Aphrodite's Kiss (4 page)

“Everything depends on the stone,” Hieronymous said. “My plans. Your future.
Our
future.”

His father made it all sound so simple. The council’s archaic philosophy needed to be swept aside so that someone with vision could step in. Hieronymous was simply ahead of his time, and the moment of change was fast approaching.

Right now, the council spun its wheels in a futile effort to protect mortals from their own stupidity. Instead of being gods, council members were practically slaves to mortals, running around saving them from burning buildings or runaway trains. Soon, though, that would change.

Hieronymous aimed a steady stare at Mordi. “You spent much of your youth with the girl. If it becomes necessary for you to face her, are you sure you won’t be adversely affected by some pathetic sense of familial loyalty?”

He considered the question. They were cousins, but they’d never been particularly close. Zoë, after all, had her family. And, truth be told, Mordi had always envied her for it. That little bit of envy had always sweetened his inevitable victories over her in each of the frequent tests during their training. “No, sir,” he said finally. It wouldn’t pain him at all to defeat Zoë again.

He frowned.
Still
...

“There is something you wish to say?”

Mordi took a breath. “It’s just that... Well, it is only a legend, after all.”

Hieronymous swept his arm, indicating the room lined with bookcases packed with rare, leather-bound editions and glass cases filled with odd archaeological finds. “I have spent half a lifetime pursuing this question. Aphrodite’s girdle is real, as is the gemstone that forms its centerpiece.”

“But the girdle’s been missing for centuries. Just because of that story you believe the stone’s going to somehow end up with me or Zoë?”

Hieronymous sighed. “Must you be so frustratingly pragmatic? There are too many coincidences not to believe the legend. You and your cousin are both halflings, both born on the same day. Your twenty-fifth birthdays fall on the day of the eclipse. And this, too.” He plucked a plastic box from his pocket and handed it to Mordichai. “The stone is in Los Angeles.”

The box blinked in his hand. “A tracking device? How?”

“Generations ago, the stone was set into a necklace that has certain unique properties, the characteristics of which remain a family secret. A legacy, if you will. I was able to create a device that honed in on those characteristics. This week, finally, the device detected a signal.”

Mordi nodded, silent, as he stared at the blinking green light.

“You will not fail me.”

“No, sir.”

“Excellent. When the eclipse comes, you will prevail,” Hieronymous said. “Little Zoë will have to continue her life as a mortal.” A slow smile graced his lips, and Mordi shivered. “An unfortunate existence, considering what we intend to do to the mortal population, but, hey, those are the breaks.”

* * *

“Well, if it isn’t George Bailey Taylor.” Harold Parker chewed on the end of his unlit cancer stick. Beside him, Tweedledum and Tweedledee shifted, practically snarling.
Stupid oafs
.

“You owe me eight hundred dollars, Mr. Parker.” Taylor had made up his mind to quit this case even before he’d backed out of the parking lot at South Hollywood Elementary. Now it felt good to finally be turning his decision into action.

“I can’t give you what I don’t have, Georgie-boy.” Parker leaned back against the worn vinyl of the circular booth and lit his cigarette.

“Taylor,” he said. “I go by Taylor.”

Parker waved a hand in front of his face. “Whatever. You know I’d help if I could. But I ain’t got a dime to my name. And your snoopin‘ around hasn’t exactly helped me out there, now, has it?” He tilted his head back and belched.

“Look,” Taylor said, his fingers digging into the edge of the table, his biceps burning with the effort not to lash out at the little slimeball. “I did what you asked. But now I’m done with you. And it’s your turn to pay me what you agreed.”

Parker snorted and took a long drag on his cigarette. He exhaled toward Taylor, who stood his ground as noxious menthol smoke curled over his shoulders. “What I agreed? I think that bullet in your leg worked its way up to your brain.” He aimed a self-satisfied smirk toward his moronic bookends. “ ‘Cause you’re talking pure rot, Georgie-boy. You didn’t do shit for me.”

