The Immortals Read online

  “This man and I—”

  “Whoa! What!” Suddenly she had his attention. “Selene has a man? Cut! Bobby, get out of here, dear boy. Hold my calls.” More muted babbling, rustling of papers, closing of doors. Then—“Are you telling me that the Untamed One is shacking up with a mortal man?” His delight was clear.

  Selene blushed furiously, grateful he couldn’t see. “How dare you,” she seethed. “I barely know the man. He’s just been arrested and he told—”

  “Arrested! A bad boy! You always did know how to pick ’em. Orion was certainly no puffball. So this man of yours,” he continued. “Madly in love with you?”

  “I told you, I don’t even—”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Or an ‘I hope so.’ Hah! I can feel you blushing over the phone. By Kronos’s gullet, Selene, you’re not still a virgin are you?” Selene could only splutter. “Why? I mean, what’s stopping you now?”

  “I’m a virgin goddess,” she managed. “If I lose that, I lose everything.”

  “Feh.”

  “What do you mean, ‘feh’? That’s the fundamental rule of godhood. You’ve got to hold on to your most essential attributes if you want to hold on to any semblance of immortality. If Ares were to become a pacifist or Aphrodite swore off men, they wouldn’t be Athanatoi anymore.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe we just can’t imagine anything else for ourselves.”

  That’s where Dash was wrong. She could imagine. She could still feel Orion’s heat against her cheek. And for an unsettling instant, a vision of Schultz, shirtless in his apartment, flashed before her eyes. “There are more important things going on than my sex life.”

  Dash shifted topics as effortlessly as always, becoming suddenly serious. “You’re talking about the fading. It’s speeding up. And not because Aphrodite’s become some lesbian. I mean she’s been traipsing across Paris—”

  “Is everyone fading?” she interrupted.

  “The Goddess of the Hearth. The Smith. Your mother. Not everyone.”

  “You?” She was afraid of the answer. Hermes, the eternal child. How could he grow old?

  “I’m the Messenger, remember?” he said with a laugh. “God of Communication and Travel and about a dozen other extremely lucrative domains. Between cell phones, the Internet, and jumbo jets, I’m doing just fine. Sure, machines do more than I ever could, but they’re like magic to most people. They’re still in awe of the mysterious force that beams their voices across space, because they can’t possibly understand how the technology really works. I harvest power from their ignorance. And you?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Her powers were still too new, too uncertain.

  “Are some of the Athanatoi actually getting stronger?” she asked instead.

  “Stronger? Wouldn’t that be nice! There’s always been a theory that eventually the decreasing number of gods would mean more power for the rest of us, but I haven’t heard of it actually happening. Then again, now that some of the Twelve are threatened… well, maybe. Wait—is that why you’re calling? Selene, you little minx, are you holding out on me?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I’m calling about the murders in New York.”

  “Aren’t there always murders in New York?”

  “Not like this. Some killer has revived the Eleusinian Mysteries and is sacrificing women along the way.”

  “No shit. I didn’t hear that on the news.”

  “I just figured it out.”

  “Always the cop, huh? I never should’ve convinced you to join the force back in the twenties—you’ve never gotten it out of your system.”

  “You remember anything about Eleusis?”

  “Wouldn’t be caught dead there. Too many pigs.”

  “Then I need to talk to the Athanatoi who ran the cult,” she said, exasperated. “Where are”—she realized she didn’t know Demeter’s, Hades’s, or Persephone’s current aliases—“the Goddess of Grain, the Receiver of Many, and the Goddess of Spring?”

  “Gwenith, Aiden, and Cora.”

  Selene shook her head. Just as the gods needed to keep their old roles, so they held on to some semblance of their old names and titles. But they were obviously running out of ideas. Gwenith was Welsh for “grain”—Demeter had been going by some variation of the name for centuries. Aiden sounded more like an Irish poet than a nickname for “Aides,” the Hidden One, one of Hades’ many titles. And Cora? From Persephone’s alternate name “Kore,” I suppose, but not particularly dignified. It’s only slightly better than “Paul” for Apollo.

