

### Servant of the Muses

A Jake Conrad Mythological Mystery

Brad A. White

Published by Blue Oranda Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Brad A. White

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

_For though a man has sorrow and grief in his soul, yet when the servant of the Muses sings, at once he forgets his dark thoughts and remembers not his troubles. Such is the holy gift of the Muses to men._ – Hesiod

## Table of Contents

Chapter One – The Lady Vanishes

Chapter Two – Sunset Boulevard

Chapter Three – Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Chapter Four – Strangers on a Train

Chapter Five – They Live in Night

Chapter Six – Circumstantial Evidence

Chapter Seven – I Wake Up Screaming

Epilogue – Among the Living

About the Author

## Chapter One – The Lady Vanishes

My muse walked out of my life on a cool October morning, one of those days where the whole city lay under a mass of fog, like God was trying to smother San Francisco and all the sad losers who lived there with a pillow. One of those days where they'd take pictures of the bay and only the bridge would be visible, rust-colored girders hovering like the sails of a ghost ship. A typical day, and I was typically late into the office, my head still aching from the combination of a pistol-whipping and half a bottle of scotch.

It seemed like all my cases ended in the same way. I got to the end of the trail, found out the squalid little truth, and someone hit me on the head. Usually with a pistol, maybe a candlestick for variety, and on one memorable occasion a bottle of 130 year old red wine. I found out later that the bottle hadn't broken, but my skull had stirred up the sediment and skunked the whole thing. They'd murdered a man for that bottle. Typical.

The fog followed me in on either little cat feet (if you preferred Sandburg) or in a sudden leap (if you're a T.S. Eliot fan), slowly dispersing in the stairwell. My office was on the fourth floor, between a taxidermist and a bookie, so the place usually smelled like a mix of formaldehyde and desperation. Sometimes I'd sit in my office and listen to the noises, trying to figure out which came from where. Whimpering was usually from the bookie's office, but the sound of breaking bones and skinning knives was tougher. It was a good neighborhood. The rent was cheap and the clientele cheaper, but the cops didn't bother you and the bookie kept the place safe.

I slowly climbed four flights of dingy stairs and opened the door. I tossed my hat onto the coat rack with a snap of my wrist. "Morning, Clio," I grumbled without glancing at her. My trench coat was slick with fog. I hung it under the hat, and a few droplets pit-patted to the stained carpet. "I said 'Good Morning, Clio." But when I turned around, she wasn't there. She was supposed to be at the desk, telling clients I was out on an important matter but I'd get right back to them. But she wasn't. The door had been unlocked.

The hairs on the back of my neck began to rise. "Clio," I said louder, loud enough to penetrate the thin half-wall between the outer office and my inner sanctum. I eased open the frosted glass door to my office. Empty. I walked in quickly, pulled open the lower right desk drawer, and pulled out my revolver. Military issue, brought it home from my days in Greece during the war. Hadn't fired it since. Still, the weight felt good in my hand.

Maybe I hadn't locked the door on my way out last night. Maybe I was being paranoid. But I'd made some enemies in my time, a couple of important ones. If you could tell something about a man by the class of enemies he made, then I was the Agha Khan. In San Francisco, having important enemies meant that you got ordered to turn in your gun and badge. You ended up as a third-rate private eye in a third-rate office down by the docks, tracking down cheats and frauds and trailing wives around when they cuckolded their relieved husbands. Or tracking down people who owed you money. And hiding from the ones you owed money to.

Like I said, maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe Clio was just late, drank a few too many herself last night, or went home with some lucky guy. But it didn't seem right. Five years, she'd never been late. Never been sick. Had been there every morning at eight sharp and left every evening right at six. I picked up the phone, dialed JUniper 5-1871, and let it ring while I poured myself two fingers of whiskey. After a baker's dozen of rings, I hung up.

Something was wrong. I swigged down the whiskey, felt it burn, let it clear my head a little. I went back into the outer office, checked her desk. Neat as a pin, just like always. End of every day she'd go through this little ritual, lining up pencils, stacking up papers, until everything was perfect. It was all still perfect. So she hadn't made it in at all.

My eyes fell on a discolored patch of wall, where the wallpaper hadn't faded as much. A long vertical rectangle. It took me a moment. Someone had taken my scroll. A saw started up, but no one was screaming, so the taxidermist must have been dismembering an animal for display. Who'd take that scroll? Wasn't worth anything. Just something I found in a cave in Greece, when I was hiding from some Germans. Something to remember the war by, even though I spent most nights drinking to forget it.

I sat down in a threadbare chair we kept for visitors and tried to ignore the spring stabbing me in the ass. Clio hadn't come in. Someone had taken a scroll. Coincidence? Had Clio taken it? She always had liked that scroll, asked me to keep it in the outer office over her desk. Maybe it really was worth something? But she wouldn't have done that. I trusted her. Hell, she was my muse.

She was a funny girl, cute but not beautiful, nose a little too long and a little too crooked, too many freckles and a short haircut that made her look like a lesbian. But she was smart, smart as a whip. When I'd come in the morning she'd be reading one of her books, big old dusty things with leather covers. She'd look up at me over her round wire-rim glasses and smile, pass me my messages, and go back to her book. Hell, I didn't mind. She answered the phone and treated the clients well, did the filing and took dictation. Good for her, improving her mind, always reading history.

I called her my muse because I could think around her. When the case got too screwy, too many red herrings in the stream and everyone was still a suspect, when the clues made no sense and the butler didn't do it, I'd sit in this same damn chair with the same damn loose spring and talk about the case. She'd listen, nod, ask a few questions, and it would all come together.

I checked her desk again, looking for a note, anything at all out of place. Nothing. Checked the floor under the space where the scroll had been. Nothing. Checked my office, checked the hallway, called her place again, a whole bunch of nothing. The office even smelled wrong. The coffee wasn't brewing, because Clio wasn't here and I realized she wasn't coming back. I fumbled with the coffee maker, spilling grinds on my tie and water on my shoes. I wondered just what in the hell I was going to do now.

And then she walked in.

She was a redhead. What else could she be? Some might call her statuesque, but that would be an insult. Statues were dead things, cold and frozen, and she was very much alive. She moved into the outer office like a tigress, eyes burning bright and green. Blake would have panted over her fearful symmetry. As my mouth went dry I wished my hand could seize her fire. Her dress was blue, dark blue.

I just stared at her until the coffee maker started to sizzle behind me, water pouring on the heating coil. "Mr. Conrad, I assume?" she said. Her voice was low and husky, like a sigh. I nodded. She smiled, crimson lips sliding across ivory teeth, and I felt like a bird before a cat. "Your coffee maker needs you, Mr. Conrad."

I turned and slid the carafe under the stream of light brown water. Boiling water sprayed my hand, but I barely felt it. "Uh, sorry," I said. I wiped my hand on my pants. "Jake Conrad. Private Investigator."

Her smile stayed steady, but her eyes twinkled. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Conrad."

" Please, call me Jake," I said, mostly because I really wanted to see those lips say my name.

She extended a hand. Her nails were the same shade as her lips, her fingers long and soft. "I'm Erato, Jake," she purred.

"Is that a first name or a last name?" I asked. She glanced down. I was still holding her hand. I let go, reddened.

"Does that really matter? A name's a name, Jake." She glanced around the office. Her smile didn't waver for a moment. As she looked at Clio's desk, I took a moment to look her over. The things I would do to her if I had the chance

She turned back to me, put a hand on her hip, leaned forward a little. Her hair fell over her ears. I'd swear she knew what I was thinking, for her smile widened more.

"What can I do for you, Miss Erato?" I asked.

She sat down in Clio's chair and crossed her legs. "I bet you could do a lot for me, Jake," she sighed, and part of me melted, part of me stirred. "But right now, I'm here to see my sister."

" Your sister?"

" Clio. I hear that she . .. ." She paused, her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth for a second as if she were tasting the air. It was the same color as her lips and nails. "I thought she worked for you."

"She does. She did. She didn't come in today," I said, looking at her desk.

Her eyes narrowed, her smile vanished, and the room grew cool, like a fast falling evening in fog. "I don't understand. Did you tell her she could go?"

"No, Miss, I didn't. I thought she'd be here."

"Then maybe you can do something for me, Jake," she purred, standing. "I need to find my sister."

The outer office was silent, except for the beating of my heart and the steady trickle of the coffee maker pissing into the carafe. "Coffee?" I asked, mostly to break the trance.

She looked at the globe full of brown water and floating coffee grounds and grimaced. "I'll pass, Jake."

"Right. Sorry." I looked around. "Can we talk in my office?" I opened the frosted glass door, and she brushed by me, the hem of her dress brushing past my knees.

I had one nice piece of furniture, a vast overstuffed armchair covered in soft black leather. It sat in front of my desk, a place for the client. I got it for a song at an estate sale, a sale I made possible. The recently deceased had been my client, a rich downtown lawyer who was afraid his new wife was stepping out on him. Funny. He knew me because his former wife had used me to prove that he was two-timing her with soon-to-be new wife. Guess he liked my work. I found the proof he didn't want, that the new missus was sleeping with his partner. He thanked me, paid me, and called her over to his office. He shot her and then sat in his overstuffed black leather armchair and blew his brains out. A little elbow grease got rid of the blood and hair.

My imp of the perverse – who could be very impish and was, at times, very perverse, particularly as I watched Erato settle into the chair – enjoyed the thought of new clients sitting where they did. They'd come in asking me to find something or someone and, it seemed, nine times out of ten they'd end up less happy for the asking. You could tell a lot about a client by the way they sat. The needy ones, the ones who really wanted you to find something, they leaned forward, hands on their knees or maybe on the edge of the desk. The rest usually sat back, arms folded over their chests. They asked you to find something, but they really didn't want you to.

Erato did neither. Like a cat, she draped herself into the chair, one leg over the armrest, the other on the floor. Blue dress and black leather, the colors of a fresh bruise, and I shivered. Her white calf against the leather was like a fresh red smile carved into an ivory neck. I shook my head for a moment like a horse bothered by a fly, tried to clear the desire away, but when I looked back at her she was staring with those green eyes smiling. It might have been easier if she had been naked; she might have been less alluring. I wanted to find out.

Business. My own chair was battered wood and, if I wasn't careful, it would pitch back suddenly and alarmingly toward the window. I opened the right drawer to the tinkle of glass, as a bottle of whiskey tapped against some glasses. I pulled out a pad and pen. "Do I hear whiskey in there, Jake?" she asked. I pulled out two glasses and the bottle, looked at her in what I hoped was a questioning way. "Two fingers," she said. I poured her two, poured myself three, and pushed her glass over to her. With those long fingers she picked it up, sniffed it, made a face.

"Sorry. It's not exactly quality," I said, sipping mine. She drank it anyway. "So, why do you think Clio needs finding?" Business.

She didn't answer, but finished her whiskey, and opened her handbag. She pulled out an ivory case, popped it open, and took out a long, slender cigarette. "Do you mind?" she asked, holding it in a pose between two fingers. I shook my head. She smiled again, held the cigarette, and I realized I was missing my cue. I fumbled around in the top desk drawer until I found a pack of matches. I came around the desk to her side and struck a match. A little burning star of phosphorous fell toward the rug as I lit the smoke. "Thank you, Jake," she said as I went back to my chair. She took a long drag and blew out a stream of luxurious smoke, which encircled her face for a moment like a veil.

"So," I started again. "Why do you think Clio needs finding? It's not like she's being missing for long. She was in the office yesterday. Maybe she took a day off," I said, though the thought sounded wrong.

Erato took the cigarette out of her mouth. The end of it had a little red circle from her lipstick. "She didn't take a day off, Jake. That's just not like her. If she's not here, something's happened. I want to know what." Back to her lips, her chest rose, the end of the cigarette glowed bright, another veil of smoke. I drank some more whiskey.

"Twenty dollars a day, plus expenses," I said. From the bookie's office there was the distant sound of a baseball bat smashing a kneecap.

"That sounds fine, Jake," she replied through the veil.

"Great. I'll have Clio draw up the...." I trailed off. Erato laughed.

## Chapter Two – Sunset Boulevard

"You relied on her, didn't you?" Erato said, but I could barely hear her. She was driving, far too fast, down Geary through Chinatown toward the sea. She had taken one sneer at my Chrysler Royal and laughed. I couldn't blame her. San Francisco's fog had been slowly nibbling at it for years, and it was more rust than metal. Putting her in that car would have been a crime, like putting the Mona Lisa in a sailors' bar.

So I was crammed into her silver and chrome Austin A-40 Sport, my knees almost up to my chin, and her red hair was flying around in the slipstream. She worked the stick like a master, redlining the engine before shifting, weaving between a pair of trolley cars, wheels screaming on the slick rails. I had one hand on the door handle and the other on my hat.

"Yeah, guess I did," I shouted in response. And I had, more than I knew, as a few minutes without her showed me. No coffee, no good morning, her absence left a hole in my day. "She was good at what she did."

She tucked the car between a delivery truck and fruit stand, and I heard a stream of Chinese curses falling behind us. "And what did she do for you?" She turned to look at me, her eyes masked by a pair of sunglasses.

"God damn it, keep your eyes on the road!" I bellowed as she barely missed two sailors. They whistled at her and she waved and picked up speed. "She was nice to the clients, made coffee, took dictation, did filing. That's it."

"Oh really," she laughed. "I bet she did a lot more than that for you, didn't she?" The innuendo in her voice made me blush.

"No! Nothing like that!" I yelled back.

"If you say so, Jake." She viciously downshifted and the engine screamed as I pitched forward. She slewed into a sharp left turn and we were plummeting downhill into Sea Cliff. Sea Cliff. Christ, a guy like me could get arrested for just being here. My car would have stood out like a corpse at a summer picnic. A man wearing a suit that cost more than my entire wardrobe stared at Erato – and the car – as she whipped it into a tiny parking place with ease.

There was a beautiful apartment building here, right down over China Beach, nothing but ocean between the balconies and Asia. "This has got to be the wrong place," I said. "No way I paid her this much." The maids here had to make more than I did.

Erato leaped from the car. " _Thalassa, thalassa,_ " she shouted, eagerly pointing out toward the ocean.

"Xenophon, _Anabasis_ ," I said. "Guess you're as well read as Clio was."

She turned, and the grin on her face was infectious. "Jake, no one's as well read as Clio. Come on."

"You sure this is the right place?" I asked, following her to the door.

"My parents left all their daughters well provided for, Jake." I sprang ahead of her to open the door, but a liveried doorman beat me to it. "Thank you," she said, and she passed him a few coins. He tipped his hat and gave me a look meant to send me back to my hovel.

