“So, what happened after Rylan and I left last night?”
Juliet was on the phone with Fiona. She called her just before the hotel’s checkout time to ask her a few questions. Seth was on the other side of the room giving off a gloomy aura. He couldn’t help it and she knew why. He couldn’t believe that she could just slide back into being Juliet without skipping a beat after everything she’d absorbed in the past twelve hours. Why wasn’t she like the goddess he remembered? It was obvious, if not to him. She was Juliet, the woman who matched with him, and the Goddess Persephone at the same time. She could gab on the phone like she was eighteen.
Fiona was blowing air into the receiver. “I had too much to drink and ended up calling Chas. Ugh. It was brutal, Juliet. He wouldn’t even talk to me.”
“Oh no! Did he say anything at all?”
“He said he was having a family emergency and that he would call me when it was over. Do you think I should believe him?”
“Actually, I do,” she said after a moment of reflection.
“Why? It was obviously a crappy excuse he came up with on the spot just to get rid of me... Or maybe his family emergency had something to do with his wife. Maybe she had food poisoning or something.”
“I don’t think it was that.”
“Oh really? What do you think it was?” Fiona asked testily.
“Well, I saw Seth last night,” Juliet said soothingly. “I think it was his emergency and I know it was real.”
“What happened?” Fiona’s voice sounded hopeful.
Juliet looked to Seth for guidance and he mouthed, “Wrecked the car.”
She went with that and said, “I guess Seth wrecked the Jag last night.”
Fiona gasped. “You’re kidding!”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Wait! Let me get this straight. You left Hugo’s with Rylan and then somehow you ended up seeing Seth?”
“Yeah.”
“How did that happen?”
“It was really romantic. You might even hear something about it on campus on Monday. Rylan and I were in my dorm room hanging out when suddenly Seth started serenading me on the front lawn.”
“Wow. There must have been a ruckus. Was any blood spilled?”
Juliet laughed like it was a joke, but said under her breath, “Only mine.” Then she said out loud, “Listen, we can talk about that later. I called because I was wondering if you could help me with something. I need to find that guy we met last night, Paulo. Do you have his number?”
“Aw hell. Don’t you have enough trouble with your love life without getting the man-whore involved?”
Juliet sighed. “It’s not that, Fiona. I just need to ask him something. I don’t have to have his phone number either. An address or a place of business would do just fine. I really need to get in touch with him this afternoon.”
“Juliet, I simply can’t divulge that kind of information without a thorough explanation as to why. He would kill me if you started stalking him.”
“I’m not interested in Paulo romantically,” she said smoothly. “It’s because I had a memory of him. I think I met him sometime before I was thirteen and I want to ask him if he knew me. It’s nothing gross. Okay?”
When she said that, Fiona’s tongue loosened up. “He works as director of operations at the Black Jack Art Gallery on a hundred and third avenue. I think he’s even there today, if you wanted to pop by around lunch. Oh wait. Halona says she has a date with him if you want to go with her.”
“No. That’s okay,” Juliet said quickly. “I want to talk to him on my own, so I’ll meet him before that.”
Fiona took a deep breath. “Hey, Juliet, after you see Paulo, do you think you and I could hang out? I want to ask you about some things.”
Juliet smiled. This was leading up the exact alley she needed after she spoke to Paulo. “You know, we didn’t have a club meeting last night. Would it be possible to round up the witches and Halona and have a little impromptu meeting tonight? I could host it.”
“You don’t want to invite Rylan or Taylor?” Fiona asked, noticing she had left those two out.
“No,” Juliet said, her voice tight. “And it would be better if they didn’t know it was happening either.”
“Did you two break up?”
“If only we could actually break up. That would be wonderful. He’s kind of an impossible guy to get rid of.”
“We told you not to date him.”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “You’re right. If I had listened to you, I never would have had any trouble with him. So, do you want to do the meeting or what?”
“I don’t have plans and it’s an off-night anyway, so Rylan and Taylor won’t expect us to have one. So, at midnight like usual?
“No, I want us to meet an hour before sunset instead, and we could have it at Chas and Seth’s. They have a pool, so we could meet there.”
“Is that okay with him?” Fiona asked suspiciously.
“I’m sure it’s fine with him,” Juliet replied confidently.
“What are you planning on doing?”
“Astral projection.”
“Huh?”
“They’re here,” Seth interrupted as he opened the door to let Nixie and Chas into the hotel room.
“I’ve got to go. Please bring everyone and show up at about four-thirty, okay? I’ll supply the refreshments. And even if no one else comes, you have to come, Fiona. Okay?”
Then she hung up.
