Chapter 41

PERSUADER OF ANIMALS

On West Twenty-third Street, Hippo tumbled out of the minivan taxicab as soon as the door slid open, ripping her leash from Ruth’s hands.

Selene went down on one knee to hug the dog close, realizing how much emotion she’d always held back from those who loved her—not just tonight, but every night. Now, she buried her face in the dog’s rough fur. “I love you, girl,” she murmured. Words she still hadn’t said to Theo, although from the glow in his eyes, it seemed he thought she had. She straightened up; the mild ache between her legs made her blush.

The scents of the city were strong in her nose, her body felt limber and strong, she could read Hippo’s affection and loyalty in the dog’s stance and smell. Bathing in the river had given her strength. Or perhaps renouncing her identity as the Chaste One had actually heightened the rest of her epithets rather than—as she’d always feared—diminishing them. Or maybe she was just a woman who was finally unafraid.

Gabriela followed Ruth from the cab. From the bulge in the pocket of her jacket, Selene knew she still carried the Glock. Gerry Hansen climbed out next, her hands tied before her.

Gabriela put a hand on the captain’s elbow. “You asked for her, so I brought her, but I think you’re loca. She’s too dangerous. Why not just leave her tied to Ruth’s bed? No one else is using it for anything more important.”

“Hey,” Ruth protested mildly.

“She’s a hostage,” Theo explained.

Gabriela’s eyes widened. “Now we’re talking. How does it feel, Captain, to have your life in danger for a change?”

“I will be there at the turning of the Age,” the policewoman replied. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“You’re going to be disappointed.” Selene felt only pity. Geraldine Hansen, so strong, so smart … so deluded. “Jesus won’t rise again tonight.”

The captain’s chin tilted defiantly. “How do you know?”

“Because Jesus was always just a man. A mortal preacher. A rebel. Not a god. He died on that cross, Gerry. He’s long gone.”

“He’s the son of God the Father. You of all people know that’s possible.”

Selene sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Maybe your god came down in a beam of light like my own father did to impregnate some virgin. Maybe Jesus was a hemitheos. But whatever he was, or is, whether he exists or not, the version of him that could arise tonight will be something different. Something created by a cult that traffics in murder and madness. Is that the god you want? Is that the one you’ve worshiped? You don’t really know who you’ll be bringing back.”

“You’ve seen the worst this city, this country, this world has to offer. Don’t you think we should at least try to change it?” Despite the smoky rasp of her voice, Gerry looked like her younger self for a moment—full of hope and passion.

“Captain Hansen,” Theo broke in. “How many immortals have you known? Besides Selene.”

Gerry narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ve been tending Prometheus for decades.”

“Then you know that they might have some strange powers, and their understanding of the world isn’t quite the same as ours, but other than that, they’re basically as human as you or I. They get exasperated, scared, tickled, depressed.”

Her mouth was a thin, hard line. “Where are you going with this?”

“If you bring Mithras-as-Jesus into the world, he’ll be a person. Just like Selene. Just like us. There’s a reason, I think, that the ancient Hebrews didn’t give their god a face—or even a name—and why that god went on to dominate three of the world’s great religions. Because only a god with no physical being can embody all the hopes and dreams of his worshipers. Not just three aspects, but infinite ones. If you trap your god on earth, all that immensity becomes just a single man, shivering in the cold and wondering where his next sandwich comes from.”

Gerry listened. She even seemed to hear. But she’d held on to a certain kind of faith for a very long time. “You will see. The world will see.”

A sudden clatter from the back of the cab drew Selene’s attention. Gabriela and Ruth struggled to unload a pile of spokes and metal poles that, somehow, metamorphosed into a wheelchair by the time they got it on the sidewalk.

“He told us how to make it,” Ruth said, sounding more than a little overwhelmed. “Bicycle wheels and my kitchen chair and a pole lamp and … everything else in my apartment.”

A pair of withered legs swung down from the open hatch of the minivan. Ruth hurried over, and she and Gabi helped ease Flint out of the cab and into the wheelchair.

He slumped forward in the seat, his dark eyes peering up at Selene, one arm pressed against his stomach as if to hold back the pain.

