The Immortals (31 page)

“You fit right into the neighborhood.”

“I’ll have to go buy something.” He reached into his back pocket. Then into his front pocket. Then, frantic, into his back again. “My wallet. I think it fell out.”

“More likely, Dennis stole it.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“No?” Selene sighed. Even gods weren’t immune from the needs of the almighty dollar. Dionysus could easily make a fortune selling his wine or his drugs, but he’d never had any common sense. She’d warned her father not to let him onto Olympus, but Zeus had been as enthralled by his liquors as everyone else. If it weren’t for stony-eyed Athena, who insisted Dionysus not serve his drinks to the gods, they might all have fallen into a stupor for the next three millennia. Now it seemed “Dennis” was a petty criminal, a New Age acolyte, an eternal grad student, and possibly her twin’s accomplice. She wouldn’t know for sure until she went back and confronted him—as one child of Zeus to another.

“Oh no. It’s not just my wallet. I left my bag up there. My computer, everything. I didn’t even realize—”

“I’ll go back and get it.”

“It’s not safe. I’ll do it.”

“
You
can barely stand up straight. And
I’m
not stupid enough to drink anything.” In no mood to be swayed by his concern for her, she left him there, shivering and shirtless. Served him right. Still, she could hear his teeth chattering from halfway down the block. Sighing, Selene dropped her backpack, yanked her belt from around her slim hips, and pulled off her flannel shirt. She tossed them both to Theo, picked up her pack, and marched back to Dennis’s building in her tank top.

Selene opened the apartment door without knocking. The music no longer blared. The two naked women sprawled, unconscious, across the floor. The man she knew as Dionysus sat on the couch alone, a joint hanging from the corner of his mouth, riffling through the contents of Theo’s wallet.

“Find anything interesting?”

“Wha—” Dennis looked up, his face bright red. Even the god of shamelessness could feel embarrassed about stooping so low.

“Just give me the wallet.”

“My friend gave it to me, don’t you remember?” he soothed, puffing smoke toward her.

Selene leaped over the coffee table and onto Dennis’s chest like a pouncing cat, her knee pressing his solar plexus, her face an inch from his. “I said, give it to me.”

“Kronos’s balls…” Understanding flashed across his face. “I didn’t recognize you.”

She rolled off him, snatching Theo’s wallet as she went and shoving it securely into her pants pocket. His computer lay on the floor; she stowed it in his satchel and slung the bag over her shoulder.

“Artemis—”

“Don’t use that name,” she snapped, glancing at the two women.

“No worries, sis, they can’t hear a thing.”

“What’d you give them?” She sniffed at the open Goya bottle on the table. “Let me guess.
Kykeon.
What did Theo call it? The ‘specialty cocktail’ of the Mysteries. Gets people to do your bidding, huh?”

“Just helps them do what they really want to do anyway.”

“Disgusting.” She slammed the bottle down.

“Oh? You get mortals to obey
you
by pointing arrows at their throats, if I remember right. My way’s a bit more humane. And much more fun.”

Selene whipped a kitchen knife from her bag and leaned over the couch, holding the point to the pulsing vein in the side of his neck. “Yeah, but my way’s also effective. And not just on mortals.” Dennis didn’t even flinch. “Tell me where your thyrsus is.” The Wine Giver’s pinecone-tipped staff was clumsy and inelegant, but any divine weapon was better than none.

“Oh, babe, my thyrsus is way too big for you to handle.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Selene pressed the point of her blade closer to his skin. He laughed in her face, and she winced in the eye-watering fumes. “Chill. It’s not here. Haven’t seen it since I lent it to an undergrad for her production of
The Bacchae
. I’d swear it on the Styx, but since the river probably doesn’t exist anymore, guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

She pushed herself away from him and paced the filthy room, moving aside piles of pizza boxes and dirty laundry with her toe. As unlikely as it seemed that Dennis would leave his last remaining divine attribute just lying around, it was even more unlikely that he’d let a mortal use it as a theatrical prop. Still, with Dennis, anything was possible. She rummaged through his closet, nearly coughing in the overpowering stench of weed and fermented fruit.

“Told you. It’s not here. Now will you get the fuck out?”

She moved closer to him and pointed her knife once more in his direction. “Tell me this. Did you give
kykeon
to my twin so he could control his men? Is that how he got a bunch of hipster musicians to murder three innocent women?” she demanded.

“The word ‘lunatic’ must have been invented for you,
Moon
Goddess. I assume you’re talking about that crazy shit on TV last night, but it wasn’t me. I don’t get off on death and destruction.” He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back more comfortably into the leopard-print upholstery. “Sex and drugs are more my thing.”

“Just because you didn’t wield the knife doesn’t mean your hands are clean. Your drink is helping the Bright One revive the Eleusinian Mysteries—which just happen to have a connection to Bacchanalian worship. You can’t resist the chance to get strong again.”

