The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (24 page)

“Not bad,” Vinnie said, coming up behind her.  “I always wanted to travel.”

“I thought you were in the Pacific,” Riga said.

“The only time I wasn’t on a ship was when it got torpedoed out from under me,” he snapped.  “That ain’t travel.”

“Sorry,” she said.

Dionysus came to stand beside her and breathed deep.  The balmy air had a mild, salty tang.  “What are you sorry about?”

“My insensitivity.  What’s next?” 

He smiled.  “You are a focused woman, Riga Hayworth.   Next, I will speak with my father.  I think it best if I meet with him alone first.  Come, I will show you to your chambers.”

He led them down a broad colonnade filled with light.  Their footsteps were silent upon the cool marble floors.  Riga’s hand bumped lightly against the god’s, but the touch didn’t send her spinning as it had before.  She was adapting, becoming immune to them, and it had begun when she’d interacted with the Place of Dreams.  Interesting.

Dionysus stopped before an arched door.  “This is your room, Vincent.  I hope you will be comfortable.”  He grasped the great round handle, turned it, and pushed the door inward.  “Please wait here until I fetch you.”

Vincent stepped inside.  He stood watching them, eyes pleading, as the door closed upon him. 

Dionysus guided her further down the hall to another door.  It swung open before his touch.  “Wait for me, here.”

“Why?  Why should I trust you?” she asked. 

“Because you and I are old friends, Riga Hayworth.”  His strange, green and brown eyes shifted and Riga felt something inside her shift with it.  She was back in Afghanistan, at a party put on by some French hipsters.  As soon as she’d set foot in the walled compound and heard the beat of the music, her fear, her fury, everything had dropped away.  She’d leapt into the dance, gave herself to the music – there was only the music and the feel of her body arching to it.  Someone placed a plastic cup of wine in her hand.  And then she was in another time and place, a wedding in Tbilisi, another moment of music and dance and wine and transcendence. 

“You were my maenad then,” he said. “And many times before and since.”

His eyes held her, and she became aroused.  She wanted to lose herself in him, feel his hands upon her, taste the sweetness of his mouth. 

“Stop,” she whispered.

“Is that what you really wish, Riga Hayworth?”

No, God no, she didn’t wish it.  Her knowledge of him was ancient and bone deep and Riga wanted him so badly it hurt.  She stepped closer without realizing she had.  Her head tilted upward, her lips parted.

“Hey!  How do I know when you’re going to come for me?” Vinnie’s voice broke in from behind them.

Riga’s knees weakened and she stumbled back against the wall.

Vinnie stood in the hallway, and looked between the two of them.  His eyes narrowed.  “Were you putting the whammy on her?”  He glared at Dionysus.  “Because that ain’t right.”

“She has always had her free will,” Dionysus said stiffly.

“Right,” Vinnie said scornfully.  “I don’t know what’s going on here but I don’t think Donovan would like it and it’s his body you’re borrowing.”

She ran a shaky hand through her hair.  “I’m just tired.”

“You sure?” Vinnie said, peering at her with concern.

Riga nodded.  “I need to rest.”  She backed into her room, closed the door behind her.

Before it shut, she heard Vinnie say, “Why can’t I stay with her?”

“Donovan does not wish—” Dionysus’s words were cut off as the door clicked shut.

She closed the door on them and leaned against it.  Disappointment mingled with relief.  She’d come so close to losing herself completely.  And she couldn’t lose herself.  Not now.  Not with Pen in trouble.  Not ever. 

Vinnie was an unlikely guardian angel but he had saved her… from a night of unbridled ecstasy in the arms of a god.  She banged her head slowly against the door.  Archetype.  Not god, archetype.

When her legs felt less wobbly and the sense of regret had faded to a pinprick of annoyance, she straightened and looked around.  Riga felt like she’d walked into a high-class hotel and she liked high-class hotels.  The walls had been painted an artistically worn blue, with trompe l'oeil columns.  Sheer white curtains billowed invitingly before an open balcony. 

Riga leaned against the wall and stripped off her boots and socks.  The stench made her eyes water.  She padded, barefoot, across cool marble and soft blue carpets to the balcony, placing boots and socks beside the balustrade to air out.

