Hellenic Immortal

by Gene Doucette

  And knowing one’s fate never made a whit of difference, except it made the fated a tad more anxious. Often, attempting to evade the future brought it about, which was the point of Oedipus Rex. (Sophocles loved this stuff.)

  Anyway, I was stuck. Also, I was incredibly drunk, which just amplified my tremendous sense of helplessness regarding the entire matter, while at the same time reducing my observational abilities considerably. I didn’t even notice Mike until he was right next to me.

  “Evening,” he said, as if we were neighbors chatting over a fence somewhere. Provided neighbors actually did that sort of thing anymore.

  I jumped several inches off the chair and spilled a minor portion of the remaining tequila. “Hi.”

  Mike stepped past me and sat down in the other lawn chair, lighting up a cigarette. I drank some more and wondered if I’d had so much I had forgotten Mike had made the trip with me.

  After a lengthy silence, he said, “GPS.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Global Positioning System. I have a GPS in the car. That’s how I found you.”

  “Ah,” I replied meaningfully.

  “A buddy on the force gave me a lift.”

  “Ah.”

  “Just in case you were wondering.”

  I drank, he puffed, and we sat. The mosquitoes feasted. “Sorry I didn’t wait,” I decided to say. Seemed like a good thing to bring up given I’d sort of stolen his car.

  “S’okay. Although I’m surprised you didn’t make for the airport.”

  “Thought about driving to Canada,” I admitted.

  “Probably a better idea. Why didn’t you?”

  “Decided to see an old friend instead.”

  “Cassandra Jones?”

  “That’s her. She’s inside, but I don’t think she’d be a very good host right now.”

  Mike sniffed. “I can tell.”

  Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain the words marijuana and law enforcement representative danced around each other. I suspected they did not belong together. “Glaucoma,” I explained.

  “Hmm?”

  “She has glaucoma.”

  “Okay.”

  “It helps with . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ve been known to partake myself. This is California; we don’t give a shit here. So she’s just an old friend?”

  “Knew her when she went to college here. I figured it wasn’t far.”

  “And you saw her name in Ariadne’s notes.”

  “That too,” I admitted.

  “Can I get a sip of that?”

  I handed him the tequila bottle and then opened up the coffee liqueur for myself.

  He took a short pull. “Thing is,” he went on, “we were never sure which Cassandra Jones the note referred to. There are about fifteen on this coast. None of them really had the connections we were looking for, so we dropped it. I figured it’d turn up again eventually.”

  “I only know one. Guess I’m just lucky it was the right one.” I was trying to sober up, but that’s thoroughly impossible when you’ve drunk most of a bottle of tequila, so I went with faking it instead. Generally that involves making the other guy do all the talking. “Tell me about Peter Arnheit.”

  He looked at me for a few seconds, and then took a longer drink from the bottle. “You read that file, too.”

  “I did.”

  “The Wicks are family friends. Lonnie was my godson.”

  “You don’t strike me as the religious type.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay.”

  “I find Ariadne, I think I’ll find Peter, too.”

  I nodded. “Find me to find her, find her to find him. This is quite an entertaining chain you’ve worked up.”

  “I know. I’m a little desperate, if that wasn’t already obvious.”

  It looked like Mike had finally decided to level with me. I went for it. “So what connects a very tired immortal man, an AWOL FBI analyst, and a bail-skipping possible murderer?”

  “He is a murderer,” Mike said fiercely. Apparently, he had held the trial already all by himself.

  “Fine. What’s the connection, other than you?”

  “The Mystery Cult.”

  There it was again. “There is no such thing,” I said, somewhat unconvincingly. “Not anymore.”

  “You better re-check that. And by the way, I’m having a little trouble with the whole immortal thing. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’m not so sure I can allow myself to believe it.”

  “That’s a common reaction. Let it simmer for a while.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “So are you telling me there’s a mystery cult out there that I don’t know about?”

  “There are several, and they all call themselves a Dionysian Mystery Cult. Most look like pretty harmless Internet groups; more a social deal than a religious one. Seems to be an excellent excuse to party. But there’s one that’s a problem. There’s almost no documentation, but we’ve found adherent records going back at least eighty years. The Eleusinians is what they call themselves; right now that group appears to be exceptionally dangerous.”

  The true Eleusinians—the name came from Eleusis, where the annual major ceremony took place—ceased to exist a long time ago, and they weren’t dangerous. But I saw no advantage in bringing that up. “Like hiding in the woods with a TEC-9 dangerous?”

  “The same.”

  “Did you catch the shooter?”

  “Nope. Hopped in a car a couple of blocks over. Got the plates, but it came up stolen. We might still get lucky, but . . .” He trailed off, either deep in thought or starting to feel the effects of the tequila.

  I took a sip of the liqueur and made a note to myself to never follow up tequila with coffee liqueur ever again. “What’s so dangerous about this particular cult?”

  “You first,” he said. “Why did Ariadne come here?”

  “Cassandra is an oracle.”

  “A what?”

  “She can deliver prophecies,” I elaborated. “It’s all very complicated.”

