Nevermore: A Cal Leandros Novel by Rob Thurman

Author:Rob Thurman [Thurman, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-12-01T07:00:00+00:00

11

“Patroclus,” he marveled. “You were Patroclus and you remember. What of the blonde in the hall? The one who looks enough like Achilles to nearly be his twin?”

“That’s a weird one,” I replied, rocking the table back and forth on its two uneven legs. As the others had three or all uneven, it was the best table at Talley’s place. It was closed and empty this early in the morning, but closed meant nothing to me and empty was just a perk.

“Weird at it gets,” I echoed. I remembered being vaguely disturbed by it months after finding out. “About four hundred years ago—wild guess, no one kept a history—our clan, the Vayash Clan, was traveling through Northern Greece. You know it’s forbidden to dirty yourself with a gadje, an outsider, Rom is for Rom. But shit happens and one of the ancestors of Niko’s father got knocked up by a Greek blacksmith who claimed he was a descendant of Achilles, which, fair, Achilles got around the villages and whorehouses. Not quite like you and I did, but he was no virgin. It could’ve been true.”

“I would say to take it with the same grain of salt you would take mine, but it would be my natural competition speaking.” He spun a finger in a get-on-with-it motion. Pucks are fond of stories, and one that involves them? I was waiting for him to stick his hand down my throat and pull it out through my vocal cords to hurry it up.

“Secluded enough,” I said wryly, but obeyed while salting my beer, “that the younger ones forgot or never knew there was a world outside and the elderly, the geezers with both feet and an elbow in the grave thought the gods had struck them down, but even they didn’t remember the names of the gods. What they did know was growing turnips and sheering sheep. It was all they wanted or needed to know, except for Achilles. They knew the whole story from his birth to his . . . to Troy. They said they were of his blood. Three thousand years later and they remembered him and bragged about him while they’d forgotten the gods, the names of the gods, the world itself, that could make a person believe they were his blood. The Clan wouldn’t have cared if it was true or not, but they’d cared enough when it came to what they could get out of it. A descendant of Achilles would come in handy. The Vayash had been all over Greece by then. A baby of Achilles could bring in the silver. They could show off the kid for a fee.” I took a deep swallow of the beer, which thanks to Auphe partial immunity to poisons meant it did very little for me.

“Then four hundred years of some Clan inbreeding when no other Clans to marry into were around, and nowadays you occasionally see dark blond hair and gray eyes among the Vayash. They’re known by it.

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