Chapter 52

PONTIFEX MAXIMUS

“You need to watch your footwork,” Selene commented, watching Maryam run through a series of lunges and parries with her spear in the living room.

Maryam ignored her and continued her exercises.

“Really, if you were in fighting shape, you could’ve stolen your aegis back from Father,” Selene went on. “It protects the wearer from all harm, right? That’d be useful right about now. You’re going to need to work much harder if we’re going to face him again at his full strength.”

Maryam spun her weapon in a tight arc and then brought it before her in a guard position. “Perhaps I’d be in better condition if the noise hadn’t kept me up all night.”

“You’re not used to Manhattan traffic,” Selene said with a shrug. Then, at Maryam’s pointed stare, she felt her cheeks heat. Were Theo and I really that loud? It had been the first night they’d spent in a bed—rather than an airplane—since Mount Olympus, and they’d made the most of it. She could feel the rasp of his stubbled cheek against her breast even now. The first time they’d made love, six months before, it had been on a cold granite boulder with the frigid wind of the Hudson River at their backs. Last night, the air conditioner in her window had dripped and groaned in its effort to keep up with them. For so long, she’d lived with only dreams of him—she felt a warm flush as she remembered how the reality had exceeded her fantasies. She considered herself a woman of action, the Swiftly Bounding One; Theo had shown her how to move slowly. She’d returned the favor, stalking him, sniffing him, searching his body like a lioness with her prey. Then she’d given up on restraint and devoured him with all the greedy—

Maryam clacked her spear against the ground in a downward thrust, yanking Selene back to the present. Her gray eyes bored into her sister knowingly.

“Watch my hardwood floor,” Selene snapped for lack of a better response. She retreated to the kitchen, needing sustenance for what promised to be a very long day.

She had her head buried in the refrigerator when Theo finally padded down the stairs in a gaping bathrobe, his hair a tousled mess.

He folded his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder to look into the fridge. He smelled like her. The heat of his skin poured through the thin fabric of his robe.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asked drowsily.

“You tell me,” she said with a scowl. “There’s a disturbing lack of bacon. Ruth cleared everything out except the ketchup and … what is this … pickles?”

“Sounds like we’re ordering delivery from the diner. Challah French toast for me, two orders of bacon and three breakfast sausages for you?”

“That sounds … amazing.”

“Welcome home.” He kissed her, light and lingering, on the neck. A reminder. An invitation.

Selene gently freed herself. “Maryam’s in the living room.”

Theo held up his hands guiltily and stepped back. “Right.”

“And we have a big day.”

He nodded. “Turn the bridges of Manhattan into a ginormous lyre to open a passage to another dimension. Got it. Very serious.”

“Then why are you smiling?” she asked, although she already knew the answer. Despite the dangers they faced, she couldn’t repress an answering grin.

“Because this morning I feel like we can do anything. Parallel universe? Pshaw. Symphony on suspension bridges? Whatever. I mean, if I can make a goddess orgasm four—”

Selene threw a dish towel at his face as Maryam entered the kitchen, still holding her spear.

Theo was still laughing as Maryam unfolded a map of New York City across the kitchen table.

“Here.” She pointed to the George Washington Bridge. “This is the biggest one. It’ll have the most power.”

Selene willed the blood to leave her cheeks and asked, “When did you have time to learn that?” After their meeting with Minh last night, they’d come right back to the house.

“As I said,” Maryam said calmly, “I didn’t get much sleep. I used the professor’s laptop.”

Which means the woman who’s been holed up in a convent for centuries just taught herself to use the Internet in the course of one night, while I can still barely get my camera phone to work, Selene thought. But that doesn’t mean she knows more than I do about my own city. “The GWB may be Manhattan’s biggest suspension bridge, but it’s not the best choice. Remember, location matters, not just size. We need somewhere with great spiritual power, somewhere that symbolizes the city itself, somewhere ancient. Or at least, as ancient as things get in New York.” She laid a finger on the Brooklyn Bridge. “Here is where we make our stand.”