  “She gets stoned to do that?”

  I nodded. “Only way to get it to work.”

  “Sounds like a crock.”

  “So does an immortal man,” I pointed out.

  “True.”

  “I don’t know why Ariadne came here,” I said, which was half-true. “But she’s not here now.”

  “And this Cassandra person doesn’t have anything to do with her?”

  “Ariadne was just one of her clients,” I said.

  “And the fact that you also happen to know Cassandra Jones? Is that a coincidence?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Me neither,” he agreed. “I’m gonna have to question her.”

  I looked back towards the house. “She’s kind of out of it right now. Maybe later.”

  He looked hard at me. “She give you a . . . what did you call it? A prophecy?”

  “Mystery Cults,” I said, changing the subject.

  “Right. Eco-terrorism,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The Eleusinian Mystery Cult is run by a guy named Gordon Alecto.”

  “Like the Fury?” I interrupted.

  “Um . . .”

  “The three Furies in Greek mythology. Megaera, Tisiphone, and Alecto. Alecto the Unceasing.”

  “Yeah, fine. Let me finish. Gordon Alecto is an eco-terrorist.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” I admitted.

  “They like to commit crimes in the name of nature.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Like blowing up a logging company’s headquarters to save some trees.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Sounds vaguely moronic.”

  “It is. But also very dangerous. Some of these groups don’t mind all that much if the headquarters is staffed when the bomb goes off. Gordon’s cult is one of those groups. And I’ve got good information that Ariadne P
apos has been involved with the same group at least as far back as two years ago.”

  “And Peter Arnheit?”

  “Peter was a part of the organization back before Lonnie was killed. We didn’t know this until about a month ago when we raided Gordon’s last known base of operations and found some of Peter’s belongings there. Had we known, and had it been brought up in court, it probably would have been enough to keep him in jail. Problem is, nobody knows where they are now. Any of them. The cult has about thirty known members in the state of California, and they’ve all disappeared in the past month.”

  “Except for when they pop up to shoot at us.”

  “Except then. So my thinking is, Ariadne figured out the same thing I did, that you’re the only living member of the original Cult. The reason she came out of hiding was to recruit you—and your money—to the cause. And since that’s the last time anybody has seen her, it’s a fairly big deal.”

  “But your superiors think they’re not something to worry about?”

  “They don’t know. Everybody figures we’ll know what the Eleusinians have been up to once they’re done doing it.”

  “I feel so safe.”

  “Sometimes that’s the way it is,” he said. “It’s the same with serial killers; you have to wait for the next victim to turn up. Besides, domestic terror groups aren’t in vogue right now at the Bureau.”

  “So where does that leave me?”

  “Dunno. It seems like the Cult has given up trying to recruit you. And you don’t strike me as the type to get involved in something like that.”

  “The original Mystery Cult was a celebration of springtime and a good harvest. We didn’t blow up things.”

  “Like I said.” He lit another cigarette, putting down the bottle he’d successfully finished off.

  I’d finally met someone who could go drink-to-drink with me and still form complete sentences.

  “I got you into this mess because I knew they were looking for you,” Mike continued. “But that was before the shooting started.”

  “You think I was the target?”

  “Pretty sure, yeah. And now I think maybe the best course is for you to get the hell out of here before I manage to get you killed. I’d feel pretty bad about that.”

  “Me too,” I said. “So that’s all this ever was? Keep me around because she’s interested in me?”

  “Pretty much. And I wanted to see if you could look at the same stuff I had and see something I’d missed. Like I said, I’m kind of desperate.”

  “How much of this do your superiors even know?” I asked, thinking specifically of Peter Arnheit and Mike’s connection to Lonnie Wicks.

  “Not much,” he admitted. “If they knew it all, I’d be off the case. And I don’t wanna be off the case. Anyway.” He pulled himself up. “Unless you have some revelation to share with me, I’ll be taking my leave.”

  “None that I can think of,” I said. “But I am pretty drunk.”

  “Me too,” he admitted. “Not so bad I can’t drive, though. How’s the car?”

  “It’ll work.”

  “You didn’t fuck with it too much?”

  “Not at all.” I carefully omitted the fact he’d probably need a new clutch soon. I handed him the keys.

  He handed me a business card. “This is my private line. Reaches me and only me. You call if anything comes up. I mean anything.”

  “I will.” I stood and we shook hands.

  “Oh, and don’t worry about the FBI. Right now about a dozen people are on the verge of losing their jobs thanks to what happened in Vegas. Nobody’s looking for you right now.”

  “Airports?” I asked.

  “You’re clear.”

  “I’ll take your word on that.”

  “You should. You get caught and tell someone how you left town and I’m in trouble. So I’ve got something invested in you getting out untouched, don’t I?”

  “True enough.”

  He took a step to leave, then turned back with a thought. “Tell me one more thing. What’s in the box?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The box. I did some reading on the historical Eleusinian Cult. Every year, there’d be a festival, and this box would show up at the festival and somebody would open it up and show off the contents, but in everything I’ve read nobody can say what the contents were. So what was it?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I said. “I took an oath.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I am being serious.”

