“And has been going strong ever since.” She said it as an observation, thinking back over the many lives; but when he sent her another shy smile, she realized how romantic a statement it was. Clearing her throat, she squinted at the trees ahead. “So, are we studying in the Airstream?”
“Yeah, nah. Niko’s brought me a generator, and he’s setting it up. He’s annoying, so we’ll go elsewhere.” They passed through the trees and emerged near the Airstream.
“Niko’s here? I should say hi. I feel bad for trying to beat him up when we first met.”
“Well, he did jump you. Beating him up was perfectly warranted.”
At that moment, Nikolaos sauntered into view from the front end of the trailer. He wore full soccer-fan regalia in some team that favored bright red and yellow: jacket, nylon shorts, cap, and scarf. “Sophia.” He waved a wrench at her in greeting. “Why, look. She does smile.”
“Hi, Niko.” She stopped before him, and they exchanged long, amused gazes. “Life sure has gotten interesting ever since you grabbed me.”
“I thought it might. And for once I am not being an insincere wanker when I say it’s wonderful to see you again. Persephone.” He said her name in the proper Greek pronunciation, all slanted and exotic.
“Hermes,” she responded in the same accent, then said in the proto-ancient-Greek tongue from her dreams lately, “For a complete scoundrel, you’re not too bad.”
Arms folded, he winked at her. Then his gaze moved to Adrian, and he hissed his breath inward. “Ooh, Adrian’s going to grab this wrench and brain me if I charm you any further. Be off, you two. Ade, the generator’s working fine. Just a few more adjustments to make.”
Adrian did look a tiny bit annoyed. “Cheers. We’re off to study.”
Nikolaos yawned. “Think I’ll nap in your bed while you’re away, before I head to Brazil.”
“As long as you take off your filthy shoes. And keep Kiri company. Put her out when you leave.”
Niko whistled to the dog. “Come here, girl. Naptime.”
He and Kiri climbed into the trailer, and Adrian led Sophie across the clearing to the bus and horses.
“Brazil?” she asked.
“Football match.” Adrian untied the reins and got seated in the bus. “As far as I can tell, he spends most of his time gambling, hitting on people, and watching football.”
Sophie slid her backpack to the bus’s floor and sat beside him. “By which you mean soccer, I assume.”
“Yes, although you Yanks are the only ones who call it that.” He smiled, got out his phone, and tapped the screen. “So. We can do real world today if you like. As long as it’s not somewhere we’re expected to be. Where’s a good coffee shop in another city?”
“Hmm. I’ve never been to San Francisco,” she suggested.
“Me neither.” He zoomed in on the map. “Let’s look for a park…good place to appear. Buena Vista Park. Not far from some big streets where there must be coffee. Shall we try it?”
“Sure.”
He offered his arm, and she took it, holding on tight. With a snap of the reins, the horses shot up over the treetops and went supersonic toward the south.
Rivers snaked past and mountains scooted along between islands of white clouds. The wind was frigid, and Sophie tugged her cap down around her ears. “Does Niko sleep in your bed a lot?”
“No.” He grinned at her, eyebrows diving down in the middle. “And what are you asking exactly?”
She laughed. “I have to wonder. He’s always been bi, in the lives I can remember. And you occasionally have been too.”
He returned to watching the terrain. “As have you. Usually when we were born into the opposite kind of body, though—me as a woman, or you as a man.”
“True. But in this life I’m straight. With a lesbian as a best friend, if that gives me street cred.”
“Really? Me too.”
“You too what? Straight, or the lesbian best friend?”
“Both,” he laughed. “My best mate Zoe—she’s gay. Says girls smell better. With which I agree. As for Niko, he’s certainly tried with me, but I’m not that desperate yet.”
“I see.”
Neither Zoe nor Niko was competition, then. Sophie’s mood did grow more buoyant at that news. But she still hadn’t told Adrian that she’d dumped Jacob, and nervousness frazzled her at the thought. She lowered her gaze to the backpacks at their feet. “What are you studying?”
