City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte

suppressant out there—and nothing’s ever worked. Sarah, this is a miracle.”
    The marble heads were all admiring his physique. Bob the commodore whistled.
    Renato dropped to his knees and began to thank every holy figure Sarah had ever heard of.
    “San Franceso, Maria, Gesù, Buddha, Giove, grazie, grazie, grazie,”
Renato was crying.
“Grazie Minerva, Diana, Zeus, Dio, Gaia! E tutti i dei africani e indiani, grazie!”
    Sarah looked at her own hands. They seemed the same, but of course she didn’t . . .
    “Grazie,
Apollo!”
Renato shouted.
“Grazie,
Zeus!”
    The heads were now all talking at once, shouting, calling to each other, demanding to be heard. Renato leapt to his feet.
    “How long will it last?” he shouted to Sarah over the din.
    “I don’t know!” she yelled back. “I don’t understand what’s happening!”
    “Thomas.” Renato grabbed his sweater. “If I have only five minutes like this, I want to be touched.” He rushed for the door.
    “Wait!” Sarah called.
    “I’m sorry,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll come back!”
    As the door clicked behind him, several of the male voices burst into laughter and shouted encouragement after Renato. “Men!” said a Julia. “Always thinking with their cocks!”
    “Did Bettina rig the clock with some kind of drug?” Marcus Aurelius wondered.
    “Or was it something from Rudy II’s time?” one of the child heads piped up.
    “Rudolf had a lot of ailments,” said Gay Face. “Why not seborrheic dermatitis?”
    “This is crazy,” said Bob. “It’s like LSD or something!”
    “Why would Bettina put a drug in a clock?” asked Vespasian. “That makes
no
sense.”
    “What if the drug cures more than skin disorders?” Mädchen wondered.
    “They are speaking my thoughts,” said Julia. She smiled at Sarah. “Yes, I just said that. And yes, we are.”
    “What if the drug acts on the whole immune system?” Septimius Severus shouted.
    “Or is this all a hallucination?” Marcus Aurelius whispered.
    “What if it is Bettina’s drug?” interrupted the North African soldier. “What if it could help Pols?”
    Sarah ran to the door.
    “I hope I don’t set off any alarms!” shouted Bob.
    “I don’t care!” Julia shouted back.
    Sarah staggered through the rest of the antiquities display, but quickly became disoriented. Statues in various rooms called out to her, confusing her even more. “Did I come through this one?” they cried. “This doesn’t look familiar!” The life-size Zeus muttered, “I remember that,” as she ran by him.
    Sarah was now at the main staircase of the museum. In front of her was the giant Canova.
The museum guards,
Sarah thought,
they must be patrolling around.
Would they be able to hear the statues, or was it just her?
Don’t speak,
she thought furiously at the centaur-slaying soldier.
Do not say a word.
    The soldier raised his head, narrowed his eyes at her, and then thrust his pelvis forward. He had sprouted a ten-foot-long erection. Sarah ran down the stairs and then ducked behind a pillar. She could hear footsteps and saw the sweep of a flashlight across the marble floor. She looked back at the Canova, who was still watching her, and stroking his massive erection.
    Sarah tried hard to think of nothing at all, in order to keep Canova quiet. She was trembling all over. Her body was burning up. She was . . . dear God. She was having an orgasm.
    She needed to get back to Renato’s office. She should take the clock with her.
    She needed to . . .
    Sarah clamped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the moan that was coming from deep inside her chest. She stumbled across the hall and groped for another door. Unfortunately, this one set off an alarm when she opened it, and Sarah crashed through two more doors and then suddenly she was outside, in the cold air. The statue of Maria Theresia loomed up before her. Sarah ran toward it, hoping she wouldn’t be followed by a squadron of security