Selene arrived in front of the Hilton just in time to see a team of paramedics emerge from the lobby, supporting a short, full-figured woman whom Selene recognized, with a shock, as Theo’s friend Gabriela.
Selene pounded the top of the police barricade. “Tell Captain Hansen that Selene DiSilva’s here and has crucial information for her,” she told the sergeant standing guard. “Tell her she has to let me through.” She tried to sound rational, but she had to use every ounce of will not to grab the policeman’s baton and throttle him with it. Captain Hansen appeared, looking like she hadn’t slept in days.
“Somehow, I’m not surprised to see you here, Ms. DiSilva.”
“Where’s Schultz, Gerry?” Selene demanded. “Is he okay?”
The captain raised her eyebrows at the old nickname. “We have no idea.”
“What?” Selene’s heart skittered. “He was here, I know.”
“He and Detective Brandman were on their way to meet up with me when they interrupted the cult inside an abandoned theater. Right under our noses, but we never would’ve found it. But Gabriela Jimenez said both men risked their own lives to save her. I’m afraid the detective was shot. He didn’t make it. And the last thing Ms. Jimenez remembered before she blacked out was Schultz being held on the ground by one of the perps.”
“I need to get inside.” One thought tormented her: It’s my fault Theo went in there without me to protect him.
“He’s not in there,” the captain said. “We searched the entire theater. There’s no sign of any of them. I’m not letting you into the crime scene, Ms. DiSilva, and don’t even think about breaking in this time.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“A Dr. Gregory Kim from Natural History contacted us earlier today. He’d been inexplicably unconscious for the last twenty-four hours or so, but when he woke up, he reported that a tall, black-haired woman had impersonated a police officer and then returned a specimen that had been stolen, we now believe, by members of the cult. We got the surveillance tapes from the museum, showing you and Professor Schultz entering the building yesterday afternoon.” Her face remained stern, no hint of a smile on her lips. Selene could only be grateful they didn’t have footage of her zip line exit. That would’ve been even harder to explain. “There’s a lot you’re not telling me, Ms. DiSilva.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” Selene tensed her muscles, ready to flee or fight. She wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of finding Theo.
Geraldine stared at her for a moment. “I don’t think your mother would thank me for that.”
“No.”
“I think she’d want me to focus on tracking down these killers instead. When it came to men who hurt women, she was relentless.” She allowed Selene a familiar smile, tinged with sadness. “And so far, you and Professor Schultz have provided our most reliable leads. You’re a mystery, young woman.”
“I guess it runs in the family.”
She sighed. “Before you go, Ms. Jimenez wants to talk to you.” She escorted Selene to where Theo’s friend sat beside a solicitous paramedic. Before Gerry turned to go, she said, “And next time you feel like playing cop, you should take the Police Officer Exam. We could use a good woman like you.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Gabriela was saying, batting at the EMT’s hand as he waved two fingers in front of her face. Gauze encircled her left wrist. “Just a mild concussion and a little loss of blood, for Christ’s sake.” She looked up as Selene approached. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you were Theo’s partner in this. At least that’s what he seemed to think. Where were you?”
“We had a disagreement,” Selene said stiffly.
Gabriela stood up from the back of the ambulance. “I said, lay off,” she barked at the paramedic who tried to hold her back. “If you want to straitjacket me, go right ahead, and I’ll have my lawyer sue you.” The man backed off, hands raised in submission. She turned to Selene. “You need to find Theo.”
“That’s why I’m here. Who were the men who captured you?”
“I have no idea. They showed up at my apartment in hoods and masks and disguised their voices. I asked them—why me? And they said my death would be the perfect punishment for Theo.”
“I don’t understand… Why’re they targeting him?”
“I thought you’d know the answer to that.” Gabriela was nearly shouting. “What have you gotten him mixed up in?”
I don’t even know anymore, Selene realized. She’d thought Paul would choose Theo as his Corn King because of her feelings for him. But if Paul wasn’t the hierophant, who else would be jealous enough to target her new friend? Unless Theo’s kidnapping has nothing to do with me. Perhaps his role as a Makarites, a title he earned through his own years of passionate study, made him a prime candidate for sacrifice. Dennis had said the gods couldn’t stay away from a Blessed One. If that’s true, she thought, Cursed One would be a better name.
“Can you tell me anything else about the cult members? Height? Weight? Eye color?” Selene asked Gabriela. “Did any of them seem unusually tall or strong?”
“Look at me! I’m five feet tall and haven’t been to the gym in about… oh that’s right… ever. Everyone seems unusually tall and strong to me. Besides, I was a little distracted by the whole being tied up and almost sacrificed part.”
“If you don’t know anything, then I need to go.” She started to walk away.
“Go where?” Gabriela demanded, stopping Selene in her tracks.
“Anywhere. Everywhere.” She knew nothing about the hierophant anymore, nothing about his initiates. She didn’t even have a clue where the climactic Mysteriotides Nychtes would take place. But she knew talking to Gabriela wasn’t getting her anywhere.
