The Immortals Read online

  Since the Diaspora, Zeus had lost his strength and his wits, eventually breaking his own vow of exile and returning to the Cave of Psychro, where he’d spent his infancy. In the nineteenth century, her half brother Hermes had finally dared visit the Father of the Gods.

  “By day, he looks up at the sky through the cave’s mouth and watches the clouds pass,” he told the Huntress afterward. “He waves his hands about as if he would bend the wind to his whim, and pouts when the sky doesn’t obey. He’s gone mad, Sister. There’s moss in his hair and mold on his skin. By night, he crawls from the cave and raids the flocks of nearby farmers, eating sheep and goats raw. Mostly, though, he lives on bats and worms.”

  “Maybe that’s all this is,” Selene said to Hippo, rising to her feet and reaching for the bow leaning against the windowsill. “My own inevitable descent into madness.” She twirled a shaft between her fingers before settling it against the arrow rest. “Maybe this is all a dream.” She sighted between the swaying branches of an oak over a hundred yards away on the border of the park, noting the skittering movement of a squirrel. It dashed down one branch then up another, hidden in the shadows of night. “Maybe I’m not going to make this shot,” Selene said quietly. Then she loosed the arrow. A heartbeat later, the wind carried the faintest of squeals to the Huntress’s ear. She lowered her bow. “For tonight, at least, I’m the Far Shooter. The Huntress. The Swiftly Bounding One. Go ahead,” she said, looking down at Hippo. “Pick an epithet. I’ve got dozens.” The dog just cocked her head, oblivious.

  For the first time in a long time, Selene wished she had a real friend. Can you see me, Orion? she wondered. Do you revel in my return to power—or dread it?

  She looked up to where the scudding clouds left bare a patch of night sky and felt her triumph slip away. In a painful irony, the only stars bright enough to outshine the city lights were those that most tormented her. A star for each broad shoulder, a star for each strong leg, three stars slung in a glittering belt and a last for his sword. Cold, remote, a bare suggestion of a man, light-years away from the one she’d known. Yet in the dark gaps of night, she saw strong limbs and fierce eyes, curling hair and a flashing smile. Orion, at once infinitely distant and just beyond reach, stared down like a reproachful judge upon the woman who’d loved him. The woman who’d killed him. The woman who’d placed him in the heavens as an eternal reminder of her guilt, her shame, her heartbreak.

  Selene rose and moved to her narrow bed. She thought suddenly of Theodore Schultz. He, too, had lost someone he loved. But in every photo, friends surrounded him, smiling, laughing, touching. He would grieve, but—unlike Selene—he would not be alone.

  She fell asleep with the wind streaming across her face from the open window. For the first time in centuries, she dreamed Orion was with her. He smelled like the dry hills of Attica. Like oregano crushed underfoot. Like sweat and heat and the thrill of the chase. His warm flesh pressed against her back. His fingertips traced a line of fire up her arm, to her neck, where his lips, rough and wind burnt, pressed a kiss into the hollow of her ear.

  With the frenzy of a drowning woman, Selene pulled herself from the dream and sat up, sure Orion was there. She imagined she could still smell him on the wind. But dawn reddened the sky, the stars had been put to flight, and she was alone.

  Chapter 14

  PROTECTOR OF THE INNOCENT

  Selene’s cell phone vibrated angrily on her bedside table, wrenching her from a fitful sleep. She hesitated. If it was Paul, then he could be calling for only one reason: The rush of power she’d felt last night had indeed come from their mother’s death.

  “Ms. DiSilva? It’s Theodore Schultz. From the park.” The professor sounded angry.

  “Schultz. I didn’t think I’d hear from you.” She could breathe again.

  “I didn’t think I’d be calling.” In the background, she heard the unmistakable hiss and beep of police radios. “But I told them this would happen and they didn’t listen to me.”

  “What’s going on? Another murder? Already?” It made no sense. Killers who practiced ritual mutilation—especially the precise kind shown on Helen Emerson’s body—were usually organized murderers. Like Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, or the Hillside Strangler, they struck repeatedly over the course of weeks, months, or years. Not twice in three days.

