Discord's Apple Page 18

  He didn’t remember falling asleep. When he awoke, the sun was rising. He lay on the floor, curled on his side, the sword near to hand. Evidently, he’d collapsed where he knelt and slept through the night.

  At once, he sat up.

  The sun was rising, meaning that it had set and that night had come to the Sun Palace.

  13

  Evie went to the Storeroom.

  The instinct assailed her as soon as she crossed the threshold.

  It’s not hers.

  “I know, I know,” Evie murmured. She was speaking to herself, because the whispering voice was her own.

  She opened the drawer that held fruit: dried fruit, jeweled fruit, some pomegranate seeds in a little crystal box—the ones Persephone hadn’t eaten. She had to dig in the back of the drawer for the apple of Discord, as if it hid from her. Her fingers skittered off it as it rolled away. She used both hands to trap it and pick it up, then secured it in the pocket of her army jacket, where it lay like a lead weight.

  When she turned to go back to the door, the Storeroom had become a mess: boxes pulled into the aisles, flagpoles toppled across her path. Evie had to wrestle through the mess, shoving crates back into place, straightening spears and poleaxes out of the way. The shafts of wood were slippery, and she never imagined she could be so clumsy. She kept knocking things over.

  This was taking too long. She slumped against a set of shelves and glared at the would-be museum pieces around her.

  “I’m in charge of this place, aren’t I?”

  Only when your father dies. She didn’t want to be in charge of it, not ever, if she had to watch Frank die.

  She pushed on. It shouldn’t leave here.

  “What difference does it make? Hera gets the apple, she starts a war that’s going to start anyway.”

  There is no story for this.

  The apple belonged to Aphrodite; that was how the story went. Paris had given it to her. She might return for it someday.

  “I don’t know what Hera will do to Dad. I don’t know how else to help him.”

  At last she cleared enough of her way to reach the threshold. She put her hands on either side of the doorway and waited. The apple seemed heavier than even a sphere of gold ought to be—so heavy, she couldn’t drag it another step.

  She took a deep breath. She hated this. She’d escaped, she’d gotten away from this town, and now the house itself wanted to lock its hold on her. That was the destiny she’d fought against: she hadn’t wanted to grow up to manage the Safeway or be a cop in town, or at best go to Pueblo to work in a bank or in real estate. That wasn’t her destiny, she was better than that.

  Better than her dad, who’d stayed to take care of the Storeroom?

  He’d had a family, worked like a dog his whole life to support them, to send her to college. He’d taken care of his parents, all of it with strength and patience. She’d abandoned all that. She couldn’t wait to leave her parents, and soon they’d both be dead.

  That was why he had to live, why she had to save him. She couldn’t watch over the Storeroom, because she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in Hopes Fort. She didn’t have the courage.

  “Isn’t the whole Storeroom more important than one thing in it?”

  No answer came.

  “If I have to use this to bring him back, so he can be caretaker again, isn’t that okay?”

  It was a rationalization. She didn’t need the phantom voice of instinct to tell her that.

  “If I don’t bring this to her, she’ll come and take it. She might destroy everything to get it.”

  Something in that rang true, because the instinct wavered, the sanctity of the Storeroom thinned.

  You’ll return. You’ll stay to take your Father’s place.

  “Yes,” she said with a sigh. Sacrifice this one thing to save the whole. Tracker would have understood.

  She stepped through the doorway. Discord’s apple lay heavy in her pocket.

  Upstairs, Evie knelt on the floor of the kitchen and held Mab’s head in her hands. “Guard the Storeroom, all right? Good girl. Good Mab.” Evie rubbed Mab’s shoulders hard, as if that made up for abandoning her, and Mab looked up with eyes so shining and beseeching, she might have been crying.

  Alex had been waiting for her in the kitchen. Silently, he followed her to the car.

  They hadn’t driven far when he said, “You’re planning on just giving it to her? Did you actually bring it with you?”