"If she was worth this much, why'd she work for me?" I shook my head as I walked past the doorman. "Lousy hours, lousy location, lousy boss. I don't get it."

She didn't answer, but walked right up to reception desk while I took in the sights of the lobby. Marble and onyx and brass, flowering plants, and rich people. Not a good combination. "Good morning, Peter," I heard her purr. "I forgot my keys again." She leaned forward, and lucky Pete got a pretty good view of her assets. "Apartment 512."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and he started fumbling for a key. She glanced over her shoulder at me with a warning look. I kept quiet. "Here you go, ma'am," he said, sliding a key across the onyx expanse between them. She smiled again, dropped it into her dress between her breasts. Pete gasped.

"Guess I won't forget it there," she cooed, and sauntered to the elevator. I followed, winking at Pete. The elevator was all mirrors, and a cheerful black man took us right up to the fifth floor. She pressed some coins in his hand too with a smile, and the old bastard winked at me as we left.

"I didn't know you lived here too," I said after the elevator had closed.

"Don't be silly, Jake," she said, pulling the keys out. "I don't even live in the States."

"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that. I can't place your accent. Where are you from?"

"Paris, as of late," she replied, opening the black wood door of Apartment 512. "But I like to think I'm of the world."

"A lady of the world, eh?" I said, chuckling.

"Yes and no." The key turned and the door opened.

I'd been wondering about what Clio's apartment looked like for a while, for most of the three years she'd been working for me. She spent her ten hours in the office, and disappeared, only to turn up the next morning at eight sharp. I'd ask her about her evening, she'd smile, say it was fine, and go back to reading.

As the door opened, I realized I was half right. The place was full of books and compulsively neat. That part I got right. But I was off by an order of magnitude or two on the size. It's like expecting a French country cottage and finding the Palace of Versailles. The main room stretched fifty feet on each side, with high ceilings. Airy and bright. Bookshelves on every wall in dark wood, full of leather bound volumes, and a beautiful tiled floor. The smell of old paper and salt water. The far wall, looking over the wine dark sea (well, more dishwater gray sea) was a long line of glass, broken only by a huge set of French doors which must have led out to the balcony. I guessed the door to the left was the bedroom, the door to the right the bathroom, but Erato was already inside and looking around.

"Don't touch anything," I said, following her.

"Why not?"

"Clues. If something happened here, we can't disturb it." I did a slow sweep of the room with my eyes. There were a couple of flowering plants, laurels. Seemed too late in the season for them to be blooming. Several scrolls, hanging from the walls, Attic Greek, with a mix of more obscure dialects. A couple of couches against the walls. One chair at a desk by the window overlooking the Pacific. Seemed the place to start.

"Erato, can you just sit over on a couch?" And keep out of the way, I didn't say. And stop distracting me by existing.

"You're the boss," she said. She lay down on a red couch, trailing one hand and one foot to the floor. I had to stop looking at that part of the room or my train of thought would leap from the rails like a forty-car freight train hitting a collapsed bridge. Or, to be honest, like a trolley missing a turn.

I went over to the desk. A simple desk, light wood, fine carving. An inkwell of red ink and an actual quill pen. One book, open toward the middle. Churchill's _Their Finest Hour_ , marked up in red with a swirling handwriting. A coin held the page in place.

Clio was editing Churchill. Her script was hard to read. I was distracted by the reflection of Erato in the window, and it took me a few seconds to realize why. She was writing in Attic Greek. Somehow that didn't surprise me. I was beginning to feel that there wasn't much that was going to surprise me in this case. Of course, I was an idiot sometimes.

Churchill was writing about the bombing of Coventry, and Clio had scrawled all over the page, underlining passages, circling words. "Wrong." "Lie." "Ultra." "Another lie." "Half-truth." "Bigot." Guess Clio didn't think much of Sir Winston as a historian.

I picked up the coin to turn a page back. More scrawls in Attic. I flipped the coin up with my thumb and winced when landed in my palm. Heavy. Very heavy. I took a closer look at it. A horse, rampant, on the reverse, a man's face on the obverse. Syracuse. I pressed a fingernail into it, hard, and it left a small dent. Gold. Real gold. "Erato?"

"Can I get up now?" she said with a mock pout in her voice.

"Yeah. Come take a look at this, will you?" In the window, I saw her rise languidly from the couch, Venus from the sea, and slide over. I passed her the coin without looking back. "What do you think of that?"

"It's Anapos. A minor river god out of Sicily. He was a handsome guy." She passed it back.

"Who's Anapos," I said, annoyed.

"He is, Jake." She was close behind me, her breath on my back. "The man on the coin."

"Is this as old as I think it is?" I asked. I knew at least one coin collector who would kill his mother and his cat for this coin.

"It's old by your standards, sure," she said. "Probably a hundred more of them around here somewhere." My chest felt tight. I put the coin back on the page of the book, tried to catch my breath.

"Let's check the bedroom," I said.

"Thought you'd never ask," Erato said with a smile.

The room was wrong, and I knew wrong. But wrongness usually hid itself. I'd been in a room where the grandmother, slowly rocking in her chair, was dead, being pulled on a string by a grandson worried about the will. Rooms where there was a corpse under the floorboard, or under the bed, and everyone in the room knew but me.

Here, the wrongness was obvious and yet I couldn't see it right away. It was almost empty, the curtains were shut, there was the feeling of lying in state, waiting for a burial. A small narrow bed, almost a cot, neatly made in white. A dresser, a closet, a window drawn shut. It smelled dusty, like a long-forgotten safe deposit box.

"Stay at the door," I told Erato. She did, leaning against the doorframe. I went over to the bed first, knelt down, placed my cheek on the blanket. Scratchy, cheap. Smelled of dust and bleach. I got up, opened the curtains. The sea was glistening with weak sunlight that had finally decided to peek out of the fog like a child growing bored of hide-and-seek. The light flashed into the room.

"What are you doing?" Erato said, sounding as bored as the sunlight. I ignored her, and slapped the bed hard. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her jump, but I was focused on the sheet of dust that lifted off the bed, shining in the sunbeam. The entire bed, covered in an equal layer of dust. I picked up the pillow, turned it over, nothing. No hair, no mark of makeup, nothing.

No one had slept in this bed for a long time. "Jake?" Erato said, and her voice had lost the casual temptation. I walked past her and threw open the closet. Empty. The dresser, each drawer empty and dusty. I brushed past Erato back into the main room and marched into the kitchen.

She was following me, close on my heels. "Jake!" she said, and I almost turned, but I was on the trail now. The pantry, empty, no dishes, no silverware, no cups, no glasses. I turned the faucet and it took the water an eternity of gurgling to arrive.

Out of the kitchen, through the main room, to the bathroom. No toilet paper, no shampoo, no soap, no water in the toilet. Nothing.

No one lived here. Or had lived here in a long time.

I stepped out into the main room again. Erato stood in the middle, looking suddenly small in the vastness. "Jake, what's going on?" There was, for the first time, a note of concern.

"No one lives here, Erato. Clio didn't sleep here, didn't eat here, and sure as hell didn't crap here." I shook my head. "She may have come here to work, but she lived somewhere else. She must have had a lover, a friend, family, somebody else." Or she just led a double life, I thought to myself. Had something to hide. "Do you have any family nearby, Erato?"

Her face turning slightly cagey. She was hiding something. "Family? Most of my sisters are in the old world, Jake, except Clio. And Urania."

I barely stifled a laugh. "Urania? Your parents had a really weird sense of humor, Erato."

"You have no idea," she said with a pretty smile. "But what do you mean?"

"Come on," I said, "Clio, Erato, Urania? God, your parents make my Dad look normal in their love of ancient Greece. He would have named me Homer or Agamemnon or something if Mom hadn't stopped him."

"I don't see what's so funny about our names," she said, pouting again. I realized I was losing the threads of the case again, paying attention to her, so I made my way to Clio's desk. I dipped my pinkie into the inkwell, and the ink was still wet. So she had been here recently. "Homer's a perfectly good name, and he was a fan," she was saying distantly. "And besides, Agamemnon is a Trojan name."

"Doesn't matter. The Trojans were Greek too," I muttered. "Where's Urania live?" The tiny spot of red ink on my finger looked like cheerful cartoon blood.

"Los Angeles. That's south of here, I think," she said.

"Yeah." I opened the French doors and walked out on the balcony. The sun was melting the fog and clouds, and a breeze was coming in off the water, bringing a fresh chill. Looked like it might be a nice day after all.

I felt her behind me. "Erato. You're hiding something from me. You weren't surprised that she wasn't living here. Why not?"

She put a hand on my shoulder, and I flinched like she had touched me with a live wire. "You're not as dumb as she thought you were, Jake. But I want to ask you a couple of questions, first." She stepped around to the rail, looked out over the water, bright blue in the climbing sun. "Where did you learn to read Attic Greek? I can't imagine that's too common any more. And why were you in Greece?" She turned to look at my face, and I realized that I would tell her anything. The cops could have solved every cold case on the books if they'd get Erato to stand behind the Sarge when he asked questions.

"What's it to you?" I snarled, trying to show some last redoubt of willpower. "How did you know I've been in Greece?"

Her smile grew, but her eyes bored in. "That's not important, Jake. I want to know. And I want to know what you did with her scroll, Jake."

"No," I said. "No. You tell me what's so important about some moldy old scroll, and what that has to do with anything."

Her eyes narrowed. "Jacob Conrad," she snapped, and her voice crackled in my ear like a whip. I cringed, shrank back by instinct, a dog before its mistress. "You will tell me what I want to know." Her voice echoed off the sky, and beneath me the waves started to rise. It took what little willpower I had left not to fall to my knees as she began to shine, a cloud of light. A wind I couldn't feel tossed her red hair around and her eyes flared. More beautiful and terrible than the tempest. "If you don't tell me I will walk out of your life and you will fall into despair." It was true. She was too beautiful to lose.

"Yes, ma'am," I squeaked. "My father was a professor. He taught classics at Harvard. Made me learn Latin and Greek, Attic and Doric. I hated him. He was a mean drunk son of a bitch who'd whip me if I missed a declination. When he was dying I came to his bedside and laughed at him." The words were spilling out, verbal dysentery, I couldn't stop. There was a red halo around the sun, and the sea was roaring against the rocks of China Beach.

"Go on," she commanded. "Why were you in Greece?"

"How are you doing this?" I rasped. I clenched my teeth, tried to fuse my mouth shut. I hated her and loved her and would do anything for her.

"Answer me!" she roared, and I heard the windows of Clio's apartment crack behind me.

I looked at her with love and defiance, but I kept my mouth shut. Her eyes flashed dangerously, and she grabbed the collar of my shirt with the speed of a snake and lifted me off the ground. In a flash I was dangling over the edge of the balcony, nothing but rocks and the roaring ocean beneath me. I was about to be undergoing one hell of a sea change, and my body parts would be lying full fathom five. "Answer me!"

"I was drafted in '42," I screamed. "The Army asked me if I spoke any languages. I said Latin and Greek. They thought I meant modern Greek." My collar was tightening around my throat but her knuckles were brushing my neck, so it was all right. "I got sent to the OSS and trained to parachute. I tried to tell them, but they didn't listen, so they dropped me into Greece in '43 to meet up with partisans."

She pulled me back up over the railing and dropped me in a chair. "What's an OSS?" Her voice had softened, but I had no fight left.

"Office of Strategic Services. Spies, saboteurs. That sort of thing."

"Clio once said you were a crafty Ulysses, not a warrior Achilles," Erato said. "I see what she meant." The fire in her eyes was fading, the sun was yellow again, the sea quiet. Beauty after the storm. "What happened in Greece?"

"I met up with the partisans. One of them knew Attic, so things worked out. I was with them for six months, arranging air drops of weapons and supplies, helping them against the Germans. Until we walked into an ambush."

Memories flooded back, a pouring of ice water into my skull. My fingertips ached. I had worn them almost to the bone, trying to dig myself down into the stony soil of the olive grove as machine guns ripped the air above me. I had my pistol, but never even drew it. The partisan leader crawled over and told me that on a count to three they'd charge the guns and I'd run the other way, that I was their connection to Cairo, and that I had to live. So they had to die. And on three those stupid beautiful children of Greece stood up and ran at the Germans, and one pathetic little American ran like a rabbit in the other direction. Right into the hands of the Germans.

My fingers were bleeding, covered in dirt. "Sorry, Jake," she said. "It was easier to get that right out of your head." Erato sat down across from me and leaned forward. I lost myself in the space between her breasts while she kissed each of my fingers in turn, exchanging the blood for blood-red lipstick, and the ache for a tingle of longing. "Then what?"

"I got captured. I escaped. I hid. I found a cave and I hid. Deep in the cave I found that scroll, and I stuck it in my bag and forgot about it. A few days later, the Germans moved on. I met up with another partisan group, and stayed there until early '45." I tore my eyes away from hers and looked out to the sea. The sun was setting. Had we been here that long?

"And then what?"

"And then nothing," I snapped. "Back to the States, I got a job as a cop, I made a couple of mistakes, and they kicked me out. No place for a clean cop in this town. So I put out my own shingle. Hung up the scroll. And nearly starved to death before she walked into my life."

"When did you first meet her?" Erato asked. She was leaning forward again, eagerly. This was what she was waiting for. I couldn't disappoint her.

"She walked in one day, told me she needed to work for me. She seemed like a good kid, she agreed to work cheap, and that was that. I told her to be there from eight to six except weekends, and she was, every day, never missed a moment."

Erato stood, looked out toward the falling sun. "That can't be it, Jake. You had to have called her. The scroll wasn't enough."

"What do you mean, called her?" I rested my eyes on her rear as she leaned on the wrought iron railing.

"Invoked her, summoned her, whatever you want to call it," she said. "Don't you get it yet?"

"Get what?" I asked, spitting it out in anger and frustration. "What the hell are you? What's going on?" I knew I was in deep and digging in deeper, but I'm stupid like that, a rabbit that just keeps going down until the ceiling falls in and buries me.

"Oh, Jake," she said softly, and I almost lost her words in the sounds of the sea. "The mysteries you don't know. What you've stumbled into."

"Then tell me what I don't know." I stood up, stepped behind her, and put my hands on her shoulders. She stiffened. I thought about spinning her around, kissing her, but I remembered that a few minutes ago she had lifted me over the edge. "I can't do my job, I can't find Clio, if you don't tell me the truth!"

She turned around, looked me straight in the eye. "Figure it out, Shamus. You've got all the pieces, so put them together."

"Erato, I can barely put two and two together when you're this close," I whispered.

