The Immortals (36 page)

“Theo.” Orion was deadly calm. “If you interrupt the ritual again, I will be forced to put the gag back on.”

“Oh, sorry, don’t let me interrupt. This is fascinating, really.”

“I’m sure you won’t be bored once it’s your turn to participate.”

“Yippee. Do I get a mask, too? Maybe something a bit more flattering—I don’t pull off the dour tragedy thing that well. And of course, you’ll have to teach me the dance steps. Unless my participation is purely sacrificial, in which case learning choreography seems like a waste of my last moments on earth.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” said Orion with a hint of his old charm. “You’ve been essential to my plans from the beginning. You made the perfect suspect, the aggrieved ex-boyfriend—thank you for distracting the police all this time. You kept them off our tail just long enough to reach the end of the ritual. It almost backfired, of course—we couldn’t let you actually get taken off to jail. But a well-timed call to Captain Hansen solved that problem. You’re welcome, by the way. Of course, the cops will be of no concern after we finish with you tonight—they won’t be able to hurt me. No one will.”

“Try untying me, and we’ll see if you’re right. I—” Theo’s voice cut short, devolving into muffled protest. Orion had heard enough.

Once again, the Hunter took up the chant. “Tonight we sing of love found, then lost, then found once more. Tonight we sing of death defied and power restored. Tonight we sing of revenge.”

Theo gave another smothered protest.

“I said
do not speak
!” Orion cried. Selene heard him drag something—or someone—across the ground, heard his indrawn breath and then the dull clap of flesh striking flesh. Theo moaned. Another strike, this one on bone. Then the thud of a fist punching soft tissue. With each strike, Selene’s dream of rejoining her Hunter slipped farther out of sight, banished by her growing rage.

“ENOUGH.” She ducked through the entrance, stepped into the light, and hurled the javelin.

She’d meant to stop him, to wound him, but as Orion tumbled forward, she saw the weapon had pierced clean through his heart.

In giving the Hurler of Javelins back her unerring aim, the Hunter had doomed himself to die at her hands.

Selene saw Theo lying beside the fire. He gave a muffled shout of relief through his gag as he met her eyes. Livid welts marked his face. Blood trickled from a wound on his forehead.

Then Orion groaned and levered himself slowly off the ground, pushing his initiates aside so he might see Selene. For the first time in millennia, she looked upon him face-to-face.
How long have I imagined the touch of his lips on mine?
Her heart hammered in her chest.
He is dream become flesh.
Her javelin protruded through the bloody fabric of his cloak.
Yet I’ve killed him again.
She swallowed a cry of despair.

Ignoring the wound, Orion held out a plaintive hand toward her. “My love. You’ve come.” His voice was as strong and smooth as ever.

She shook her head, fighting the overpowering urge to go to him. “You were hurting Theo. I—I couldn’t let you do that.” She blinked away stinging tears and stumbled backward, made clumsy by shock. The
mystai
moved behind her to block her way, the whites of their eyes wide behind their masks. She pulled a knife, ready to strike them down.

“You can’t protect the Makarites any longer.” Orion threw
back his shoulders and drew the javelin through the front of his chest in one smooth movement. Theo gave a bewildered moan through his gag.

“This”—Orion held the bloody javelin aloft—“cannot kill me. But I forgive you for trying. You wouldn’t be the one I love if you did not send your grievous shafts.” He granted her a brief, sad smile. “Saturday night, the wound in my side lamed me for a day. But every moment, I grow stronger.” Calmly, he turned to face his
mystai
. “Behold! The Mystery is almost fulfilled.”

He shrugged off his cloak and spread his arms. A neat round hole pierced his rib cage just between the swelling muscles of his bare chest. With every heaved breath, the wound grew smaller, the tissue knit closed, until finally he stood unscathed, his black eyes luminous.

A flash of light drew Selene’s attention to her own hand. Only then did she realize that the kitchen knife trembled in her grasp. Relief rushed through her, making her weak.
He lives. And with him lives hope.
Surely, if she could just explain that the rituals were so dangerous even Zeus himself feared their return, then Orion would stop the killing, and she wouldn’t have to destroy him once more.

Orion took a step toward her. The firelight played across the chiseled planes of his torso. She could smell him now, his sweat conjuring wild oregano crushed underfoot, heat rising from the dusty island hills, the musk of deer and boar clinging to the leaves of a cypress tree.

“It was you,” she breathed. “The night after I learned my mother was dying, I lay in my bed beside my open window and dreamed you held me while I slept. But it was no dream, was it?”

“Every night for eternity I dreamed of holding you. I finally gave in.”

“But how? How have you returned from the dead?”

