The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (21 page)

The creature tracked it with its six eyes.  One of the heads yipped excitedly.

Riga hurled the bone as far as she could. 

The creature took off, hurtling into the darkness.  Riga raced toward Vinnie and Donovan, who stood, she saw, upon a short dock.  Riga’s feet sounded hollow upon the planking.  Vinnie screamed, a thin high-pitched sound, and she skidded to a stop.

The dog thundered out of the darkness, sending her spinning onto her back.  It stood over her and dropped the bone upon her chest.  A thick stream of drool stretched from its jaw to the bone.  Its three heads focused on the two men, who now stood on the furthest edge of the pier, and growled. 

“Christ, get rid of that thing, will ya?” Vinnie quavered.

“It’s okay.  You’re a good boy.  Who’s a good boy?” Riga cooed, sitting up and scratching the creature’s chest.  Two of its head focused on Riga, panting happily.  The third regarded the men with suspicion.  One of its heads licked her face and the dog promptly sat on her legs. 

“Off!  Off!” she gasped.  The thing was the size of a small horse.  She pushed it backward and it stood, freeing her.  Riga picked up the bone and threw it again.  The beast took off after it.

“I’m sorry, Donovan,” Riga said.  “I’ve killed us both.”

“We’re not dead,” he said.

“We’re not?” Vinnie asked.

“No, we –“ Donovan pointed between Riga and himself, “are not dead.  You’re dead.”

“Donovan – that’s Cerberus, the three headed dog that guards the underworld,” Riga said gently.  “Vinnie’s corporeal.  I don’t want to believe it either, but I think we’re dead.”

The monster trotted back, and its sheepdog head dropped the bone at Riga’s feet.  She picked it up and chucked it away again, absently wiping her drool-covered hand upon her slacks.

Donovan rolled his eyes.  “Riga, aside from the fact that Cerberus wants to play fetch with you but rip our heads off, have you noticed anything unusual about him?”

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

He flung his arm toward the approaching animal.  “It’s Dog!  Or at least, part of it is.  The dog from your building.”

Dog dropped the bone and she scratched it behind his ears, looked into its toffee-brown eyes.  “Dog?” she said wonderingly.  “But how?”

“It’s the Archetypes.”  Donovan explained.  He leaned against one of the wooden pillars.  “They’ve begun crossing over, inhabiting flesh and blood bodies from our world.  And you may as well save the battery and turn that flashlight off.  We don’t need it, not yet.”

She pushed the soft plastic button on the end of her light.  Donovan was right.  She could see, though it was as if she’d fallen into an old black and white movie.  Everyone looked monochrome in the silvery light that lit the water. 

“What the hell’s an archie-type?” Vinnie said.

Riga answered, giving her brain time to wrap itself around what was happening.  “According to Plato, an archetype is an ideal form of something on earth.  It exists in a sort of perfect plane of existence.  Jung believed archetypes existed in the collective unconscious – we’re all aware of them at some level – the archetype for the great mother, or the wise old man.  But Cerberus isn’t an archetype.  He’s part of the Greek myth of the underworld, ruled by Hades.” 

Cerberus plunked itself on the dock, and stretched out beside her feet, bored with the game.

“That’s right,” Donovan said, exasperated.  “Hades, god of the underworld.  Who in Greek myth kidnapped a young woman…?”  He raised his eyebrows, giving her a “keep up” look.

“Persephone,” Riga finished, “and dragged her down to the underworld to be his bride.”  It made a horrible sort of sense.  What were the Greek gods but archetypes?  “Oh, no.  Not Pen as Persephone?”

“And Dionysus,” Donovan said.  “God of wine and mystery.”

She covered her mouth with one hand and shook her head.  “No.  You’re not… him?”

“It’s complicated.”

Chapter 33: Labyrinth

Riga slapped him.  “You… jerk!” 

Donovan rubbed his jaw, wincing.  “I was afraid you’d react that way.”

Riga couldn’t even explain to herself why she’d struck him.  She’d known he wasn’t what he’d claimed to be, so any sense of betrayal was ridiculous.  She’d lived and breathed magic for decades, had theorized about alternate dimensions, but the idea of crossing into one left her reeling.

Pen.  She had to focus on getting Pen back.  Riga rubbed the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. Years ago she’d gone spelunking, had panicked in a narrow, water-filled passageway.  Today she couldn’t even watch videos of caves without feeling anxious.  She’d gotten through it then by focusing on two things: her breath, and narrowing her world to the next spot she would put her hands, one in front of the other.  Focus.  When she got control of herself she opened her eyes.   

