“Party does seem to be breaking up,” said Zeus.

  “Okay. Okay, okay. So, not only am I summoned by a mortal who doesn’t have the manners to greet me …,” Cloacina humphed.

  “Don’t blame Pandora, Cloacina,” Zeus interrupted. “She’s been injured rather badly, I’m afraid. She’s occupied in a mortal struggle at the moment.”

  “But you know what might be fun?” Jupiter said, looking around him. “If you quieted this thrall a little bit. Clear the house for Varinia. Her husband’s probably going to be executed for attempted murder; the least we can do is help her clean up.”

  “Agreed,” said Zeus.

  “So, what? I’m invited basically to oust the revelers?” Cloacina choked. “Take away the trash? Toss the slop? What does a goddess have to do around here to get a little respect! Fine! Anything to get out of the cavern awhile. I’d advise you to get the family up off the floor or be prepared to get wet. I’m gonna keep this party going.”

  All the immortals immediately levitated themselves a meter off the ground.

  Cloacina tossed her hair back and pointed directly into the pit, which immediately began to fill with water: foul, smelly water that topped off the pit and spilled over the rim, nearly drowning the guard who was trying to climb out. The water snaked its way over the floor and in a matter of moments everything and everyone was standing in a shallow but steadily deepening pool.

  Then Cloacina closed her eyes and circled her forefingers in the air; gently at first, then building into a frenzy as she whipped her hands furiously.

  “Here comes the fun part!” she cried, glancing through heavy lids at Jupiter and Zeus.

  The water began to swirl around, faster and faster, creating a massive, sucking whirlpool. And the water continued to rise. Suddenly, the guard disappeared down into the funnel that had formed in the middle of the pit. Tiles were torn from the floor, chairs were dragged across the room with the force of the suction, platters with half-eaten hens sailed on top of the water only to be lost down the drain.

  And of course … all the people.

  One by one. Two by three by eight by twenty, they were all engulfed, uselessly swimming for their lives in the foul, putrid water, and sucked toward the gaping black hole.

  Pandora was safely in the food-preparation room, both Zeus and Jupiter having seen to it that she was carried off by complaisant, unthinking slaves as soon as she had hit the ground and before the doors had shut. But Alcie, trying to follow her best friend, hadn’t quite made it through the crush of people and had been swept off her feet with everyone else. Now, cursing herself for still not having learned to swim, she was dog-paddling with one hand by Zeus’s feet, holding the pitcher high out of the water with the other, and fruit-swearing every phrase she could think of.

  With a tiny motion of his finger, Zeus lifted her out of the whirlpool and raised her astonished face level with his.

  “You promised you weren’t going to use that kind of language anymore, maiden,” he said.

  “I … uh … did I?” Alcie chattered, never having been so close to the King of the Gods. “Yes, Sky-Lord, I did but again I’m thinking I’m dying. So …”

  “So nothing,” Zeus said. “Go and help someone who probably is.”

  With that, Alcie felt herself flying over the maelstrom, clutching the pitcher tightly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Varinia, Caesar, Melania, the other Vestals, and most of the house slaves hovering in midair as the water swirled underneath. Alcie glanced to her left and saw Crispus also floating and moving through the air. Together, they reached the sealed doors to the food-preparation room which opened for only a moment as the pair flew through, then closed up tight again. Alcie was deposited at Pandy’s side as she lay on a blanket in a corner. She heard a snarl coming from another corner and Alcie saw that Lucius had also escaped the whirlpool and was now being held down by four guards, who had knives poised over his body.

  Alcie crawled over and put her hand on Pandy’s arm as Balbina smoothed the hair back from Pandy’s face, now ashen and cool. They stared at the knife still protruding from her shoulder.

  “Pandy,” Alcie said, hunching over. “Pandy? Balbina, can she hear me? We’ve … we’ve got to get the knife out.”

  “I won’t be responsible,” Balbina said, shaking her head and looking at Alcie. “I have no skill here. I could take that thing out and it might mean the end of her.”

