by David Welch
He heard a door open, and headed downstairs. He met her in the great room as she slid something into a cabinet, no doubt the pipe. Getting up early, hiding the pipe . . . clearly it was something she didn’t want him to see.
“Morning,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. The smell of tobacco was present, but he acted like he didn’t notice it.
“Morning,” she replied. She grabbed a remote and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until she found some show on ancient Greece. With a half-grin she put down the remote, and headed into the kitchen, the television blaring in the background. In a matter of moments, Des heard bacon sizzling, causing him to nearly forget the weird pipe-smoking thing, and making him attracted to her just a little bit more. He moved into the kitchen, to see if he could help.
As he did, a professor came on the screen and began talking. “One of the mysteries archeologists and linguists have still not deciphered is the Linear A script found at Minoan sites in Crete . . .” The moment the words were said, a half-smile formed on Artemis’ lips, accompanied by the faintest hint of a head shake. Though almost imperceptible, her reaction struck him as strange. Why she would react to Linear A, he had no idea. Linear A didn’t strike him as funny, unless she was sarcastically reacting to the inability of “intellectuals” to decode something after a century of trying.
It made him feel slightly unsettled. He’d woken up exhilarated, but now a shadow of doubt crept into his mind. He wasn’t sure why, though. It made sense. Native American rituals, archaeology, the huge collection in her basement: it all pointed toward a history buff. And Linear A was one of the great mysteries of archaeology. Heck, he remembered one of his professors back at Dukeston spending an entire class raving about the various attempts to decipher it.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
He realized he was lost in his thoughts, and glanced at her.
“What?”
“You were staring off into space,” she said.
“Just daydreaming,” he replied.
“Oh? Anything good?” she asked.
“I was wondering if artificial intelligences will be racist,” he lied.
Now it was her turn to look perplexed.
“You know, if they’d divide themselves up. Computers are better than robots that are better than appliances . . .” he continued.
“Why would a computer be racist?” she asked.
He shrugged, replying, “Why would a person?”
She gave him a funny smile, shook her head, and turned back to the bacon. Des moved back to the great room, collapsing in the black leather sectional in front of the TV. He numbly watched the show on Greece, listening to the professors prattle on. He was entirely unaware that behind him in the kitchen, standing at the counter separating it from the great room, Artemis watched him with worried eyes.
6
Salinas, California
“I think we’re far enough away, Gramps,” the old man croaked. His voice was a husk of what it had once been, but the words still came out quickly, with a spark of energy under them.
“Yeah,” Ares replied, running a hand through his close-cropped brown hair. Muscular, tall, and fit, he was quite the contrast to his grandson, Bradley Allan Steffords, who was crouched and worn, his face lined from ninety-three years of laughter and sadness and everything in between. His eyes, though, were a familiar green. Where once the two men could’ve been mistaken for brothers, now their eyes were all that spoke to the family resemblance.
Ares set the wheelchair back on the path. A small slope ran down from their location, back toward the retirement home. It was noon, and warm. The city of Salinas rolled out in front of them. Bradley took a deep breath.
“Oh, it’s good to get out of that place,” he said in a raspy voice. “They won’t let me go off the patio anymore. Say my wheelchair might get stuck.”
Ares nodded. Until about a year ago, Bradley had been walking, albeit with a cane. But he’d been known to the staff as a wanderer. He liked to take long, if slow, walks to the edge of the home’s grounds. Ares had put him up in one of the nicest retirement centers he could find. It had a few acres of field behind it. Bradley had always been an explorer, and Ares had figured this would allow him some fragment of the freedom he’d once enjoyed.
“They’re all a bunch of pussies,” Bradley grumbled.
“It’s their job, Brad,” Ares replied, leaning back against a nearby tree. “They’re just not used to outdoorsy ninety-year-olds.”
“Bah,” said Bradley with a dismissive wave. “They’re just lazy. With what you pay to get me into a place this nice, I should have my own butler!”
“You do,” Ares said, pointing to the man at the bottom of the hill who was watching them intently.
“He’s not a butler,” Bradley said. “Barely even a nurse. And what kind of man becomes a nurse? Eh? Some fool who couldn’t get his MD, that’s who!”
Ares chuckled.
“So how’s life treating you, Brad?” he asked.
“Better than it’s treating you,” Bradley replied. “You look like some fool up and killed your new puppy.”
Ares frowned. “Hermes was killed. Things are a little up in the air.”
“Ah,” Bradley said. “That’s too bad. How’d it happen?”
“Car accident,” Ares lied. He didn’t think Brad needed to spend his final years worrying about Lenka and his insane vendetta.
“Well,” Bradley said sadly, “leave that part out of the epic poems. Say he went out saving the world or something.”
“I don’t think anybody’s written an epic poem for centuries,” said Ares.
“Then post something on that interweb video thing the nurses are always lookin’ at,” Brad declared.
“Internet,” Ares corrected.
“Whatever. I don’t got time to learn all this stuff,” Brad said.
“Still busy playing dirty old man?”