Since Juliet was still in her pajamas and Chas’ Jag was practically lying in ruins, Seth decided to bring in reinforcements. After all, his whole family was cursed, so all of them might as well be part of the cure.
Juliet hadn’t given Seth any details about who she was going to visit that morning. He’d heard the name Paulo, but she knew from the expression on his face that the name didn’t mean anything to him. If he knew what Paulo was like, then she wouldn’t have escaped the wrath of his expression. The less Seth knew about him the better. That was why she was going to see him, Paulo had to come to the Occult’s Addict meeting.
Nixie gave Juliet a bag of her clothes. Looking at the girl’s figure, Juliet didn’t know how they would fit.
She took the bag Nixie offered and slid into the bathroom while Seth and Chas discussed the fate of the bashed Jaguar.
As Juliet peeled her pajamas off, she remembered how she had felt the night before when she put them on. It was during her date with Rylan. Now she knew that he was really her husband, Hades, her mind was full of questions.
Was the way he acted in Rylan’s body a real facet of his personality? He had been a complete odd-ball since they first met in the Occult’s Addict office. Above all, why was he pretending to be a cross-dresser? Fiona and Halona said it was because Taylor asked him to, but was that really reason enough? He was a cold-hearted monster who had made her life miserable for time out of mind and now he was playing mind games with his fake twin sister?
Separate from that, there were parts of his performance that made her do a double take. He said that he liked her before he figured out that she was Persephone. She would certainly give him points for loving her when he didn’t know who she was, right?
Wrong. Whatever right he had done was tarnished by the fact that the despicable dirtbag had brought a gun to her dorm room. Now she knew why he had it. It was so he could remove her from her body and send her back to the Underworld at any time. He was a human when he was in Rylan’s body and he couldn’t use his necromancy to remove her soul from her body, so he had to carry a human solution, a gun. The monster had said he had the gun because the two of them were playing a game. She smirked. He thought she was playing a game.
She yanked Nixie’s black sweater over her head and stuffed her legs into a crisp pair of jeans.
“Where are the shoes?” Juliet called through the door.
“Oh crap!” Nixie said, rushing to the door. “Sorry. I forgot the shoes.”
Exasperated, Juliet opened the door. For a second, she didn’t know how to deal with the mistake. If it was Raidne or Teles or Chas or Seth, it would have been easy. She would have stepped out and ordered them to get her some shoes and they would have done it, but it was Nixie.
Juliet kept her face expressionless.
“Sorry,” Nixie repeated faintly.
Returning to the bathroom, Juliet retrieved her fluffy slippers and put them back on.
“I didn’t mean to forget them,” Nixie breathed.
“Why don’t you go downstairs and see how Chas is doing with the car?” Seth suggested before Nixie started to cry. She tiptoed out the door before Juliet had re-emerged from the bathroom.
“Are you angry with her? She’s suffered from this mess, too.”
Juliet sighed. “Seth, the women in your family infuriate me, but I didn’t punish her and now I have to run my errand with Cookie Monster feet.”
“Wear my boots,” he suggested.
“They won’t fit,” she said rejecting his suggestion and turning away.
“Even so, they’ll be less conspicuous than Cookie Monster feet,” he said as he returned her to her chair.
“And what will you wear?” she questioned as he knelt at her feet and removed the slippers.
“I’ll wear these,” he suggested cheerfully as he untied his laces.
She looked at him and felt his action warm her heart. The feeling uncurled like a ball of fur in her chest until she could feel what kind of animal it was, and just like that, the animal was love. It was the love they had always had for each other. It hadn’t died and it hadn’t changed.
She bent forward as he secured the oversized boots on her feet. She would have kissed him if she hadn’t seen the clock over the bed. It was past checkout time, and she had to hurry if she was going to meet up with Paulo before Halona.
Juliet got up and put on the jacket Nixie had brought for her. Then she said stuffily, “If Nixie wants to help, then please send her to my dorm room to pick up my stuff. I’m not going back there.”
“Are you planning on staying with us?” Seth asked pleasantly.
“Yeah. Is that okay with you?”
Seth nodded.
“I’ll sleep in one of the old rooms Chas has made up for his donors if they happened to lose consciousness.”
Seth did a double take. “How do you know about those?”
“This life was not the first time I have been there. I remember the layout from after the pool’s construction. I came just before you did to make sure that it was a suitable place for you. You know, before I took this body.”
Seth looked stunned.
“You should get ready,” Juliet said steadily. “What we’re going to do tonight will test you to your very limits. You have never tasted immortal blood. Remember to keep yourself under control, because this is going to be worse than anything else you’ve suffered.”
