By Jove (30 page)

There below her feet and directly behind where Julian had stood, forming a triangle with the pictures of Proteus and Theseus, was a third: a man playing a lyre, followed by a pale, beautiful woman.

“Orpheus and Eurydice,” she whispered. “Walking back up from—”

The outside door into the building banged, and she heard the murmur of voices approach the Great Room door.

“You must come see the Great Room mosaics, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes,” said one rich, clear voice. “Surely Andrew has told you about them?”

Theo froze. No—not Julian—please not now, when she was so close! She gestured sharply, and the chairs and couches skittered back into their places. She dove behind one just as the door opened. It spitefully backed up another few inches, bumping her shoulder. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“They’re quite well-known. We’re most fortu—” Julian’s voice filled the room as the door opened, then stopped abruptly. There was a pause, and then Theo heard a series of soft thuds around her. She looked up just in time to see all the lamps float back down into place. Oh Lord—she had forgotten to set them back down! Julian had walked in and had to set them back down before he brought in the visitors, which would mean that he knew someone immortal had been in here rearranging the furniture—someone, for example, like her, having another look at the mosaics.

“—most fortunate to have them here all the time to appreciate.” His voice was louder, and she could hear polite murmurs and quiet footsteps follow behind him. She peered around the edge of the couch and saw him gesture to Andrew Barnes and a middle-aged couple who must be Andrew’s parents. What were they doing here? Of course; Andrew was graduating tomorrow.

She looked back at Julian, who was still chatting animatedly. But while his smile was wide and warm, his eyes roamed the room, and there was a small frown in the cast of his brows. Theo withdrew and tried to make herself smaller. Why hadn’t she practiced teleporting yet?

“Come over here, Dad. There’s an incredible picture of the Cyclops,” Andrew said eagerly, pulling them to the other side of the room. Theo let herself breathe. She had to get out of here before they made their way back over to this side of the room. But where should she go?

Look at the mosaics again, June had said. Theo touched the cool floor with a shaking hand. Julian probably knew this floor better than anyone. A memory of a fall afternoon full of golden light, like this one, came back to Theo: she and Julian, gazing down at the pictures, and Julian telling her how he, too, often came to contemplate them. Close on its heels was another: Julian circling Grant’s chair, hands behind his back and head down as he paced, listening to Olivia. Then he had seen Orpheus as well.

Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice had been bitten by a snake and died, and Orpheus had gone down to Hades to bring his beloved wife back to earth. How did that tie in to the labyrinth? Unless—a small half sob, half giggle escaped her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Unless Hades was where the labyrinth was.

Was there an entrance to the underworld on the campus of John Winthrop University? Probably not. Surely Olivia would have known about it if there were. Well, if not Hades the place, then maybe Hades the god?

She peered out from behind the couch again and saw Julian usher Andrew and his parents toward the stairs. She started to breathe a sigh of relief.

“I know you’re in here, my dear. And that there must be a reason for your not wanting to be seen. I ask that you wait here for me while I give these good people their tour, and then perhaps you’d be willing to tell me why you left all the lamps in midair. Very careless of you, you know.” Julian’s voice, low-pitched but clear, reached her from across the room. There was the sound of the stairwell door closing.

Theo waited a moment then tottered over to it, still shaking, and slipped down the stairs to the basement. How could she have been so stupid as to forget the lamps? Maybe June wasn’t so far wrong. Now Julian knew she was skulking around Hamilton Hall. Oh, why hadn’t Olivia gotten back yet?

She carefully opened the door into the basement. If there was any justice in the world, Dr. Bellow would be up in the museum at this time of day and she could search his office again for the entrance to the labyrinth. It was time
something
went right.

…

There was no justice. As she tiptoed down the dim corridor, Theo saw a rectangle of light spilling from an open doorway. Drawing closer, she could hear the squeaks and sighs of an ancient wooden office chair and the rustle of pages turning. Dr. Bellow
was
in his office, dammit. Olivia had said something about his spending a lot more time down here lately. Of course he would be if he were guarding the entrance to where Grant was being kept.

How could she get him out of there? She tiptoed back up to the second floor and looked cautiously around the door, listening for voices. The corridor was blessedly silent. She dashed down it to June’s office.

