“What about you, Hippolyta?” Selene asked softly, stroking the dog’s head. “Any ideas? I could use some help here.” The dog dutifully began to sniff around the room, snuffling from one end to the other. She barreled under the bed, nearly lifting its legs off the ground.
“They looked under there,” said Ruth. But Hippo would not be dissuaded. She snuffed a little longer, then began to whimper.
“She’s probably just smelling a mouse in the walls,” Selene said, not daring to hope. “Come on, mutt, get out of there and let me see.” Hippo scuttled backward, and Selene shifted the brass bedstead farther into the room. The dog whimpered again and pawed at one of the floorboards. The edge of the narrow plank was chipped, as if by a blunt tool. Selene dug a key out of her pocket and levered up the floorboard. The faint smell of bay leaves wafted into the room. There, beneath a bundle of dried laurel, lay two thick sheaves of papers. I should’ve known, Selene thought. Theo said she liked hidden compartments, secret ciphers. The first document contained images of papyri fragments—thousands of them—all painstakingly pieced together to form an imperfect whole. Beside the Greek characters were Helen’s own translations. The other stack of papers contained only her cramped script. The cover page read:
A MYSTERY SOLVED
THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND REBIRTH OF THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES
by Helen Emerson
Selene sat back heavily on the floor and began to leaf through the stack. In the lower left corner of each page was a number: five hundred and twenty-three pages of tiny, nearly illegible script. Selene glanced out the small window. The sky glowed pastel blue. “Ruth, I’m going to need your help.” She held out the second half of the papers. “I can’t read all of this fast enough.”
“I’m just a scientist,” she demurred.
“This isn’t exactly my field either. Just tell me if you see any clue about the location of the Telesterion—the Hall of Completion where the climax of the Mystery, the Mysteriotides Nychtes, takes place.”
Ruth stepped cautiously into the room and sat beside Selene on the floor. Neither woman dared disturb the neatly made bed. They began to read.
After a few hours, her eyes burning from squinting at the minuscule writing, Selene decided Helen’s paper would’ve revolutionized the study of Ancient Greece—if she’d lived to publish it. Everything was just as Dennis had revealed. In the first chapter, she explained that she’d found evidence within the Oxyrhynchus papyri that the Greeks in Eleusis had once practiced human sacrifice as an integral part of their religion, killing a Corn King every year to appease the Earth Mother, and later, in homage to Demeter and Persephone. Then, the cult transformed, replacing human sacrifice with Dionysian worship and kykeon. Although the Eleusinian Mysteries continued until Emperor Theodosius outlawed them in the fourth century AD, Helen hypothesized that the later, tamer version of the ritual was no longer a truly transformative experience.
Ruth gasped, interrupting Selene’s reading. Face white, she held out a page.
“‘Only by re-creating and reenacting this earlier version,’” Selene read, “‘not the sanitized alternative written about in previously recognized ancient sources, can modern scholars hope to understand the Mystery in its full power. Accordingly, this chapter will outline a New Eleusis Mystery with which we might test this hypothesis, unlocking a force long forgotten.’”
“It was her idea,” Ruth whispered. “No wonder she kept it hidden.”
Selene nodded dumbly, reading ahead. “‘The original Mystery Cult, before its taming, gave nearly supernatural healing powers and longevity to its initiates. At its strongest, it may have even granted them immortality. Performed correctly, the New Eleusis rite could do the same.’”
Oh you foolish girl, Selene thought. You had no idea the quest for an eternal life would cut your own so cruelly short.
The outline of Helen’s new cult mirrored the events of the last few days, with a few notable exceptions. The hiera she suggested all related to the Earth Mother, Demeter, Persephone, and the other traditional Eleusinian deities: piglets, grain, and snakes. She made no mention of murder or mutilation during the beginning of the ritual. The targeting of virgins, the sacrifice of hounds, and the use of the boar tusk must have been the hierophant’s idea.
