Discord’s Apple (6 page)

“We’re an awful pair,” she said. She looked away, but the smile lingered.

They sat together until dawn. When the sky began to pale with the rose-colored fingers of dawn, he found the courage to say, “I could take you home with me. They—” He nodded to the smoldering city, its streets now paved with bloodied bodies, an occasional scream still tainting the air. “—they will be making slaves of all the women. I could ask for you. I know it is not—it is not what you would wish. But I would be kind. I promise, I could protect you—”

She was already shaking her head, as he expected.

“I’m bound for another. Fate has measured out my thread to a frayed end. But—thank you. It is an . . . unexpected kindness that you offer. As kindness goes in these times.”

He wanted to say more. He felt like he ought to say more, to defend himself and the sacking of the city. She seemed to be mocking him.

A small group of Greeks climbed the path up the hill, flushing out the last of the stragglers. Below, on the street leading outside the city, the warriors were herding the surviving women and children. They were a weeping mass of bodies, clinging together, shuddering. Crying like sheep. No men were left alive.

Cassandra saw this scene as well. She hugged the marble column, pressing her cheek to the ridged stone. “I don’t want to go.”

He stood, straightening his sword belt, smoothing his tunic. “I’ll go with you, if you like.”

“It won’t help. Nothing will help, don’t you understand? I’m already dead.”

He waited for the soldiers, standing by Cassandra as if he had captured her himself.

A trio of the Greeks reached the temple. One of them spoke to the others, then stepped forward alone. He still wore his helmet, masking his face and giving him an inhuman expression. His tunic, breastplate, and arms were covered with blood.

“Sinon! Sinon the Hero!”

Sinon raised his hand in greeting. He didn’t know him, but he shouldn’t have been surprised that this one knew his name. He supposed he was famous now—the man who cracked the walls of Troy with a lie.

Smiling broadly, the newcomer stared at Cassandra. “I hope you haven’t spoiled this one too badly. King Agamemnon has asked for her. She’s the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters.”

One couldn’t tell by looking at her now. Tears and soot streaked her face, which was still contorted from crying. Her hair was tangled, her clothing soiled. But her eyes still shone with spirit. Sinon remembered her from the day before—had it only been a day?—shouting, defiant:
He is lying!

“She’s mad, you know,” Sinon said.

“Hmph. So she’s lost her mind. That isn’t what the good king wants her for.” The soldier moved to grab her.

Before he could reach her, Cassandra struggled to her feet, pulling herself up against the column. Sinon reached to help her, but she shrugged away from him. She kept her gaze on the helmeted soldier, glaring at him like she could peel back his skin with a thought.

“He is dead. Your King. Your Agamemnon. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is.” Scowling, the soldier again went to take
hold of her, but she evaded him, circling the pillar, keeping the stone between them. “He doesn’t know what’s been happening at his home, but I do, and he is already dead. We’re all dead. All of us.”

Then she looked at Sinon, her dark eyes lit with madness. “Except for you.” Her gaze narrowed, her head tilting curiously. Wonderingly, she said, “You don’t die.”

She was mocking him again. Except she never lied. And she was a prophetess. But the phrase could mean anything. It could be a symbol. Men made careers interpreting the phrases of oracles. It could mean anything.

“Come on.” The soldier caught her at last, his fingers digging into her arm. She didn’t make a sound, didn’t struggle at all. He dragged her down the steps, and Cassandra stared at Sinon until they reached the street and traveled out of sight.

Slowly, Sinon followed, descending the steps carefully, as if he walked on coals. The world had changed this night. Language itself had changed, and he didn’t understand the sounds he heard on the air.

Before he could raise his foot to leave the temple stairs and start on the path down to the city walls, an arm closed around his neck in a lock. Sinon grabbed the arm, trying to pull away, but his attacker was too strong, unnaturally strong. He dragged Sinon back up the steps as easily as he might have pulled a feather. The unseen man—for he was unseen, Sinon craned his head back, rolled his eyes to try to gauge the stoutness of the arm that held him so tightly, and saw that nothing held him at all—gripped him firmly, locking him against his body. Sinon was trapped, immobile, his head tilted far back, his lungs struggling to draw breath.

A voice, taut with anger and sweet with power, said at his ear, “Hera promised Cassandra to Agamemnon. But I will be compensated for the loss of my priestess, and you have desecrated my temple with your presence. You are mine, mortal. I
will have you, Liar. You will feel what is being done to the women of Troy. You are now a slave.”

The arm released him, only to grab the front of his tunic and slam him to the marble floor of the portico. Sinon’s head bounced, his teeth cracking. His vision flashed as pain seared his skull.

For a moment he saw the invisible one who attacked him: a man, thick golden hair crowning a beautiful, smooth-cheeked face and brushing perfect, sculpted shoulders. His glaring eyes were the pale blue of the sky.

Sinon winced. “Apollo!”

Apollo grinned and hauled him inside the temple.

When Evie was little, she used to think there was a rule book, some kind of golden understanding that enlightened you when you became an adult. “When I grow up” was a place, a real state of being, where one shed childhood like a worn-out carapace. Then she learned that if kids were cruel, so were adults. Not much really changed except the size and expense of the toys. There was no book, no magic moment of enlightenment, and she took a grim satisfaction in realizing that everyone spent most of their time being just as confused as she was.

But this was different. She could feel a key sitting in her hand, even though she couldn’t quite grasp it. She could sense the door about to open. The door to the Storeroom, and what it meant. And unlike that great false Grail of adulthood, understanding really would come. When her father passed away.

She was an heir waiting for the seal on the will to be broken. And she didn’t want anything to do with it.

Her father went out again the next day. Evie thought he looked paler. Had he taken an extra painkiller at breakfast? She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to argue anymore about him going out. He could take care of himself.

