Chapter One...
ANYA, GODDESS OF ANARCHY, daughter of Lawlessness, and dealer of disorder,
Pillywiggin: "Tell, not show!"
All of the dancers were human females, beautiful and nearly naked, chosen specifically by the Lords of the Underworld to provide the night's entertainment. Both vertical and horizontal...
The Anthropologist: "If they're sitting down, it's not really vertical or horizontal... it's a sort of Z shape."
Wisps of smoke cast a dream-fog around them, and pinpricks of starlight rained from the swirling strobe...
The Anthropologist: "It's a Vampire From Twilight mooning everyone!"
From the corner of her eye, she caught a scintillating glimpse of a taut immortal ass...
The Anthropologist: "No ass should ever scintillate!"
Cathed: "Maybe that's why you'd want one... they're walking mirrorballs!"
The Lords of the Underworld were delectable immortal warriors who were possessed by the demon spirits that had once resided inside Pandora's box.
Pillywiggin: "We know."
And now, with a few rounds of hard liquor and even harder sex, they were saying goodbye to Budapest, the city they'd called home for hundreds of years.
Cathed: "Budapest?! It's living in Stockton!"
Anya wanted in on the action. With one warrior in particular.
There are some debates over which one it is she sees.
Cathed: "Darkest and Most Seductive one, obviously."
The Anthropologist: "No, it can't be. She says 'each more dangerously seductive than the last' and this isn't the last book in the series..."
"Part," she whispered, fighting her intrinsic compulsion to shout "Fire" instead and watch as the humans raced away in a panic, screaming hysterically...
Pillywiggin: "What? Ah... I see. She's trying to get them to move."
Let the good times roll.
Pillywiggin: "Is that all she can come up with? How about shouting 'Smallpox'?"
The Chronicler: "What's holding her back from shouting 'Fire'?"
An erratic pulse of rock music that matched the erratic beat of her heart blasted from the speakers, making it impossible for anyone to hear her.
The Balance: "Medical complication..."
Cathed: "But she is a goddess of anarchy."
Pillywiggin: "I don't wanna pump blood! Shut up! Stop stressing on me! I want to hear my own music."
Heated breath caught in her lungs, and she shivered.
Pillywiggin: "Why is she shivering if she has something warm near her? Or is she that anarchic?"
Lucien. Deliciously scarred...
Pillywiggin: "Delicious... So he's scarred with licorrice?"
Azrael: "Or with the Cadbury's signature."
The Anthropologist: "It's like TT's fake blood. The people making the phys-reps ended up coming up with a concoction that tastes of chocolate..."
...irresistibly stoic and possessed by the spirit of Death.
The Anthropologist: "Back me up on this, Cathed. Didn't the stoics have a thing about celibacy? It doesn't seem to end well."
Cathed: "I really don't think stoic is that attractive."
Pillywiggin: "He has a face like the London Underground map!"
Right now he sat at a table in back, expression blank...
Cathed: "Wow. Hot."
"—she was right. I checked the satellite photos on Torin's computer. Those temples are rising from the sea."
Pillywiggin: "Get back in the sea where you belong!"
"One is in Greece and one is in Rome, and if they continue to rise at such a swift rate, they'll be high enough to explore sometime tomorrow."
Pillywiggin: "What? Out of the River Tiber? I didn't think there's that much space in it..."
The Balance: "It says the sea in the book..."
Pillywiggin: "But Rome doesn't have a sea."
Cathed, the classicist, affirms this. As does Wikipedia.
No one else would—or could—see them. She had made sure of that with a sweet little thing called chaos, her strongest source of power, hiding the temples with storms to keep humans away, while at the same time feeding the Lords enough information to draw them the hell out of Buda...
Cathed: "Buddah?!"
The Balance: "Budapest in short."
The Anthropologist: "I was thinking about trying to drag hell out of Buddah..."
Pillywiggin: "It's why he's so fat. He's got hell inside him."
"Perhaps the new gods are responsible. Most days I am sure they hate us and long to destroy us, simply for being half-demon."
The Balance: "I think that's a very good reason to hate them."
Lucien's expression remained blank.
The Anthropologist: "Is he still being irresistibly stoic? Man with hammer... does not matter..."
"If we're lucky, we'll find that damned box while we're there."
Azrael: "Damn that box! It killed my family!"
Anya ran her tongue over her teeth. Damned box, aka dimOuniak, aka Pandora's box.
Pillywiggin: "How many times have they explained the same box?!"
Cathed: "We get it."
The Anthropologist: "It's a book written for people with short time memory loss."
Boring? Ha! Anya had never met anyone who excited her more.
Cathed: "She is really, really excited by boring people."
The Anthropologist: "Has anyone read that book I wrote about accounting?"
Cathed swoons.
Azrael: "Is that some sort of dullness fetish?"
The Balance: "So the goddess of anarchy has a dullness fetish."
The Anthropologist: "That makes a certain amount of sense. Like that neat freak bureaucrat who wants to screw Fry..."
Cringe when they saw his scars, sure. But none of them wanted anything to do with him—and that saved their lives.
