The Immortals (32 page)

She shuddered. “The good old days are one thing. What you’re describing sounds a bit untamed even for me.”

“Oh, good. Because if Dad found out I told you, he might finally leave that cave and bring down some thunder and lightning on my ass. Or not. Whatever. Seems Apollo knows the secret anyway, so it doesn’t make much sense to keep it quiet anymore.” He flipped one of the young women over with his foot and ran his toe up her bare thigh. “Did I unravel enough mysteries for you, babe? ’Cause if you don’t mind, I’ve got more pressing matters to attend to.”

The sight of the naked girls, the noisome smell of old food, and the musk exuding from Dennis’s robe made her want to vomit. This at least was one thing she had no moral ambiguity about. “Clean those girls up and put them back where they belong.” Selene’s knuckles were white on the knife handle.

“Take it from He Who Unties—it’s time to loosen up.” He snorted at his own pun.

“I said put them back.” She brandished the knife once more. “Do as I say. I am still your elder.”

“You were always stronger than I, Artemis, but I know how little homage mortals pay to hunters these days. You look pretty good for your age, but you must be weakening.” With a speed she didn’t realize he possessed, Dennis sprang from the couch and grabbed her wrist, his fingers like a vise.

“Get off me,” she demanded. His eyes were no longer clouded. She should’ve remembered drink could have no effect on the God of Wine unless he willed it to. He looked at her almost quizzically, daring her to prove herself. Her arm was beginning to hurt. He twisted her wrist violently and the knife fell from her numb fingers.

Selene grabbed his arm with her other hand and pulled. Nothing. He only smiled. Their strength was perfectly matched.

“Give me back that wallet,” he said. “Being a perpetual grad student doesn’t pay very well.”

“Too bad.” She lashed out at his chest with all her force. He remained upright, unmovable. They stood there in silence for a moment, glaring at each other. Then she heard slow footsteps on the stairs. She knew the sound of Theo’s tread, even when he was stumbling with drink.

“Ah, here he comes again, the fucker,” Dennis said, looking toward the door. “I should’ve known he’d show up someday with one of my irritating siblings. Trust a Makarites. We can never stay away from one of his kind, can we?”

Selene felt her jaw drop.

“Oh! You didn’t realize what he was? Always so blind, babe!” Dennis threw back his head and laughed. She seized the opportunity. In one fluid movement, she spun and kicked, nailing him hard in the groin. He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his legendary balls.

“Selene, are you okay?” Theo panted, staggering into the apartment. “What was—”

She pushed him back out the door and grabbed his hand to drag him down the stairs. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Did you get it? I heard—”

“Keep moving!”

She pounded down the steps, forcing herself to go just slow enough so Theo could keep up. From somewhere behind them, she heard Dennis’s ragged scream:
“Artemis! Artemis!”

They dashed down the subway entrance. Hearing an uptown train approaching, Selene jumped the turnstile without missing a stride. Theo, on the other hand, stopped to fumble in his pocket. Before she could drag him bodily over the turnstile, he’d found his MetroCard and swiped through. Together, they jumped through the subway doors just before they slammed shut.

Panting so hard he could barely speak, Theo sat with his head slumped between his knees. Selene was breathless, too: not from the exertion, but from Dennis’s revelations.

Theo finally looked up. “Artemis, huh?” He smiled a little.

Selene felt a strange rush in her veins. She realized with a start that she’d never heard her real name on Theo’s lips before. It terrified her that she liked it.

“I don’t know what gave him that idea,” she said lightly.

“Maybe the fact that you’re six feet tall, run like the wind, carry a bow, and look like a goddess.” Theo smiled tipsily. “There’s power in naming, you know. That’s why the gods had so many epithets. I think I’ll call you Artemis, the Eater of Much Pork, the Owner of Scary Mutt, the Protector of Professors.” He
was flirting with her, she realized. She felt the heat in her cheeks and watched a corresponding flush creep up Theo’s neck.