“A lot of things. Adding to the catalog of safe places to appear and disappear. That usually means finding places like this park we’re going to, and writing down the coordinates for a list we’ve got going. We all add to it when we can. Need as many safe spots as we can get. Really awkward when you wing it and appear in someone’s kitchen or bathroom.”
“Hah. Yeah, I bet. Or a brick wall—what happens if there’s a wall where you want to appear?”
“Kicks you back out of it. Hurts, too. Could probably break bones if you were mortal. So, yeah nah, best to aim for outdoors when you switch.”
“So mainly you’re looking at maps today?”
“Only a bit. There’s also my Underworld job. Talk to the souls, find justice that needs to be done. Research murder trials, report back to the souls who were killed and tell them how it’s going. That sort of thing.”
His words stirred her memory. “You did that as Hades too. We both did.”
“Yep.”
“Is it only murder trials? Or do you do other kinds of justice and unfinished business too?”
He sighed. “I’d like to, but…unfinished business is usually ‘Tell so-and-so I love them,’ and everyone wants that. I could never do it all. And if it’s a crime that left the victim still alive, then obviously I’m not going to be seeing them down there—at least for a while—so they have to take care of their own justice. But murder victims, they’re the ones who can’t speak for themselves in the living world. And they’re the ones I can speak to. So if they know who killed them, and can give me clues that I can report as anonymous tips, then I do that for them.”
“Those are serious good deeds right there,” she said, impressed.
“Well, I hope. In any case, that alone could keep me occupied forever. But I also ought to be researching Thanatos, which is boring and hateful but has to be done.”
“Like tracking what they’re up to?”
“Kind of. I’ve found people in the Underworld who knew Quentin, and Bill Wilkes too, though they haven’t yet thought of anything I could use to make them stop what they’re doing. Niko hasn’t found where Quentin’s living yet, but he’s followed Wilkes around a little. He lives in Salem, and actually is a police officer.”
“Wow. So the card wasn’t fake.”
“Surprise, eh? Also, I have emails to go through. Niko hacked into the account for Sanjay’s guru a while back—the bloke in Thanatos who got him killed—and downloaded heaps of messages. We’ve been sorting through them for months, seeing if there’s anything dangerous we ought to know, or anything useful to learn.”
“You’re a lot busier than I realized.”
“Thought I zipped about the world all day on ghost horses, visiting pretty places, selling diamonds for spending money?”
“It did cross my mind,” she admitted.
“It’s a challenging business, this immortality thing. Especially in the Internet age. We have loads to do.”
“Is that why you’re trying to bring me on board? To help with the workload?”
She said it lightly, but he thought it over before answering. Keeping his gaze ahead, where the gray-blue waters of San Francisco Bay were sliding into view, he said, “I’m trying to bring you on board because I’ve never lived a life without you. And I don’t want to start now.”
The sweet declaration warmed her heart. But she kept the lightness in her tone when she responded, “So it’s because of who I used to be? What if I’d been born into this life as someone horrible and obnoxious?”
; His beautiful eyes met hers. “With that soul, you couldn’t have been.”
SOPHIE LOOKED TROUBLED, turning her head forward. Her lips were closed tight in a pensive frown, and the wind whipped a curly tendril of her dark hair around her face. Adrian glanced ahead too, slowing the horses and guiding them to a thickly wooded hill. He shifted his gaze between the ground and the GPS arrow on his phone screen, while his mind kicked itself.
What was he thinking, spouting sentiments like that when she’d only barely become aware of his existence? He may have had years to think it over, but she hadn’t.
He brought the horses down between the trees. Pine boughs swiped the sides of the bus and scattered needles into the open windows. The bus landed. A flock of blue-green birds rose from the trees, croaking like frogs as they flew away.