The Anthropologist: "Maybe they're allergic to liquorice."
"Notice me," Anya commanded softly. A moment passed. He didn't obey. Several humans glanced in her direction, heeding her demand, but Lucien's gaze latched on to the empty flask in front of him and remained, becoming a wee bit wistful. Much to her consternation, immortals were immune to her commands. [...]
"Bastards," she muttered. Any restrictions they could place on her, they did. "Anything to screw with lowly Anarchy."
Azrael: "She's the goddess of anarchy! You'd think her spells would summon a pineapple or something in front of him... That would totally attract his attention."
There are various theories about what boring and prosaic thoughts about the flasks is flashing through his mind:
Cathed: "Hmmm... maybe I spent too much on this at the flea market. Maybe I shouldn't have impulse-bought it... oh, but it wasn't really on impulse, but maybe it would be cheaper from a second hand shop...etcetcetc..."
Anya hadn’t been favored during her days on Mount Olympus.
The goddesses had never liked her because they assumed she was a replica of her "whore of a mother" and would jump their husbands.
Cathed: "Eris isn't a whore! She never got invited to any of the orgies!"
(At this point, we're under the impression that Anya's mother is a goddess of discord and we've assumed that she's a canonical goddess - thus Eris.)
The guys had wanted her, though. Well, until she'd killed their precious Captain of the Guard and they'd deemed her too feral [...]
The little shit had tried to rape her. If he had left her alone, she would have left him alone. But noooo.
The Balance: "It has four Os. And it's in italics."
Pillywiggin looks pained.
Cathed: "Noooo!"
Pillywiggin: "How many Os?"
Cathed: "Four."
The Anthropologist: "And in a strange font. A font of pain."
She didn't regret cutting the black heart out of his chest, didn't regret placing said heart on a pike in front of Aphrodite's temple. Not even a tiny bit.
(The Chronicler is wondering if this is meant to be a sacrifice to Aphrodite or otherwise...)
Choice. The word rang inside her mind, bringing her back to the present. What the hell would it take to convince Lucien to choose her?
Cathed: "She likes freedom of choice but she likes mindraping mortals?"
Pillywiggin: "Well, she is anarchy. She doesn't have to make sense."
She stomped her foot.
The Chronicler: "That's just pathetic."
For weeks she'd cloaked herself in invisibility, following Lucien, watching, studying...
The Chronicler: "And you're surprised he doesn't notice you?! You're invisible!"
Cathed (droning on): "Oh, maybe I should have checked on Ebay first..."
The Anthropologist: "Ebay might be a bit too exciting for this man... In fact, the internet is too interesting for this man."
Cathed: "Maybe I should check the stock market, just to see how it's doing."
The Balance: "No, the stock markets are fluctuating a bit too much. It would be too exciting."
And yes, lusting. He'd had no idea she lurked nearby, even as she willed him to do all sorts of naughty things: strip, pleasure himself…smile.
Cathed: "That would be spoiling the stoic façade... he could still strip stoically, though"
The Chronicler: "He's like St Benedict incarnate!"
Pillywiggin: "That man really hated laughing."
There is some speculation about high level stoics and their possible ability to be able to have sex without their expression changing. There is miming and giggling.
But she’d wanted to see his beautifully flawed face light in humor just as much as she’d wanted to see his naked body glisten with arousal.
Azrael: "He might be cheating and recently had botox."
Had he granted even that benign request, though? No!
Cathed: "And meanwhile, he's just sitting there counting the coasters..."
A part of her wished she'd never seen him, that she hadn't allowed Cronus, the new king of the gods, to intrigue her with stories about the Lords a few months ago. Maybe I'm the idiot...
The Anthropologist: "Why does it have to be a zero sum game? Maybe they're both idiots!"
Cronus had just escaped Tartarus, a prison for immortals and a place she knew intimately. He'd imprisoned Zeus and his cohorts there, as well as Anya's parents. When Anya returned for them, Cronus had been waiting for her. He had demanded Anya's greatest treasure. She'd declined—duh—so he'd tried to scare her. Give me what I want or I'll send the Lords of the Underworld after you. They are demon-possessed, as blood-hungry as starving animals, and they will not hesitate to peel the lovely flesh from your bones. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever.
Cathed: "So he threatened her... wait... the author actually wrote 'blah, blah, blah... oh'."
She'd ended up seeking out the warriors on her own. She'd thought to defeat them and laugh in Cronus’s face, a sort of look-what-I-did-to-your-big-scary-demons kind of thing.
Pillywiggin (rolling her eyes): "Fascinating."
One glance at Lucien, though, and she’d become instantly obsessed.
The Chronicler notes that that can't possibly be healthy.
She'd forgotten her reasons for being there...
The Chronicler: "That happens a lot with heroines..."
It was just that contradictions tantalized her, and Lucien had so very many. He was scarred but not broken, kind but unbending.
Azrael: "Kindness and bendiness are not synonymous."
The Chronicler: "Neither is scarred and broken, for that mater."
He was a calm, by-the-book immortal, not blood-hungry as Cronus had claimed.
Pillywiggin: "Flangey, but dull."
