Dogs and Goddesses Read online

  Daisy stood up, restless. “Bea wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. I know that. But it’s weird that she knew about Kammani.”

  Abby looked down at the brightly colored skirt that somehow felt so right against her skin. Her hands were in her lap, devoid of jewelry, strong and capable and still slightly dusted with flour. “I wish I were like her.”

  “You’re like her,” Daisy said. “That skirt looks great on—” Her voice cut off as the muffled sound of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” emerged from her pocket. “Hold on a sec.” She pulled out her cell phone, small and black and unadorned. A moment later she snapped it shut and rose. “That was Shar. She wants us to meet her at the temple to find out what the hell is going on.”

  “What temple?”

  “Where the class was. I think she’s right. We need to find a reasonable, rational explanation for all this.” She looked at Abby, her eyes a little wild. “There’s a reasonable, rational explanation.”

  Daisy looked very determined, so Abby just nodded. “Sure.”

  “Okay,” Daisy said. “I’m gonna run upstairs and change and then I’m on my way. You coming?”

  Abby rose as well. “Just let me get the cookies.”

  “Well, hey there,” Daisy said as she and Bailey met Shar and Wolfie in the dank corridor outside the history department auditorium. The dogs wagged tails and sniffed each other, but Shar seemed distracted as she handed Daisy a flashlight and said, “Where’s Abby?”

  “She went to her car to get something. We checked and Kammani’s on the roof, sunbathing with Mina, if you can believe it. You’d think Mina would burst into flames.” Daisy glanced at the heavy wooden double doors that led inside. “You know, I heard the top two layers of this place are someplace else. Somebody’s actually using it for a house. Can you imagine living in something so creepy?”

  “Yes,” Shar said, and pushed through the doors.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for— Okay.”

  Wolfie and Bailey followed Shar inside. Daisy slid in behind them, switching on her flashlight and peering into the darkness of the temple. The place was a pit.

  Shar headed straight for the back wall, pushing her way through the curtain, so Daisy followed her and looked at the wall in the light of Shar’s flashlight. It was carved with a bunch of stone figures and had weird etchings that looked like impressions made from chicken feet.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” Daisy asked.

  “Explanations.” Shar moved in for a closer inspection.

  “In the … wall?”

  “I want to know what this damn wall means. I want to know what Kammani is doing with the dog class. I want to know why she gave us that tonic and what happened when we drank it. Has anything strange been happening to you?”

  “Well.” Daisy looked down at Bailey. “Abby and I can hear dogs talk.”

  “Right. Besides that.” Shar frowned at the wall. “You know, this bas-relief has to be authentic. It would be too expensive to fake. Plus, I just met—”

  “We can hear dogs talk,” Daisy said again, louder, in case Shar hadn’t heard. “Abby and I. You know, with words. In their barking. Words.”

  “I know.” Shar tilted her head at the relief. “That was one of the reasons why I called you.”

  “One of the reasons?” Daisy took a deep breath, then motioned toward the wall. “What is this stuff, anyway?”

  Shar pulled out her iPhone, stepped back from the wall, and snapped the first of the carvings, holding her flashlight in one hand and her phone in the other. “This is a bas-relief of the goddess Kammani Gula and her priestesses.” She took a step to the right and snapped a picture of the second carving.

  “Uh-huh.” Daisy waited for Shar to go on, but instead she stepped to the right again and snapped another picture. “Does it say anything about talking dogs on there?”

  “No.” Shar took another picture. “I think they just took that for granted.”

  Right. Well, that was going nowhere, but Shar seemed invested, so Daisy said, “You go ahead and read the ancient wallpaper. I’m gonna find me a nice, modern invoice or something.”

  Shar stopped and frowned at her, looking puzzled. “An invoice for what?”

  “For something illegal.” Daisy walked toward the altar, shining her flashlight on the floor so she didn’t trip. “Something wrong. Something from the drug dealer that sold Kammani that tonic.”

  “It’s not drugs.” Shar moved down the wall to snap another picture.

  “Not drugs!” Bailey barked.

  “Oh, here!” Daisy said, reaching for a slip of white paper on the floor.

  “What?” Shar asked, turning to look.

  “Crap. Nothing. Dunkin’ Donuts receipt.”

  Shar was still. “And you thought it might be a receipt from a drug dealer?”

  “What?” Daisy crumpled the receipt and threw it in the corner. “Drug dealers need to keep books, too.”

  Shar turned back to her wall. Daisy went to the center of the room and up the three shallow steps to the dais and the podium there. It was scooped out in the center, its corners sticking up, a pile of tabloids resting in the middle. Not a podium.

  “What is this big stone … thing?” she called back to Shar.

  “It’s a horned altar.”

  “Of course.” Daisy began to rifle through the tabloids, finding some celebrity mags, most with pictures of the latest celebribaby. Poor Camisole, Daisy thought. What kind of mom names a baby after underwear?

  “Do you think maybe there’s something in the ink that can be boiled down and used to make hallucinogens?” Daisy asked.

  “No,” Shar said.

  “Yeah, that’s a stretch.” Daisy tossed the papers aside and found a small, beat-up laptop with black crystals glued in a skull shape on its lid. Yes. Daisy reached for it.

  “I’m here.” Abby slipped into the room, Bowser lumbering beside her like a bodyguard. She looked around and said, “I think they filmed The Mummy here,” and then she pulled open her mammoth quilted bag and retrieved a Ziploc full of cookies. “I brought cookies.”

  Daisy fiddled with the release on the laptop. “Kammani can afford drugs, but she can’t afford a decent computer?”

  “Kammani has drugs?” Abby asked.

  Daisy nodded. “I think she put hallucinogens in the tonic.”

  Shar spoke from the back wall, around the zip-click of the camera in her phone. “I don’t think so. Hi, Abby.” Shar took a picture of the last figure on the wall and then joined them at the altar.

  Abby looked at Daisy, her eyes wide. “You think Kammani put drugs in the tonic?”

  “It’s a theory. I mean, dogs are talking.” Daisy set the laptop down and took a cookie from the bag Abby offered her and bit into it. The flavors popped in her mouth in little sugary explosions—honey and butter and a touch of something exotic. “Oh my god, Abby. These are amazing.”

  Shar took a cookie, too. “So, has anything else interesting happened to you? Since last night? Maybe this morning?”

  “No.” Abby sounded wary. “Is it gonna?”

  Shar sighed. “A god rose in my bedroom last night.”

  “Huh,” Abby said. “All I got was yelled at by a math professor.”

  “That wasn’t a euphemism,” Shar said. “A god appeared out of nowhere in an explosion of light at the foot of my bed last night. Look.”

  She walked back to the wall and put the flashlight on a male figure next to the central goddess, and Abby followed her.

  “Oooh,” she said. “Who’s he?”

  “He’s on the wall?” Daisy picked up the laptop, still fiddling with the release, and went to look, too.

  “He’s Samu-la-el.” Shar stared at the relief. “He rose and told me he was looking for Kammani, so I sent him to LA so he couldn’t find her. The point is, either Sam and Kammani are the best con artists working this side of the Euphrates, or she’s really the goddess Kammani and he’s really the ancient god-king S