Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (38 page)

Ha. Nice. Want anything today? Soup?

Nah
.
Thanks, but I look and feel gross. Talking to you helps, though.

Good. Text me whenever you like.

I will.
She set the phone down at her side, and picked up her Chem textbook.

A
DRIAN POCKETED HIS
phone and got up to make coffee in the Airstream’s little kitchen. He didn’t need caffeine, technically, nor did it affect him anymore, but coffee’s smell and taste comforted him, reminding him of lazy afternoons studying with Zoe, or Saturday mornings reading across the kitchen table from his father, back when he was a mortal. Back before he became cut off from the world.

Outside in the wilderness, a clean blue sky glimmered behind the row of evergreens. Splashes of yellow and red along the hillside signaled foliage changing color for the winter. Dew, or possibly an overnight rain, had drenched everything and bent the meadow grasses over.

Autumn. Demeter searching the Earth desperately for her kidnapped daughter, and in her grief letting the world’s plants die and the weather turn cold. Or so the mythology had it.

While the kettle heated, and Kiri chowed down on her bowl of dog food on the floor, Adrian leaned on the counter and thought of Demeter, and what Sophie had told him about her father lately. As Demeter or as Terry, that soul put the happiness and safety of her (or his) daughter first. Adrian sympathized with that.

The problem was, he put Sophie’s love and companionship first among his own priorities, just as he had with Persephone. Even knowing what a lonely, difficult, dangerous existence this was, he wanted her in it with him, living centuries if not forever.

Selfish perhaps. But everyone was allowed a vice, and desiring her seemed like it was destined to be his.

Chapter Thirty-Three

H
OW YOU DOING?
SAID THE
text from Adrian. It was dark outside now, and Sophie had just slurped down an overly salty but somewhat nourishing cup of chicken noodle soup.

Surviving
, she texted back.
Extreme stuffy head. Fever of 101. But conscious.

Sorry. Sounds awful.

Yeah. But these memories do help. Distraction, at least.

They are that. And some nicer ones should come soon.

Finally the making out with Hades part?
she guessed.

Perhaps…and now I’m blushing.

She smiled, blew her nose for the nine hundredth time that day, and tapped in a response.
Sweet. OK, I’ll try to sleep soon. Hope I feel good enough tomorrow to see you.

Me too. Take care.

Night
.

Sophie wasn’t sure what awakened her in the middle of the night—a faint sound, perhaps, or the sensation of someone moving near her. But when she opened her eyes in the nearly-dark room, she saw the solid shape of a person sitting on the edge of her bed.

She gasped, and flew into an upright position, grabbing at the desk lamp and switching it on.

Quentin.

Sophie could barely breathe, let alone shout.

Professor Quentin smiled pleasantly. She wore a lavender rain jacket and a black OSU baseball cap. Her cane leaned on her knee, her hand wrapped around it. “Hello, dear. We need to talk.” She lifted her other hand, showing Sophie’s pepper spray, which evidently Quentin had picked up from the desk. Quentin chuckled. “I’ve got this, in case you’re looking for it.”

“How’d you get in?” Sophie’s voice was only a squeak. Her cold had moved into the laryngitis stage, apparently. Great timing: just when it would’ve been useful to scream.

“Oh, that was easy.”

Sophie shot a glance at the alarm clock. It was 12:30. She scrambled out of bed, her legs shaking. “But you’d need keys. I….”

Professor Quentin chuckled. “I have my ways. But that isn’t the point.” She lowered her chin, keeping her pale blue eyes fixed on Sophie. “I know you’ve been in contact with Adrian. And the woman too—Rhea, if that’s really her name.”

“Out. You need to get out.”

“I told you, you don’t want to be in this fight, sweetie. Where’s your cell phone? Hand it over and let’s end this now.”

Under her pillow. It was under her pillow, all too close to where Quentin sat. And the stun gun was in her backpack, hanging next to the door. Damn it. Sophie moved back to the bed and sat upon the pillow, trying to make it look like she was too weak to stand. Her hand crept under the pillow’s edge, behind her. “Look, I’m sick, and you have to leave.”

“I imagine he’s seduced you by now,” said Quentin. “Into believing him, I mean, though possibly he’s seduced you in the usual way too. But imagine the problems, if you haven’t already. Say you have children together. Won’t you want them to live forever too? Then what about their spouses, and their children? It’s inevitable. You’ll want more and more of his kind. A whole race of them will soon exist, and then what?”

“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go.” Sophie captured her phone and surreptitiously pulled it out, keeping it behind her back.

Quentin gestured conversationally with the leather-wrapped canister of pepper spray. “Some government’s sure to get their hands on this magic fruit, this fountain of youth. It’ll become a commodity. What if the next version of the Nazis get hold of it?”

They wouldn’t, because no one would let them into the Underworld to eat it, which is the only way it works
, Sophie thought. She tucked the phone up her pajama sleeve and stood, moving toward the door. “Really, you need to go. You’ll catch my cold if you stay.”

“That cold. How do you know it isn’t something he gave you? Something from that other world?”

“It’s a cold. I’ve had them before.”

The professor squinted at Sophie. “But think of it. Microorganisms no one’s been exposed to in all these centuries. Plagues, incurable diseases, horrors we can’t imagine. He could be unleashing all that onto us, going back and forth between worlds.”

“If it never was a problem before—” Sophie stopped, realizing her error too late.

Professor Quentin smiled dryly. “So he’s been showing you those pretty pictures of the past. Hallucinations, dear. Some attribute them to demons, but I’m not as religious as all that. I’m sure neurotoxins are enough of an explanation. His world and powers are
real
, but there’s no guarantee they are what they seem to be.”

“You’re making no sense.”

