He swiped his screen, the images flashing. “I found a map of the current Vatican overlaid onto the structures that existed in the Imperial Age.”
She moved to peer over his shoulder. “Where’s Rhea’s Phrygianum, exactly?”
“No one knows, unfortunately.”
“Your mother said it was right near the Circus of Nero.”
“Yes, but look.” He pointed to an enormous elongated oval track on the map. “The racetrack was longer than two football fields end to end. It stretched from about where we’re standing in Saint Peter’s Square all the way past the current basilica. The Phrygianum could’ve been anywhere around here.” He scowled down at his phone, as if angry at the Internet for not providing more specific information.
“We know it’s underground, just like the mithraeum in New York. So how’re we going to find it?”
Flint cocked a bushy eyebrow at her, then turned back to his phone, swiping and tapping with renewed vigor.
“What? You see something?”
“No,” he answered shortly. “But I might hear something.” He pulled a steel cylinder about the size of a soda can out of his bag, plugged its long cord into his tablet, and rested the can on the ground. “You know I monitor seismic vibrations.”
“Yeah. Although I’m not sure why.”
“God of Volcanoes. Means I like to know when they’re about to erupt.”
“In the Vatican?” She looked around pointedly.
“I also power my forge through geothermal activity,” he said gruffly, walking a few steps and resting the can in a new location. “It means I’m really good at hearing any vibrations or sounds emanating from underground. And from what we know of their mithraeum in New York, the Host is quite technologically advanced. They’ll have all sorts of high-tech equipment, power generators, climate-control systems—”
“And futuristic torture devices,” she added, thinking of the shooting flames and glass prisons she and Theo had suffered through beneath Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.
“All those machines produce vibrations. And their communications apparatus will also be sending out wireless signals. If they’re underground somewhere nearby, I’ll hear them.”
“And you think the Swiss Guard hasn’t?” Selene asked doubtfully as she followed him around the circumference of the elliptical plaza. She could see a pair of the guards even now, standing under an arch in the colonnade like Renaissance statues, mildly ridiculous in their parti-colored hose and velvet tunics. “Aren’t they trained to defend the Vatican against all dangers?”
“No one bothers monitoring seismic waves as deep as I do.” He kept walking his can around the plaza, his face intent.
After a few minutes, Selene grew impatient and headed in the other direction, looking for more clues. As absurd as it seemed that the Host would put an entrance to its ultrasecret hideout in a place as public as Saint Peter’s Square, she’d bet her entire stash of gold arrows that it had. After all, in New York, the syndexioi stuck a hidden door right into the base of the famous Atlas statue in the middle of Rockefeller Center. They seemed unable to resist displaying their influence in plain sight—at least to the initiated. They also had a tendency to connect their ceremonial locations with landmarks, believing the sites’ greater importance added power to their rituals. What greater place of power could there be than the seat of the Catholic Church itself?
At least, that’s what the Christians think, she mused, looking at the Vatican City flag snapping overhead. Its coat of arms featured two crossed keys below a pope’s miter. They think Saint Peter holds the keys to heaven itself. That’s not so different from Mithras, who grants his followers salvation by shifting the celestial spheres to bring about the Last Age. Saturn had admitted to manipulating Saint Paul on the road to Damascus—why not co-opt Saint Peter as well? She felt more certain than ever that her grandfather would choose this place for his sanctuary.
Zeus is probably chained somewhere right beneath me, she thought, clenching her fists with frustration. She closed her eyes as if that might help her sense him. If he begs for help, will I hear his pleas? she wondered, before admitting to herself that such a thing would never happen. Not because she couldn’t hear—but because her imperious father never begged. If he’d ever asked for my help before, I would’ve gone to him, she decided. Instead, he was content to live alone in his cave, and I was content to let him.
