Hunt the Moon

Chapter Seventeen

I walked into the living room sometime that afternoon, yawning and bleary-eyed from too much sleep, to see Marco coming out of the lounge. At least, I assumed it was Marco. It was a little hard to be sure, because while the height and girth were the same, the face was completely covered—in flowers.

“Hey,” I said, as a perfect red rose dropped off the towering stack he was carrying and plopped at my feet.

“Hey, yourself,” Marco’s voice told me, heading out of the apartment. “Get the door, will ya?”

I got the door. “What are you doing?”

“Taking out the trash.”

He strode over to the elevator and punched the button, shedding blossoms all the way. One had a little card attached. I bent and picked it up. Cassandra Palmer.

I frowned. “Marco?”

“Mmm-hmm?”

“Are you throwing out my flowers?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Go look in the lounge.”

The elevator arrived before he could say any more, assuming he’d planned on it, and a man got off. He was dressed in a crisp blue suit and shiny black shoes and was carrying more roses. “Thank you,” Marco said, plucking them out of his hand and stepping into the elevator.

“Hey!”

The elevator doors shut before the man could retrieve his bouquet. “Goddamned vampires,” he muttered, and then he turned around—to see three of the guards loitering in the open doorway of the suite.

He lost what color had been in his face, which wasn’t much, since he was a pleasant-looking white blond. The vamps came forward and started circling him like sharks in water. “I liked the last one better,” a brunet said. “This one’s a little weedy.”

“And please tell me that’s not your best suit,” another commented, eyeing the man’s pinstripe with a moue of distaste. “I’m thinking what? One ninety-nine ninety five?”

“And they throw in an extra shirt,” the third vamp added.

They all laughed.

The man flushed but stood his ground. “See here, I have an appointment with—” he caught sight of me and his expression lightened. “Ah, you must be—”

“Too busy to talk to you,” the first vamp said, putting an arm around him and turning him back toward the elevator.

“Get your hands off me, vampire,” the man snarled, pushing the vamp’s hand away. “And I think I’ll let her tell me that!”

“Ooh. This one’s spunky.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

The man—or, I guess, the mage—came forward, holding out a hand. The hand had a box in it. The box was full of candy, judging by the glossy photo on the front.

“For you,” he said, obviously proud to have rescued part of his offering.

“Uh, thank you?”

He brushed it away. “I’m not sure what to call you,” he said frankly. “Lady Cassandra isn’t technically correct until after the ceremony, and it sounds too formal in any case. And Miss Palmer is little better. Would you like for me to call you Cassie?”

“I’d like for you to tell me who you are.”

The man blinked. “David Dryden.”

I just looked at him.

“Your one o’clock?”

“My one o’clock what?”

“Date,” the third vamp said, grinning.

“For what?” I asked, confused.

“Well, you know.” The mage looked a little awkward suddenly. “The usual.”

“I think we’ve got a contender here, boys,” the brunet said.

“Smooth operator,” the second vamp agreed.

“Can you do something about them?” the mage asked me angrily, as the elevator dinged.

“They’re supposed to be here,” I pointed out.

“As am I! The Lord Protector sent me.”

The Lord Protector and his hair got off the elevator. “Ah, Dryden, my boy. There you are.” Jonas beamed at him, and then leaned over to dust a minute speck off his coat. “Have you met our new Pythia yet?”

“I’m trying!” the mage said, exasperated.

“Jonas, can I see you a minute?” I asked mildly.

“Of course, my dear, of course. It’s why I’m here.”

“Can you repeat that pickup line for me?” I heard one of the vamps ask. “I want to write it down. Something about the usual?”

“Go to hell,” the mage told him.

I preceded Jonas into the apartment, but stopped in the doorway to the lounge. Or what had been the lounge. It looked more like a greenhouse now, with what had to be four dozen vases of flowers, loose bouquets and potted plants sitting around.

“Jonas.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “What is this?”

