"It's all right." Leander smoothed the wild hair back from Dio's face. "Go dance. I'd really rather not."
"You're sure?"
"Positive. If I'm feeling tired, I'll have someone take me back to Lord Hermes's home."
"And have them text me and stuff, so I know."
"Yes. I have it."
Dio dived back into his arms, purring. His contentment, his delight at simply being held, amazed Leander, but he shared the feeling, more than happy to oblige. Head bent, he let his cheek rest atop Dio's head and only let him go reluctantly when the sound system blared to life again. Several sets of eyes stared at them as they disentangled. To his amazement, no one stared at him in horror or fear. Wistfulness, want, perhaps annoyance that he was the one to hold Dio, but not abhorrence for a monster in their midst.
"Go on, then." He kept his head bent as Dio caressed his right horn. "I really should put the earplugs back in."
With a last kiss, Dio bounded back into the crowd, where he was immediately mobbed by well-wishers. He chattered away to everyone, hugging people here and there, some Leander recognized. Lord Zagreus had come, which he supposed shouldn't have surprised him. Zack, Dio called him, and spoke of him more as a brother than a cousin. The twin fauns who had come to see him some days before bounced excitedly as they spoke with Dio. They stopped bouncing and hung their heads when Dio said something sharp to them and pointed to Leander. Soon he found himself enveloped in faun hugs as the twins apologized, perhaps a bit too zealously, for making him uncomfortable that day.
Azeban bounded over and whirled Dio in a hug that nearly knocked them both over. Leander had an odd, wistful twinge in his stomach until he watched them more closely, hands clasped, chattering excitedly to each other. Friends. Of course Dio had friends.
Others looked familiar, perhaps humans who had associations with gods that he couldn't recall, but soon the music started up again, a thumping, steady bass shaking the floor, and most of the faces he tried to puzzle out had vanished in the churning, writhing crowd.
Dio submerged and resurfaced constantly, here, there, always circulating, his movements beautiful and sinuous. Sometimes, the crowd drew back to give him room as he performed some impossible feat of flexibility; at other times they closed in, drawn to him irresistibly. Leander yearned to go to him, to feel Dio's beautiful body slide and grind against him, but he couldn't bear the thought of touching all those other people.
All those people. Rubbing against Dio, touching him, pawing at him. They grew bolder and touched him more intimately with every song, and Dio let them, gyrating, eyes closed, head flung back as hands caressed his thighs, his hips, his lovely buttocks in those tight jeans. Suddenly Leander wasn't merely watching, and the wistful twinge had spiraled into a dark storm. He was seething. A terrible knot of anger lodged in his stomach, making him nauseous and shaky. Jealousy. The stories he had read didn't do the emotion justice, the terrible churning, skin-prickling, brain-heating hurt. He had told Dio he wouldn't mind other people touching him, had reassured him that he understood the nature of orgiastic ecstasy and that it was fine. Now he found to his horror that he had lied.
He wrapped both arms tight around himself, leaning back against the wall to minimize the dizziness. "I want to go home," he whispered. "Oh, I wish I were home."
A hand touched his arm. He turned carefully and met a smile beaming up at him. The human woman who worked for Lady Hestia, the one who required crutches to walk—what was her name? Ava.
"Hello, Ava," he managed politely, tamping down his earlier anger.
The flashing colored lights of the dance floor painted odd patterns in her short blonde hair as she gazed up at him, lips moving. Oh, the wretched earplugs again. Leander held up a finger for patience as he removed one and leaned closer so she could speak in his ear.
"You don't look like you're having a very nice time, Leander," she shouted over the music, her expression kind and sympathetic. "Had about enough for one evening?"
"I may be reaching my limit. Do you enjoy these sorts of things?"
Ava shrugged and nodded out toward the dance floor. "Not really. I just came with Anthony."
"Ah." Leander frowned at the tall figure writhing on the dance floor. Anthony. He was the one most likely to have murdered Meghan. What was he doing here? More importantly, was it safe to be in the same room with him? "I'm considering asking someone to drive me back now."