She opened her eyes at the sound of a child’s giggle. The scene before her seemed placed by the Fates as a reminder of her failings as a daughter. A gangly brown man in a Denver Broncos T-shirt and baggy cargo shorts carried a little girl on his shoulders. She couldn’t have been more than five years old, her skinny arms wrapping his bald head like a victor’s wreath. Selene heard him patiently attempting to explain the major tenets of Catholicism as he pointed out the saints above the colonnade.
Did Father ever carry me like that? she wondered. A memory flooded back to her, so sharp and quick her eyes burned with sudden tears. Yes. The first time I saw my sacred city of Ephesus, she remembered, it was from my father’s shoulders. He brought me down from Olympus and across the wide Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. “Your worship will spread beyond Greece,” he told me. “Your glory has no bounds—and neither does my love for you.” It hadn’t mattered how many other gods and heroes Zeus sired—in his presence, she’d always felt like a beloved only child.
Selene watched as the little girl on her father’s shoulders rested her cheek against his shining skull. Her eyes drifted shut, but she was still alert enough to ask, “What’s the pope?”
Then, after his muddled response about a man ordained to carry out God’s will, she demanded, “Are there ever any girl popes?”
“Not yet,” the dad replied.
“Not ever,” Selene grumbled under her breath.
The dad caught her eye. She expected him to scold her. Instead, he winked, his smile more friendly than flirtatious. “Never say never.” He patted his daughter’s tiny leg affectionately, as if he really believed that the little girl could grow up to change the world.
That’s what my father believed about me, Selene thought, turning away from the man before he could engage her further. And now I’m so powerless I can’t even free him from a prison right under my feet.
Her cheeks burned, the unrelenting Mediterranean sun exacerbating the heat of her shame. She passed by one of the round fountains at the end of the plaza, letting the cool spray brush her face, but it provided little relief. She could feel the warmth of the sunbaked black cobblestones through her boot soles—until she couldn’t anymore. She looked down, curious.
She stood on a large circular slab of white marble. Inscribed around its circumference: SAGITTARIO25NOV and ACQVARIO21GENN. From either side of the plaque, a thin granite line emerged. She traced its course to the Egyptian obelisk in the center of the plaza. A total of seven marble circles sat along the line. Selene walked from one to the next.
The middle circles each bore the names of two constellations of the zodiac, along with two dates. The circle farthest from the center contained only the Italian inscription for Capricorn and 22DIC. The circle closest to the towering obelisk listed only Cancer and 22GIVGNO. The winter and summer solstices. But why?
Selene took a step back, then another—only then did she notice that the obelisk’s shadow lay across the plaza like a black finger, pointing directly along the granite line. The shadow’s tip rested just above the summer solstice marker.
She peered upward at the sun—it hung almost directly overhead. Noon, she thought, looking down once more at the obelisk’s shadow.
The granite line, she saw now, was a meridian: As the sun moved from east to west every day, the shadow would trace a semicircle within the plaza. Only at midday would it align with the granite meridian, allowing church officials to identify the right time for their noon prayers. The zodiac markers, on the other hand, indicated the sun’s progression throughout the course of an entire year.
&nbs
p; “Hey,” she called across the plaza to Flint. “What’s today’s date?”
“June nineteenth,” he shouted back, already walking toward her. “Why?”
In two days, at the summer solstice, the sun would rise to its highest point in the sky, and the 130-foot obelisk would cast a shadow only a few yards long, its tip resting squarely on the Cancer marker.
Selene felt her heart lurch. I finally know why Father is still alive.
Flint joined her beside the meridian line.
“The summer solstice,” she told him. “That must be what they’re waiting for. Two days. That’s all the time we have before they kill him.”
Flint nodded gravely. “Then we’ll find him. The clues have to be here somewhere. But it doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it does! The Host sacrificed the other Athanatoi on the days surrounding the winter solstice. They’re obsessed with astrology, solstices, and equinoxes. So the summer solstice is the obvious choice for their next rite.”
