The Wildcard (Like Flies Book 2)

by Fallacious Rose

  "I don’t mind at all." Demetrios flashed her his trademark brilliant smile, and indicated the couch. Two makeup women set themselves up behind him, preparing their brushes and potions.

  "Oh, you don’t really need any make up," said Celia with a flirtatious titter. "I’ve never seen you in person before, Mr Healer.." ("Demetrios" he said, smiling) "but I have to say, you could be a movie star. Have you ever been in movies? No, of course not...well of course the work you do is so much more important ..."

  She rattled on, asking him questions from time to time, and the two women fussed over his skin and hair. Demetrios quite enjoyed it, though he agreed with Celia that he didn’t need it. He leaned back and admired her legs. Maybe after the interview he’d ask her out to dinner. It’d make a change from call girls and breathless new cult members.

  In the background, the office was a temporary hive of activity, with camera men adjusting their equipment and sound men setting up the microphones. Demetrios ignored them - they knew their business, presumably. Which was to make him look good.

  "What a pity about Orpheus’ horrible injury," said Celia, looking insincerely horrified. "I do love his music, don’t you?"

  So Orpheus was still playing crippled. How long would it take the public to find out?

  "Terrible," Demetrios said aloud. "He had so much to give the world."

  "Oh he did," agreed Celia, turning around to snap at a woman trying to adjust her blonde wave more provocatively. "Things like that really make you appreciate an organisation like New Hope - you know what they say, a light in the darkness."

  Demetrios smiled sorrowfully.

  "I wish we weren’t needed - what can I say."

  The floor manager signalled that everything was ready to go.

  "Are you ready? We're about to go live."

  Demetrios nodded, and Celia leaned forward, all pouty star journalist.

  "First of all, I’d like to thank you so much for giving me this unprecedented, exclusive interview - we’re so appreciative of the chance to talk with you and find out what New Hope is really about."

  Demetrios smiled, an infinity of love and sadness in his beautiful green eyes.

  "I’m only too happy to give this interview to CNN - because I want your viewers to understand the real vision of New Hope and what we offer, here at the House of Healing."

  "I know New Hope does have a lot to offer the world - how would you put that message in a nutshell, to our audience, Demetrios?"

  "New Hope is about love and peace and acceptance - but most of all, it’s about faith - faith in a better life to come. Jesus gave his speech from the Mount, and he was lucky that his disciples wrote it down in the Good Book, otherwise we’d never have heard of it. But now, there’s a much wider platform than a mountain in Palestine and I want to use that. As Jesus would have done, if he’d been alive today."

  "Are you comparing yourself to Jesus?" Celia asked innocently. She looked as if she’d happily accept the comparison.

  "Certainly not. I’m not divine, far from it, I’m just a man, and not related to any god that I know of." He laughed easily. "But I do serve a god who is very eager to share his mysteries with mankind - and anything I can do to broadcast His Message, I am bound to do. If I had lived in Palestine in the first century, perhaps I would have been a disciple of our Lord. I’m in twenty- first century USA, and I’m a true disciple of the God that is in us all."

  Celia nodded, spell bound. The Healer was magnificent. Not only did he look - even in person - like a god himself - but as he spoke to the camera, she could feel the tentacles of charm snaking around her body, lulling every part of her to a sense of quiet, rapt content. He could have made a killing as a movie star.

  "You put that so wonderfully. So at this time, the world seems to be crazier than ever, doesn’t it. For instance the recent horrific crime committed against Orpheus, the popular singer - who was himself a symbol of hope and peace. And now it seems that he’ll never appear in public again. I know that you personally feel a lot of sorrow about that, as every one of us does. So in this time of darkness and grief, what does the House of Healing have to offer the grieving world?"

  "Of course," said Demetrios, his dark eyes becoming moist, "this is an incredibly sad time, and no one mourns for Orpheus more than I do. But I think that hope and compassion doesn’t just live in one man - it comes from God, and New Hope is the vessel, the pipeline that can bring that glory to mankind, that light from God. So I hope that in this time of sadness, in the aftermath of this horrible crime - of all the horrible crimes perpetrated against humanity - people can turn to the House of Healing to find solace, and a new way forward. In fact, in some ways, I hope that we can be the heirs of the movement that Orpheus began, and bring his vision to fruition - with the help and patronage of our God, of course."