Choosing the Brooklyn Bridge was one thing. Playing it was quite another.

After his enormous breakfast, Theo spent the rest of the day at Columbia, searching for a physics professor who hadn’t taken off for the summer. When he finally found one, she’d downloaded a suite of sound-engineering software to Theo’s laptop, lent him a set of contact microphones, and wished him a very skeptical good luck.

Just after sunset, he took the subway downtown to the bridge’s pedestrian entrance. Rush hour was over, but hordes of people still crossed the wooden path above the roadway. Whole families with strollers, whizzing bicyclists, meandering tour groups, besotted couples, all enjoying the spectacular views of the Hudson, the New York skyline, and the bridge itself. Theo hadn’t walked across it since he’d made the tourist circuit when he first moved to New York nearly ten years earlier, and the sheer grandeur of it filled him with some of the same awe he’d felt watching the Olympians grow to their full divine glory on the other side of the portal. This wasn’t the work of a god; this was a man-made miracle constructed over a century ago. A masterpiece of gothic stone archways and crisscrossing metal cables that had, when built, been the biggest suspension bridge in the world. Even now, it possessed such beauty that the other bridges spanning the river to the north and south all seemed like ugly stepsisters in comparison.

He spotted Selene and Maryam right away—six-foot-tall women had a tendency to stand out in a crowd. To his surprise, Gabriela and Minh stood beside them.

Watching Selene’s frown of concentration as she examined the bridge’s cables, Theo couldn’t help remembering the heat of her smile that morning when he’d awoken beside her. Selene had been staring at him while he slept—he wasn’t sure for how long. He’d rolled to face her, and her eyes drifted from his face to his chest. She reached over to trace the pale Mercury symbol on his sternum, the one branded into his flesh by Saturn six months earlier, and her smile faded into something solemn and sad. He touched the scar between her breasts in turn: a ragged white oval seared there by Zeus’s lightning bolt the night they’d fought atop the Statue of Liberty.

“We both have our scars,” he’d murmured. “The ones we can see—and the ones we can’t. And they might not be our last.” He kept his eyes locked on hers even as his hand trailed down her ribs. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

She’d leaned closer in answer, resting her lips on his before pulling him into her arms.

Gabriela’s disgruntled snort broke Theo from his reverie. She strolled across the walkway to join him.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he ventured.

“I know, I swore I wouldn’t let Minh get involved. But the problem with falling for strong women is that they rarely listen to you.” At Theo’s wry grin, she added, “I’m preaching to the choir, huh?”

“And I’m shouting, ‘Amen.’”

Minh remained with the goddesses, still busy with the cables. Using a protractor and weighted string, Maryam surveyed the thick wires that supported the bridge’s roadway, stopping every few seconds to jot down notes. Then Selene struck one of the cables with a small mallet while the astronomer placed the diaphragm of a stethoscope against the metal, listening intently.

“How’s it going over there?” Theo asked Gabi.

She looked like she’d just sucked too much lime after a shot of tequila. “Minh’s having the time of her life.”

Theo laughed. “Then why the face?”

“Because this stupid plan might actually work. They’ve already measured the length of each cable, as well as the relative pitch. Athena, big surprise, is scary smart. You think she’s gay? Because she and Minh are bonding over integrating the curve to find the arc length, and I don’t even know what that means.”

Even though she was too far away to hear, Maryam shot a glance over at Gabi and Theo at the mention of her name.

Theo lowered his voice, knowing that Selene, at least, could hear everything they said if she bothered to listen. “I don’t think you have to worry—you’ve definitely got her beat in the personality department. And try calling her Maryam. Or Gray-Eyed Goddess. Using her real name can draw her attention to you.”

Gabi rolled her eyes. “All those years studying indigenous folklore and magic and then it shows up at my doorstep, and I just want it all to go away.”

“And yet we’re both still here.”

“Love makes idiots of us all, chico.”

“True. But it’s more than that. I mean yes, I’m here for Selene. But aren’t you excited, Gabi?”

