus,” she said again, in wonderment.

“Prometheus the Titan, mankind’s first savior. Until another savior came along, of course, and I went into retirement.” He chuckled without humor. “I always loved mankind. Some used to say that I was the creator of men, and that was why I loved them so. But it was the other way around. Men created me—and Julian, and all of them downstairs—with their tales and myths. How could I not love my creator?” Grant smiled, his eyes distant.

Theo touched his face, the gentle sad face she had loved so much. “You defied Julian.”

“Julian was born a king. It would never occur to him that he didn’t have absolute power over his subjects. So when Julian did want to turn on men and destroy them, I saved them. It was bad enough when I fooled him into accepting the lesser parts of animals for sacrifice. But when I gave man fire—” He shrugged. Theo remembered the horrible twisting scar on his side and shuddered. But Grant was still speaking.

“When the gods fell, I did hide. It’s not surprising Julian thought me dead, because I did my best to fade away. I tried for centuries to die. But I couldn’t. Men kept me alive by retelling my story, comparing me to their Christ because I too had suffered for them. So I couldn’t just fade peacefully away. And my own nature, the one they’d given me, betrayed me. I started to care about them again.”

Theo gazed at him in wonder. Prometheus. She had fallen in love with Prometheus, had teased him and held him and kissed him, presumed to teach him how to love, dreamed maybe of marrying him one day. And he had loved her back. “How did you come here?”

“About a hundred years ago I came to examine America. I liked it here, so I stayed. Mostly I just wandered. Then I heard about the Eleusinian Institute. I came for a visit, and found that a lot of my friends had gravitated there. The Muses, for one—or several. Pan; he loves it up there in the mountains. Several from other pantheons—Thoth, and Ganesha, and others. And Olivia, of course.” He looked at her sideways.

Olivia. “Grant, why didn’t you tell me any of this? If I had known who Olivia was, then—”

“Would you have believed me? If I had taken you in my arms back at Christmas and said, ‘Hello, darling, I’m Prometheus, this is my friend Athena, and I just wanted you to know that you’ve fallen into the middle of the 3025
^th
reunion of Mount Olympus High School, watch out for that Julian character because he’s got an eye for the ladies,’ would you have listened to me?”

Theo bit her lip and looked away. “You’ve changed again. You were so sick before last week that you frightened me badly. Why are you better now?”

To her surprise he laughed. “Better now?” he gasped. “Better now? Oh Theo. I find myself in the grip of mortal illness, and you tell me I’m looking better!”

“Stop it, Grant! What do you mean?”

“But I’m not better now. Oh, I may look better, and it’ll take years to finally finish me off. But unless they find a cure for mortality, I’m sunk.”

“For mortality—but you’re a
god
.”

“Not any more.” He looked down at the floor and smiled that mirthless smile again. “I am now as mortal as—as you used to be. This is what my Pemberley was all about. When I was ill after Christmas, it wasn’t illness. I went to Italy then because the quickest path down to Hades is there, in Cumae. Don’t you remember your
Aeneid
? I went there to collect water from the five rivers that flow out of Tartarus. Drinking the mixed water of those rivers was the only way Olivia and I could think of to kill the god in me and make me mortal. We weren’t even sure it would work until just a few weeks ago.”

“But why?” Theo cried in anguish.

“So that I could be with you. So that I could love you as a man, and live my life with you as a man, and die with you someday as a man.” His words, quiet and steady, hit her like a bomb. “Being a god has held little for me for centuries. I had nothing better to do, so I volunteered to come here for the year because we at Eleusinian like to keep an eye on Julian. And then I met you, and did something I’d never done before: I fell in love.

“You joked and kidded me about it, but I was in desperate need of those humanities classes you gave me. Even though you did your best, I failed. I couldn’t love you back enough, or in the right way, or anything. I thought I was about to lose you, so I talked to Olivia over Thanksgiving about this idea I’d gotten from reading
Pride and Prejudice
. I wanted to become a man so that I could love you, and then one day I would die. The two things I had never done in all the millennia of my existence, the two things that my beloved mankind could do but I couldn’t—and I would do them now with you and be glad of it. I drank that horrible water, and was grateful for every burning, twisting pain it sent through me as it destroyed my godhood, because every drop of it brought me closer to you.”

“Grant—” Theo could feel a similar pain starting to twist her own vitals.

“Isn’t it ironic? I finished becoming mortal just about the same time you finished becoming immortal. I’d planned on proposing to you tonight—telling you all these things, and asking if we could spend the rest of our lives together. Because I finally understood what the worst thing I could suffer would be: it would be to watch you grow old, and die, and know you were lost to me forever.” A tear trickled unchecked down his face, but he wasn’t through yet.

“I failed, though. I was so wrapped up in recreating myself for you that I neglected you, and let Julian walk in and waltz out with you without a murmur.”

“No!” she cried. “He doesn’t have me. He tricked me!”

“Doesn’t he?” Grant shook his head. “After thirty thousand years I thought I knew all about pain. But no one ever told me about the agony of seeing the woman you love taken by another. Yes, you were tricked—and I made it possible for him to trick you. You were distraught and bewildered about me—I was aware enough of that—and he played on those emotions. And now he gets a beautiful consort to bear him children and is able to humiliate me publicly in the process.” Grant’s voice was calm though more tears now slid down his cheeks.

“But I don’t want him! I want you!” Theo said desperately.

Grant picked up her hand and looked at the ring Julian had placed there just an hour ago. “I’m not sure you have any choice in the matter. Maybe if I’d come and put my ring on your finger myself back in December, none of this would have happened.”

His ring! She looked at her right hand. “It’s gone,” she whispered. She tugged at Julian’s ring, trying to pull it off. It would have been easier to pull off one of her fingers.

“Don’t bother. He won’t let you remove his ring. It marks you as his. Do you think he’d have left mine on your hand while he was trying to wipe your mind of me?” The hurt in Grant’s eyes deepened as he looked at her hand. “Was it—was he good? Did you enjoy it?” he continued harshly.

Theo felt like she had been slapped. “Grant!”

They stared at each other. “Oh, Theo,” he said at last, and looked down at his feet. “I’ve succeeded in ruining this beyond repair, haven’t I?”

She reached out and took him by his shoulders. “No, it’s not over! I’m not going to give you up just like that—”

“My darling Theodora,” Julian’s voice said suddenly, from nowhere. She jumped back involuntarily. “If you’re done with your little talk with Mr. Proctor, we would appreciate it if you two could sneak back down here. We have some unfinished business to attend to.”

“When I’m good and ready,” she shouted back.

“Splendid! I’ll see you in a moment, then,” he replied, his voice mocking.

Grant vanished.

With a cry Theo dashed across the few feet that had separated them, but he was gone. How had Julian been able to do that to him?

Grant’s no longer a god, Sherlock. Julian can do what he wants with him.

“Not if I can help it,” she said out loud, and stalked out of the room.

Chapter Fifteen

Down in the Great Room the guests still milled about, though now the fauns were huddled by the door, looking fearful. Theo gave them a reassuring smile as she passed, but they only looked more frightened. She probably had a face like a Gorgon right now. No wonder they were terrified.

Julian still stood in the center of the room, his gold wreath still straight on his sleek head, his tunic and himation unmussed. Renee was being comforted by Dr. Forge-Smythe and Amphitrite, and Theo had the irrelevant thought that Renee’s pink robes would look quite nice on her pale-green companion. Then her attention was drawn back to Julian.