by Molly Ringle
“Practitioner,” he murmured into his bourbon glass.
“Whatever. Look, the evil freaks do dark magic, so we need someone on our side doing dark magic. Don’t know about you, but I sure as hell can’t do that kind of thing.”
“No, me neither.” He rotated his glass, gazing down into it. “So I guess, when he finds out where she is, we have to go there first and get her. Convince her.”
“Tracy’ll manage all that. Stop worrying.” She shifted closer, and stroked the inside of his arm. “How about something to put you in a better mood?”
His body wanted to shudder. He turned it into a shivery smile instead, and thumped his glass down on the counter. “You’re sweet. But I…feel cooped up in here. Let me go for a walk, and maybe when I get back…”
She stared at him with unflinching eyes. “Tracy and Yuliya will be back soon.”
Yuliya was the Russian woman recently moved to America, one of the central council of Thanatos. She had joined them for the duration of this European endeavor, and was already banging Tracy, as far as Landon could tell.
“I know, but—let me go out for a bit, okay?” he begged. “I’m going crazy in here.”
Her suspicious gaze stayed on him the whole ten or fifteen seconds it took him to dart to the door, yank on his snow boots and coat, and dive outside.
In the twilight, he gulped down the thin, icy air. His boots crunched in the snow as he followed the path between condos. Tall pines creaked overhead. When he glanced up at them, feathery falling snowflakes brushed his cheeks and lips.
Maybe he could just run away. From them all—immortals, Thanatos, Krystal, the whole world. If he kept walking, he could reach the highway and hitchhike out of the mountains, down to Las Vegas where it was always warm and you could purchase things like fake ID’s and a whole new life, or so rumor had it.
Someone trotted down, whistling, from the steps of another condo as Landon passed. Landon glanced at the man, glanced away, then looked again with a shock of terror.
The stranger with the merry smile leaped over and got his arm impossibly quick around Landon’s throat. With his gloved hand covering Landon’s mouth, he tugged him behind a hedge. Landon fought and kicked, but the stranger didn’t budge. Then the world swooped bizarrely and the hedge disappeared. The stranger flung Landon to the ground. “Hello, cupcake. Miss me?”
The condos were gone, as were the cars and the whole parking lot. Huge trees stood around them in the falling snow—different trees, massive and gnarled. The wind whispered, and some animal he couldn’t identify howled in the distance.
The spirit realm.
“Oh, Christ.” Landon scrabbled for the revolver that should have been in his coat pocket, but it was gone too.
“Looking for this?” The stranger tossed the gun from one hand to the other, then pointed it casually at Landon. “Sorry, they should have warned you. I’m an expert thief.”
“You left me that note?” Landon’s voice shook.
“Thanatos is pathetic, it would seem. Allowing me to pluck away one head of operations after another, so easily.”
“Then you did kill my grandmother.”
The stranger’s smile hardened into something more bitter. “Of course.”
Landon fell back in the snow. His gaze staggered among the exotic treetops. “Fine. You got me. Kill me fast, all right?”
“Oh, so dramatic,” the stranger chided.
New footsteps crunched nearer in the snow.
Landon sat up. His heart palpitated as he recognized Adrian Watts, alive and well.
“Hello, Landon,” Adrian said.
“Oh my God,” Landon whispered.
Here before him stood the same young man he’d almost thrown into a fire a few weeks ago, who at the time had been unconscious with a bullet hole through his skull. No one could recover like that, not unless they were indeed immortal. It was fucking terrifying.
“Didn’t expect to see me again after your girlfriend shot me in the head?” Adrian’s New Zealand accent had a gentle lilt at odds with the menace in his eyes.
Landon’s mouth was dry. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he heard himself answering, of all the stupid things.
Adrian glanced at the stranger, who laughed. “Indeed, Adrian,” the stranger said. “Is your gaydar broken or something?”
Landon tried not to wince. Wonderful—humiliation on top of imminent death. He was fooling no one. They might as well kill him now.
“Oh,” Adrian said. “Is that how it is.”