Dennis had called him a Makarites—“Blessed One.” In ancient times, the Athanatoi used the term for heroes who earned the gods’ favor through extraordinary deeds of bravery, such as Theseus or Heracles. Since the Diaspora, a Makarites earned the title not through battling supernatural monsters but through his or her own ability to understand the gods on a profound level—whether through study or artistic endeavor. Besides a brief surge in the Renaissance and another in the Neoclassical period, when artists brought Greco-Roman mythology to life for a new audience, Makaritai had been exceedingly rare. With her penchant for avoiding mortal entanglements, she’d never even met one before. But she knew that when they did appear, the gods were irresistibly drawn to them.
It would explain how Theo wound up with an Olympian for a roommate,
she realized,
and why I can’t seem to stay away from him either. Last night in the park, perhaps I let him hold me not because of who he is, but
what
he is.
And was his attraction to her equally involuntary? Of course he desired her—no thanatos stood a chance when a goddess came into his life.
Maybe he doesn’t actually like Selene DiSilva at all,
she considered, fighting back a surprising pain in her chest.
Maybe, like Acteon and all the others, he’s just blinded by Artemis. Last night, I commanded him to come to me in the waterfall. What choice did he have?

She let out an exasperated groan, and Theo looked over at her quizzically. Then the blood drained from his face. His smile vanished. Selene followed his gaze to the livid welt encircling her wrist like a tattoo. “He hurt you,” Theo said, his voice tight. “I know Dennis is dangerous. I should never have let you come with me to his place.”

“You didn’t
let
me, remember? It was my choice. It’s fine. It’ll fade.”
Sooner than you think possible,
she thought,
and for reasons I can’t bear to admit.
She crossed her bare arms so her wrist was
hidden beneath her armpit. But would she prefer to be weak again? Could she bear it? She looked around at the subway car as if she’d never ridden in one before. The mortals sat, half-asleep or jittery with energy, despondent or ecstatic but mostly apathetic. Above their heads, ads for light beers and teeth whitening competed for space. Ways to make a temporary existence a little less painful. To improve the constantly deteriorating human form. What would she give to save herself and her mother from such a fate? For an instant, she imagined herself at the riverside, watching Helen Emerson pray for justice to a goddess who refused to hear her pleas. Then she imagined slicing through Helen’s soft flesh. A wave of nausea rushed from Selene’s stomach to her throat. She leaned her elbows on her knees and swallowed, hard.

“Selene, are you okay?” Theo’s hand, warm on her upper back, rubbed in gentle circles.

“Yeah.” She straightened up, her decision made. “Just making sense of everything.”

Theo withdrew his hand and gave her a wry smile. “Good luck. I feel more confused than ever.”

“That could be because you’re drunk.”

Theo laughed sheepishly. “Have you forgiven me?”

He asked so easily. He couldn’t know that forgiveness did not come easily or often to the Punisher. And yet even as she started to say she couldn’t, she realized she already had. She looked away and nodded.

“Good.” He held his arms out straight before him. He looked absurd: The cuffs of her flannel rode high on his wrists, the buttons strained across his chest, and her belt did nothing to hide the stain on his still-damp trousers. “You didn’t happen to grab my shirt while you were up there? As a peace offering?”

“No. Sorry.” But she wasn’t. Somehow she liked seeing him in her shirt. “But here.” She handed him his satchel and pulled his wallet from her pocket.

“Thank God,” he said, checking over the contents of his billfold.

“You certainly have interesting taste in friends.”

“Dennis is a real asshole. Always was. I should probably report him to the cops, but one case at a time, right?”

“Well, at least we learned something from him.”

“About my own stupidity?”

“We already knew about that. But now we finally know exactly why the cult’s using human sacrifice. They’re not just translating symbols into literal acts. They’re actually following a more ancient version of the Mystery. When I went back, Dennis told me all about it. Turns out the priestesses in Eleusis used to kill off a yearly Corn King to appease the Earth Goddess.”

“A Corn King? You mean a man chosen to represent the fertility of the harvest? Fascinating. None of the extant sources mention that—then again, Dennis was always uncannily good at this sort of thing. It fits into an old theory by James Frazer in
The Golden Bough
—that most Greek myth is derived from cult ritual involving the annual killing of a king.” Even drunk, Theo still sounded like a professor. “It’s an early version of what becomes the Christ story. The king takes on the sins of the community and dies in their stead so that everyone else can prosper. The theory’s been widely discounted, though.”

