Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

The Wanderer looked at Frank in the rearview mirror. “You hide it pretty well, but you’re scared, aren’t you?”

Frank glanced up, meeting his gaze in the mirror, revealing nothing. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Not of me. Of dying. You’re terrified of dying.”

“You can’t threaten me.”

Hera watched the exchange with interest, smiling a little at the Wanderer’s insight, and at Frank’s show of bravado. She said, “But I can threaten your daughter. I have someone at the house now. Evie Walker will learn that we have you. She’s a very devoted daughter, isn’t she?”

Frank settled back into the seat, glowering.

It was only a matter of time before Evie Walker arrived, more than willing to hand over the apple in exchange for her father’s safe return.

Her laptop battery had some life to it yet, and at some point, the wireless network had been restored. She had Web access again.

She checked the major news sites for information about the earthquake and had trouble finding anything—the story rated only a sidebar blurb, far down on the list of headlines. Russia had suffered another wave of terrorist attacks: train lines, government buildings, shipyards. The Middle East had flared up again, with every separatist ethnic group taking a stand. India was massing its army, and Pakistan had responded in kind.

The difference between American and foreign news Web sites was astonishing. The foreign sites showed graphic photos, featured angry interviews, and talked about the failure of the world powers to act. The U.S. sites mentioned only that an emergency meeting of the U.N. General Assembly was in session.

She wrote.

Some time later—a minute, an hour—Tracker heard another helicopter. Or the same one, circling in a search pattern. Using a broken tree limb as a crutch, she hobbled about ten feet from where she’d landed after her fall.

She had decided that she would signal the next aircraft that came by. She needed help, and if it had to be from someone who was going to take her prisoner, so be it. Even U.S. agents sent to kill her would need her alive for a time, if they thought she could help them find the rest of her team. She couldn’t drag a broken leg across Siberia.

Or maybe, just maybe, Talon and Sarge had found Jeeves and Matchlock and they were out looking for her.

She tore a strip of cloth from her shirt, soaked it in vodka from the dead mercenary’s canteen, and stuffed the alcoholic cloth into the mouth of the canteen, leaving a tail hanging out. She had a lighter in her kit and lit the end of the cloth, let it flare into a good blaze, then heaved it over the edge of the ravine. She sighed with relief when it cleared the edge and didn’t come bouncing back at her.

The vodka lit with a roar. Fire spilled out and caught on the surrounding trees. All in all, a nice little signal fire. She hobbled far enough away that she wouldn’t be engulfed by the blaze in the next few minutes.

The thumping beat of the helicopter motor became louder as it approached to investigate. Tracker had only to wait to see who found her.

It didn’t take long. Not as long as she would have liked. She wanted to scuttle to some high ground, some vantage where she could hide if she didn’t like the look of whoever found her. But in seconds, the tops of the trees were swaying with the wind of the descending helicopter. She couldn’t see it; it must have found a clearing nearby. The troops inside must have hit the ground before the craft had even landed, because she heard voices calling. What language . . . what language . . . she strained to understand.

The first one came over the rise, circling around the flaming patch where her fireball had ignited. She was on her feet—her foot—leaning on a tree, waiting, dizzy, unable to catch her breath. Another figure followed the first. Both were dressed in olive fatigues, wore knit masks and sunglasses.

She should have recognized them, she so wanted to recognize them.

They saw her then, aimed their rifles at her, and shouted something. The words were muffled.

When she saw the American flag on one uniform, she fainted.

Someone knocked at the door just then, of course. Evie saved the file before racing to the kitchen, Mab loping at her heels. Maybe Johnny, realizing how sick Frank was, had finally brought him home. Though with the quake, the police probably needed all the help they could get from the Citizens’ Watch. Why did Dad always have to be helpful? Or maybe Arthur had come back to tell her that he’d seen her father and everything was fine. Of course everything was fine. What could happen? Besides earthquakes, goddesses, and the prophesied return of mythical monarchs.

She opened the kitchen door, standing in the way to keep Mab from rushing out.

Alex looked back at her. “Are you all right?” he said, gasping like he’d been running. “The earthquake—I ran over—I was worried.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. His question seemed so odd—his concern seemed odd. Why was he worried about her? What did he want from her?

“You’re Sinon,” she said.

A smile broke, pleasantly softening his face. “I knew you’d figure it out. Can I come in?”

She stayed fast in the doorway. Beside her, Mab wasn’t wagging her tail.

“I don’t think I can trust you.”

While Alex’s—Sinon’s—smile didn’t fade, it took on an edge, a different gleam to his eye. “Because I lied my way past the walls of Troy?”

She flushed, a wave of dizziness burning along her skin. She hadn’t wanted to believe. How much easier it was to think he was just a clever, witty man.

“You were terrorists. The Trojan Horse—it was the Bronze Age version of a car bomb—”

“That’s only because you read Virgil’s side of it. We waged honest war for ten years. Then we became desperate. No one can blame us for what we did. We paid for our victory.”

He seemed so calm. But then he’d had to deal with it for three thousand years. How could he not be calm? “You were a spy. What would you do to get into the Storeroom?”

“Nothing,” he said gently. “I’ll stay away, if you want me to.”

“Will you tell me something?”

“Anything.” His earnestness made her nervous.

“Are you working for Hera?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I don’t know anything about you, because you were following me. You’re spying on the house, you know more about what’s happening here than I do, you could read the writing on the apple. You act like you know her—what are you doing here? Why aren’t you dead ?” She ran out of breath before she could ask him what the Trojan War had been like.

Standing there, slouched in his jacket, he didn’t look like a Greek warrior. She tried to imagine him in one of those crested helms from the pottery glazes.

Then she blurted, “Was Helen really the most beautiful woman in the world?”

He looked away, bit his lip, then said, “Yes. I saw her once, standing on the wall of Troy. It wasn’t just her looks, but the way she moved. Every turn of her head was grace itself. Nothing wasted. Remember, though, she was a demigoddess. Zeus’s daughter. Comparing apples and oranges, putting her up against mortal women.”

Evie shook her head, amazed, awed, befuddled. She didn’t believe it, looking at him, his creased expression like he was getting ready to laugh at a joke at her expense. He seemed—normal. Pleasant. Not mythological at all, not like Hera, who’d shaken Evie to her bones.

Yet that haunted voice that kept drawing her to the Storeroom murmured, He’s old, this one. Very old.

She sighed. “All the things you’ve seen. All the things you must have forgotten—how can you stand it?”