“Strong again? There’s a good old Bacchanal every night in every bar across the world. The others may be fading, but plenty of mortals still worship the almighty bottle. So don’t look at me. I’ve been happily holed up here with Tanya and Bree for the past few days. Haven’t left the apartment.” He reached beneath his robe to scratch lazily at his famous balls.

Selene’s stomach heaved with revulsion. “I don’t trust you for a second. Where else would they have gotten their hands on
kykeon?
”

“Oh, please. I teach that recipe to anyone who asks. Why be greedy?” He held out the bottle to her.

She scowled and shook her head. “And we think the next ritual will be in a theater. Any explanation for that?”

“Get real. Every fag and hag in this city loves theater. That doesn’t make them my minions. Not like my lovely maenads here.” He leaned down to put his hand on Tanya’s—or perhaps Bree’s—bare buttocks and began to rub desultorily. “And Apollo presided over theater, too, in case you’ve forgotten.” He yawned
cavernously. “Besides, why would I bring back the Eleusinian Mysteries when I was the one who destroyed them in the first place?”

“What do you mean
destroyed
them? You were worshiped by them!”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t my idea. You think I liked hanging out with
Persephone
?” He feigned a resonant snore. “You know drunk maenads are a hell of a lot more fun than prissy harvest goddesses.”

“Then you joined the Mysteries because they gave you power.”

“Naw, my own cults were more than enough for me. I joined because
Dad
made me. Because our all-powerful father was shitting his pants with fear.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“No? In the old days—like the
really
old days, like
pre-Olympian
days—the Eleusis cult only allowed female hierophants. They worshiped only the Earth Mother, like all big ol’ labia and boobs and bellies, you know?” He mimed an enormous pair of breasts on his own hairy chest. “Demeter and Persephone tapped into those beliefs when they took the cult over.”

“So? Why would Father, the King of the Gods, fear worship of an ancient goddess?”

“
Because
Demeter and Persephone weren’t just coasting along, living on the cult’s burnt offerings. They were actually getting
more
powerful every year.” He paused to flick some ash from his joint onto the coffee table, not bothering to use the ashtray sitting a foot away. “Their new power came from their ancient connection to the Earth Mother, see, something completely outside the Olympian realm—outside
Dad’s
realm. He couldn’t stand that sort of challenge to his dominance, so he wanted to get rid of the cult. He couldn’t actually eradicate it, since it was mankind’s creation in the first place, and he couldn’t overtly threaten Demeter and Persephone, since he’s such a pansy around the women in his life. So he asked
me
to steal the cult
from Persephone and Demeter, just as they’d stolen it from the Earth Mother, and then weaken it so it was no longer a threat. Of course, I’d do it all subtle-like, so they wouldn’t realize until it was too late.”

“You? Subtle?”

“I’ve got all kinds of talents, babe,” Dennis said, flicking his tongue lasciviously. Selene felt her stomach roil. He laughed, not bothering to wipe the drool from his chin.

“Just keep talking before I do something I might regret,” she said stiffly.

“Oh, you wouldn’t regret it, I promise.” He patted the couch invitingly. Selene just glared. He chuckled. “Your loss, babe. Okay, where was I before I started dreaming about finally popping that overripe cherry of yours?” Before Selene could punch him, he went on. “Right, I changed the cult. First I put in male hierophants and added my own
hiera
. Made them tell my story alongside Demeter and Persephone’s. Then I introduced this shit.” He lifted the Goya bottle. “Once they drank it, the
mystai
would do whatever their new hierophants told them to do. And the hierophants, of course, did whatever
I
told them to. Everyone still loved the Mystery—it’s amazing how many revelations come from hallucinogenic stupor”—he waved the Goya bottle cheerfully overhead—“but it no longer carried true power. Not since I told them to stop the original rituals.”

“
Original
rituals… right. The ones Cora
insisted
she couldn’t remember. You mean human sacrifice.”

“Oh-ho! The secret’s finally out! And you make it sound so distasteful.”

“It’s the ultimate forbidden act! That’s what we were always told!”

“But didn’t you make Agamemnon sacrifice his own daughter before you’d let the winds blow him to Troy?”

“That’s a
lie
. I withheld the winds from the Greeks to
stop
the Trojan War, not so some idiot king would kill his virgin
daughter. I am the
Protector
of the Innocent, not their destroyer. It was Homer who dreamed up the human sacrifice for the
Iliad
and everyone’s remembered it wrong ever since.”

“Are you sure? You know our memories aren’t really our own.”

“I’m sure.” But, of course, she wasn’t.

Dennis stretched, looking bored, and took another swig of liquor. “Well, let’s just say our aunt and cousin weren’t quite as scrupulous as you. We can’t all be uptight virgins, right?”

Selene ignored the dig. “So Cora
did
know about the sacrifices.”