"Was just thinking about leaving myself? You want a ride?"
Only leave with someone you know. Well, he knew Ava. She had been accompanying Lady Hestia to the library for years. He nodded, tired of shouting, tired of the noise, tired of the terrible feeling eating at his insides. One last glance at the dance floor to find Dio, maybe catch his eye, but he was nowhere in sight again. Leander sighed and waved a hand to indicate that they should go. Ava patted his arm, repositioned her crutches, and began to make her slow way toward the door, Leander beside her to shield her from any stray jostling bodies from the dancing.
Outside, he removed the other earplug with a sense of relief. The constant pounding of the bass against his skin had irritated him more than he had thought. The concert hadn't been bad, with the variations in tempo and rhythm, but dance music seemed to have one, heavy, inescapable beat. It's hypnotic, compelling sameness drove people to incredible impropriety, and he concluded that he hated it. Hated the hands pawing and groping his beautiful god… His? No, no, no. Dio wasn't a possession, something to lock in a cabinet.
"Are you all right, Leander?" Ava was asking. "You seem a little upset."
He forced a smile for her. "I'm not accustomed to these sorts of things. Perhaps it was a bit much for me."
"Bit much for me too, honestly." Her laugh was soft and self-deprecating. "The concert was exciting. The dance party I can do without. We're right here. The blue van. I get to park close, at least."
In a handicapped spot directly in front of the building sat a vehicle nearly as large as the one Lord Hermes had driven with all of the band's equipment loaded in the back. Leander was just fretting about whether he should help Ava up into the van and how she would drive when she pushed a button on her key ring. The door opened on the driver's side, and a platform lowered to the street.
"That's certainly clever," he said in frank approval.
"It is, isn't it?" Ava stepped carefully onto the platform, clinging to a side rail as it rose. "Go ahead and get in the front seat, Leander. There should be room for your horns if you're careful."
He did as she asked and found that the windshield was far enough forward to accommodate him. When she eased into her seat and placed her crutches on the floor beside her, his other question was answered. The controls for the van were all set around the steering wheel so her feet weren't engaged in operating the vehicle. He glanced away quickly when she caught him staring.
"It's all right. I know you're just curious." She started the van and pulled out into the thinning late-night traffic. "I'm lucky. Hestia pays us all very well, so I could afford to buy something like this and have it converted when the legs started to fail."
"Ava, could I ask… Please forgive me if it's rude. Could I ask what you suffer from?"
"I don't mind. You're always so polite, Leander. How could anyone think you were being rude? I have a rare degenerative disease. All in the genes, they tell me. Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker. The name's so cumbersome that no one remembers it after I tell them anyway. I'll slowly lose control over my body and probably go blind before the end."
"The end?"
"Ten years is the optimistic outlook from the time symptoms start. I've been going downhill for five."
"Ava… I'm so sorry."
"It's all right. Happens to everyone." She gave him an odd sideways glance. "Sad that you're such a nice person."
Leander blinked at that, completely flummoxed. "Why is that sad?"
"Oh, you know. You never really interact with people. Shame about that."
Something in the
distracted tone nagged at Leander, but he couldn't quite pin down what disturbed him. She was probably making fun of him somehow, and he didn't know enough to realize it. But his limited understanding of the world did jog something.
"Could you… Would it be possible to text Dionysus for me? I had promised. To make certain he knew I had left."
"Of course. No problem at all. I'll do it when we stop. Really should text Anthony too, so he's not looking for me."
"Are you good friends?" Leander's niggling half-thoughts were still nipping at him, and he thought they had to do with his suspicions about Anthony.
"I don't know him that well outside work. We're good work friends, I guess. Always got along. Sometimes go places together."
"Is he… Were you ever…"
"What? Involved?" Ava's laugh was more brittle this time. "He's as gay as a rainbow flag in the Castro."
"Like Dionysus?"
"No, hon. Anthony only likes men. Lord Dionysus likes anything warm with a heartbeat."