  “Gwenith’s not doing well, I’m afraid. Very weak. All those genetically modified crops and chemical pesticides have really taken their toll on the Goddess of Grain. She was living somewhere in Peru last I heard, with no phone. No way to get in touch with her unless you want to fly to the Southern Hemisphere. You’ll have more luck with Aiden and Cora. Most of the time they live in an old oil well in Houston. He’s working his Lord of the Dead and God of Wealth epithets like a pro. Got it all decked out with plasma screens and a lap pool—the works. But he still keeps a little pied-à-terre in New York.”

  “And you know how to find it?”

  “That’s my job, isn’t it? Leading people to the Underworld.” Dash chuckled when he said the word, as if it were a haunted house in a cheesy theme park.

  “I don’t suppose you could tell me how to get there and I could just go myself?”

  “I don’t give out addresses. But as the Conductor of Souls, Aiden’s lair is one place I can take you personally. That’s how it works.”

  “Okay, but I need to get this done fast. This cult will strike again, probably tonight. You don’t still have those winged sandals, do you?”

  “Sure I’ve got ’em. But they don’t work. Haven’t in a thousand years.”

  “Damn.”

  “But who needs magic sandals when I can get to you tonight by private jet?”

  “Your production company’s doing that well, huh?”

  “Sure, but I’d have the jet either way. I’m not the God of Thieves for nothing, darling.”

  In front of the hospital, the knot of reporters started shoving one another for position as a young detective in a trench coat emerged from the crime scene. Selene hung up with Dash and moved closer to watch.

  As the detective pulled off a pair of latex gloves, a sixty-ish woman in a boxy pantsuit joined him. A badge hung around her neck, but even with her newly keen vision, Selene couldn’t read the precinct designation from so far away. Something about the woman’s blade of a nose and grimly set mouth looked familiar. Uneasy, Selene hid herself in the crowd of journalists who pressed close to the barricades, trying in vain to decipher the cops’ hushed conversation.

  Selene concentrated on their moving lips, willing herself to hear the distant whispers. Suddenly, as if popping from a return to pressure, her ears opened and their words were clear.

  “How much do you want me to tell them about Sammi Mehra, Captain? Do we say she had cancer?” asked the young man.

  “Just the basics. I don’t want to get the entire city in a panic. I’ll check with the commissioner before we reveal anything else.” The woman’s voice was rough with cigarettes and age.

  “Do I mention the snakes?”

  The captain shook her head. “Not yet. Any ID on them?”

  “No, ma’am. But I’ll tell you, I never seen anything like it. One of the guys started screaming like a little girl when we walked in. Uh… no offense, ma’am.”

  “None taken. I never screamed like a little girl, even when I was one.”

  “You don’t seem too shaken by this. You seen something like it before?”

  “Not in forty years on the force. But you cease being surprised after a while. Any other evidence, Detective? Anything that might point to organized extremists?”

  “Plenty of hair and fingerprints, but there were dozens of custodians going in and out of that storeroom all the time. It’ll take a while before
the lab sorts through it all, but we’ll send the results over to Counterterrorism as soon as we get them back. Our perps left all kinds of stuff behind. Must’ve run off in a hurry. Maybe heard someone coming. Everything’s labeled, but we’ve sealed the room until the animal guy gets here.”

  “When’s he expected?”

  “’Bout twenty minutes.”

  The detective finally approached the reporters to give his statement. He introduced himself then turned to the older woman. “This is Captain Geraldine Hansen with the Counterterrorism Division.” As the reporters clamored to know why Counterterrorism had been summoned to a murder investigation, Selene slipped away.

  She’d thought all the cops who’d known her when she was last on the force were surely long dead or retired by now, but Geraldine had been barely out of her teens when she joined the NYPD in the early seventies.

  The last thing Selene needed was her old protégée asking why “Officer Cynthia Forrester” had barely aged a day in forty years.

  Chapter 16

  MISTRESS OF BEASTS

  Selene checked the position of the sun. She had about ten minutes left before the cops reentered the basement storage room. They’d have a guard outside the door, but she knew from experience there was usually more than one way into a crime scene.