The perpetual ache in Taylor’s thigh intensified to a dull throb. Eight years on the force, five commendations, a handful of awards, and a front-page spread in the local paper, and this was where he’d ended up. One mistake and he was reduced to spying on a perfectly chaste woman with a husband from hell.

“She’s not cheating on you.”

Parker took another drag on his cigarette, then ground it into the tabletop. “Maybe you oughta look a little harder.”

“Just give me my fee,” Taylor said, measuring each word.

He settled back into the booth, the Tweedledumdums snickering beside him. “You bring me the goods,
capicse?
You find some dirt; then you get your money.”

Taylor rubbed his thigh, forcing himself to stay calm as every cell in his body screamed at him to beat the little worm into a pulp. He should have avoided Parker like the plague. Dammit, he knew better. But like a damn fool, he’d let the need for cash suck him into a sucker’s deal.

He counted to ten, clenching and unclenching his fist. Just one misstep, and instead of looking at him like a hero, women like Zoë Smith thought he was lower than slime. “Forget the fee. I’m not interested in money that’s crossed your greasy palm.”

“You think you’re hot shit? Got your name in the papers back when you was a cop? Think that hero bullshit’s gonna keep you in clients? You’re a fool, Georgie-boy. A damned gimp fool,” Parker sputtered, his prune face turning red with his rising blood pressure. “I let on that you welshed on me, and ain’t nobody else gonna darken your doorstep again. You hear me, Georgie? You hear me, boy?”

The rubber band holding his emotions in check snapped, sending Taylor lunging forward. He plowed over the tabletop, arms out, hands ready to close around Parker’s oh-so-smug neck. He slammed on the brakes just before he touched him, his fingers hovering over Parker’s ring-around-the-collar. The Tweedle twins scrambled out of the booth and hightailed it for the kitchen.

“I should do it, you know,” Taylor whispered, the itch in his fingers seconding his words. “But I don’t think you’re worth the effort.”

Slowly, slowly, he backed away.
Nice, even breaths. Nothing wrong here. Nothing at all
.

Then, with one last look at Parker cowering alone in the booth, Taylor stepped out of the diner and into the heavy Los Angeles air. For someone who’d just told his one and only client to take a flying leap, he felt remarkably calm. Uplifted, even.

And he was absolutely certain that—if he ever saw her again—a certain elementary school librarian would be quite proud of him.

She didn’t want to think about him. She had no reason to think about him. Which was why it was particularly annoying that for the last three days, thoughts of Buster Taylor had been filling her head—the sexy scar that marred his eyebrow, the sparkle in his eyes when he smiled. The cute way he’d tried to backpedal when he’d realized how furious she was.

And her heart had just about melted when her ears had tuned in to his gripe as he was leaving the building: “Damn. I really hate this job.”

In fact, she’d been so preoccupied with the irritating insurance investigator that she’d inadvertently shelved
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
with the arts-and-crafts books, and had completely blanked when a fifth grader asked if the latest Harry Potter book had made it to the library yet.

Ridiculous
. She needed to get over this. Whether he hated his job or not, he’d still pawed around in Emily’s things. She shouldn’t waste another thought on him.

Right. Absolutely
. She should just get up and get back to work filing or reshelving.

Sure thing
. That was what she should be doing. Not fantasizing about some mortal, no matter how gorgeous he was, or how intriguing he’d seemed at first.

The man was mortal, after all, and what could come of that?

Mortal and a jerk.

Right.

Then again, maybe she wasn’t being fair. After all, he’d only been doing his job, and he felt really bad about it, too. Maybe she’d been thrown so off balance by the fact that she was, well,
attracted
to him that she’d overreacted.

Wheels turned in her head and she tried not to smile as the idea took root—if she’d overreacted, she should apologize.

It wasn’t as if she’d be tracking him down for a date. After all. she didn’t date. Actually,
couldn’t
date was more like it. Considering her ...
unique
lifestyle, latching on to a guy—especially a fully human, flesh-and-blood kind of guy—just wasn’t in the cards.

Besides, hadn’t Hale warned her a million times about getting involved with mortals? Weren’t her mom and dad the perfect example? She wasn’t stupid. She knew her limitations.

