by Molly Ringle
Landon didn’t smile back. They kept walking across the fields.
“Who’s in the greatest danger right now, among us?” Zoe asked. “Who are they targeting soonest?”
“Adrian is definitely enemy number one,” Landon said. “Has been for a while.”
“So, his family or friends in Wellington?” she asked. “Are they likely to become hostages?”
“We’ve talked about it. I don’t know if they’re going to change plans now that I’m not there. But the hostage thing hasn’t been working out very well with the last few attempts, so, last I heard, the main focus was on getting us into this other realm. Destroying the tree.” Oh well, he hadn’t meant to say that, but they would have worked it out eventually.
Niko and Zoe exchanged a look. “Which tree might that be, Petal?” Niko asked.
“Petal?” Landon said.
Zoe gave his wrist a pinch. “Answer him.”
He flexed his fingers. “The tree of immortality. The one we learned about from Sanjay. Also, it’s in our Decrees. It’s got to be down here somewhere.”
“Lot of trees down here,” Niko said. “Any idea which one you’re looking for?”
“Not really, except that it’s a fruit tree of some kind. Sanjay wasn’t specific. Our best guess is apple. ‘Golden apple’ is what our translation has.”
They brought him to the river and down onto the raft, and crossed to the other side.
“So the plan,” Niko said, scrambling up the other bank, “is to burst into this realm at some sacred site, get in here, and destroy this supposed tree, along with the lot of us. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Landon said. Zoe, still hanging onto his wrist, pushed him up the slope.
“And do they know where this cave is?” she asked.
“Maybe. We have it narrowed down to a few possibilities. I’m not sure where we are here, geographically, but I guess this could be one of them.”
They led him through the tunnel until they stood in the chamber where he had arrived. Sunlight, blessed sunlight and blue sky, shone through the cave mouth high above. Landon’s eyes drank it in.
“So are they aiming to figure out which site is the Underworld,” Niko said, “and switch realms directly inside it?”
He kept his gaze on the tiny piece of sky. “Yeah. Ideally.”
The others were silent a few seconds.
“Do you think they really know how to switch realms?” Zoe asked.
“They haven’t tried it, as far as I know. But Tracy seems confident about this technique he got hold of.”
“By stealing it from some modern-day Eleusinian Mysteries group?” she said.
“Yeah. I…I think he even killed someone for it.”
Niko and Zoe exchanged another glance.
After a moment Niko turned to him. “Did you want to go up? Get some fresh air?”
“Uh. Maybe.” Landon still had to entertain the possibility that they’d do something terribly painful to him up there. Though why they wouldn’t just do it down here, he couldn’t figure.
“If so,” Niko said, “your choices are the ladder or one of the horses.”
Landon eyed the rope ladder, which looked like a wisp of dental floss against the giant height of the cave. He shivered. “I guess the horse.”
A minute or two later, after a scary but short flight upward, he was let down to the solid ground in the sun. He sat upon a rock and gazed at the sea. At least he got this visit to the Mediterranean, which was every bit as blue as advertised. Even with ghosts streaming past overhead, it was beautiful.
Zoe still held onto his arm. “Did you enjoy it?” she asked. “Being involved in killing all those people?”
“No. I’ve never enjoyed the killing part. It’s just what has to be done. Or seemed like it did.”
“Krystal, now,” Niko said, seated at Landon’s other side, “she seems to enjoy it.”
“Yeah,” Landon said. “I’m pretty sure she does.”
“Is she coming on this other-realm adventure?” Niko asked.
“Probably. I guess Tracy’s in charge now. Whatever he decides.”
“How long do you think it’ll be?” Zoe asked. “Before they fly over and start trying to break in?”
“We were talking about late January,” Landon said. “Could be any day, I guess. Again, though, Tracy might change plans. Make things happen sooner, because of my getting kidnapped, or maybe put things off. I don’t know.”
“Silly question, but,” Niko said, “do you suppose they’d call off their hostilities, or make any sort of deal, in exchange for your safe return? No, never mind. Of course they wouldn’t.”