She stepped up to him and put her hand on his black head. His hair was soft. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him how she loved him and how she had missed him, but she kept her tongue still. It was better if she waited. After tonight, there would be no uncertainty left in him.
Then his hand touched her waist.
Juliet was noticeably moved, but her watchful eyes glanced at the clock again. She didn’t have time if she was going to meet with Paulo.
“Seth,” she mumbled. “Can you give me some money?”
“Money?” he twitched.
“Yeah. After I see Paulo, I want to take a cab back to your place. Is that okay?”
He instantly pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and gave her a couple bills. “I hope that will be enough.” He had given her everything.
She was about to kiss his forehead when she realized how that would make him feel. “Thank you,” she said as she pocketed the money. “I don’t have any money.”
“So you said.” He looked at the floor. “Don’t you need to go?”
“Yeah,” she said as she moved away from him. Then with one last painful look at him from the doorway, she left. She had to.
***
The Black Jack Art Gallery was only five blocks from the hotel, so Juliet walked there in Seth’s boots. The gallery had a large foyer that connected to a gift shop and then to a corridor that led to the displays. Juliet walked up to the glass ticket box and asked the woman inside if she could see Paulo.
“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked drolly.
“I don’t.”
“Well, you’ll have to make one. If you want to telephone his assistant, the number is—”
“I’m sorry,” Juliet interrupted. “I’m his sister. He’ll want to see me.”
“His sister?” the woman chirped. “Sorry, that line isn’t going to work on me. I’ve known Paulo for years and I know that he’s an only child.”
“I’m his half-sister. Intercom him and tell him that his sister Juliet is here to see him. I’m positive he’ll let me right in.”
The woman looked doubtfully before she dialed the number. “Denise, there’s a young woman at the front desk to see Paulo. She says she’s his sister, Juliet. Yes, I’ll wait.”
A minute passed before Denise got back on the line to give the verdict.
“He’s coming out,” the woman finally said.
“Thanks. Can I go in?”
She nodded, but Juliet didn’t get two steps before Paulo appeared. His face was set in hard lines as he approached her. He was studying his phone and hardly glanced at her. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled wanly. “I have to apologize for last night. I wasn’t myself.”
“If that’s all you came for, it’s fine. It’s not like I was fooled by your little game,” he said, as he finished with his phone and stuffed it in his pocket. “I actually have a lunch date and a bit of work to finish before she gets here, so if you don’t mind, can we do this some other time?”
“Paulo,” she said, taking a deep breath and blowing a bit of her hair off her forehead. “Please don’t cut me off. I didn’t come here just to apologize. I have another reason. Could you give me a minute? I’m sure Halona won’t mind if you’re two minutes late.”
“Fine,” he said blankly. “Two minutes.”
“In your office?” she suggested.
He rolled his eyes and began leading her toward the back. “You know, it’s not like you haven’t had two thousand plus years to ask me anything that has been on your mind. Why do you need to talk to me right now when I’m so busy?”
“You’re exactly right. The thing is, I have a favor I want to ask you, but I didn’t like to bring it up until the situation became paramount.”
He opened the door to his office and held it open with his hand on the door over his head. “Get in.”
She went in and presumptuously sat down in the chair behind his desk.
“Make yourself at home,” he said drolly as he shut his door and leaned against it. “Now do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“I need a favor from the great Sun God, Apollo.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Of course you do. It’s good to know that you recognize me now. How could a goddess be fooled by my disguise?” he said, not changing his swarthy looks one iota.
“Except this isn’t my body,” Juliet admitted.
“Whatever. Necromancy is weird—making corpses ninety-nine percent alive. As if I wouldn’t know a dead person when I saw one or recognize my sister using her own soul as the elixir of life. What do you want?”
“I want you to go to the Underworld and have a look at my body.”
He snorted. “What for? You’re a goddess, so you don’t exactly need medical attention.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I finally figured out how to break Hades’ contract with me. I need you to examine my body and find the locations of the pomegranate seeds I swallowed. I think I’ve been able to spot two by myself, but I can’t find the other four.”
Paulo shook his head irately. “You know, even if I can find them, it’s not like I can remove them. My medicinal skills are for humans, not for auto-regenerating goddesses.”
“You’re not going to be the one to cut me open.”
“What? Are you going to do it yourself? How are you going to manage that?”
“No. I’ve been preparing someone to do it for me. That’s the other half of this favor. I want you to escort him to the Underworld.”
Paulo looked extremely uncomfortable. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I haven’t agreed to do anything for you and even though I’ve allowed our conversation to go this far, it has gone far enough. I’m not going to help you leave your husband.”