She laughed huskily. "That's part of the puzzle too. Show me that you were worthy of her respect."

I turned around, looked through the cracked glass of the doors into the lifeless apartment. My reflected fractured face laughed back at me. Clio, Erato, Urania. A historian, a creature of passion. "What does Urania do?" I asked.

"She studies the stars," Erato said.

An astronomer. A scroll from Greece, an invocation. The blooming laurels, editing history. "I was reading Shakespeare the night before she came. Henry V. 'O for a muse of fire....'"

I heard her inhale sharply. "An invocation."

"It's not possible," I said, but my shattered reflection told me otherwise. She stepped close behind me, and her reflection was whole, untouched by the cracks in the glass.

"But it is true, Jake," Erato said breathlessly.

I turned, and her green eyes were soft and close. "You're a Muse."

She smiled. "I'm a Muse, Jake. Clio was your Muse. And you lost her."

## Chapter Three – Night Has a Thousand Eyes

The whiskey was going down smoothly, too smoothly. I couldn't feel a burn, just a gentle fog falling, a warm feeling inside. Good whiskey is dangerous. That's why I drink the bad stuff. Bad whiskey warns you when you've had enough, when your stomach is on fire and you're seeing double and you know you need to stop. Bad whiskey is like a two-bit whore; you'll get your fun if you're quick, because she's sure as hell to tell you when your ten minutes are up. But good whiskey's like a beautiful young wife. You can have as much of her as you want while she's in front of you, until you wake up in the morning and she's stolen your money, your car, and your heart.

Erato was like good whiskey. She had pulled her bar stool next to mine, leather touching leather, and was leaning her head on my shoulder, her hair falling around me. A warm feeling, like I was the center of the world. She had been talking about something, her sisters, Greece, I wasn't sure. Everyone in the bar was staring at us, her in lust and me in wonder, each of them silently asking "what's that slob got that I don't?" I had Erato, and they didn't.

I tried to break out of the cloying contentment I felt by grabbing on to a distant, gnawing, worry. "Erato. Why did you come to San Francisco? Hell of a big coincidence that you just turned up the day she vanished."

She sighed, a little tremble into my arm. "I knew she was in trouble, Jake. I felt it. I thought it was probably you. I was coming to rip your heart out." She said it with such tenderness I wanted to bare my chest to her fingers.

"What sort of trouble?" Another whiskey down. The barkeep poured me another one, overtopping the glass as he stared at Erato's breasts. It was a hell of a nice bar, all leather and dark wood and a view of the city. I'd been in it once before, following a client's husband. Came in through the front door, went out the window two minutes later.

"I'm not sure. It was real, though. She was scared." She shivered, and I put my arm around her shoulders without a second thought. She snuggled closer.

"Would your other sisters have felt it, too?" God help me if more of them showed up.

"Maybe. Probably not. Clio and I were close." She was drinking something pink, full of fruit and ice, a bright green umbrella sticking out of it. "We gave each other gifts. I gave her the Trojan War, she gave me Napoleon. Little things."

"Little things," I snorted, and drank another shot.

"I inspired the romance between Helen and Menelaus that led to the war, and she inspired the war that led to Napoleon and Josephine. It's what sisters do for each other." I looked over at her, and her eyes were shining with amusement.

"'A shudder in the loins engenders there the broken wall, the burning roof and tower....'" I muttered.

"'And Agamemnon dead.'" She said it with finality.

"You read Yeats?" I asked.

"Jake. I inspired Yeats." Her eyes twinkled. "Remember who I am?"

"Yeah. Hard to forget." A final shot. I meant it, this time.

"So what's next?" She finished her drink, pulled a hundred dollar bill out of nowhere in particular and slapped it down on the bar.

"Los Angeles," I replied. My head was starting to spin a little. Too much good whiskey. Too much Erato.

"Why?" There was an off note in her voice, but I was too drunk to care.

"Because you felt something was wrong all the way from Europe, and Urania is a lot closer. She might know something." I stood, the room spun, and I fell into her arms.

"Rest, Jake," she whispered in my ear, and I did as the fog blinded me.

I woke up refreshed, which terrified me. I tried to remember the last time I had woken up without a headache, without a sour stomach, without a nameless fear clawing at the back of my eyeballs. I felt good, like I had slept for half a year in a cocoon and erupted a new man. The bed was small, the sheets rough and unwashed, the smell of dust heavy in the room and without turning on the lights I knew I was in Clio's apartment, in the bed. Not her bed, the bed she kept here in case anyone checked in on her. A bed which was very different in my imagination, where the sheets were rumpled around us as we slept, spent.

No. I never had that fantasy about Clio.

I turned on the light. The room was empty, the door to the living room open. I was wearing boxers and socks, my clothes were more neatly folded then they'd been since boot camp, waiting for me on a chair.

I peeked past the blinds, and it was still dark, the moon sinking to the west, hanging fat and bright in the sky. I padded out of the Potemkin bedroom and into the living room. A cool breeze was swirling the curtains, the French doors to the balcony were wide open, and the leaves of the laurels were whispering to each other, spreading their perfume through the room. Daphne singing to me, quietly to avoid the lusty gaze of Apollo.

She was on the balcony, looking out to the sea, framed by the swollen moon. The moonlight pathway on the water stretched from her feet to the horizon. The red dress was gone, replaced with a long gown of white and silver. I could barely tell where Erato stopped and the moon started. The moon, Diana, Artemis, legends and myths learned at my father's cold knee flooding back.

Her bare shoulders were white too, polished ivory, or bone, and they pulled in and hoarded the moon's eerie light. I stepped onto the balcony behind her. The night was cold, the wind upon my bare chest a splash of cold water. The sea was calm before her. I put my hands on her shoulders and she flinched slightly. "Unhand me, mortal." Her voice was calm and low.

"No," I said. Being close to her drove away the chill of the night. Her skin was soft, silken, impossibly so. I had seen her power, felt her power, but this, touching her bare shoulders with my hands, this made me believe. This was no ordinary woman. This was desire, Shakespeare's dark lady, the mermaids that drown poor old Prufrock, the sirens that drove men onto the rocks. She was myth. "I want you," I said.

"No," she said, but she let my hands rest on her skin, and we stood there for a near eternity, a Muse and a man and the moon. No, that I couldn't have her, or no, that I didn't want her? I didn't want to ask.

I realized that she was trembling slightly. "What's wrong?" I leaned in close to whisper it in her ear.

"The night, the stars," she said, languidly lifting a hand and motioning to the dark skies. "This is Urania's domain."

"I take it you don't get along?" Love was a friend of history, an enemy of astronomy? You learned something new every day.

"She scares me, Jake. Always has."

I said nothing. Sometimes, you just have to let a client talk. You can learn a lot more that way.

"She's cold, distant, like her stars. Sometimes. And sometimes she's a comet, blazing fire across the sky. Like all of us."

"What do you mean?"

"Inspiration. Jake, we're creatures of inspiration. Genius and insanity. Two sides of one coin. We create passion and madness, joy and despair. The ecstasy of the artist finishing his work of pure beauty, and the tragedy of the artist in failure. Triumph. Death."

"You're cold," I said, though there was no chill near her. "Come inside."

"You should be frightened of Muses, Jake," she replied. She turned suddenly, and my hands fell to my sides. "Would you be touched by inspiration?"

"Depends on who's doing the touching," I said, trying to throw a little bit of bravado back at her, and she actually smiled. "Look, I see what you're saying. I remember enough of my Greek myths to know that all of them are two-faced, deceptive, mercurial creatures. But I don't remember the Muses being all that dangerous. Or that powerful."

"Oh. Really, now," she said, and a small spark of anger lit her face. "All the Muses are dangerous. And we're more powerful than we used to be."

"I don't see it." There was a pack of cigarettes on the table. Not my usual brand, but beggars and all that. I pulled out two, lit one, and passed it to her. She took it in her long fingers and took a deep drag, the ember lighting her face from beneath, highlighting her cheeks and nose in deep shadows. The match went out as I stared, my own cigarette hanging loosely from my lips. She leaned forward and touched the burning end of hers to mine, and the cigarette sprang to life.

"You don't see it." She laughed, cruelly. "Every minute you've been with me you've been a danger to yourself, Jake. Just staring and drooling like a virgin before a magnificent whore."

I laughed weakly, took a lungful of smoke. "Oh, I know you're dangerous, Erato. Love is always dangerous. That's why it's a game I don't play."

"Anymore?" She leaned in again.

"What?"

"You don't play it anymore. That's what you were going to say, right?" Her eyes, the cigarette ember, the stars behind her, all burning.

"Yeah. I played and lost too many times. So, you're dangerous," I said, trying to get back on track again. "But Terpsichore? Or Urania? Or Clio?"

"Terpsichore inspires the waltz, the courtesy and regimen of the ballroom. She also inspired Stravinsky, _The_ _Firebird_ , the sacrificial dance of death. You know that there were riots in Paris when _The Rite of Spring_ premiered, Jake? And you think dance isn't dangerous?" She spun suddenly on one foot, her dress shimmering around her in a circle, the pale white of her legs and calves catching the dying moon. "And Clio? There's reporting history, Jake, and there's making it happen, and she does both. She'll whisper into the ear of the conqueror and light his dark heart afire, then sit back and coldly record the outcome in blood. And Urania?" She trailed off.

"And Urania?" I repeated.

"And Urania," she said in a whisper, as if the night had ears, "moves in great calculated ellipses, shoves the planets into their grooves in the sky, lights the sun in the morning and puts it out in the evening. She made Newton and Einstein, the man of ultimate order and the man of ultimate chaos, the man who started the watch of the heavens and the man who broke it asunder."

"You get poetic when you're scared," I said, and she glared at me. I put up a hand. "Muses aren't that powerful. Not in any of the legends. Apollo drives the chariot of the Sun, not Urania."

She finally sat down, to my relief. "Those gods are weak, shadows now, killed by you and your kind. Who needs Zeus to explain the lightning? Who needs Apollo to drive the sun? You've explained and explored so much that you've cut their domains down to tiny slivers of mystery. The gods of old, the lords of Olympus, are mice among the fields of men now." She blew a thin line of smoke from between her lips. "Poor Mercury went begging when the telegraph straddled the oceans. Now look at him. A symbol for a florist. Who needs him now, who needs him to speed on the winds to deliver a message? Where can Poseidon hide when you send submarines beneath the waves? Could Vulcan make an atomic bomb?"

"But you're still here. You and your sisters still have power," I said. My cigarette was almost gone.

"Tell me why the sun rises, Jake," she said tiredly.

"It doesn't. The Earth moves around it, and also rotates. It's all an illusion."

"The scientific truth. Now, Jake, tell me where the poet gets the poem from."

I smiled. "From inspiration."

"Explain that to me."

"I can't. I get it." I sat down too, fished another cigarette out of the box.

"You've put all the other mysteries of the world into neat little boxes, like pinned butterflies, each with their scientific name pasted underneath. But inspiration, art, poetry, love, dance, music... those still have magic, Jake. And mystery."

"And gods need mysteries, I guess." It made sense. Of a sort. Of an insane sort. The sort of sense you get out of a bottle of absinthe and too much opium. They used to call the rites mysteries, they had mystery cults. Men ripped apart by daughters of Dionysus. I was drowning. I was so far in over my head that I could only find one thing to cling to – Clio. If she was in danger, I had to help her.

"We'll head for L.A. in the morning," I said. "We'll catch the train. It'll get us there by evening. Have you ever been on a train, Erato?"

She shook her head. "No. Normally I just, well, go places I need to go."

"Well, new experiences are good for you, my mom always used to say." I tried to smile.

"My mother was Memory herself, and she had no new experiences. And my father was Zeus, exiled from the mountaintops." She stood, crossed the space between us, and sat in my lap. "Hold me, Jake, I'm cold."

I put my arms around her and held her, daughter of Mnemosyne and Zeus, as the moon spun under the water down the lines Urania had laid for it, and the sun crawled up the sky from the east, shrouded in fog. I strained to hear the hoofs of Apollo's chariot dragging it skyward, and for the hundredth time since she'd walked into my door yesterday morning I asked myself what the hell I had gotten myself into.

## Chapter Four – Strangers on a Train

The Austin roared through the fog-bound early morning streets of San Francisco, a monster in the mist. The lights of a trolley shifted out of the gloom and she tore left, the wheels screaming on the slick metal of the streetcar track.

"You're going to get us killed," I screamed into the slipstream.

"I can't die, Jake, not like this," she yelled back. I'd like to say I saw madness in her eyes, but there was only a childlike joy. I guessed she didn't get to drive too much back in Greece, or Paris, or wherever she had come from.

"Yeah, that's great, but I bet I...." I stopped as we slid around a corner. Far in the distance, stars in the fog, the lights of the Bay Bridge loomed. I choked down panic and tried to shout in a normal voice. "Erato. If you can't die, then Clio can't die. So what are we worried about?"

The joy poured out of her eyes, and they turned dark. Somehow, the car sped up. "Don't be an idiot, Jake."

"Hard for me not to be one, Erato, if you're not going to tell me everything!" She looked over at me, danger glowing in her eyes. "I can't help you, and I'm not just going along for the ride."

"How did Achilles die, Jake?" A taxi cab appeared before us, too close to avoid, and I closed my eyes. Somehow she dodged it.

"Blow to the heel. A weak spot."

"Very good." The car sped up. How many gears did this monster have? "He had a weakness."

"OK, I get it. A car crash, you're going to walk away from it. It takes something special." She smiled. "And you think whoever has Clio may know a way. Because... because they knew about the scroll. And how to take her." She nodded. "Great, just great. But Erato," I said, trying to hold my stomach in, "I won't walk away if you roll this car. So slow the hell down!"

She slammed on the brakes, and we spun. Lights flashed out of the fog around me in blinding spirals, and I slammed into the door, hard. We must have spun around four times, and we ended up at a dead stop, the lights of the Bay Bridge hovering in front of us.

"Better?" she said coyly.

I was tasting blood for the first time in this case. I had a bad feeling it wouldn't be the last. "Cute. Really cute." I shook my head. "I can see you're going to be one hell of a... " I was interrupted by a pop. The windshield splintered, cracks running through it like sidewalk shattered by a jumper.

Maybe it was the spin, maybe aftereffects of the whiskey, maybe Erato, but I sat just there for a long moment, trying to figure out what happened. She reached out slowly toward the windshield, touching the crack in fascination. "I didn't think I was going that fast," she said slowly, and there was another pop. Stuffing flew out of her seat, scattering cotton, and my head cleared.

"Shit! Drive, Erato, drive!" I yelled. I pulled out my service revolver, smelled the oil and gunpowder.