  “Yes, a teenage girl. A hospital patient, for fuck’s sake…”

  “Where are you?” she asked tightly. Another innocent killed. Again, she couldn’t help thinking. I’ve failed again. I spent the night dreaming of the past, while the present keeps moving forward.

  “I’m outside Mount Sinai Hospital right now. I went to the lead detective yesterday and warned him about the Asklepia, and—”

  “Hold it—Asklepia?”

  “That’s what I said,” Schultz snapped, as if she were the fiftieth person he’d explained this to. “It’s part of the Eleusinian Mysteries.”

  Cold sweat beaded Selene’s forehead. If a mortal is messing with a revival of Demeter and Persephone’s rites, he must be either very foolish or very brave. The rites in Eleusis had always been the most secret, the most envied, and the most feared among the gods—although they never involved human sacrifice. Still, if someone was tying murders to the ritual, it might explain the pace of the killings. The Mystery Cult’s rites had taken place over the course of only a few days. Which meant more victims. And soon.

  “That’s what we’re up against—Greek ritual, just like you said,” Schultz continued. “But the detective didn’t believe me. I couldn’t sleep all night, then I turn on the TV at five in the morning and see there’s been a murder in a basement storage room in the children’s wing. The perfect place to pay homage to Asclepius. So I’m here now, but I might as well be a prepubescent D&D player left out of the cool kids’ party. They won’t tell me anything and they won’t let me inside. I’m about to throw my dodecahedral dice at someone.”

  By the time Selene hung up, Hippolyta was already pacing eager circles in front of her, tail swinging wildly. “Looks like Professor Schultz isn’t our culprit,” Selene said as she latched the dog’s leash. “But he might just be the lead we need after all. The hunt’s back on.”

  Officer Nguyen had been patient with Theo for the last thirty minutes, but he could tell she was about to snap. “Thank God,” she said, looking across the curious crowd to where an unmarked black sedan had pulled up to the curb on Fifth Avenue. “Detective Brandman is here, sir, just like you asked.”

  “It’s about time.” Theo drummed his fingers impatiently on the blue police barricade between him and the hospital.

  “You need to step back, sir,” she reminded him for the fifth time. “This is an active crime scene.”

  “Sorry.” She was only about five feet tall and wore her black hair pulled back in a demure bun, but she did have a gun strapped to her waist. Theo hadn’t completely lost his mind.

  Brandman shoved his way through the gathered crowd. Even from across the street, Theo could see the stormy look on his face. “Professor Schultz. Of course.”

  Officer Nguyen shook her head wearily. “Sorry, Detective, I know the last thing you want is to get involved here. We’ve already got half of the Twenty-third out, not to mention”—she lowered her voice and gestured discreetly to a wiry woman with close-cropped gray hair standing nearby—“Captain Hansen from Counterterrorism. But Mr. Schultz here insisted—”

  “They used the room in the hospital for the Asklepia ritual,” Theo interrupted. “Just like I said they would.”

  “Really? Just like you said?”

  “I said a cave near a well sacred to the God of Medicine. A basement storage area near a pump room in a hospital amounts to basically the same thing once you transpose it into the twenty-first century. You’ve got to let me inside to take a look.”

  “Absolutely not.” Brandman moved aside the heavy barrier with one hand so he could walk past, then firmly replaced it in front of Theo.

  “Yo
u won’t know what you’re looking at. Do you have the first idea how to identify cultic elements?”

  Brandman pulled at his mustache and replied with careful sarcasm, “I didn’t realize you were a forensic expert, too. They really do make ’em smart up there in the Ivy League. Interesting, though, that you left out the most crucial piece of information yesterday.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I spoke to a few of your colleagues at the university. Turns out you dated Miss Emerson. Wildly in love with her, according to some, and then she threw you over. It was the talk of the department. Didn’t you think that was something you should’ve told me?”

  “It was almost a year ago. Water under the bridge.”

