No one said anything, but Selene knew what they were thinking. There was something pitiful in the ease with which mankind recovered from the death of a god. His murder unleashed a brief paroxysm of power, stronger than anything he’d wielded for a thousand years, and then … he was simply gone.
If I die, Selene wondered as she brushed their prints off the balcony railing and doorknobs, will the world remember me for even that long?
Chapter 25
SONS OF HERA
“What do you see, Professor?” Detective Freeman stared at Theo expectantly from across the banquet table in the center of the Rainbow Room.
I see a dead god, Theo thought. Although I don’t know which one. And more importantly, I don’t know if he’s the only one. He’d never heard back from Selene after his text.
“Did you contact Ms. DiSilva yet?” he asked, trying to keep the panic from his voice.
“We left her a voice mail. You haven’t heard from her?” the cop asked casually, but Theo could tell by the sudden narrowing of her eyes that she was curious about their relationship.
He shook his head, not trusting himself to say more. If she got hurt, and I was off sulking at Ruth’s, I’m never going to forgive myself. After he’d left the Earth and Space Center, he’d spent the rest of the day in his office at Columbia, poring over the limited scholarship on Bronze Age religion until five in the morning.
When he’d finally taken a break to make some tea, he checked the New York Times website on his phone, more out of habit than anything else, and learned about the city’s strange outburst of violent crime around Rockefeller Center. He’d known then that another god had died. Terrified, he’d called Selene’s cell nonstop for two hours. When Freeman finally phoned to ask him to help investigate the murder of a male victim, he’d felt immensely relieved. But if Selene hadn’t been killed in the cult ritual—where was she?
He forced himself to put aside his fears and look down once more at the enormous man sprawled across the table with his heart cut out. He lay on a sheepskin rug amid the remains of a feast. Not exactly the usual setting for a Roman altar.
“It doesn’t look like any cult ritual in particular.” He struggled to find something useful to tell Freeman. “Most of the foods are all typical of a Roman feast, but the raw meat generally points to Dionysian cult ritual—although there’s no wine, so that doesn’t fit.”
“And the chairs?” she pressed. “Why are they all along one side? It reminds me of the Last Supper. But that’s the wrong religion, obviously.”
“I suppose,” he said with a sigh. “Although they’re all syncretic, so who knows? Anything seems possible at this point.”
“And the ram’s horns? The sheepskin?”
“Rams and ewes were common sacrificial animals.” An allusion to the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece? Or more zodiacal symbolism? he wondered. So far, he hadn’t found a Bronze Age cult with an emphasis on astronomy, but the pieces Minh had laid out fit too perfectly to be mere coincidence.
“Whoever did this knew their way around a security system,” Freeman went on, “There’s no footage of these guys entering or leaving.”
“Maybe the cameras just got busted during the earthquake?” Theo offered. He’d felt the shaking all the way uptown even though the epicenter had been five miles off the southern tip of Manhattan. The tidal wave never got above the Financial District. The Upper West Side remained high and dry.
Freeman shook her head. “If it was from the earthquake, then they were extraordinarily lucky, because the only cameras that are broken are the ones in the elevators and those from here to the rooftop.”
“What about the staff?”
“Nope. Our killers rented the room under a false name and asked to do all their own catering. Insisted on coming up on the service elevator from the subbasement and asked that no one be present.”
“And the staff let them? They didn’t think that sounded, oh, I don’t know, just a little bit like a human sacrifice cult trying to get away with murder?”
Freeman raised a brow at his tone, but went on calmly, “It’s amazing what a hundred thousand dollars from an untraceable shell company can buy.”
“Aw, Christ. So we’re looking for a murder cult of millionaires?”
The detective laughed shortly. “This is New York City. Try billionaires.”
She sobered immediately as Captain Hansen emerged from the kitchen entrance, scrawling notes angrily on a pad. When the older woman looked up to see Theo standing beside the detective, her face settled into a grim scowl. “You need to get off my crime scene, Professor. With the tsunami and the riots, we’re under intense scrutiny right now. The last thing we need is a civilian slowing down our investigation.”
“Slowing down—”
Hansen swung up a sharp hand to cut him off. She radiated fury, and Theo couldn’t understand for the life of him why it was directed at him.
“We’ve got another pack of serial killers on our hands,” she snapped. “And once more, we’re way behind. Rock Center again? This is clearly the work of Everett Halloran, and yet you refuse to pursue that avenue. You’ve told us nothing that could’ve prepared us for this, and nothing that will stop it from happening again.” She turned from Theo’s stunned expression to glare at Freeman. “Who told you to call him?”
“Professor Schultz is a consultant—”
“Then send him a description of the crime scene, if you must, but he shouldn’t be here. Not with his attitude.”
“My what?” Theo’s indignation quickly subsumed his astonishment.
Hansen pursed her lips stubbornly. “You’re smarter than this, Professor. I know you’ve figured out more than you’re willing to tell.” Theo felt his cheeks turn hot. Could she put him behind bars for suspecting he was lying?
“You’re holding back, and I don’t know why,” she went on, taking a step closer to him; he could smell the cigarettes on her breath. “I thought you wanted to help us.”