“Dennis sounded pretty convinced. He also claimed that at some point, the Mystery evolved to a more sanitized version, replacing human sacrifice with Dionysian worship and
kykeon
—which he thinks he figured out how to brew. That’s what you were drinking up there. If the hierophant also knows the recipe, that may explain how he’s controlling his
mystai
so effectively.”

Theo whistled appreciatively. “Who knew a drunk stoner like Dennis could be so useful? Ruth was right to remind me about him.”

“Ruth?”

“Helen’s roommate. I saw her at the memorial service this morning.”

“How was that?”

“Devastating.” He chewed his lip as if to stop himself from saying more.

An unfamiliar discomfort nibbled at her, somewhere deep in her chest. He caught her staring.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “Helen and me. I’m not pining for a lost love, just a lost friend. I want to find out who’s doing this.”

“Theo…” She didn’t know how to tell him that she knew exactly who the hierophant was.

“If you’re about to tell me to get lost, don’t,” he said, his smile belying his stern tone. “And don’t run away again. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He threaded his fingers through hers. Selene looked up into his eyes, bright and green and incredibly warm, and she knew exactly whom Apollo would choose as his Corn King.

Selene ripped her hand from Theo’s just as the subway squealed to a halt. Before he could protest, she ran out of the car, through the station, and up into Grand Central Terminal. She could hear Theo following her into the soaring main hall of the station. The clamor suddenly subsided as the chamber’s echoing marble expanse muffled and distorted thousands of voices at once. The sound reminded her of her godhood, when the prayers of the faithful came to her in a layered, muted cloud, one barely able to be sorted from the other.

The air in the hall was different, too, whooshing up from the underground train platforms and subway tunnels and coursing against the painted ceiling far overhead before swirling down once more to brush past her cheek as gently as a kiss. As gently as
his
kiss.

She stopped.
Orion took me in his arms and pressed his rough, wind-burnt lips to mine. I ran my hands through his black curls. I loved him. Grief was my reward. Apollo took him away. Now, once again, I’ve walked into the trap my twin has set. Again, he uses my feelings against me. He says he wants to protect me, but in truth he cannot bear to see me happy.

“Selene, what’s wrong?” she could see Theo mouthing, but the rushing of blood in her ears drowned out his words.

She looked up.

A painting of the heavens arced across Grand Central’s vaulted ceiling. Gilded stars ornamented with line drawings of the constellations hung against a sky blue background. Aquarius, pouring starry water above the ticket counters. Pegasus, breaching through a cloud. Gemini, side by side. And there, so far overhead that she needed to crane her head to see him—Orion. The stars were still there, right where she’d put them. One for each shoulder. One for each leg. A gilt row of three stars for his belt and a star for his sword.

She could still hear Apollo’s footsteps as he ran through her sacred grove, bringing her the news that would change her life forever.

“Moonshine, Moonshine! Did you hear of Merope? A man took her by force beneath the poplars.”

I seize my bow and my golden arrows, my cheeks hot with wrath. “Who would dare touch my sacred companion?”

“Orion. The man you call friend.”

I, most graceful of goddesses, stumble with shock, my bow flying from my grasp, my knees slamming against the hard ground. My twin picks up my weapon and places it once more within my grasp. He holds out his hand to lift me up, but I brush him aside. “Orion wouldn’t betray me! He left here only a day ago with promises of fidelity.” I sound like a child, a lovelorn maiden, but I cannot bear the news. I have not yet given Orion my body, but I have given him my soul. When he left the grove, he pressed his lips against mine. A secret promise. He vowed that when he returned to me, he would bear a surprise. The only other man I’ve allowed so close to my heart is the one standing before me—Apollo, Leader of the Muses, Healer of the Sick, the Bright One.

“You know how these half mortals are. They cannot be trusted,” my brother says.

“You speak the truth?”

Apollo narrows his golden eyes. “From the womb, I have cared only for you. I would not lie.”