  She had to stop at the turn onto the highway. Ahead, great fissures zigzagged across the pavement, slabs of asphalt thrust up against one another, making the road impassable. The earthquake.

  Evie pulled over and climbed out of the car. She hadn’t thought the quake was that strong. Not enough to turn a highway into confetti. Hopes Fort must have been right over the epicenter.

  “I guess we walk,” she said.

  “This is the work of the gods.” Alex murmured. “Poseidon, the Earth-shaker, could use his power to level entire cities, yet he’d leave neighboring settlements untouched. You lived in Los Angeles. Do you think a quake that did this to a road would have left your house standing?”

  The Walker house was over eighty years old and not in the least bit retrofitted for quakes.

  She started walking, cutting down the sloped bank off the shoulder and onto the naked field along the highway. Alex followed.

  “So it was Hera,” she said, tromping over the old furrows cutting the earth.

  “Or someone working for her.”

  “How many people does she have?”

  “At least four, including Robin. He’s the one from the parking lot the other day. I’m not sure how many others there are.”

  You, Evie thought. He was the only one who knew anything about her. What did that say about him?

  They walked for half an hour, Evie trying not to be self-conscious of Alex at her heels. He was watching, she realized, like a bodyguard: scanning in all directions, glancing over his shoulders in a regular circuit. Looking for danger. She almost felt safer. Except that he made her nervous, and she didn’t know what to say to him.

  “Do you have a plan?” he said as they reached the first buildings of town, a gas station and a trailer park.

  She ignored him, kept walking. Probably another ten minutes to reach the cemetery.

  He persisted. “Do you think she’ll really just let him go?”

  She hadn’t thought about it. The main solution burned in her mind, as the apple swung heavily in her pocket. What other choice did she have but to give it to Hera?

  “Evie.”

  She kept walking, hoping he might grow frustrated and leave.

  “Evie!” He grabbed her arm.

  Instead of stopping, she spun and jerked away, batting at his arm like he was a bug. “Leave me alone!”

  She wanted to run, but he kept hold of her sleeve. She could only back away, while he followed like a fisherman playing his line.

  “I want to help, but you can’t just walk up to her without a plan. You can’t trust her—you can’t trust any of them.”

  “What do you suggest?” Her voice was cold.

  If he let go, she would have run, and he must have known that because he didn’t let go.

  “Find out if Frank’s guarded. Create a distraction to lure away Hera’s people. Then we can get him away from her. Without giving her the apple.”

  “That sounds like something out of Homer.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? It’s a classic.”

  “Please let me go.”

  “But—”

  Evie couldn’t have said where they came from, or where they’d been hiding. Maybe around the last of the mobile homes on the row, or behind a truck parked on the street. They moved so quickly, Evie blinked and they appeared. Merlin took her arm and hurried her back, while Arthur faced Alex.

  The warrior closed his left hand around Alex’s neck and held his sword low, with the point aimed at his captive’s bel
ly.

  “Who are you?” Arthur demanded, his voice clear and firm.

  A vague smile grew on Alex’s face, a kind of mystic realization. “It’s you,” he said, his voice a breath.

  “Who are you?”

  Alex glanced back and forth between Evie and Arthur for a moment, as if trying to decide something. Then Evie saw where Arthur’s sword was aimed and remembered what Alex wanted more than anything.

  “No!” She lunged toward him, but Merlin held her back.

  Alex dropped forward and slid onto the point of Excalibur.

  Arthur let go of him and tried to pull back, but that only hastened Alex’s intent. Without Arthur holding him upright, Alex fell on the sword, impaling himself before Arthur could draw it away.

  Evie screamed and Arthur cursed, catching Alex by the shoulders before he could crash to the ground. The warrior eased him, cradling him on his lap. It was a scene out of Tennyson, if only they’d both been wearing medieval plate armor instead of jeans.

  Arthur said roughly, “Idiot! Why did you do that?”

  Blood covered Alex’s shirt and coat and pooled on the ground beside him. Wincing, he clutched at the blade. Blood smeared his hands.