“Certainly,” the other said. “Besides, come on. Krystal? Would you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t.” Adrian studied Landon. “But who knows what he likes.”
“I have a few guesses.” The stranger knelt in front of Landon, not even bothering to point the revolver at him anymore; it dangled from his hand. Landon could have snatched at it, but he guessed that would be a disastrous idea. Adrian was probably concealing a weapon in those coat pockets, and taking on two immortals by yourself—in the other realm, no less—was a hopeless proposition.
“What are you going to do to me?” Landon asked.
“We’re a bit curious what Thanatos plans to do next,” the stranger said. “You’re in a position to tell us—head of operations and all that. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way.”
Landon glanced from the stranger to Adrian and back again, waiting to see if they had more to say before he committed to any answer.
“You tell us some specifics,” the stranger continued, “and we let you go. For now. But you’ll keep giving us updates, and if it turns out your information is false, or you’re trying to trap us, we fetch you back here.” The stranger’s gaze scanned the darkening sky. “And next time, you won’t leave.”
Except maybe there was a way to leave this realm, Landon thought, his heart hammering. If Tracy was right, there were places where even mortals could switch back and forth, if they had certain artifacts—which Tracy said he did. Their team hadn’t tested it yet, but getting left here might not be hopeless, as long as the immortals didn’t actually kill him.
But then, of course they’d kill him, if he didn’t cooperate. He had to get out of this, had to at least make a show of playing along.
“So what is it you want, Landon?” Adrian Watts asked. “What’s more important to you? Eradicating immortals, because of what’s written on a few ancient scraps of parchment? Or going on living: is that more important to you?”
Good question, actually. Landon’s life was looking less and less desirable these days. But humans were funny. They always hung on so tightly to life.
He swallowed, trying to moisten his parched tongue. “There’s a new idea. This guy in our group came up with it.” Landon hesitated as both young men stared at him in silence, then he plunged ahead. “He thinks maybe we can get into this realm. And…get you guys that way.”
Adrian snorted in derision, but the stranger sent Adrian a pensive glance, then asked Landon, “How’s he going to do that?”
“There are temples, he says. Or things like temples. Special places set up a long time ago. Ancient stone circles and shrines and things. All over Europe, not just Greece.” Might as well not mention getting directly into the Underworld, if he could avoid it.
Now Adrian’s smile faded, and he looked at the stranger, who kept gazing at Landon. “Go on,” the stranger said.
“There were people who worshipped the immortals, all those years,” Landon said. “They used to be the Eless…El-yoo…I can never pronounce it.”
The other men were quiet a moment, then Adrian said, “Eleusinian Mysteries.”
“Right. That. And other names too. Some of them kept their cults alive all these centuries, and…they had some special artifact that, if you brought it to these temples, you could get into the other realm.”
“He has this artifact?” the stranger asked.
“He says he does. But we haven’t tried it yet. We don’t know of anywhere in the Ame
ricas where it would work. Only those sites in Europe.”
Adrian glared at Landon. “So the plan is to sneak in and attack us? Take us by surprise?”
Landon hesitated. He saw no need to spill the details about destroying the tree of immortality. Nor the bit about the sorcerer. If they did let him go tonight, maybe Tracy and the others would cut him some slack for holding that stuff back, and find some way—any way—to use this encounter against the immortals. As long as they didn’t kill Landon for this slip-up themselves. God, was he in trouble.
“Well,” he answered, “that’s the usual objective, yeah.”
“Like little hobbits journeying into Mordor,” the stranger remarked.
Adrian frowned at him. “That makes us Sauron, mate.”
The stranger gave a carefree twist of his lips, then regarded Landon. “Where in Europe? Where are you going to try this?”
Landon averted his eyes. “I don’t know. We haven’t chosen yet. I mean, it depends whether this even works. We have a lot to figure out.”
“What about living targets?” Adrian asked. “Who are you going after, other than me? Who are you going to threaten as hostages this time?” His voice shook a bit on that sentence, as if his fury couldn’t be contained.