"Fast or slow, Jake?" she asked, still looking at the windshield. Something pinged off the car's body, sending up sparks.

"We're being shot at, so fast fast fast," I said. I turned around in my seat and knelt, steadying my gun on the back of the seat.

"I thought you'd never ask," she growled, and the Austin tore off into the fog toward the Bridge.

They must have come up behind us when we spun out. I saw their lights go on when we started off, and that gave me something to aim at. I squeezed off a shot, and Erato squeaked a little. "What was that?"

"I'm shooting back, if that's OK with you," I said, and fired another round behind us. I wasn't hitting anything, but maybe I'd scare them a little. We were faster than they were – whoever they were – and the lights were falling back. Something whipped by my ear, so we weren't far enough away.

"Jake? What's that?" She sounded casual, unconcerned, and I looked over my shoulder to see the toll gate on the bridge loom out of the fog toward us. I was going to die, with the message "25 cents" branded on my forehead in reverse. I dove and we slammed through the gate, the windshield exploded, throwing a wall of glass shards into the car. Erato screamed, a high noise of terror and excitement. The nose of the car kicked up a shower of sparks as we hit the starting rise of the Bridge.

I sat back up as we flashed up the Bridge. "Are you OK?" I shouted at Erato. Her white dress had been cut to ribbons but her beautiful skin was intact. Hers was, at least, I realized sickeningly as blood ran into my eyes.

"Don't worry, Jake, I'm fine." The Austin tore into Oakland as I tried to figure out just how many holes I had in my body. I did a quick check, head to gut – anything below that probably wasn't fatal. I had a nasty gash on the forehead, a piece of glass in my cheek, but my eyes were intact. When I looked back over at her, though, her dress was fine, red and untorn, and her hair was secured by a red ribbon. The train station loomed ahead of us.

"I want a raise," I said.

She whipped the car into an open space. "Jake, you find Clio, and I'll give you whatever you want."

"Anything?" I said thickly.

The fog was beginning to turn pink with the coming dawn. She leaned forward and kissed my forehead, my cheek, and then my lips. I tasted my blood on her lips, on her flickering tongue. "Anything," she said.

We boarded the San Joaquin Daylight at the Oakland Pier, the steam from the engines mingling with the heavy fog off the water. The porters might have given me a hard time in my now-tattered trench coat, but Erato distracted them pretty well between her looks and her tips. Within a couple of minutes we had our own first class compartment back on the train, far enough from the engines to lose the noise and the smoke.

I settled down into the cushioned bench. Erato sat across from me, next to the window, and looked out into the fog with badly concealed excitement. "I've never been on a train," she said.

"You can drive just fine, but you've never ridden a train?" I shook my head. "Why not?"

"I guess it never occurred to me. I can just go wherever I want to whenever I want to." She shrugged, an adorable gesture, and I smiled despite myself. "But I do love cars." She almost felt normal right now, entranced by the train, and not entrancing me.

For the moment I could think. My brain was like a sugar cube in hot coffee when she was focused on me, just melting away. She bounced slightly on the bench as the train pulled away from Oakland Pier, and I got my thoughts gathered around. "Erato. Who's chasing you?"

She sighed, kept looking out of the window. "I don't know, Jake. I guess the same people who have Clio."

"And that's the real question. Who'd want to abduct a Muse?" It just didn't make any sense. "How do you catch a Muse?"

Her eyes were still on the window. "Simple. Get their scroll and evoke them. And you own them." She turned to look at me, her eyes distant. "That's what you did with Clio, even if it was all a mistake."

I frowned. Just a mistake. "So they figured out where she was, got the scroll off my wall, summoned her, and took her away. Nice and easy. And she couldn't fight back?"

"No." She turned back to the window. "If you have our scroll, you have us, our inspiration."

"So why did she keep her scroll in some cave?" It had just been lying there, alone and obvious, in a corner of the cave. "Why didn't she protect it?"

"I don't know, Jake. It's not like her."

"Why did she let me just hang it there in the office?"

"The scroll wasn't hers anymore. It was yours. Just like she was."

Change the subject. "Do you protect your scroll?" I wondered what she heard in my voice.

She looked back at me, her eyes bright. "Yes. My scroll is guarded, hidden, and cursed. You won't find it. No mortal would."

I rubbed my temple and reached into my trench coat. Just what I feared – no whiskey. I stood, and took off the coat. It was a real mess. I shook it once, and shards of glass from the windshield clattered across the compartment. Erato squealed in pain.

"What are you doing, Jake?" Her voice rose in fury, and I saw a red cut on her bare shoulder.

I leaned in close to look. A deep gash, bleeding badly. "I thought glass couldn't hurt you," I said.

"It can't," she whined, fear breaking suddenly in her voice. "It can't!" There was panic bubbling, crackling in the air. "It hurts, Jake!" She let out an animal moan.

I found a semi-clean handkerchief in my pocket and pressed it to the cut. The blood soaked through. When I pulled it away, I saw a little piece of black... something on the cut, and plucked it out as she squirmed. She began to relax immediately, and the cut closed itself. Within seconds, it was gone.

There was a little fragment of a leaf in my hand, coated with her blood. She sighed, shuddered. I held my hand up to her face. "Erato, what's this?"

She screamed again, shoved my hand away with enough force to spin me into the door, and scrabbled into the corner, a small ball of beautiful fear. "Moly! Moly!" she was crying. "Protect me, mother, save me, father!" She was screaming in Attic Greek now. I quickly covered the leaf in my handkerchief.

"Hey, calm down," I said, first in English and, after a moment of recollection, in Greek. Moly. The herb Hermes gave Odysseus to protect him from Circe. _The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it...._ Terror still ruled her face as I struggled to remember the rest of the line. "But the gods can do whatever they like," I whispered, and then it all came crashing in.

I wiped my hands on the ruins on my trench coat and grabbed her shoulders. She was weeping, shivering. "Erato! Calm down!" Nothing.

Her eyes were looking somewhere beyond me, and she was whispering in a trembling high voice, "no, no, no, no."

She was going to kill me for this, I realized as I followed through on the slap to her left cheek. But it felt good, shocking her back to reality, and taking out some of my frustration. I swung back, my open palm slamming into her right cheek, and I shouted at her in Attic, "You are the daughter of Memory and the Lord of Olympus, start acting like it!"

I brought my hand back in for a third slap when she grabbed my wrist, bent it back until something popped. Her cheeks were flushed with fear, rage, and the mark of my hand. "How dare you, mortal?" she said quietly.

"Welcome back," I said in English. "Please don't break my wrist."

She let go, and I retreated across the compartment. Somehow, I was still in control. "Erato. Listen to me. Tell me about moly, now."

"It's an herb of death to us," she said, more calmly now, but the fear was still lurking there, a shadow in her voice. "It is our weakness."

And that was it. Someone knew about the scroll and the evocation. Someone knew how to get moly. And someone could actually get moly. And Homer told us that no mortal can pull moly from the ground.

"Erato. They must have put moly in the bullets. They were trying to kill you. But no mortal can pluck moly." I gulped, not wanting to say what had to be said, not wanting to admit that this madness was real. "Erato. There's a god hunting you."

My outburst lingered in the compartment like a fart in a confessional. She arched an eyebrow and I shrank. "That's a bit of a reach, Jake," she said flatly. Too flatly? I still couldn't read her.

"It makes sense," I replied, standing up, pacing in the compartment, three steps, turn, three steps. "Listen. Homer was clear on this. Only a god can pick moly." I put my hands behind my back, realizing as I did that I was falling into my recitation posture, beaten into me by my father years ago. "The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly. Dangerous for a mortal man to pluck from the soil, but not for the deathless gods." I tried to relax. "All lies within their power."

She laughed. "Homer? You're citing Homer as a reliable source? Oh, Jake, if you had only known that poor drunk fool. You can't believe a word Homer says."

"Why not?" I spat bitterly, and sat across from her. "I believe in you."

She leaned forward and, as ever, her breasts destroyed my anger. "Because I'm real, Jake. And I knew Homer."

"Fine," I said, defeated. "It's a long trip to L.A. I'm going to get a nap." I pulled my hat down over my eyes.

"Oh, don't be a child, Jake," she said. She stood and went back to the window. Fresh air flooded the compartment, but her perfume lingered. She leaned out and the wind caught her long red hair, tossing it like flame before the bellows. Beneath my hat, I took the time to trace (sadly, with eyes only) the curve of her thigh and rear beneath the dress. And then I fell asleep and dreamed of Icarus falling into the wine dark sea.

A knock. My eyes flickered open, and she was still there, leaning out of the window. Another knock, a rough voice, accented. "Tickets." Erato didn't seem to notice, or care, entranced in the baked California countryside sliding past.

I stood, said "Just a second" thickly. Something was wrong. I glanced past Erato. Nothing but dying farms and dust. We were a hell of a way out of Oakland. Tickets? Now? Another knock.

"Tickets, please." Very accented. The hair on the back of my neck started to rise. Did I know that voice?

"Yeah, yeah," I said, trying to be casual. I pulled out my revolver, checked it. Six rounds in. I stuck it in my belt, in the back. It sat there comfortably, and I pulled open the door.

The big one stuck a hand cannon at me. I looked down a barrel that was deep enough to echo, and then I slammed the door shut with all my strength. Caught him off balance, and the door clicked shut. Cheap doors. Maybe would buy me ten seconds, and there were three of them out there. Big one, little one, blond one. They weren't here for me.

The door shook, almost jumped from its frame. Big one must be kicking it. "Jake, what's that?" I turned, and Erato was still looking out of the window. I put one hand on her firm rear and scooped up her ankles with the other. Before she could even squeak, I dumped her out the window as the door crashed open behind me. I hoped to hell she wasn't lying about not being able to be hurt. Then again, if she survived this, she'd kill me.

Big guy aimed the hand cannon at my face. Little guy had a small silver pistol, a lady's gun. And blondie had a Luger, sinister broomstick handle covered in ivory and carved with an eagle holding a swastika. He stepped into the compartment, sliding past the big guy.

I knew the gun. It took all the effort in the world to look at Blondie's face, but I knew that as well, thin and pale, razor-thin mustache, and a nasty scar from temple to nose, right through one eye. Black eyepatch. That was new. But I knew that scar. I'd given it to him on a rocky hillside in Greece in 1944.

"Where is the girl?" the little one whined, but Blondie only had eyes for me.

Memories that I thought I had killed with whiskey and denial flooded back. _"We only want to know about the scroll, Conrad. Tell us what Cairo knows about the scroll and we'll stop." A knife hovering above my chest, I clench my teeth, and another slice. I want to scream, but I won't scream for him. "The scroll!" I don't know anything about a scroll but I know if I tell him that, the knife won't stop cutting._

And when he spoke, that absurd affected Oxford English with Teutonic overtones, I was back on that hillside, and he was slowly torturing me.

"Lieutenant Conrad," he said, pronouncing it _leftenant_ in that absurd British style. "What's it been, old chap, ten years? I think of you every day." His hand fingered the eyepatch. "Every time I look in the mirror, old boy, I remember you. What are the odds?"

He slips up, his anger getting the better of him, and I have the knife. It shudders against his skull and I drag it down, parting skin, splitting an eyeball, and before he could begin screaming I run, running down the loose shale slope, into the darkness, into that cave.

I couldn't speak. He smiled, a thin cruel thing like a rat's tail. "Well, business before pleasure. Where is the Muse, Conrad?"

I bleed in the darkness, in the dust of that cave, but they don't find me. And I find the scroll, sitting in a corner cluttered with broken amphorae.

"She must have gone out the window, _Hauptmann_ ," the little one said.

Stiglitz slapped him, hard. "I thought I told you not to call me that here, Hans? Do you not listen? Go check." Little one squeezed past me to lean out the window.

"You know, old chap, I actually believed you, that you knew nothing about it. You're obviously a better man than I thought," Stiglitz said, stepping forward.

"I didn't know anything," I whispered. It was all flooding back now, questions, asking me again and again about scrolls. My god, how deeply had I buried all of this? How had I forgotten?

I was a flightless bird before a snake. I could smell his aftershave, but underneath it, I could smell Erato, and I had to do something. No time like the present.

Little guy was still leaning out the window, far as he could and looking up and down the train. I leaned down fast, grabbed his ankles, and flipped him out the window. Somehow I didn't think he'd do as well as Erato when he landed. Big guy's hand cannon went off just above my head and right next to Stiglitz's ear, who flinched back, just in time for me to punch him squarely in the crotch. The _Hauptmann_ doubled over and fell back into big guy, who seemed to be the type that couldn't take a piss without orders. He looked confused and panicky and Stiglitz tried to grab his balls and his ears at the same time.

I pulled the upper berth down fast and hard, right on big guy's head. Something cracked, hopefully skull, but probably wood. And then, like Erato and the little guy, I went out the window. Going out under my own power, though, made it a different situation. I grabbed the top of the window and started to pull myself to the roof. Big guy's pistol fired again and a hole appeared in the metal between my legs. I could hear Stiglitz screaming something in German.

I managed to get to the top of the train. Big guy stuck his head out of the window, tried to twist around to see me. He saw me, all right, balancing on the roof and aiming a revolver at his face. Not a hint of fear as he brought up the cannon. I fired first and his forehead split like a melon hit with a cleaver.

Now there was a body in the train, two behind it. The railroad dicks would be moving – they were stupid but they weren't deaf. Time to get off the train.

There was a bridge ahead. I started running, best I could, forward. The train rumbled on to the bridge, and the water below was green and slow. I jumped.

## Chapter Five – They Live in Night

I had just cleared the bridge supports when something slammed into my forehead. Stars in my eyes, sky and river spun, green and blue flashing by. I slammed into the water leading with my belly, and the wind flew out of me. The cool green water closed over me as, stunned and breathless, I was dragged down by the weight of my sodden and tattered trench coat. I tried to struggle but thrashed uselessly. I settled on a soft bed of mud and closed my eyes.

"Mr. Conrad?" I open my eyes. Clio has a warm hand on my shoulder, she's gently shaking me.

"What is it?" I ask thickly, trying to get my office chair upright.

"It's almost six o'clock, Mr. Conrad. I'm getting ready to leave." Her pale blue eyes flash red behind her glasses as the neon sign outside the window bursts into life. She turns toward the door. "I didn't want you to sleep here." A little smile, the freckles bunch up at the corner of her eyes, and she steps out into the waiting room.

I stand, stretch, and fix my tie. I can hear her putting things away in her desk, humming quietly to herself. I shrug on my suit jacket and step out, taking my seat in the visitor's chair and grimacing as the spring jabs my ass.