  “Huh. Well, let’s just say it casts your ‘cult’ argument into a whole new light. As does the rest of your record. Let’s see.” He raised his hand to tick off Theo’s misdemeanors, mocking the professor’s didactic manner at the police station the day before. “One: arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at Harvard.”

  “That was my lunatic roommate Dennis’s fault—”

  “Two: a warning for trespassing in the New York Public Library after hours.”

  “I fell asleep and—”

  “Three: taken into custody while leading a sit-in against your own university’s eminent domain policy.”

  This time Theo didn’t protest.

  Brandman showed his teeth. He was enjoying this. “The department chair seems to consider you some kind of self-serving traitor, more concerned with your reputation among your bleeding-heart liberal students than with the good of the university. He really doesn’t like you.”

  “Well, for once, you’ve got your facts straight.”

  “Glad you agree.” Brandman turned to walk into the hospital. “I’ll be in touch, Professor, you can be sure of that. We’ve got plenty to talk about. And ancient Greeks are just the beginning.”

  “Wait. What about the snake at the crime scene?”

  “How did you know about the—” interjected Officer Nguyen before Brandman silenced her with a curt wave.

  Theo pounced, glad his bluff had paid off. “It was the Zamenis longissimus specimen from the Natural History Museum. Right? Guess you needed an expert in dead languages and dead snakes after all.”

  “What I need is the crime scene investigation team that’s waiting inside. They’re the ones finding the clues.”

  “Are you sure?” Theo retorted, voice raised. “Because so far all you’ve found is rumor, lies, and conjecture.” From the corner of his eye, he saw the gray-haired female police captain from Counterterrorism turn to watch the altercation. Brandman glanced at the captain and then turned narrowed eyes back to Theo.

  “Are you done, sir?” he asked tightly.

  “You’re guilty of negligence, Detective, and if you won’t let me in there to examine the scene, I may have to call your superior.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d gone too far. Gabriela was right. Since when was he Sherlock Holmes? But it was too late now to pull his punches. “Or maybe I should just talk to her.” He gestured up the street to the captain. Brandman stood silently for a moment, his barrel chest heaving, rocking onto the toes of his small feet as if he would try to match Theo’s height.

  “That woman deals with Islamic extremists. She has as little to do with your crazy conspiracy as I do,” he finally said, his voice careful, as if every word were an effort. “I suggest that you climb back up your Ivory Tower. Make yourself useful doing some more library work and wait for my call.” He turned to walk into the hospital.

  Theo reached across the barricade to grab the detective’s shoulder. “You have to listen—” Brandman spun around and threw off Theo’s hand.

  “You need to not touch me, sir,” Brandman said, his voice soft and dangerous, sarcasm gone. “Not unless you want to add another charge to your record.”

  Nguyen put her hand on her billy club and stepped forward. Other cops were watching now, too, ready to spring into action.

  “If you won’t help me, I’ll go to people who will,” Theo warned. “I’ve hired a private investigator.”

  “Are you threatening me, Professor?”

  “I just—”

  “’Cause if you’re threatening me, I’m going to need to take you into custody.”

  “If you don’t listen to me now, I can guarantee that something even worse will happen next.”

  “That sounds like a threat to me,” Nguyen piped up.

  “Agreed. You’re coming with me, Professor.” Brandman moved forward to put a hand on Theo’s elbow.

  Theo instinctively jerked backward.

  “That’s it. Resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.”

  “What! That’s not—” Before Theo could protest further, Brandman had jumped the barricade with surprising agility, pinned Theo’s arms behind his back, and secured plastic handcuffs around his wrists. “Makes your drunk and disorderly charge look like nothing.”

  In the backseat of Brandman’s sedan, Theo kicked the back of the seat in front of him, accomplishing nothing but bruising his toe. He cursed loudly. No one could hear him anyway behind the bulletproof glass.

  In a moment, his righteous anger dissolved into anxiety. Should he be calling a lawyer? He couldn’t reach his cell phone anyway. Shit shit shit. Do I never learn? He threw his head back, staring at the roof of the car as if it could tell him how he got into this mess. I blame Selene DiSilva, he decided. She’s the one who got me started.

