Linn chuckled. “That’s Grampa Heff, the oldest boy scout.”
“Hmmm.... I wonder how well he knew Baden-Powell.” Linn boggled at that thought and Hypatia smiled, and pushed the door open. “Welcome to the Scholar’s lair, dear.”
Linn stepped in gingerly. There was paper everywhere. Books, towers of them, regular printer paper, and what looked an awful lot like ancient papyrus scrolls. Hypatia bustled through it and lifted a stack off a wing chair.
“Here you are... Let me see.” She turned to the large desk, obscured with teetering stacks of books and paper. Lifting a pile and setting it on top of another, which made Linn want to jump forward to prevent certain collapse, she exclaimed, “Aha, here it is.”
Miraculously, the tower of papers she had just made stayed still while Hypatia lifted out a sleek laptop and handed it to Linn. “This is for you, Linn.”
“Mine?”
“Yes, your grandmother said you should have a good one.”
Linn blinked, looking down at the pretty machine. “Cool...”
Hypatia sat down behind the desk, opening drawers. “And here are the cords. I hope you know how to use them, I certainly don’t.”
Linn took the bag of cords and looked in it. “I think I can figure it out. I’m not a geek, really, but I usually make it work.”
“Good, good. I’m afraid I’m rather old school. The internet just annoys me, but I’m told it’s a good research tool.”
“It can be... but there’s a lot of junk on it, too.”
“You are now in charge of it,” Hypatia assured her solemnly.
Linn laughed at the idea of being in charge of the World Wide Web. “All right.”
“Before we start, I know you want to understand what we are doing here.”
“As much as I’m allowed, yes.” Linn looked for an outlet and plugged the power cord in. The laptop had no charge on it.
Hypatia got up and closed the door.
“According to me, you are allowed to know all of it. But you will have to figure some of it out on your own.”
Chapter 25
Linn felt rather like a junior spy about to get her first briefing. She steadied the closed laptop on her knees and prepared to listen.
“What do you know about immortals, my dear?”
“Um...” Linn was taken off guard. She had not expected a question. “I know they aren’t from Earth, originally. I don’t think they have a form, per se. I’m trying to figure out if they are maybe...” she waved her hands in the air, searching for the right words. “Maybe pure energy, or nanite people, or something. Coyote gave me some books and that was a theme in all of them. I think it was a clue. You aren’t magical, just something really... alien. And I think maybe immortals brought humans to life. Or something like that.”
She paused, thinking. Hypatia clapped, startling her.
“Oh, bravo, Linnaea! You are quite clever!”
The old woman beamed at her, and Linn felt her cheeks warm. “I’ve been given a lot of hints,” the girl demurred.
“You've listened to them, and strung them together. Not many could do that.”
“I know you aren’t omniscient, or omnipotent,” Linn kept thinking out loud, now.
“No, we neither see and know everything, nor are we all powerful. Which is a good thing.” Hypatia’s voice was dry.
“Yes, I’m learning that.” Linn sighed. “Tia, I know Grampa said immortals can’t die, but why aren’t there more of them?”
“Ah. The question that lies at the core of our research. Immortals might not die... but they may not choose to live, or remain sane, either. That many years... all those memories...” Her eyes clouded and she looked off into the distance for a long time, silent.
“I know,” Linn began quietly after a time, “that the forms they use can die. The girls went through that. I think... that the forms you use age. Or you choose to age. I’m honestly not sure which.”
“Death and aging, the most wanted answers humanity has today.” Tia looked at Linn. “You understand why you could not be told before.”
“Yes, I think so. If there had been a way...” her voice faltered, and she thought of Cora, the night before, giving her father’s love to her. “To keep my father with me.”
“Your mother would have done it. She is not an Old One, she gave no vows. In some ways, she is one of the sparks that lit the fire we must now walk through.”
“I thought so.” Linn sighed. “So it’s not that easy.”
