Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (17 page)

He swallowed, debating how much to say, then gave in. “Apollo. He was reborn in India. He was a journalist, rather famous. Had a wife and grown-up kids. You might have seen me talking to him in the Underworld, while you were with your grandfather.”

She nodded. “Guess he was interested in seeing me.”

“Indeed. Reminded me I shouldn’t be sharing the secrets, but said he could hardly blame me, given how cute you were.”

She smirked at the compliment, and Adrian continued, “Rhea found him not long after finding me. It didn’t take much convincing for him to eat the pomegranate. We met a few times and became friends; stayed in touch online. He was the next, after Kiri and me, to eat the immortality fruit, even though it meant becoming strangely young, which kind of freaked out his wife and friends.

“He didn’t care. He thought it was awesome, and wanted to share the news with people. And that was where he got really unlucky. See, being Hindu, he went to some of his gurus to tell them about it, figuring they’d be able to appreciate stuff like a spirit realm and an immortality fruit better than most.” Adrian scraped together his sandwich crumbs, then let his hands fall still. “Turned out one of them was in Thanatos. He confronted Sanjay in private and made some threats, but none of us understood how dangerous this cult was until too late. Until after they…planted a car bomb and murdered him.”

“You’re sure it was them?” Sophie sounded shocked.

“The guru visited his widow afterward and told her it had happened because he ‘defied nature.’ It sounded dreadfully like claiming credit for the attack.”

“He should have been arrested.”

“There wasn’t enough evidence. We’ve tried, and we can’t find it. It’s maddening. Sanjay was in Afghanistan at the time, for work, and we suspect the group used local terrorists, whose names we don’t know and whose language none of us speaks. Even if we did know who they were, there’s no guarantee anyone could find them and get them to confess. Those people are good at hiding. Just ask the CIA.”

“But why didn’t this make bigger news?” Sophie asked, outraged.

“A car bomb in Afghanistan? It was just taken to be part of the fighting. And the notion that Sanjay was immortal, well, that’d be insane-tabloid material, wouldn’t it? News like that wouldn’t get out unless some immortal was really determined to prove their abilities to the world. Trust me, after what happened to him, none of us are. The only ones who believe it are this select group of fanatics. And Sanjay’s widow.”

“Wait, what about
your
family? They must know you were healed. How much else do they know?”

Adrian nodded, a flicker of homesickness stinging him. “I kept it secret from my dad as long as I could. I didn’t think he’d understand. He’s always stressed; and anyway, he’s a devout Christian and I wasn’t sure he’d like this notion of me hanging around with a Greek goddess. And when we started growing the immortality fruit, well, I didn’t tell him that either, because I didn’t want to get his hopes up—that I might get cured.”

“So when did you tell him?”

Adrian smiled faintly. “The day I got my legs back. After eating the fruit. I walked in, no wheelchair, and said, ‘I have some things to tell you.’ He was, um, gobsmacked.”

“But happy, I would think.”

“Yeah. Happier than I ever realized he’d be.” Adrian ran his fingertips along the table’s surface. “After explaining everything, I asked him, ‘But doesn’t it bother you, from a religious standpoint?’ And he said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, this
is
the work of God.’ Of course I emphasized that we shouldn’t tell people the truth. We spread it about that I’d got some fancy new ‘treatment’ that got me walking again. But then the real trouble started.”

“Thanatos,” Sophie guessed.

He nodded. “They started sniffing around Wellington, looking for me. Probably they tracked me through messages between Sanjay and me.”

“And you said someone tried to kill you?”

He looked into her anxious eyes, then lowered his gaze. “A guy shot me and Kiri, in the park one night.” While Sophie sucked in her breath, he added, “Clearly it was just a warning. If they wanted me dead they’d have used a rocket launcher, not a gun. He incapacitated me long enough to tell me they knew about us and that we’d better get lost and not make any more immortals, and that if I showed up in the living world again I
would
be dead.”

She emitted an unsteady sigh. “Okay, I see why you avoid our realm so much.”

He leaned down to pet Kiri again. “Also I suppose they were testing us. Seeing what would happen if we were shot. They still might not know Kiri’s immortal—she didn’t regain consciousness till after I’d switched us to the other realm. But now they definitely know I am.”

“And that’s why you moved to the Underworld.”

“Yes. And it’s why I can’t visit Dad much anymore.” Adrian chewed the side of his lip, recalling the whole mess. “I crept back in that night, Kiri and me covered in blood, and unfortunately he was right there, and got the whole scary visual. So I couldn’t break it to him gently. The long and short of it is, I was terrified someone would kill him too—maybe bomb our house—so I told him I had to leave. ‘We have to pretend we’ve had a falling out,’ I said. ‘Tell everyone I’m an ungrateful, arrogant sod who’s gone off on his own, and you’re having nothing to do with me. Tell them whatever you have to.’”

“But you do still see him?” She sounded sad on his behalf.

“Occasionally. And I have my mate Zoe transfer messages between us, texts. Her parents are a software engineer and a security expert, so she’s pretty certain she’d catch anyone trying to spy on her.”

“So are you guys keeping track of what Thanatos is doing?”

“We’re trying. But we ourselves are not terribly good at being hackers and spies. Except Niko—he’s got the knack.”

“How many of you are there?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Now we’re getting into things I shouldn’t tell you yet.”

“Why not? You’ve told me about the fruit of immortality and where it grows.”

“Yeah, but they learned that from Sanjay already, and they can’t get into the spirit realm. Nor can you.”

“But from Sanjay they probably know how many of you there are, and what your names are.”

