Immortal Beloved

  The day after the meditation thing, Solis had agreed to teach me actual spellcraft, instead of just the names of the wonderful world around us. I was still pissed about his turning me down before, and I still couldn’t say I was one hundred percent committed to this whole thing… but it had occurred to me that knowing more about this stuff, my magick, my power, would be better than not knowing. If I knew, then I could control it, protect it, hide it. Not knowing had not worked out that well for me. It was hard to wrap my mind around, because I’d shied away from anything but the most minor spells for centuries. Now I felt the lure, the draw of it, even though it scared me.

  But a job?

  Solis smiled. “It’s part of the whole picture. The daily grind, so to speak. Showing up every day. Fitting into an environment. Playing well with others. Literally, doing a good job at something outside of here.”

  I didn’t try to hide my distaste. “I’m doing tons of stuff around here. I’ve been a personal slave to you guys since I showed up!”

  “And we sure have appreciated it,” Solis said with humor. “But getting an outside job is an important step to integrating yourself into the real world—not just the world of limitless time and money and friends as shallow and self-centered as you are.”

  Ideally, I would have protested vigorously, but in reality, I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I gritted my teeth.

  “You’ve had jobs before, haven’t you?” Solis asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said. If you include running that brothel in California in the 1850s. I had made a fortune. Or when I was a model for a French designer in Paris, in the 1930s. But a job-job?

  I tried another tack. “I was really hoping you could just, you know, wave a wand and make me all better.”

  Solis chuckled. “It seems that you have unusually strong abilities, Nastasya. It’s very important that you learn what to do with them.”

  I thought about saying, “Oh, pshaw, shucks,” or something, but I was trying to control the rush of mingled anxiety and pride that swarmed through me.

  “I’m willing to teach you,” he went on, “but you have to do it my way. Not because I’m a control freak, but because experience has shown me that this is the best way to teach what you need to learn. So, yes, you have to get an outside job, just like everyone else when they first arrive. Preferably minimum wage. Something lowly—work for its own sake, rather than for a big salary or ego gratification. I hear the library is looking for someone to help shelve books.”

  I stared at him in dismay.

  “Go along with you now,” he said. His tone was kind, but his eyes were shrewd. I might have a weird power streak, but I was still a pain in the ass, and he still had major doubts about me. I didn’t indulge myself by thinking that I was suddenly so amazing that he would put up with a lot of shit from me. Though God knows that’s worked with other people.

  Sighing, I left his classroom and headed back to the house. Asher gave me a shopping list of things I needed to pick up on my way back home, and I took it and went out to my car.

  Sylvia’s Diner on the highway was hiring immediately. I’d managed to get through four-hundred-plus years without ever being a waitress or bar wench, but my record was about to end. And how hard could it be? People ordered the food, you brought them the food. I didn’t have to cook it, I didn’t have to work the cash register. Piece o’ cake. The first hour was spent learning where everything was.

  The second hour was a demoralizing, teeth-gritting docudrama about everything that could go horribly wrong during rush hour in a greasy spoon.

  I quit about two seconds before they fired me, and without getting a shot at the lemon meringue pie on the counter.

  Back in my little car, I pulled in at a Stop & Shop and bought a blue raspberry frozen slushie and a couple of packages of Donettes and Ding Dongs. I pondered my next move as I savored food that was unencumbered by any pretense of nutritive value or organicity or, God forbid, fiber.

  It was two o’clock. I had no job.

  My mind flashed on Innocencio suddenly—as if I could see him sitting in a dark, smoky, fabulous restaurant. He would order escargots and light a cigarette, already on his second or third martini. The waiter or waitress would be scurrying to anticipate his every need, as the servers always did. Incy was so elegant, slender and sinuous, dressed in a silk shirt and beautifully cut pants. His hair was such a dark black that it looked almost blue, and his skin was a beautiful light caramel color. His lips were finely shaped, slightly full, but could look hard and cruel. He was so funny, always making scathing comments about other diners. I remembered lying on a bench in Les Deux Magots in Paris, my head in Incy’s lap. I was tired and had drunk too much. Incy was feeding me tiny strawberries, the first of the season, his beautiful fingers barely touching my lips. I remembered thinking that I should be happy, that I had everything I needed—but instead I had an awful, howling blankness inside. I hid it from Incy, hid it from everyone.