"Which case is it today, Mr. Conrad?" she asks as she lines up her pencils at the edge of the desk.

She always knows when a case has me stumped. "The Northwood case. You know, the missing Mrs. Northwood, heiress to millions?" Clio nods, stacking up papers. "Not hide nor hair of her," I mutter. "The husband's got an airtight alibi and no motive. No body, no inheritance. No other motives out there."

I watch as she tucks some stray strands of hair behind her left ear. "What about the sister?" she asks.

I shake my head. "Doesn't make sense. The sister's got no motive. Hell, she's the husband's alibi. And she's not in the will. Unless...." Gears start to turn, and I see a spark in Clio's eyes. "The lipstick. Wasn't Mrs. Northwood's. If it was her sister's...."

Clio snaps her purse shut. "Goodnight, Mr. Conrad."

"Goodnight, Clio," I say absently as the pieces begin to fall together and she shuts the door and I never see her again.

I opened my eyes. The sun was a distant wavering yellow disk through what seemed like a thousand feet of water.

I was going to see her again.

I struggled out of the trench coat, the shoes, the suit jacket, the wool pants, all the weights pulling me down into the mud at the bottom of this watery coffin and tried to claw my way up. My lungs were on fire, I kept looking at the sun and the sky the color of Clio's eyes, and I swam for air and life and her. It was too far off. My jaws opened against my will and I took in a lungful of water and the yellow disk of the sun began to fall away. I'd lingered in the chambers of the sea for too long, and I wasn't going to hear the voices that would drown me.

I was lost in that blue sky too far above when a soft hand closed like steel around my wrist. I was yanked from the river and dragged to the sandy bank. Erato pulled me up across the grit. Her red dress was torn and wet, clinging to her body, and it was a sign of how far gone I was that all I could think about was vomiting up river water and mud in convulsive coughs instead of getting an eyeful.

I lay on my side, puking up the San Joaquin River, and Erato screamed at me. "How dare you, mortal! You threw me from a train!"

I put one feeble hand up to defend myself, tried to speak, and coughed up more water. "Was it a test, to see if I was telling you the truth? What was it? Why?" Her voice was shrill and strange, her calm broken. The water was gone now, and I could see her in the noon light, wet and gleaming and as furious and beautiful as a storm bearing down on me at sea.

"They had guns," I croaked.

"Who had guns?" she shouted.

"Three guys." More coughing, a bit more water, some blood. Blood? My eyes were full of blood. I touched my forehead and almost fainted from the pain. My fingers were bloody. "The guys who shot us earlier. The ones with moly in their bullets."

That finally shut her up. She sat down in the sand. "Oh," she said quietly. I took advantage of the silence to sit up and realize I was wearing only my boxer shorts and socks and, somehow, my tie. There was a moment of struggle in Erato's face, and I saw her sensual confidence settle back in. She shifted her wet legs in the sand to her best advantage and leaned forward. "Why didn't you defend me, then, Jake? Fight them off? Achilles would never have pushed a woman out of a window."

"Achilles was invulnerable unless they shot him in the heel, Erato. I'm not." I tried to look at the river, the sky, anywhere but her, but my eyes kept coming back to her torn clinging dress. "Besides, he would have just raped you." She frowned. "Anyway, didn't Clio say I was a Ulysses, not an Achilles? Ulysses would have shoved a woman out of a window to save her."

She smiled with a pout. "But I thought you loved me, Jake. You wouldn't take a bullet for me?"

I'd take anything for you, part of me said, but I was still shaken enough from the death that nearly took me that I could push the desire away for a moment. "I want to sleep with you, Erato. That doesn't mean I love you," I spat.

Her smile disappeared, her eyes darkened. "Well. I'm surprised you know the difference between the two, Jake. You seem like the sort that falls in love with every pretty face and is always disappointed when you wake up next to them and they're not the perfect princesses you expected."

"You don't know me that well, Erato," I snarled.

"I guess I don't," she snapped back. "Did Clio?"

Then I heard the shot. "Get down," I shouted, and I tried to get over to her to push her down, to take the bullet. I saw him now, about thirty feet behind her. The little guy, bloodied and torn, with that little lady's pistol, standing shakily and trying to get a bead on Erato. I stood, slipped in the sand, and fell, as Erato swept up some smooth river stones and spun.

There was the sound of stone hitting metal and the tiny silver pistol, along with three fingers on his right hand, went spinning away. He fell to his knees with a keening wail, the air being let out of a balloon. "We are trying to talk here!" Erato shouted at him, and she threw the second stone, which caught him square in the throat. His wailing stopped as he clawed at his crushed windpipe and fell face down in the sand. She turned back to me. "I asked if Clio knew you well," she said.

"Why did you kill him?" I said, getting to my knees. "He might have been able to tell us something!" I staggered over to the body.

"Jake," Erato said. "Did Clio know you well?" I forced myself to ignore her. I knelt gingerly beside the fresh corpse and started going through his pockets.

Erato sighed theatrically behind me and I heard a rush of wind. When I glanced back she was wearing a summery short green dress, her hair was dry and recently permed, and she had a flower print parasol in one hand, shading her from the noon. "That is a damn good trick," I said with a smile, and she curtsied. Wallet. Watch. Key to a hotel room. The Knickerbocker Hotel in L.A. High priced place.

"What do you have there, Jake?" Erato asked, shading us both with the parasol.

I held up the key. It jingled merrily. "A clue. The first real goddamn clue in this whole goddamn case."

"I'm happy for you, Jake," she said as I fished through the wallet. Fifty-three bucks, no ID, a train ticket in the name of Hans Kurrik. "But what about Clio?"

I stood. "What's wrong with my forehead?" I asked her.

"You've got a nasty cut, right down to the bone," she said clinically. I looked up at the bridge, saw a telephone wire running along the top. Must have smacked right into it.

"I need a hospital." I felt faint.

"No, you don't, Jake," she said. She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me down to my knees, then leaned over and kissed my head. Her lips were hot, but the pain vanished.

"Now, Jake, what about Clio? Did she know you well?" she whispered.

I looked up at her. "You don't get my life story for twenty bucks a day plus expenses. You keep asking crap like this and I'll just go home." I looked down at the battered body of the little guy. "It's not like you need me to protect you."

"Then go home, Jake," she said, and she turned and began to walk away. "I'll find Clio on my own." The parasol was cocked over her left shoulder and her hips swayed perfectly as she walked. She glanced back at me. "Unless this is more than a case to you? Maybe it's something" – she licked her lips – "personal?"

Kneeling in the sand in my boxers next to the corpse, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or scream. So I just shook my head again. "Can you get me some clothes?" She stopped. "I can't go to L.A. dressed like this," I said, standing.

She turned, grinning. "You look fine to me, Jake. But, if you insist, I already got you some clothes." With a laugh, she pointed at the cooling body at my feet.

After nine hours in the back of a '32 Model B pickup truck, riding with the chickens, the lights of Los Angeles began to scar the southern sky. Almost there. I took out little guy's silver pistol again, checked it over. There was a dent in the trigger guard and blood on the handle, but I thought it would fire. Four shots left, all of which felt too light in my hand. Moly. My service revolver was at the bottom of the river, so this little silver piece was the best I had.

Erato was riding in the cab of the pickup with some local hick she had charmed on the road outside of Merida. A flash of leg and a smile and a lame excuse about a broken down car and he didn't care that the suit I was wearing was four sizes too small. He jerked his thumb back, telling me to get in with the chickens, and he held the door open for Erato.

We crested the coastal mountains as the pickup coughed like a smoker running a mile, and L.A. came into view, a sea of lights lying between the mountains and the sea. I could see the freighters coming into Long Beach and the spotlights on the Hollywood sign. Last time I had been here the sign had said Hollywoodland. L.A. wasn't even a land anymore, just some strange realm sprawled out under the distant shadowed dome of the Griffith Observatory

I didn't like Los Angeles. For a city of angels, life was cheap and death was easy. In San Francisco, people seemed to die for good reasons – money, power, sex, and money again. In L.A., death just seemed to reach out and casually take folks down. There were a lot of shallow graves on the hillsides, and the infrequent rains mingled bones and mud down in the ravines.

The Ford gasped to a shuddering halt outside of the Knickerbocker, behind a gleaming Phantom. The driver of the Phantom gave us a nasty look as he opened the door, and a pair of legs emerged attached to a starlet. Erato might just be outclassed here.

But she wasn't. She got out of the beat-up truck and every man's eye turned to her. I jumped off the back and heard a tear as little guy's pants gave way in the back. I brushed off some chicken feathers as Erato took my arm and led me inside past the starlet, who shot her a look that should have killed. Erato paused long enough to smile sweetly at the girl. I kept going.

The doorman stopped me immediately. "Forgive me... sir," he said disdainfully, looking at the suit. The pants stopped about five inches above my ankles, the shirt sleeves half-way up my forearms. And my boxers showed through the rip. "Perhaps sir would be more... comfortable at a lesser establishment?" he sniffed. His tuxedo fairly gleamed.

"Back off, Percy," I said. "I'm not staying." I started to walk past him, but the penguin got in my way.

"Indeed you are not, sir. Now please, don't make a..." He glanced behind me, and his mouth worked soundlessly. I felt Erato's hand on my shoulder.

"It's all right, Jonathon, he's with me," she purred.

"Of course, madam." He backed away, gulping convulsively.

Erato led the way to the check-in desk. "Welcome back, ma'am," said the man behind the desk.

"Good to be here, Seymour," Erato replied. She leaned in close. "My usual room is available." It wasn't a question.

"Ah, yes, madam, I'm sure it is." Seymour began to dig around in his records. "Would that be a suite with a double or a queen, ma'am?" I was curious about that myself.

"A king-sized bed, please, with a view, Seymour." From nowhere, she produced a wad of bills, laid out two hundreds. Seymour managed to pull his eyes away from the pair in front of him to the pair on the desk. "Oh, and Seymour? Have the concierge summon a tailor. Mr. Conrad needs a new suit." She took the pen from his hand and wrote my measurements – accurately, I noted – on a piece of paper. "Make it two. High quality."

He nodded. "But of course, ma'am." He slammed the bell on his desk. "Boy!"

A bellhop ran up. Erato shook her head. "We don't have any..." she started to say, but I interrupted.

"Show us our room, kid," I said, flashing a twenty I got from little guy's wallet. He grinned and nodded, and led us toward the elevator.

"Jake?" Erato asked. I slowed down, let the kid get ahead of us.

"Bellhops know everything, Erato," I said. "Once we're away from the desk, I can ask him a few questions."

The elevator was a beautiful cage of gold and marble and mirrors. The bellhop told the elevator operator to take a quick break and pulled the door shut behind us. "What do you need, mister?" he asked, eying the twenty in my hand. Here was a kid that would go far. He could put his eyes on the money or a dozen reflections of Erato but he was locked on the money.

I pulled out the room key. "Listen, kid, couple of friends of mine used room 504. I need anything you know about them. And I need to know if anyone's staying there now. And I need to keep housekeeping out of there." I passed him the twenty.

He nodded. "You got it, mister." The bell rang as we reached the top, the eleventh floor. "I'll ask around, find out what I can, and I'll call you if any of the three of them show up."

"I'm only worried about the blond one, kid. Pull the phone records for the room too." I passed him ten more as we stepped out.

"Thank you, Jason," Erato said, and he noticed her for the first time. His hand crumpled around the money. His eyes widened, and he backed up into the elevator. He slowly pulled the door closed.

I checked out the room key. 1111. Good number. "Let's get settled, get some food, some new clothes, then we'll find Urania. Where's she going to be?"

"Griffith Observatory," Erato said. She sounded subdued.

"Great. We'll need a car, too, then, or a cab." I opened the door. It was a palace, one corner of the hotel, with a view of the hills, the Hollywood sign, and Griffith Observatory. The hills were dark. I wondered if Urania was looking at us now through those telescopes.

There was only one bed, a large king-sized. "Guess we'll have to share," I said.

Erato giggled. "Sorry, Jake, I don't sleep, remember?"

I shot her a smirk. "Doesn't mean we can't share it when we're both awake."

She rolled her eyes. "Go take a shower, Jake. You need it." I sniffed my armpit. Yeah, I did.

I locked the bathroom door behind me and started the shower. As it warmed up, I started to try to take the little guy's suit off, but it tore at the seams. It was easier just to rip it off and leave it in a heap on the floor.

The water was painfully hot and the stream powerful. Back home, I could get a trickle of tepid water if I got up early enough. It was like having someone with a fever spit on you. But here at the Knickerbocker, they had hot water, and by God I was going to use all of it.

Caked blood, river mud, and sand sluiced off me into a murk at the bottom of the shower. I stood there and let the water beat me, pound away at the dirt and the aches and the pains of the last few days. I don't know how long I was in there. I really didn't care. Maybe I even fell asleep in there under the shower. All I know is that when I finally felt like I was done, I was a new man, like the water had torn away my skin and left me a clean skeleton.

I got out and the bathroom was thick with steam. I dried off slowly, and then it hit me – I had nothing to wear. I wasn't going to put any of the rags back on. I thought about just walking out, naked as a jaybird, but I wasn't sure what would be worse – that Erato might compare me to Achilles, or that she might not notice at all. I fumbled through the steam and found a blindingly white terrycloth bathrobe. It was a soft as a fogbank when I wrapped it around my shoulders.

I opened the door and the steam rolled out in a wave, and the cool night air hit me. Winter in Los Angeles, and Erato standing at the open balcony, a long black dress shot through with silver, a crystal goblet in one hand, the sound of traffic below and the clink of ice. My eyes fell on the bottle on the table, and I poured myself a tall one. I dropped the ice in and took a sip, then a gulp, and then I swallowed the whole thing. Then a refill to enjoy a bit more slowly.

"The tailor came by, Jake," Erato said, not turning, facing into the night. The hillsides east of L.A. were glittering with millionaires' fires, the great mansions lit up. And a dark patch where the observatory jealously guarded the night sky. On the bed were two suits, both charcoal, pinstripes, narrow lapels. A couple of white shirts, some black shoes, a felt fedora. Underwear, socks. And a pack of cigarettes.

My lungs ached for a moment as I grabbed the smokes. She had remembered my brand. I sliced the pack open with a fingernail, pulled out two, and went out on the balcony. I handed her one. I lit it for her with a pack of the hotel's matches and then lit mine. The smoke flooded me. For a moment, standing in the night with Erato at my side, four fingers of really excellent bourbon in my glass, and a cigarette, I felt whole and happy.