  Behind a tall wrought-iron fence, a trench stretched the length of the building. Most likely, this was a service area that allowed light to penetrate the basement windows. Leaving Hippo tied to a parking meter with strict instructions not to growl at the passersby, Selene slipped behind the fence and crouched down to peer through the metal grate covering the trench. Sure enough, she saw a basement window, clouded with dirt and only two feet square. Too small for a fully grown man to crawl through, but perfect for a slender woman. To get to it, of course, she’d have to get through the grating. The access hatch wasn’t locked, just incredibly heavy. The bigger problem was that someone—especially the two police officers standing guard outside the hospital entrance—might see her jumping down through the grate.

  Selene whistled sharply to attract Hippo’s attention. The dog stood immediately, tail wagging, eager to be of use. With a quick hand gesture, Selene gave Hippo a command to bark. Miraculously, the dog obeyed perfectly. She sat on her haunches and commenced an ear-splitting concert of whimpers, howls, and growls. As the cops turned toward the sound, Selene seized the opportunity to pry up the hatch and drop feetfirst into the passage below.

  She landed in a puddle of rainwater and oil, muffling a curse as the cold liquid seeped through her boots. Heating and ventilation units whirred and clicked around her, masking any sound she made. She donned her gloves, then pushed open the small window. After unlacing her boots, she grabbed the window ledge, levered herself out of her shoes and through the opening, and landed lightly on her stocking feet in a small storage room.

  Something cold and slick struck Selene in the face. She batted it away before she realized what it was. Like streamers at a prom, dozens of live snakes dangled head-down from the ceiling in four concentric circles, their whiplike tails wriggling grotesquely as they swayed from thin cords looped around the rafters. The snake Selene had struck spun crazily, knocking into the others and setting them waving like a perpetual motion machine.

  In the center of the writhing mass hung a child. Someone had slit open the veins above her bony wrists; blood coated her hands. Her feet, overlarge for her withered shins, dangled toedown, arched and graceful like those of a ballerina about to pirouette.

  From her nearly bald scalp, a few remaining hanks of black hair fell to her waist in six skinny braids. Again, the Roman sign of virginity. But why such an obsession? And how did Helen—surely no virgin—fit in? Then she remembered her vision of the night Helen was killed. A needle, curved like a fishhook. The suture needle had never made sense, until now. Whoever led this cult needed each sacrifice to be pure—and if she wasn’t a virgin, he would make her one.

  By the Styx, I pledge, Selene swore silently, that I will stop this before another innocent dies. It ends tonight.

  Carefully ducking beneath the writhing snakes, she stepped toward the dangling corpse. The thin hospital gown hung untied, crusted red from the girl’s blood. Selene forced herself to resist the desire to rip the girl from her noose and wash her clean. Find the killer first, she told herself. Then you can have your revenge.

  She pulled off a glove and brushed a finger across the girl’s forehead but received no vision of her last moments. She still couldn’t fathom how she’d experienced Helen Emerson’s dying thoughts, but she was used to making do without supernatural visions to provide answers. She would focus on the evidence instead.

  She squatted to peer more closely at the evidence tags on the floor beneath the corpse. A pool of Sammi Mehra’s blood, sticky and thick as congealed pudding, covered the ground. Scattered nearby were three large scales, too big to belong to any of the common snakes writhing around her. Another label marked a small patch of oily ash. A burnt offering. Selene shuddered, remembering the mysterious surge of power she’d felt the night before. Could it be that her return to strength had nothing to do with Leto’s fading? Could she be responding to the revival of cult worship instead? No, she decided. The offering was not for me. No worshiper of mine would use snakes in my rites, much less kill a virgin.

  She stood up, accidentally knocking a snake, which twisted violently in its noose, vibrating its tail. Its long tongue lashed out to brush against her cheek. With a start, she recognized the wide brown bands across its back—a venomous copperhead. Selene hissed at it to calm down. The snake ignored her. Once, at the height of her power, she could do more than command dogs—she could speak to wild animals of all kinds in their own tongue. But even then, snakes had refused to tell her their secrets. They were creatures of prophecy and rebirth, sacred to Asclepius and Apollo, never ruled by the Huntress. The copperhead snapped its jaws at her, long fangs bright in the fluorescent overhead light. Selene reached to snap its neck, then stopped herself. Tampering with the crime scene would be deeply unwise.