  "But it’s just so terrible," gushed Celia, "that someone would mutilate this amazing musician and take that music away from us all. Doesn’t that make you lose hope for the human race?"

  Demetrios bowed his head. Why’d she have to keep going back to Orpheus - the pathetic pothead deserved what he got.

  "As I said, it’s just impossible to take in," he agreed, allowing his voice to crack slightly with emotion. "Who would cut the hand from a musician - the hand that produced such beautiful, transcendant music. But in this world, many terrible things happen that we humans just can’t understand - and through it all, the Lord loves us and has mercy on us. As we move into the future..."

  Celia interrupted, fixing him with her round, slightly bulbous eyes.

  "So if I told you that CNN had been given a recording of you asking a woman to, um, cut Orpheus’ hand off, what would you say?"

  Demetrios stiffened.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Well, CNN has come into possession of an audio recording," explained Celia, batting her eyelashes inanely, "claimed to be of you telling a woman that if she brings you Orpheus’ severed hand, you will bring her friend ‘back from the dead’. Can you, actually, bring people back from the dead, Demetrios?"

  Demetrios cast a swift, scowling glance over at the crew. The cameras ran on regardless. He could stop this now - or he could try to repair it. Ride it through. There was no such recording - and, he knew, Orpheus was not missing a hand.

  "No, I can’t bring people back from the dead, and nor can anyone. This is a disgusting libel. How dare you imply that I would ask some woman to bring me the hand of, well, anybody! This is obviously a forgery. "

  "So, a woman named Green Hennessy has never entered these premises?"

  "For all I know. Lots of women have entered the House of Healing."

  "She had an appointment, according to reception. Twice."

  Demetrios rose.

  "This interview is at an end. You need to speak to my lawyers."

  The cameras kept rolling. Demetrios pushed the button for security and waited for Hal and Ahmed to appear to bring this thing to an untimely end. Where the hell were they!

  Celia smoothed down her cream skirt.

  "So you’re saying," she asked sweetly, "that you’ve never met Ms Hennessy, and you never asked her to cut off a man’s hand for you."

  "No!" shouted Demetrios. "I don’t know any Hennessy woman and if I did I would certainly never ask her to do any such thing!"

  "Then who," asked Celia, pouting prettily, "is this?"

  Green emerged from the fire escape stairs, held up between two burly men. She looked pale and sick. Sam stood beside her, eyeing Demetrios with revulsion.

  "I’ve never seen this woman in my life before." said Demetrios. When this interview was over, he’d personally see to it that Sam Alexakis took six months to die, minimum.

  Celia waved her hand at the sound team, and the whole world heard Demetrios say,

  "Bring me the singer’s hand, and Dionysos will see to it."

  Demetrios got up and pushed at the cameras, ignoring Green.

  "This interview is over. You’re all trespassing. My
lawyers will be contacting yours about this gross fraud you’re trying to perpetrate on the public. But they won’t believe it, you know - you won’t convince anyone...."

  "And my lawyers will be in contact about the kidnapping," snapped Green. "What were you going to do, leave me down there till I starved?"

  Demetrios gave her a furious look.

  "I wish you had!"

  Chapter 42

  'Secretive organisation New Hope has been brought into the light literally with revelations on camera by its photogenic leader, Demetrios Kapalades, that he asked a woman to kill Orpheus and bring him his hand as proof. The organisation is in turmoil as it tries to explain away this embarrassing scandal...Meanwhile, international music legend Orpheus has confessed that his recent ‘serious accident’ was a stunt designed to lure Demetrios into the open so that the bizarre practices of New Hope could be exposed to the public. Orpheus, alive and well and NOT missing a hand, is to play a ‘Back from the Dead’ concert in Carnegie Hall, which promises to be his biggest event so far...'

