Hellenic Immortal

by Gene Doucette

  “I did. But I don’t usually travel with a battalion. Takes a while to put this big a response together in a blizzard, you know. Plus I’m not entirely good with my people yet.”

  “This should help.”

  “This should help a bunch. Anyway, when I got here, I saw you tied up and the place guarded by guys with big guns. Didn’t seem like the best time to show off my badge. So I found an extra robe and joined in the fun.”

  “Lucky for me,” I said.

  “No such thing as luck. Just who you know. I’m glad you called. I was going on the word of a stoned hippie before that message.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Offering me one, we both lit up and sat quietly for a while, basically just appreciating the fact that we were not dead. This is the sort of thing better done with a bottle, but we had what we had.

  Looking over the scene before us, my eyes scanned the tree line, half expecting to see another one of the conifers uproot and start walking toward me. It might be a while, I decided, before I could spend a lot of time in another forest.

  I spotted her almost as an afterthought. She was standing alone at the base of a distant tree, dressed in a long coat and a white turtleneck, nearly looking like she belonged there. Her red hair stood out like it always did.

  The Eleusinians would have been pleased to learn that two gods had shown up for their ceremony this year.

  “Did I tell you my grandparents are Greek?” Mike asked.

  “No kidding,” I mumbled. She was looking straight at me. Traditionally, in a moment such as this, my next step would be to run toward her as quickly as I could, but it had been a hell of a day and running to catch her never worked before, so I just smiled and gave her a little nod.

  Mike nodded as he breathed out a cloud of smoke. “Big time. Made me learn the language and everything.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  He followed my gaze. “Who’s she?”

  “I don’t think you would believe me if I told you.” She smiled back at me and bowed her head slightly; an ancient greeting.

  “I could just go ask her myself,” Mike said. “If she’s connected with this . . .”

  “She’s not. Besides, she’s already gone.”

  Mike looked back to find she had indeed disappeared.

  “You were saying?” I asked.

  Mike shook his head. “Yeah. Greek. So if I’m remembering the language right, when you were up on the stage here you called yourself Dionysos.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “And again when you were threatening that thing with your magic rock.”

  “I might have done that, yes,” I agreed.

  “So . . . can’t believe I’m asking this . . . are you some sort of god? Is that your deal?”

  “Depends on who you ask.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  I grinned. “Mike, sometimes a god is just somebody who’s been around for a long time.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “That’s the best answer you’re getting.”

  “Huh. I don’t know if I can accept that.”

  I smiled. “You know, you’re pretty talkative for a werewolf.”

  He stared. “What did you just call me?”

  In the aftermath of the incident at Azure Lake, I half expected to end up in custody myself. But Mike had enough pull to keep me out of major trouble and I was able to depart on my own terms. It probably helped that as the only FBI agent on the scene, Mike Lycos was single-handedly credited with having brought down one of the most feared eco-terrorist groups in the Western hemisphere. That kind of thing will get you far.

  I returned to my island in the Queen Charlottes. From there, I followed the case as well as I could in the news.

  Peter Arnheit returned to California and pled out rather than stand trial for the murder of Lonnie Wicks. Thanks to what happened in the North Cascades (I assume) he managed to get sent away for manslaughter, rather than murder in the first degree. Among the living members of Gordon Alecto’s eco-terrorist group, he was lucky. Seventeen others connected directly to the group were successfully convicted of the murder of three people, plus destruction of property, acts of domestic terrorism and a few other things. This stemmed from an incident a year earlier, wherein a bomb was set off in the headquarters of an Oregon mining company. They’d done it on a weekend when they figured nobody would be there. They were wrong.

  Both Hippos and Ariadne stayed out of the news, so I didn’t know what happened to them up until the day the helicopter arrived on the landing pad in my back yard.

  I was in the shower at the time. I’ve found that even when living alone it’s a good idea to shower at least once or twice a week, provided a shower is available. And with the water running, I didn’t hear the rotors. Fortunately, I’m not actually completely alone as I share the place with a pixie named Iza. She was kind enough to interrupt my bathing to inform me I had a guest.

  Throwing on a pair of shorts, I stumbled outside just in time to see the helicopter fly off. Resting on the side of the pad was a large crate. Sitting on the crate, wearing jeans, an oversized sweater, and a heavy parka (it was February) was Ariadne Papos.