The balcony had been decorated to match the main room, with gilded chairs and a table filled with food.  There was a pitcher of wine as well, and delicate ceramic goblets.  She grabbed some grapes and leaned over the balustrade, admiring the water sparkling below the sheer cliffs.  Under other circumstances, she’d revel in this.  Her theories about the dimensions were right.  Mostly.  But if she didn’t get Pen back…  Death was preferable to facing her sister.

She began the ritual of protection, placing wards around the room.  Nothing happened.  She tried again.  Nothing.  Riga probed the environment with her mind, or tried to, but felt nothing beyond her ordinary senses.  Her magic didn’t work here and it shook her.  Over the years, her magic had stripped everything from her – friends, work, family – forcing her down the path she was on today.  If her magic was gone, what was left?

Abruptly she went to a wide divan and sat down, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.  How far could she trust Dionysus?  From her memories of Greek mythology, he had seemed fairly honorable, but he had a wild streak.  She could only trust any of them, she realized, to remain true to type.  Dionysus – or Donovan – had said it: they were archetypes.  They could only be true to their form, though that didn’t make their characters less complex.

Closing her eyes had been a mistake.  So was lying down upon the plush pillows.  Sleep tugged at her and she gave in to it, flying through echoing, torch-lit passages of dark stone.  Hades sat upon his throne, sulking, and didn’t notice her.  She flew toward the fissure that split the marble floor.  The sparks of lightning welcomed her, the rumbles of thunder called her.  A boom resonated through the great hall and Riga jerked awake, blinking dazedly. 

Donovan leaned against the door.  He looked his usual debonair self – his clothing having been magically repaired – but his shoulders sagged with exhaustion.  “Did I wake you?”

Out of sorts, she rubbed her face to get the circulation going.  Naps never worked for her.

“Donovan?” she asked.  “Is it you?”

He nodded wearily and came to her on the couch, collapsing beside her.  “Playing host to an Olympian was harder than I expected.”  His brown green eyes clouded with fatigue.

“Are you okay?”  Riga asked. 

He lay down upon the divan beside her and closed his eyes.  “I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Do you remember what happened?  When Dionysus was in control, I mean?”  How much did he know or remember of Dionysus’s attempted seduction?

“If you want to know what happened while I was away, just ask.”

“Of course, I want to know.  But… how much can we trust your Dionysian memory?” she asked gently.

He sat up and looked at her, frowning.  “We’ve been over this before, Riga,” he said.   “I’m not sure of anything.  Why are you asking me this now?  Did something happen?”

Riga felt like slime.  How could she have been tempted by Dionysus?  The real Donovan was far the better man.   “No.  Nothing happened.  It’s just…  Dionysus isn’t exactly the archetype of clearheaded and sober thinking, is he?”

Donovan smiled.  “No.  He isn’t.”  He stretched out upon the couch and closed his eyes.  “Don’t worry about me.  When I made the deal, I knew what I was getting into.”

Riga compressed her lips.  That made one of them, she thought.

“We saw Zeus,” Donovan said.  “He’ll help us, I think, but we need to give him something in return.”  He cracked open one eye.  “Er, as a metaphysical detective, are you more metaphysical or more detective?”

“Equal parts. I have a P.I. license.  Why?”

“Because we’ve been hired to solve a murder.”

Chapter 36: Paris Was a Sucker

Donovan refused to say more, mumbling that he needed to rest and they’d meet their client that evening.  He turned on his side and instantly fell asleep. 

Riga tried to follow suit, but couldn’t turn off her brain.  She’d messed up with Donovan.  If she’d told him about Dionysus – would he have laughed?  Did he already know?  Or was her silence a betrayal, keeping Donovan in the dark about the archetype’s real influence over him?  Did Donovan have the right to know?  Or was it none of his business – something between her and Dionysus?  Riga’s mind went around in circles and came up with one definitive answer: she had no business worrying about her love life, such as it was, with Pen still trapped in the underworld.  Next to that, the question of who’d been killed on Mount Olympus didn’t interest her.

The flapping of wings at the balcony startled Riga out of her reverie.  Through the sheer curtains she saw the silhouette of an abnormally large bird perched upon the stone balustrade.  She quietly drew her tactical flashlight from her bag, then rolled off the couch and in a swift motion pulled the curtains back.  A harpy stood on the barrier, its fierce talons idly ripping chunks of stone from its perch.  Riga took an involuntary step back as the harpy met her gaze.

