The Immortals (34 page)

One eye still on her brother, she reached for her phone with her left hand, intending to turn it off. Then she saw who’d sent the text.

The cult’s at a theater hidden behind the Times Square Hilton and they’ve got another woman,
it read.
I’m going in after them, but if I don’t make it out, then it’s up to you. Don’t let them win, Selene. Do that for me, at least.

Selene stared at the text for a moment longer. Then she looked up at her brother. He stood with his guitar case hanging by his side, his eyes still puffy and red, resigned to death. “You’re not the killer,” she said softly.

“I can’t believe you thought I was. I am my mother’s son, you know.”

Darkness swallowed Theo and Brandman as they entered the theater’s lobby. Drumming rolled swiftly from somewhere
nearby, stirring Theo’s already racing heart. Brandman had consented to give him his phone back, although he still hadn’t removed Theo’s cuffs. Theo wondered what Selene would do when she got his text. On the one hand, he didn’t want to drag her into danger. On the other, he desperately wanted her to show up with a new bow and kick some ass.

The chanting began. Brandman tugged on Theo’s arm. “What’re they saying?” he breathed into Theo’s ear.

He translated the Ancient Greek in a whisper: “We sing to celebrate the Maid, that she might bring forth new life from the earth.” Then a soft, high-pitched singing began. A woman’s voice, tremulous and thin. “That’s not Greek anymore. I don’t know what it is,” Theo murmured. “It doesn’t even sound Indo-European.”

Theo heard a click. Brandman had drawn the safety on his gun. “So they
are
terrorists.”

“I don’t know if…” Theo began, but Brandman had already released him. He could see the man’s outline very dimly, black on black. A tiny amount of orange light seeped through a crack beneath a nearby door. Brandman eased the door open and slipped through, his gun raised. Theo followed right behind, despite Brandman’s stern gesture to stay put.

The two men crouched behind the last row of seats, peering down the aisle toward the cavernous bare stage. In the center, a small fire hissed and crackled, illuminating the figures around it in grotesque shadow. Only four men now, not five. The one Selene had shot in the stomach at Rockefeller Center had likely never recovered from his wound. As before, they wore cloaks and monstrous wooden masks. One danced in a frenzied circle to the beat of another initiate’s drum. The hierophant, tall and broad in his flowing purple robes, stood watching with a bronze sword clasped in his hand. The final
mystes
pointed a knife at the woman, who faced the back of the stage, her wrists bound behind her back. Six stiff braids of curly black hair surrounded
her skull like a melting crown, swaying in time to her choked, tear-laden song.

“We have to help her,” Theo hissed.

“Not without backup.”

“You’re just going to let them—”

“I’m one gun versus four armed men.”

“Just shoot them!”

“I’d risk hitting the woman.”

Theo was tired of excuses. He scuttled out from behind the seats on his elbows, cursing the handcuffs, and half crawled, half ran down the aisle. Immersed in their dance, the
mystai
never even turned his way. The woman’s song grew suddenly louder, more desperate, and Theo had the abrupt realization that it was Navajo. Then the woman revolved in her dance until she faced the audience. She lifted her head. Gabriela opened her tear-filled eyes and met Theo’s stunned stare.

Selene felt as if she’d regained the use of a limb long atrophied. She’d learned over the years to compensate for her twin’s absence. To forget how lonely she was, to force away the memories of music and companionship. “Come with me,” she said now, holding out a hand to her brother. “We were always stronger together.”

Paul collapsed back into the chair beside his mother’s bed. “To do what?”

“To save Theo Schultz.”

“Theo?” Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Wait… you mean the
Pervy Professor
, who’s been all over the TV? Pale. Tall. Skinny.”

“He’s not
skinny
. He’s stronger than he looks. And right now he’s walking into a trap.”

“Since when have you cared about the fates of thanatoi?” he demanded.

I don’t know,
she thought.
Maybe since Theo Schultz reminded me how to laugh.
But she said simply, “Maybe since I’ve become one.”

“Or since you’ve fallen in love with one.”

“What?”

“I’ve known you since we shared a womb. Yours was the first face I saw, even before Mother’s. I’ve only seen that look on your face one other time—when you spoke of Orion.”