“Look, I’m sorry.” Adrian wound and unwound the reins around his hand. “You have your studies, and your family, your friends, your boyfriend, and I had no right to barge in and—”
“I don’t anymore.” She spread her hands symmetrically on her legs, and gazed at them.
“You don’t what?”
“Have a boyfriend. Anymore. I broke up with Jacob.”
Plenty of times he’d imagined her saying that, and had forewarned himself not to cheer out loud. He succeeded—but in fact, found he was a mess of anxiety. What was the right thing to say here? None of the statements he’d come up with, in those imaginings, sounded appropriate now.
“Oh.” He followed her lead and stared at his own hands. “When?”
“Wednesday night. It was something I’d been thinking about for a while, though.”
“Even before Niko and I…kidnapped you?”
“Yeah. Even before that.”
“Okay.” He drew in his breath, feeling a bit steadier. “Then how are you feeling about it?”
“I’m all right.” She folded one hand over the other. “Mostly I feel guilty. He was blindsided. But he’ll get over it, and it’s for the best.”
Adrian nodded, and decided it was permissible to smile now. He did, rising and offering her his hand. “Probably what you need is to find some coffee and get some studying done, eh?”
She nodded, and grasped his hand.
Good signs. So many good signs.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THEY SWITCHED INTO THE LIVING world and found themselves on a forest path, beneath a large pine tree with twisting roots.
Their sudden appearance startled a middle-aged man jogging by, who skittered aside and stared at them.
Adrian waved at him. “We’re practicing a magic trick. How’d it look?”
“Pretty damn good,” said the bewildered man, still jogging but slowing down as he examined them.
Sophie gave him a thumbs-up.
The man shot his gaze across the ground and up into the tree as if looking for hidden trapdoors, then lifted his brows and jogged on.
Sophie and Adrian burst into laughter.
“Oops,” he said. “Always a risk.”
“Magic trick? That’s your excuse?”
He shrugged. “It is magic.” Adrian glanced around. A city gleamed below the hill they stood upon, fog and sunlight wrapping around its skyscrapers. He had never been here before, but his GPS assured him it was San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park.
Sophie, spotting the magnificent city view, beamed in delight and set off that direction.
As they walked down the hill, he asked what she was taking this term, and she related her course schedule, all prerequisites for the nutrition major.
“What were you going to do with your life before Rhea showed up?” she asked. “Before you knew you’d be… this?” They emerged from the park onto a residential street lined with expensive old houses, packed close together and painted cheerful colors.
“I was going to be a lawyer,” Adrian said. “Not the kind everyone hates, but the kind who defends the innocent, the poor, all that superhero stuff. Maybe amongst the Maori in particular—my mum was part Maori. But I try to do it for the souls now instead, since I can’t spend too much time in one place in the real world.”
“I’d say it worked out. You became an actual superhero.”
They turned a corner onto a busier street: Haight, according to the sign on a post. “I don’t feel like one. Nor a god.”
“No? Not even after all this time driving ghost horses and living with Hades’ memories?”
“Hades had style. He was a mature, mystical guy. He’s not supposed to be a young geek with a Kiwi accent.”
Sophie snorted. “For one thing, you’re not that geeky. For another, your accent is completely hot.”
He glanced at her. “Really?”
“To American chicks, you know it is.” She elbowed him. “Quit pretending you don’t.”
They chose a cafe and entered its warm and pungently coffee-scented interior. On the dark red walls hung mosaics made from ripped-up magazines. Strings of lights in the shapes of skulls and pumpkins framed the front windows.
As they waited in line, Sophie pointed to a small round table in the corner. “Go save that one for us. Tell me what you want and I’ll order. My treat this time.”
“Cheers. Er…” Adrian blinked at the vast and detailed menu hand-written on a blackboard above the counter. “Just drip would be fine.”
“Sixteen ounce?”
“Whatever you’re getting.”