Leander opened his mouth, wanting to defend him, but the image of Dio on the dance floor filled his vision. He suppressed a sigh and kept silent. It wasn't as if Dio had deceived him or kept things from him. He had explained. Leander simply hadn't understood or hadn't understood how it would affect him.
The van turning off the street into a garage jostled him from his thoughts. "Oh. This isn't Lord Hermes's building."
"No, it's the Domestica building. Lady Hestia's. You looked so done in, I thought you might want to go straight home. We can go up and use her doorway."
"But it's locked at night?"
"I have access. Five or six humans she employs usually do in case she needs something researched but is busy somewhere else."
A thought occurred to him as she parked the van, though he wasn't certain why it would be important. "Does Anthony?"
"Of course."
Which could mean… what? It could at least mean that he had access in the dead of night to bring back the spear and hide it at the Circulation Desk. Lord Hades… I should mention it tomorrow.
He ambled along beside Ava, lost in his own thoughts until they had reached Lady Hestia's office on the top floor. There was a desk beside what appeared to be a false doorway. A security staffer most likely sat there during the day. Probably not at night when the building was closed. Ava placed her hand against the smooth wood, and the surrounding doorframe glowed, the wood of the false door fading until they had a clear view of Lady Hestia's reading room beyond.
"Come on in, Leander. I'll make us some tea while our ears readjust. It's so hard to get to sleep when they're still ringing."
"Thank you. That's very kind of you. I've… never experienced concert aftermath before."
Ava maneuvered around the room's comfortable furniture to reach the little kitchenette in the corner. With her crutches propped beside her and her body leaning against the counter, Leander was pleased to see she could stand on her own and accomplish what she needed to. The crutches were only for walking, then. At least for now. How terrible to live trapped in a body that you knew was failing, one that you knew had an expiration swiftly approaching. It was easy enough to say cavalierly that all humans died, but the manner of death and the quality of that life struck him as more important.
Ava lifted two teacups on a tray from the counter to a nearby side table, retrieved her crutches, and dragged herself to one of the wing chairs beside the tray. She settled with a smile and took the nearer cup for herself, waving to the empty chair for Leander to join her. Since she had brought him home and she seemed to want company, it would have been wrong to refuse. When he thought about trudging upstairs to his empty rooms, he thought maybe he needed some company for a bit as well.
He sipped his tea and raised an eyebrow. "Hmm. A bit more bitter than I'm accustomed to."
"Lady Hestia puts a little dandelion in her herb mix. Good for the digestion and for your liver."
"Ah." Leander blew on his tea and sipped, the combination of warmth and comforting surroundings soothing his jangled nerves. "Have you always lived in New York?"
"No. I have for years, but I'm from the Midwest originally. I moved out here when Lady Hestia offered me a job in this building. Much more exciting here. It's home now."
They chatted about little things, plants and weather, furniture polish and china cups. Leander drained his cup and set it down slowly. His entire body felt sluggish suddenly as if he moved through molasses.
"Ava, I think… you might… I'm not feeling very well…"
"That's all right, sweetie. Just sit there and relax. Let the poison take effect."
"Poison?" He tried to struggle from his chair, to cry out for help, but his voice wouldn't rise above a whisper, and his body no longer obeyed him. Panic rose up from his chest as he realized too late that he had made a terrible error in judgment.
"Yes. It's not fatal. But it will make you susceptible. For as long as I need you to be. We don't have to go far, but I wouldn't be able to drag you to the cellar on my own. You're going to have to walk there."
"No," he forced out, trying in that one spare syllable to convey all his anguish and fear, his refusal to comply, his outright denial of what was happening. No, no, no! Dio, what have I done? What's going to happen to me? Someone help me!
"Poor thing. I wish you were more of an asshole like most of the gods and non-humans who come here. High and mighty beings just because they don't die." Ava gathered her crutches and set her arms in them to heave herself up. "You'd think they might take some time to help one of us, wouldn't you? Someone who's been loyal and hardworking. Come along, Leander. We're going to the basement. I know you're the only one who can open it."