  * * *

  “I figured you’d be in prison somewhere,” I said to her. We were in my kitchen drinking coffee and listening to a very annoyed pixie fly around. Iza had a problem with a woman being in the house that wasn’t Clara. It was kind of weird for me, too.

  “So did I,” she admitted. “But my testimony helped put away the rest of Gordon’s crew, and a mutual friend of ours testified on my behalf.”

  “That was very kind of this mutual friend.”

  “I thought so, too. Speaking of.” She opened up the oversized bag at her feet and pulled out a very large folder. “This is for you.”

  I opened the folder and found a note, which read:

  Enclosed you will find a hard copy of every scrap of information currently available on the unknown subject called Adam. Handle with care, as the electronic file was somehow purged due to a computer malfunction. If this were to suddenly fall into a fire, the United States Government would no longer be aware of his existence. And that would be a terrible shame, wouldn’t it?

  ML

  “Good news?” Ariadne asked.

  “A returned favor,” I said, closing the folder.

  “He also told me to tell you . . . how did he put it . . . something about not financing terrorists after this or it was his ass.”

  I laughed. “I’ll try and remember that. So are you still a government employee?”

  “Nope. I’m considered a security risk. But it turns out the Greek ambassador to the United States has use for a computer analyst.”

  “With optional helicopter access?”

  “No, that was a charter. I’m on vacation.”

  I smiled. Iza buzzed angrily and I continued to ignore her. “So what’s in the crate?” I could see it from the kitchen window, still sitting on the helipad.

  “It’s the kiste,” she said.

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “It belongs to you.”

  “It belongs to the Eleusinians,” I countered. “I never wanted it. And you can’t have your cult without it.”

  “That’s sort of the idea. Hippos and I agreed that if we were to continue, it would have to be with your blessing.”

  I got up and walked to the window. The whole thing was dizzying. A few thousand years earlier I had inadvertently helped found what was perhaps the oldest ongoing religious ceremonial tradition in the history of mankind, and the future of that tradition was now sitting in a wood crate outside my door. If I were to throw it in the same fire that consumed my FBI file, would the world be better or worse for it? Or different at all? Considering how I feel about religion in general, it was a strange place to be.

  “I’ll have to think about that,” I admitted.

  “You have time. And I have another gift.”


  She reached back into the bag and pulled out second folder. “One of the cool things about being the hierophant was access to all of the Cult’s private documents.” She slid the papers across the table. “I found this in the archives. I think it might be more important to you than it is to us.”

  I sat back down, flipped open the folder and saw ancient Greek in longhand. It was a copy of the original scrolls, clearly, but it appeared the originating text was well preserved, which is fairly rare when it comes to copying. The first name I saw caught my eye. “Silenus.”

  “One of them. There were at least three different ones, based on the handwriting from the originals. I read through all of it, and translated some. You’ll probably have an easier time than I did. You figure prominently in most of that.”

  “From what I remember, Silenus the Younger disappointed me.”

  She nodded. “Just read through it. He found your Demeter, whoever she was. But he promised her not to tell you what he learned. It looks like his descendant figured out a solution and embedded the information in a play, imagining you’d end up seeing the performance.”

  “God of the theater and all that,” I suggested.

  “Exactly. Except the play was probably never performed. You know how the Cult was with secrecy.”

  I fingered a corner of the ream of pages. It was hard to say what was more enticing: the potential knowledge that lay within, or the guest at the other end of the table.

  “By the way,” Ariadne asked, “what was he?”

  “Silenus?”

  “He had a longer-than-normal lifespan and is described as a creature a few times. But I’ve never heard of him outside of the Dionysian mythos.”

  “He was an imp. Most of them are more mischievous than his line. But maybe not as clever.”

  I closed the folder. There would be time to go through it later.

  “So, vacation?” I asked.

  “A whole month.”

  “Where’s your luggage? Or is this just a day trip?”

  She grinned. “I have a few necessities in my bag. I travel light.”

  “Very light.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the best vacations are ones where clothing isn’t entirely required.” She pulled a white cloth from her bag and held it up against her chest. It was a chiton. “And you would be amazed at the number of situations in which this is considered perfectly acceptable attire.”

  “Hmm. Do you have the sandals in there as well?” I asked.

  “Why, yes, sojourner, I believe I do.”

  “Well, then. I think you’d better start vacationing immediately. Let me show you where you can get changed.”