  I remembered not wanting to go to Nice, but Incy had begged and jokingly threatened until I agreed. He’d made me go to St. Petersburg, had convinced me to go to Hong Kong. I always enjoyed traveling, loved all of those places. But looking back, I realized I hadn’t really wanted to go, but somehow Incy had convinced me. He didn’t want to go alone. He didn’t want to go without me.

  My mind whirled with memories, and a hundred images flew at my consciousness. How many times had I done something on my own in the last thirty years? Incy didn’t control my every day—there were a thousand times when I had decided where to go and what to do. But he had almost always gone with me, even when he insisted he didn’t want to, even when he complained incessantly. He hadn’t wanted me to go by myself. He hadn’t wanted to be away from me.

  This whole line of thinking was shocking, something that had never occurred to me. I’d simply thought we were best friends. I thought I wanted to be with him—and I had. It wasn’t that. It was just that, looking back, I could see that I would have made other choices, done more things on my own or with other people, only Incy was always there. Always, always there. Despite the string of unearthly beautiful girls and boys who revolved through his life, his apartment, his bed, I was the constant in his life. And he in mine. I was just realizing that.

  He must be going insane without me. I felt—well, weird, because I was living this freakishly ordinary life, but I didn’t feel like I would die, not being with him. I felt okay. What was he thinking? Feeling? Doing? How strange, that I had never noticed this, his dependency.

  Suddenly I felt too alone and quickly started the car to head back through the town, intending to pick up Asher’s stuff from the one grocery store, Pitson’s. I would have to return to Solis jobless, which embarrassed me, though failure had never bothered me before.

  As I passed MacIntyre’s Drugs, I thought about colorless Meriwether, and then I saw the sign: HELP WANTED.

  Hmm.

  I kept going, then quickly did a U-ie in the middle of Main Street. Since Main Street was deader than a doornail, this wasn’t a problem.

  I parked outside of MacIntyre’s and thought. Had Meriwether’s dad fired her? So I would be taking her place in the line of fire?

  It was irresistible. I had to know.

  Inside, the store was dim and gray. It struck me that it was as lifeless and colorless as Meriwether herself.

  “Can I help you?” Mr. MacIntyre’s voice was gruff and unfriendly. Great! I’ve always wanted a boss like that.

  “I’m here about the job,” I said, holding up the sign.

  He looked me up and down—people seemed to do that quite a bit lately. “You got any experience?”

  “Yes. I managed the health-and-beauty section at a SuperTarget back home,” I lied smoothly.

  “This isn’t no Target,” he said, and I thought, Oh good, you cleared that up for me. “I need someone to stock shelves. Wait on customers. Keep things neat while my girl’s in high school.” His girl. Not his daughter. Ugh, what a creep
.

  “I can do that.”

  “You know how to work a cash register?”

  I glanced at the one on the counter. “Um, this one is a little older than the ones we used at Target. I might need a quick refresher course.”

  Mr. MacIntyre looked like he was trying to come up with a reason not to hire me, only to have his own need for a worker defeat him.

  “It’s minimum wage.”

  “Okay.” Solis would be so proud of me.

  “Why aren’t you in school? How old are you?”

  I’ve been able to pass for early twenties on occasion, but I knew not to push it. “Eighteen. I graduated high school early. Taking a year off before college.”

  “Huh. Okay. Let me show you around.”

  Thus began my career as a glamorous shelf stocker at MacIntyre’s Drugs, here in Nowheresville, Massachusetts.

  CHAPTER 14

  That evening at dinner I was able to report triumphantly that I had a real minimum-wage job. Nell laughed, then quickly swallowed it at Asher’s glance. River gave me a knowing smile, and Solis looked appeased. I had a silly burst of pride that I’d actually done something right. For once.

