Goddess of Light (Goddess Summoning #3)(56)

"Did we take a wrong turn?" Pamela asked him.

He smiled. "No, but I just had a thought. Would you like to take a small chance?"

Her pretty face was a question mark.

"You want the purse, but you don't want to spend your four thousand of dollars. But what if you won the money? Would you purchase the purse then?"

"I suppose..."

Apollo tilted his head at the nearest row of slot machines. "I feel that luck is with us tonight."

Pamela chewed on the side of her lip. "I'm not really a very good gambler. I like knowing that I'm getting something back when I let my money loose."

"Then allow me to provide the money." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his roll of currency and flipped it open, shuffling quickly through the dozen or so bills, most of which had 50 or 100 printed on them.

"Good lord, Phoebus, do you not believe in credit cards?"

He tried to keep the confusion out of his voice. Bacchus had mentioned something about other ways modern mortals paid for their purchases, but Phoebus couldn't remember exactly what he had said.

"I like this currency," he paused, trying to decide what else he could say. "It's not very colorful, but it's interesting looking." He handed her a hundred dollar bill. "Take this one and feed it into one of the machines, and let us see what happens."

Pamela screwed up her face and looked at him like he was crazy. "I can't just blow a hundred dollars like that, even if it is yours. And really, I never gamble. I don't think I have the right attitude to be lucky at it."

"I think you are lucky. You're lucky for me."

That drew a reluctant smile from her. "I can't throw one hundred dollars away."

"Then use this one." He shuffled the money until he found a fifty dollar bill. "Remember, you might win enough money to buy your slipper purse." At the mention of the much-coveted purse, Apollo saw a light come into her eyes and he knew he'd won.

"Okay, here's the deal." She didn't take the fifty dollar bill. Instead, she rifled through the wad of money until she found a twenty. "I'll play this, and only this. If I win, you get half. If I lose, I owe you ten dollars."

"I'll take your deal," Apollo said. "Which machine shall we try?"

Pamela studied the rows of blinking, bonging, blaring machines, feeling a little intimidated by their slick foreign appearance. It was after eight o'clock on Sunday night, but still at least half of the machines were occupied by gamblers who were pressing buttons and pulling metal arms with a single-minded intensity.

"You're the one feeling lucky. You pick," she said.

Apollo rubbed his chin, pretending to carefully consider the rows of machines. "I like the way this one looks." He took her hand and pulled her to a machine not far from where they were standing. There were only two other people in that row, and they sat several seats down from the one he stopped in front of.

"Wheel of Fortune. Are you sure you want this one? I think it might be a bad omen that I never liked the show. I'm not a particularly good speller." She shrugged. "Hated it."

"You're nervous." Apollo didn't understand all of her words, but he certainly recognized the tone of her voice and her body language.

"Yep," she said, feeling foolish. "You're right. I am. I told you I've never gambled before."

"Don't think of it as gambling. Think of it as purse shopping."

Pamela visibly perked up. "Purse shopping is definitely something I can do." She sat on the little padded seat and searched the front of the gaudy machine. "I guess the money goes in here," she said, sliding the twenty into a little slot. The money disappeared, and the machine clicked and clanged, digitally displaying a credit of twenty dollars. She looked up at Phoebus. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Pamela grasped the red ball at the end of the silver arm, and pulled. Her attention was totally focused on the three-panel window, and she didn't notice the small, commanding gesture Apollo made with his hand.

"Bar..." Pamela said as the first scroll clunked to a stop inside the window. "Bar..." she said when the next one halted, excitement growing in her voice, until "BAR!" she shouted as the third black picture stopped. The machine exploded in lights and sirens and began vomiting money from its mechanical mouth as Pamela shrieked and leaped up to throw her arms around Apollo, who hugged her back, laughing joyously.

Sometimes it was really good to be a god.

Chapter 19

The strap of the ruby slipper purse was made of a filigree gold chain that reminded Pamela of something a 1920s flapper would have worn as a long, sultry necklace. She slid it over her shoulder and had the insanely childish urge to skip like Dorothy down the Yellow Brick Road. She couldn't believe it was hers! V was going to shit monkeys when she saw it.

"I can not believe the jackpot was exactly eight thousand dollars," she gushed, doing a little twirl as she watched the purse wink and glitter in her reflection in the store windows they passed.

"I told you I was feeling lucky tonight," Apollo said, delighted at the uninhibited exuberance of Pamela's reaction to winning the money.

"I would never have let myself buy something so outrageously expensive." She squeezed his hand and lowered her voice. "Not even a pair of fabulous, beginning-of-season designer shoes - not for four thousand dollars."