“I agree. They wouldn’t.” Landon spoke with only a trace of bitterness. The sight of the blue sea did put a certain tranquility into one’s mind.
“Do you even want to rejoin them?” Zoe asked. “You don’t seem to like them much.”
“I want to be free again,” Landon said. “And they’re some of the only people who would protect me anymore. But other than that, no, I don’t really miss them.”
They all sat in silence a while. Finally Niko said, “Well. It’s lunchtime. Down we go.”
They brought him back to his cell, picking up one of the ghosts along the way to be a guard—Terry this time. Only once Landon was behind bars did Zoe let go of him. She untied his hands and stepped out. Niko brought a plastic plate with a peanut butter sandwich, a carrot, and a juice bottle on it, and set it on the floor for Landon. As they locked the door, and as Landon bit into his sandwich, a sense of outrage slid into him. It felt suspiciously like waking up from a dream.
“Hey. Did you guys drug me?” he demanded.
“In a sense,” Zoe admitted. “Used magic on you to make you tell the truth. Except, bloody hell, you don’t know much about the plan, do you.”
Niko hooked his arm into Zoe’s. “Come along, darling. Tell me some more truths over here, farther away.”
“Ugh, I don’t like this!” she said. “I totally do feel like telling you things. All kinds of true things that I don’t really need to say.”
“Yeah? Have you been looking at any porn lately?”
“You know, I actually kind of was, the other day.”
“Definitely do tell me more,” Niko said, and that, thankfully, was where they fell out of earshot.
Landon exhaled in anger through his nose, and drank some of the tart cranberry juice. At least he hadn’t told them about the sorcerer—probably only because they hadn’t asked a question that led to her.
“They have no right,” he informed Terry, “using magic like that.”
“Uh-huh.” Terry watched Landon set the bottle down. “They can be sneaky that way.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Landon awoke, cramped and sore as usual. Sleeping on the ground, even on the layer of blankets they’d allowed him, had transformed him into a mass of aching joints. He’d just been having some strange-ass dreams. Unlike your usual dreams that dissipated after you woke up, these stayed solidly clear as he blinked at the bars above him. He dreamed he’d been a Russian guy in the mid-20th-century, working a minor government job, and unhappy about it. He even spoke Russian in the dream. Huh. Must have spent too much time around Yuliya.
Wait. He could still speak Russian. Now. He couldn’t do that before.
He bolted upright.
Tabitha Lofgren was his guard at the moment. She sat against a stalagmite outside the cell, iPod earphones in, leather-booted toe tapping to her music, Landon’s gun in one hand. She played with three ghost cats, whipping a shoelace along the ground like a snake and making them leap at it.
Though he felt nervous addressing Tabitha, since she was one of the people he’d tried to kill, or at least had helped arrange the car-bomb attempt, he blurted out, “Did you guys do some sort of language magic on me?”
She popped one earphone out. “Huh?”
“Language magic. Did you guys do something like that to me?”
&n
bsp; She dangled the rope higher, watching the spirit cats jump for it. “Well, let’s see. You had some of that juice, yeah?”
He groaned as an affirmative. Of course it had occurred to him that they might poison or drug him, but he had to eat. What choice did he have? Even if he died, he’d still be here. That said, it was fucking annoying to have your mind messed with.
“Geneva Conventions, my ass,” he said.
“You’re in for an interesting ride, bud.”
He walked forward and grabbed the bars. “What’ll it do to me? What’s happening?”
“Niko said he wanted to have ‘the talk’ with you.” She quirked her fingers in air quotes around the words. “He’ll be by later.” Tabitha plugged her earphone back in. Discussion evidently over.
Landon shouting questions at her only resulted in her sticking her tongue out at him. And, eventually, pointing his gun at him. He backed off.
Finally Nikolaos appeared, carrying two blue buckets with steam rising from them. Tab leaped up, waved at Landon and then flipped him off, and walked away.
