Prophecy of the Most Beautiful (29 page)

Men chased young women around in circles until they gave in and turned their puckered lips up to them. Mothers kissed their daughters, who in turn kissed their goddess dolls. Their sons scurried under carts and wagons to avoid being kissed all together. Husbands kissed their wives, leaving them blushing scarlet, and some even kissed the erected statues of Aphrodite, finding her likeness more desirable than anything. Chloe was overwhelmed with their passion and moved through the crowd watching them and blushing at the most intimate embraces. A group of young boys saw her and gathered around her for a kiss. She laughed and gave them each a quick peck on the cheek. Chests puffed out, they ran off in a flurry of excited chatter that she didn't understand.

She felt a pair of arms wrap around her waist.
Strafford
, she thought as she turned around with her lips puckered, more than ready to join in with the kissing fest if it meant kissing him.

But the lips that met hers were not his.

She tried to pull away, but the perpetrator's kiss was unexplainably
wonderful
. As soon as their lips joined, she was taken over by a desire so strong that she forgot about everything else going on around her. She even forgot who she was for a moment, and that she didn't know this man and hadn't even gotten a good glimpse of his face. It just didn't matter.

The stranger's kiss felt like every pleasure possible. It made her feel beautiful and wanted, the most desired woman in the universe. She felt a flame spark within her, filling her with an overwhelming desire to leap and dance with passion. She wanted to wrap herself around this passionate feeling and never let go.

Was this what
Aphrodisia
was all about? Was everyone this happy because they felt like this?

The stranger pulled back, way before she was ready for him to, just as curious to take her in as she was of him.

He was an attractive teenaged boy with eyes like molten gold. Wisps of blonde hair poked out from under his hood because he was also wearing a wool robe.
A slave
, she thought. But then she noticed how well-kept he was. His skin was clear and smooth, and he had all of his teeth, pearly and white. His fingers grazed her cheeks and she felt how soft they were. A slave wouldn't have such soft hands. He was probably nobility.

"Do you want more?" The beautiful boy purred in her ear, taking her face in his hands.

Her head was moving left to right to decline the offer, but her mouth said, "Yes…more…" The boy just laughed, amused, then pressed his lips to hers and the feeling started all over again.

But then she realized something shocking and with all of her weakened will, pulled away.

"You spoke English, not Greek," She said.

The boy shrugged. "I could speak Greek if you would like me to. But you don't understand Greek, so what is the point?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Do I know you?"

"No," He replied, "but that's only because I haven't introduced myself yet, Pythia."

"Who are you? How do you know me?" She questioned, trying to push him away. He refused for a moment, then with a smirk, let her go.

"Red!" Strafford was running towards her, pushing through people as they smothered each other with kisses, shouting for her. She couldn't figure out if she was happy to see him or not and that puzzled her. She turned back to the boy to continue with her questioning, but to her surprising dismay, he had disappeared. She was wrapped in Strafford's arms a moment later.

"Damnit, Red. You can't be runnin' off like tha'," He said, "Where did you go? You were there one minute and then you weren't…" Dropper came up beside them, sparkling eyes stretched wide.

"I…I…," She couldn't very well tell him that she had gotten distracted by some young, handsome lethario that had kissed her stupid. "I…saw some kids playing a game and got all turned around. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry."

He nodded, forgiving her. "As long as you're okay…"

"I am." She paused and looked at Dropper, who was staring at something behind them. "What is it? What are you looking at?"

He didn't answer, but pointed and started moving off in that direction.

"Bloody hell man!"

"Let's follow him," She said, "Maybe he's remembered something important."

"Or maybe he's jus' a nutter like I've been thinkin' all this time." But he walked with her as they trailed Dropper down a tiny street, leaving the lust-filled agora behind them.