“You do not look ready for this,” she chided him.

“You’ve got no one else to back you up.”

Selene’s temper flared. “What do you mean, no one else?” She jerked a thumb at her lover. “Who do you think that is?”

Flint’s brows lowered. “He can’t understand the resurrection of a god. He can’t understand you.”

To Selene’s surprise, it was Ruth who jumped to Theo’s defense. “From what I understand, Theo was the one who realized the connection to this Mithras character. And snuck into their secret hideout.”

“Yeah, pendejo,” Gabriela interjected. “And he figured out about the Statue of Liberty. What have you done lately besides show up at the planetarium and get wounded while Theo and—let’s not forget—I rescued Selene.”

Flint looked completely flummoxed for the first time. It occurred to Selene that he’d had very little interaction with mortal women over the centuries.

“Thank you, ladies,” Theo said with a grin. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Now,” Gabriela said, waving the cab away. “How exactly are we getting across the harbor in the middle of winter?”

“Not we,” Theo said quickly. “You and Ruth are not coming.”

His friend patted the bulge in her pocket. “I’m an amazing shot, or have you already forgotten that?”

“Yeah, and so is Selene, trust me, even if she usually prefers a bow. I’ve already put you both in too much danger. This isn’t your fight.”

“You’re risking your life, Theo,” Ruth said quietly. “That makes it our fight.”

“Damn straight.” Gabriela crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at him.

Theo turned helplessly to Selene. “Tell them this is absurd.”

“They can make their own decisions,” she replied.

“Please,” Theo begged, stepping closer to his friends. “I can’t bear it. If you take an arrow to the back or a gunshot to the head, that’s it. No ritual can resurrect you. And in the somewhat unlikely event that I survive tonight, I couldn’t bear returning to a world without both of you in it.”

Gabriela’s face softened. She sighed. “Well, Theo-dorable, you do know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

Ruth spoke, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “But you and Selene … you’ll need help out there.” She snuck a glance at Flint and Gerry, clearly sure that a man in a wheelchair would be no match for the Mithraist cop and her cohorts.

“We’ll have Hippo,” Selene interjected calmly.

Theo scratched the dog behind her ears. “If only we had a whole army of Hippos,” he said with a rueful smile. “I mean, not hippos, because that would be awkward but … you know what I mean.”

Selene laughed aloud. “Theo, that’s the best idea you’ve had all week.” She hoisted the bag of weapons more firmly on her shoulder. “Let’s go get us some Hippos.”

Theo’s confusion lasted only a second before a grin spread across his face. “Good plan.” He gave his friends each a quick hug. Gabriela pulled the Glock from her pocket and handed it to him. He slipped it beneath the back of his waistband.

Selene spared a moment to shake Gabriela’s hand. Theo would’ve wanted her to. “Thank you,” she said, the words awkward on her tongue. Gabriela just scowled at her.

She turned to Ruth next. “And you. Thank you.” Then, as Ruth took her hand, Selene leaned in close. “If something happens to me … you’ll take care of Theo.”

It was a command, not a question.

Paper cutouts of puppies and kittens in overlarge Santa hats peered down coyly from the walls of the animal shelter. Let’s hope the animals inside are slightly more intimidating, Theo thought as he watched Selene pick the lock on the door to the holding room.

The funk of urine and antiseptic assaulted his nose the moment the door swung open, followed by a rising chorus of whines and yips. Selene walked the aisle, dispassionately appraising each animal. Hippo trotted beside Theo on her leash, tail beating the air, and snuffed each dog as they barked and pawed at the grating. Theo peered into a cage at eye level. A shih tzu puppy, a spherical ball of white and brown fluff. “This one doesn’t look like he could take down a rubber ball, much less an armed man,” he said, sticking his finger through the grate so the puppy could lick it.

“It’s a she,” Selene said distractedly, without even looking at the animal. Her gaze was far away—Theo’d seen her this way before. He knew she reached into herself for old, untapped powers. The Persuader of Animals, the Lady of Hounds, communing with the dogs around her on a level he couldn’t begin to understand.