“No, it isn’t. Immortals can’t cease to exist. We can, however, choose to sleep. We can be imprisoned. We can, in a sense, imprison ourselves.”
“Is that what happened with Loki?”
Hypatia looked startled. “How did you know about that?”
“Coyote and Bes both talk about him like he’s their friend, but only ever in the past tense, like he’s dead. Only he can’t be.”
The Scholar sighed. “The entire Norse family is... asleep.”
“Fimbulwinter?”
“You are a child after my own heart.” Hypatia clucked her approval at Linn’s deductions. “Most of the Old Ones lacked a certain mental flexibility. Loki could have survived, but his heart wasn’t in it. He chose to follow them into the winter.” Hypatia looked sad.
“I don’t think that helps us, though,” Linn said thoughtfully. They couldn’t discourage all the mad gods into giving up.
“No, I think you are right. We need an actual weapon.”
“A weapon could hurt us... well, Mom and my grandparents, and you... as well.” Linn sighed.
Hypatia smiled at her sadly. “Yes, it could. You carry a sword.”
Linn put her hand on Lambent’s pommel. She had gotten so used to carrying it over the last couple of months, she didn’t even think about buckling her on in the morning. She supposed it made her feel closer to Grampa Heff.
“Yes.”
“And she has two edges. One cuts toward you, the other away from you.”
Linn nodded. She could see what Tia was saying.
“So what are we doing?” She let go of Lambent and pressed the power button on the laptop.
“We are trying to find a way to kill immortals,” Hypatia informed her calmly, her scarred old face not even changing expression.
Linn felt the words hit her with a physical force behind them. She looked down at the smooth surface of the laptop she was holding, seeing a dim reflection of herself in it. She was so serious...
They didn’t talk for a while. Hypatia picked up a scroll, letting Linn think. Linn was grateful. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find a way to kill anyone. Much less something that could take the people she loved most from her. Finally she looked up.
“I don’t know why we need to do this.”
Hypatia put the scroll down and smiled sadly. “There are hundreds of immortals living amongst humans. Thousands more sleep... death in a dream state. Any one of us has the power to destroy humanity.”
“But... how?”
“You don’t ask why.”
“I think I’ve figure out why. Most of the Old Ones think of humans as cattle, or at best, pets. Now there are too many of us, and we are gaining a knowledge of technology that could actually harm them.”
Hypatia nodded. “The how is a little more complicated. Simplest, of course, would be to unleash a plague. The Black Death, the Spanish flu... many others. They were tools of certain immortals for their own ends and means.”
“You can manipulate yourself on a genetic level,” Linn mused, thinking that was how Bes had kept looking younger and younger during their time together.
“Smaller even than that. You know we use something we call the High Path?”
“Yes, it’s a way to travel. I can’t do it, so it must be something only an immortal can do.”
“Well you might be able to when you come into your full power and learn to use it. But have you ever heard of Quantum Tunneling?”
“Um... maybe in a science fi
ction story?” Linn wrinkled her nose, thinking.
“Ah, then, your first assignment. Look it up, dear.” Hypatia picked up the scroll again and Linn knew she wasn’t going to get any more from her for a while.
Looking down at her laptop, she opened a new browser window.
Chapter 26
Sekhmet sighed. There were times she was really glad humans were so easy to make look-don’t-see. This was one of them. The Atlantic Ocean was a huge body of water. You could travel over it for days and never see anyone, most of the time. Today was not one of them. The area they were in was swarming with rescue craft. There wasn’t anything to rescue.
The plane had hit the water hard, and almost five hundred people had perished instantly. Pieces of wreckage was scattered for literally miles now, some floating, others somewhere below them. She, Steve, and Pele were sitting cross-legged just over the surface of the water. A bubble of power surrounded them, keeping them warm and dry. They were waiting.
Helicopters buzzed overhead. Steve looked up. “Those look like fun, you know?”
