The Immortals (10 page)

Selene sat on the floor of her tub, her arms curled around her knees, sucking at the steamy air as water dripped off the end of her nose in a thin stream. The joy she’d taken in her sudden return to strength had drained away the moment she’d fled the station. Killing that bastard on the subway hadn’t helped Leto.

She could’ve just talked to the guy. Broken his arm, like she’d threatened. Maybe called the police or taken the woman somewhere safe. But
killing him
? Since the Diaspora, Selene had developed her own code of justice. The days when she killed any man who looked at her wrong were long over—even she couldn’t cover up
that
many bodies. Instead, Selene usually settled for commensurate punishment, plus a little extra to drive home the point. So a man who slapped his girlfriend got beaten unconscious. One who raped a woman—well, he’d be lucky to get past her with his penis intact, much less his testicles. But a murderer could have no punishment but death. Of course, murders were a tricky thing. They usually drew police attention. Thankfully, since Selene usually only concerned herself with women who asked directly for her protection, she rarely dealt with killings—her clients didn’t die on her watch.

But tonight she’d murdered a man just for
looking
like he was going to hit his girlfriend. What would her mother think? Is this what it meant to get her powers back? Vengeance killing like in days of old? Paul had reminded her that the Huntress’s swift arrows had brought down mortals, not stags. They’d called her Stormy, Untamed, Relentless. Was she ready to embrace those names once more?

Was I always so reckless?
she wondered, remembering her stunt with the security camera. If her abilities had miraculously returned, all the more reason not to draw attention to herself. Hopefully, the police would think the big man only slipped, but if they tracked down his girlfriend, she’d undoubtedly mention the strange, tall woman to the cops. That was the last thing Selene needed. If they found her, they’d ask an awful lot of unanswerable questions (including why her fingerprints identified her as a former police officer discharged in 1975 and currently wanted for murder) that would probably land her in jail for a very long time. With a groan, Selene buried her face in her hands and concentrated on the hot water pouring over her back.

Then, a sudden wave of adrenaline rushed through her, and she bolted upright. The energy felt as tangible as heat, nearly sexual, and completely unexpected. She stood and, dizzy with the sensation, leaned her hands against the wall. She had no idea what could cause such a feeling.

Flexing first one foot against the bottom of the tub and then the other, she stretched her long toes, cracking the joints. She shifted her weight, noticing the coolness of the tile on her palms. Her heart drummed in her ears. Every inch of her body, every sensation, felt more precious than it had for a very long time. She felt her flesh, usually so cold, grow hot as the blood rushed to the surface.

Selene opened her eyes to stare at her skin, as bright pink as a newborn babe’s. She made a fist, watching the play of muscle along her arm, then ran her hands along the sides of her body,
enjoying the taut flesh.
Other gods may be fading, but I’m stronger than I’ve been in years. Why chastise myself for enjoying it a little?
Tentatively, she moved her hand between her legs, surprised by the sudden tightening pull. She hadn’t bothered with her own sexuality in centuries—she’d almost forgotten it existed. But chastity hadn’t always been so easy. Memory pulled at her like a coaxing lover, and she let herself fall into its embrace.

The boar we chase leaps ahead of us, its tusks glinting in the moonlight. Orion keeps pace beside me, his footsteps pounding in counterpoint to my own in a hunt as graceful as music, as dance. I pull forth an arrow without slowing my speed, and my shot sends the boar tumbling headfirst into the ground. My companion severs its throat with his sword. We stand beside our kill. Orion pants. I do not. He looks up from the carcass and our eyes meet. His are dark, deep, and I fight the urge to look away. Suddenly, the only prey I want to hunt is him.

I dip my fingers into the boar’s blood and reach for him. I draw a line down the strong bone of his nose and another across his brow. Finally, I dot his lips with red. “You are my acolyte now,” I tell him.

“I worship only you.” He sucks the blood from my finger and the moment is sanctified. I can feel the heat rising from his body—I can hear the blood thrumming in his veins. He grabs my arms and pulls me close. I taste the blood on his lips. The boar lies forgotten at our feet.