To his horror, he found himself rising from the chair, though he screamed at his body not to obey. It refused to listen, plodding after Ava as she retrieved a backpack from behind a sofa and continued into the twisting corridors of the library. Inside, he trembled and struggled desperately, fighting to gain control of a single leg muscle, any piece of him, while his body numbly followed.
Trapped, he was trapped again, just as he had been as a child, except now his prison was his own body. He screamed, or tried to, straining against lungs and vocal chords that refused to do his bidding, producing only the thin, whispered screams he always had in nightmares. Unable to summon help. Unable to help himself.
They passed Lady Athena's section of the library, then the Circulation Desk, now dark and deserted. He tried to drag his feet, to listen for any movement on the improbable chance that perhaps one of the gods had been restless and had come for some late-night research. Nothing. Silence. Only the thud-drag of Ava's steps and his own stumbling.
"Ava," he whispered, hoping to plead with her, to have some explanation of what she intended.
"Hush now. We'll be there soon. I know you want why's and what's happening and all that. We'll be there soon."
Leander managed only a whimper, his voice deserting him entirely. His limbs felt so heavy he wanted to lie down and sleep, but the compulsion in whatever potion she had given him drove him onward.
Finally, they stood in front of the basement door on the west wall of the library.
"Open it, Leander. Then you'll go down the stairs first. I assume there are lights down there, but I have a flashlight just in case."
Again he tried to resist and again he failed as his right hand lifted slowly and pressed against the silver plate on the door. The plate warmed under his hand as the door recognized him and the lock clicked before the heavy iron door swung open. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, one escaping to roll down his cheek, but he couldn't brush it away. He could only descend, one slow step at a time, into the dark.
"Leander, turn the lights on." Ava sounded exasperated, but it was her own fault. He could only do as she said.
He had to return three steps back up to reach the light switch at the top of the stairs.
"Now go down the stairs, Leander. Go all the way down. Take your ti
e, jacket, and shirt off. Then kneel in the center of the floor."
Tears continued to track down his cheeks as his body did everything she said. No threat had been spoken, but something in her manner, so clinical and detached, told him he was about to die. Dio had been right. He had suspected her, and no one would listen, dismissing his concerns as impossible. They should have listened. He had no doubt now that Ava had killed Meghan. How or why weren't important now. She had done it.
By the time he knelt in nothing but his kilt on the cold concrete floor, she had navigated the steps and set the backpack behind him.
"Hands behind your back, Leander. Such a good boy."
He could still move his eyes independently. At least that was left to him. One last, desperate hope had occurred to him. Maybe the door had swung shut behind her. Then if she killed him, she would be trapped. But no, the light from the first-floor hall still spilled onto the stairs. She must have wedged something between the door and frame.
A tearing sound came from behind him, and something sticky wrapped around his wrists. Duct tape from the feel of it. Oddly, that gave him a kernel of hope. If she found it necessary to bind him, the poison would probably be wearing off soon.
"Ava?"
"No questions yet, sweetie. I have to concentrate."
When she had secured his arms behind him from wrist to elbow, she shuffled around in front and slipped a looped nylon rope around each of his horns. Her brow furrowed in concentration, she flipped the ends of the ropes over his shoulders and then hobbled behind him again, where he had no idea what she was doing.
Her slow steps kept receding, and suddenly his head was yanked backward by the ropes on his horns. Metallic clanks told him she was most likely tying the ropes to the large ventilation duct on that side of the basement. He wanted to toss his head to fight the restriction, the pull on his horns tightening his scalp with the promise of a blinding headache to come. Of course, he couldn't move. He could only kneel there, wishing he wasn't such a coward. A braver person would have simply waded into the dancing instead of standing by the wall with a breaking heart. A more confident person would have told Ava no, he would wait until one of his escorts was ready to leave. A less needy, pitiful person wouldn't have fallen in love with a god who could never return that love. There could never be a civil, heartfelt declaration of forever as with Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy.
Brandywine Investigations Page 16
