Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (48 page)

“You look better, you know,” Adrian told him. “Without your ridiculous fluffy hair.”

“I shall grow my hair fluffier than ever just because you said that. But it’s a good thing you dragged me out of that fire before it burned up the rest of me.”

“You wouldn’t have died,” Freya assured.

“I certainly could have. It’s quite likely. I was a meter or two away when the grenade went off, and it still did that. Imagine if I’d been any closer.” Niko popped a spare slice of bacon in his mouth, chewing it up contentedly. “I hate being a soul, being dead. You know what I hate most about it?”

“No sex?” Sophie guessed.

“That’s what I hate
second
most about it. No, what I hate most is—”

“That you can’t lie,” Adrian cut in.

Niko lifted his eyebrows at him, impressed. “You do know me. Exactly right.”

“And no bacon,” Freya added.

“No bacon. Such a tragedy. So, guess what?” Niko pointed to Adrian’s computer, in its satchel on the floor. “Found something this morning, when I went looking into Wilkes’ emails.”

“He’s dead,” said Sophie. “What could you find now in his emails?”

“Quentin’s address. Here in Corvallis.”

“Seriously?” said Adrian. “How?”

“It was from a message back in September, one Quentin sent to him. I’d overlooked it before, because it was titled ‘Tech support’ and did in fact look like a daft old person seeking help with her broadband Internet. But when I looked closer into it today, I found it was actually about the Internet in a house in Corvallis she was intending to rent. And deep in the attached documentation was the house’s address. 4028 Kings.” Niko bit into his toast and said to Adrian with his mouth full, “You want to get her or should I?”

“I’ll do it,” Adrian said. He had gone numb all over with the determination to make the woman pay.

“Are you sure?” Sophie asked, looking anxious.

Adrian nodded. “I’ll be careful. I’ll make it a surprise attack—like the kind they use—so she won’t have a chance to grab any explosives.”

“But what’ll you do?”

“Tie her up and call the police and vanish a few seconds before they get there. And tell her ‘Don’t mess with us’ while we’re waiting.”

Sophie thought it over, then nodded, and turned back to her breakfast. “I wouldn’t mind coming along to help.” After last night, she’d surely had enough of Thanatos and was ready to see some counterstrikes.

But Adrian shook his head. “I’m not endangering you again. This won’t take long, don’t worry. She’s just a mad old woman. I think I can handle her.”

“Speaking of mad old women,” Niko said, “has anyone heard from Rhea?”

“No.” Adrian took out his phone and frowned at its lack of new messages. “She hasn’t answered any of my calls.”

“Nor mine,” said Freya. “I bet she lost her phone or forgot how to charge it or something.”

“Can’t sense her, either.” Niko sighed. “So she’s behind an oak forest, evidently, not that that narrows it down.”

“Might be in the Underworld,” said Adrian. “We’ll look there. We’d better make sure she knows about last night. But first, I pay Quentin a visit.”

A
DRIAN STOOD ON
the sidewalk outside Quentin’s rented house in Corvallis, a small, gray-blue, one-story affair on a modestly busy street, its yard studded with juniper bushes. Adrian was wearing thin knit gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, and now used them to wipe off the surface of the handcuffs procured from Niko one more time, just in case.

Adrian switched into the spirit realm, strode forward the right number of paces, and switched back. The ground tossed him upward a short distance, resolving into carpet under his boots. He recovered his balance and looked around. He was in a sparsely furnished living room, with a half-full mug of tea on the coffee table and a crocheted blanket crumpled on the sofa. An elderly woman’s voice droned in one-sided conversation in another room. He stepped quietly toward her, and placed his back against the wall next to the door.

“Yes, that would be fine,” she was saying. “I plan to be out of the unit by then.”

She re-entered the living room, and shouted in surprise upon catching sight of Adrian. He seized her in both arms. He stole her cell phone, dropped it, and crushed it under his heel, then dragged her into the spirit realm.