“The Underworld—that’s not necessarily the real afterlife. The past lives he’s described might be total fictions. And so on.”

Sophie thought of Grandpop’s ghost, the dreams, the rides in Adrian’s bus, the giant lion that had almost eaten her…could they all be hallucinations?

Last week, she’d found a piece of long grass latched to her coat, topped with a tassel of reddish grain. Nothing like that grew on campus. It had ridden over from the spirit realm. Her gaze darted to it, still lying across her desk as a souvenir.

Fury won out over fear. To think, this woman had made her doubt all of it—doubt Adrian—even for a second.

Sophie reached for the doorknob. “If you’re not leaving, I will, and I’ll fetch my R.A. and have her throw you out.”

“I wouldn’t open that door. Hand me your phone. Now.” Quentin’s eyes gleamed as she watched Sophie, and she lifted the pepper spray.

“Trust me, you don’t want to use that. Hurts like hell if you’re anywhere near it.”

“And you trust me, you don’t want to go out into that hall. Let’s have the phone.”

Defiantly, Sophie pulled the stun gun out of her backpack—from a distance, she figured, its dark rectangular shape probably looked enough like a phone. “You want the phone? Come get it.” She opened the door and walked into the hallway.

A tall man in a ski mask and dark clothes leaped at her. She managed to scream this time, though it was only a throaty croak, and she threw herself aside, crashing hard into another door. The man lunged at her again, and this time she was ready: she met his leg with the stun gun and stabbed her thumb against the button.

A crackling buzz reverberated in the hallway. The man gave a strangled cry and crashed to the floor, limbs twitching.

Footsteps thumped behind the door Sophie had bumped into, and someone opened it: one of the girls who lived across the hall. “Holy crap!” the girl said, and dashed back to her desk to grab her cell phone.

Sophie dived into the girl’s room, not wanting to be left alone, still peering out into the hall.

“Hello? Whitney?” the girl said. She had evidently dialed their R.A. Meanwhile her roommate, in bed, rubbed her eyes groggily. “There’s some dude on our floor. I think he broke in.”

Quentin sauntered out of Sophie’s room, leaning on her cane. “Goodbye, then, dear,” she told Sophie on her way past. “I’m truly sorry you’ve chosen the wrong path.”

Sophie knew she should jump on the lunatic, zap her as well, try to detain her for the cops, something. But Quentin was elderly enough that Sophie feared the weapon might kill her, and she wasn’t ready to commit murder. In addition, a wave of weakness and nausea overcame her and she slid to sit upon the floor.

Quentin walked on by, into the stairwell. Sophie leaned against the wardrobe in the other girls’ room and closed her eyes.

“Thanks, Whitney.” The girl hung up. “She’ll be right up. What the hell did you do to that guy? Taze him?”

Sophie nodded, resting her head on her knees.

“Wow. You’re bad-ass,” said the girl in admiration.

Sophie didn’t answer. What she longed for, even more than eradicating Thanatos from the face of the Earth, was to get Adrian here right now, seek reassurance in his strength and closeness.

But the next half hour went by in a flurry of activity.

Whitney, the R.A., arrived just a few minutes before the cops, and went pale at the news. Learning that a cult nut-job had somehow gotten into one of the student’s rooms, with a violent accomplice in the hall, was probably high on the list of an R.A.’s worst nightmares. While they waited for the cops to arrive, Whitney noticed Sophie’s nausea and illness, and had Sophie lie down in her bed again, and drink from a water bottle she brought her. Meanwhile, the girl from across the hall was happy to take the stun gun and point it at the dude in the hallway, covering him in case he got any notions of violence again.

The initial electric shock sufficed, though: he was still on the floor, immobilized, when the police tromped in. They slapped handcuffs on him and carried him out. Sophie caught glimpses of it all through the open door, as she lay curled in bed, sipping water.

The police came in to get her report. She sat up in bed, and this time insisted they add Bill Wilkes’ name to the list of people to interrogate—even if he
was
a cop.

Taking her statement lasted ages, or so it seemed. Finally they left, promising her they were scouring the area for Quentin and any other accomplices. They also strongly suggested she change her lock.

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Whitney promised Sophie. “Will you be okay tonight?”

Sophie nodded. “Thanks, Whitney.”

“Call if you need anything. Any hour. I’m so sorry—I don’t know how this happened.”

“Not your fault.” Sophie waved wearily, and watched as Whitney left to file her own incident report.

After retrieving her stun gun from the enamored girl across the hall, Sophie locked her door, sat against her bed, and finally dialed Adrian.

He answered after three rings, his words slurring in sleepiness. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Professor Quentin was here. In my room. Watching me sleep.”

“What?” Instantly his voice changed to full-alert mode.

“Warning me about you. Threatening me.” Her breath came sharp on the next inhalation, and she realized she was on the verge of crying.

“Bloody—where is she? Are you all right?”

“Yes. She’s gone now. My R.A. was here, and the police, and…I stun-gunned a guy in the hallway who tried to grab me. But Quentin got away.”

“A guy in the—? All right, I’m coming over there.”

“You can’t.”

“Yes I can.” He sounded like he was speaking through clenched teeth. “I can threaten that woman right back, and I will.”

“I said, she got away. The cops are looking for her. I only called you to tell you.”

“God, Soph. How’d she get in? This is bad.”

“Maybe she knows a locksmith, or copied someone’s key; I don’t know. We’re changing the locks tomorrow. But I might never feel safe again.”

“Me neither.” He sighed, sounding wretched. “What are you going to do the rest of the night? Will you be able to get any sleep?”

“I don’t know. She probably won’t come back now, or even tomorrow, but I’m freaked out. If I could go home, I would, but it’s too far. And there isn’t anywhere else.”