As she skimmed over the descriptions of the first seven nights of the ritual, Selene borrowed a map of Manhattan from Ruth and spread it out before her. Be like Theo, she thought. Look for the pattern, the hidden meaning on the opposite side of the vase. See how the pieces fit together. Swiftly, she inked a dark mark on each crime scene: first the Met, where the robberies had occurred on Day One of the ritual, then the others, ending with the Liberty Theater. Six sites so far. But seven days of Mysteries, she realized. She pulled out the napkin with Theo’s outline on it and found the missing day: the Agyrmos, the public gathering announcing the ritual’s formal beginning. It would’ve taken place the night before Helen’s murder, but she and Theo had never identified its location.
“What did Helen do the night before she was killed?”
“She went out before sunset. I was asleep when she got home, but it must’ve been after two a.m. The next morning, she seemed excited. She was… glowing almost. But she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Said it was a secret. A lot of things had become secret. These last few months I hardly saw her. She’d always been single-minded about her work, but this was unusual, even for her. She was always holed up in her room, off in the library, or out with Everett.”
Selene turned back to the papers. Helen wrote that the Agyrmos must take place in an open space, as close to the center of the city as possible. To conjure the theatrical rituals of the ancient world, an outdoor amphitheater would be best.
She looked back at the map. The center of the city was Central Park. And there in the middle of the park, not far from the Natural History Museum, was the Delacorte Theater, a large amphitheater best known for its free Shakespeare performances every summer. In the fall, however, the amphitheater stood abandoned. A late-night gathering on its stage might escape notice. She marked the location on the map.
She kept reading, skipping forward until she reached the eighth and ninth nights of the rituals, the Mysteriotides Nychtes. The papyri had revealed that the early, pre-Olympian version of the Unspeakable rituals that formed the rite’s climax would’ve taken place in a natural underground chamber, a symbolic representation of the Earth Mother’s womb. Helen believed that the Golden Age Athenians had built their Telesterion above this original site. But in order to be true to the ritual’s more ancient origins, she argued that the climax of the New Eleusis Mystery should take place, once again, in a cave.
“Huh,” Ruth said, pulling a photo from between the manuscript pages. “I wonder why she put this in here.”
“Let me see.” A picture of Helen and a dark, broad-shouldered man so handsome Selene had to catch her breath.
“That’s Everett,” Ruth was saying.
“No. It’s not.” Selene took the photo, her hands trembling, staring at a face intimately familiar—one she never thought she’d see again.
“What do you mean?” Ruth snatched the picture back. “How would you know? I’ve known him for a year—it’s definitely him.”
Selene looked down once more at the map before her.
That’s when she saw the pattern.
Riverside Park in the northwest, Mount Sinai Hospital in the northeast, the old cemetery beneath the Waldorf in Midtown East, the hidden Liberty Theater in Midtown West. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History strung through the middle of the city on either side of Central Park, with the Delacorte amphitheater between them. A star for each broad shoulder. A star for each strong leg. Three stars for his belt.
Only the sword was missing.
The hierophant was no god. Only the son of one.
The Hunter had returned.
Chapter 42
HURLER OF THE JAVELIN
Icy water d
ripped onto Theo’s cheek. He woke with a start, surfacing from a dream of murdered women only to plunge into a waking nightmare. Handcuffed and gagged, he lay on damp stone, his pulse racing. Another cold drop struck his face. Rolling out of the way, he realized his captors had tied a rope around his ankles and secured it to an iron ring hammered into the rock wall. He could only move a few feet in either direction.
Looking around at his stone prison, Theo couldn’t help thinking, See, Brandman, they may not have used it for the Asklepia, but there is a cave in Manhattan. At least, he hoped he was still in Manhattan. The only thing worse than being kidnapped would be being kidnapped and spending the night in Staten Island.
Mortared stones plugged most of the tall, narrow entrance, but a low opening admitted a thin sunbeam. They must’ve knocked me unconscious, and I’ve been passed out all day, he realized. Fighting the sense of growing panic, he tried to take stock of his surroundings. Birds chirped nearby, and he thought he could hear the lapping of water. Through the cave’s mouth, he glimpsed the bottom of a narrow staircase hewn into a rock face, descending into muddy, leaf-strewn ground. A cave in a park then, he surmised. He opened his mouth to scream for help, then remembered the duct tape across his lips. He tried shouting anyway, but only a weak moan emerged. He beat the ground with the heels of his shoes, but the muffled thuds would never carry. Theo struggled against the metal handcuffs and the ropes around his ankles, but to no avail.
