Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (28 page)

“Well, I hope. In any case, that alone could keep me occupied forever. But I also ought to be researching Thanatos, which is boring and hateful but has to be done.”

“Like tracking what they’re up to?”

“Kind of. I’ve found people in the Underworld who knew Quentin, and Bill Wilkes too, though they haven’t yet thought of anything I could use to make them stop what they’re doing. Niko hasn’t found where Quentin’s living yet, but he’s followed Wilkes around a little. He lives in Salem, and actually is a police officer.”

“Wow. So the card wasn’t fake.”

“Surprise, eh? Also, I have emails to go through. Niko hacked into the account for Sanjay’s guru a while back—the bloke in Thanatos who got him killed—and downloaded heaps of messages. We’ve been sorting through them for months, seeing if there’s anything dangerous we ought to know, or anything useful to learn.”

“You’re a lot busier than I realized.”

“Thought I zipped about the world all day on ghost horses, visiting pretty places, selling diamonds for spending money?”

“It did cross my mind,” she admitted.

“It’s a challenging business, this immortality thing. Especially in the Internet age. We have loads to do.”

“Is that why you’re trying to bring me on board? To help with the workload?”

She said it lightly, but he thought it over before answering. Keeping his gaze ahead, where the gray-blue waters of San Francisco Bay were sliding into view, he said, “I’m trying to bring you on board because I’ve never lived a life without you. And I don’t want to start now.”

The sweet declaration warmed her heart. But she kept the lightness in her tone when she responded, “So it’s because of who I used to be? What if I’d been born into this life as someone horrible and obnoxious?”

His beautiful eyes met hers. “With that soul, you couldn’t have been.”

S
OPHIE LOOKED TROUBLED,
turning her head forward. Her lips were closed tight in a pensive frown, and the wind whipped a curly tendril of her dark hair around her face. Adrian glanced ahead too, slowing the horses and guiding them to a thickly wooded hill. He shifted his gaze between the ground and the GPS arrow on his phone screen, while his mind kicked itself.

What was he thinking, spouting sentiments like that when she’d only barely become aware of his existence? He may have had years to think it over, but she hadn’t.

He brought the horses down between the trees. Pine boughs swiped the sides of the bus and scattered needles into the open windows. The bus landed. A flock of blue-green birds rose from the trees, croaking like frogs as they flew away.

“Look, I’m sorry.” Adrian wound and unwound the reins around his hand. “You have your studies, and your family, your friends, your boyfriend, and I had no right to barge in and—”

“I don’t anymore.” She spread her hands symmetrically on her legs, and gazed at them.

“You don’t what?”

“Have a boyfriend. Anymore. I broke up with Jacob.”

Plenty of times he’d imagined her saying that, and had forewarned himself not to cheer out loud. He succeeded—but in fact, found he was a mess of anxiety. What was the right thing to say here? None of the statements he’d come up with, in those imaginings, sounded appropriate now.

“Oh.” He followed her lead and stared at his own hands. “When?”

“Wednesday night. It was something I’d been thinking about for a while, though.”

“Even before Niko and I…kidnapped you?”

“Yeah. Even before that.”

“Okay.” He drew in his breath, feeling a bit steadier. “Then how are you feeling about it?”

“I’m all right.” She folded one hand over the other. “Mostly I feel guilty. He was blindsided. But he’ll get over it, and it’s for the best.”

Adrian nodded, and decided it was permissible to smile now. He did, rising and offering her his hand. “Probably what you need is to find some coffee and get some studying done, eh?”

She nodded, and grasped his hand.

Good signs. So many good signs.

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
HEY SWITCHED INTO THE LIVING
world and found themselves on a forest path, beneath a large pine tree with twisting roots.

Their sudden appearance startled a middle-aged man jogging by, who skittered aside and stared at them.

Adrian waved at him. “We’re practicing a magic trick. How’d it look?”

“Pretty damn good,” said the bewildered man, still jogging but slowing down as he examined them.

Sophie gave him a thumbs-up.

The man shot his gaze across the ground and up into the tree as if looking for hidden trapdoors, then lifted his brows and jogged on.

Sophie and Adrian burst into laughter.

“Oops,” he said. “Always a risk.”

“Magic trick? That’s your excuse?”

He shrugged. “It
is
magic.” Adrian glanced around. A city gleamed below the hill they stood upon, fog and sunlight wrapping around its skyscrapers. He had never been here before, but his GPS assured him it was San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park.

Sophie, spotting the magnificent city view, beamed in delight and set off that direction.

As they walked down the hill, he asked what she was taking this term, and she related her course schedule, all prerequisites for the nutrition major.

“What were you going to do with your life before Rhea showed up?” she asked. “Before you knew you’d be… this?” They emerged from the park onto a residential street lined with expensive old houses, packed close together and painted cheerful colors.

“I was going to be a lawyer,” Adrian said. “Not the kind everyone hates, but the kind who defends the innocent, the poor, all that superhero stuff. Maybe amongst the Maori in particular—my mum was part Maori. But I try to do it for the souls now instead, since I can’t spend too much time in one place in the real world.”

“I’d say it worked out. You became an actual superhero.”

They turned a corner onto a busier street: Haight, according to the sign on a post. “I don’t feel like one. Nor a god.”

“No? Not even after all this time driving ghost horses and living with Hades’ memories?”

“Hades had style. He was a mature, mystical guy. He’s not supposed to be a young geek with a Kiwi accent.”

Sophie snorted. “For one thing, you’re not
that
geeky. For another, your accent is completely hot.”