They stumbled down onto the bumpy ground, fir trees looming overhead, the wind breathing chilly across the land. Adrian hauled her wrists behind her and clicked the handcuffs onto them. She struggled, but Adrian held her firm.

“Let’s make this short and sweet,” he said. “I’m getting you arrested today, and am hoping you spend the rest of your life in jail. But just so we’re clear, in case you do get out, or in case you try to get friends on the outside to do your work for you, I want you to understand something. You bother Sophie Darrow or her family again, ever, and I find you, bring you here, and abandon you. You’d never get back. You’d die here. You’re done putting mortals in danger. Understood?”

“But especially Sophie.” She sounded tough and completely remorseless, despite being planted on wet ground in the spirit realm in handcuffs, flannel pajamas, and pink socks.

“Especially Sophie,” he confirmed.

“You don’t call this putting mortals in danger?”

“This I call justified.”

“Threaten me all you like. We won’t stop, you know. Whether I’m locked up or not, we’ll find a way. And I’m old, Adrian. I don’t mind dying for a good cause.”

“There’s nothing good about your cause, and you
will
stop. Didn’t last night show you that your club isn’t even very good at what they’re trying to do?”

She chuckled. He felt the sound in his arm, locked against her throat. “Oh? Then you don’t know?”

He yanked his arm tighter. “I know Wilkes and his mate got themselves killed, while we’re all safe. Good enough for me.”

“
Are
you all safe? Have you accounted for everyone?”

His flesh went cold. Rhea, who hadn’t answered them, and whose soul could be in the Underworld to judge from her blocked signal…

He pulled Quentin back into the living realm. The upward bump of the floor’s reappearance made Quentin topple over as he let go of her. She landed on her knees with a grunt of pain. He walked to her land line and dialed 911.

“I’ve found Betty Quentin, who’s wanted for unlawful entry and arranging assaults on Sophie Darrow at OSU,” he told the dispatcher. “She’s at 4028 Kings, and I’ve tied her up.”

“And your name?” the dispatcher asked.

“Just come.” Adrian hung up, distracted by worry about Rhea—not to mention his own involvement in law-breaking now.

“This won’t do you any good,” Quentin told him.

“The threat still stands.”

“And I still don’t fear death.”

“Don’t you?” He bent over her, heart pounding in rage and fear and the thrill of saying something so unlike himself. “Then let me explain something. When you die, you come to
my
realm. And the more harm you do up here, the longer you stay in the darkness down there.”

“If that’s the nonsense it sounds like, I’ll fight you because you’re insane and dangerous. If it’s actually true, then all the more reason we need to get rid of evil creatures like you.”

There was nothing more he could say. She thought he was evil and would always think so. It was useless. She was the police’s problem now.

Meanwhile, he needed to make sure Rhea was all right.

He stormed to the window and looked out. The sound of a police siren moved closer. Within a minute, the car with its flashing lights pulled up in front of the house. He unlocked the front door to make it easier for the cops. Then he glanced briefly back at Quentin, verifying she was still confined in her cuffs. She stared into his eyes, undaunted. Adrian plunged into the spirit realm without another word.

Chapter Forty-Three

H
OW SOON CAN YOU LEAVE?
said the text from Adrian.

Glancing with guilt around the lecture hall, Sophie balanced her new cell on her thigh, and texted back,
Class is about to end. Free soon. Is Quentin arrested?

Yeah, but please hurry. Worried about Rhea now.

Worried herself, Sophie jogged back to the dorm as soon as class was over. She hadn’t entered the room since leaving for dinner with Melissa before last night’s attack, nor had she seen Melissa. She would rather have avoided the dorm today, but needed to collect her clothes and books for the weekend.

Melissa entered when Sophie was almost done filling her backpack. Pausing tensely in the doorway, she said, “Are you staying a minute?”

“No.” Sophie stuffed in an extra T-shirt and zipped up the pack.