Niko unlocked the U-bolts and opened the door. “You get to take a sponge bath and do your laundry.” He shoved both buckets in with his foot, and dropped a heap of clothes bundled in a towel onto the floor. “Stuff you can wear while yours are drying.”
Landon did absolutely reek from not bathing for however many days. A bucket of hot water and a heap of clean clothes looked like slices of heaven. He pulled off his down vest and started unbuttoning his shirt, then hesitated at the third button and met Niko’s eyes.
Niko leaned against the door to shut it from the inside, and lounged there with arms folded, watching Landon with his usual calm smirk. Fine, so he was going to be a gross prison-guard perv and watch while Landon got naked and sponged himself off. Landon didn’t even care.
He finished undressing. Naked and barefoot on the cold ground, he carried his clothes to one of the buckets and shoved them in. Suds and warm water sloshed onto the ground. Landon prodded the clothes down to the bottom, then left them to soak and turned to the other bucket, which had a car-wash-style large sponge in it.
The first squeeze of hot sudsy water down his chest was indeed bliss. He sighed in relief as he sponged off the back of his neck, his underarms, his groin, his feet, and his hair. Throughout, he felt Niko’s scrutiny. Landon burned with resentment, determined to last as long as he could, and not give Niko the satisfaction of asking about the weird new language abilities.
“It’s midday, if you’re curious,” Niko said. “Impossible to tell what time of day it is when you’re down here, I know.”
“Doesn’t really matter for my purposes anyway,” Landon said.
Niko laughed, and Landon looked up in irritation, crouching nude beside the bucket.
“What?”
“I said that in the Underworld language,” Niko said. “And you answered in the same. See?” He switched languages, and this time Landon noticed. “Aren’t you learning all sorts of new things down here.”
Landon pulled in a long breath through his nose. He chucked the sponge back into the bucket. “Son of a bitch,” he said, in English.
“Here’s what’s going on,” Niko began, also reverting to English.
He explained while Landon finished his sponge bath.
Pomegranate juice. Past lives. Languages. Dreams. The importance of skimming backward to get to the ancient Greek lives that had caused this whole mess in the first place.
Landon, feeling sick, picked up the towel and wrapped it around his shivering body. He dried off without speaking a word and put on the clothes: a long-sleeved gray T-shirt ratty at the cuffs, and a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, a little loose at the waist and short at the ankles. Castoffs of Adrian’s, maybe. For the moment he went without underwear or socks, since Niko hadn’t brought him any. He just zipped the jeans over his naked junk and stuffed his bare feet into his snow boots.
Then he stalked over to Niko, fully intending to punch him, even if it got him killed. Anger, fear, and frustration pounded inside him, a tsunami flooding his every shore.
But Niko watched him with pretty green eyes, not even unfolding his arms as Landon stormed up and stopped two inches from him. Landon hovered there, shaking with fury.
“I suppose you’d kill me if I hit you,” Landon said, his teeth clenched.
“Waste of life. And largely pointless. Because guess where you’d end up if I did.” Niko sounded undisturbed, conversational.
Landon paced away and prowled the cage.
Waste of life. Something Thanatos didn’t care much about, though they probably should. In some ways, Landon conceded, Thanatos would do well to take a few pages from the gods.
“If all this knowledge is real, why would you give it to me?” Landon asked. “Wouldn’t you want to hide it from my side?”
Niko still lounged against the bars, like he was at a dull party, but now his eyes sharpened their focus upon Landon. “No. I want to get the truth through your thick skulls. It’s proving bloody hard to do. If I could catch you all and bring you down here and stuff pomegranates down every one of your gullets, I would. It’d fix ninety-nine percent of our problems.”
Landon continued to pace, processing this. So they were recruiting, as suspected. Trying to sway him and others into believing their worldview.
Granted, their worldview was looking damn convincing from right here. In a cell, in the Underworld, guarded by ghosts, with magic pomegranates for lunch.