“Riga!  I have found you at last!”  The creature made an ungainly descent and hopped across the balcony towards her.  “Ze trip was terrible.”

“Brigitte?” Riga said.  “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I know!  Look!  Look what has happened to me!”  She extended a wing and a dove-colored feather drifted to the ground.  “Never in my life have I been so humiliated.  My lovely carved stone, so strong, so fine.  Never did a stone carver take such care, breathe such love into his creation.  And why not?  I was perfection!  And now this.  I will grow old, Riga, I lose my feathers even now.  My skin will sag.  And then, I shall die,” she said breathlessly.  “Yes, Riga, even I shall die.  We must leave this place at once!”

Riga glanced back at Donovan, his face relaxed in sleep, and lowered her voice. “But how did you get here?”

“We are bound by old magic.  When you left our world, I did too.  I have been in this world for days, searching.  My senses, they are very different here.  I do not know how to describe them.  My nose, it has become very sensitive.  Suddenly, not more than an hour or two past, it knew that you were here and so I came.”

Riga rubbed her temple.  The spell that bound her and Brigitte was stronger than she’d imagined, not that she’d ever investigated too deeply.  Why should she?  Brigitte had seemed content with the arrangement, and she…  She’d been lonely.  And selfish. 

“We’ve got a problem, Brigitte.”  Riga outlined the situation.

Brigitte’s eyes narrowed in disgust.  “Kidnapped!  I do not care if they are gods.  We shall get her back.”

“They’re created gods, archetypes, and if I let myself think of them as gods it’s going to be harder to fight them.  Archetypes are powerful enough.”

“Let us call them Olympians then, because they may be archetypes, but they are of the Greek variety and you must not forget it.  They are dangerous beings, Riga, cruel and capricious.”

“I haven’t forgotten.  And I think it’s best if you stay out of sight for now.  You’re my only ally here I trust and I’d like to keep you as a surprise.”  The curtains billowed and she looked behind her, uneasy.  Donovan’s back was turned to them and she could see his muscular torso rise and fall with his breath.

“You do not trust monsieur Donovan?” Brigitte asked slyly.

“Only as far as I have to.  He’s lied to me before.” 

“He
was
trying to save ze world.”

“So he says.  And who knows how much influence that g—Olympian has over him?  When was I with Donovan, and when with Dionysus?  I don’t know who he is.”

“Well, as I see it you have two choices.  He is either Donovan, or Dionysus, and from what you have told me of the man and what I know of the Olympian, I do not see that there is such a difference.  And if he lies to you again, I shall tear his liver out and eat it.”  Brigitte’s head tilted inquisitively.  “This eating, I had never done it before.  But I had a pidgeon on ze way here and it was a pleasurable experience.  It does strange things to one’s insides, however.  I am not sure it is worth it.”

They heard Donovan stir, and froze.  Then the sound of his deep, regular breathing returned and they relaxed.

“Have you a plan?” Brigitte asked.

“I’m working on it.  You’d better go, but stay close.”

Brigitte saluted with one wing, then sprang gracefully from her perch and soared over the azure sea. 

Riga brushed past the curtains.  Donovan lay on his back, asleep.  She revised her opinion; he looked less like a Greek statue and more like a Buddha, his lips curled in a peaceful smile. 

She found a basin and a large pitcher of water near it, and tried to clean up, splashing her face and combing the water through her hair.  There were no mirrors in the room so she didn’t know if her appearance had been improved, but she felt better.

Riga was toweling off her feet when she heard a soft sound at the door.  The latch inched upward.  She crept to the door and flattened herself against the wall beside it.   The latch reached its apogee and the door swung silently inward.

In a swift motion, Riga lashed out with one hand, grabbed the intruder by the fabric around his neck.  She hauled him into the room, slamming him against the wall, and rattling a bust of Zeus which stood in a nearby niche. 

Vinnie.  She let him go.

He slumped against the wall.  “For pete’s sake,” he said, “you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Keep your voice down!”  She glanced over her shoulder.  Donovan hadn’t woken.  “What are you doing here?”

“Are you kidding me?  I was all alone in there.”

“You were alone for days in the underworld and made out okay.”

“Yeah, but then I didn’t know where to go.  Besides, I wasn’t alone.  The ferryman was there, too.  He was a weirdo but he was company.”  He peered past her.  “I see Donovan’s back.”