Finally, exhaustion and fear left him motionless, helplessly watching as the sunlight crept across the ground, turning from yellow to gold to orange. When it disappeared entirely, the cave plunged into twilight. The cult will come for me soon, he realized. No use calling for help any longer. Sane New Yorkers didn’t wander in parks after dark. Only deranged classicists bent on torturing their least favorite colleague.
His fellow professors’ roles started to fall into place. Bill Webb wanted to lead the cops astray. That’s why he’d worked so hard to implicate Theo. Nate Balinski must have learned how to brew kykeon from Dennis during one of their old grad school parties. Fritz Mossburg worked as a part-time consultant at the Met; he would have had access to the stolen vases. His absence from Helen’s memorial service now made sense—he must have been the initiate shot in the stomach at Rockefeller Center. Likely he was now dead, hence the presence of only four men at the Liberty Theater. Martin Andersen—awkward, harmless Martin—had used the shoes he’d borrowed from Theo to make the footprints at Helen’s crime scene. Any one them could’ve gotten Theo’s hair off the back of his desk chair and planted it in the hospital basement. And Everett? Passionate, loving, charismatic Everett? He had played it all perfectly—luring Theo right into his clutches. But why? Why would any of them join the cult in the first place?
Theo leaned back against the damp wall, slowly thumping his head against the stone. If I knock hard enough, I could knock myself senseless again. Maybe then I won’t notice when they kill me. Would that be better? Had Helen known she was about to die? He realized suddenly that Brandman never told him whether she was already dead when they cut her apart. Will Everett kill me first? Or cut off my cock while I watch? Burn it maybe. A sacrifice to the gods. That would be more in keeping with the tradition of the Mysteries, I suppose. Even facing death, he was still trying to figure out the scholarly angle. He laughed at himself, the sound a choked, muffled cough through the duct tape. Someone watching would’ve thought he’d lost his mind. At least laughing’s better than pissing myself with fear.
Footsteps outside the cave. He crawled forward on his knees and elbows as far as the rope would allow, but could see nothing in the darkness except the faint outline of the narrow entrance, a dark slightly less chthonic than that within the cave. Be like Selene, he thought, HEAR! Yes, he could hear more than one set of footsteps descending the stone stairs. Three, maybe, he wasn’t sure. Slow, deliberate, loud. Not Selene, then. How absurd that I still think she’s going to rescue me. She has no idea where I am.
The bright circle of a flashlight beam skittered across the bottom of the step and into the cave, seeking him out. He squeezed his eyes shut as the light found his face, holding up his bound hands to block the sudden glare.
“Still alive, then,” said a voice he recognized as Nate Balinski’s. “Hasn’t died from fear, at least.”
Theo lowered his hands and blinked away the colored haloes in his vision until four hooded figures materialized before him. Three wore identical wooden masks crowned with false black hair. On the night of the Pompe, they’d worn the face of Comedy. Tonight, Tragedy’s grotesque, twisted frown stared out malevolently from beneath their hoods.
Theo could tell one mystes from the other by their bearing: stocky Nate, gangly Andersen, and stooped Webb. Everett, of course, towered over them all in his purple robes. Once again, he wore the mask of an invincible warrior hero. Fitting, Theo thought grimly, since despite limping off after I stabbed him with a broken bow two nights ago, he shows no signs of injury.
Everett squatted in front of Theo and removed the gag.
As soon as he could move his lips, Theo demanded to know where Gabriela was.
Nate Balinski spoke up. “Who knows? We left her at the theater.”
“If she’s hurt…” Theo began.
“You should be worrying more about yourself,” came Everett’s cool response.
“You don’t need to wear those masks, you know,” said Theo. “I know who you are.”
“Very smart, Theo-bore, as usual,” Nate said, leaving his mask in place.
“How could you? Everett—you of all people. How could you kill Helen?”
“I had no choice. She had a role to play, just as you do.” Everett’s dark eyes glinted behind the mask.