She nodded, and he picked his way between tables to the one she’d indicated, where he set up his laptop. Sophie arrived with the coffee, and for a while they browsed and typed independently, trading occasional remarks. Adrian read Thanatos emails referencing himself, dated a few months ago, but found nothing relevant in them. As far as he could tell, their assumptions were way off base—they seemed to think Adrian had some “recruiting” plan to bring in other immortals, and they were trying to figure out what it was.
No, he thought; at the moment he only really desired one person as a potential new recruit. Indeed, even if there was some coded message of importance buried in these emails, he could well miss it, given how his mind was more inclined this morning to dwell on remarks like: ‘I broke up with Jacob’ and ‘Your accent is completely hot.’
Sophie’s phone chirped. “My mom,” she said, looking at the screen.
“Go ahead, answer it.” Adrian got up. “I was about to take a break.”
She nodded and accepted the call. “Hi, Mom.”
He found his way past the counter to the restrooms, and when he came out, she was still talking, so he examined the food for sale on the chilled shelves under glass. A few minutes later, he brought a large, colorful salad and a walnut-studded brownie to the table.
“Okay, love you too,” Sophie was saying into the phone. “Bye.” She hung up and smiled at the salad. “Beets and blue cheese?”
“Thought it looked good. Getting near lunchtime.” Sitting down, he handed her one of the two forks. “Hungry?”
“Yeah. Thank you.” She gathered up a forkful of salad greens, blue cheese, and a pear slice, and crammed it into her mouth. “Mmm.”
Adrian speared two beet slices and ate them. “How’s your mum?”
“Oh…” Sophie swallowed her bite. “Fine, she says.”
He glanced quizzically at her.
She grimaced, picking up a pecan. “I feel—that is, I almost know—she and Dad are having problems. And I’m terrified they might get a divorce. But they haven’t said anything and I’m too scared to bring it up. Just now I tried ‘You guys doing okay?’, but all I got was ‘Fine, honey.’”
Adrian scooped up some salad greens. “What makes you say they’re having problems?”
A spiraling lock of hair slid down to touch her cheek. She pushed it behind her ear. “I saw her kissing another man a couple months ago. Some guy in a suit. They were in a parked car.” Sophie turned away, squinting at the front windows.
Adrian winced. “Crap.”
“It’s hard to ask her something l
ike that. Especially since she called to talk about my breaking up with Jacob. Guess she heard it from his folks.”
“Did they get on well with him, your parents?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Dad loved watching football with him. Sorry—American football.” Adrian smiled at the correction, and Sophie resumed, “Anyway, Mom’s coming down to visit me next week. Just the two of us. Maybe I’ll get more of an answer about her and Dad then.”
“Hope so.”
She nodded, and focused on eating salad for a minute. He did the same.
“Of course,” she added, sounding a bit wry now, “if they knew what I was up to lately, they’d have even bigger problems.”
“It’s tricky, the relly question.” Catching her confused glance, he clarified, “Relatives. Family.”
“Oh, right. Just like the old days. Demeter trying to keep us apart.” She smiled.
“How far have you got in that?”
“Not too far. No making out with Hades yet. Though I know it happens eventually.”
“Mm,” he said in casual agreement, thinking, And wait till you get to the fabulous sex.
“Is she one of them? The new immortals?” Sophie sounded interested.
Adrian looked up, diverted from his arousing thoughts. “Who?”
“Demeter. Is she one of the ones you can sense? Track? Do you know who she is?”
He hesitated. Sophie looked so animated, so intrigued by the notion of finding her long-lost mother.
Catching his expression, Sophie added, “I know. You said you wouldn’t tell me yet how many there are these days, or who they are. I just wondered, since souls who were close to each other tend to end up close again in other lives…I thought she could be someone I know.” Her voice turned sad again.
Adrian relented. What the hell. “She is. We do know.”
Her eyes locked onto his. “Who is it? My mom?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “Close.”
She blinked, looking confused.
“Your dad,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) Page 20