“No, they don’t seem to be sure about those things. They know about me, because of my correspondence with Sanjay. And they know about Rhea, though they can’t find any current record of her, because there isn’t one. And they have strong suspicions about others. But I shouldn’t tell you all their names either, or how many there are, because…it’s dangerous information.” He decided against specifically saying they might torture her to learn it. If they did, he vowed silently, he would go against his decision not to instigate violence, and kill the torturers himself.

She stayed silent long enough that he suspected she had guessed about the torture scenario. “I’ll definitely avoid them. But I don’t know yet if I’ll become one of you, either.” She set her apple on a napkin. “This is a very deep and difficult offer you’re making me, you realize.”

“I do realize.”

“I’d need more time to think about it even if I knew everything.”

“Yes. Which you don’t.”

She nodded, tracing figure eights on the table with her pinky. “This is sure making me want to dream about Persephone, though.”

“You’ll get there soon. I’m eager to have you reach those memories myself.” And not just because they were highly likely to put her in a romantic mood…but that was the larger part of his motivation.

She looked out the window. “I’m pretty sure Jacob, at least, doesn’t know the truth about those so-called detectives.”

“Oh, I agree,” said Adrian. “I doubt he does know.”

“He did honestly seem to think you were stalking me to kill me, or something ordinary like that.”

“Well, I promise I’m not.”

She tried to smile, but nervousness evidently wiped it out. “I don’t know if I’d trust you one bit, if it weren’t for all these dreams and memories.”

“Yeah. That’s why I had to get the pomegranate into you.”

Her smile stretched more this time, and she looked at him with fresh curiosity. “How
did
you find me? Or how did Rhea find you, and all the others?”

“Another immortal ability. We can sense certain souls, ones we’ve made a deliberate connection with in the past, as long as the connection was made when we were immortal.” He decided not to explain about how it required an exchange of bodily fluids—either by a blood-brothers kind of process, or the rather more fun and clothing-free way. “If I concentrate, I can single out a sort of hum, or vibration, and home in on it, for those select people. It was easy enough to track you that way.”

“So the day you kidnapped me, that probably wasn’t actually the first day you saw me in person. You must have tracked me and found me before that.”

“All right, a little.”

“Tell me again how you’re not stalking me?” But she grinned as she said it.

Bowing his head, he smiled. “I was at your high school graduation, because that was a big crowd and no one would notice. And I bought fruit from you once at your fruit stand. That was all. No peering into windows or anything.”

She looked intrigued. “From me personally, you bought fruit?”

“In July. You were working the cash register.”

“Why don’t I remember this?”

“You remember everyone who buys fruit?”

“No. I just feel like I should have noticed you.”

“It was a busy day. Heaps of people. And I was disguised, hat and sunglasses and stuff.” Also, he hadn’t dared speak more than a few words to her, for fear she’d notice his New Zealand accent and pay too much attention to him.

Someday he might even tell her how hard his heart had pounded at being closer to her than ever before.

“What did you buy?”

Her question surprised him. “Er…apples. Plums. Strawberries; you guys had a special on those. Oh, and tomatoes.”

“Good memory.”

Regarding her? Of course. Clearing his throat, he crumpled up the sandwich papers into a ball, and blew out the candles. “I’ve told you enough for one day. You need to go to sleep and find out more.”

She watched him stuff the napkins into the paper bag. “And in the meantime, keep dating the guy who’s being approached by people who might try to kill me? Plus go to class and maintain at least a 3.5 grade point average? And be there for my family when they need me?”

“You’ve got it.” He stood and offered his hand to her.

She scowled, but took it, and let him pull her to her feet.

As she picked up her coat, Adrian added, “Text me whenever it gets too much. You’re my priority for now—making sure you adjust all right.” Actually she was his priority forever, and had been in life after life. But again with the problem of sounding like a stalker if he said that.

Adrian held her coat while she slid her arms in, then put his own coat on. He opened the Airstream’s door, letting in a gust of air that smelled of wet fields.

Sophie followed him outside. “By the way, who was Nikolaos, back in the Greek god days?”

“Haven’t you guessed?”

She thought about it a moment, then laughed. “Of course. Hermes.”

“Yep.” Adrian felt an ages-old glimmer of envy at the fondness and amusement on her face. The trickster’s charisma always drew people to him, women especially. Even when he was screwing with your life just for laughs.

“What was he in this life?” she asked. “Before you found him.”

“A con man.” Enjoying her gasp of surprise, he took her hand and led her toward the stake with its fluorescent ribbons hanging sodden in the rain.

Chapter Fourteen

S
OPHIE EXCHANGED A FEW TEXTS
with Jacob that night while they both did their homework, she in Corvallis and he in Eugene. But her mind thrummed with everything Adrian had told her. She longed to know more about Hades and Persephone.

And Hermes. He had darted across their lives on an irregular basis, forever mischievous and causing trouble, but nonetheless their ally. A valuable person to have at your back, he also excelled at dodging repercussions for his behavior. A con man? Of course; what else would he have been?

Niko had been sixty-six years old when they approached him, Adrian told her as they lingered next to the stake. After avoiding arrest for his swindles in his native Greece and half a dozen other countries in Europe, he was living in England under one of his many assumed identities. Upon receiving the offer to become eternally young and strong, and gain a whole undiscovered realm in which to hide and explore at his will, he accepted immediately.

“Turning from a paunchy, balding old guy into a fit, young-looking bloke made him insufferably vain,” Adrian said. “He kept dragging me to pubs and challenging me to contests—who could get some girl’s phone number first, stuff like that. Which I never took him up on.”

Adrian had been quick to add that last bit, Sophie recalled. It was cute, his wanting to impress her with something as trivial as that, when he had so many other massively impressive qualities at hand.