The glowing faces below him all remained upturned and listening. Zeus searched the crowd until he found Demeter standing regally beside her daughter. He inclined his head to her in respectful acknowledgment before continuing.

"The Goddess of the Harvest has informed me that modern mortals enjoy most of their revelry during a small cluster of days which they call a weekend. So it is during mortal weekends that our portal will be open. You have from dusk on their Friday evening to dawn on their Monday to frolic with the modern mortals."

With a small gesture of one hand, he silenced the enthusiastic whispers that his words evoked.

"And now, I give to you the Kingdom of Las Vegas!" The Thunder God clapped his hands together, and the crowd cheered as the sky roared in response.

Below in the Banquet Hall Artemis laughed and shook her head fondly at Zeus before turning her attention back to her brother.

"Father is certainly pleased with himself," she said.

Apollo shrugged. "I don't understand the excitement. It is simply the modern world of mortals, not a new Olympus."

Artemis raised one perfect, golden eyebrow at him. "Thus said by the god who spent months spying on a modern mortal in the Kingdom of Tulsa."

"I was simply performing a favor for Demeter," he answered a little too nonchalantly.

Artemis said nothing, but she studied her twin as he flirted halfheartedly with a violet-tressed nymph who had stopped to talk in excited little bursts about visiting the Kingdom of Las Vegas. There was no doubt about it. Apollo had been behaving oddly ever since the Persephone debacle.

Artemis sipped her ruby-red wine, remembering how her brother's surprise at Persephone's sudden rejection and odd infatuation with Hades had turned to outright shock when it had been discovered that the soul that had temporarily inhabited the goddess's body had been that of a mortal woman.