  “Yo, sweetie, load me up,” Brynne said, and I handed her the platter of fish. I was practically wolfing my food, trying to satisfy my ever-growing appetite. When had fish and rice tasted so good? I mean, when I wasn’t in the middle of a famine.

  Lightning flashed in the dark windows, brightening the dining room for an instant, reflecting in the big mirror over the fireplace. A moment later, thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Very unusual to get a thunderstorm in November,” Asher commented, and River nodded.

  “It’s too bad,” said River. “We were going on a star walk tonight.”

  I gave silent thanks that there was no star walk in my immediate future and poured myself more hot tea. The first cold raindrops hit the windows, and I felt oddly cozy here, surrounded by these people I didn’t know very well.

  “Tonight we would have had a very good view of Zeru-zakur, around eleven,” River continued, and—get this—everyone actually looked up and nodded with interest.

  I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth, as my brain scanned for that word. It sounded slightly familiar. What the hey—I would ask. As they say, there are no stupid questions. Only stupid people. “What’s Zeru-zakur?”

  A few people raised their heads and looked at me.

  Finally Solis said, “Canis Major.”

  Okay, I’d heard of that. A constellation, the “big dog.” Like the Big Dipper. But what was its significance? I came up with nothing.

  “Is Canis Major one of our more interesting clusters, then?” I asked, stirring three sugars into my tea.

  Now all twelve heads turned to look at me, and I got the impression that the ignorant newbie had just made an adorable blunder of some kind. But without the adorable part.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I muttered, sipping my too-hot tea.

  Even River was looking at me with surprise. To manage to surprise someone almost thirteen hundred years old was quite something, and I stopped drinking and sat up.

  “What do you mean?” Nell’s laugh sounded a little brittle.

  “I know it’s a constellation,” I said, starting to feel irritated. I glanced up to see Reyn looking at me, his eyes slightly narrowed, but not meanly. More… consideringly.

  “It’s—Canis Major. Zeru-zakur.” Even Daisuke, who was always very polite and kind, seemed unable to believe that I wasn’t all over this thing.

  “Yeah, I got that. But what of it?” I asked, setting my tea down. “Just tell me, and then you can all have a good laugh later.”

  After a pause, River said calmly, “Zeru-zakur is an ancient name for the constellation that many people know today as Canis Major. Its main star is Sirius, the Dog Star, which is the brightest star in the night sky.”

  “Okay,” I said. The table was silent, except for Nell’s huffing, but River shot her a glance and she shut up.

  “We’re not sure why—there are many myths and legends, and it’s something that many immortal philosophers have studied—but about five hundred years ago, an immortal astronomer realized that for some reason, the stars in the constellation Canis Major correspond almost exactly with the eight fonts. Or at least, it’s assumed that they did correspond exactly, several thousand years ago.” River broke off a piece of bread, seeming to be deliberately casual. She smiled. “I wasn’t there, so I don’t know.”

  “Fonts?” I repeated. Font meant fountain or source. It also meant a style of type, in typesetting.

  “Oh, my gosh, you must know—” Nell exclaimed, and this time the look that River gave her was sharp. Nell drew in a breath and looked down at her hands, plastering a small fake smile on her face.

  “The eight fonts, or houses, of immortals,” River went on. “Of our magick. They are in a pattern across the globe that corresponds to the positions of the stars in Canis Major.” She was watching my face for signs of recognition.

  “There are… eight houses?” I asked. The room was as quiet as a tomb.

  “You haven’t studied this?” River asked. “Ever? Surely you’ve heard other aefrelyffen talk about it, even casually?”

  I thought back. “You mean like the immortal capitals? Like in Brazil, or the one in Australia?”

  “Yes, so you know about those,” Solis said, his voice gentle. “Those are two of them. There are, or rather were, six others. These eight capitals, or houses, correspond to the eight stars in the constellation Zeru-zakur. So no one has talked to you about the history of immortals?”

  I thought back to Helgar, with her Adam-and-Eve theory. “Not really. Just that—no one knows how we started, or why.”