“My father granted my wish for immortality at the moment of my death. My body fell to the bottom of the sea, but my soul
stayed in the heavens where you’d put me. So I hung suspended between man and constellation for an eternity, moving through vast, frozen emptiness, crawling through endless tunnels of fire to reach this plane of existence once more.” He shuddered. “Again and again, I wanted to give up, to let myself become nothing but myth. But I kept fighting—because of you. Every time you looked at the heavens and thought of me, dreamed of me, remembered our story, I moved one step closer to regaining my place in the world. Finally, many years ago, my body washed up on the shores of the Hudson, pulled here by your love. I emerged, my eyes opened, and I saw the stars above me. I claimed my soul once more. And now, finally, I am here, ready to claim something far more precious—you.”

Slowly, he laid a warm hand on her arm. Before she realized what she’d done, she lowered the knife. With his other hand, he touched her cheek, her forehead, traced a lock of her hair to its blunt tip. “You are changed, my love,” he said in a voice for her alone. “But still ravishing.”

But he has not changed at all,
she thought.
He is still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
“You’ve found me. You’re here. Now you can stop this madness. You don’t understand what you’re doing, Orion. The rituals are evil, dangerous. They will return us to a time of barbarism. So let Theo go.”

He chuckled. A patronizing, indulgent sound that only increased her unease. “I did not struggle for millennia to be by your side just to have us both fade away because the thanatoi refuse to pay us homage. Look.” He touched her stomach, tracing the scab of Saturday night’s wound through her shirt. “Look how your ichor flows.”

“Ichor is for the gods,” she retorted. “I only have blood in my veins.”

“Not for long,” he whispered, his breath like a cool salt wind blown from the sea. Before she could react, he pulled the knife from her hand and threw it to one of his initiates. “There’s no
need to fear me,” he promised. But in that moment, she did. She looked deep into his eyes and saw not love, not devotion, but madness. Like her father, like Cora, like so many of her old companions, Orion wandered adrift in a new world that had no room for ancient myth. And he would stop at nothing to make a place for himself once more. Reasoning with him was futile. Her hand clenched on empty air, desperate for a weapon.

He turned to his acolytes, lifting his arms as if he would raise the men to immortality through gesture alone. “Come, my
mystai
. The rite continues.
Dromena!
” The cloaked initiates repeated the word with almost sexual excitement. Then they removed their masks, and Selene recognized Bill Webb and the older, skinny professor she’d met at Theo’s office. She knew the third man, probably also a professor, by his stocky build. He had slipped his knife into Jenny Thomason’s throat.

Selene looked to Theo. Eyes wide with bewilderment and terror, he met her gaze.

With a single sharp pull, Orion snapped the rope that tied Theo to the rock wall, then dragged him across the stone floor to the fire. Selene moved to stop him, but Orion held out the flat of his hand. “If you come closer, I will hurt him.” She stood frozen as Theo tried to right himself, but the ropes around his ankles and the handcuffs on his wrists left him twisting helplessly on the ground.

“You sweet, sorry fool,” Orion said, not unkindly. “You thought you’d get away with it—sleeping with Helen behind my back. Ah, you didn’t think I knew?” He crouched beside Theo, speaking only for him. “She kept no secrets from me. My power scared her, and she fled to you for a night. But once you’ve been with the son of a god, there’s no going back to a mere mortal. Not for Helen. And not for
Artemis
.” Orion patted Theo on the head as if he were one of the hounds in his hunting pack. “It all works out perfectly—as a Makarites, your sacrifice will carry more power than that of a normal mortal. More power
even than a girl with
kharisma
like Jenny Thomason. You’re why I found my way to Columbia in the first place—I knew only a Blessed One might know enough of the gods to help me come back to full strength—and I dared not seek help from the immortals. But then another Makarites came into my life—one far prettier than you. My lovely Helen had the answers I needed. She wanted to recruit you into the cult, you know. Wanted to share the gift of immortality with you. I might have given you that—spared you despite the power of your blood—but then you both betrayed me. She took you back into her arms, and you went willingly. That night, you signed your death warrants, my friend. You both had to be punished for your disrespect, you understand that. Her sacrifice began the rite. Yours will end it.” Theo groaned, struggled even harder against his bonds. “Shh… be still, Theo. You still have time left in this world, because tonight I’ll show you mercy. For the
Dromena
, you may play me, the Celestial Hunter, as I lay upon the shore, made helpless by my love. And
I
will be Apollo, the Gilded God. Tonight the true story will be told. This is
Dromena
. This is
Things Done
! Come, my Good Maiden,” he said, standing and turning to Selene. “You know your role. The beginning of our story is known to all. But the end… only we know that.”

The
mystai
formed a ring around the fire, with Selene, Theo, and Orion in the center. Orion nodded briefly to Webb, who pulled a bottle full of amber liquid from beneath his cloak. Selene turned her head away. “I won’t drink that.” She’d never partaken in Dionysus’s drinks—not even the more innocuous ones. The
kykeon
would have more powerful effects on her than on someone accustomed to intoxication, and she had no intention of clouding her mind.