The road was small and littered with shells and remnants of seafood consumed in haste. All of the large, mud-bricked buildings looked the same, so for Chloe to come up with any idea as to where the Dropper was leading them was pretty much impossible. All signs were hand-written in Greek and almost illegible at that. Dropper read several of them out loud (Another clue. Dropper spoke Greek). They passed the
bouleuterion
and the
prytaneion
, the town council buildings, on their right; and a
tholos
-shaped (circular) building
,
a treasury for special citizen donors, on their left. The street led to another open square that housed the theatre,
odeion
(music hall) and the
palestra
, the gymnasium.

"Do they have a track in there?" She questioned. The festival music had faded and it was almost silent now.

"They do," Strafford replied, "but you couldn' use it, wan. Women weren' allowed in the gymnasiums during ancient times. Fellas only."

"How sexist," She mumbled.

"This way," Dropper said, turning down another street.

"Wait a bloody minute," Strafford said, grabbing the hood of Dropper's robe, "You're takin' us into the noble's village."

Dropper yanked his hood out of Strafford's grasp. "Yes. Yes I know."

"You got good reason? Otherwise, we're turnin' back."

Dropper sighed. "You are not very trusting, are you? This is the right way. I know it is."

"The right way to wha'?"

"Just show us," Chloe spoke up. "Just take us there. But you have to tell us what you know once we get there."

"I will, beautiful Chloe. I promise it." Without waiting for them to say anything more, Dropper started walking again. Strafford was glaring, but didn't stop him.

They walked until they found themselves standing in the center of a culdesac of rich villas. Strafford had drawn a dagger, just in case, and prepared a nice lie for any sentry that found them. He really didn't want to have to kill any guards, but said he would if they were stupid enough not to believe it. But as it turned out, there were no guards in the nobles' village––not a single one, and Strafford found that odd.

"Okay, tell us wha' we're doing here," He said to Dropper, "I have a bad feelin' abou' this place right now. There aren't any guards and I can't think of a good reason
why
there aren't."

"Maybe they got swept up in Aphrodisia fever," She said, remembering how she had gotten tangled up in the lip lock she had shared with the strange boy. She was so glad Strafford hadn't seen that. "Maybe they were needed in the agora. Look around. This place is a ghost town. Nobody's here."

"Nobody's here tha' we can
see
, Red," He replied, "Doesn't mean they're
not
here…"

"I know of that house," Dropper said, pointing at a large villa in front of them. It was a well-built home, made out of stone instead of mud, and it was surrounded by a colonnade on all four sides of the courtyard with an arched entrance and terra cotta roofing. "We should go inside.” He stepped forward and Strafford's arm shot out to stop him.

"Hold up, you nutter," He said, "We can't jus' go bargin' into a noble's house like tha', not in ancient Greece. Trespassin' on a noble's property is a fatal offense in this time. If any soldiers catch us, I'll have to go Jack the Ripper on 'em and we don't need tha' kind of trouble."

"I do not believe I know this
Jack
, but I know this house," Dropper said, sticking Strafford with a challenging stare, "I just know there is an answer here."

But Strafford did not look convinced.

"Just think, Your Highness, the sooner I find out who I am and what I mean to your prophecy, the sooner you can be rid of me."

"Probably should've gotten rid of you yesterday when we found you."

"But you didn't," She said, "And come on, you said so yourself, there has to be something here we were meant to find. Maybe it's here. Maybe it's this house. What could be the harm in checking it out?"

"You don't want me to answer tha', Red." But she could tell she had won him over. He couldn't argue with logic. "Stay close to me. Do
not
leave my side. We'll search the villa together."

They walked right through the entrance to the villa, which wasn't locked or barred, and into the courtyard. They entered the kitchen and found the hearth blackened and cold. It was clear it hadn't been used in quite some time. Neither did the storeroom have any food nor did any of the rooms have any furniture beyond a few damaged pieces that had been left strewn about.

The house was deserted.