  Shaking, he propped himself on his elbow and lifted himself from Arthur. He hooked his hand on the sword’s guard. His voice tight, he said, “Could you help me get this thing out?”

  Merlin’s grip went slack. Her scream still raw in her throat, Evie crouched beside Alex. Excalibur protruded from under his ribs, looking vaguely ridiculous.

  “Please?” Alex said again. “Before it starts to heal like this?”

  Arthur gripped the sword with one hand and placed the other on Alex’s chest. Holding the other man’s wrist, Alex helped by leaning away, while Arthur yanked out the sword in a clean movement. Alex’s breath hissed, but a moment later, the creases of pain on his face eased, the tension dissipated, and his hand—which he’d been holding flat over the wound, fell away. He’d stopped bleeding.

  She touched his shirt, saw the rip. Pulled it open and tentatively touched the healed, unblemished skin underneath. His hand closed over hers before she could pull away.

  “There, you see?” he said, smiling. “I’d die for you. If I could.”

  She pulled away, lost her balance, and fell on her backside.

  “Who are you?” Arthur said.

  Still looking at Evie, he answered, “Sinon of Ithaca. Also Alex of nowhere. You know, I really thought Excalibur might kill me.”

  “You are one of the immortal gods,” Merlin said, suspicion darkening his expression.

  “No.” He started to climb to his feet, Arthur helping him. “That implies I have some power to go along with this. I don’t.”

  Merlin looked unconvinced. “What is your concern with the Walker household? I’ve seen you with the lady twice now.”

  “I had hoped to find something there that could break my curse. Failing that—I only want to help the lady.”

  Merlin and Arthur had placed themselves between Evie and Alex. The pool of blood was growing sticky on the ground at her feet. Arthur still held his sword ready, though Evie didn’t know what good he thought it would do. He said, “You aren’t handing her over to Hera, then?”

  That made sense only if Alex’s pleas for her to stay away from Hera were some kind of reverse psychology. He seemed far too desperate for that.

  Alex looked stricken. “No, I’m not.” His tone was flat, as if he knew he wouldn’t be believed.

  Merlin said, “Hera is holding her father. We were coming to tell you.” He gave Evie a nod.

  “Is he all right?” she said.

  “Yes, for now. They’re at the cemetery.”

  “I have to get him back—”

  “Not by yourself,” Merlin said. “You should return home. It isn’t your place to face the likes of her.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait?”

  That was what she’d been doing for the last week—waiting for her father’s health to fail, waiting for the world to end in a rain of bombs. Waiting to give up.

  Arthur said, “My lady, he’s right. You’d be safer.”

  He was talking to her like she was some character in an epic. Some wilting lady in a tower. “Why do any of you care what happens to me?”

  Merlin huffed like it was obvious. “You need help. Also, you are the heir to the Keeper of the Storeroom. Your place is there. It’s your destiny.”

  She didn’t want a destiny. Not like that. She only wanted daydreams, tucked safely in the pages of her writing. She looked beseechingly at Alex, like she thought he would know better—he’d read Eagle Eyes; he knew the extent of her destiny.

  “I have to get my father back,” she said firmly. It was his destiny they wanted to protect.

  Arthur drew a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned the blood off Excalibur’s blade. “And you will. With our help.”

  “We were just talking about that,” Alex said. “We need to distract Hera, get her away from Frank. I can go to her and find out who she has guarding your father, and what we need to do to free him.”

  He must have had his own agenda, his own reasons for wanting to keep the apple from Hera. Which returned Evie to the same question: Could she trust him?

  Arthur sheathed the sword in the scabbard on his belt. “I think Merlin and I can overcome them now. There were only three of them in the car.”

  “Easy odds, I think,” the old man said, cracking his knuckles.

  “Just like the old days.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Alex said. “You don’t know who these people are, what they can do. This is Hera, the goddess.”

  Merlin regarded him. “Sinon of Ithaca. Hellenikouei?”

  Alex looked startled. “Yes.”

  “Then you’re from a land that worshipped her.”