She knelt by a large cage on the floor. A hefty pit bull panted up at her. She stared into the dog’s eyes. Its wagging tail rattled the sides of the cage. Selene shook her head and moved on to the next prisoner: a slim white feist—a squirrel-hunting crossbreed—with perked ears and warm brown eyes. “Leila,” according to the index card taped to her cage. Her pointed head came only to Selene’s knee. Selene opened the grate immediately. Leila and Hippo sniffed each other eagerly as Selene continued her quest.

Next another pit bull, this one gray and white with a torn ear. A rangy German shepherd with a kink in her tail. A black cockapoo no bigger than a large house cat. A bright snaggletooth protruded from his lower jaw, and he wouldn’t stop jumping in place. His index card read, “Koko.”

One by one, they joined the army until six dogs ran in frantic circles around the small corridor. Theo rocked back on his heels, trying to restrain Hippo from joining the melee. “You think we should get some leashes?” he shouted above the din.

Selene just smiled. Then she barked once, sharp and loud. The dogs instantly quieted and turned toward her. The white feist lifted a ladylike front paw, as if offering her services. Koko panted noisily, his small pink tongue flapping in counterpoint. Selene walked from one dog to the next, and each lay down in turn, like supplicants before a queen. She held out a hand for them to smell, then pressed each belly firmly with her booted foot. When she’d finished, she growled deep in her throat without showing her teeth. The dogs sprang to their feet and trotted obediently at her heels as she left the building.

Theo knelt beside Hippo and unhooked her leash. “Guess you’re past the whole leash thing now,” he said, ruffling the dog’s fur. She panted eagerly, gave his palm a lick, then took off after the rest of the soldiers.

Ten blocks south, they rejoined Dash’s speedboat at a private marina on the East River, surrounded by towering pleasure yachts. Flint lay propped on the starboard bench, wrapped against the cold in a sailcloth, while Hansen sat on the port side, her bound wrists secured to the boat’s rail.

The dogs bounded onto the boat at Selene’s curt gesture. Hansen raised a brow at the canine invasion but made no comment. Flint, on the other hand, cracked a rare smile that quickly turned into a glower as the German shepherd insisted on sharing his seat.

He glanced at his tablet phone. “Liberty Island is about a twelve-minute ride away. It’s eleven o’clock now, and you said the ritual won’t start until Christmas begins. We’re going to just make it.”

Theo rubbed his hands together, trying to look more optimistic than he felt. “Then let’s get this show on the road. Or the water. Or whatever.”

Selene stood in the middle of the boat, looking first at Flint’s prone form, then out over the water. “We’ve got another stop first,” she said finally.

“Selene—” Flint warned. “We don’t have time.”

“If you join the battle, you’re going to get killed, Flint.” He started to protest. “Think,” she cut in. “You’re going to slow me down—I don’t care how fancy your wheelchair is. And you’re too wounded to help fight. You might get me killed because I’m trying to help you.” That shut him up. “But I know how you could help. How’s your knowledge of nineteenth-century artillery?”

“I’ve been forging weapons for millennia. What do you think?”

“Good. Theo, you know how to drive a car. How different can a boat be? Take us to Governors Island.”

“How different indeed?” Theo replied with a confidence he didn’t feel. He moved to the wheel, found the key Dash had stowed in the cockpit, and started the engine. “See? Piece of cake.” Then he rammed the boat ahead of them with a crunch of fiberglass. “Where are the breaks on this thing?” he muttered as the wooden yacht behind them splintered at a slightly lower pitch. But eventually, they made their way out of the marina and headed down the East River. He kept his eyes glued ahead of him, hoping Governors Island would be hard to miss. At least steering the boat kept him distracted from the upcoming battle. A battle in which his only weapons would be a gun he had no idea how to use and the brains that had gotten him this far.

The boat pulled into the deserted dock at Governors Island just after eleven fifteen. Together, Selene and Theo hauled Flint and his wheelchair ashore and hoisted him to the roof of Castle Williams using an old artillery winch. They rolled him into place beside the fifteen-foot-long Civil War Era canon. A little supernaturally strong elbow grease moved its rotating platform so the barrel pointed straight across the harbor toward Liberty Island.