  "Thanks, Sam."

  It was strange to see him again, after the way they’d parted. She was always sorry for the way she’d treated him - she could see now, looking back on it, that she’d been dishonest with him as well as with herself. She’d never really had the chance to say sorry - and now, it was probably too late. But she was grateful - and happy that he’d found love with someone a bit more stable than she’d turned out to be.

  Sam smiled - his old, warm, white smile in a face coarsened by rich living - and spread his hands in a typical Greek gesture.

  "What else could I do? I couldn’t leave you to starve - even after what you’d done to me. No, don’t try and answer that. Anyway, we’re both happy now. I can see that you really are, aren’t you."

  Green answered from within the curve of Baldur’s arm.

  "Yeah. I know it seems worse than weird - but it looks like I was mad all along. Here I am, in a relationship with a god - and I finally seem to be where I belong."

  "You," said Sam tersely, "belong in a lunatic asylum. Both of you."

  But then he grinned, and shook Baldur’s hand. Baldur clasped him in a brief hug.

  "I’ll do my best with her," he said laconically.

  When Sam had gone, Green settled on to Baldur’s lap.

  "So, are we going to this concert? It could be the last one I ever go to."

  "I hope not," he said. "Isis and Ishtar are optimistic - and it is too late now for Set to recover lost ground. But if this is our last night, I would rather spend it with you, alone."

  Chapter 43

  "You failed me." Set is a darkness filling the room. Demetrios cowered on his silken couch.

  "I did what you told me to do."

  "You," says Set, his voice full of icy contempt, "botched everything. Because of you, those bitch aunts of mine now have more tokens than I -"

  "Tokens?" Demetrios asks, trembling.

  "Don’t you know that’s what you are? Tokens. Tokens in a game, played by your betters. And now, thanks to your incompetence, I stand to lose this game. You cannot comprehend what this means to me."

  "I understand...I’ll do better. We can recoup - New Hope still has members, money.."

  "Not for long - your rulers love money - more than they love you, Demetrios, for all your bribes, and thanks to your...well-chosen...Chief Financial Officer, the IRS now know where to find it."

  Demetrios quailed. He could hardly breathe. He had seen his God displeased before - but not like this. This was a demon, a mighty Satan, bent on his destruction and punishment. He thought fleetingly of Mephistopheles - and despaired. Would he be cast into a fiery pit? Or was there a chance that the Saint could use him again?

  "The Lady - she - she said that I did well. She cares for me," he ventured bravely. If the Madonna could protect him, perhaps this darkness would pass.

  "The Lady - as you call her - has no use for you. You were a momentary amusement, nothing more. "

  Demetrios slid under his enormous desk. The black eyes followed him, a gleam of amusement lighting the shadow.

  "You think to hide from me? You believe I am going to cast you down into the pit? There is no pit. I am not Satan. "

  Demetrios stared up in hope. A reprieve?

  "There is no Satan - but there is a hell, and a mistress of it. I believe you promised to retrieve a woman from the dead, did you not? Well, perhaps Ereshkigal will honour the bargain after all. She likes to play with handsome young men."

  "Ereshkigal?"

  "You called?"

  A spectral figure stood beside Set, the white skin drawn tight over its skull. Demetrios stared at the ghastly face.

  "Please don’t - I’ll just retire, I’ll go to a monastery, any monastery - anywhere you choose. But don’t - "

  "That isn’t very flattering," remarked Ereshkigal, through her too-white teeth. "But I am sure you will warm to me. Come."

  She held out her hand. Demetrios came unwillingly, crawling over the expensive carpet in a white sarong soiled by fear. She laughed, and pulled him up beside her, caressing his cheek with one long black fingernail.

  "I like the look of you, young man. You will be much more amusing than the girl, indeed."

  Demetrios’ last sight of the land of the living was Set’s black eyes, amused and cruel, as he sank in to the cold earth, a skeletal hand clutched firmly in his silky hair.

  Chapter 44

  There has not been a Council of the Immortals like this since the Game began, and the War ended.