“You’re such a little boy at heart.” Sekhmet chuckled.
“Yeah, it’s what you love about me,” he flashed back.
Pele laughed. “The child in all of us keeps us sane. I hate to remind you of why we are here... But the Naiads are coming now.”
Sekhmet looked down between her paws. The tawny pads hovered about a foot above the waves. The water was opaque today, dark and sullen.
“It’s a good thing we aren’t human,” the big cat said quietly.
“So much death, and yet we walk unscathed through all of it,” Pele commented softly in agreement with the unspoken thoughts.
“Here they are.” Steve was looking down to one side.
Sekhmet saw a flicker of white as the water dwelling immortals came close to the surface. She could see their faces, then they emerged directly below the immortals, lifting a glowing orb toward them. High, whispering voices spoke in unison.
“We have found them. Take them, please, before we all cry...”
Sekhmet could see that the four Naiads all had tears streaming from their eyes. They referred to the untold numbers of other Naiads who lived in the Atlantic Ocean. Each body of water was occupied with a family who were all connected closely.
Pele reached down and took the artifact. Tears pooled in her eyes.
“What is it?” Sekhmet could tell the crying was uncontrollable.
“So much pain... The children. The laume, their mother, is wrapped around them. They are so afraid...” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“What do we do?” Steve asked in concern.
“Let’s take them to land, first.” Pele sounded choked up.
Steve and Sekhmet each took her elbows and carried Pele, as both her hands were clasped on the globe, which was the concentrated essences of three immortals, so tightly wrapped together they were actually palpable.
Sekhmet could sense Pele probing with her power at the laume while they ran the high path. She couldn’t feel anything from the globe except pain. Her heart thudded in her chest as they ran, and she could feel herself beginning to cry silent tears.
Sekhmet stumbled when they touched ground and fell to her knees. Steve let go of Pele and doubled over, sucking deep, sobbing breaths in as though he hadn’t been able to breathe for a long time. Pele, tears streaming down her face, continued to walk ahead blindly once they let go of her. Sekhmet changed to cat form and caught up with her, looking around to see where they were as Pele had guided their travels.
“Where are we?” Steve, back in jaguar form, asked her, swinging his heavy black head from side to side. The terrain was bleak. And cold... Sekhmet shivered, not just from the temperature.
“Iceland, I think,” she told him after a moment.
Pele kept walking without looking at anything while the two cats flanked her, constantly scanning for movement. Nothing should be here, and yet Sekhmet knew Steve felt the same way she did. Jumpy, off balance...
Pele wasn’t talking, and Sekhmet was beginning to get worried. Whatever the laume was doing, she might be drawing the Hawaiian goddess into it. The children’s mother was a Lithuanian fairy, a family of immortals Sekhmet was not familiar with. Something was wrong here. Sekhmet had seen immortals withdraw before, shrinking away from pain, but never like this.
“Pele. Pele!” she shouted.
Pele stopped, and then slowly looked at Sekhmet. “I need to put them someplace warm.”
Sekhmet looked in the direction they were going. “You want to throw them in there?” she asked in disbelief. The volcano goddess had been rumored to require certain sacrifices in the past.
“No, no. Just... close,” Pele said reassuringly.
Sekhmet looked back at the volcano. “I’m not sure about this.”
“She wants... warmth. And to be alone. She doesn’t want anyone near her or her children.” Pele didn’t explain how she knew this.
The big cat sighed. “All right. Keep going. Let’s get this done, it can’t be good for you, either.”
They walked on, sometimes stumbling over the rough terrain, until they came to a fumarole, gently steaming from the ground. Pele knelt and scooped a shallow hole in the loose, ashy soil. Steve and Sekhmet helped her dig, as their paws were better prepared for it than her human hands were. Pele laid the globe in it and let go. Murmuring something in Hawaiian, she stood. Then they buried the globe.
Pele gasped when it disappeared from sight and staggered a little. She put a hand to her heart and drew a deep breath. “That was... bad,” she told her concerned companions.