Orion slipped an arm around her, his grip like a steel cord encircling her ribs. “I’ve inhaled the burnt offerings all week. Do you see how strong I’ve become?” He forced the bottle between her lips and the warm, honey liquid poured down her
throat. “I would make you as strong as I am.” Even as his eyes grew hard with cruelty, he spoke as if coaxing a wild deer into his net. “Drink, drink, my love.” She spluttered and choked, but the liquid slipped past her lips. On the ground, two professors knelt over Theo. The stocky one held him down while the skinny one removed his gag and poured the amber
kykeon
into his mouth.

When Orion released her, Selene stood swaying, blood rushing in her ears, the liquor’s fire clouding her sight and setting her skin aflame. Orion thrust an arrow into her hands. Except he wasn’t Orion anymore. In the haze of
kykeon
, he had transformed into Apollo—his black hair turned blond, his dark eyes golden. She looked to the ground, where Theo had lain a moment ago. Now the figure of Orion lay in his place, helpless before her. As if he’d been felled by an arrow. A voice in her ear chanted,
“Dromena, Dromena.”
She shook her head violently, fighting the memories, but the
kykeon
burned through her veins.

A part of her knew she looked at Theo, not Orion, and that he merely repeated the words another whispered in his ear—a sick tragedy enacted by an unwilling puppet—but the drink transported her to a different age. She was back on the shores of a sapphire sea.

A single gold arrow stands wavering in his chest, but still Orion lives. He is half-mortal, true, but his father is a son of Kronos and he is not easy to kill. With my twin by my side, I walk toward him, the wet sand dragging at my feet. My Hunter lies with his face toward the heavens, his bronze sword far from his grasp. Many times, I have lain with my cheek against his heart. Now I watch the blood pulse from his wound in the same familiar rhythm.

“My love,” he whispers as the red bubbles from his mouth. “What have you done?”

“You shamed me,” I say, willing my voice to remain cold. “You, who said you loved me. You forced my companion Merope to be yours.”

“No.” He drags his hand to press against his bleeding heart. “I came to the shore to speak with my father Poseidon, that he might grant me immortality as Zeus granted it to Heracles.” His eyes, so often glowing with the thrill of the hunt, are now bright with tears. “Then I could marry you, Artemis. Chaste or not, I’d be your faithful companion until the end of the world.”

“You lie,” I spit. I meet his eyes. The black eyes of the man I loved. Or are they green? I do not look away. It doesn’t matter if his eyes are those of a god’s son or a mortal man. I cannot trust anyone.

I pull another golden arrow from the quiver upon my back. I fix my eyes upon my target’s throat.

“SELENE!” A voice from the present snapped her from her trance. For a moment, her vision cleared. Theo lay beneath her, fighting through the haze of
kykeon
to scream her name. She followed his gaze to the arrow in her own hand, poised above his neck, ready to strike.

“Do it, my love, just as you did then,” urged Orion. “You killed me once. You thrust the arrow through my throat with your bare hands. Now do it again. So I might rise stronger than ever.”

“SELENE, it’s
me
!” Theo begged once more. She shook her head once, twice, then let the arrow clatter to the ground.

“Theo…”
she whispered.
“I’m sorry…”
Then she stumbled, weak-kneed. Orion caught her, pressing her gently against him.

“Give him more,” he commanded with an angry glance at Theo. The skinny acolyte splashed more
kykeon
across Theo’s face while Webb held his jaws open. His eyes slid out of focus and he quieted once more.

“You haven’t saved him. The story’s not over until he’s dead,” Orion whispered in Selene’s ear. Her eyes fluttered open and closed as she struggled for consciousness.

“Continue!” Orion said, louder this time, his voice dropping into a hierophant’s thrumming tone of command. Selene felt the present wobble around her as the
kykeon
regained its hold, engulfing her in the past.

“You’ve done what you must, Moonshine,” says my twin. “Your lover was a raper of women.”

Merope, beloved nymph, defiled companion, runs panting to the shore and falls upon my feet. I crouch beside her, pulling her into my embrace.

“I’ll never let anyone hurt you again,” I promise her. “You were right not to trust Orion.”

“No! Please, Artemis, I’ve run all this way to stop you,” the nymph tells me, breathless. “He’s innocent! He was faithful to you. It is your brother who has betrayed you.”

The world spins. Cold dread captures my breath. A true memory. Not the outline of the story as told by the ancients. The memory as I lived it. The memory I can never forget.

Apollo’s voice, usually as warm as the sun itself, is cold and hard as he comes to stand beside me. “You are the Virgin Goddess. I had to save you from throwing away your chastity, and your godhood along with it. I must be the only man you will ever love.” He grabs my hand and presses it against his heart.