“What if it doesn’t convince me?” Landon said, just to be belligerent. “What if I still don’t believe it?”
At last Niko looked weary. “If this doesn’t convince you, then I give up on you.”
Though he said it as casually as he said everything else, Landon felt a chill go spiderwebbing through him. Those words sounded like a death sentence.
***
Erick Tracy lingered in the wind at the ruins of Perperikon, and let the tour group wander past him. He slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out the ancient inscribed gold leaf and the handful of strawberry tree leaves he had found and picked after wandering for an hour in the nearest town. Perperikon was one of the sacred sites on the map he’d stolen. It lay in present-day Bulgaria, in a region that used to be Thrace in classical days. Thrace had bordered ancient Greece, and apparently the Greek gods had spread their unholy word here too.
Tracy had come alone for this first attempt at entering the spirit realm. He had a hunch Krystal was the one among them being magically tracked, if any of them were. So he told her and Yuliya to stay put in their vacation rental flat in Vratsa, and took a train down here on his own. So far, no suspicious stalkers had shown up on the periphery of his vision; he had no reason to think he’d been followed. But entering the other realm, if it worked, might set off some kind of alarm for them—he didn’t know. Magic worked all kinds of ways, his research had indicated. So his heart did pound as he prepared for this attempt, which might be the last thing he ever did.
Still, even the risk was thrilling, as always.
He walked behind a jumbled stone wall in the ancient ruins, and stood hidden from the other tourists. He held the fresh leaves and the Underworld gold and closed his eyes. He focused on the hard edges of the gold, and imagined its origin, deep in the Earth, among strange spirits and dangerous plants, across a boundary he now sought and reached for. The document he’d stolen with the map gave the instructions: imagine the spirit realm is on the other side of a steep hilltop, and climb toward it. Focus on your steps. Feel the magical energies around you, for they will boost you over the top and onto the other side.
The ground rippled, changing under his feet. He opened his eyes and reached for the wall to steady himself, but his hand met a tree instead. The wall was gone, as were all the ruins. He blinked and looked all around. The wind whistled; animals chirped and roared from every direction. A squirrel-like creature with striped gray and white fur and a forked tail leaped up the tree trun
k, squawked at him, and scampered high up into the branches. That surely was no living-world creature.
The spirit realm. He had done it.
He laughed aloud. He climbed on top of a boulder to look around. Yes: the town and roads had all absolutely vanished, overtaken by a wilderness of trees and rocks. As he scanned the skies, a faint greenish glowing figure streaked past beneath the winter clouds. A spirit?
“Good Lord,” he said. “It’s real.”
He hadn’t even realized he’d doubted it until now. It was terrifying and beautiful, this other world. He coveted it all of a sudden. Oh, indeed, he would keep this gold leaf forever and come to this realm whenever he liked, and make what use of it he wished—the possibilities were immense. But first he must unseat and destroy those young punks who had snuck in before him, and were handing out immortality far too freely.
Yes. There was much to be done, and much to explore, but also too much danger for him to do it alone. Those spirit-world animals, he had heard, included several gigantic carnivorous ones. And who knew what the spirits or other magical forces might do to him?
So, to see if he could switch back.
He climbed down, and repeated the operation: eyes closed, hands clutching artifacts, mind taking him back over that ridge and…
The Earth jolted again. Smooth rock formed under his shoes. Voices bloomed nearby: the tourists talking in another part of the ruins. He opened his eyes to find the living world all back in place.
And no immortal had pounced upon him. Indeed, there’d been no sign they had any idea of what he had just done.
He beamed, took a long and happy breath in and out, and strolled back around the wall with his hand trailing the ancient stones.
He was the new official head of Thanatos—it had been determined by unanimous council vote just before they’d flown to Europe. And their further research into the Greek sites had narrowed the likely Underworld locations down to just two. Now he knew they could, in all likelihood, get in. If one sacred site worked, why shouldn’t the rest?
All in all, great things were taking place for Erick Tracy.