He glanced at her. “Really?”

“To American chicks, you know it is.” She elbowed him. “Quit pretending you don’t.”

They chose a cafe and entered its warm and pungently coffee-scented interior. On the dark red walls hung mosaics made from ripped-up magazines. Strings of lights in the shapes of skulls and pumpkins framed the front windows.

As they waited in line, Sophie pointed to a small round table in the corner. “Go save that one for us. Tell me what you want and I’ll order. My treat this time.”

“Cheers. Er…” Adrian blinked at the vast and detailed menu hand-written on a blackboard above the counter. “Just drip would be fine.”

“Sixteen ounce?”

“Whatever you’re getting.”

She nodded, and he picked his way between tables to the one she’d indicated, where he set up his laptop. Sophie arrived with the coffee, and for a while they browsed and typed independently, trading occasional remarks. Adrian read Thanatos emails referencing himself, dated a few months ago, but found nothing relevant in them. As far as he could tell, their assumptions were way off base—they seemed to think Adrian had some “recruiting” plan to bring in other immortals, and they were trying to figure out what it was.

No, he thought; at the moment he only really desired one person as a potential new recruit. Indeed, even if there was some coded message of importance buried in these emails, he could well miss it, given how his mind was more inclined this morning to dwell on remarks like: ‘
I broke up with Jacob’
and
‘Your accent is completely hot.’

Sophie’s phone chirped. “My mom,” she said, looking at the screen.

“Go ahead, answer it.” Adrian got up. “I was about to take a break.”

She nodded and accepted the call. “Hi, Mom.”

He found his way past the counter to the restrooms, and when he came out, she was still talking, so he examined the food for sale on the chilled shelves under glass. A few minutes later, he brought a large, colorful salad and a walnut-studded brownie to the table.

“Okay, love you too,” Sophie was saying into the phone. “Bye.” She hung up and smiled at the salad. “Beets and blue cheese?”

“Thought it looked good. Getting near lunchtime.” Sitting down, he handed her one of the two forks. “Hungry?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” She gathered up a forkful of salad greens, blue cheese, and a pear slice, and crammed it into her mouth. “Mmm.”

Adrian speared two beet slices and ate them. “How’s your mum?”

“Oh…” Sophie swallowed her bite. “Fine, she says.”

He glanced quizzically at her.

She grimaced, picking up a pecan. “I feel—that is, I almost know—she and Dad are having problems. And I’m terrified they might get a divorce. But they haven’t said anything and I’m too scared to bring it up. Just now I tried ‘You guys doing okay?’, but all I got was ‘Fine, honey.’”

Adrian scooped up some salad greens. “What makes you say they’re having problems?”

A spiraling lock of hair slid down to touch her cheek. She pushed it behind her ear. “I saw her kissing another man a couple months ago. Some guy in a suit. They were in a parked car.” Sophie turned away, squinting at the front windows.

Adrian winced. “Crap.”

“It’s hard to ask her something like that. Especially since she called to talk about my breaking up with Jacob. Guess she heard it from his folks.”

“Did they get on well with him, your parents?”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Dad loved watching football with him. Sorry—American football.” Adrian smiled at the correction, and Sophie resumed, “Anyway, Mom’s coming down to visit me next week. Just the two of us. Maybe I’ll get more of an answer about her and Dad then.”

“Hope so.”

She nodded, and focused on eating salad for a minute. He did the same.

“Of course,” she added, sounding a bit wry now, “if they knew what I was up to lately, they’d have even bigger problems.”

“It’s tricky, the relly question.” Catching her confused glance, he clarified, “Relatives. Family.”

“Oh, right. Just like the old days. Demeter trying to keep us apart.” She smiled.

“How far have you got in that?”

“Not too far. No making out with Hades yet. Though I know it happens eventually.”

“Mm,” he said in casual agreement, thinking,
And wait till you get to the fabulous sex.

“Is she one of them? The new immortals?” Sophie sounded interested.

Adrian looked up, diverted from his arousing thoughts. “Who?”

“Demeter. Is she one of the ones you can sense? Track? Do you know who she is?”

He hesitated. Sophie looked so animated, so intrigued by the notion of finding her long-lost mother.

Catching his expression, Sophie added, “I know. You said you wouldn’t tell me yet how many there are these days, or who they are. I just wondered, since souls who were close to each other tend to end up close again in other lives…I thought she could be someone I know.” Her voice turned sad again.

Adrian relented. What the hell. “She is. We do know.”

Her eyes locked onto his. “Who is it? My mom?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “Close.”

She blinked, looking confused.

“Your dad,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Five

S
OPHIE NEARLY JUMPED OUT OF
her chair. Forcing herself to remain seated and not cause a scene, she gripped the edge of the table. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was no reason to tell you. He doesn’t know. None of us have approached him.”

“Well, were you going to?”

“Maybe. Eventually. We’re being extra careful these days, as you know.”

“But—this is important. This seems like the kind of thing you should have told me.” Beyond that, she couldn’t articulate why she felt betrayed.

“I’m telling you now.” Adrian stayed patient, watching her steadily.

She relaxed her fingers on the table’s edge. Her mind tried to reconcile the images: strong, feminine, beautiful Demeter, the same soul as her weary, mustached dad. Given their protective attitudes toward her, actually, she saw the resemblance.

“What does it change?” Adrian continued gently. “Your mum and dad are still your mum and dad.”

She gazed at the scenery photos that had taken over her laptop as a screen saver. “Who was my mom, back then?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. It isn’t the largest number of people, those we can track.”