When we return to my nymphs with no carcass across our shoulders, they laugh and wink. Merope, my beloved friend, silences the others with a frown. “Artemis,” she whispers to me as the sun rises over our grotto and Orion sleeps at my side. “You court danger, my dearest. To be free of men is a gift. Would you throw that away? Would you bind yourself to a man?”

“I do not bind myself,” I demur. “Orion is the companion of my freedom.”

“You have vowed to be chaste.”

I rise and drag Merope away from our sleeping companions. “You dare to remind me of my most sacred oath? I have no intention of breaking it. You should not think it of me.”

“You may not think of it,” she protests, forging ahead despite my rage. Such is her love for me that she will risk my wrath to speak the truth. “But he will. He is a man.”

“Orion is no man. He is the son of my uncle, Poseidon.”

Merope nods solemnly. “But he is half-mortal as well. He is a
thanatos
and will die someday. He must seize life while he can. And no male, whether god or mortal, or something in between, is free from a man’s desires. Your own father, your brothers and cousins—you’ve seen the way they chase our kind, and all the mortal women, too. We are never free of them.”

“Do not speak ill of my friend,” I hiss. “You shame him. You shame yourself.”

But as I lie down once more beside Orion, I cannot find sleep. He rolls over and stretches a heavy arm across my shoulders, resting his head against my breast and his leg upon mine. I have slept thus entwined with my nymphs many times. But this is different. I don’t know what scares me more—the hardness I feel pressing against my thigh, or the answering quickening in my own body.

It was a long time before Hippo’s scratching on the bathroom door finally dragged Selene from the shower. She let the dog in while she toweled off, trying not to resent the interruption. Hippo took up most of the tiny bathroom, her thwacking tail threatening to knock Selene back over the lip of the tub.

She glanced in the mirror to check the bruises on her jaw and temple from her fight with Mario. To her astonishment, they were gone. No swelling, no discolored flesh. Just flawless skin.

Am I dreaming this?
she wondered, realizing how little sleep she’d gotten in the last two days. Somehow, the rush of power she’d felt in the shower had healed her injuries at a pace she hadn’t experienced for a very long time.

She pulled on a T-shirt and moved to the bedroom, although she knew her racing mind would preclude sleep. There were too many questions to be answered. She opened the window wide and knelt before the sill, looking up at the sky above the
rooftops. Even now, at the darkest hour before dawn, it shone with an unearthly glow.

Selene knew it was just light pollution bouncing off the clouds above, but sometimes she imagined the city possessed the sort of divine radiance once reserved for the gods. Just as in ancient times the Olympians had chosen to walk among mortals in disguise rather than reveal themselves in all their terrible glory, so New York clothed itself in dirt and noise and stench. Its true power would be too much for mortal eyes to bear.

“Imagine, Hippo,” she said as the dog rested her chin on the windowsill. “Once I was the Lady of the Starry Host.” She’d placed her victims in the heavens as eternal reminders of her rage and mercy. First Ursa Major—a nymph who broke her vows of chastity and was metamorphosed into a bear by Artemis’s uncompromising justice. Then Ursa Minor—the son of that illicit union who met the same fate. “But now, even the strongest Athanatoi no longer possess the ability to make men into stars. Especially not here, where the stars themselves are hidden from view. New York’s radiance outshines my own.”

Over the centuries she’d watched the city’s lights quench heaven’s fire. With the constellations’ disappearance, the history written in their outlines—her own history—dimmed alongside. She’d always imagined herself fading as well. Slowly, imperceptibly, disappearing into myth. But now, for the first time in an age, she felt hope.

She knew the most obvious explanation for her strengthening, and she didn’t want to face it. She could barely admit it to herself. It was possible that her mother’s decline was adding to her own strength. With one fewer god to siphon away the limited worship man still provided, the remaining Athanatoi might benefit.

Father,
she prayed silently.
Mighty Zeus, who once granted me six wishes, grant me one more. Help me find the answers I seek. Let my rebirth not come from my mother’s death. And if you ever loved gentle Leto, help me save her.
She closed her eyes and imagined her words reaching up to the vault of heaven, then soaring past the city, over the vast ocean, all the way to Zeus’s lair on the island of Crete. And there the prayer died. Because her father could no longer hear.

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.

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.

“You 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.