The pack is weak, she signaled with a glance toward the funeral pyre. The more I talked, the tastier I smelled. Now I am supposed to ‘jive.’ I assume that entails more than dancing and snapping my fingers?” I’ve reached the Tiber alive, et cetera, et cetera. Not once had she attended our monthly book group, even when we discussed Dances with Wolves. She never came to the family Saturnalia dinners. With Lupa, though…I had to be careful.Įven when I’d been a god myself, I’d never been able to get a good read on the Wolf Mother. She liked torturing me too much to want to kill me. True, I’d seen Britomartis back in Indianapolis, but she didn’t count. Talking face-to-face with any god is dangerous business. I wanted to scream I’ve been trying to be Apollo! It’s not that easy!īut I restrained my body language from broadcasting that message. It wasn’t possible to lie in Lupa’s language. I swallowed dryly, which in itself was Wolf for I’m scared. Her scent told me she wasn’t sure I was capable of it. Her gestures conveyed expectation and urgency. Mist shrouded her fur as if she were off-gassing quicksilver. Or a fifty-foot-tall golden statue of your abuser-that does the trick. It doesn’t take much to trigger those old fears: a look, a sound, a familiar situation. I knew it was only a statue, but if you’ve ever been traumatized by someone, you’ll understand. Seeing him tower above me, lightning bolt raised, I had to fight the urge to cower and plead. He looked stern, wise, and paternal, though he was only one of those in real life. In the center, behind a marble altar, rose a massive golden statue of Dad himself: Jupiter Optimus Maximus, draped in a purple silk toga big enough to be a ship’s sail. The floor was a colorful mosaic of Latin inscriptions: prophecies, memorials, dire warnings to praise Jupiter or face his lightning. Ringing the open-air pavilion, columns the size of redwoods supported a domed, gilded ceiling. Nevertheless, I followed her into Jupiter’s massive temple. And her twitching nostrils told her that I was the nearest, most convenient sack of mortal meat. The ketones on her breath indicated she had not eaten in days. Lupa was trembling with fury over Jason’s death. It was quite an elegant language, though not well-suited to rhyming couplets. Lupa, like all her kind, spoke in a combination of glances, snarls, ear twitches, postures, and pheromones.