“I’m scared shitless. I mean that literally. Ever since you got back, my ass has been clenched tighter than a billionaire’s wallet.”

Theo wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ve missed you.”

She gave him a sideways smirk. “I know.”

“We’re about to answer one of the great questions of the universe, and I’m glad I’ve got your potty humor to keep it all in perspective.”

“What great question? Like who gets arrested first for trying to knock down the Brooklyn Bridge? I can answer that.” She jabbed a thumb into her own chest. “The brown lady.”

“Not exactly the question I had in mind.”

“You mean more like, ‘What happens after we die?’ I thought you knew the answer to that now.”

He winced. “Maybe, but the Underworld I visited was created by my own belief. By Orphic ritual. The other time I died, nothing happened. So I guess I know what can happen after we die—not what does.”

“Awesome. Then what are we answering?”

“On top of Olympus, Dennis posed the question as ‘How do we live a better life?’ But I think it’s more like ‘How do we transcend our mortal lives? How do we see what’s beyond us?’ I’ve been thinking about that question ever since Dennis asked it. It seems to me our answer has evolved over time. Orion’s Eleusinian cult reached back to prehistory for answers—to human sacrifice and barbarism. Saturn’s Mithraists chose the modern religion of Christianity instead. We are using science.”

Gabi sighed. “I’ll tell you what matters, querido. Not getting sucked into a black hole by your little experiment.” She punched him lightly on the arm before marching over to the cable.

Minh held out the stethoscope when Theo joined them. “Take a listen.”

Selene hit the suspender cable with her hammer. A tympanic crash rolled through the stethoscope and into his brain, a resonant, reverberating boom like a giant’s footstep. He was sure the cable was about to snap under Selene’s blow, sending cars and pedestrians plummeting into the East River.

He ripped the stethoscope from his ears with a yelped curse.

Selene smiled. “Not bad, huh?”

“You’re going to bring the bridge down! Or at least get us all arrested!”

She laughed. “For this?” She tapped the cable again. Theo could barely hear the flat, dull slap above the rumble of the traffic below. “See? The bridge only speaks if you listen closely. And, as you know, most mortals are very bad at that.”

Maryam held out a hand for Theo’s bag. “You brought the other instruments? We’ve done as much as we can with what we have. The stethoscope is rudimentary.”

He pulled out the microphones and his laptop and relayed the physicist’s instructions. The contact mics looked like electrodes from an electrocardiogram, and when Maryam affixed one to the suspender cable, green lines began to oscillate across his laptop screen. Theo had the distinct impression they were about to record the heartbeat of the city itself.

Maryam nodded to Selene. “Okay, give it a whack.”

Once again, even Selene’s mighty strength produced nothing more than a mild clank. But the lines on Theo’s laptop danced wildly, and when he transposed the sounds into the audible range, what emerged from the computer speakers was not the tympanic roll they’d heard through the stethoscope, but the subsonic voice of the entire bridge. Three tones woven into one: a deep rushing like a god’s breath through a pipe, the bass hum of a diesel engine, the high ringing of a bell.

They all stood in astonished awe for a moment. Then Minh took Theo’s laptop and started typing away. “We’re hearing the harmonics,” she murmured distractedly. “But if we condense the broad sound waves into sharper peaks, we can pick out the fundamental note at the center.” After a little more typing, she looked up with a broad grin. “That’s a G.”

“Now do we have to do the same thing to every other cable?” asked Theo.

Maryam shook her head. “I’ve already measured the height of each, and we know that longer cables produce deeper tones, just as they would on a lyre. We just need to listen to one more so we can confirm the exact effect of the length differential on the pitch. Then Minh can compute the note of each cable based on my data—assuming they all have the same mass density per unit length.”

After they finished with the next cable, Minh settled on a nearby bench, with Theo’s computer on her lap. Maryam looked over her shoulder; Gabi hovered on the other side.