  He looked at me funny for a few seconds, and then shrugged. “Guess you have a lot of secrets, don’t you?”

  “Only a few, but they’re important ones.”

  “Box is long gone by now, anyway. Oh well. Until next time.”

  I nodded, and off he went. What I didn’t tell him was that the box he was referring to was the same one in the photo on the wall of Ariadne’s study. It wasn’t nearly as long gone as anyone had thought.

  THE BEAST STOMPED ITS HOOVES ANGRILY AND SNORTED RAGE AND FIRE. IN ITS HANDS IT HELD A STAFF OF WOOD AS IT WERE A FEATHER, THOUGH IT WAS WIDE AS A TREE BASE. AND MIGHTY SILENUS DID KNOW FEAR.

  “DO NOT BE AFFRIGHTED,” THE GOD SAID TO SILENUS. “LIKE ALL OF THE BEASTS OF THIS WORLD, THIS SATYR IS MY BROTHER.”

  From the archives of Silenus the Elder. Text corrected and translated by Ariadne

  I didn’t start to relax until after I’d made the connecting flight in Seattle that took me out of the country. Before I was out of reach of the FBI, I couldn’t be completely positive Mike was right, and it was really okay to travel.

  Logically, it made perfect sense. Emotionally, I was less sure, and sometimes emotions can do funny things to the logic centers of one’s brain. For instance, most of my trip from Sacramento to Seattle was taken up concocting an involved fantasy about how Mike could think things were all clear for me, but was being misled in that regard by people who suspected that he himself was untrustworthy. (To that end, he was untrustworthy. But if they already knew that, it made no sense to set up some kind of sting operation to catch me, in order to catch him, if they already had him. Better to catch him and find out how to subsequently catch me. This didn’t occur to me at all until later.) This fantasy scenario became a matter of near-certainty by the time I was on the ground, and didn’t truly dissolve until I got off the flight and did not end up surrounded by gun-wielding government operatives.

  So I was on my way to Amsterdam. If I had one ounce of sense in my head, I’d be stopping there and maybe hanging out for a century or two. But that was just where I was meeting up with a second connecting flight to Athens.

  This was maybe not one of my better ideas.

  * * *

  After Mike had left Cassandra’s patio, I’d made my way back inside to see how she was doing and found her still on her couch, eyes open, enjoying the kind of relaxation I haven’t achieved since I was a practicing Buddhist, which was a very long time ago.

  “So?” she had asked. “What do you think?”

  I stood in the doorway and sipped at her liqueur bottle. “Do you remember it?”

  “I do.”

  In the beginning, she not only couldn’t remember her own prophecies, she couldn’t even recall having been in a trance. Which fit; the older oracles of history could recall their prophecies exactly, but the younger ones had trouble with it. It was something I assumed one got better at with time.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s not for me to say,” she’d said, dodging me, which I hated.

  “C’mon, it’s me. I know the rules, and how I’m supposed to be the one to figure it out, so you can skip that. You heard what I heard. I’m asking what you thought about it.”

  Sitting up unsteadily, she gave it her best shot. “You’re in danger.”

  “Yeah, I thought so, too. Of the end-of-the-road variety.”

  “There were two paths. One led directly to this woman. The other . . .”

  “ . . . proba
bly leads indirectly to her. Can’t escape one’s destiny, right?”

  She waved her hands dismissively. “Of course you can. Don’t be ridiculous. I gave you what might happen.”

  I took another sip. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “I do! There is no such thing as predestination.”

  I skipped the irony inherent in such a proclamation coming from an actual oracle and went on to a better point. “Have you ever given a prophecy that did not turn out to come true?”

  “No, but I refuse to accept that they are all inescapable. And if there is any man who can escape his, it’s the one man who has also managed to cheat death for a thousand lifetimes. You, my dear Spencer, are the exception to every other rule. Why not this one as well?”

  “You mentioned two paths.”

  She took a casual puff of the hookah and said, “ ‘Seek the source.’ The first part of the prophecy is one path. That’s the second. That’s how I see it.”

  “Unless they’re different bends on the same path.”

  “You know how it goes. I don’t know if I am looking at anything in any particular order. But that part felt different.”

  “Source of what?”

  “I’ve no idea, darling.”

  By the time I’d found my way to her guest bedroom (she made no attempt to invite me into her bed, and I made no effort to work myself into it) and slept off the magnificent quantity of alcohol I’d downed, I realized what the source was. And that was what got me on the plane to Athens.

  * * *

  By the time of the birth of Christ, there were hundreds of different mystery cults in Greece, but the one I was interested in—the most famous one—took place in the Attic region: The Eleusinian Mystery. (Mystery in this context means something slightly different now than it did then. The root word is mysterion, which in Greek just meant rite or ceremony.) Each year at harvest, the Eleusinians held their celebratory rites, thanking Demeter, goddess of the harvest for the blessings she’d bestowed that year on their crops. The conclusion of the ceremony was the formal initiation of new supplicants. The ceremony was a little like the Christian baptism, but with less water and more drinking.