On Flint’s orders, Selene had lugged a hundred pounds of gunpowder from inside Fort Jay—where it was used for historical reenactments—across to Castle Williams. Just enough to fire the two cannonballs they’d found on display. Flint had disdained her offer to find him a firing pin as well. The God of Fire never traveled without his own stash of fuses.

“Try not to actually take down the statue itself,” Theo said as he rolled the second cannonball within Flint’s reach. “Not sure the city would forgive us for that one.”

“You sure you’re going to be able to handle this?” Selene asked the Smith for the fourth time.

He gave her a grim frown. “Stop treating me like a mortal. I know my limitations, and I know my strengths. I wouldn’t still be around if I didn’t. I just hope you know yours. Be careful, Huntress.”

“Great,” Theo cut in before their conversation could get any more intimate. He still didn’t trust the intensity of Flint’s gaze. “Let’s get going. Mithras and midnight wait for no man.”

They left Flint on the roof and sprinted back toward the dock. Hansen sat on her bench, staring toward Liberty Island as if lost in a dream. The dogs sprawled around her.

While Selene jumped aboard, Theo untied the mooring rope then reached for the rail before the boat could drift out of his reach. She was staring at him. He recognized the warmth in her gaze, a simmering reminder of what they’d shared on the banks of the Hudson. But he distrusted the way her lips tightened. He knew what she was going to say.

“Don’t you dare.” He swung aboard and moved toward the cockpit.

“Theo,” she said, with far more gentleness than he was used to. “You convinced Ruth and Gabriela to stay behind because you couldn’t bear to lose them. Don’t you think I feel the same way?”

“Except this wasn’t their fight.” He turned back to her. “It is mine. I’m the reason Dash and Philippe are up there in the first place, remember? The Host knew they were coming because I told the Smith to call the captain.”

“You couldn’t have known—”

“And I thought we already had this discussion. I love you. So I’m not letting you face an entire cult of divinely armed fanatics with nothing but a sword you don’t know how to use and a pack of shelter dogs.”

“You don’t have any weapon at all.”

He patted the back of his pants. “I’ve got a gun.”

She sighed and held out her hand. “You have to give me that. You don’t know how to aim it. You’ll be safe here, and I’m going to need it.”

“And who’s going to pilot the boat? Did you suddenly learn how to drive?”

“Gerry will do it.”

“You’re going to trust her?”

“She wants to get to that island as much as I do. And I’m not about to let her throw me overboard.”

Theo refused to give up. “Fine. You take the gun.” He handed it to her, then reached down into the canvas bag beneath the cockpit and withdrew Orion’s bronze sword. “I’ll take this.”

Selene laughed. But he barely heard her. A tremor, part electric shock, part icy shiver, ran through his hand and up his arm. He’d expected the bronze weapon to be heavy. Instead, it felt like an extension of his body. He lifted it high, watching the moonlight run down the blade like water. He swung it in a wide arc. It sang.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered, swinging it again.

“Hey, watch it!”

“It’s like the baying of hounds. Or the keening of a woman.” He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he knew he wanted to hear it again.

The captain’s urgent question snapped him from his reverie. “You have pneuma, don’t you, Professor?”

“The breath of divinity? The holy spirit? Hardly—”

“No, Theo,” interrupted Selene, a look of sudden understanding crossing her face. “You do. You’re a Makarites. A Blessed One. As close as a mortal can get to being a hemitheos.”

Hansen raised her bound hands and laid a careful finger on the conch shell pommel of the sword. “I feel nothing. Syndexioi gain the ability to use these weapons only by a breath from Prometheus. But you … you’re doing this all on your own.”

He made a few more passes through the air, his muscles moving with a swiftness and strength he hadn’t possessed a moment before. He knew exactly how he would twist a spear upon the haft of his sword and wrench it from its bearer’s grasp. How to swing the blade into an arrow’s path and knock it from the sky. How to slice through empty space and into a man’s flesh in the same easy arc.

He tossed the sword upward, where it spun end over end, the blade a darker circle, the shining pommel a rim of fire, like a solar eclipse hovering just over their heads. It fell back into his palm, perfectly balanced. He grinned at Selene’s awestruck expression. “Still want me to stay behind?”