* * *
They were led down a long hallway, through a conference room with a high-tech projector and glass walls, and into the back area of the warehouse, which was a system of cubicles, what looked like an office kitchen with a sink and refrigerator, and several closed doors. While they walked, Celine talked to them of The Three Sisters.
“We are, as you so quickly observed, an escort company,” she said. “But not only that. Twenty-three girls live and work in this space, performing a variety of tasks, including high-end mystic consultation for many businesses you would know by name. Others manage our worldwide distribution department of occult supplies and books, most of which are written here, in house.”
“High-end mystic consultation?” Hermes asked skeptically.
“Oui.” Celine smiled. “Those who have the most power are the most inclined to believe in more power, in endless power. They are also the most desperate, the most fearful of losing everything. And so they pay us—for spells, for charming girls, for feng shui, in some cases.”
“And you have twenty-some girls, all living and working here?”
“Oui. Vingt-trois. Twenty-three. Our apartments and quarters are downstairs, and in the basement. We are all coven members, all descendants of Circe and her clan. Everything you see here”—she gestured around her, to the walls, the floors, the art and sculpture that adorned it—“comes from the coven, and everything we make goes back into it.”
Athena listened with half an ear. Her mind raced ahead, scrutinizing every closed door. This old one, who was he? Who would they walk in and find? Every muscle in her body was tensed and ready for the possibility of a trap. Her eyes and ears tuned to every movement, every sound. Beside her, Hermes chatted with Celine, but she knew he was ready as well.
This reeks of Aphrodite. He feels it too.
Celine moved slightly farther ahead of them and pivoted. They had come to the end of the warehouse, to another elevator. She crossed her arms over her chest as they waited for it.
“Will you not tell me your names?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “We are your hosts, you our guests. It is my right to ask this question, is it not?”
The elevator arrived with a soft ding. They stepped inside.
“Who do you think we are?” Athena asked. She was genuinely curious. No mortal should recognize her, or Hermes either. They looked nothing like any of their paintings and statues. No vacant eyes or marble butt cheeks.
The question, when Celine posed it, had an innocent ring, but her face darkened, becoming almost trancelike. Her pupils dilated and for a moment her hair swayed back and forth like a dancing mass of red snakes. She looked at neither Athena nor Hermes for several seconds. When the elevator doors opened on the basement level, her eyelids closed. When they opened, her eyes were back to normal.
“Please,” she said, and motioned for them to leave the elevator. “This is our personal level. We do not conduct business here.”
“But this is where you’ve taken the old one?”
For a moment Celine hesitated and seemed almost fearful. “You must understand,” she said carefully. “He was very badly injured when he came to us. He had been traveling for such a long time. He was weary; he needed comfort and care.”
“Comfort?” Hermes asked with a cockeyed expression. He looked around at the hardwood floor and leather furniture, the long oak bar along the west wall. In one corner a fireplace sat dormant, with what looked like a rug made from an entire polar bear laid before it. “I can imagine what kind of comfort you can provide here.”
“We can provide such comfort for you as well, cher.”
Hermes swallowed.
“In the elevator,” said Athena. She’d have shoved an elbow into him had Celine not been looking. “You never answered my question.”
Celine inhaled deeply and smiled. “I do not know who you are. They do not tell me.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Hermes asked.
Celine shrugged, confident and charming. “They,” she said and laughed. “I do not know. They who spoke to the Sibyl, I suppose. They who whisper in dreams.” Her head cocked at him for a moment. “You seem so thin to me, monsieur. You look so very frail, so very human. It is a good disguise. Had it not been for Mareden, we might never have known.”
Hermes looked away uncomfortably. It’s no disguise, that look said. No disguise and not of my power. Athena’s jaw clenched. He should be more careful. If they didn’t know, then they didn’t need to.
“And what about me?” Athena asked.