“Oh? What role is that?”
Everett chuckled. “You’re a Makarites, Theo. Didn’t you know?”
“A what?”
“And that makes you the best bait I could ask for.”
“If you mean Selene—”
“The woman with him at Rockefeller Center?” interrupted Bill Webb. “The one who killed Fritz?”
“That’s one thing our genius here never figured out,” said Everett, rising to his feet. He turned to his mystai. “She’s not really a woman.”
“You could’ve fooled me,” said Nate. “Did you see the legs on that chick?”
“No, she’s not a woman at all… she’s a god. And so am I. Or at least, I will be.” Everett pulled off his mask and flashed Theo a dazzling smile. “As soon as we kill our Corn King.”
Phoebe Hautman first visited the sacred cave in the middle of Manhattan in the midst of a blizzard in 1643. She’d been hunting along the edges of the lake when the winds kicked up. The biting cold pierced through her leather leggings and fur cloak, chilling her nearly impervious skin. The snow wouldn’t kill her, but it would make for a deeply unpleasant night. She walked along the shore of a narrow cove, looking for shelter. That’s when she saw the firelight beckoning through the tall, narrow cleft in the rock. She snuck to the edge of the cave entrance and peered inside.
A dozen Lenni Lenape sat huddled around their fire in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder. Although Phoebe couldn’t understand their chant, she felt a familiar, tingling tug that told her they sang to the aspect of Kishelemukong who helped them in the hunt, begging for sustenance in the depths of winter. Slowly, she entered the cave like an answer to their prayers, holding out the carcass of a white fox as an offering. They took her in without question. If they thought it strange that a white woman dressed and hunted as a man, they didn’t show it. They had long ago accepted the inscrutability of Europeans.
This was a holy place, their shaman told her in his broken combination of Dutch and English. Close to the heart of the Earth, its narrow opening like a woman’s cleft, its wide chamber like a mother’s womb.
Phoebe returned often to the cave, even after the last Lenni Lenape had left the island. Eventually, Dianne Delia made the same pilgrimage to sit in t
he last ancient sacred space in Manhattan. When the city leaders built Central Park in the 1860s, the “Indian Cave” became a popular tourist attraction. Decades later, Officer Melissa DuBois patrolled it regularly. In 1929 alone, the NYPD arrested 335 men for unwanted groping in the cave’s shadowy depths. In part due to the patrolwomen’s protests that the place had become a magnet for perversion, the city walled up the cave in the 1930s and removed it from maps of the park. Now, few people knew it had ever existed.
The Huntress hadn’t been to the cave in eighty years, but she remembered where it was, at the tip of a narrow cove on the north end of the lake, just south of Central Park’s Great Lawn. Not far from the Delacorte amphitheater. Right where Orion’s sword would fall. The constellation would be complete.
The sun had set by the time Selene entered the tangle of woods above the Lake. The place was a favorite destination for dog walkers during the day, but this late at night, with the chill of autumn in the air, she had it to herself. She sprinted down the curving paths, hurrying toward the two men who loved her.
Barricades labeled “Restoration in Progress. Please Keep Out” blocked her way. Orion wasn’t taking any chances that a passerby might stumble upon his ceremony. She vaulted the barrier and continued to run until she saw a glimmer of moonlight reflected off the cove to her left. There, nearly hidden by the surrounding trees, rough stone steps descended a steep hill into darkness.
Javelin ready, Selene crept down the stairs. Sure enough, someone had removed the bottom portion of the stones blocking the cave entrance. She stopped with her toes brushing against the square of firelight pouring from the opening. I am no wild girl tonight, she reminded herself. I will not rush headlong into the fray. With only her javelin and kitchen knives, she’d be vulnerable to attack, and she couldn’t predict Orion’s reaction to her appearance. He’d almost killed her at Rockefeller Center, yet he could not have forgotten their love, any more than she had. What would it be like to look once more upon his face? To catch his dark gaze in her own? Her heart raced at the thought. She knew Orion deserved to die for the murders he committed, but for once, she ignored the imperatives of her own code. If she could forgive her brother for his crimes, didn’t she owe Orion at least that much?
The Immortals Page 35