  “But if we don’t take it out, she’ll die!”

  Two shadows loomed large in the lamplight.

  “She’d probably die either way,” said a deep voice.

  “Leave it in, risk the body going into shock and possible infection,” said a second voice, similar to the first.

  Alcie and Balbina turned and stared up at Apollo and Phoebus Apollo.

  “Take it out and you might never be able to staunch the wound,” said Phoebus. “Yes, it’s a rather ghastly, but somewhat ordinary, mortal wound. Normally, I’d say hopeless.”

  “And normally, I would agree with you,” Apollo said. “If this were an ordinary mortal.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alcie.

  “Maiden, rotund kitchen slave, concerned onlookers,” said Apollo. “If you please …”

  Apollo and Phoebus slapped each other’s hands high in the air.

  “Stand back and be amazed!”

  Chapter Twenty-Twox

  A Chat

  “Hellooooo?”

  Pandy heard, or thought she heard, a soft call; an owl perhaps. An “ooooooo” from somewhere far away in the night.

  “Hellooooo?”

  There it was again. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or open and she was in complete darkness.

  “Pandora? C’mon, honey. Hellooooo?”

  “Hello?” she whispered.

  “There’s the girl! I knew I hadn’t taken you too far under.”

  Wherever she was, the inky blackness all around her began to lighten a bit and Pandy saw a shape materialize out of the shadows.

  “Hello, Pandora,” said Morpheus softly, drawing near to her. “I must say, you had me frightened there for a moment.”

  Two oil lamps hanging from high above suddenly illuminated and Pandy realized she was lying on a soft couch in a large cave. She looked up at Morpheus’s beautiful, dark face; his blindingly white, perfect smile comforting her.

  “Why?” she asked, genuinely intrigued. “Why were you frightened?”

  “Because your wound is so severe and the pain is so great for someone of your tender years, the line between unconsciousness and death is extremely fine. I thought I might have crossed it.”

  Suddenly Pandy remembered the knife. She quickly looked at her right shoulder, expecting to see the hilt still embedded in her flesh. She was more than a little surprised to see … nothing.

  Her shoulder was gone.

  The bottom half of her arm was there as was the rest of her, fully functional, but the wide strap of her toga that ran from her neck to her upper arm was hanging limp in the air.

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, you won’t see it again until they decide if they can save you or not,” said Morpheus. “They sent you to me while they talk the matter over, the golden boys. There was no need for you to be conscious, so you’re here with me. We’re waiting for good news! Or not. So to speak.”

  “Golden boys?”

  “Apollo and Phoebus Apollo. You have the best physicians in the world working on you. Although, and I probably shouldn’t tell you this, they’re having some trouble.”

  “With me?” Pandy asked with a start. “Why? What?”

  “Seems they can’t stem the flow of blood.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, and I probably shouldn’t tell you this but … it’s you.”

  “Huh? Me?”

  “Yep. You’re putting up a fight. That’s why they’re having such a time of it. That’s why I thought perhaps I’d crossed the line. There’s a part of you that really wants to cross the river Styx. A part that doesn’t want to go back to the living world.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, it’s nothing you’re conscious of—not topside, anyway. Not when you’re up above being the go-getter we’ve all come to know and love. But here’s this chance to stop running and searching and chasing, and simply settle down, and there’s a large part of you that wants to simply rest now.”

  “Okay, not to be disrespectful or anything, but first …”

  “Fire away.”

  “I’m semi-immortal, so I can’t die.”

  “True. But the mortal part of you could take the immortal part and camp out in the Elysian Fields for a while. I mean, you can’t separate the immortal part of you, so where you go when the mortal part of you finally dies, it will go too. Not necessarily a bad thing. Or you could morph into something else. Many options.”

  “And second …”

  “Lemme have it.”

  Pandy was about to violently protest any suggestion that she wanted to stop hurrying all over the world and quit the quest. She’d already come to the decision not to give up earlier, when she’d shaken herself out of her stupor. Now, there was a question about it? Some renegade part of her brain suddenly wanted to quit and was helping to send her to Hades?

