A Dark and Stormy Vegas Night

It was a dark and stormy night, both of which were unheard of in Las Vegas.

“Where is she?” Zem demanded, staring out the floor to ceiling windows of the Zeus suite at the Olympus. They hung thirty floors over the Strip and commanded views in both directions. Through the raindrops, sheeting like a private fountain down the glass, red and white lights from cars streamed by, and neon glowed in all directions.

“I don’t know,” Magnolia told him. “I’ve had people out looking.” She shrugged. “She’s a goddess, for god’s sake. She’s supernatural. I’m sure she’s got a million places she can hide that we can’t see. Maybe she went back home, to Greece.”

“Greece isn’t her home,” Zem snapped. “She never belonged there. Find her.”

His high priestess stood three paces back from him and placed her fists on her hips. “How should I do that? Why don’t you go looking? You’d have much better odds than I do. She’s a goddess, Zem. She’s one of your kind.”

“She’s no part of me,” he growled, and he turned and glared. There was lightning in his eyes, this time. Magnolia held herself still, refusing to step back, but it took an effort. Those black eyes, lit from within, were, perhaps, the single scariest thing she’d ever faced. Even her mother could have learned something from that look.

“I’m out of options,” she said, spreading her hands. When cornered by Zem, she’d learned to hit him with practicalities, with nuts and bolts of a human sort. He had no answer to them.

“I need a hero,” he grumbled.

“Ha!” Magnolia hooted. “Agreed. Know any?”

Zem muttered to himself, turning back to the window. “There must be someone, even in this place...”

“What?”

“Never mind,” he snarled. “Go back to your organizing. I’ll do something.”

“Good,” Magnolia said, and dusted thoughts of Venus lightly from her hands. “I don’t know why you’re worried, anyway. It’s not as if–”

“Why should I worry?” he demanded.

That time, she did step back. And then, when he turned back to the windows, she melted away, back to where her three top aides, with clipboards and anxious expressions in place, waited.

Magnolia wasn’t accustomed to melting. But she knew when an exit was called for. She glanced back, over her shoulder, and then stepped busily up to the aides.

“Let’s go downstairs, all right?” she suggested. They followed her gratefully, three ugly ducklings with no hope of swanhood, trailing after their spectacular mother.

Zem stared at the passing cars. “There must be some fool in town who thinks he’s brave,” he muttered.

NEXT POST: HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO (Monday 12/28)