Saviors 101

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

“You still haven’t told me how you know all this.” Dana scanned the Suzzallo Library reading room again, but the other students ranged down the long wooden tables were all too wrapped up in their research to waste time listening to her one-sided conversation with an empty chair.

The woman beside her smiled.

“I’m the author.” The woman aimed a finger at the book.

The book became warm against sweaty palms.

“But this happened like a thousand years ago.” Dana swallowed hard. She wasn’t going to buy into all this. She just wasn’t.

The woman started to speak.

“If it happened at all!” Dana cut her off. There. Fight back. Deny the impossible.

“Two thousand, five hundred and fifty-five, give or take.”

“What?” She hugged the book close to have something to hold onto.

“Years. Though I’m probably the only one still counting.”

“You?”

“Me.”

Dana must be losing her mind.

Then the woman held out her hand.

Dana reached to shake it. The woman grabbed her wrist. A jolt of connection ran up her arm as her own hand wrapped around the woman’s forearm. There was a closeness, an intimacy that the modern handshake had lost. This wasn’t a handshake; it was an arm clasp. This was closer. More personal.

“Call me Clio.”

“I’m…” her throat was too dry to form her own name.

“Diana, I know. Well met.”

“Dana.” Though she didn’t put a whole lot of force behind it. It was an argument that she seemed unlikely to be winning any time soon.

“And what do you do, Clio?” The woman still held her arm, as if they shared a friendship that might never end.

“I’m a muse.”

Dana waited. Then, “Amused by what?”

Clio’s laugh bubbled up once again. “Ah, the price of fleeting fame. I wrote that book in your lap. I am the Muse of History. It is my duty to chronicle all of significance that occurs. I used to try and write it all down, but that became a little tedious and quite time consuming.”

She leaned in and offered in a conspiratorial whisper. “Don’t try reading my first books. Remarkably dull. Never sold out the first printing, never mind any thoughts of running a second. The Gods themselves couldn’t wade through so much boring detritus. I got better and better with time. From approximately the Bronze Age through the Renaissance I really hit my stride.”

“Then what happened?”

“Modern man. You want dull material, just look at modern man. No more quests of the heart. No more chivalry and fighting for truth. Just a lot of hi-tech barbarism. Not much fun really. So I usually hang out here except when there’s a meeting that I can’t get out of.”

“What kind of meetings can’t a muse get out of?”

“Well, ducking a CABER meeting can get you in serious trouble with the monotheistic Devil. She can really make your life hell when you don’t show up.”

Dana’s skin went cold. She removed herself from Clio’s gentle clasp and would have stood up and run if her legs had not fallen asleep beneath her.

“CABER meeting?” She barely breathed the question.

“Celestials Association for Better Redemption. Anyway, self-help books didn’t help as much as we’d hoped. Too many whackos out there who can figure out how to use a word processor.”

“Michelle is in charge of redemption?”

“Most determined woman I’ve ever met. Always gets what she wants eventually. Tenacious? Why there was never a bulldog that knew the true meaning of the word.”

Dana considered saying something, but knew it would just be an idiotic, my-brain-so-can’t-adjust-to-this babble, so she opted for keeping her mouth shut.

“Here,” The woman, Clio, the Muse, reached over to the nearby bookcase and extracted a heavy black volume. Flipping quickly through the pages, a small exclamation of delight when she found what she was looking for. She turned the book around for Dana to read.

It was a dictionary. A picture dictionary. Each word had a person’s photo next to the definition. Next to the word “ten” was a photo of Bo Derek with a red s***h through it.

“A little farther down.” Clio indicated the next entry with a slender finger.

Next to the word “tenacious” was a picture of Michelle.

Clio snapped the dictionary closed and slid it back onto the shelf.

“She’s amazing. Never gives up. That’s where you came in.”

“Where I came in?”

“Sure, though we could never figure out how she talked you into it. Not your normal style at all. What with being a virgin huntress who enjoyed the company of wildlife and woods over humans and their cities.”

“My normal style?”

Clio sighed. It was long, heartfelt, and world-weary in a way that staggered the imagination.

So, escaping to the library hadn’t been all she’d hoped. Michelle would come after her again. She needed to get away. Run. Hide. Go to a place that—

“So, Dana, what are your plans for the last four days left for all creation?”