“Don’t you dare say his name. Not after what you did to him.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” he said with a bitter laugh. “You can’t ask for my help and still refuse to forgive me. I did what I did because if you slept with Orion, if you broke your vows of virginity, you’d have been banished from Olympus. Lost all your powers.”

“It was
my
decision to make. Not yours.”

“Fine. But I’m not about to help you rescue some mortal so you can sleep with him and ruin your life.”

“I’m not going to
sleep
with Theo. He’s a
friend
.”

“With your nymphs gone, I’ve been your only friend, Moonshine, don’t you remember? No one else could understand you. No one else could love you with all your faults. Except Mother.” He took Leto’s hand in his own, stroking the tracery of empty veins. When he looked up at Selene once more, his eyes were hard. “Don’t you see? We couldn’t save her. We can’t save ourselves. The Fates have spun the thread of our lives, long and shining like the heavens, and now their shears hover above us, ready to snip. So go ahead, Selene. Waste your last days on a mortal. But I’m not going to help.”

Theo held a finger to his lips to stop Gabriela from calling out his name. He stared at her hard, willing her to hear his unspoken promise:
I will get you out of this.
He crawled closer to the stage. Now he could feel the warmth from the flames.

The tall hierophant stepped out of the circle and approached Gabriela with his bronze sword. She stopped her song with a strangled gasp.

“Keep singing!” the man cried. She obeyed, stumbling and stuttering over the words. He reached for a handful of her black curls, sliced off a hank, and tossed it into the fire. Then he drew his blade across Gabriela’s left wrist. She screamed. A third man rushed forward with a flask to collect the blood.

Theo had no plan. No weapon. It didn’t matter. He dashed toward Gabriela.

Detective Brandman beat him to it.

Gun raised, the detective vaulted over the orchestra pit. “Police! Hands in the air!”

Gabriela crouched down with her hands over her head.

“Block the door!” the hierophant shouted. One of the
mystai
jumped off the stage and sprinted up the aisle to obey.

Theo hollered a wordless battle cry and rushed the hierophant, but a skinny
mystes
tackled him before he could reach the priest—they crashed to the stage in a tangle of limbs and robes. Theo slipped his cuffed hands over the man’s head and clasped him in a bear hug. Somewhere, dimly, he heard a crash as one of the initiates overturned something to block the entrance to the theater. Then pounding and shouts as the police tried to get inside.
God, please hurry,
Theo thought.

“Drop the weapon,
now
, or I will shoot!” came Brandman’s cry.

An instant later, gunshots pocked the air. Theo risked a glance at the detective. With Gabriela clutched in one arm, Brandman aimed his gun at the hierophant. Every time he fired, the hierophant swung the blade in an arcing blur, deflecting the bullet. Brandman fired one more time. The hierophant raised his sword again. This time, the bullet ricocheted off the weapon and back toward the cop, striking him in the chest.

The detective pitched forward, carrying Gabriela with him. Her head slammed the ground with a sickening thud. She lay unmoving in Brandman’s arms, a pool of blood widening beneath them.

“NO!” Theo screamed, lurching toward his friend. The
mystes
slid from his grasp, but Theo didn’t care. Someone tackled him
from behind. He slammed face-first into the ground, a bony knee jabbing his spine. Theo’s cuffed hands were trapped beneath his body. He wriggled uselessly in the man’s arms.

“Just in time, Theo,” whispered a familiar voice in his ear. “But did you have to bring the cops? Why do you always have to throw a wrench in our plans?”

Theo twisted, searching out the man behind the mask. But he didn’t need to see his captor’s pockmarked face to know that Bill Webb, esteemed chairman of the Columbia Classics Department, held him in his grasp.

On the other side of the stage, the stocky
mystes
started to move toward Gabriela’s prostrate form. A lock of red hair peeked out from the edge of his mask.
Nate Balinski,
Theo realized.
But why is he doing this?
He struggled in vain against Webb’s grip, wondering how a man with cancer could restrain him so easily. Then he nearly gagged as the smell of rotten fruit wafted toward him on Webb’s panting breath.
They’re too drugged with kykeon to feel any pain. Jesus, they’ve been drinking it all week,
he realized, remembering the glasses of “scotch” Fritz Mossburg, Nate Balinski, and Martin Andersen had toted through the office.

Police sirens pierced the air as the sound of splitting wood echoed from the lobby. Everyone froze.