  Of course …

  Of course, if she were hurt. That is to say, through no fault of her own. If she were killed; well then, naturally, she’d have to give up. But it wouldn’t be her doing. No one could blame her. She hadn’t foreseen Lucius’s knife piercing her flesh. No one could blame …

  Then she realized everything Morpheus was saying was absolutely true.

  “And second, you’re right. I’m tired.”

  “Of course.”

  “And this would be … it would be easy.”

  “Extremely.”

  “Not my fault.”

  “Not in the slightest,” Morpheus agreed.

  “No one could say I didn’t try.”

  “Artemis’s delicate underclothes, how you tried!”

  “I got most of them in the box,” Pandy said softly.

  “That you did,” Morpheus said, nodding.

  “I did a lot.”

  “Certainly.”

  Morpheus was silent as Pandy stared up at the oil lamps.

  “Of course, most doesn’t really count,” Morpheus said at last. “Even with one or two evils loose; especially the last one, whew! Tough times ahead. But you did your best and that’s all that matters.”

  “That’s right,” Pandy said. “That’s right.”

  She stared off into the deep recesses of the cave. Morpheus picked at a piece of lint on his black and silver cloak.

  There was no option, of course, no choice, and she knew it. In fact, she realized fully that all the sulking, brooding, and thinking she’d done about finding a way out of finishing had only wasted what precious little time she had left.

  “Most doesn’t count,” she whispered to herself.

  “I need to go back,” she said aloud, looking at Morpheus, who suddenly smiled so big that Pandy thought his face would crack in two.

  “Let’s hope we can get you there.”

  The next instant, Pandy’s shoulder materialized, the knife wound still bleeding profusely. And with it came the unbearable pain. Pandy was so shocked at the magnitude of it that she gasped, then held her breath, as if by not breathing she could somehow stop the agony. She braced herself to scream.

  Then she felt a hand—large, gentle, and unseen—on her shoulder. The pain stopped, and so did the blood.

  “Bye,” Morpheus said.

  Pandy had enough time to meet his eyes and see his smile.

  Then she blacked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rufina. Again.

  Even in the formal entry room, Iole and Homer could hear the screams, muffled as the screamers were fed into in the whirlpool. They heard bones snapping as bodies crashed into tables, broken bits of the dais, and each other. They looked down at their feet and saw dirty water seeping slowly from underneath the doors.

  “Pandy! Homer, help me! Alcie’s in there, Homer—and Crispus!” Iole gasped, trying to peer through a crack, any crack in the door. Nothing.

  “Iole, come on,” Homer said, gently pulling her away. “There’s no helping anyone in that room now. Even your big brain can’t break the enchantment of a goddess. We can’t get in.”

  Iole twisted in Homer’s strong grip, angling to get back to the doors.

  “Iole! Look at me! The windows in that room were high, but maybe they got through them somehow. Maybe Alcie climbed…. there was a door to the food-preparation room, right? We just have to hope that they got out.”

  “Oh, yes!” came a mocking voice from the stairway. “Let’s just hope they got out!”

  Iole and Homer turned to see Rufina, huffing and clutching at the railing as she tottered, unable to see the steps, on her way down.

  “Rufina,” Homer called. “Is there any other way to get into that room?”

  “Shut up, slave,” she panted.

  “Rufina, your parents are in there and something really horrible is happening,” Homer went on, trying to appeal to her love for her family. “You have to help!”

  “I don’t have to do anything. And I couldn’t care less about what’s happening in that room, except that you, Vestal, obviously aren’t yet buried under it! When I am through with you both, you’re going to wish you were in there, no matter what’s going on. I am going to see to it that you are tormented, stretched, ripped, rendered, and …”

  Rufina descended the last step and gasped for breath.

  “That’s it,” Iole said calmly. “Homer, put me on your shoulders.”