“She did once,” he acknowledged. “But not anymore. Dad didn’t want anyone knowing about the old rituals, so my hierophants made their initiates take an iron-clad oath of secrecy. One whisper of the human sacrifice and, sayonara, off with your head. So no one ever wrote about it, ever talked about it, or even thought about it, and mankind forgot. And you know how that goes—Persephone and Demeter eventually did, too. Funny thing about our memories of godhood, right? Unless we hold on to them for dear life, or the poets sing the tales, those memories just slip away. But I remember 1694 like it was yesterday. I spent the night floating in a fountain filled with five hundred gallons of rum punch and—”

“Spare me the details. Are you sure there’s not some way, any way at all, to gain power from the cult without the killing?”

“I can see what you’re thinking.” He put on a prissy, high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Selene’s. “‘Ooh, I’ll just steal my twin’s new cult, but I’ll make it all cute bear cubs and moonlight and happy lesbians and maybe we’ll shoot a stag or two. And then I’ll be stronger, but no one will have to get hurt.’ Well, forget it, sister.”

“It’s not for me,” Selene growled. “It’s for my mother.”

Dennis’s face softened. His mortal mother had been burned alive as she witnessed Zeus’s unleashed radiance. He’d never known her. “Look, I wish I could help you.”

“I tried putting my mother’s attributes into a ritual,” she said tightly. “Veil, date palm, infants, lotus… they didn’t do anything.”

“That’s because attributes alone don’t work. I mean, in the old days, all kinds of worship contributed to maintain our strength, but if you want to actually
reverse
millennia of decline? Sorry, babe. No human sacrifice, no dice. And you’ve got to do it right.”

“And what exactly does ‘right’ mean?”

“In Eleusis, the priestesses chose a new man to crown as their Corn King every year. They’d feast him, fuck him, make him bless their fields and flocks. Then, in the fall, the
mystai
killed the King during the climax of the
Mysteriotides Nychtes
. They plowed his blood and bones into the earth to guarantee a good harvest. Figured that when he was reborn in the grain, they’d be reborn in spirit. They used to say it gave them a deeper understanding of all kinds of shit—life, death, you name it. And here’s the really crazy thing: it
worked
. A few of the
mystai
even inched toward immortality. One lived to be a hundred and twenty, and might have lived longer if her jealous boy toy hadn’t stabbed her in the spleen. Another died at a hundred and thirty-three, but only because she fell off a rooftop during the
Pannychis
revelry.”

“They were making thanatoi into Athanatoi?” Selene would never have thought her girlish cousin capable of such a feat.

“Yup. Why do you think Eleusis was the most popular cult in the ancient world? And Demeter and Persephone made themselves more powerful in the process. Oooh, I see that glimmer in your eye. Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? Just a few murdered innocents and you might never age again. Maybe bring your mom back to strength, too.”

“My mother has spent her life as a midwife, bringing mortals into the world. She’ll never consent to sending them back out of it again—certainly not in her name. And neither will I.” But even as she spoke so firmly, a cold serpent of doubt slithered through her stomach. Hearing Dennis describe the ritual so
matter-of-factly made it all sound so easy, so simple. Is that how Apollo felt? Just follow the steps, ignore your conscience, gain unlimited power?

“If this is such a forgotten secret, how does my twin know about it?” Selene demanded. “Did you tell him about the Corn King? Or did Father?”

“Fat chance. Me and Dad swore never to tell. Too dangerous—to everyone. Why do you think he’s in that cave? He knows he holds the key to bringing back his own power, but he can’t bring himself to do it, and it’s driving him, literally, out of his mind.”

“Since when has he shown such restraint?”

“True. The man’s worse than me when it comes to chasing mortal ass. And trust me, if it just meant the lives of a few thanatoi and Dad could be marshaling his storm clouds again, he’d be fucking the Corn King himself. But there’s a catch, see? After we changed the Eleusinian Mysteries, something interesting happened…” He took a long drag on his joint and then spread his arms as if drawing aside invisible curtains. “Civilization itself. Ta-da! The Golden Age of Athens, the whole shebang. Little did we know, but if you take away mankind’s hope of ever gaining immortality through some primitive, bloody rituals in a hidden cave, they start to use their own intellects and talents to improve things in the here and now instead. They build beautiful temples for Dad, write some
very
dirty plays for me, compose some pretty rocking poems for Apollo. And as they changed, so did we. That vision you have of yourself all clean and perky in a neat white tunic, bouncing around Crete with your shiny bow? Well, before Eleusis got civilized, you were probably running around in half-rotten furs, ripping your prey apart with your bare hands. You don’t remember because it was a whole different life, one erased by the myths they’ve told of us since. But trust me, no one wants to go back to that. Then again… you are the Goddess of Not-Civilization.” He squinted at her through the
haze of his own smoke. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. You might
want
to regress to blood and gore.”