Dropper studied everything with unsettling intensity, running his fingers over the cracking, stucco walls, inspecting the elaborate mosaic floors, and stopping at every threshold to peek in each room. He picked up a piece of a broken bowl and carried it with him throughout the villa as if it had magical powers that might help him remember. They followed him––Chloe, intent on being there for the first sign that Dropper had remembered something; Strafford, more concerned with what may or may not have followed them there. He had a bad feeling about the house, he said, and she had to agree that the villa's desolateness
was
pretty unnerving.

Upstairs, they searched the bedrooms, one by one. As Dropper inspected the room beyond a doorless entryway, she chose one covered with a curtain and moved to push it aside.

A huge, roaring creature leapt out at her, claws slashing.

She screamed and fell back.

Dropper's arms caught her. "Chloe! What is it?"

"Wha' the
hell
, Red?" As she found her footing, Strafford shot into the room, Aor summoned. Less than a minute later, he was back, frowning. "There's nothin' there. You're hallucinatin'."

Hallucinations are projections of the present,
Apollo had said. "I really hope not," She replied, swallowing.

"What did you see?"

"Nothing I care to see ever again."

"Your visions can mean the difference between life and death. Not tryin' to die today if I can help it."

She shuddered. "Big, big dog. That's what I saw."

His jaw clenched. "Time to leave."

But Dropper was back standing under the threshold of the empty bedroom. He stared into it for a long time, his eyes searching every inch of it, and when his back went rigid, she knew he had remembered something.

"What is it?" She asked, stepping into the room behind him. Groaning with impatience, Strafford moved with them, his back to them and his eyes on the entrance.

"I do not know," Dropper said, "There is something…familiar…"

He knelt beside the farthest wall and ran his fingers over its smooth surface. She knelt beside him. "Tell us what you're think––"

And that's when she saw them.

The engravings in the wall. Greek letters, she knew. The same ones were carved into the lower half of the wall over and over again, with deep, purposed strokes.

"Strafford," She breathed, "Come look at this." A moment later, he was knelt beside her.

"Wha' love sick wanker wrote this?" He said after studying the letters for a minute.

Dropper shrugged. "I do not know. However, I feel as though I have seen these letters before…in my head…" He fingered an engraving at the very bottom, near the floor.

Strafford scoffed. "Why am I not surprised?"

"What does it say?" She asked, almost impatient with being left out of the loop.

"It says, in the modern sense,
'she loves me, she loves me not
'."

"Who?" She questioned Dropper with hope. "Who is
she
?"

"I do not know," he replied with a sad note, "I do not know who wrote this or who it is written for. It is like a distant memory. Maybe even a dream."

She sighed, staring at the letters. "Well, we're one step closer to the truth. And that's good, right?"

Strafford stood, summoning away Aor. "The
prytaneion
," he said, "if we search the town records stored there, we may jus' find out the name of the person who owned this house," he pointed at Dropper, "and maybe who
you
are, too."

Dropper nodded. "Fine idea. Let us go there now."

She let Strafford pull her to her feet and together, they left the room and proceeded to the front of the house.

"We passed the
prytaneion
on the way here, if you remember," Strafford was saying, "It was unguarded. We should be able to walk right––"

They stepped into the courtyard and stopped.

What. The. Hell.

"By the gods…" Dropper mumbled in horror.

A vile liquid retched around at the back of her throat, threatening to bring itself forward, the sight being that horrendous.

It was no wonder there hadn't been any guards in the noble's village. They wouldn't have been able to fulfill their duties in this condition.

The condition of
dead
.

And how could anyone know that they were all dead when their bodies were now piled high inside of the courtyard?

*****

XXI. Chloe

"By the essence of Zeus, who could have done this?" Dropper breathed in a voice so thick with anxiety that she could almost see it.

Strafford flashed and Aor was in his hands. "They know we're here," He said.

"Who?" She croaked, dreading the answer. She gagged when she locked gazes with the dead, film-glazed eyes of one of the guards at the bottom of the pile.