“I agree. I meant the meridian line doesn’t make sense.” He pointed at the marble plaque before them. “At the summer solstice, the sun doesn’t rise in front of the constellation Cancer.”
“Maybe it did when they built the plaza,” she offered.
Much of the original religion of Mithraism, according to Theo’s research, centered on the fact that the position of the sun and constellations during the solstices and equinoxes moved over time due to the earth’s wobble. The ancients, who knew nothing about the wobble, had credited the god Mithras with this shift of the “celestial spheres.” They believed that each time the heavens moved, the world entered a new Age named for the position of the sun at the spring equinox. Some modern astrologers believed something similar, crediting major changes in society to the turning of the Ages that occurred approximately every two thousand years.
Although the lack of distinct borders on the constellations made definitive pronouncements impossible, most observers claimed the world was currently at the very end of the Age of Pisces—about to move into the Age of Aquarius. Saturn’s cult believed that if they performed the correct rituals and murdered the correct gods, the next Age would be the Last Age, when Mithras-as-Jesus would once again walk the earth, bringing ultimate salvation to mankind.
Flint brought up something on his phone, shaking his head all the while. “The meridian line is newer than the plaza. ‘The Vatican built it in the early 1800s,’” he read aloud before looking down at the zodiac markers again. “Since the position of the spring equinox shifts every two thousand years or so, what was true when the meridian was built in the nineteenth century would still be true today—we’re in the Age of Pisces, so at the summer solstice, the sun rises in front of Gemini.”
“So by saying the summer solstice is in Cancer instead …” Selene paced the length of the meridian again, stopping at the middle circle of the seven. “It’s like turning the clock back two thousand years.”
A small voice piped, “I’m a Cancer!”
The man and his daughter were back.
Arms outstretched, the little girl ran tight circles around one of the marble plaques like a crazed seagull. “Cancer the Crab! Snap snap! That’s the sound a crab makes.”
Her father laughed. “That’s right, Lily!”
“No, it’s not,” Selene couldn’t help retorting.
The father threw her a startled glance that warmed into friendly interest when he recognized her from their previous conversation. “Crabs don’t go snap?”
“She’s not a Cancer.”
“Selene …” Flint warned under his breath. “Leave it.”
But Selene was tired of suffering the consequences of mortal stupidity. The Mithraists’ blind acceptance of Saturn’s lies had gotten her twin killed and her father kidnapped. Theo would’ve seen it as his duty to enlighten this idiot, she decided with a pang. And since Theo isn’t here …
“When the Babylonians defined the zodiac three thousand years ago,” she began, crossing her arms and glaring at the dad, “the sun rose in front of the constellation Cancer at the end of June. That’s why your kid thinks she’s a Cancer. But the earth wobbles, and our view of the stars keeps shifting over time, so if you actually watched the sun rise this morning, you’d see it pass through the previous constellation instead—Gemini.”
Little Lily had stopped her circling. “Gemini like the Twins?”
Selene hadn’t realized the girl was listening. “Yeah, the twins.”
The constellation had nothing to do with her and Apollo—the “twins” were Castor and Pollux, two ancient heroes—but the words stuck in her throat nonetheless. She felt her brother’s absence like a missing limb.
Lily stared up at Selene, lips pursed as if noticing her distress. “Don’t worry. I’d rather be a twin than a crab anyway.”
“Huh. Me too.”
The dad offered Selene an indulgent smile. “The Vatican has an astronomical observatory and everything.” He cocked his head like a schoolteacher patiently explaining something to a particularly dense student. “They wouldn’t get the zodiac wrong.”
Cheeks flaring red, Flint took half a step toward him. “Are you saying she’s lying?”
The man raised both hands as if to fend off an angry bear, all trace of condescension vanishing. “No, no. It’s cool. I’ll Google it.” He swung Lily onto his shoulders. “Nice meeting you all. Have a good time in Rome,” he offered before hurrying away.