  All are gathered together - even Baldur. He stands now at the right hand of Isis, glimmering bright against her dark, cool power, while Artemis and Ishtar stand arm in arm close by. Zeus-Ra sits on the great throne, which he will not occupy for much longer. The assembly of immortals spills out the great doors and into the atrium - immortals dark, fair, red-haired, beautiful, ugly and all things in between. As they have chosen to be, so they are.

  Ereshkigal sits at the foot of the table, as Zeus-Ra faces her at the head. She is the strangest one here, with her bone-face and her white eyes, but she does not care. She looks straight ahead, bitterness in her soul. These were the ones that cast her down to the dark lands - she hates them. But she will do her duty.

  Zeus-Ra rings the bell for silence, and his quavery old voice sounds out incongruously in the marble hall.

  "Mistress of Souls, what is your verdict?"

  They all know what the verdict will be. Set glowers from beside Naina, and from time to time, Zeus-Ra bends a fierce eye on them both.

  "In hundredth place, Hephaistion, with four billion, three hundred and seventy six souls, equalling a total weight of nine hundred carats..."

  "In fifty-sixth place, Turan, with six billion, three hundred thousand and eighty-nine souls, equalling a total weight of eleven hundred carats..."

  Her voice drones on and on, through each minor God playing the Game, and still Set glowers, and Baldur looks ahead with serenity, not blinking. It is long, and tedious - but no one moves. No one knows what will happen, after the winner is called and Zeus-Ra vacates his long-held chair.

  "In fifth place, Set, with twenty billion souls, equalling a total weight of ten thousand carats..."

  Set curses. Fifth place! He is not even in the top three. All the work of that fool Demetrios - who is now hanging in irons in Ereshkigal’s play room, entertaining her for as long as his looks last - then to be cast into a glass tower for eternity, with the other dead tokens. Serve him right.

  "In third place, Ares, with twenty five billion souls, equalling 15,000 carats... "

  Ishtar pats her Assigned’s bulging forearm. "You did well, husband."

  He mutters into his beard, flattered despite himself. But he never thought he would win, and he has lost interest in the game anyway.

  "In second place, Ishtar, with thirty two thousand souls, equalling 22,000 carats, for the love of love."

  He squeezes her round behind, and reaches a hand benea
th her skirt, which she brushes away. "Later, brother."

  "In first place.." there is a collective intake of breath, as Ereshkigal plays the moment for all it is worth. After all, she is not allowed up to the light often, and she wants to prolong her moment as long as she can. She looks about her. She rules over all the tokens there has ever been. She knows what goes on in their weak minds, and every little thing about them. She would be the winner of this Game - if only she was allowed to play it. And then - what a Game she would design. A Game of pain, and sorrow, and agony throughout eternity - and that would barely repay her loss.

  "In first place," she goes on in measured tones, "Isis, with forty three billion souls equalling 50,000 carats. I therefore declare Isis-Athena, daughter of Zeus-Ra, of the Gold Clan, the winner of the Game."

  There is uproar. Immortals fly from the gallery to congratulate Isis, who stands clear eyed, patient, waiting. Zeus-Ra lifts himself from his chair with difficulty, helped by Hera, his assigned. She shoots a look of pure hatred at Isis. She will no longer be co-ruler of Asgard - she will be nobody in particular. Isis permits herself a small smile. She does not like Hera - her spite does not endear her to anyone.

  Isis moves to the high seat and sits gracefully in the place her father has vacated.

  "And now," pronounces Ereshkigal in her thin, high voice, "the Game must end, and another begin. Let the tokens be swept from the board." She has been waiting to speak these words for a long time. Perhaps they will choose another to keep the souls. Perhaps she will be allowed to take her place up here, with the others, in the sunlight...

  Isis looks directly at Baldur, and then around the multitude.

  "This I will not do," she says, in her deep, cool voice.

  There is uproar. Ereshkigal hisses from the foot of the table,

  "But you must. At the beginning of the Game, it was agreed. The board must be swept, and a new Game put in place. Only so can we preserve the peace."

  Isis nods gravely.