“I’ve been researching all night,” he said, fighting to stay reasonable. “I’ve made some progress, and I’m working on an astronomical angle, but this new crime scene just doesn’t jibe with any cult I know about.”
The captain nodded dismissively. “Fine. Thanks for trying. Now go home. Detective Freeman wasn’t supposed to call you into the first crime scene. She certainly shouldn’t have summoned you to this one.”
“Then she shouldn’t have called me either?” Selene stood before them, arms crossed, looking ragged and exhausted—and thoroughly pissed off.
Theo barely heard her words. He was too glad to see her alive.
Hansen’s stern face melted into something closer to disappointment. “You don’t need to get involved in this, Selene.”
“A little late for that. Now, are you going to let me see the crime scene?”
“The police department’s been doing a piss-poor job of protecting the city recently.” A shadow flitted across Hansen’s face, more grief than anger. “We need to limit our exposure to more criticism. So no, Ms. DiSilva. You can’t come in here.”
Selene looked like she was about to snarl, and for once, Theo had no desire to hold her back. He’d thought he’d finally found an ally in Hansen. “Why the change of heart, Captain?” he asked, trying to keep his own anger under control.
“We never solved the last case, did we? Never found Everett Halloran. And you’ve told me nothing useful about this one. So I’m sorry if Detective Freeman has wasted your time, but I don’t intend to waste any more of my own.” With that, she turned on her heel and left.
Freeman’s face was a frozen mask of professionalism. “I’m sorry she spoke to you like that,” she said finally. “The captain’s under a lot of pressure.” Selene said nothing, only turned to leave.
“But if you think of anything … you’ll let me know?” Freeman called after her.
Theo followed Selene into the hallway. He couldn’t help touching her shoulder. The stormy look in her eyes
warned him against doing more.
“What happened?” he asked in a low whisper. “Who’s the victim? He’s an Athanatos, right?”
“Mars.”
Suddenly, Theo noticed the family resemblance. Selene looked more like the God of War than she did like her own twin. They had the same handsome, bold features. The same thin mouth. Even their eyes were a similar color, although his were now a flat gray, while Selene’s shone with her usual silver ferocity. “So he’s not the Pater. He probably had nothing to do with the cult.”
She nodded solemnly. “We got here too late to stop the murder. Too late to stop the brawling in the street. They say there are eight men dead. And four women.” He heard an uncharacteristic shudder in her voice. “We don’t know how it works, Theo. The ripple effect from our deaths. No one of Mars’s power has ever died before, so we didn’t know how bad it would be. We’re playing with forces we don’t understand, facing an enemy we know nothing about. I wanted this to be a fight between Athanatoi alone—I wanted to protect my city. But we’re destroying it, Theo. I can feel the cracks spreading. I can feel the foundations shuddering. I wanted to protect my family too. But they’re dying. They’re dying just out of reach.” She closed her eyes then, as if she couldn’t bear to witness any further destruction. All the fierceness she’d shown to the captain dissolved into a hopelessness that Theo had never seen before. He wanted nothing more than to fold her into his embrace, to tell her it was all going to be okay. But such words were mere platitudes. Truthfully, things might never be okay again.
They walked into the empty cocktail lounge at the end of the hall and stood by the windows.
“So Mars is dead … but you’re alive,” Theo said.
She looked at him, confused. “Yes, of course.”
He forced himself not to shout at her, but to say very calmly, “When I didn’t hear from you, I wasn’t sure.”
“Oh, Theo.” And then, she did something utterly shocking. She apologized. Her face crumpled, and she buried it in her hands. She made no audible cries, but her shoulders shook. Then very softly, she murmured, “I’m so sorry. You must have thought …”
Theo looked at the wing of raven black hair that cupped her cheek, its white streak a reminder of all she’d sacrificed for him. He relented, taking her in his arms and pressing her close to his chest. Over the top of her head, he looked around at the luxurious surroundings, the elegant flower arrangements. The world’s least romantic date at the Rainbow Room, he thought. Maybe someday they could come for dinner and dancing and be a normal couple, although that seemed unlikely for about a dozen reasons. But he could still dream.
“About the other night …” he said finally.
“You went to Ruth’s,” she said, pulling away. Not roughly, but purposefully.
“Yeah. She was the only—”
“Gabriela wasn’t home?”
“She’d ask too many questions,” he said quickly, although in truth he’d only ever thought of going to Ruth. He didn’t really want to examine that decision more closely.
Selene just nodded, as if it were all the same to her, but Theo wasn’t fooled. She obviously wishes I’d stayed with my lesbian best friend rather than someone very single and very straight. The thought heartened him. Maybe their argument at the Four Seasons could be forgotten. Maybe they weren’t so different after all.
When Theo’d arrived at the Rainbow Room, the whole of the city had spread below them, rosy in the dawn light. But now yet another snowstorm had moved in. They stood in the midst of a cloud that shrouded the windows with curtains of white. Selene gazed out anyway, as if she could read something in the pattern of snowflakes that scraped across the glass.