“Options, my dear,” he said, surveying the sea of flora approvingly. “It’s always nice to have options.”

“It’s nice to have a place to sit, too. And we discussed this.”

“Did we?” he asked vaguely.

“Yes. We did. And you promised—”

“I didn’t, in fact.”

“Jonas!”

He held up placating hands. “But truly, very little of this is my doing.”

“Then what—”

“It was Niall. I believe he was . . . perturbed . . . about the desert incident. He returned in time to insert a piece in this morning’s Oracle about our eligible new Pythia and, well . . .”

“Well what?”

“The power of the press,” he said, patting my hand. “But don’t worry. I’m sure it will blow over in a week or two—”

“A week?” I stared around. I’d be able to open my own florist shop by then.

I sneezed.

“Smells like a New Orleans cathouse in here,” Marco agreed, coming back in and handing me a handkerchief.

I took it gratefully. “How would you know?”

He just raised an eyebrow at me and gathered up another load. “I’m heading to bed after this,” he told me, glancing at Jonas. “It’s about to get surreal up in here.”

“About to?”

He just grinned and sashayed out. I sneezed.

“Can we do our lesson in the living room?” I asked Jonas, wiping my streaming eyes.

“Oh, I think we can postpone that for today,” he said genially.

“We don’t need to postpone. I’m not going out with—with that man,” I sniffed, trying and failing to recall the guy’s name.

Jonas regarded the mage, who was standing by the kitchen door, looking about the way you’d expect. “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

The man twitched.

I sighed. “Nothing.”

“Then perhaps a late luncheon—”

“No!”

“Tea?”

“Jonas!”

He sighed and gave up. “Handsome boy . . . very good family,” he muttered, reentering the living room.

I blew my nose and followed. And almost ran into an old-fashioned blackboard that was taking up most of the space beside the new sofa. I blinked at it, because it hadn’t been there a minute ago.

“Well, in that case, perhaps you could help me with a few small matters,” Jonas said, feeling around in his coat for something. “I used to do this with Agnes, you know. We had tea every Thursday, and I would go over any affairs of interest in the magical community, in case she saw something of significance.”

“I haven’t seen anything lately,” I said, eyeing the blackboard suspiciously. I poked it. It was solid.

“Which is rather the point,” Jonas said. “Agnes sometimes had dry spells, too, and other times she had visions about all sorts of things, but most were entirely unrelated to what we needed to know. But if we’d recently discussed something . . . well, it seemed to help focus her energies. I thought it might do the same for you.”

“Okay.” I edged around to the sofa.

“Good, good.” Jonas had been turning out his pockets as he spoke, one after another, leaving him looking like he had little gray tongues all over his suit. But I guess he hadn’t found what he wanted, because he made a gesture and plucked a small package out of thin air.

I stared at it, because I’d never seen anyone do that before, except on TV. But I didn’t think Jonas had used sleight of hand. Particularly not when he had trouble getting the cellophane off whatever it was.

“Now, I realize that visions can’t be made to order, as one might wish,” he said, fiddling with it.

“What is that?” I demanded.

He looked at me from behind heavy glasses. “What is what?”

“That.” I pointed at the package.

Jonas peered down at it. “This?”

“Yes, that! What is that?”

“Chalk.”

“Chalk?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“For the chalkboard,” he said, looking a bit bewildered.

“But . . . where did you get it?”

“Where did I get what?”

“The chalk!”

His forehead wrinkled slightly. “Ryman’s. They had a sale.”

I opened my mouth to say something else and then closed it abruptly. I wasn’t doing this with him. Not again. Not today. I sat down on the sofa and crossed my legs. “All right.”

Jonas regarded me warily for a moment, as if I were the one acting strange. But in the end, he didn’t say anything, either. He just fished out a piece and started scribbling on the board, like a more than slightly batty professor.