“I went down to Dr. Bellow’s office. That’s where I need to go, isn’t it?” she whispered fiercely at June without preamble.

June motioned her from the doorway. “Yes,” she hissed back. “So what are you doing here?”

“Dr. Bellow’s in there. And Julian caught me in the Great Room. How can I get past them?”

June frowned and drummed her fingers on her keyboard. Then she smiled. “Julian’s on his way upstairs to show Andrew’s parents the museum. He’ll find that it’s locked, and that I don’t happen to have the key handy.”

“So?” Theo shook her head. “He doesn’t need a key.”

“
Think
, you little fool. He does when he’s with mortals. He can’t exactly wave his hand to unlock it in front of Andrew and his parents, can he? He’ll come back down here, and I’ll have to call Dr. Bellow to bring the key up. While he’s doing that, you’ll be able to get into his office.”

“Won’t he just send the key up here like—” She waved her hand.

“No. He doesn’t think we should use any powers during the school year. He’ll bring it up to Julian.”

Theo tried to calculate how long it would take him to walk up the stairs and down again. “That won’t leave me much time.”

“No, it won’t. So you’ll have to think fast, won’t you?” June replied coldly.

“Why can’t you just
tell
me where it is?” She was perilously close to tears.

“Because I don’t know. Don’t you think I’d tell you, if only to get you out of my sight? This is the best I can do. Now go and hide near his office. As soon as he’s gone, go in. You’ll have a good seven or eight minutes. Longer, if I suggest that he stay with Julian to give them their tour. But I can’t guarantee that will happen, especially if Julian thinks you’re sniffing around the building again.” She shooed Theo out. “Go before Julian comes down looking for the key.”

Theo ran back down the corridor and down the stairs. She had reached the landing between the first and second floors when she heard the third floor stairwell door open. She cowered next to the bust of Octavian and waited as brisk footsteps came down the stairs and stopped at the second floor door. After it had swung shut she nearly fell down the rest of the stairs to the basement, and dove into an unlocked closet as she heard Dr. Bellow’s voice say, from just the next door, “I’ll be right up,” in a long-suffering tone, followed by the click of a telephone being put back in its cradle.

I haven’t used this much adrenaline in years
. Theo closed her eyes and tried to calm her pounding heart as Dr. Bellow’s slow tread and sotto voce grumbling moved past her and up the stairs. Then she slipped out of the closet and toward his office.

She and Olivia had, as a matter of course, already searched the basement and sub-basement of Hamilton Hall. In fact, it had been one of the first places they looked. But a late-night going-through of Dr. Bellow’s office, down to the files in his cabinet and the panels of his large wooden desk, had revealed nothing. Nor had their search of any other place down there revealed anything.

“Don’t waste your time looking where we’ve already searched, Fairchild,” she muttered to herself, pushing the door open. “Think—and for God’s sake, listen.”

There was the same large desk, a little tidier now than it had been a month and a half ago now that classes were over. The ancient wood filing cabinets were shut, but she didn’t spare them a glance. They’d already looked there. No false doors, no hidden stairways. Not even any mirrors to climb into. Olivia had laughed at that last suggestion. “This isn’t a fairy tale, Theo,” she’d said.

“Too bad it isn’t,” Theo muttered aloud. She peered around the back of the door. Nope, no mirror. Damn. She set the ball of June’s twine in a chair and looked around her in desperation. “Open sesame!” she commanded, throwing her hands up helplessly.

A sound from behind the desk startled her. She whirled around. It had been a snuffling, grunting sort of noise. Then there was a rustling, and a faint clicking sound. And now, a low growl—

Theo stifled a curse. Kirby, Dr. Bellow’s dog, was slinking around the edge of his desk. It was his claws making the clicking sound as he inched toward her. How could she have forgotten him? Dr. Bellow had said he was staying down here now because too many students had been troubled by allergies around him. He must have been asleep behind the desk, and she had woken him up with her foolish exclamation.