She ruined it, of course. "The boy came by as well," she said quietly. The undercurrent in her voice that could drag a sane man away was gone. "He said that no one else has checked into 504 and that the maids haven't touched it. He said he wouldn't have any telephone records until morning."

"Did you tip him?" I asked.

"Yes. I gave him a hundred dollars." She swirled her drink and the ice sang.

"God damn, Erato, you have no idea how the real world works," I said. "Now I'm going to have to really pay him off to get anything else."

"Sorry, Jake," she said.

I put a hand on her shoulder and she didn't react. Her skin was cold and smooth. "What's wrong?" I tried to sound concerned. Maybe I was.

"I don't like Urania, Jake." Her tone was flat. "She scares me." She shivered.

I wanted to hug her, hold her, tell her everything was going to be okay. But I didn't. She was still using me, turning off the sex and turning on the need and trying to make me push the lever like a good little rat. So I dropped my hand from her shoulder. "Yeah, well, she may be in trouble. They wouldn't be in L.A. without a good reason, right? They're probably after her, too. Or you."

She kept looking out into the night and the stars. I sipped my drink. "We'll go see her soon." She shuddered again. "But first I need to go down to 504. You stay up here. People won't see me, but everyone sees you." And I don't need you distracting me, I didn't say.

"Be careful," she whispered. I took a suit into the bathroom, dressed, and headed out into the hall. I took the stairs down to the fifth floor. I didn't need to be seen by the elevator operator right now. Not when I'm doing a little bit of breaking and entering. Or at least entering. I did have the key. The corridor was empty. I pressed my ear against the door of 504. Silence. I tried the door, and it was locked. The key fit, turned smoothly and quietly, and I slowly pushed the door open.

504 was a lot smaller than 1111, fit for a businessman, not a queen. One room, double bed, armchair. I closed the door behind me and checked the bathroom. Empty. I walked slowly through the rest of the room. No luggage. Stiglitz and his boys didn't sleep here, then. The bed was made but slightly ruffled. Someone had sat on it. A few glasses on a table, smelling slightly of alcohol. They'd been here. But not to sleep.

They were either waiting for something, or they had something they needed to keep off the streets. I started with the armchair. The fabric was rubbed down a bit on both sides and around the back in a straight line. Rope mark. Someone had been tied to the chair.

I pulled the cushion away and several small white petals fell. Laurel blossoms. Too late in the season for them. But here they were, just like the blossoms I'd seen in Clio's apartment. Bingo. She must have grabbed some and left them here for me to find. She knew I'd look for her. She trusted me.

I picked them up and bruised one. The heady smell of laurel filled the air. They must have grabbed her, gotten her down to L.A. on the night train, kept her here for a few hours, and then moved her before they came back up to San Francisco to get Erato. So where was she now?

"I'm going to find you, Clio," I whispered to her and to myself. I was going to have to find Stiglitz first. I needed those phone records, had to see if he'd called anyone from here. And I wouldn't have them until morning. Time to visit Urania.

The road up the side of the mountain toward the Observatory was twisty and dark. I was grateful for the bourbon in my blood, steadying me. Erato sat quietly next to me, her arms around her knees, staring out the window at L.A. below her. She was quiet and small.

She must have been nervous. She was letting me drive. A big black Packard with a hell of a lot of horses under the hood. I had power to spare, for the first time in this investigation. I was in control. It felt good. I only wished I had a real gun. The little silver pistol with its moly bullets wasn't much of a man-stopper, but I didn't have enough friends in L.A. to get a real weapon in short order.

The Observatory loomed at the top of the rise. To our left I could see the Hollywood sign, bathed in pure white light. A virginal beacon for a dirty whore. I parked the Packard, checked the gun, and got out. I went around and opened Erato's door. "Come on," I said, and offered her my hand.

She didn't move. She stayed there, her chin on her knees, her arms wrapped around them. "Come on," I said again. "She may know something."

"I don't want to go, Jake," she whispered. "Not to her, not in need."

I shook my head. "We don't have time for this, Erato. Clio's out there, probably in danger. So get the hell up and be presentable to your sister." I took her hand and nearly pulled her out of the car. She glared at me but this time I stood my ground.

"Fine," she said. She ran her fingers through her hair, stood up straight, and led with her chest. My mouth went dry. So much for being in control. She started past me to the main building. "And don't ever touch me again," she said in a snarl. I followed, enjoying the view she presented.

At the door, she stopped again, and spoke in ancient Greek. "I stand before your home, sister, and I seek to enter." Without an answer (so far as I could tell), she then pushed open the door. Formality and ritual. Saying the right things at the right time. I guess it probably wasn't smart to walk in on the Muse of Astronomy – hell, any Muse, for that matter – without going through a touch of ritual.

The walls were whitewashed, freshly so, and the place smelled like paint and hospitals. Clean and clinical. Erato seemed to know where to go, so I followed as she led me toward the center of the building. She pushed open a pair of double doors and the smells of L.A., smog and dust, flooded in. The dome was open, the giant telescope aiming to the south, toward the crescent moon.

She stood before the scope, one eye on the eyepiece. She wore white, a long coat of it, and her hair was jet back and fell down to her hips in a long, intricate braid, which was held together by silver thread. The thread whirled and knotted, and I paused at the doorway, caught in that thread, feeling like there was a message there, if I was only smart enough to figure it out.

Erato walked forward. "Hail, sister," she said in Attic. Urania raised one hand, one finger, a motion of silence, and Erato stopped. A long minute passed, and the finger fell, and Urania turned around. She lacked the beauty of Erato, the warmth of Clio, but she was striking. Yes, striking was the word. A shot to the gut as she looked at me with cold black eyes. It was like looking at craters on the moon, distant, cold, and white.

"Greetings, sister Erato," Urania said, and her voice was flat. "You are welcome, as is your mortal." She spoke ancient Greek as well, and I had some trouble keeping up. She stepped away from the telescope and a shimmering image of the crescent moon, inverted, was shining on the floor behind her, focused through the giant telescope. "May I ask why you are here?"

"I am looking for our sister, Clio," Erato said. Her voice was strong, no sign of hesitation. If she was afraid, she was hiding it well.

No reaction. "I believe she is in San Francisco, still enslaved to that private investigator," she said. I smiled a little at how "private investigator" translated into Attic. She turned to me. "So he speaks our tongue. Unusual in a modern mortal." God damn it, she was good.

"I do, gentle Muse," I said. I realized I was doing it again, standing in recitation posture, hands behind my back.

Her eyes, dark voids, narrowed. "I did not ask your mortal to speak, Erato." Her tone was meant to cut. I was used to Erato. I stood my ground. I began to think I was getting the hang of dealing with Gods.

"This is the mortal who held Clio's scroll," Erato said. "She has vanished, the scroll with her."

"I see. And you have not scourged this mortal yet for his effrontery at capturing one of us?" She had turned back to Erato, and I slid a hand into my pocket. The cold metal of the gun felt good. "In older days we would have broken him, sister, driven him mad with inspiration and desire. Have you grown so weak?"

Erato took a step back. "He means to help us find her, and to free her. He didn't realize he had captured a Muse."

"So he is a fool as well. You put your trust in strange men, Erato. But I suppose you always did." With a sigh, Urania turned back to the telescope. "I know nothing of our sister, nor do I care. She was fool enough to let her scroll be captured by this idiot, and then by another, it seems. I fear she will pay the price." The projected moon danced on her face.

Erato fell silent and turned. "Come on, Jake," she said quietly.

I shook my head. " _Sing Heav'nly Muse_ ," I started in English, " _who first taught the chosen seed, In the beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth rose out of Chaos_." I had cut it a bit short, and to be honest, no one was really sure which Muse Milton was calling at the start of _Paradise Lost_. But I rolled the dice anyway.

Urania hissed and spun back to face me. "You dare!"

"Yeah, I guess I do," I said in English. "Listen, sister, Clio was a good... is a good person. She's been a great assistant. And I want to help her. Erato wants to help her. I thought family was supposed to be important. I didn't want to capture her. Hell, I didn't know I had until Erato showed up to tell me. If I find her, I'll set her free, and I'll make the bastards who took her pay. It's that simple."

Her face softened, perhaps, or was it a momentary shift into cunning? "I see. Well spoken, mortal, but I still know nothing of use. Twice History has left herself unprotected, twice she is captured. I would help if she would learn the lesson."

I sat down on a bench. Erato was staring at me, horrified. "Twice? Huh," I said. "Do you keep your scroll protected, Urania?"

"Through magics and wile, yes," she said. "Woe to the one who tries to control me."

"And Erato told me she keeps hers protected too," I said. "So Clio's just careless? Or was it put out there for me to find?" I scratched my ear. "Was she always careless? Is history always falling into the wrong hands?" I asked.

"It was unusual," Erato said, her voice cracking a little. "None of us ever figured it out."

I nodded. "Yeah, I see. You know something, Urania? Someone's been trying to kill Erato since we started looking. They're shooting moly. I hear that stuff hurts you and your sisters." Her face was ice. "If they've got Clio, and they're gunning for Erato, you think you're safe?"

Her voice was full of cold fury, and the winds outside rattled the dome. "I am the Muse of astronomy, the handmaiden of science. The works and ways of men are not a danger to me."

I stood up, walked over to Erato, offered her my arm. She hesitated, then took it. "I bet Clio thought the same thing before I found her scroll in '44. Something's going on, Urania, and you Muses are targets. You be careful." I started to walk out.

"Mr. Conrad," Urania said suddenly. "I can ask some questions. Where are you staying, in case I get any information?"

I gave her my number in San Francisco. "Call there, the service will take a message. Thanks."

I led Erato out, feeling Urania's eyes drilling into the back of my head the entire way.

## Chapter Six – Circumstantial Evidence

"Why didn't you tell her where we were staying, Jake?" The Packard roared down the ridge road from the observatory. Erato's voice was regaining some of its old tone, that mix of seduction and playfulness I realized I had missed, even as it was driving me crazy. "Are you afraid of her, too?"

"No need to tell her, sweetheart," I said, checking the rear view mirror for a third time. "The less people know, the safer I feel."

She laughed. "Then I guess you feel pretty safe around yourself, Jake." She rolled down her window and the cool night air swept in.

"Real funny, Erato," I growled. I kept one hand on the wheel, fished around in my pocket for a cigarette with the other. I pulled the cigarette lighter out, waited until it glowed cherry, and lit up. The reel snapped it back into the socket like a gunshot, and my hands twitched. I checked the mirror again. Same headlights. Holding back, trying to stay a turn behind, but following us. Maybe innocently. Maybe not. Only one way to find out.

I sped up as we rounded a turn, and Erato squeaked. "Now that's driving, Jake," she breathed as I sped off the road into the gravel along the side. The passenger side wheels were inches from the edge of the cliff. I stopped the car, turned off the lights, and waited. "Why are we stopping, Jake?" she asked.

"Just wait," I said. The other car, a low-slung Chevy, came around the turn, slowed. I had him. He saw me parked, he must have, because he hit the gas hard. I caught a glimpse of the driver as the car flashed by, but didn't see much more than a hat and a trench coat.

"Hang on, Erato," I whispered, and I punched it. Gravel and dirt screamed out from under the tires but when they got traction we shot off like a rocket down the road. We tore down the side of the canyon road. I knew I didn't have much time. If we got to Los Feliz Boulevard, there would be too much traffic, and I'd lose him in the L.A. nightlife. The engine was screaming when I slammed it into fourth, and the Chevy fishtailed ahead me, tossing up roostertails of gravel from the edge. Two more feet and he would have gone over. Erato had grabbed my knee, her fingers were hot. I risked a glance at her and she was smiling, the wind throwing her hair around. Her lips were shining in the light from the dash. _Focus, Jake_ , I told myself.

The driver of the Chevy was good, very good, and he had a lot of engine as well. He was keeping a hundred feet ahead of me, going smoothly into the turns but gunning it a little too fast as he came out of them, slewing the back of the car around. The boulevard was coming up fast. We tore around a hairpin turn and I had some straight road for a minute. I put the gas on the floor and started gaining. He vanished around a turn and I kept the power on.

As we swung around the turn, I saw brake lights, close. "Son of a bitch!" I shouted, and Erato shrieked joyfully. The Chevy was slowing fast and we were about to bounce bumpers when his back window shattered. I stood on the brake, and the smell of burning rubber filled the car. We swerved crazily and I hurled an arm out to hold Erato back while realizing how stupid it was to put my mortal arms in the way of her immortal breasts. There was a flash of sparks as our bumpers crumpled and the force of the collision drove the Chevy downhill. Then our front window cracked, and I realized the bastard was shooting at us. "God damn it," I screamed as I slammed on the gas, but the bumper had folded into the front tires, and we weren't going anywhere. One of the trapped tires howled like a hungry banshee before it blew. The Chevy was made of sturdier stuff, I guess, because he pulled out like a bat out of hell and vanished down the road toward Los Feliz. We'd never catch him now. I slammed my fist into the steering wheel.

"Jake?" Erato said quietly.

"What?" I snapped at her.

"I've been shot," she said with a note of wonder in her voice. When I looked over at her, the white dress was turning pink with blood from a hole in her belly.

"Oh, Christ," I said, and I tore the dress apart at the hole. There was a bullet wound there, deep, red blood bubbling up, running down her white skin. "We need to get you to a doctor."

She laughed. "Jake, you silly, silly man," she said. The hole started to close as I watched. "I think you've forgotten who the goddess is here."

I snorted, sat back up. "Yeah, stupid me for thinking of you as a woman."

"Not stupid, Jake," she said, turning toward me. Her eyes were shining with the excitement of the chase, the danger. "Not stupid at all," she whispered, and she pulled me close.

I closed my eyes and leaned in. Our lips brushed and I felt myself melting into the kiss. _You just need to focus_ , _Jake_ , I heard Clio saying distantly. I forced my eyes open. Erato's eyes were close, open wide and staring at my face, deep wild wells of green, a lake where the sedge had withered and the birds didn't sing. I pulled my starved lips from hers and pushed her away.

"What's wrong, Jake?" she said huskily. I turned away, opened the door. The cool air slapped me hard, blew away the warmth of her lips and hands.

"Need to get the car moving," I said thickly. I gave the bumper a few hard kicks to get it off the blown front tire. In the trunk I found a jack and a spare. She was watching me through the broken windows, pouting, jilted.

"Get out of the car, Erato," I said. "I need to fix the flat."

She slid out of car, smoothed her dress down with her hands, and turned away from me, looking down toward the city. I knelt in the dust and gravel and took off the flat tire, my mind whirling. I tossed the shredded tire in the trunk, hung the new one on the axle, and replaced the lug nuts. Erato was like a statue, only her hair and dress moving, toyed with by the wind.