“I’m old, I ain’t dead,” Brad huffed. “Besides, I got a full schedule. You ain’t the only one who pulls me away from the nurses. Conner came by just yesterday! Brought that Indian wife of his and their little one.”
“Conner . . .” said Ares. Conner was Bradley’s grandson, and his great-great-grandson. And he’d just had a baby.
“You should meet ’em,” Brad said.
“No,” Ares replied firmly.
“Yeah, yeah, nothing past grandkids. Gets too confusing,” said Brad. “Keep your secret identity secret. You know, that whole immortality thing—”
“Is a cast iron bitch,” Ares finished. He’d heard it before.
“Cast iron,” Brad concurred. He sighed, staring down toward the nurse.
“You bring ’em?” Bradley asked, a smile on his weathered face.
“Yeah I got ’em,” Ares replied, reaching into his shirt pocket. He removed two cigars, handing one to his grandson. He lit it, then lit his own. Below they could see the nurse clench his fist, a scowl of disapproval crossing his face.
“Heh,” laughed Bradley. “We run across Guadalcanal with Japs shootin’ at us and that prick tells me smoking is ‘too dangerous.’ Ninety-three years old, and he’s afraid I might get cancer!”
Ares laughed, and puffed his cigar. It was a tradition they’d started long ago, after a particularly bad day of fighting on Guadalcanal. They’d sat atop a burned-out bunker and puffed away. He remembered the day vividly. Before it, Bradley had been a relatively restrained, quiet young man. After that bloody day, surviving wave after wave of attacks, watching most of the platoon get shot down, some switch had flipped inside the man. He’d started seeing the world as the madhouse it was, and had become the platoon’s “damned crazy son of a bitch.” Two dozen Japanese soldiers on Okinawa could attest to that, or they would have been able to if Bradley hadn’t shot them all dead. Three medals and a half-dozen citat
ions later, he came home, where he went through three wives, fathered four children, then made, lost, and made a fortune on Wall Street. He’d finally settled down in his mid-forties with a stewardess twenty years his junior. They’d never bothered to marry, but he had stayed with her faithfully until she had passed away ten years ago. Far too soon, in Ares’ opinion. Of course, for Brad “settling down” meant three decades traveling the world and spending every penny of his fortune living the good life. The three girls he’d had with Louise the stewardess weren’t entirely happy about that last part, but luckily they were all smart enough to find well-paying jobs.
Thinking of the ‘old’ days made Ares smile.
“You do that too much,” he said, puffing away at his cigar.
“Huh?” Ares asked.
“Get lost in the past,” Brad replied. “Gotta look to the future! Always! Even you.”
“Easy for you to say,” Ares said. “Much less fun when you’ve been looking forward to the future for five thousand years.”
“Wah, wah,” Brad mocked. “I live forever. Boo hoo!”
Ares shook his head, not getting pulled into it. Mortals, even ones who grew old enough to be tired of life, could never really understand.
“All right, you don’t wanna play today,” Brad said, realizing the strategic nature of his grandfather’s sudden silence. “So, how’s Gramma Dita doing?”
“You know she doesn’t believe me when I tell her you still call her that,” Ares said.
“So I should go back to calling her my ‘weird step-grandmother Goddess of Love?!’”
“No,” Ares replied. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Ah, all these years, and you still ain’t got a sense of humor,” Brad said, then looked to the heavens. “Youth is wasted on the old!”
He laughed loudly, and took another puff from his cigar.
“Not that I wouldn’t mind having some of it back,” he said following a long exhalation.
“Careful what you wish for, Brad,” Ares said. “You got the—”
“The better end of the deal, ya keep saying that,” Brad said. “You’re so certain I’m gonna pass on and be with Jesus and all my family. But from my end of the stick I see uncertainty, always have. Life I know. I love it, scars and all. In fact, I can honestly say I know nothing else!”
“There is more, Brad,” Ares said. “And you’ll get to see it long before I do.”
“Well, I’ll trade with ya if your pal Jesus is up for it,” Brad said, looking to the sky with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t think he’d go for that,” Ares said, not saying that he’d never submit his own grandson to his fate, even if it had been possible. Better that he pass naturally and spend an eternity in Heaven than be forced to live here forever.
“Figures,” Brad said. “Ah, no use arguing against nature, eh?”
“I suppose not,” Ares said, Lenka’s image appearing in his mind. He silently wished his nephew would grow to be as wise as Brad. And as sane.
“Heh,” Brad laughed. “Well, Gramps, there is one thing I think you could do for me.”
“Bring more cigars?” Ares asked.
“No, uh, yes. Do that,” Brad said. “But I figure since you’re payin’ these guys so many thousands of dollars to play nice to me, you might have enough pull to get me a female nurse!”
“You think you’ve got enough pep left to seduce middle-aged women?” Ares said, shaking his head.
“No harm in trying,” Brad said. “Besides, you know that insurance you bought me covers Viagra? Hint, hint.”
“Fine, fine,” Ares said, not liking the direction the conversation was going. “I’ll put in a request.”
“Excellent,” Brad rasped. “Maybe they can get old Nurse I-Failed-Med-School reassigned to Rubin’s room. That old queen’s gayer than a three-dollar bill!”