Landon bowed his head. It still sickened him, thinking about how they’d killed Sophie’s parents. And how Krystal didn’t feel a crumb of remorse over it. “We’re…still looking for Tabitha Lofgren. To see if she’s one of you.” He sent them a swift glance, but they kept their expressions fixed, and didn’t let anything slip about whether Tabitha was in fact immortal.
“Anyone else?” the stranger asked.
Landon glanced at Adrian. “You’re the only one we know about for sure, so…it’s kind of routine to look for people you might care about.”
“Such as Sophie,” Adrian said, in almost a growl.
Landon looked down again and nodded. His hands, still half-lifted in surrender at his sides, were going numb in the freezing air. “We haven’t found much on her yet. She’s hiding or something.”
Adrian crouched to look closer at Landon. Landon sent him one timid glance, found Adrian’s dark eyes burning in rage, and looked down again. “You’re an accessory to two counts of murder,” Adrian said, “along with arson and possibly more. We could turn you in to the authorities in a heartbeat. Your life is effectively over. And believe me when I say the afterlife won’t be kind to you either, the way things stand. But if you turn against your evil friends now, and help us stop them, then just maybe you won’t have to spend so long in hell.”
Landon tried not to tremble visibly, but his lifted hands were starting to betray him and do so. “Because you control the afterlife?” he said in a temporary attempt at defiance. “And you reward your worshippers?”
“Not at all, mate,” Adrian said. “Because the afterlife controls itself. And it knows right from wrong. Do you?”
Landon had no answer to that. He gazed at Adrian’s black boots in the snow. Prolonged fear—and bourbon—were making his head pound.
“I’m putting a number on your phone,” the stranger said.
Landon looked up to find that he had pickpocketed his phone off him too at some point, and was now typing into it.
“This is where you text us with updates,” the stranger went on. “Twice daily, nine a.m. and nine p.m., or else you’re back here in a flash.”
“What if there’s nothing to tell?” Landon protested.
“You’ll come up with something, I’m sure.” The stranger handed him the phone. After hesitating a second, Landon took it. “And don’t bother trying any fancy tracking techniques on that number,” the man added. “You’ll learn nothing. It’s just a throwaway phone we got for this purpose.”
“And you may think you can run and hide after we let you go today,” Adrian added, “but you can’t. We have ways of finding you.”
“Magic ways?” Landon wasn’t even being sarcastic anymore. From where he sat now, he couldn’t really go claiming magic didn’t exist.
“Something like that.” The stranger slipped Landon’s revolver into his coat pocket. Landon clearly wasn’t getting that back today, or probably ever. “Let’s drop you off, then,” the stranger said. “Send your first update tomorrow morning at nine. Or else.” He gave Landon a broad, charming grin.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Erick Tracy clenched his hands into fists in the pockets of his suit jacket as Landon babbled his tale. It was all he could do to keep from slapping the boy. All right, maybe it wasn’t Landon’s fault that the unnaturals had shown up against all odds, seized him, and threatened him, but Tracy couldn’t help feeling it must have been Landon’s fault somehow.
Krystal and Yuliya stared as Landon, seated on the sofa, pale and shaking, spilled the details and showed them the new number on his phone. Krystal looked disgusted. She’d surely begin to regret her crush on Landon any second now—which was just as well, given the boy was obviously gay. And closeted too, another choice Tracy couldn’t abide.
“All right,” Tracy said when Landon finished. He forced a calming smile. “All right. This is an opportunity, if we look at it correctly. Let’s see what we’ve learned that we can use against them.” He steepled his fingers and paced back and forth in the condo’s living room. “Adrian did survive. Important to know. Also, they’re unaware what we’re up to, and they need information. Good.”
“You told them what we were up to,” Krystal said to Landon. “Not good.”
“They were going to kill me!” Landon protested.
Krystal rolled her eyes.
Yuliya flattened her mouth, looking resigned and sympathetic, then seemed to switch into mother mode: she sat beside Landon and folded her hands soothingly around his elbow.