  “I don’t worship her. Give me half an hour. I can find out what’s happening—I can spy for you.”

  “And if you betray us, we can kill you?” Arthur said, indicating Alex’s stomach, amused.

  Alex smirked. “Evie, I only want to help you.”

  He looked as earnest as Mab would, sitting on the front porch watching her leave for the grocery store: large brown eyes, hopeful and shining. All she knew of him—besides what she’d seen, which she had to admit was just as earnest, just as loyal—was what she’d read in Virgil. That told the story of how he was the consummate actor. He could make anyone believe anything. He convinced the Trojans to break their own walls, to bring in the treacherous horse.

  He was either lying or he wasn’t.

  “She said for me to come alone.”

  “And you can’t let her have the apple.”

  “All right,” she said finally. “Half an hour. But then I’m giving her the apple.”

  Slowly, he nodded. “Where will you be in the meantime?”

  Evie said, “Behind the office at the northwest corner of the cemetery.”

  “I’ll see you soon, then.”

  “Um—don’t you think you should change your shirt?” She pointed at him, where drying blood covered his front.

  He looked at himself, shrugged. “I’d forgotten. Never mind.” He made a loose-handed salute to Evie, nodded briefly at the others, and ran down the side street along the trailer park.

  Staring after him, Arthur crossed his arms. “What a strange man.”

  Bruce had ten minutes to pack everything he thought he’d need for the foreseeable future—surely only a week or two—into a couple of bags. Some clothes, a first-aid kit, matches, food and bottled water, sleeping bag, winter coat. A desert island book. Or five. He spent a full minute standing in front of the bookshelves, trying to pick. He had a bunch of files on his laptop, but the battery would last only so long.

  It was only for a few weeks.

  Then why was his stomach in knots, and why did this feel like it was going to be forever?

  Callie, her auburn hair tied up in a disheveled knot,
looking domestic in a sweatshirt and jeans, stood by the door, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She was tapping her foot, fidgeting, wanting to leave and trying to be patient, for him. Her face was pale. She kept glancing out the open door, to where James’s SUV waited at the curb, its motor running. Bruce almost dropped his bags and ran to hug her right then, if for no other reason than to make her smile.

  She was his desert-island book.

  He had one more thing to do. He dialed the number for Evie’s cell phone. The phone rang and rang, his stomach clenched tighter and tighter, until her voice mail clicked on.

  He didn’t have time to wait for her to call back, so he left a message.

  “Evie. Some of us—me and Callie, James, his roommates—are leaving the city. James has a place in Napa. It’s not safe here anymore. So we’re running. I don’t know when we’ll be able to come back. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to work. I just wanted you to know, Evie, working with you on Eagle Eyes was great. The best work I’ve ever done. You helped me do better than I ever thought I could. Thanks. Maybe we can do it again sometime. I’ll see you. When this all blows over.”

  Sighing, he turned off his phone.

  Comics took up no space at all. They were flat and inconsequential. He grabbed a few copies of Eagle Eye Commandos sitting next to his worktable and shoved them into his bag.

  Three hours later, they were speeding north on 1-5. Behind them, smoke towered above the burning city.

  ______

  Hera asked the Wanderer to walk with her along one of the paths in the cemetery. They left the car parked in the middle of the grounds. Robin was in the backseat watching Frank, who’d sat stiff and silent for the last hour. They all watched for the daughter. One way or another, she would come.

  Despite his withdrawn nature, the Wanderer was handsome and polished. She could take him anywhere, and his manners would do him credit. He took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket and offered it to her. She drew one from the pack, and he took one himself. He lit hers with an antique Zippo, then his own. Smoking was a way to delay, to draw out time. She knew the Wanderer used it as another way to read people: how they held the cigarette, how they exhaled, did they do so nervously, or did the movements calm them. She could let him think he was reading her, learning more about her—confiding in him bound him to her. If he felt he was a partner—or even a paramour—and not simply a soldier, he’d be more loyal to the goal.