“Leave the woman,” ordered the hierophant. Theo knew that voice. It no longer rasped like it had the night of the
Pompe
. But its rich, melodious timbre filled him with dread.

The hierophant stepped toward Theo and gripped him on the shoulder. A familiar, overlong, manly clasp. Then he pushed back his purple hood, revealing an elegant tumble of black curls, and removed his mask.

Everett Halloran’s dark eyes glinted in the firelight.

“We’ve got the sacrifice we need right here.”

Selene arrived in front of the Hilton just in time to see a team of paramedics emerge from the lobby, supporting a short, full-figured woman whom Selene recognized, with a shock, as Theo’s friend Gabriela.

Selene pounded the top of the police barricade. “Tell Captain Hansen that Selene DiSilva’s here and has crucial information for her,” she told the sergeant standing guard. “Tell her she has to let me through.” She tried to sound rational, but she had to use every ounce of will not to grab the policeman’s baton and throttle him with it. Captain Hansen appeared, looking like she hadn’t slept in days.

“Somehow, I’m not surprised to see you here, Ms. DiSilva.”

“Where’s Schultz, Gerry?” Selene demanded. “Is he okay?”

The captain raised her eyebrows at the old nickname. “We have no idea.”

“What?” Selene’s heart skittered. “He was here, I know.”

“He and Detective Brandman were on their way to meet up with me when they interrupted the cult inside an abandoned theater. Right under our noses, but we never would’ve found
it. But Gabriela Jimenez said both men risked their own lives to save her. I’m afraid the detective was shot. He didn’t make it. And the last thing Ms. Jimenez remembered before she blacked out was Schultz being held on the ground by one of the perps.”

“I need to get inside.” One thought tormented her:
It’s my fault Theo went in there without me to protect him.

“He’s not in there,” the captain said. “We searched the entire theater. There’s no sign of any of them. I’m not letting you into the crime scene, Ms. DiSilva, and don’t even
think
about breaking in this time.”

“I don’t know what you—”

“A Dr. Gregory Kim from Natural History contacted us earlier today. He’d been inexplicably unconscious for the last twenty-four hours or so, but when he woke up, he reported that a tall, black-haired woman had impersonated a police officer and then returned a specimen that had been stolen, we now believe, by members of the cult. We got the surveillance tapes from the museum, showing you and Professor Schultz entering the building yesterday afternoon.” Her face remained stern, no hint of a smile on her lips. Selene could only be grateful they didn’t have footage of her zip line exit. That would’ve been even harder to explain. “There’s a lot you’re not telling me, Ms. DiSilva.”

“Are you going to arrest me?” Selene tensed her muscles, ready to flee or fight. She wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of finding Theo.

Geraldine stared at her for a moment. “I don’t think your mother would thank me for that.”

“No.”

“I think she’d want me to focus on tracking down these killers instead. When it came to men who hurt women, she was relentless.” She allowed Selene a familiar smile, tinged with sadness. “And so far, you and Professor Schultz have provided our most reliable leads. You’re a mystery, young woman.”

“I guess it runs in the family.”

She sighed. “Before you go, Ms. Jimenez wants to talk to you.” She escorted Selene to where Theo’s friend sat beside a solicitous paramedic. Before Gerry turned to go, she said, “And next time you feel like playing cop, you should take the Police Officer Exam. We could use a good woman like you.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Gabriela was saying, batting at the EMT’s hand as he waved two fingers in front of her face. Gauze encircled her left wrist. “Just a mild concussion and a little loss of blood, for Christ’s sake.” She looked up as Selene approached. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you were Theo’s
partner
in this. At least that’s what he seemed to think. Where were you?”

“We had a disagreement,” Selene said stiffly.

Gabriela stood up from the back of the ambulance. “I said, lay off,” she barked at the paramedic who tried to hold her back. “If you want to straitjacket me, go right ahead, and I’ll have my lawyer sue you.” The man backed off, hands raised in submission. She turned to Selene. “You need to find Theo.”

“That’s why I’m here. Who were the men who captured you?”

“I have no idea. They showed up at my apartment in hoods and masks and disguised their voices. I asked them—why me? And they said my death would be the perfect punishment for Theo.”

“I don’t understand… Why’re they targeting him?”