“Why not?” she snapped. “Didn’t you fall to your knees and weep when I was stolen from Olympus?”
He wagged his head. “What happened to you back then was despicable, obviously. The thing is, I think it’s too late to set it straight. And why would you want to? Hades has been completely faithful to you for thousands of years. What other god has been so faithful to his wife?”
“Stop talking,” she spat. “You just don’t want Hades on your doorstep because even though he couldn’t kill you, he would make you pay dearly for moving against him. Didn’t you say the other night that he outranks you? The thing you’re not getting here is that I’m not asking you, I’m ordering you.”
“What could you do to me that would give you the power to give me orders?” he gawked.
“It’s not what I would do to you. It’s what I would do to your latest lady love. It’s Halona these days, isn’t it? Judging from your poem,” Juliet sneered.
His face went pale. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t think that I wouldn’t. I have lived in the Underworld for millennia. I don’t even think of death as an ending anymore.”
“I thought she was your friend!”
“What of it? I thought you were my friend. Besides, she won’t suffer, unlike me. If you don’t help me, I will be cut to ribbons as my surgeon searches for the seeds. Even with your help, what I will suffer will be incredible. Even gods and goddesses have nervous systems.”
Paulo stroked his chin and looked thoughtful.
“I know you’re worried about Hades coming for you afterwards,” Juliet supplied in a tolerant tone. “I can’t promise you that he won’t, but he might not.”
“Why not?”
She sighed. “I just don’t think he’s very vengeful in temperament. When he finds out, I think he’ll come after me, not you.”
“And you would really kill Halona if I don’t do what you ask?” he questioned like something sour was resting on his tongue.
“I don’t want to. I like Halona, but since you won’t help me voluntarily, I need to use what leverage I have. Even I think it’s petty, but what am I supposed to do? I wasn’t able to defend myself back then and my soul screams for freedom. I want to have the choice, Apollo. I’m sure you understand that. You never married, because the choice has always been yours.”
A strange silence filled the room as the two of them contemplated the situation angrily.
“I was supposed to marry you,” he finally said.
Juliet stared.
“That’s what Demeter had in mind when she refused Hades.”
After a moment of reflection, she said quietly, “I didn’t know you wanted to marry me.”
“I didn’t particularly. I only thought of you as a sister, even though it’s quite common for siblings to marry on Olympus. Demeter has always been fond of that kind of union since she is Zeus’ sister. Our marriage was on the table at counsel the night Hades asked for you. Demeter asked me if I wanted to marry you and I said no. That was when Hades interrupted and made his intentions known.” Paulo sat down on the corner of the desk and looked into Juliet’s face tenderly. “It wasn’t that I didn’t care for you. It was just the feeling I had for you was philia instead of eros. You were an infant, just like all those sweet spirits you sent here.” He paused. “When I saw him ask for you, I thought two things. I thought that he would make you a better husband than I would because he was passionate about you while I was empty. Still, I didn’t want him to have you because I thought his darkness would spoil you. I felt it so strongly I was willing to go to war over it, but now that the darkness has already done its work, I don’t know that you should be freed. The balance the two of you keep over the souls of this world is perfect. Why not just embrace your joint role with him?”
It was Paulo’s second attempt at getting her to forget her plan. Juliet knew it marked the end of their conversation. “Stop it. I get what you’re saying and I don’t care. I won’t change my mind. I want freedom and choice.”
“Hasn’t one part of you grown to love him during all the time that you’ve lived with him?” Paulo entreated.
She looked up into his brown eyes and said coldly, “How dare you be so hypocritical? You would throw me back into his arms where I have been abused for thousands of years, when you’re terrified to meet him by yourself for one hour. You know what? Forget Halona. When my seeds are removed and I’m free, I’m coming after you.”
He laughed. “What are you going to do, little Goddess of Fertility?” he asked mockingly. “You can’t even cut your own skin.”
She narrowed her eyes hatefully. “I can. I have. And I can hurt you even if I can’t go to battle with you. Well, maybe from today onwards you’ll get every single one-night stand you have pregnant.”
Paulo looked horrified, he had looked less upset when she threatened to kill Halona. He was willing to bet that had been an empty threat, but the idea of a child after every dalliance he had with a human woman seemed more in line with what the Persephone he knew could and would do.
Moments passed and he still didn’t answer her.
“Are you going to help me or not?” she sighed. “Zeus has lent his one favor to me for this cause. All of my effort for centuries has been for this end. If you don’t help me, I will do it anyway. I’m only asking you to ease my burden and if there’s something I can do to protect you from the wrath of Hades, or any other favor, I will do it.”
“I hate this,” Paulo said