He was possessed by an evil spirit, yet he never deviated from his own personal code of honor. He dealt with death every day, every night, yet he fought to live.
The Anthropologist: "If you're immortal, you don't have to work very hard to stay alive."
As if that wasn't enough to prick her interest, his flowery fragrance filled her with decadent, wicked thoughts every time she neared him...
Azrael: "Wait, flowery fragrance?"
The Anthropologist: "Must be really inconvenient to find flowery fragrances irresistible. What if she gets sprayed with perfume in department store... an impromptu orgy?"
Azrael: "She must really freak out people in when walking in parks."
Why? Any other man who smelled like roses would have made her laugh. With Lucien, her mouth watered for a taste of him...
Cathed: "He's so hot in his grey socks."
(The Chronicler: "At least the author is acknowledging roses is a stupid scent for a man... but it's still stupid.")
her skin prickled with white-hot awareness...
The Balance: "Heat. Skin comment. And Medical Complication!"
Pillywiggin: "Three in one combo!"
Gods, he was sexy. He had the freakiest eyes she’d ever seen.
Cathed: "Freaky good or freaky bad?"
Pillywiggin: "Like a Cyclops?"
The Anthropologist: "Freaky is not a good word either."
The Anthropologist: "Freaky is not a good word either."
One was blue, the other brown, and both swirled with the essence of man and demon...
Cathed: "I've seen creepier eyes."
Pillywiggin: "Like David Bowie, but less interesting."
The Anthropologist: "except he has a fruit pastel stuck to his face."
And his scars… All she could think of, dream about, crave, was licking them.
The Anthropologist: "It's because it's made of liquorice."
Cathed: "Why can't you just talk to him?"
Possessed by Promiscuity, Paris was blessed with pale, almost glittery skin....
Cathed: "It's a sparkly TWILIGHT VAMPIRE!"
...electric-blue eyes, and a face the angels probably sang hallelujahs over, but he wasn't Lucien and he did nothing for her.
Cathed: "Angels sing praise of demonic faces?"
The Chronicler: "She's mixing mythologies. Or simply copy-and-pasting an oft-used descriptor."
She might deal in petty disorder, but she never uttered a threat she didn't plan to see through. To do so smacked of weakness, and Anya had vowed long ago never to show a single hint of weakness...
The Anthropologist: "But drooling and shivering in the middle of the dance floor doesn't count..."
Azrael: "That's not weakness. It's drug abuse."
Paris's laughter intensified and managed to snag Lucien's attention. Lucien's gaze lifted, first landing on Paris...
The Balance: "Lucien's gay."
then locking on Anya. Her knees almost buckled. Oh, sweet heaven. Paris was forgotten as she fought to breathe
Pillywiggin: "Too many gaze!"
Azrael: "He's been deliberately not looking at her to kill her under an avalanche of his gaze."
Did she imagine the fire that suddenly sparked in Lucien's mismatched eyes? Did she imagine the way his nostrils flared in awareness?
The Anthropologist: "You're just pretending he's noticing you. You're just deluding yourself over his cold."
... Licking her lips, never removing her gaze from him, she eased into a sensual bump and grind and made her way toward his table...
Azrael: "Wait. She's bumping and grinding whilst walking?"
The Anthropologist: "She's walking quite slowly then, since at any given time, about 40% of her is moving in the opposite direction."
Azrael: "She could be bumping and grinding the furniture."
Up close, he was six-feet-six of muscle and danger.
Azrael: "He's made of steak, tied together with police tape."
Pure temptation.
Pillywiggin: "Steak is very tempting."
The Balance: "And she's an anarchist, so she can't help but cross police tape."
There was a brief diversion in which the interesting quote is...
Pillywiggin: "I can't think of anything more dull than a clairvoyance conference."
"We meet at last, Flowers."
Cathed: "She really is the goddess of anarchy. She's going for the gay accountant."
She ground her left hipbone against the hard juncture between his legs, turning erotically and presenting him with a view of her back
The Anthropologist: "Juncture is not an erotic word."
Azrael: "Neither his hipbone."
Her ice-blue corset was held together by nothing more than thin ribbons...
The Anthropologist: "That implies it's not very tightly cinched. Which would render the corset pointless."
...and she knew her skirt hung so low on her waist that it failed to cover the bands of her thong. Oopsie.
Cathed: "And there I was thinking she's written her number in binary."
Azrael: "Appeal to the sodomite!"
Men, mortal or otherwise, usually melted when they caught a glimpse of something they shouldn't.
The Balance: "...like Cthulhu."
The Anthropologist: "It's not really a glimpse. She's just been showing off her thong all night because she's not capable of dressing herself."
...body as she raised her hands over her head then leisurely ran them through the thick mass of her snow-white hair...
The Anthropologist: "Mass is also not a sexy word."
Her nipples hardened.
Pillywiggin: "Pebbling!"
The Anthropologist: "Is she masturbating on the dance floor? Not that people would be shocked with all the fucking, but...."
"Why did you summon me, woman?" His voice was low, yet as disciplined as the warrior himself.
Pillywiggin: "Boring, then."
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