She worked on the script. The team splits up. Talon can’t get the image of his long-lost friend out of his mind. The others have never seen him like this—agitated, obsessed. It makes them nervous. The Captain has always been their anchor.
Sarge offers to go with him while the others continue on the original mission to rescue the captured spy.

Tracker feels like she’s betrayed Talon by insisting on going on without him. She feels disloyal and wonders if he’ll ever forgive her. The hint of her feelings for him have been there for the last two dozen issues. Will it come out in the open soon? The tension is fierce.

So Talon and Sarge are sneaking into the stronghold of the Mongolian terrorists. The other three race deeper into Siberia—

A knock rattled the kitchen door.

Evie’s heart started speeding—a Pavlovian response of anxiety.
Not again,
she thought.
Not this again, please.
She didn’t want to stand and move to the door. Her hands were sweating and her limbs felt stiff.

The knock came again. It could have been just a neighbor. The postman.
Please let it just be the postman.
She went to answer.

Mab trotted to the kitchen with her. She looked at the door, her head low, brown eyes glaring. A growl rumbled deep in her throat.

This wasn’t like yesterday.

Evie scratched the dog’s back, and Mab wagged her tail once, but never stopped staring at the door. Evie wondered who was waiting on the porch. She opened the door a crack, in case Mab decided to launch an attack.

She was glad she was showered and dressed today. The woman standing on the porch was extraordinarily poised. Evie felt small and scruffy next to her, but at least she didn’t feel half-dressed.

The visitor was tall, elegantly slender, like a 1940s starlet. She wore an expensive-looking, calf-length dark coat belted at her waist, and high heels. Her black hair was pulled to the back of her head and held in place with invisible clips, as if by
magic. Her dark eyes were exotic, while her expression was indifferent.

“Can I help you?” Evie asked cautiously.

The woman smiled, barely shifting her features. “I wondered if you might have something for me.”

Not again,
she thought.
I don’t want this—

Evie didn’t feel that tingling electric thrill that the old woman brought with her yesterday. Far from it: she felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t understand enough to know what the feeling meant.

Mab growled, the rumble leaving her throat and echoing between her bared teeth.

She shook her head. “No. There’s nothing here for you. I’m sorry.”

The woman’s manner shifted. The smile became that of a predator. The gaze became piercing. “Are you certain about that?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” Mab inched toward the door. Evie put her hand on the dog’s ruff. Mab didn’t wear a collar. Evie didn’t think she could hold her back if she decided to attack.

“One wonders if you know what you’re talking about.”

One does, indeed.
Evie bit her lip and glared.

“Might I have a look? You keep things in the basement, don’t you?” The woman stepped forward, like she was going to push open the door and invite herself inside.

Evie grabbed Mab in a bear hug just as the dog launched herself at the woman, barking fiercely enough to rattle windows.

“Ma’am, trust me,” Evie said, hugging Mab’s shoulders, leaning with her whole weight to keep the dog back. “We don’t have anything for you.”

The woman didn’t seem to notice the chaos happening in front of her. She held up a gloved hand, palm facing the door.
Turning her hand, she brushed with her fingers like she was stirring the air.

“I can’t cross the threshold,” she said. She glanced at Evie, almost as an afterthought. “But you could invite me in. Would you do that, Evie Walker?”

Evie shook her head. She hugged Mab harder; it made her feel safer. As much as she didn’t know about this, she knew she didn’t want this woman entering the house.

The woman’s voice was patient, calm, like she would stand there all day, politely asking to be let inside, until Evie could do nothing but relent.

Mab was still barking, fearless. Mab would protect her. But the woman didn’t spare a glance for the dog, and seemed unflustered by the barking.

A figure ran onto the porch and slid to a stop before banging into the wall of the house. He was young, determined, and wore a pea coat—Alex, from the grocery store. The woman turned, stepping away from him.

He lowered himself to his knees. Clasping his hands, reaching them toward her, he spoke to the woman in a language Evie didn’t recognize, much less understand.

“Ho hupsalos—aurain kataballe, seh enoiksomai. Ouk anagignoskei hos essi.”

The woman hesitated a moment, then approached him. Alex squeezed his eyes shut with something that looked like fear.

“Se exoida—Apollou aysta.”
She touched his cheek, and Alex bore it as if she were a lioness breathing down his neck—silent and trembling. Her finger brushed his throat and hooked on his necklace, a bronze chain with thick links in a band around the base of his neck.

Mab had returned to growling. She stood between Evie and the door, so massive that Evie almost couldn’t see outside. She couldn’t remember sitting, but she was on the floor.

The stranger glanced at her, then at Alex again, then marched down the porch and across the gravel drive in her high heels without wobbling once.

Falling silent at last, Mab turned and licked Evie’s face.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled absently, ineffectively trying to push Mab away.

“Are you?” It was Alex, leaning against the wall on the other side of the door. They looked at each other across the threshold.

“Yeah.” Mab eyed him warily, but didn’t growl. Evie thought that a point in his favor. “Who was that? Who are you?”

They had known each other. She hadn’t understood them, but their words had held a tone of ritual and familiarity.

He shook his head absently, more a gesture of denial than of ignorance. “I thought she was dead. Years ago. She should be dead.”

“Who
is
she? What’s she doing here?”

“Same as me, evidently. Looking for something.”

“For what?”

“Don’t know. Could be anything.” He let out a tired sigh. A sheen of sweat dampened his brow.

“Who are you?”

Smiling, he looked away. “A traveler.”

She didn’t know whether to invite him in for coffee to coax the whole story out of him, or slap him for being so cryptic. “Why are you spying on us? You were watching the house, weren’t you?”