We stalk through the forest, over hill and across streams, seeking our prey. I find it easy to hate, easy to believe my Hunter is false. I have so little practice with loving.

Three times, Apollo drives the sun across the sky. Three times, I guide the moon from one horizon to the next. And then we find him. Lying on the shore of the limitless sea, where his father Poseidon rules the deep. I look upon his broad shoulders, the familiar easy grace of his pose, his head pillowed on his crossed arms, his long legs stretched out before him.

I nock a golden arrow to my bow, the shaft in my fingers as light as it is deadly. I hesitate for one moment only. Just long enough to remember the taste of his lips. Then I let the arrow fly.

At the thrum of my bowstring, my Hunter sits up and turns away from the sea. His eyes meet mine, wide with shock and disbelief. For an instant, I doubt his guilt.

The arrow pierces his heart.

Theo was shaking her shoulders, calling her name.

“Catasterismi,”
she breathed, as if that were an answer to his panicked pleas. Her eyes did not leave Orion’s gilded form on the ceiling above.

“Catasterismi?”
he repeated. “What? Selene?” He gripped her arm, hard. “Look at me!”

She blinked once and dragged her eyes away from Orion and back to Theo.

Face pale, Theo took a step back as if he’d been struck. Selene wondered vaguely what she’d done to make him so afraid. Then she realized she was crying.

“Oh my God. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. Really, don’t—”

“It’s not your fault, Theo.”

Suddenly, she didn’t want to lie anymore.

“It’s
his
.” She pointed to the ceiling, but did not look. Theo craned his neck back.

“Him? Orion?”

“
Catasterismi.
It means ‘the placings of the gods among the stars.’”

“I know what it means, I just don’t understand why it’s so important. Is it a clue? What did you figure out?”

She shook her head slowly. “Only what I should’ve realized before. That the hierophant will come for you next.”

“Why? I’m no virgin maiden, I hate to break it to you.”

Selene didn’t smile. “Because everyone I care for is destroyed. And that… that means you.” She pressed onward as she saw his eyes widen. “And that’s
not
a good thing,” she insisted before he could speak. “It’s a terrible thing. You have to stay away from me. Get on a train and leave the city. Go far away where he can’t reach you.”

Theo smiled, gently at first, trying to look comforting, but soon he was beaming. His eyes were very green in the slanting sunbeams pouring through the windows high above. “You care about me, huh?” he said softly, as if he hadn’t heard any of the rest of her little speech.

“And that’s a bad thing,” she repeated.

He nodded, still grinning. “Terrible.”

“Yes, terrible.”

“Sure. Mmm-hmm.” He moved toward her, his smile aglow.
One more step,
she realized,
and he’ll kiss me.

She stepped back, one hand raised in warning. “No, Theo. You don’t understand.” She could feel Orion’s eyes on her still. Her tears sprang afresh.

“What’s wrong?” Theo asked, suddenly all concern.

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” she snapped.

Then she turned on her heel and fled.

For once, Theo didn’t go after her. He stood among the swirling crowd, watching her go, shocked more by his own reaction than
by hers. He’d expected her to run away—he just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.

The adrenaline of his escape from Dennis’s apartment dribbled away, leaving him hollow, exhausted, and still slightly drunk.
Maybe if my head were clearer, I’d understand what Selene was trying to tell me,
he thought.
I feel like all this time I’ve been unable to hear a conversation she’s trying to have with me. And now, when I’m finally listening, she no longer wants to speak.

Slowly, he wended his way toward the exit, determined to head toward the Broadway theater district. With or without Selene, he wouldn’t give up the hunt for the hierophant.
She said I’m in danger, but what else is new?
He’d been in danger ever since she’d walked up to him in Riverside Park and pulled him into her world. Only now losing his life to a murderous cult didn’t seem so important—not when he’d already lost his heart to Selene DiSilva.

Just before he could exit the terminal, a woman’s voice called his name. Chest tight with anticipation, he swung toward the sound, sure Selene had come back for him. But the young woman before him was short, black, and holding a gun leveled at his chest.