  “I’ve met people who’d never heard of the eight fonts,” Jess offered in his raspy voice. “People who, for whatever reason, never had it as part of their lives. Hell, I didn’t hardly know anything myself, till I came here.”

  “Actually, I’ve met people like that, too,” said Anne. “It’s pretty common knowledge among a lot of immortals, but I could see how someone might not have realized its significance.”

  Thank you, Jess and Anne, I thought. It occurred to me that maybe my parents would have taught me about it, about our history, our power. Maybe there had been a rite or something, with a big reveal at the end. Maybe my older brother and my oldest sister had gone through it, before… that night. I would never know.

  “Okay, Nastasya,” said River. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. People move in different circles, and the different circles have different traditions and different focuses. Sometimes I forget that.” She smiled at me, and I thought, This is the most sincere woman I’ve ever met.

  “And this means I’ll have the pleasure of teaching you,” she said, looking satisfied at that thought. “Traditionally, these eight fonts have been the main—places of immortal strength. Immortals seem to have, if not originated from these places, then certainly drawn great power, great magick from them. The main place, with the strongest magick, is in Africa, a place called Mogalakwena Rural, South Africa. It corresponds to the Dog Star. Then, to each side of that, along the line of the Tropic of Capricorn, you have the two you know about, in Coral Bay, Australia, to the east, and in the west at Campinas, Brazil.”

  I had been to those places over the years. Because immortals tended to hang out in them. I hadn’t really thought about why. I felt a flush heat my face. It was galling, appalling, to realize how much I didn’t know, how much was out there to be known, right in front of me, that I somehow had managed to miss and ignore and dismiss all these years. I’d been living in black and white, and now River was showing me that all these other colors had been there all along, but I’d been too stupid to see them.

  “Then, moving northeast from Mogalakwena, you had Awaynat, in Libya, right by Egypt,” River continued conversationally, continuing to eat her dinner as if this was no big deal. “That line died
out some two thousand years ago. Two thousand three hundred years. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Twenty-three hundred years ago?” I said. “What happened to its power?”

  “No one knows,” said River. “I doubt we’ll ever know. And, continuing northeast from Awaynat, one runs into Genoa, Italy.”

  I caught the word Genoa, and my eyes widened. River grinned. “I’m from that house,” she acknowledged. “It’s partly why I’m so strong. My four brothers and I are all still alive, and my oldest brother is still the… well, the king of that house.”

  “King?” Cold recognition was creeping up inside me. My stomach clenched, and I pushed my plate away.

  “For lack of a better word,” River said. “If you ever meet him, for God’s sake, don’t call him King Ottavio. He eats it up.”

  Solis and Asher smiled. I guessed they’d met him. I tried to focus on her words.

  “Continuing in sort of a Y shape from Genoa, there’s Tarko-Sale, in northern Russia, but that line, too, died out—in 1550. Usurpers stormed the capital and cut off the heads of the house’s family.”

  I felt the blood leave my face.

  Odin the Odious stood up suddenly, shoving his bench back with several people on it. “Think I left the stove on,” he said, and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. Whatever. Guess he’d heard this story a thousand times.

  I tried to find my voice. “And what happened to their power?” I asked.

  “The usurpers never found that house’s tarak-sin, their tool, the focus of their strength. They killed all those people for nothing, and then the magick, the power, was gone forever. So they swept west, looking for another house’s power to take.”

  Oh, God. My hand gripped my hot mug of tea tightly. “What’s a tarak-sin?” My voice sounded thin and tight.

  River sighed sadly, and I realized she had been alive when that happened. I wondered if she had heard about it at the time or had only found out later.

  “Each house has a, well, a magickal tool, for lack of a better word. A very old name for it is a tarak-sin. It’s usually a secret, though legend tells about the ceremonial knife of Awaynat. Another house might have a special book, or a crystal orb, or even a wand or a ring or some other jewelry as its tarak-sin. And this one ancient thing is imbued with a great deal of magickal power, specific to that house. The head of the house can use it to perform great spells.”