Dogs and Goddesses Read online

  “My father was mortal,” Sam said. “I’m a god.”

  She looked at him, naked and magnificent, tangled in her sheets. “Yes, you are, baby.”

  He grinned at her, and she wondered how it was possible that any woman had ever said no to him.

  Sharrat had.

  “What?” Sam said. “Your smile went away.”

  Sharrat was stupid. Thank god. “So tell me what it was like back in the day. With Kammani.”

  “Kammani,” he said, losing his own smile.

  “Or you,” she added hastily. “Tell me about you. You were a king.”

  “Only for the last four years.” He leaned forward and snagged a cookie off her plate. “I was raised to be a soldier and that’s what I did. I liked it. Fighting, drinking, fu—” He stopped. “Women.”

  “Good times,” Shar said, annoyed. “So, I’m confused. How did you end up king?”

  “My father got bored,” Sam said. “He’d taken over Kamesh when the old king stopped paying attention to Kammani.”

  “I’m assuming she helped him take over,” Shar said. “And he was…”

  “The great king Lugal,” Sam said. “The king is always consort to the goddess. He got tired of her demands, especially when she began asking for a sacrifice, and he gave it all to me.”

  “What a great guy,” Shar said, thinking, Do not get Lugal the “World’s Greatest Dad” mug, the bastard.

  “The last I heard, he was invading the Assyrians.” Sam took another bite of cookie. “That’s like kicking a cobra. I figure he’s dead by now.” He stopped, a strange look on his face. “Of course he’s dead by now. They’re all dead. I keep forgetting.”

  “Right,” Shar said. “He must have been a real prize.” Unbidden, a memory came back of her sharp-faced grandmother, swearing because something had not gone her way. “Son of that pig of a king Lugal.”

  Sam laughed. “Sharrat.”

  Shar nodded, trying to ignore the affection in his voice. “She used to say that whenever she was really angry.”

  “She was angry a lot.”

  “You should have seen her once she started to age.”

  “Taking mortal form is dangerous for a god,” Sam said around his cookie. “It can become more real than the divine. And then you are trapped, as she was here. She wouldn’t have liked being trapped.”

  “You knew her really well,” Shar said, hating that.

  “No,” Sam said, meeting her eyes. “Not like this.” Shar stuck her chin out. “Because you didn’t sleep with her.”

  “No,” Sam said. “I told you. Because she wasn’t you.” Tell me again. Shar picked up another cookie, trying not to be pathetic and vulnerable. He was still taking off after dinner in the evenings and not coming back until midnight, so really, how special could she be to him? Get back to work. “So, is Kammani trapped?” Can we untrap her and send her someplace else?

  “I don’t know. She has remained in that body whenever I have been with her, in the old world and this one.”

  Define “with.” “How did she get here? I mean, we know that the Seven were in some kind of deep sleep until my grandfather woke up Sharrat by knocking over her sarcophagus”—there was a movie meet for you—“but there were only seven coffins in the temple. Sharrat must have woken the other six, but where was Kammani?”

  “Within them, probably,” Sam said, not sounding interested. “Or in the ether, waiting to be called. Gods live on belief. If no one believes, they can’t be called back.”

  “But there were seven who believed.” Shar saw him frown and said, “Look, if you don’t want to talk about this—”

  “Why do you want to know?” Sam said. “For your book?”

  Shar started to say, Yes, and then thought, If you love him, you trust him. “No. I want to know how she got here so we can reverse it and send her back.”

  Sam nodded. “She was called. I don’t think the Seven had enough power to call her back from wherever Ishtar sent her, but something happened here, and many people called out her name, and she came back.”

  “Many people.” Shar hesitated, but he hadn’t seemed upset when she’d said “send her back.” “If we could get many people to yell, ‘Go home, Kammani,’ would that do it?”

  “No, she’s here now.” Sam shifted on the bed, looking uncomfortable.

  “Is this bad?” Shar asked. “Does it upset you to talk about sending her back?”

  “No.” Sam looked tired. “I think she has to go back. She doesn’t understand this world at all. I’ve tried to tell her, but she only listens to Mina now.”

  “You’ve tried to tell her?” Shar put down her cookie, stunned. “You’re trying to get her out of here?”

  “She doesn’t belong,” Sam said. “But I was with Ereshkigal in the Underworld when Ishtar banished her, so I don’t know how Ishtar did it.”

  “Thank you for trying to get rid of her,” Shar said, trying not to lunge for him in gratitude. “You are just the best god ever.”

  “If you knew the gods, you’d know that wasn’t much of a compliment.”

  “So, you know Ereshkigal?” Shar said, diverted in spite of herself.

  “I was stuck with her four months of every year for three years,” Sam said gloomily. “Talk about a buzzkill.”

  Shar laughed and he smiled, too, and she thought, I don’t ever want to leave this bedroom.

  Except they had to save the world.

  “You said Sharrat was trapped here.” Shar swallowed. “Are you trapped?” Do you want to leave?

  “I’ve always had mortal form.” Sam looked content with that. “I was born to my mother when she was in mortal form. The divine is within me.”

  It was within me an hour ago, and it was divine then, too, Shar thought, knowing she should get back to vanquishing Kammani, but just wanting to look at him in her bed.

  Sam crooked a finger at her. “Come here.”

  “Uh-uh,” Shar said. “I bow to no god’s command. Tell me about the family.”

  “Family?” Sam frowned.

  “So Mom was…”

  “Nanshe.” Sam pushed himself up to lean back against the headboard.

  “Whoa,” Shar said, in part for Nanshe and in part because he looked great flexing. “Uh, Nanshe. Lady of Dreams. Major goddess there.”

  Sam nodded. “She saw my father in battle and went to his tent that night.”

  “Smarter than Ishtar with Gilgamesh,” Shar said, and took another bite of cookie. Cookies and Sam telling Kami to beat it. Life is good.

  “Ishtar takes what she wants,” Sam said in the same kind of voice most people use to talk about Aunt Gladys who steals the silverware. “And Gilgamesh was a fool. Why do you want to know about my family?”

  “Oh,” Shar said, and realized she’d been thinking about marrying in. Yeah, that’s going to happen. This is Sam the God, not Sam the Guy Next Door. “Just curious. I don’t have any family, so I like hearing about others.”

  “Hey,” Wolfie said from under the bed.

  “Just me and Wolfie,” Shar said hastily.

  “Hey,” Milton said from under the bed.

  “And Milton.”

  “Hey,” Sam said, and she smiled and said, “And you,” and felt herself expand a little inside because he wanted to be with them.

  “And maybe there’s a clue in your history,” she said, trying to be honest. “We really need to get her out of here. I think she sent the bees that swarmed yesterday.”

  “That sounds like her,” Sam said. “She tried to send locusts to Kamesh once, but I stopped her.”

  “How?” Shar said.

  “I said, ‘No.’ She needed me, so she didn’t do it.” Sam’s forehead creased. “But I think she did something while I was dead this last time. I saw Ray yesterday at the college—”

  “You talked to Ray?” Shar said, astonished.

  “—and asked him to find out what happened to Kamesh.” He met her eyes. “There’s no history of it. At a