Selene stared after the pair thoughtfully, repressing her urge to chastise Flint for needlessly defending her from a dad in cargo shorts. “He has a point, you know. If, like the meridian says, the summer solstice is in Cancer, then at the spring equinox, the sun rises in Aries. Which would mean we’re currently living in the Age of Aries.”
“But we’re not,” Flint grumbled. “We moved from the Age of Aries the Ram into the Age of Pisces the Fish sometime between 1 AD and 300 AD—around the time Mithraism flourished in Rome.”
“Exactly. But remember how the Atlas statue in Rockefeller Center holds a celestial sphere above his head? It shows the spring equinox in Aries, too. That’s how Theo knew the Mithraists had planted the symbol there to mark the entrance to their mithraeum beneath Saint Patrick’s Cathedral—they love referencing the era when Mithraism was at its peak.” She pointed at the granite line accusingly. “This meridian is doing the same thing. The astronomers at the Vatican know the real science perfectly well. So whoever put the solstice in the wrong place didn’t do it by mistake—this is our entrance.”
“You’re still convinced the Vatican is in on the plot?”
“I’m not saying the pope himself is a syndexios,” she admitted. “But the Host has been around for almost two thousand years. If they had time to infiltrate the police force in New York, why not parts of the Vatican, too?”
Flint didn’t look convinced, but he dropped his steel cylinder onto the marble Cancer plaque nonetheless. “I’m not picking up any vibrations.” He walked up the meridian, testing each circle in turn. “Nothing.”
Selene scowled and paced back over the circles, stopping at the Mithraists’ other favorite constellation—Taurus the Bull, the central animal in the tauroctony. I must be missing something, she thought. If Theo were here… She stomped her foot in frustration. Then she stomped again, her preternatural hearing noting the slight variation in tone between this circle and the others. A grin spread slowly across her face.
“There may not be any seismic waves, but there sure as hell’s a big hole right underneath my boots.”
Chapter 16
SHE WHO WORKS IN SECRET
“I still think we need a better plan,” Flint grumbled when they returned to Saint Peter’s Square that night.
“We don’t have that luxury,” Selene insisted.
They’d debated it all day. They had fewer than forty-eight hours before the solstice. If they tried to break in tonight and it didn’t work, at least they’d get another shot tomorrow.
&
nbsp; “I still think we should wait for Scooter,” Flint insisted. “He’s a smarmy little bastard, but we could use his help.”
As the God of Thieves, Scooter Joveson had a talent for breaking into locked places.
“You tried to call him, right?”
“Voice mail every time.”
“So he’s either taking one of his spa days, stuck somewhere on a plane, or locked away in bed with his latest starlet.”
“He’s not a movie producer anymore.”
“You think tech moguls don’t sleep with hot celebrities?” she scoffed. “Regardless, we don’t have time to wait for him to get here from Los Angeles. It’s got to be tonight.”
“Then I should go in with you.” He gave her that look again. The same one he’d been casting her way all day when he thought she wasn’t looking. The “maybe I should trap her inside one of my famous nets and make sure she can’t get away” look. But the Smith was nothing if not smart. He knows that the minute he allows his love for me to devolve into overprotectiveness, I’ll run.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, a remonstrance more than an assurance. “I’m not planning on any fighting. I’m just going to sneak in, find where they’re holding Father, and get him out. It’ll all be over before sunrise.”
She patted the bulge in her pocket, where she’d stored the modified two-way radio Flint had given her. Unlike a cell phone, it transmitted super-low-frequency waves that could travel underground. “I’ll signal when I’ve got Father, and you just make sure you’re back here in the plaza to create another distraction so we can get back out without being seen by the guards.” She found strength in saying the words aloud. After so many futile months, she would finally rescue Zeus. She felt, for the first time since she’d left New York, like herself again. Like She Who Helps One Climb Out.
Olympus Bound Page 13