“Great. Sounds like a plan,” Gabriela sneered. “Try thinking like Theo instead. And I don’t mean the reckless, impulsive, always getting himself into trouble version of Theo. I mean the version that was the youngest tenured professor in the history of Columbia Classics. He’d start at the beginning and trace the whole story so he could see where it’s headed next.”
“He always thought Helen’s research would have all the answers. But we never found it.”
“Did you look in her apartment?”
“The cops had the place surrounded.”
Gabriela gave her an incredulous glare. “I saw you zip line out a sixth-floor window. You’re telling me you’re scared of a few cops?”
“I wasn’t quite myself at the time.”
Gabriela waved a bandaged arm at the dozens of police officers bustling through the streets. “It looks like the cops are busy at the moment anyway. So I don’t care who you have to knock unconscious, or how many doors you have to break through—just go save my friend.”
After stopping by her house to pick up Hippo, Selene made her way to Helen Emerson’s apartment.
A timid voice answered her knock, asking what she wanted.
“It’s about Helen,” she explained to the closed door.
“I don’t want to speak to any reporters,” came the muffled reply.
“I’m not a reporter. I’m a…” Selene stopped before she could say “private investigator.” “A friend of Theo Schultz.” Hippo woofed softly at the closed door.
The young woman who opened it looked like she’d been crying for days. Her lank brown hair hung in a messy ponytail, and she wore an overlarge sweatshirt and pajama pants. “I’ve been watching it all on TV. He was really kidnapped? Is there any news?” she asked breathlessly. “Have they found him yet?”
“No. That’s why we need your help.” Selene introduced herself and her dog.
“Ruth Willever,” the woman whispered in return, holding out a tentative hand toward Hippo. The dog sniffed cautiously at her fingers, then at her fuzzy blue slippers, and finally gave Ruth’s palm an approving lick.
The woman ushered Selene to a canvas couch, taking the rattan footstool for herself. Hippo moved to lie at Selene’s feet, but she gave the dog a subtle prod so she’d go to Ruth instead. From long experience, Selene knew the dog would make talking to Helen’s roommate easier—while she growled at men, Hippo acted like an adoring puppy with most women. True to form, she sat her shaggy bulk next to the footstool and laid her massive head in Ruth’s lap, eliciting a faint smile.
“The reporter on the news said there was no sign of Theo. Do you really think you can help find him?” Ruth said.
“I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t.”
Ruth gave her a quizzical look, then turned her gaze back to the dog. She scratched behind Hippo’s ears. “At least now they know he’s innocent. I can’t believe they ever thought otherwise.”
“You never doubted him?”
“He’s a good man. One of the best. And Helen might not have known it, but she traded down when she fell for Everett.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper, as if she were afraid to say even that much.
Selene wondered if Ruth had ever told Theo how she felt about him. The thought made her cheeks hot. She forced herself to speak gently. It was less of a trial than usual.
“I need to find Helen’s research, Ruth. It might have the clue we need.”
“The police searched her room already.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
It was a small chamber, immaculate despite the police search. A pristine white coverlet offset colorful Turkish pillows on the double bed. A small whitewashed desk, bare of papers, books or photos. Selene opened a drawer. Empty. “The cops took everything,” Ruth offered from the doorway. She hadn’t put a toe over the threshold. Looking around the bare room, Selene felt hope slip away. There wasn’t much time left. Hippo brushed past Ruth and came to sit by Selene.
“What about you, Hippolyta?” Selene asked softly, stroking the dog’s head. “Any ideas? I could use some help here.” The dog dutifully began to sniff around the room, snuffling from one end to the other. She barreled under the bed, nearly lifting its legs off the ground.
“They looked under there,” said Ruth. But Hippo would not be dissuaded. She snuffed a little longer, then began to whimper.
“She’s probably just smelling a mouse in the walls,” Selene said, not daring to hope. “Come on, mutt, get out of there and let me see.” Hippo scuttled backward, and Selene shifted the brass bedstead farther into the room. The dog whimpered again and pawed at one of the floorboards. The edge of the narrow plank was chipped, as if by a blunt tool. Selene dug a key out of her pocket and levered up the floorboard. The faint smell of bay leaves wafted into the room. There, beneath a bundle of dried laurel, lay two thick sheaves of papers. I should’ve known, Selene thought. Theo said she liked hidden compartments, secret ciphers. The first document contained images of papyri fragments—thousands of them—all painstakingly pieced together to form an imperfect whole. Beside the Greek characters were Helen’s own translations. The other stack of papers contained only her cramped script. The cover page read:
Selene sat back heavily on the floor and began to leaf through the stack. In the lower left corner of each page was a number: five hundred and twenty-three pages of tiny, nearly illegible script. Selene glanced out the small window. The sky glowed pastel blue. “Ruth, I’m going to need your help.” She held out the second half of the papers. “I can’t read all of this fast enough.”
“I’m just a scientist,” she demurred.
“This isn’t exactly my field either. Just tell me if you see any clue about the location of the Telesterion—the Hall of Completion where the climax of the Mystery, the Mysteriotides Nychtes, takes place.”
Ruth stepped cautiously into the room and sat beside Selene on the floor. Neither woman dared disturb the neatly made bed. They began to read.