“Nice doggy,” she said in her best coaxing-Dido-into-having-her-nails-clipped voice. “Nice—” The words died in her mouth. Kirby was still scruffy, still gray, still projected a hostility that made a rabid pit bull look like a hamster in comparison. But when had he grown two more heads? And why did he suddenly not seem so small anymore? “Kirb—” she mouthed, and then realized. She was seeing him now with immortal eyes. What else would Dr. Bellow’s dog look like? And why hadn’t she brought a lyre like Orpheus?

Like I could play it. Thanks for telling me, June
. “Good Kirby,” she whispered hoarsely, backing toward the office door. That’s what you were supposed to do with aggressive dogs, wasn’t it? Even three-headed ones? Not make eye contact and back away? She kept her eyes averted, staring at the floor at her feet as she shuffled backward, trying not to whimper. Weren’t you supposed to not let an aggressive dog see that you’re afraid of him? But how was she supposed to do that when there was cold sweat dripping down her forehead? Dammit, where was that threshold? Surely she’d almost found it—

Chapter Twenty-two

All at once there was a rush of cold, damp air on her face as she stepped backward into the hallway, air that smelled old, somehow, musty and dead. At the same time the worn linoleum floor at her feet started to change, the color-flecked gray tiles flowing and running like water, re-forming as pitted, crumbling concrete. Kirby’s low, evil growls faded into silence. What was going on? Theo looked up.

Where the door into Dr. Bellow’s office had been was a stone archway. And instead of the slightly shabby but comfortable basement office that had been beyond the doorway an instant ago there was a corridor, lit by a bare lightbulb some ten feet away. Its glow only made the damp walls look danker and drearier. Beyond the light, the corridor turned right.

“It can’t be,” Theo whispered. She took a few steps, then looked behind her. The archway was gone as well. Behind her the corridor continued, dirty yellow paint flaking from its walls, at least a dozen pipes of various diameters clustered near its low ceiling. She stared, and walked a few more paces backward, wrinkling her nose at the vaguely unpleasant smell of the air.

On the wall was an old-fashioned brass fire extinguisher, the kind with a large wheel-shaped valve on top. She and Olivia had seen one just like it when they had searched the sub-basement of Hamilton Hall back in April. She looked closer, and saw that the dust on its top had been brushed away—just as she had done to the one they had seen that day. But the sub-basement corridor where it hung had ended in a blank wall a few paces beyond that extinguisher, and she and Olivia had turned back after spending a few minutes speculating on how old it must be.

A sudden excitement gripped her. Was it possible that this
was
the sub-basement of Hamilton Hall? But why hide it? Why have this part of it only reachable through Dr. Bellow’s office, unless—unless

Unless it was because Grant was hidden here.

But now what?

The sub-basement contained the labyrinth. It had to. “You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike”, said a small voice from her memory. But mazes and labyrinths weren’t necessarily the same thing. A maze was intended to deceive, conceal, befuddle. A labyrinth was indeed made of twisty passages, doubling back and forth on themselves, but there were no blind alleys, no dead ends, no intent to confuse: the twisting, doubling path led inevitably to a center.

Would this one be a true labyrinth or a maze? And if it were truly a labyrinth, would Grant be at its center? Guarded, perhaps, by a Minotaur? She shivered again. She had no weapon, no magic sword or Gorgon-faced shield. Nor was she a Theseus, who had throttled his Minotaur with his bare hands. But at least she had her ball of—

“No!” she cried, pounding the wall with a fist. She had put the twine June had given her on a chair, just before that cursed dog had woken up and scared the daylights out of her and made her back over the threshold and find the doorway. No weapon, no ball of string to help her find her way out, no way to know what exactly lay ahead of her in this loathsome place—

And no Grant, if she gave up now.

She squared her shoulders and started down the stone passage.

…

She moved gingerly, trying not to brush against the peeling, flaking walls. Bits of paint and crumbling concrete crunched underfoot as she walked. The pipes in the ceiling were sweating; occasional drips of water landed on her head, making her jump. The dim bulbs set at irregular intervals in the ceiling made creepy tentacle-like shadows through the pipes, shadows that she tried to ignore. Worst of all was where a bulb had burned out; there Theo found herself almost running from one pool of dim light to the next, able with her immortal vision to see in the dark yet fearful of seeing too much.