Ares sighed, shaking his head and fighting a grin. “You know they call me every time you cause trouble?”
“You should be thanking me,” Brad said, puffing away at his cigar. “Wouldn’t want your life to get boring, would we now?”
“No,” Ares deadpanned. “That would be terrible . . .”
Big Sur, California
When he got back to the house, her car was already there. She was standing on the deck that jutted from the front of the house, overhanging the mountainside. Ares frowned as he got out of his truck. She knew he was here; it was impossible not to hear the engine from this distance. But Aphrodite made no motion. She stood slumped over the railing, her weight on her elbows, staring out onto the blue expanse of the Pacific.
He knew better than to try to fix this. He’d seen it a dozen times, when other immortals, people she’d spent so many centuries knowing and loving, had died. It had been even worse when her children had been alive. Mortal or immortal, when they died she shut down, inconsolable, for days.
He paced up a small set of steps and walked out onto the deck. Moving up beside her, he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.
“I’m sorry, Dita,” he said.
“I know,” she said, her voice soft and weak. “I . . . I just don’t know how . . . how did Lenka find him? He was careful. We’ve all been so careful . . .”
“I don’t know,” Ares said, worried about the same thing. “But we’ll find out.”
“I hate that man,” Aphrodite cursed, unconvincing as ever. Whenever she got mad and tried to act angry, she came off like an irritated schoolgirl. It just wasn’t in her to rage in a way that put the fear of God into people. But Ares knew her well enough to know she was sincere in her hatred. Even if she’d never been able to truly express rage, she was all too capable of feeling it.
“He’ll be dead soon,” Ares said, hoping he sounded more confident about that thought than he felt. “The man’s in his sixties. I don’t think he’ll last long enough to find and run down the rest of us.”
“Unless he found us all already,” Aphrodite said, her words dead and lifeless. “And he’s closing in on us as we speak.”
“The motion sensors haven’t picked up anything but me,” Ares said. “There’s nothing human within two miles of here.”
A heavy laugh escaped her lips.
“Hermes always used to say you were paranoid,” she said.
“Prepared,” Ares replied. “I have too much to lose to be anything else.”
He felt her relax a little at the words.
“It’s like you know exactly what to say,” she mused with a knowing grin. “How could that be?”
“Maybe ’cause I love you,” Ares replied.
“You do?” she said.
“You didn’t know?” he said playfully.
“I’d heard rumors,” she answered.
He rested his head in the nook of her shoulder. A cool breeze blew her hair around him. She shifted in his arms.
“Stay with me for a while?” she asked, her voice somehow strong and fragile at the same time.
“Always,” he replied.
7
Grand Lake, Colorado
Desmond couldn’t sleep. He lay naked, spooned with Artemis, his eyes wide open and staring at the side of her head. Bright moonlight streamed through the glass doors of the balcony, illuminating her in a blue light. He could barely make out a small scar, right above her left ear, hidden under hair. His unquiet mind noted that it was the first imperfection he’d seen on her body.
He turned, frustrated that he was still awake. It didn’t matter that they’d been out hiking all day, and that they’d had three bouts of energetic sex. It didn’t matter that he could feel the fatigue in his joints and muscles. He still couldn’t sleep.
Their day had been little different from others. They’d laughed, held each other, done all the things couples did. Yet in the back of his mind there was always the image of
her smoking the pipe on the dock.
His mind had come up with plenty of reasons why this wasn’t a big deal. And rationally he knew that they were the most likely explanations. Maybe she was indeed partially Native American. This could’ve been some gesture to honor her forefathers. So why had she done it? He couldn’t put his finger on it, and it gnawed at his consciousness. It bothered him that it did. He idly wondered if, for some subconscious reason, he was trying to sabotage things; maybe he was looking for some reason to be suspicious. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that. And overthinking things was the great downside of intelligence. Perhaps if he were dumber, this wouldn’t bother him at all and he’d be blissfully asleep, cradled against a magnificent woman, content with the world.
Too late for that, he thought to himself. Sighing softly, so as not to wake her, he slipped from the bed. His tired legs reacted painfully to the move, but he got up anyway. He pulled on his pants and left the bedroom.
He didn’t know where exactly he was going, not at first, but he knew lazing around in bed wasn’t going to bring him any peace. By the time he reached the great room a new urge had overtaken him. He got himself a glass of water and made his way down to the basement. He walked into what he had taken to calling her weapon room, wincing as he flipped on the light. When his eyes adjusted, he paced into the center of the room and took in the scene. It hadn’t changed since he had last been down here. Weapons and artifacts were mounted on the walls, others sat in display cases. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the wonders several times, unsure of what he was doing.
Then he stopped. Beneath the picture of the Civil War nurse who looked remarkably like Artemis was a small bookshelf. Most of it was filled with old tomes, first editions of classic novels from Britain and France. They were probably worth thousands. He moved to it, wondering if she’d let him borrow some. He’d read a bunch of them, the more famous ones, but plenty of them were new to him. He worked his way through them, giving each a quick flip-through. Then, after some forgotten Gothic ghost story about an abandoned abbey, he stopped.