Donovan peered at her anxiously.

“What did you do with the real Donovan Mosse?”

“I am the real Donovan.  Dionysus is just here, too.  Sometimes.”

Riga held out a hand to stop him.  “I shouldn’t have asked.  It’s not important now.  Dionysus is a psychopomp.  He—you – know your way around the underworld.  I’ve got to find Pen.”  Pen was her talisman now, her Holy Grail.  After Riga found her, she’d worry about the rest.

“That big guy’s got her.” Vinnie pointed downstream.  “They went that-away.  They took the ferry.  Not that it’s much of one – more like a raft if you ask me.”

“What big guy?” Riga snapped.

Vinnie shivered.  “We didn’t introduce ourselves.  A really big guy.  Really big.  Dark hair, cape, eyes like the devil…” 

Riga raked her hand through her hair.  It felt gritty.  “Right.  That way.”  The ferry was gone.  There were no other boats along the shore.  She turned to Donovan, jamming her panic and hurt into a tight compartment inside herself.  “Will you help me get her back?”

He hesitated.  “I’ll help you find her.  But Riga, whether we can get her back or not isn’t up to Dionysus.”

Donovan was the one person she should never have trusted, and now she had to trust him again.  She nodded. 

“Stay away from the water,” Donovan said.  “It’s the Styx – the affects are unpredictable.”

They followed the bank of the river, careful to avoid its turgid waters.  Wraithlike shades clad in togas walked past, heads bowed.  The ghosts looked at them mournfully but didn’t try to interrupt their passage.

“Why are they ghosty and I’m solid?” Vinnie said.

“Probably because you don’t belong here,” Riga said absently.  She picked her way carefully across the volcanic rock that littered the landscape.  The rocks tended to roll beneath her feet and she’d come close to twisting an ankle more than once already.

“Really?”  He brightened.  “That’s the first good news I’ve heard in seventy years.  Give or take.”

 “So, Dionysus.   Explain.”  She knew she sounded abrupt, but her anger was still on simmer.

“He came to me six months ago to ask for my help,” Donovan said.  “He made a good case, so I agreed to be his host.  Besides, I owe him.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “You owe him?” 

“Riga, I run casinos.  Everything I have is due to the human impulse to tap into our wild nature and cut loose.  Of course I owe him.”  His voice hardened.  “Besides, who better for Dionysus to go to for help, than someone living the Dionysian life?” 

Riga snorted.  “And what did he want you to do?”

“Help him discover why the two worlds are colliding – his archetypal world and our own – and stop it.”

“Why did he need a human?”

“He can’t stay for any length of time there on his own.  He needs a human host.  So I agreed to let him into my head.”

“If I didn’t have a three-headed dog at my heels, I’d think you were schizophrenic,” Riga said.  “Maybe we’re both crazy.”  Or maybe just me, Riga thought.  The idea this might be a delusion appealed.  Pen was safe at home and Riga was crazy.  A rock turned beneath her boot, and she stumbled, a bolt of fire shooting from her ankle to her knee.  That, at least, was real.  She clenched her jaw against the pain.  “How does he communicate?”

“Whispers and impulses.  Riga, I’m still me, I always have been.  He hasn’t taken control.”

 “Hasn’t he?  What about the people who couldn’t leave the billiard parlor? Or my neighbor’s sudden obsession with painting grapevines?  That was his influence, wasn’t it?” 

Donovan looked startled.  “Your neighbor?  I didn’t know.” 

“Yeah, well now you do.  She almost killed herself, painting until she passed out from exhaustion.  So release her.”  She picked her way over a large rock. 

“I don’t know how.” 

She stopped and turned to face him, hands on her hips.  “You released the people in the billiard parlor.”

His eyes glinted.  “No, Riga.  You released them.  You’re the magical one, not I.  I should have noticed, but I didn’t.  It’s been like a dream – impossible things occurred around me but I rarely questioned them.  Sometimes I’d wake up a bit and realize that something strange had occurred, but soon I’d forget and just go on with things.”  His brows furrowed in a dark slash.  “Lately, I haven’t been waking up much at all.  He warned me, the longer we stay together, the more enmeshed we’d become.”

It was high time, Riga thought, that they all awaken.  She began walking again.  “Okay, worlds colliding.  How are Pen and I involved in it?”

“Dionysus knows the questions, not the answers.  I’ve been going where the question – and sometimes my own whims and intuition – took me.  That’s what brought me to the billiard parlor.  And then I saw you and everything clicked.  I knew I had to stay with you.”