“Please. I could help you guys. If you need allies—”

“Allies like you, who needs enemies?” Swinging the pack onto her shoulder, Sophie bumped past Melissa and left.

On the way, the police called her cell. They’d captured Betty Quentin; they just wanted Sophie to know. They would keep Sophie informed about the arraignment and further details. Sophie thanked them, and hung up.

Adrian waited for her beside the football stadium, the giant structure silent and deserted today. She jumped into his arms, and he whirled her into the other realm.

“What have you found out?” she asked as they climbed into the bus. Kiri waited within, lying behind the front seat, and thumped her tail on the floor upon seeing Sophie.

“Well…” He wrapped his arm around Sophie, snapped the reins, and they shot off. As they flew, he explained his visit to Quentin, and the ominous hint she had dropped.

“All we can do is check the Underworld,” Adrian concluded. “Freya and Niko took off a few minutes ago. They’ll meet us there.” He sighed. “I should have just got Quentin arrested, and said nothing else. Threatening her was stupid of me. It did no good.”

“It wasn’t stupid.” She leaned her head against his chest. The contact eased the hollow fear inside her. “Or at least…even if it did no good, I’m glad you said it.”

“But acting as if I own people’s souls, when I don’t…”

“Own them, no. Stopping them from hurting others, that’s fair. That’s making the world a safer place.”

“That’s exactly what she thinks
she’s
doing.” Adrian sounded defeated.

With no answer to that, Sophie rested against him, watching plains, mountains, and finally ocean sweep past under the bus.

Upon arriving in the Underworld, they hurried through the entrance tunnel and stopped at the river’s edge. An unusually thick swarm of souls milled on the other side. A solid figure pushed through the glowing masses and emerged: Nikolaos, looking at them with an expression more somber and distressed than Sophie had ever seen on him.

“Oh, no,” she breathed.

Without a word, Adrian retrieved the raft and guided them across. On the other bank, the crowd of souls parted for them. In the middle stood two souls, the center of all the curiosity: Sanjay and Rhea.

Feeling sick, Sophie drew in her breath.

Adrian took her hand—his palm felt clammy—and they walked forward.

In front of Rhea, Freya sat on her knees on the white grass, streaks of tears on her beautiful face.

Rhea gazed at them with kindness and sorrow, all of it subdued, the placidity of the dead. “I went to visit Sanjay’s widow,” she said. “I brought her here from time to time, to see Sanjay. But somehow they found out I was coming, and captured me as I walked up to her house. They knocked me out quickly; I’m not sure how. It was a tingling pain all through me. And that was the last I knew before finding myself in the spirit realm as a soul.”

Adrian swallowed. When he spoke, he sounded tight-voiced, as if his jaw were injured. “Probably a stun gun of some kind. Something strong enough to…” His words faltered and stopped.

Sophie closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the rest: once they’d knocked Rhea unconscious, they were free to throw her into a furnace, or feed her into some kind of grinding machinery, or strap a bomb to her… She shuddered. How they killed her didn’t matter. It had worked; that was enough.

“Why didn’t you tell us where you were going?” Adrian shouted. “We have to check up on each other, make sure everyone’s all right. It’s easy these days, but you never did answer your phone, or tell us half of what you were doing…” He let go of Sophie’s hand and spun away, staggering in a circle, hands over his face. The crowd of souls drew back to give him room, as if in respect for their king.

“I’m sorry, Adrian,” said Rhea. “You’re perfectly right.”

“We were even tipped off,” said Niko quietly. “If only we’d been smart enough to notice.”

Adrian looked at him, his eyes bleak and questioning.

“Quentin’s email to Wilkes,” Niko said. “’We’ll have one less to worry about if we can catch our woman friend at her meeting.’ They were talking about Rhea. The message was about two attacks, not one. ‘The plan to fetch K.A.’ meant you, but that one meant her.”