“Now, as I was saying, visions can be a bit . . . dicey. Agnes often described them as less of a narrative than a kaleidoscope or puzzle, with pieces here and there that, without context, made little sense. Would you agree?”

I shrugged. “I’ve had both kinds. The jumbled ones are the most irritating.”

He nodded. “Yes, so she said. She also told me, however, that having a starting point, some clue as to what she was seeing, often went a long way in helping her sort them out. And once she knew to focus on a particular piece, the others that went with that puzzle often presented themselves.”

“So what puzzle piece do you want me to focus on today?”

“One I’ve been working on for some time now. I’ve been doing some fascinating research into the—”

He stopped and looked at something over my shoulder. I turned my head to see the mage peering around the chalkboard. He looked back and forth between the two of us. “I, er, I was wondering—”

“No, no, we’re past all that,” Jonas said.

The man looked at him for a moment and then decided to focus on me. “Are we having lunch?”

“No.”

“Dinner?”

“No.”

“It’s just . . . I haven’t eaten.”

I just looked at him.

“Could I have my chocolates back?” he asked after a moment.

I silently passed them over. He disappeared back behind the blackboard. Jonas looked at me. “Where were we?”

“I have no idea.”

He thought for a moment. “Oh yes. I was telling you about my research into the old Norse sagas—the mythology of ancient Scandinavia. Have you read them?”

“Uh, no.”

“You’d like them, Cassie.” He waved the hand with the chalk in it. “All sex and violence.”

I frowned. “Why would you think that I’d—”

“And in a real sense, they’re very like visions, in that they give us pieces. Not necessarily the best pieces, you understand, nor in the right order, nor with the right emphasis, but pieces nonetheless. It’s up to us to decode what those pieces mean.”

“Pieces of what?” I asked, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

“Our current situation, I hope. As we recently had demonstrated somewhat . . . vividly, many of the world’s ancient myths have a basis in real events. Take the ouroboros legend, for instance.”

“The ouroboros?” I repeated faintly. Artemis’s protection spell wasn’t my favorite topic of conversation.

“Yes. As with most cultures around the world, the Norse have a legend about a giant snake who grasps its own tail, and in doing so somehow protects the planet. In their case, the snake was Jörmungandr, one of three children of the god Loki, who could shape-shift into a reptile.”

He stepped away from the board so that I could see what he’d been drawing. Only that didn’t help much, because what I saw looked a lot like a lopsided soccer ball with eyes. Or maybe some kind of deformed squid—

“The legend states that eventually Jörmungandr grew so large that he was able to surround the Earth and grasp his own tail. He was believed to be holding the world together, and that when he let go, it would end.”

He added a line across the top of the board and wrote “Loki” in the middle. Then he made three branches coming down from it, like an abbreviated genealogical table. The soccer ball was attached to one of them. He underlined it helpfully.

“That’s Earth?” I asked, just to be clear.

“Yes.”

“And that thing wrapped around it, that’s Jor—whatever?”

“Yes.” He frowned. “Can’t you tell?”

“Not really.”

He leaned over and did something to the drawing. “Is that better?”

I didn’t see any difference. Until I looked closer. And saw that the thing with eyes now also had a tiny, forked tongue.

“Jonas—”

“Now, the interesting thing about the Norse myth,” he told me, “isn’t so much how it differs from the others, but what it adds.” He drew a little line down from the soccer ball and scribbled a name below it. He looked at me expectantly.

“Thor?” I guessed, because Jonas’s handwriting wasn’t any better than his art.

“Yes.”

“God of thunder, big guy with a hammer?”

“Quite. And Jörmungandr’s archenemy. The legend says that in Ragnarok—” He saw my expression. “That is the Old Norse term for the ‘Twilight of the Gods,’ the great war that will decide the fate of the world.”

I nodded, mainly because I wanted him to get to a point already.

“The legends say that Thor will defeat Jörmungandr during Ragnarok, only to die himself shortly thereafter,” he told me. And I guess that was it, because he just stood there, rocking back and forth on his toes and looking pleased.