“But,” Tracy went on, “they do have some way to find us. Or at least, you.” He glanced at Landon, then at Krystal. “And possibly you, given how Adrian Watts appeared and disappeared directly in your room.”
Both of the young ones widened their eyes.
“Do you think it’s like that sensing thing in the Decrees?” Landon said. “Sanjay reported it too. And we know Adrian could sense Sophie. He followed her to the house in the mountains that night.”
“But why the hell could they sense us?” Krystal said.
“We don’t know how it works, in all its details,” Tracy pointed out.
“Wait a sec.” Landon looked even paler. “If they can track me, or Krystal, anytime? Holy shit, no. We can’t…there isn’t…wait, there was the oak thing! They can’t sense through oak. Remember, that worked? With Sophie, and the van?”
“And what do you propose to do?” Tracy asked. “Wear a suit of oak armor everywhere you go?”
“I’m considering it,” Landon countered.
“Let ‘em come to me.” Krystal jutted her chin higher. “I hope they do. I want this fight.”
Tracy pressed his fingertips to his forehead a moment. Idiots; such a pair of idiots. “Look. We don’t know yet if they can track you at all. They might simply have managed to follow us when we drove here. It’s true, we took precautions, but someone determined enough could have done it, even without magic. It doesn’t change our plan.”
“But what do I do tomorrow?” Landon whined. “When it’s time to send them a message?”
“Send them one,” Tracy said. “Something false and misleading that will waste their time, I would suggest.”
“No! If it’s false they’ll kidnap me again and this time I’m dead!”
The sooner the better, Tracy managed not to say, though in his annoyance he was tempted to. “Fine, then something simply useless, such as ‘Everyone slept in today, no new plans.’”
“I can’t always give messages like that, though.”
“You won’t always.” Tracy walked to the window and moved the closed curtain aside a centimeter to peer out into the darkness. “Eventually we’ll use this as a way to close the trap around them.”
“Calm down,” Yuliya told Landon gently. “They are obviously weaker than we think, or they would have taken you or killed you.”
“I don’t know,” Landon said. “See…”
Tracy tuned out Landon’s monologue of angst. He let the curtain drop into place, and took out his phone to gaze again upon the email that had finally arrived. All day he’d been looking at the message like one admires a new piece of art one has bought.
Through labyrinthine networking efforts, he had acquired an email address for Tenebra, the sorcerer. His first cordial message had gone ignored. But in his second he included a virtual dossier on the proposed expedition: no exact names, dates, or locations, but an outline of what Thanatos was after and how they might step into the Underworld itself, the source of the terrible power, to achieve their ends. And, of course, he promised that Tenebra would be amply compensated, in money or maybe in witchcraft-worthy souvenirs from the other realm, or both if she wished. Tracy would be happy to discuss.
It took a few days, but to that message she—or at least someone—responded. Let’s meet. Tell me when you are in Vratsa.
Tracy closed the message, his confidence brimming again.
Vratsa. Bulgaria, then. That’s where they would land first.
After that, they had a few Greek caves to explore.
***
“Thanks, all, for coming to our little emergency meeting,” Niko greeted.
“I’m glad to see you both still alive after meddling with Thanatos,” Rhea said. The soul of the dark-skinned, wise-eyed woman smiled at Adrian from where she sat, two places away, between Zoe and Freya.
Adrian smiled back in gratitude. But as Niko began explaining everything they’d learned from Landon, Adrian’s eyes kept pulling toward Sophie, across the circle from him. He hadn’t seen her in person for over two weeks. She still looked pale. Or was that just the cave’s darkness and the greenish light of the souls? Her parents sat on either side of her in the grass, their glow bathing both her and Liam.
Along with all the living immortals and their allies, their deceased friends—Rhea and Sanjay, Terry and Isabel, Adrian’s mum, Sophie’s grandfather—had gathered here too. As a group they needed to analyze what Thanatos was doing, then plan their own next move. It would be nice if Adrian’s mind could focus on that, rather than filling itself with longing for Sophie.