I stood, brushed the dust off my suit, and pulled out the little silver pistol. My footsteps sounded like thunder to me as I came up behind her, stopping about ten feet back. I brought the pistol up and leveled it at her beautiful back. "Erato," I said flatly.

"Yes, Jake?" she said.

"Look at me." She turned. Her eyes widened in fear and rage mingled, but I held my stance. Some small part of me rejoiced. I'd surprised her, scared her, I was in control for once.

"Jacob Conrad," she said, the bass in her voice growing as the wind began to swirl around her, dust devils dancing at her feet, "what are you...."

I twitched my hand up slightly and fired. The crack sounded small out here in the mountains, but she shrank as the round flew over her head, and the wind died down. "Shut up, Erato," I said. "Don't try anything, or the next one will go into your chest." She deflated, the fear growing, and she wrapped her arms over her breasts, weak armor against the death by moly I held in my hands.

"Just listen," I said, trying to keep the gun steady. "Every time I'm on the trail, you distract me. At Clio's apartment. In the car. On the riverbank. And now here, when I had a chance to chase one of the them down. Which side are you on?"

"I want to find Clio, Jake," she said. She looked down at the dirt. "But I can't help who I am. You get passionate when you're hunting. The clues are your women and you pursue them with ardor. That passion, it infects me. I want to inspire more of it." She looked up, her eyes in tears. She was babbling now. "All of us are like that. Clio wants history, to put the past into neat little boxes. Urania wants order, the planets spinning forever in their spheres, Calliope...."

"Swear to it," I said.

"To what?" Her eyes were wild.

"That you want to find Clio, to help her."

"I swear, Jake," she said, putting her hands out in front of her, palms up, so the Gods could see her hands were empty of lies.

Old memories swam, the Iliad, and Agamemnon swearing on the beach that he'd never touched Achilles' slave. "Swear by Zeus, and Gaia, and Helios," I said.

She straightened up, put her hands at her sides. "I swear that I am here to help Clio, I swear by Zeus, Gaia, and Helios," she said.

"And swear by the Furies, who slay oath breakers," I said in Greek.

The color drained from her face, her eyes went wide. "Jake..."

I cocked the pistol. "Swear!" I shouted.

"I swear by the kindly ones," she shrieked, her voice echoing across the valley, "I swear by the Erinyes that they may destroy me if I am false!" She fell to her knees in the dirt, sobbing. Somewhere in the distance, rocks fell, a long low roll of thundering stone. I guess someone had heard her.

"Get up and get in the car," I said, tucking the gun back in my belt. I walked back to the Packard. The engine coughed twice and roared to life. After five minutes, the passenger door opened, and she climbed in. There was still dust on her knees, her hands, and her face was ghostly white. In silence, we drove back to the Knickerbocker.

The bellhop was waiting. "Mr. Conrad, Mr. Conrad," he said, running up. "I got those phone numbers for you!" He waved a piece of paper at me.

"Thanks, kid," I said. I handed him another twenty and he ran off after saluting me.

It was late. We got into room 1111, and Erato walked right out onto the porch. I poured two glasses of whiskey, tossed ice in both, and stepped out with her. The wind from the sea was picking up. There was no dust on her now, and her eyes smoldered as she stared into the darkness.

I handed her one of the glasses. We stood in silence, drinking. I lit two cigarettes and soon the wind was carrying the smoke away.

I was about to apologize when she spoke first. "I should throw you from the balcony, Jake." My hand went for the gun but she was faster, grabbing my wrist. I felt the bones grind together as she squeezed. Her eyes were pale green fire.

"So do it," I said through gritted teeth. "Go ahead. I've kissed a goddess, which puts me ahead of most guys." Her hand tightened, and stars flashed before my eyes. "But if your oath was true, then I'm your best chance at finding her. And you know it."

"I should kill you, Jake," she hissed. "But I won't." She let go, and I fell to my knees, clutching my wrist.

"Well, thanks for that," I said with a groan. With my good hand, I reached up and grabbed my drink.

"I won't because you really do want to find her, don't you?" she asked.

"Yeah. I miss her, Erato. She means a lot to me." I sat back on the cool concrete, leaned my head against the wall.

She sat down next to me. "She means a lot to me too, Jake," she said softly. She rested her head on my shoulder. "You did something really stupid tonight, Jake."

I massaged my wrist. "You think I don't know that, sweetheart?"

"Not pointing a gun at me," she said with a laugh. "Though that was pretty damn stupid." She took a deep draw from her cigarette. The smoke curled around her face like a snake.

"Then what?" I put my arm around her shoulders, pulled her close, and she didn't resist.

She turned to look at me. I tried to lose myself in the mazes of her eyes. "You brought the kindly ones into this, Jake. And now, I don't know how this ends."

"I don't know either, Erato, but I'm going to see it through."

"I know, Ulysses, I know." She kissed me, and this time I let myself fall.

I woke up in the huge soft bed, naked and alone, and the sun high in the sky. My mind was clear, my body didn't ache. I'd never felt better and I knew I'd never feel this good again. I got out of bed, took a quick shower, and dressed. And then I remembered the piece of paper the bellhop had given me the night before.

There were two phone numbers on it. One had been called two dozen times, the other only once. That told me where to start. I called the local cops, pulled the old 'out of town policeman' routine. They didn't ask any questions, just ran the first number for me and gave me an address.

I put on my hat and went down to the lobby. She was holding court there like I knew she would be, surrounded by directors and agents, everyone offering her a role, everyone hoping she'd end up on their casting couch. "Jake," she said when she saw me, and suddenly everyone in the room hated me, wanted to be me. I walked over, gave her my hand, and helped her to her feet. "It's been wonderful, gentlemen," she said magnanimously. "I'll think about all of your offers very, very carefully." She locked eyes with each of them in turn, and every one of them walked away thinking they had her. It was going to be a good year for movies.

"Having fun?" I said.

"Jealous?" she asked with a smile.

"Not really," I said, wrapping an arm around her waist. "I've had what they all want." She kissed me again. "Listen. I have an address. Let's go check it out."

We got another car, a big black Ford, and set off. It was after noon before I found it, a house far up in the Hollywood hills. A long low ranch of whitewashed stone, surrounded by a tall iron fence. The grounds were immaculate, beautiful gardens set in geometrical symmetry and perfectly groomed trees. From the road, I could see a pool surrounded by sundials. There was a locked gate at the driveway.

"Stay in the car," I said, as I backed up close to the fence.

She pouted cutely. "You always say that."

"You always distract me," I replied. She darted forward and kissed the tip of my nose. I was smiling when I got out of the car. I stood on the back bumper, tossed my trench coat on top of the fence, and vaulted over. I landed well for a change, without even getting a grass stain on my trousers. The grass was wet and brilliantly green, like her eyes, and on either side of me sprinkler heads glistened ominously. If I stayed here too long, I might be soaked. I moved quickly toward the pool and the patio.

A veritable forest of sundials stood around the pool, the gnomons all pointing accusingly at noon. They all had cutesy Latin phrases on them, _tempus fugit, cave canum, ars longum, vita brevis_. I paused for a moment by a black iron one, the gnomon a polished finger bone, _ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas_ in silver script around the rim. Eternity is hinged upon this moment. No, that was last night. By the door, an ivory sundial, _bulla est vitra humana_. Human life is a bubble. I was ready to be popped.

The patio door was unlocked, and I slipped quietly into a large sunroom. A gleaming black grand piano sat here, and dust motes danced in beams of California sun. I crept into a main hallway, down to a kitchen, unease growing in me. The kitchen was immaculate. No food in the Kelvinator. Dust on the glasses. And the water took an eternity to arrive when I opened the faucet.

A sick feeling rose in my throat. I went back out into the hall, opened a bathroom door. No toilet paper. Down to a bedroom, a large bed with a blue bedspread, covered in a fine layer of dust. I didn't want to go on. I had to. I slipped into the living room. It was dominated by a huge orrery, a silver and onyx model of the solar system, the planets hanging on nearly invisible glass rods. Venus an orange beryl, Mars a deep red ruby, and Earth a blue sapphire with a scarred pearl orbiting it. The sun was a massive diamond, sparkling with sunlight from an overhead window, casting dancing prisms across the room. The chairs were covered in a fine, uniform layer of dust. Out of the windows, I could see the driveway. There was a low-slung Chevy with a shattered back window and a mangled bumper, a pair of legs protruding from beneath. As I watched, a hand snaked out, felt around a toolbox, and pulled out a wrench.

I opened the front door and crept along the grass toward the car. Whoever was working on the car was on a small wheeled platform. A professional, obviously. I grabbed his foot and yanked him out hard. The sun blinded him and he cursed. "What the hell?" he shouted. A skinny kid, dirty brown hair and hollow cheeks spotted with pimples.

I pulled the silver pistol and aimed it at his face. "Oh, Jesus, mister, take whatever you want!" he whined.

"You drive this car last night?" I asked.

"No! Hans did. Please don't kill me," he whimpered.

"Hans. Tall, blond, German guy with a scar and a mustache?"

"Yeah, that's him. I'm her usual driver, but she gave the car to Hans last night." He was settling down. Guess he'd decided I wasn't going to kill him.

"Who's your boss, kid?"

"Miss Raine, sir."

I didn't need to know anything else about her. "When did you see Hans last?"

"When he left the car here last night. He told me to fix it."

"Great, kid, just great. So fix it." I kicked the platform and sent him back under the car. I had started to shiver, cold under the hot sun. I went back into the house, figured I had a few minutes before pimple-boy called the cops. Only one thing left to do.

I walked back into the sterile house that no one actually lived in. I picked up the phone and dialed the second number the bellhop had given me. A young woman's voice answered: "Griffith Observatory, how can I help you?"

I hung up. She wasn't going to be able to help me at all. Clio was right. What about the sister?

## Chapter Seven – I Wake Up Screaming

I drove slowly up toward the Observatory as the sun slid down into the Pacific. I was having trouble keeping my hands from shaking. I had to fight an urge to wrench the wheel to the side and drive off the ridge. It'd be quicker.

Erato sat quietly at my side. She'd asked me once what I'd found out. "Not going to tell you yet," I said in a firm voice, and for once she'd shut up and backed off. As we rounded the bend and saw the white dome of the Observatory in front of us, a tumor on the ridge above the city of angels, she finally broke the silence.

"Why are we coming back here, Jake?" she asked reluctantly. "Urania wasn't much help the first time."

I parked the car, turned off the engine, and listed to it click as it died. It was the sound of a deathwatch beetle in the wall, slowly chewing away at the wood, click, click. I took out my cigarettes and my hands finally betrayed me, shaking the cigarettes out across the seat. I reached for one, and Erato grabbed my hand. "Jake. What is it?" Her voice was calm for once, steady, and I felt my heart slowing down.

I lit two and passed her one. The harsh smoke in the lungs was comfortable, and I savored it. Might be the last one. "Urania did it, Erato," I said. Her eyes narrowed. "Stiglitz – the big blond guy – parked his car at her house last night. The car we hit just down the road. He'd called her house a couple of dozen times. And he'd called the Observatory once. It's either the biggest frame-up job I've seen, or Stiglitz is working for Urania, and Urania has Clio."

"But why, Jake?" she said with anguish and fear in her voice.

"That's what I don't know, sweetheart. That's why we're here."

"She's dangerous, Jake."

"So are you." I pulled out the silver pistol. Two rounds of moly left. "And so am I." I slid it back in my belt. I opened the door, came around to her side, and opened the door for her. I helped her out. Her hand was cool. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me deeply.

"Just in case," she said, and hand in hand we went into the Observatory.

The place was nearly empty. The tourists had cleared out as the sun set, and the real work wouldn't start until it was dark. I asked the receptionist for Miss Raine's office and got friendly instructions, and a reminder that she preferred to be called "Doctor Raine." "I'll keep that in mind, ma'am," I said, and I tipped my hat.

Her office was through a maze of twisty little hallways. "Raine" was written in black letters on a frosted glass door. Without knocking, I swung it open.

She was standing at an open window, looking up at the coming night. No stars were out yet, but Venus stood low, and a spark beneath that, Mercury falling. Her long black hair was almost violet in the light.

She half-turned, her classic profile framed by the rising night. "Sister. Mr. Conrad. What can I do for you?"

I closed the door, scanned the room quickly. One other door, a closet, maybe. "I want to see Clio, Urania," I said as calmly as I could, though under her gaze, I was a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf.

"So do I, Mr. Conrad. Have you found her?" One eyebrow arched perfectly.

"No." Did she relax or tense? She was impossible to read unless she wanted to be read, just like Erato, just like Clio, they were all written in a language of gods that I would never understand. "But I found her kidnapper."

Her eyes darkened, anger there, obvious, maybe for show. "Where is he, so we can flay him for his affront to our sister?"

"I'm looking at him, lady. Where is she?" I waited for the explosion.

But it never came. She went cold, instead, stiff. "This idiot serves you poorly, sister," she said past me to Erato.

"Can the act, Urania," I blustered. "You hired Stiglitz. He stayed at the Knickerbocker, called your house and the Observatory from there. You had him follow me last night, but he panicked. Smashed our cars. He brought his car to your house. To Miss Raine's house. Or Doctor Raine's house. I hear you prefer that," I sneered. "You have Clio, your men tried to kill Erato, and...."

Erato cut me off. "What are you doing, sister? What game are you playing at?"

"Game?" Urania tensed, muscles in her face tightening, turning it to marble. There was a desk was between us, but I started to reach for the pistol, just in case. "I don't play games, little sister. I don't inspire little emotions of passion and lust." She looked up at me, and her black eyes were abysses I couldn't help but gaze into. "You're smarter than you look, Mr. Conrad." She flicked her hand. Something snapped out of it and caught me square in the forehead. I tasted copper and saw stars and fell toward the floor. Fuzzily, I saw Erato leaping across the desk at her sister, her red hair burning like the setting sun. I'd been clocked in the head, some part of my brain was saying, so the case must be nearly over. It was a comfortable darkness that took me.

I came back to life with a big German slapping me idly in the face. Wish I could say it was the first time that had happened. Stiglitz was grinning nastily. "He's awake, madam," he said in Greek.

We were still in Urania's office. The sun had set, the stars were shining bright, Mercury below the horizon. Urania sat behind her desk, the silver pistol in front of her. Stiglitz had his Luger. And Erato was sitting calmly in a chair.

"Welcome back, Mr. Conrad," Urania said in English. "I've told my dear sister that if she tries anything, Herr Stiglitz will kill you. Surprisingly, the threat has held her at bay, so far. It's pathetic, really."