“I’m kind of still waiting for the interesting part,” I confessed after a few moments.

Jonas blinked at me. “But don’t you see? That is essentially what we have just experienced. The ouroboros spell was defeated, allowing the return of one of the old gods, who died almost immediately afterward.”

“But that was Apollo,” I said, my stomach falling a little more. Because if there was one thing I liked discussing even less than the ouroboros, it was the guy who had defeated it.

Apollo had been the source of the power that came with my office, gifting it to his priestesses at Delphi so that they could help him keep an eye on those treacherous humans. But once the ouroboros spell kicked him out along with the other gods, the power had stayed behind, bound to the line of Pythias who continued their work, only on behalf of the Circle and the humans he had despised.

Or at least it had until I came along. Apollo thought he had it made when a clueless wonder inherited the Pythia position instead of one of the carefully groomed Initiates the Circle kept under its watchful eye. He’d intended to use me to help bring back the bad old days of gods and slaves and nothing in between by helping him get rid of the barrier once and for all.

He’d been less than pleased when I’d declined.

In the end, I’d been the one left standing, although I still wasn’t quite sure how. But I suspected that a heck of a lot of luck had been involved. Now, as far as I was concerned, I could happily go the rest of my life and never hear that name again.

“You know, it’s really quite fascinating,” Jonas said. “But many of the old Norse gods have parallels in the myths of other cultures. From Scandinavia through Ireland, India and even beyond, their names may change, but they are essentially the same entities with the same powers and, in many cases, the same symbolism.”

“Are they?” I asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it was coming; I could feel it.

“Oh yes. Take Thor, for instance. As you say, he is best known as the god of thunder. But would it interest you to know that, when famine threatened, it was Thor to whom the ancient peoples of Scandinavia prayed to send a good harvest—a role traditionally allocated to a sun god? Or that sun gods the world over have customarily been depicted holding axes—which look a great deal like Thor’s famous hammer? In fact, some scholars have suggested that they were the prototypes for it.”

“But what does that have to do with—”

“And that, according to legend, of the four horses that drew Apollo’s chariot, one was named Lightning and another Thunder? Or that Apollo was said to have used lightning and thunder—the elements, not the horses—to drive away marauding Gauls who threatened his sanctuary at Delphi?”

“Um, okay, but—”

“The ancient Gauls also considered the god of thunder and the sun god to be one,” Jonas said, really getting into it now. “Images have been found in France of a god resting one hand on a wheel, the symbol for the sun, and holding a flash of lightning in the other. And the Slavonian god of thunder, Perun, was honored with an oak-log fire.”

“Oak?”

“In Greece, oak was the wood dedicated to the sun god.”

I stared at the chalkboard, and the queasy feeling doubled. I swallowed. “So . . . so what you’re trying to say is that—”

“And then there’s the Hindu god Indra. He had early aspects of a sun god, riding in a golden chariot across the heavens to bring the day. But he is more often known as the god of thunder, wielding the celestial weapon Vajra—a lightning bolt.”

“Jonas—”

“And then there’s the fact that Thor’s home was said to be in Jotunheim, in the east, connecting him again to the rising—”

“Jonas!” That was Pritkin.

I looked up at the sound of his voice to see him standing in the doorway to the foyer, arms crossed and green eyes narrowed. He looked pretty pale, for some reason, and instead of his usual ramrod posture, he was leaning against the wall. But he was alive and looking pissed off and I’d never been so happy to see him.

“Hm? Yes?” Jonas blinked at him.

“Are you trying to tell us that Thor and Apollo are two names for the same being?”

“Well, yes,” Jonas said, as if that went without saying. “And once I realized that, well, naturally I began to wonder. . . .”

He and Pritkin stared at the board for a long minute. “Wonder what?” I finally blurted out.

Jonas looked at me. “Well, if we aren’t fighting Ragnarok right now, of course.”