This is going to work, he thought. We will be the Pontifex Maximus. The Romans had given their head priest—and their emperor—the title of “bridge builder.” The Catholics had stolen the epithet for their pope. Theo felt a sudden pride that he was about to help a pair of pagan goddesses steal it back.

Minh looked up from the computer. “Remember how the sound of the Big Bang that I played for you all had been transposed upward by fifty octaves? I thought there was no way we’d be able to replicate the original sound. We’d need a piano the length of seven pianos. But it turns out there’s a half step in pitch between every two of the 1,520 suspender cables. That means our bridge is a lyre with a range of—”

“Fifty-eight octaves,” Maryam interjected before Minh could do the math.

Theo whistled. “Sounds like we’ve got our instrument, folks. Now who’s going to play it?”

“We all have to.” Minh showed them the musical notation from the web page of her colleague at UVA. “We need to play four separate chords in series, each one composed of eight notes spread across more than three octaves.”

Maryam frowned. “The cables are several feet apart, which means no one person can hit more than one note at the same time. We’re going to need three more people.”

“You’re going to need five more,” Gabi said quickly. “Minh may be helping you figure out the notes and whatever, but when it comes time to open your ‘dimensional portal’ or ‘wormhole’—or, as I like to call it, ‘vortex to certain death’—we’ll be visiting my aunt in the Bronx. No, screw that, we’ll go all the way to my cousin’s house in Jersey.”

“Gabi—” Minh began with her usual eye roll.

“No! I will not lose you, Minh. Not after I spent my whole life looking for you!”

Minh’s face crumpled. Then Gabi’s did too. They fell into each other’s arms, laughing and crying at the same time.

Theo looked for Selene and found her already looking at him.

Minh and Gabi moved off to huddle together at the edge of the walkway, their intense voices too hushed for Theo to hear.

Selene cocked her head in a listening pose, but Theo decided he didn’t need to eavesdrop on his friends. Either they’d help or they wouldn’t; he respected them enough to leave the decision to them.

Maryam pulled his attention back to the task at hand. “We have a bigger problem than finding enough people to strike the chord. We don’t have Saturn to control where—or when—the portal will lead.”

“Damn,” Theo said. “We could wind up in Paleolithic Manhattan instead of classical Athens.”

“I don’t think so,” Selene said slowly. “When we were leaving the Underworld, Apollo was drawn back to Delphi. Maybe because it was the place he loved best.”

“That’s not the same thing—” Maryam interjected.

“All of this is unknown territory,” Selene said, talking over her. “There’s no way Saturn had the scientific knowledge necessary to control space and time. Yet something beyond science, something tied to his role as Kronos, God of Time, let him do it anyway. Well, just like Apollo’s love for Delphi drew him there, the link between the other Athanatoi and me transcends anything you can measure or quantify or run through your software programs. Hermes may be the Messenger of the Gods, but I’m the Huntress. I’ll track them down, no matter what universe they’re in.”

Maryam looked dubious. “They didn’t exactly leave scat along the trail for you to sniff out.”

Selene’s chin lifted in disdain. “That’s not what I meant. My twin understood the power of music—his songs opened the door from Delphi and led Theo to us in the Underworld. Now, with Apollo gone, it falls to me to sing the hymns that will bring me to my family.”

Theo thought Maryam might protest. The plan was anything but practical. But Selene spoke with such force that even the Goddess of Wisdom seemed convinced.

“Then let’s assume we get to the right place,” Maryam said after a moment. “How do we actually crack open Tartarus once we get back to the field? Father has taken Poseidon’s trident, and we have no other weapon that can shake the earth as effectively. I’ve considered trying to bring modern construction equipment through. Perhaps get hold of Flint’s drilling machines left on Olympus—”

“You forget that once we cross the portal, we’ll truly be Athanatoi once more,” Selene said impatiently. “Possessing impossible power and strength.”

“Impossible,” Maryam agreed. “But not unlimited. My spear won’t crack the earth. Nor will your bow or the professor’s sword.”

Selene nodded grimly. “But Hephaestus’s hammer will.”