The man barked a laugh. "None of your business." He turned to Kathy, who
had devoted the previous few seconds to getting her _chiton_ on again.
Hurriedly, Forrester wished back his own costume. Kathy got up, staring
straight back at the intruder. Fear was gone from her face, and a kind
of calmness that Forrester had never seen before possessed her now.
"So!" the intruder bellowed. "The minute my back is turned, off you go!
By the Stars and Galaxy, I--I don't know what to call you! You're worse
than your predecessor! Can't turn anything down! You--"
"Now wait!" Forrester bellowed in his most Godlike voice. "Just hold
still there! Do you know who you're talking to? How dare you--"
And Kathy interrupted him. Forrester stood mute as she stripped the
stranger with a voice like scalding acid. "Listen, you," she said,
pointing a finger at the man. "Who do you think you are--my husband?"
"By the Stars--" the stranger began.
"Don't bother trying to scare me with your big mouth," Kathy went on
imperturbably. "You don't mean a thing to me and you can't order me
around. What's more, you know it. You're not my husband, you big
thug--and you're never going to be. I'll sleep with whomever I please,
and whenever I please, and wherever I please, and that's the way things
are going to be. After all, lard-head, it's my job, isn't it? Got any
questions?"
Her _job_?
Forrester began to wonder just what he had managed to walk into now. But
that was a detail. The important thing was that his Godhood had been
grossly, unbelievably insulted--and at a damned inconvenient time, too!
He stepped between Kathy and the intruder, his eyes flashing fire. "Do
you know who I am? Do you know that--"
"Of course he knows," Kathy put in abruptly. "And if you don't want to
get hurt, I'd advise you to stay out of this little quarrel."
Forrester turned and stared at her.
What the everlasting bloody hell was going _on_?
But there wasn't any time to think. The intruder put his face up near
Forrester's and glared at him. "Sure I know who you are, buster," he
said. "You're a wise guy. You're a Johnny-come-lately. And I know what I
ought to do with you, too--take you apart, limb by limb!"
That did it. Forrester, seeing several shades of red, decided that no
God could possibly object if this ugly blasphemer were blasted off the
face of the Earth. He raised a hand.
And Kathy grabbed it. "_Don't!_" she said in a frightened tone.
The intruder grinned wolfishly at him. "Pay no attention to Little Miss
Sacktime over there, Forrester. You go right ahead and try it! All I
need is an excuse to vaporize you. Just one tiny little excuse--and I'll
do the job so damn quick, your head won't even have time to start
swimming." He set himself. "Go on. Let's see your stuff, Forrester."
Forrester's arm came down, without his being aware of it. There was only
room in his mind for one thought.
The intruder had called him Forrester.
Where had he gotten the name?
And, for that matter, how had he seen the two of them in the darkness?
While the questions were still spinning in Forrester's mind, Kathy threw
herself forward between him and the stranger. "Ares!" she screamed. "You
stupid, jealous idiot! Get some sense into that battle-scarred brain of
yours! Are you completely crazy?"
"Now you listen to me--" the stranger began.
"Listen, nothing! If you want to pick a fight, do it with me--I can
fight back! But if you lay a hand on Forrester, we'll never find
another--"
The stranger reached out casually and clamped one huge paw over her
mouth. "Shut up," he said, almost quietly. He glanced at Forrester and
went on, in the same tone: "Don't give away everything you've got,
chum."
A second passed and then he took the hand away. Kathy said nothing at
all for a moment, and then she nodded.
"All right," she said. "You're right. We shouldn't be losing our tempers
just now. But I didn't start--"
"Didn't you?" the stranger said.
Kathy shrugged. "Well, never mind it now." She turned to Forrester. "You
know who we are now, don't you?"
Forrester nodded very slowly. How else could the man have come through
the cordon of Myrmidons and seen them in the darkness? How else would he
have dared to face up to Dionysus--confident that he could beat him? And
how else could all this argument have gone on without anyone hearing it?
For that matter, why else would the argument have begun--unless the
stranger and Kathy were--
"Sure," he said, as if he had known it all along. "You're Mars and
Venus."
He could feel cold death approaching.