She pressed her lips together.  While she’d been investigating Donovan, he’d been investigating her – and she’d been several steps behind him.   It doesn’t matter, she told herself.  All that matters is finding Pen.

Vinnie snorted behind them.  “Sounds like a load of hooey to me.”

Donovan jerked his chin toward the ghost. “Why is he here?”

“He’s the ghost Pen accidentally banished.”

Donovan swore.  “He must have a role to play as well then.  We’re stuck with him.”

Vinnie kicked some loose rocks at Donovan’s heels.  “Sorry,”  he said.  “I slipped.”

“A role to play?” she said.  “I don’t believe in predestination.  But Helen’s arrival at my office wasn’t random, was it?  Someone set this in motion.  Is Dionysus pulling the strings?”

He took a moment to answer.  “I don’t think so.  Dionysus seems in the dark as much we.  But he’s a powerful archetype.  He could deceive me.”

“But he’s not a trickster god,” Riga said.  “The myths about him are a mixed bag – they’ve been filtered through so many stories and cultures – but they’re telling.  For example, he was viciously persecuted by Hera, and yet when she was in danger, he rescued her from Hephaestus.  He was also a devoted son, who descended into the underworld to rescue his mother.”  Riga remembered Donovan’s search for his broken family, and realized that there might have been other reasons why Dionysus had chosen him.

Sheer cliffs forced them away from the river bank.  They clambered up a small mountain of rocks, keeping the same direction, breaking a new trail. 

Riga stopped near the top, breathing heavily.  Cerberus bumped her arm with one of his heads and she patted him absently.  “Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.

“Dionysus does.  The palace of Hades isn’t far now…” His voice trailed off as they crested the hill.  A dark, writhing mass spread before them, a colossal maze stretching as far as Riga could see.

“What the hell is that?” Vinnie said.

“This is new.” Donovan’s voice was laced with irritation.  “I’ve – I mean, Dionysus, has never seen it before.”

Riga gave him a sharp look.  Donovan claimed to be his own man, but she wondered.  “The palace is on the other side of the maze?”

He nodded.  “We’ll have to go through it.”

Riga began making her way down the rough path they’d been following, loose rocks and gravel shifting beneath her boots.  The others followed.

As they neared the labyrinth, Riga saw that its walls were formed by a tangle of dead brambles.  Ground mist gathered at the entrance – a cleanly cut gap in the hedge.  She reached a hand out to touch it and Donovan grabbed her wrist, snatching her hand away. 

“I wouldn’t,” he said.  “It’s Hades’ toy.” 

Cerberus growled low in his throats and Donovan hastily released her. 

“Stay here.”  Donovan disappeared through the gap, mist rising into the air in his wake. 

Riga had begun to debate going in after him when he finally reemerged. 

 “If there’s a trap,” he said, “it’s further in.”

“I’m not going in there,” Vinnie said flatly.  “It gives me the heebie jeebies.”

Donovan smiled unpleasantly.  “Your choice.”

Riga didn’t have a choice though.  She had to find Pen. 

“This looks like a larger version of the labyrinth Daedalus built for King Minos,” Donovan continued.  “It may be dangerous.”

Riga nodded her understanding.  Daedalus’ labyrinth had kept the Minotaur imprisoned within, while preventing the King’s prisoners from escaping before they could become its lunch.  Unlike the labyrinth she’d walked in San Francisco, this one would have dead ends, false turnings.  Given the size, a person could be lost for weeks in it.  But Riga wasn’t a magician for nothing.

“Do you think this one has a Minotaur inside?” Riga asked.

“The Minotaur is dead and we’re in the underworld,” Donovan said.  “Where else would he be?”

She rummaged in her purse and pulled out the yarn and spindle Lauren and Cleo had given her, glad she didn’t clean out her purse more often.  “Theseus tracked his progress through the labyrinth with Ariadne’s ball of yarn.  We can, too.”

Donovan looked doubtful.  “Theseus used the yarn to find his way out rather than through, if I recall.  That can’t be long enough to get us through it.”

“I’ve got a workaround in mind,” Riga said.

“I don’t suppose you have any weapons in that bag?” Donovan said. 

“Just pepper spray and a knife.”

Donovan’s lips curved in a crooked smile.

She removed both – the pepper spray was attached to her key chain – and gave them to him.  Her hands would be too full with the yarn to do much good with the weapons.  Donovan flipped the knife open, exposing a four inch blade.