Sekhmet thought that was an understatement from her friend’s pallor. “Let’s go,” she said, wanting to get as far away from here as she could. “Pele, can you get back to the Sanctuary by yourself? I think we need to tell Heff about this.”
The older woman nodded. She looked tired. “I need to get to the other children.”
Sekhmet know what she meant. She could do with a peaceful moment of cuddling, right now, of knowing all was well.
“Go. I will be there when I can. Give them my love.” She licked Pele’s cheek.
“Mine, too.” Steve’s quiet bass rumble was solemn for once.
Pele bent and hugged him. He arched his head into her and purred. “I will be careful,” he said.
Pele hugged Sekhmet next. “I will be careful, also,” the big cat told the old goddess. “This was a fluke. It’s not an attack that will work on us.”
“I know. But still...”
Sekhmet knew what she meant. This attack, on a weak immortal and her children, was something that was rarely done. And the tragic result... the living death of three beings, would have dire consequences.
“We run,” she said finally. She and Steve leapt up into the high path simultaneously.
Pele was left standing in the lonely wind for a long time before she finally gathered her fleeting thoughts and leapt upward onto the Path.
Chapter 27
Linn looked up from her reading and rubbed her eyes. Then she looked back down at the computer clock. “Darn,” she muttered. Then, feeling slightly foolish, she said out loud, “Deirdre? Lunch for two in the Scholar’s office?”
Hypatia didn’t even look up from the book she was handling with cotton gloves on. “Just a salad for me.”
“A sandwich I guess. I don’t care what,” Linn added, then stood up and put the laptop in her chair. “Tia?”
“Yes, child?” The old woman still didn’t look up.
“I’m going to stretch my legs. It’s after lunch time.”
“Go ahead. I’m used to this.” Hypatia looked up finally and smiled briefly. “You are used to a much more active life, I’m sure.”
Linn felt a little sheepish. “Yes, I am. I’ll be back in a few.”
The tunnel here was painted a warm cream, but with nothing on the walls it was very empty. She heard the echoes of her own footsteps. She walked toward the Library. She hadn’t
been in it yet, but she knew it was down this way. As she walked, she pulled her phone and earbuds out of her pocket.
Linn had tried to call her mother when she first arrived, and had gotten her voicemail. She wasn’t worried about her. If something were wrong, Hypatia would have let her know. Pele was on her way back, she guessed. Linn would ask her when she was home. She put the earbuds in and started to dance along to one of her favorite songs, letting the movement take the stiffness out of her muscles.
After two songs she stopped and took the earbuds out. She felt better... energized. And starving. She headed back to the office.
Then the doors farther down the tunnel swung open and her grandmother stepped through. “Grandma!”
She ran forward to hug Pele, who held her close for a long time without speaking. Linn waited, dying to know what was going on, but hesitant to speak until she knew her grandmother was ready to talk.
“Linn, I am so glad you are here.”
“I’m happy to be here, too. The kittens are safe, Hypatia is awesome, and the Coblyns are pretty nifty, too. What’s wrong?” Linn let it all out in one breathless rush.
Pele sighed into Linn’s hair, not letting go. “You remember the twins that were flying in from Lithuania?”
“Yeah?” Linn frowned, tipping her head back to see her grandmother’s face.
Pele looked unbearably sad. “The Old Ones brought down the plane.”
“Brought it down?” Linn felt bewildered.
“It crashed in the ocean. Everyone onboard was killed.”
“How many?” Linn whispered, holding onto her grandmother tighter. She couldn’t see her eyes, just the flickers of power.
“Almost five hundred people.”
“All to harm those children. What happened to them?”
“Oh, ku’o aloha...”
Linn felt her eyes well up. “How did they take the plane down?” she demanded raggedly.
Pele shrugged helplessly. “An Old One in insubstantial form could have taken the electrical system down...”
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