“I thought you’d know the answer to that.” Gabriela was nearly shouting. “What have you gotten him mixed up in?”

I don’t even know anymore,
Selene realized. She’d thought Paul would choose Theo as his Corn King because of her feelings for him. But if Paul wasn’t the hierophant, who else would be jealous enough to target her new friend?
Unless Theo’s kidnapping has nothing to do with me.
Perhaps his role as a Makarites, a title he earned through his own years of passionate study, made him a prime candidate for sacrifice. Dennis had said the gods couldn’t
stay away from a Blessed One.
If that’s true,
she thought,
Cursed One would be a better name.

“Can you tell me anything else about the cult members? Height? Weight? Eye color?” Selene asked Gabriela. “Did any of them seem unusually tall or strong?”

“Look at me! I’m five feet tall and haven’t been to the gym in about… oh that’s right…
ever
.
Everyone
seems unusually tall and strong to me. Besides, I was a little distracted by the whole being tied up and almost sacrificed part.”

“If you don’t know anything, then I need to go.” She started to walk away.

“Go where?” Gabriela demanded, stopping Selene in her tracks.

“Anywhere. Everywhere.” She knew nothing about the hierophant anymore, nothing about his initiates. She didn’t even have a clue where the climactic
Mysteriotides Nychtes
would take place. But she knew talking to Gabriela wasn’t getting her anywhere.

“Great. Sounds like a plan,” Gabriela sneered. “Try thinking like Theo instead. And I don’t mean the reckless, impulsive, always getting himself into trouble version of Theo. I mean the version that was the youngest tenured professor in the history of Columbia Classics. He’d start at the beginning and trace the whole story so he could see where it’s headed next.”

“He always thought Helen’s research would have all the answers. But we never found it.”

“Did you look in her apartment?”

“The cops had the place surrounded.”

Gabriela gave her an incredulous glare. “I saw you
zip line
out a sixth-floor window. You’re telling me you’re scared of a few cops?”

“I wasn’t quite myself at the time.”

Gabriela waved a bandaged arm at the dozens of police officers bustling through the streets. “It looks like the cops are busy at the moment anyway. So I don’t care who you have to knock
unconscious, or how many doors you have to break through—just go save my friend.”

After stopping by her house to pick up Hippo, Selene made her way to Helen Emerson’s apartment.

A timid voice answered her knock, asking what she wanted.

“It’s about Helen,” she explained to the closed door.

“I don’t want to speak to any reporters,” came the muffled reply.

“I’m not a reporter. I’m a…” Selene stopped before she could say “private investigator.” “A friend of Theo Schultz.” Hippo woofed softly at the closed door.

The young woman who opened it looked like she’d been crying for days. Her lank brown hair hung in a messy ponytail, and she wore an overlarge sweatshirt and pajama pants. “I’ve been watching it all on TV. He was really kidnapped? Is there any news?” she asked breathlessly. “Have they found him yet?”

“No. That’s why we need your help.” Selene introduced herself and her dog.

“Ruth Willever,” the woman whispered in return, holding out a tentative hand toward Hippo. The dog sniffed cautiously at her fingers, then at her fuzzy blue slippers, and finally gave Ruth’s palm an approving lick.

The woman ushered Selene to a canvas couch, taking the rattan footstool for herself. Hippo moved to lie at Selene’s feet, but she gave the dog a subtle prod so she’d go to Ruth instead. From long experience, Selene knew the dog would make talking to Helen’s roommate easier—while she growled at men, Hippo acted like an adoring puppy with most women. True to form, she sat her shaggy bulk next to the footstool and laid her massive head in Ruth’s lap, eliciting a faint smile.

“The reporter on the news said there was no sign of Theo. Do you really think you can help find him?” Ruth said.

“I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t.”

Ruth gave her a quizzical look, then turned her gaze back to the dog. She scratched behind Hippo’s ears. “At least now they know he’s innocent. I can’t believe they ever thought otherwise.”

“You never doubted him?”

“He’s a good man. One of the best. And Helen might not have known it, but she traded down when she fell for Everett.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper, as if she were afraid to say even that much.

Selene wondered if Ruth had ever told Theo how she felt about him. The thought made her cheeks hot. She forced herself to speak gently. It was less of a trial than usual.

“I need to find Helen’s research, Ruth. It might have the clue we need.”