No, she simply wanted to apologize. Perfectly innocent, nothing wrong with that.

And the fact that he’d been gorgeous and amusing— exactly the kind of man she’d so often found herself fantasizing about—had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Nothing at all.

Okay. Sure
. Now all she had to do was call him....

She fumbled around on her desk looking for the business card, then remembered that he’d taken it back from her.
Well, no problem
. His name was Buster Taylor, and the card had said he worked for Atlas Insurance. She just needed to look him up.

She tried the phone, but the operator couldn’t find a listing, and the yellow pages weren’t any help either. Zoë scowled at the computer. She wasn’t supposed to use the council search engine, but surely it would be okay this one time. It was a silly rule, anyway. And she did know Hale’s password....

Before she could talk herself out of it, she flipped her computer on and pulled up her Internet browser. She’d just get on and off. Nobody would even know. She’d find out where Taylor was, and that would be the end of it.
Easy-squeezy. No big deal
.

The browser opened and she headed for
www.superherocentral.com
and typed in Hale’s password, wondering just how much trouble she was bringing down on herself. Then she shook her head.
On and off, remember? No big deal, remember
?

Besides, if she wanted to find Buster, she needed to venture into the off-limits pages.

She picked up a pencil and gnawed on the eraser, thinking, as the banner headlines flashed:

Crack council team foils international kidnapping ring! Click here to view exciting video footage!

Undercover operative hired at NASA; expected
46
to pave the way for mortals to implement manned Mars missions. Protectors debate—should the council force technology on mortals? Click here for point/counterpoint
.

Legend of Aphrodite’s girdle surfaces! Rumors of Outcast uprising abound!

Zoë grinned at the headline. She’d seen statues and heard plenty of stories about her great-great-great-etcetera grandmother Aphrodite, and there was one thing Zoë knew for certain—that had been one woman who did
not
need a girdle.

Her eyes skimmed over the next headline, and she groaned.

Tax Office alert
—
all Protectors working in the United States are reminded to timely file form C-290 (Disclosure of Mortal Income Earned) with the Mortal/Protector Liaison Office by their deadline. To calculate individual deadlines, please see Schedule C, part 2 (b) 5 (a) (ii) of the Council Handbook
.

Apparently death and taxes were pretty much the same in the mortal and the Protector worlds.

She tapped the eraser against her teeth one more time and then, before she could talk herself out of it, she jumped from the main area to the council’s search engine.

There were no alarm bells, no Instant Message warnings. No council members swooping down to take her off to the Hall of Justice.

So far, so good.

She pulled up the southern California directory and searched for Buster Taylor. Nothing.

She searched for Atlas Insurance. Still nothing.

Odd
. The council’s records were more complete than the IRS’s. Why couldn’t she find him?

She tried for a few more minutes, searching the more obscure directories, pulling up old case files, generally snooping around where she didn’t belong.

Zilch.

She couldn’t believe it. Buster Taylor didn’t exist.

Which meant two things. First, he’d lied to her.

And second, she’d probably never see him again.

Well, darn.

Lane Kent had a problem. Not a huge problem, but as a general rule, she tried to avoid huge problems. She had enough trouble keeping track of all her little problems, and Lord knew she had plenty of those lately, all decked out in tiny George Washington outfits.

From her perch on the Mustang’s hood, she looked up at the green-gray sky, wondering if it was going to rain, and hoping it would. Rain in Los Angeles was like no place else. Like millions of little scrub brushes, the raindrops would attack the smog, polish the mountains, and leave the city crisp and clear and sparkly.

She could really use sparkly. These days her mood was anything but bright, and it was way the hell and gone from shiny.

Nope, these days she was worrying. Worrying about her car, her kid, her job—or, rather, her lack thereof. About the only thing she wasn’t worrying about was her rent. And that only because her foster brother, George Bailey, had managed to sweet-talk Mr. Timmons into letting her stay another month.

On one hand, that was good. On the other hand—the hand holding her checkbook—it was bad. Bad because George had worked out a deal with her landlord, and now she ought to pay him for a job well done.