  “Where was I? Oh yes, branded, scoured, flayed …”

  “Take me over to her,” said Iole, and Homer walked across the floor.

  “… punctured, pierced, pounded …”

  Iole drew her arm back and punched Rufina right in the face; breaking, from the sound of it, the blob that was her nose. As Rufina fell back, Iole clambered down off Homer and began kicking Rufina in the sides, rolling her around the entry room like a large ball while Rufina yelled her head off.

  “All your fault! All! Your! Fault!” Iole spat out, her body heaving with the force of each kick.

  “Iole!” Homer cried, holding her back from doing any serious damage to the incredibly obese girl. “Come on. Leave her. She can’t get up and with a little luck no one will find her for days.”

  He turned Iole away, making certain she didn’t see him give Rufina one last mighty kick that sent her rolling off into a small anteroom.

  “Ow!” yelped Iole when Homer took her hand to lead her out of the house.

  “What?”

  “My thumb. The pain is excruciating.”

  “Your punching thumb?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Homer asked, “Remember when you hit Rufina; did you have your thumb inside or outside of your fingers?”

  “Inside.”

  “Let me see it,” Homer said, gingerly examining Iole’s swelling thumb. “It’s broken. But hey, nice punch. Lotta blood.”

  “Oh, no,” wailed Iole.

  “Hah!” came Rufina’s voice from the anteroom.

  “It’ll heal. I’ll make you a splint. Next time, keep your thumb outside your fingers.”

  Just then, there was a crash and a shattering in the anteroom as a ceramic urn toppled off a pedestal and conked Rufina on her head.

  “Ouuuuuuch,” came Rufina’s muffled voice, then the sound of her head bumping the floor as she passed out.

  “I’ll remember,” Iole said, with a sad smile. “Next time.”

  “You never took me up on your Maiden Day present, did you?” Homer said, hurrying through the house and stepping out into the courtyard where he quickly untied Dido. “Ten free lessons in self-defense, including hacking and …”

  He looked at Iole who was staring back at the house of Lucius Valerius; now quiet, as if everything and everyone had simply been washed away. Homer was silent.

  “No, Homer, I haven’t taken you up on your offer,” Iole said, stifling a sob. “Maybe if I had, I could have put a stop to all this madness. Somehow.”

  “I don’t think so, Iole. Not this,” Homer said, lightly touching her shoulder. “It was still a nice punch, though. C’mon.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Iole.

  “Your idea,” Homer replied. “Outside the city wall on the eastern road out of Rome.”

  “That was when I thought there was a chance we’d all make it,” Iole said, stopping short. “That was when I saw Alcie was still alive and Crispus—oh, Crispus—he never asked for any of this.”

  “Iole,” said Homer, Dido at his side. “We’re just gonna have to have a little faith.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Healing Touch

  “I will say this, Cloacina,” Jupiter laughed as he surveyed the hall. “You have style.”

  There was absolutely nothing left.

  The tables, chairs, and pillows were gone. The floor lamps, gone. The tapestries and banners, gone. Plates, platters, and goblets … all gone. And there wasn’t a living human to be seen. Two guests, a man and a woman, both still clutching several of the fake aureus, had gotten stuck behind a large pillar and had drowned there and then, but otherwise, the room was empty and silent.

  And very wet.

  And very clean.

  “I do, don’t I?” Cloacina chirped. “You should invite me out a little more often. Let the family get to know me better. Wouldn’t always be turning their noses up at me if they were comfortable, you know? Or you could all come for an evening meal at my place! And then we could go for a moonlit sail on the Tiber. Sound fun?”

  “Yes, my dear,” Jupiter said. “A great deal of fun. Only we’ll have to let all those waterlogged guests get a ways downriver.”

  “Hah,” Zeus agreed. “I wouldn’t want to be the first citizen to gaze at the Tiber tomorrow.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Cloacina.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jupiter.

  “My realms are vast, Sky-Lords,” said Cloacina. “I never said I was sending them into the Tiber.”