After a few hours, her eyes burning from squinting at the minuscule writing, Selene decided Helen’s paper would’ve revolutionized the study of Ancient Greece—if she’d lived to publish it. Everything was just as Dennis had revealed. In the first chapter, she explained that she’d found evidence within the Oxyrhynchus papyri that the Greeks in Eleusis had once practiced human sacrifice as an integral part of their religion, killing a Corn King every year to appease the Earth Mother, and later, in homage to Demeter and Persephone. Then, the cult transformed, replacing human sacrifice with Dionysian worship and kykeon. Although the Eleusinian Mysteries continued until Emperor Theodosius outlawed them in the fourth century AD, Helen hypothesized that the later, tamer version of the ritual was no longer a truly transformative experience.
Ruth gasped, interrupting Selene’s reading. Face white, she held out a page.
“‘Only by re-creating and reenacting this earlier version,’” Selene read, “‘not the sanitized alternative written about in previously recognized ancient sources, can modern scholars hope to understand the Mystery in its full power. Accordingly, this chapter will outline a New Eleusis Mystery with which we might test this hypothesis, unlocking a force long forgotten.’”
“It was her idea,” Ruth whispered. “No wonder she kept it hidden.”
Selene nodded dumbly, reading ahead. “‘The original Mystery Cult, before its taming, gave nearly supernatural healing powers and longevity to its initiates. At its strongest, it may have even granted them immortality. Performed correctly, the New Eleusis rite could do the same.’”
Oh you foolish girl, Selene thought. You had no idea the quest for an eternal life would cut your own so cruelly short.
The outline of Helen’s new cult mirrored the events of the last few days, with a few notable exceptions. The hiera she suggested all related to the Earth Mother, Demeter, Persephone, and the other traditional Eleusinian deities: piglets, grain, and snakes. She made no mention of murder or mutilation during the beginning of the ritual. The targeting of virgins, the sacrifice of hounds, and the use of the boar tusk must have been the hierophant’s idea.
As she skimmed over the descriptions of the first seven nights of the ritual, Selene borrowed a map of Manhattan from Ruth and spread it out before her. Be like Theo, she thought. Look for the pattern, the hidden meaning on the opposite side of the vase. See how the pieces fit together. Swiftly, she inked a dark mark on each crime scene: first the Met, where the robberies had occurred on Day One of the ritual, then the others, ending with the Liberty Theater. Six sites so far. But seven days of Mysteries, she realized. She pulled out the napkin with Theo’s outline on it and found the missing day: the Agyrmos, the public gathering announcing the ritual’s formal beginning. It would’ve taken place the night before Helen’s murder, but she and Theo had never identified its location.
“What did Helen do the night before she was killed?”
“She went out before sunset. I was asleep when she got home, but it must’ve been after two a.m. The next morning, she seemed excited. She was… glowing almost. But she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Said it was a secret. A lot of things had become secret. These last few months I hardly saw her. She’d always been single-minded about her work, but this was unusual, even for her. She was always holed up in her room, off in the library, or out with Everett.”
Selene turned back to the papers. Helen wrote that the Agyrmos must take place in an open space, as close to the center of the city as possible. To conjure the theatrical rituals of the ancient world, an outdoor amphitheater would be best.
She looked back at the map. The center of the city was Central Park. And there in the middle of the park, not far from the Natural History Museum, was the Delacorte Theater, a large amphitheater best known for its free Shakespeare performances every summer. In the fall, however, the amphitheater stood abandoned. A late-night gathering on its stage might escape notice. She marked the location on the map.
She kept reading, skipping forward until she reached the eighth and ninth nights of the rituals, the Mysteriotides Nychtes. The papyri had revealed that the early, pre-Olympian version of the Unspeakable rituals that formed the rite’s climax would’ve taken place in a natural underground chamber, a symbolic representation of the Earth Mother’s womb. Helen believed that the Golden Age Athenians had built their Telesterion above this original site. But in order to be true to the ritual’s more ancient origins, she argued that the climax of the New Eleusis Mystery should take place, once again, in a cave.
“Huh,” Ruth said, pulling a photo from between the manuscript pages. “I wonder why she put this in here.”
“Let me see.” A picture of Helen and a dark, broad-shouldered man so handsome Selene had to catch her breath.
“That’s Everett,” Ruth was saying.
“No. It’s not.” Selene took the photo, her hands trembling, staring at a face intimately familiar—one she never thought she’d see again.
“What do you mean?” Ruth snatched the picture back. “How would you know? I’ve known him for a year—it’s definitely him.”
Selene looked down once more at the map before her.
That’s when she saw the pattern.
Riverside Park in the northwest, Mount Sinai Hospital in the northeast, the old cemetery beneath the Waldorf in Midtown East, the hidden Liberty Theater in Midtown West. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History strung through the middle of the city on either side of Central Park, with the Delacorte amphitheater between them. A star for each broad shoulder. A star for each strong leg. Three stars for his belt.
Only the sword was missing.
The hierophant was no god. Only the son of one.
The Hunter had returned.