  Keeping low to the ground, she searched the rest of the room in a careful spiral pattern. Metal shelves filled with supplies lined the walls. She sniffed cautiously at the folded blankets and sheets, wondering how much her sense of smell had heightened along with her other powers. Bleach. Detergent. More bleach. She passed to the last row of linens, still sniffing. There. The bottom five blankets, folded a bit less neatly than the others. Fear. Male lust. Sweat. Euphoria. More sweat. The emotion in each scent was as distinctive as an animal’s print. She cursed inwardly. Looks like the professor’s cult theory’s correct—I’ve got more than one man to hunt.

  She unfolded the blankets carefully, looking for stray hairs. Nothing. If only Hippo were a little more svelte, Selene might have brought her through the window to let her have a sniff. With her renewed hunter’s nose, Selene could tell that there had been a number of different men sweating on the blankets, but unlike Hippo, she probably wouldn’t recognize the individuals’ scents if she smelled them again.

  After snipping off tiny samples of each blanket, then refolding them neatly, she crouched to peer beneath each shelving unit. There, under the last corner, lay a large, dark object, shiny enough to catch the light amid the shadows. Maybe just an old vacuum hose or plastic bedpan, but if the men had left in a hurry, they could’ve lost something beneath the shelves, something the cops might’ve missed. Her arm barely fit underneath, but she managed to brush the object with her fingertips, sending it spinning into her grasp. She pulled it out, blew off the dust and dirt, then sat back on her heels, unable to believe what she was looking at.

  A tusklike tooth, black and cracked with extreme age. Nearly eight inches long, wider at the base then narrowing to a sharp canine point. Animal sacrifices appeared in most rituals, as the snakes attested. What confused her, though, was the origin of this particular tooth. It was far too large for a lion or a grizzly. Perhaps a tusk from a young elephant or
rhinoceros? She thought not. In fact, she was fairly certain that it belonged to an animal with a special meaning for the Olympians.

  But where would anyone get ahold of a tooth from the Caledonian Boar?

  Well, probably not the Caledonian Boar, she acknowledged. Thousands of years earlier, Artemis had searched far and wide for the perfect beast to ravage the lands of Calydon after its king had refused to pay her proper homage. The wild boars of classical Greece weren’t nearly terrifying enough to serve as divinely inspired monsters. So, with some help from Great-grandmother Gaia, known to most as Mother Earth, Artemis resurrected a piglike monster from a primeval epoch. Six feet at the shoulder, with a face uglier than a warthog’s, the animal sported a mouthful of enormous, widely spaced teeth, all pointing in different directions. Heroes came from far and wide to hunt the Caledonian Boar. Eventually, Artemis guided the spear of Atalanta, the only woman to join the chase, into the heaving side of the monster, bringing glory to the young huntress and her divine mentor alike.

  Perhaps this specimen came from the same ancient species. But why would anyone bother to procure a prehistoric boar tooth for a ceremony honoring Demeter? The pig was sacred to the Goddess of Grain and Agriculture, not the boar. And of all the porcine animals to chose from, why select the one that held special significance to Artemis? Maybe she’d been wrong—maybe the offerings were meant for her.

  She gazed once more around the room with its ceiling of snakes, filled with the sudden suspicion that larger forces than just psychopathic mortals might be at work. She wouldn’t know until she made a positive identification of the tooth. Maybe it was just a specimen from some hospital experiment gone wrong. She could always hope.

  “Brace yourself,” said a voice just outside the door. Probably the guard talking to the animal control guy. “You’re not going to believe this one.” Selene’s ten minutes were up.

  With a last silent promise to Sammi Mehra, she left the way she’d come, out the narrow window and back into her boots. As the animal control specialist entered the room, Selene swiftly closed the window and knelt out of sight beneath the sill. Pain shot through her right knee. She hissed and glanced down. A shard of green glass had sliced through her pants and embedded itself in her flesh. That’ll teach me to not look where I’m going. She sat back on the dirty concrete and yanked the glass from her knee. Blood poured down her leg.