  As if she’d heard him, the woman’s perfect pale face suddenly appeared in the window. Theo nearly yelped as she pressed her nose against the glass, staring at him quizzically.

  “How did you get here so fast?” he exclaimed, forgetting for a moment that the thick window was nearly soundproof. It didn’t seem to matter, though. She apparently heard him.

  What are you doing in there? she mouthed.

  “Contemplating the depths of my own stupidity!” he shouted back. She raised an eyebrow, but he plowed on. “I was just trying to get inside and they arrested me on trumped-up charges. You should try to get a look at the—” He wanted to say more, but Selene DiSilva’s eye had been caught by something he couldn’t see. Once again, she vanished like a ghost, leaving Theo alone, angry, and thoroughly miserable.

  Chapter 15

  THE GODDESSES OF ELEUSIS

  Selene didn’t take well to being ordered about by mortals. Nonetheless, the professor was right—she needed to get inside the hospital. In fact, the sooner she could get more evidence, the sooner she could stop relying on Schultz to pass her information. Even though he wasn’t the killer, she’d rather not be involved with him: too unpredictable, too excitable, too human. Then again, he’d been dedicated enough to get himself arrested. Stupid, but impressive.

  She left Theo in the police car and walked calmly along the block, examining the scene while trying to dredge up what she knew of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The first days of the ceremony, she remembered, involved a series of processions in homage to Demeter and Persephone. The rite’s climax, however, had been performed behind the closed doors of the Telesterion. Over the years, a few other gods joined the Mystery—including Dionysus, who was usually so drunk he would tell anyone anything—yet the rite remained secret. The other gods envied the Eleusinian deities their continued worship. Some, such as Apollo, begged in vain to know the secret so he might form a cult of his own. “They’re doing something that they don’t want us to know about,” he’d complained once. “Even my own son Asclepius won’t tell me what it is.”

  Artemis had scowled at her twin. “Why would you want to be worshiped by those fools? All that fuss over the goddesses of farming and flowers. Do you really want to spend more time with a girl as insipid as Persephone the Discreet?”

  She’d always wondered why the story of Hades’s abduction of Persephone into the Underworld had endured as one of mankind’s favorite myths. Probably, Selene surmised, because men find the
idea of kidnapping and raping a virgin irresistibly titillating. No wonder no man ever wants to revive an Artemis cult. In my stories, it’s the man who winds up underground.

  Selene moved to stand behind the knot of reporters crowding the police barricade. Over their heads, she watched various uniformed cops coming and going from the hospital. She had no chance of getting into the crime scene while their investigation was under way. She’d have to wait for the press conference like everybody else. The thought galled her. At least I have a lead to pursue while I wait—one no reporter or detective could ever imagine.

  She dialed one of the few numbers in her phone.

  “Selene!” crowed a voice on the other end.

  “Hi, Dash.” Hermes had recently incarnated himself as a movie producer. She could picture him, his curly black hair in a wild halo, his sharp eyes hidden behind completely unnecessary thick-rimmed glasses to make him look older. Once, he’d sported a thick beard, but he’d shaved it off in the first century to look more Roman. Now, he looked about fifteen years old—but he was a master of disguise. Most mortals probably thought him a well-preserved forty-three.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked her half brother. “It’s four in the morning in California.”

  “Still at work. What can I do for you? Looking to leave town finally? Realized Hollywood is infinitely superior to that humid gray cave you live in?”

  “The New York weather has been perfect recently,” she sniffed. “It’s autumn. Remember autumn? Remember seasons?”

  “Don’t miss ’em,” he laughed. A high-pitched chatter distracted Dash’s attention for a moment. His muffled reply: “Just tell him that chickens are funnier than ducks.”

  “So what’s up, Selene?” he said, clearly now. “I’m in the middle of a shit-storm of a script crisis.” He was always like that. Mercurial, for lack of a better word. Thrilled to hear from you one moment, rushing you off the phone the next.