"I'm sorry, Jake," Erato said. She looked at her feet. "I just don't know what to do."

"What we do, dear sister, is take a walk. Get up, Mr. Conrad. Stiglitz, get him a shovel." Urania stood. She picked up the little silver pistol and pointed it at me. Two rounds of moly. It'd hurt, but it probably wouldn't kill me. But then Stiglitz would. Time to go along for the ride. Stiglitz opened the closet and pulled out a long handled shovel, already dirty. Not a good sign.

My hat was sitting on the floor, rim flecked with blood. "My hat," I said, and I quickly bent over to get it, fighting vertigo, waiting for a smash to the back of my head. Nothing. I got the hat and straightened up. There was a broken ashtray with my blood on it underneath. That explained the headache, at least. The fact that Stiglitz hadn't hammered me for moving meant they were confident, they thought they had me.

They probably did.

With Stiglitz and Urania aiming their guns at me, we left the building. It was late; I must have been out for hours. My legs felt shaky, my stomach felt like rebellion, the rest of me felt like lying down and just passing out again. We didn't see anyone as we left the Observatory and walked to the edge of the ridge. Los Angeles spread her arms out in front of us, a whore's welcome, a sea of lights down to the water. "Down," Urania said, and Erato and I started down the slope.

It was a steep sheet of shale scree, shifting under my uncertain legs. I slipped once, and Erato caught me, held me, helped me down. Urania and Stiglitz were quiet behind us.

"Why aren't you doing anything?" I asked Erato. "You're a Muse, too."

"Because they'd kill you, Jake," she said. "And then I'd be lost."

"They're going to kill me anyway, Erato, so you might want to think about doing something about it." I shook my head and almost fell over again.

"She told me all about it, Jake," Erato said whispering.

"Go ahead, sister, tell him," Urania said. "He's been so very clever, he deserves to know what he's walked in on." Her voice was as cool as the night air that was slowly bringing me around.

"She left Clio's scroll out to be found, but not by you, by the Germans," Erato said.

"What?" I thought back to finding it, dust-free, among pot shards as I hid from Stiglitz and his troops. It was placed to draw the eye. No one could have missed it. "Why the hell would she do that?"

"Because the Germans understood science," Urania said. "They appreciated it. But they were on the wrong side of history. I thought my sister would be able to help them. But then you came along, found the scroll first. If they had control of her, anything was possible. But you. You got it first and later you trapped her in America. In bondage to a private detective." She casually backhanded Stiglitz, who flinched. "Because of you, idiot," she snarled at him.

"Sorry, madam," he cringed.

I laughed. "You thought the Germans winning the war would be good for science? That's crazy."

"They appreciate order. They hate chaos."

"Einstein was a German, lady. So was Heisenberg. Relativity, the uncertainty principle. That's the exact opposite of order." The shale gave way beneath me and I slid a few feet forward to the bottom of the ridge. It was dark down here, a small bit of light from the rising moon.

"And the Germans drove them away. Here, to America," Urania said. "I thought the Germans, aided by history, would give me order. Now, I seek it here."

And then it hit me. I looked back at Urania, and her eyes were phosphorescent in the darkness. "I get it now," I said. "You want to inspire order, discovery of the natural laws. But it's all moved beyond you now. Time changes depending on how fast you're going. A cat can be dead and alive at the same time. That must be killing you." Erato took a sharp breath. "You've lost it, Urania. You don't care about truth, just your precious little order. Some Muse you are."

I saw it Urania's eyes now, that weird glitter I'd seen before in the eyes of clients that should have been living in straightjackets and not in mansions on the hillsides. Modern physics had shattered her universe of planets rolling in elliptical grooves and her mind had gone with it, broken into quantum states and Lorentz transformations.

"It does hurt at times, Mr. Conrad," she hissed. "But I've come to embrace it. To find new order. And to remove sources of chaos." She pointed off over the hills. "Over there, the mortals are building bombs that will erase chaos by transforming solid matter to energy. Beautiful things."

"Where's Clio?" I said. "How does she fit in with this?"

"History, I've decided, is chaotic. Unpredictable. A single bullet and everything changes. A car moves a foot to the left and Winston Churchill dies in New York. A briefcase bumps a general's knee and Hitler lives." Her voice was rising, echoing off the ridgelines.

"Where's Clio?" I said again, and Stiglitz's hand clenched on his pistol.

Urania raised the silver pistol and pointed to the ground behind me. I didn't want to, but I turned slowly and behind me was a grave, shallow, covered loosely in shale. Erato gasped and fell to her knees.

I knelt next to the grave and shoved some of the dirt and rock aside. Short blond hair, a dark hole in the temple, and flecks of moly all around it, like the freckles on her cheeks. "Sorry, Clio," I whispered. The body was intact, only a couple of bugs. "When did you kill her?"

Stiglitz snickered. "Last night," Urania said, "after your visit. She had refused again to help me, and you were clearly on my trail. But Herr Stiglitz killed her. I would not kill a sister."

I stood and locked eyes with her. Erato was crying behind me. "Not a hell of a lot of difference between killing her yourself and ordering your man to shoot her, sister," I said.

"It makes all the difference in the world to some, Mr. Conrad," she said. She leveled the gun at my forehead. "Now start digging." Stiglitz cocked his pistol. I started digging.

It's not fun to dig your own grave. You get a weird feeling that you should do a good job, because this was it, this is where you'd be resting for a long time, and you didn't want the animals to dig down and pull you apart. On the other hand, there was a rebellious feeling, that you weren't going to do a good job at gunpoint, god damn it. Of course, the best move is to take your own sweet time, to hope that the Muse crying next to you might try something, or at least to give yourself plenty of time to enjoy being alive.

Pretty soon I was sweating. The dirt was hard packed from lack of rain, and studded with rocks. I stripped off my suit coat and draped it over Erato's shoulders. She was shivering and crying. "If you've got any ideas, time to do it, sweetheart," I whispered. But she looked at me with blank eyes. No help there.

"Back to work," Stiglitz growled, and I started digging again. Clouds were rolling in, devouring the moon, and the silver ridges were turning black around me. Both Urania and Stiglitz were too far back for me to attack. Maybe I'd get a shot in at one, but the other one would ventilate me. My brain was rolling with grief for Clio and the sharp tang of panic. I was going to die here, outside of L.A., killed by a Nazi working for a goddess. What a way to go.

The grave was up to my knees before I knew it. "Get out," Urania said. "It's deep enough for you." I climbed out and rested heavily on the shovel. She leveled the silver gun at my stomach. A little bit of hope rose in me. If I could take one shot from the moly bullet, maybe I'd surprise them. Stiglitz must think I had changed the bullets, or maybe he thought she knew what was going on, or maybe – probably – he was just terrified of her. "Any last words, Mr. Conrad?"

Erato had gone quiet behind me. "Good night, ladies," I said, reaching back to Eliot again. Dying in the Wasteland. "Good night, ladies," I repeated. Her perfect white finger started to pull back on the trigger.

Erato leaped. "Don't!" she shouted as the silver pistol fired with a strange flat sound. I braced for the bullet, but it never came. Instead, Erato collapsed against me, blood boiling from her belly, and moly chewing away at her flesh. Erato and Urania screamed together, a harmony of pain and fear, and I held Erato as we both slumped to the ground.

"Moly, moly!" Urania was screaming, and she tossed the gun on the ground, too far away for me to get to.

"What's wrong, mistress?" Stiglitz shouted. He kept his pistol on me.

"I've shot my sister, you fool, shot her!" Urania moaned.

Erato was quiet suddenly in my arms. "Jake. My Ulysses." The pain made her voice raw, it cut against my nerves. I was crying.

"You're going to be OK, sweetheart," I lied, "we'll get you out of here."

She smiled, some blood on her red lips. "No, Jake, for me, this is mortality. I hear the oarsman already." Her hand fluttered around for a minute before it found mine. "Remember, Jake, who's watching. Who's listening." She started to cough, and her blood spattered me.

Urania was still screaming. "I didn't mean to, I meant to shoot him, not you, sister!"

And I started to pray. Quietly, in Attic Greek, and Erato shivered to hear it. I remembered the hunting chorus of _Eumenides_ , the furies falling upon Orestes as he claimed sanctuary from Athena. I started in a whisper but my voice grew in strength as Erato bled out. "You're slated to die abandoned and alone, a bloodless criminal sucked dry by demons, just a shade."

Through her panic, Urania heard me. Her eyes grew wild with fear, and she screamed at me in a voice that shattered rock. "Silence, mortal! Kill him, Stiglitz!"

The German raised his pistol, and I tensed for the final blow. Before he could pull the trigger, they stepped out of the corner of nowhere, the kindly ones, the Eumenides, the furies, who punished the breakers of oaths and betrayers of family. I looked away, anywhere but at their terrible majesty, but Stiglitz was transfixed. I heard him screaming, a guttural sound. I shoved Erato into the dirt, and she whimpered when she hit. I swept up the shovel and swung it at Stiglitz, smashing the hand that held the gun. The Luger spun off into the darkness and I brought the shovel down on his head. The jarring vibration of shattering bone rocked by arms.

Behind me, three horrible, grating voices asked in unison, "What crime have we been summoned to punish?"

"There's been no crime, just an accident!" Urania pleaded, falling to her knees on the shale.

I brought the shovel down again on Stiglitz's skull, felt warm blood on my fingers with savage joy. "She has killed her sister and caused the death of another sister!" I shouted. I wasn't looking at them, but I could feel their eyes on me like hot coals dropped on my neck.

"Does the mortal speak truth?" they intoned, and rocks fell around the valley.

Urania stopped sobbing suddenly. "Yes," she said, suddenly calm, her hands in front of her, her palms to heaven.

"Scourge her?" one voice ground.

"Scourge her," the other two voices echoed, and around us stones fell from the cliffs.

I brought the shovel down again on what was left of Stiglitz, and I screamed in rage and loss as the furies' whips broke the night sky with lightning and thunder. A hot rain began to fall from the shattered sky, tears or blood, and the whips fell again. Urania was howling in inhuman pain. In a flash of lightning from the whips, I saw Stiglitz, his face a pulp of blood and bone, and I dropped the shovel. The whips cracked again, the thunder roared and Urania screamed again. I finally turned to look at them, the kindly ones. They stood taller than the clouds, the awesome power of revenge on Earth. They had not weakened when the rest of the Gods had. There was always a place for vengeance.

They drew back their long whips, and fire played down the length of the coils. When they cracked them down again the lightning flooded down into Urania's twitching body. The thunder boomed, trying to drown out her pain.

And then they were gone. The rain turned cold, pattering down among the rocks and the bodies. Erato and Urania were both mewling softly. Another crack of lightning and I saw a flash of silver near Urania. The little guy's pistol. I picked it up and looked down at her. The whips had cut her deeply, cutting flesh from bone in some places, but she was alive, and her eyes looked up at me with pale fire. "End it quickly, Mr. Conrad," she whispered.

"With pleasure, lady," I replied. I sighted down my arm and fired the last moly bullet into her forehead.

I sat down next to Erato and pulled her up against me. "Hey, sweetheart," I said. She looked at me with distant dying eyes.

"I'm sorry you got dragged into this, Jake," she said. "I promised you anything if you solved the case. What do you want?"

"I want you," I said. "I want you to live."

She placed a cold hand on my cheek. "I can't give you that anymore, Jake. Let me give you a reason to live instead." Her eyes lit up a final time with life, and I felt sorrow leave me.

"I wanted that," I whispered. "I need that. How else am I going to remember you and Clio?"

She pulled me down and kissed me. "Like that, Jake."

Then she died.

## Epilogue – Among the Living

I buried Erato next to Clio, and Urania in the grave I'd dug for myself. I left Stiglitz for the animals to carry off, and made my way back into town with the Luger in my pocket. The clouds tore away with the breeze. Venus was gone, and Jupiter was rising.

I was in a daze all the way back to San Francisco on the train, the miles bleeding away like Erato's life. I got back to my tiny apartment and tried to take a long hot shower, but the hot water gave out in two minutes and I spent the rest of an hour shivering under a barrage of ice water, waking up to reality.

History is dead, but history moves on. My newspaper this morning says the North Koreans have invaded South Korea, and we're at war again. Science is dead, but science marches on, and the newspaper says we tested an even bigger bomb out in the desert. And romance is dead, but out of the window I can hear a bunch of sailors cheering for their buddy who just got married.

There's a package on my desk from someone calling herself Erato. She says she owes me for my time, twenty dollars a day, plus expenses. There's a silk bag of gold coins from ancient Syracuse, an even hundred of them, and I'll never need to work again if I don't want to. I can sell them off to dealers carefully. If I don't flood the market, I'll be rich.

I went back there a month ago, down the ridgeline to the graves, and three trees were growing. A laurel and a myrtle, intertwined, out of the common grave of Clio and Erato. And off to one side, branches reaching toward the other two, a dark tree of a type I'd not seen before. There was no sign of Stiglitz. A spring had risen between the three trees, and water burbled musically down the valley. I paused to drink, and it was clean, cold, and tinged with memories of sorrow.

I hear the outside door to the office open, hear Sarah greet a visitor. She's competent, she can type, but she's not Clio. When I sit down in the chair with the broken spring that stabs me in the ass and try to talk about a case with her, she listens politely but doesn't have any ideas. She doesn't inspire anything.

The inner door opens and there's an old man there, Chinese, long white beard down to his waist. I don't normally get Chinese customers. They have their own detectives.

"You are Jacob Conrad?" he asks.

"That's me, pops," I reply. "What can I do for you?"

"I've had an item of value stolen from me," he says, settling into the deep leather chair in front of my desk. "I need it back."

I shake my head. "I'll be honest with you, sir, I don't have a lot of connections in your community. You might do better with a Chinese detective."

"I see. A woman named Clio told me that you might be able to help. I guess she was wrong." He starts to stand.

"Wait a minute," I say, my heart pounding. "What's your name? What are you missing?"

"My name is my own," he says, and eyes turn yellow, his pupils black slits. "But I am the Dragon of the Western Rains, guardian of the Yellow River, and someone has stolen a pearl of great power." Thin wisps of smoke emerge from his nostrils. I need a cigarette.

"Sit down, sir," I say, pulling out the bottle of whiskey and two glasses. "Maybe I can help you after all."

## About the Author

Brad A. White is the pseudonym for an author who lives in the U.S., where he is married to his real-life muse. When not writing, he enjoys reading, wargames, being a dad to his sons, and running roleplaying sessions. This is his first published work of fiction.

Brad can be contacted at bradley.white.a@gmail.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BradWhiteA, or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bradleyawhite.