“I was wrong to tell you to stop searching for the culprit,” she said after a moment. “I was too eager to see the worst in the men in my family. Too eager to see the worst in all men, for that matter.” She tightened her hand briefly on his, and he knew it was her version of an apology for her comparing him to Lars two nights before. It was enough.
He threaded his fingers through hers. “I’ve been doing some research anyway.”
She gave him a small smile. “Of course. I don’t know why I worried that you’d listen to me.”
“It’s all pretty confused so far, but if we talk it through together, it might start to make sense.”
“Good. But let me go get Flint first. Paul and the others left, but he stayed with me all night on the observation deck while I waited for Freeman’s call.”
“Why?” Theo tried to ignore a suspicious twinge.
She sighed. “I don’t really know. He barely spoke all night. But I think he won’t leave until he knows the corpse has been removed respectfully. He might’ve spent most of his life hating Mars—but he was the only real brother he had left.” Something akin to compassion flitted across her face. A rare emotion for the Relentless One.
She turned toward the elevator bank. Then she paused and said without looking at him, “Will you wait, Theo? Can you find that much patience for me?” He knew she was speaking of much more than the next few moments.
He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. “You once said you’d waited for me for three thousand years. I think I can handle ten more minutes.”
Selene emerged from the elevator onto the sixty-eighth-floor observation deck. The tall glass walls cut the wind, but did nothing to stop the bitter cold from frosting her eyelashes. She breathed into her palms to warm her face and scanned the terrace. She peeked into the empty gift shop, where they’d spent the night in the relative warmth. No sign of Flint.
She’d gotten some sleep, but every time she’d cracked open her eyes, he’d been studying her with the same look of concentration he gave to the inner workings of a broken machine.
“Flint?” she called impatiently as she walked back onto the observation deck.
“Up here,” came the faint reply. She headed up the staircase to the next terrace, then up once again to the very top of the building. A narrow roof bordered by art deco crenellations and silver telescopes. No protective glass walls here; the wind whipped her hair and burned her cheeks as she crossed toward the hunched figure at the roof’s edge.
Flint rested his elbows on a stone parapet, his crutches leaning against the metal railing. A dying god at the edge of the world. His only brother is gone. Does he grieve? Rejoice? Or is he merely realizing that he’s one step closer to being truly alone?
She felt her impatience ebb. He seemed so lonely, so somber. She couldn’t help wanting to ease his pain.
Together, they stared out at the view in silence. The low-hanging storm cloaked the city below. Only the tops of the tallest skyscrapers emerged like mountain peaks from the clouds. The Empire State Building loomed before them like a god itself, its blocky mass illuminated in Christmas stripes, its antenna grazing another mass of clouds high above. To the east, the Chrysler Building pierced the heavens with its graceful spire. To the west, the Time Warner Center’s two towers marked the corner of Central Park. As the wind stirred the clouds, she caught glimpses of the yellow red green of traffic lights cascading down the avenues, a city alive and bustling despite the snow. Then the storm shifted and the curtain of clouds hid it all from view once more.
My city’s right there and yet I can’t see it. Can’t even hear it. She hadn’t felt so divorced from her home in centuries. “It reminds me of the view from Mount Olympus,” she said quietly. For all that she’d loved and protected the lands of her birth, she’d never really been of them; she’d been content to be an Olympian, watching from on high, unmoved by mortal cares.
“Olympus.” Flint nodded. “How much do you remember?”
“Snatches. Images. But most is a dream.”
“I have two clear memories. The one the poets tell of, when your father threw me off the mountain, and the one no one else remembers, when my brother … when Ares … picked me back up again.”
It was more than he’d said all night. “Then it must
be a strong memory indeed,” she replied, “if it survived so many millennia with only your own mind to hold it in place.”
“My mind?” He shook his head. “No, my mind barely comprehends it. But my heart knows the truth. It refuses to let go.”
She understood: The gods all had their own twisted relationships with the past.
“Tell me about it.” It was more a request than a demand. She knew so little of the man standing beside her. And so little of the man who had once been both Ares and Mars. So little of any of her kin.
“It was a day like this,” Flint said slowly, gesturing to the blanket of clouds. “A heavy rainstorm hid the earth from view. I should’ve known then that the Sky God was upset.” He paused, as if searching for the right words to tell the tale.
I’m probably the first person he’s ever told it to, she realized.
“I remember sitting outside my mother’s palace, too intent on the metal in my hands to notice the storm below. I must’ve been young. Merely a babe. But I was already making things.”
Selene smiled. “Yes, I remember that about you. They call Dash the Busy One, but you were always tinkering.”
“It was a necklace for my mother, I think. Loops of gold and pearls for the white-armed queen. Then he walked out of her palace. The Father of the Gods—but not of me. He slammed the great door behind him, and a thunder clap cut the air. He was so tall, and his eyes flashed like lightning. He shouted at my mother, furious that she’d dared to birth a child without the help of man’s seed. Without his help. He grabbed me by the leg, and I dropped my work. The pearls scattered like raindrops across the ground. A few rolled off the edge and out of sight. He swung me like a discus. I must have screamed and cried. I must have begged for mercy. Asked forgiveness for the sin of my birth. But I have no memories of that.”
Winter of the Gods Page 24