“The police searched her room already.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

It was a small chamber, immaculate despite the police search. A pristine white coverlet offset colorful Turkish pillows on the double bed. A small whitewashed desk, bare of papers, books or photos. Selene opened a drawer. Empty. “The cops took everything,” Ruth offered from the doorway. She hadn’t put a toe over the threshold. Looking around the bare room, Selene felt hope slip away. There wasn’t much time left. Hippo brushed past Ruth and came to sit by Selene.

“What about you, Hippolyta?” Selene asked softly, stroking the dog’s head. “Any ideas? I could use some help here.” The dog dutifully began to sniff around the room, snuffling from one end to the other. She barreled under the bed, nearly lifting its legs off the ground.

“They looked under there,” said Ruth. But Hippo would not be dissuaded. She snuffed a little longer, then began to whimper.

“She’s probably just smelling a mouse in the walls,” Selene said, not daring to hope. “Come on, mutt, get out of there and let me see.” Hippo scuttled backward, and Selene shifted the brass bedstead farther into the room. The dog whimpered again
and pawed at one of the floorboards. The edge of the narrow plank was chipped, as if by a blunt tool. Selene dug a key out of her pocket and levered up the floorboard. The faint smell of bay leaves wafted into the room. There, beneath a bundle of dried laurel, lay two thick sheaves of papers.
I should’ve known,
Selene thought.
Theo said she liked hidden compartments, secret ciphers.
The first document contained images of papyri fragments—thousands of them—all painstakingly pieced together to form an imperfect whole. Beside the Greek characters were Helen’s own translations. The other stack of papers contained only her cramped script. The cover page read:

Selene sat back heavily on the floor and began to leaf through the stack. In the lower left corner of each page was a number: five hundred and twenty-three pages of tiny, nearly illegible script. Selene glanced out the small window. The sky glowed pastel blue. “Ruth, I’m going to need your help.” She held out the second half of the papers. “I can’t read all of this fast enough.”

“I’m just a scientist,” she demurred.

“This isn’t exactly my field either. Just tell me if you see any clue about the location of the Telesterion—the Hall of Completion where the climax of the Mystery, the
Mysteriotides Nychtes
, takes place.”

Ruth stepped cautiously into the room and sat beside Selene on the floor. Neither woman dared disturb the neatly made bed. They began to read.

After a few hours, her eyes burning from squinting at the minuscule writing, Selene decided Helen’s paper would’ve revolutionized the study of Ancient Greece—if she’d lived to publish
it. Everything was just as Dennis had revealed. In the first chapter, she explained that she’d found evidence within the Oxyrhynchus papyri that the Greeks in Eleusis had once practiced human sacrifice as an integral part of their religion, killing a Corn King every year to appease the Earth Mother, and later, in homage to Demeter and Persephone. Then, the cult transformed, replacing human sacrifice with Dionysian worship and
kykeon
. Although the Eleusinian Mysteries continued until Emperor Theodosius outlawed them in the fourth century AD, Helen hypothesized that the later, tamer version of the ritual was no longer a truly transformative experience.

Ruth gasped, interrupting Selene’s reading. Face white, she held out a page.

“‘Only by re-creating and reenacting this earlier version,’”
Selene read,
“‘not the sanitized alternative written about in previously recognized ancient sources, can modern scholars hope to understand the Mystery in its full power. Accordingly, this chapter will outline a New Eleusis Mystery with which we might test this hypothesis, unlocking a force long forgotten.’”

“It was her idea,” Ruth whispered. “No wonder she kept it hidden.”

Selene nodded dumbly, reading ahead.
“‘The original Mystery Cult, before its taming, gave nearly supernatural healing powers and longevity to its initiates. At its strongest, it may have even granted them immortality. Performed correctly, the New Eleusis rite could do the same.’”

Oh you foolish girl,
Selene thought.
You had no idea the quest for an eternal life would cut your own so cruelly short.

The outline of Helen’s new cult mirrored the events of the last few days, with a few notable exceptions. The
hiera
she suggested all related to the Earth Mother, Demeter, Persephone, and the other traditional Eleusinian deities: piglets, grain, and snakes. She made no mention of murder or mutilation during the beginning of the ritual. The targeting of virgins, the sacrifice of hounds, and the use of the boar tusk must have been the hierophant’s idea.