Hellenic Immortal Read Free

Adam.”
    Her hand brushed my knee as she walked off. And I was entirely too dumb-founded to do anything other than watch her go.
    Adam was the name I’d been using before I switched to Jason, and there were very few humans still alive that knew this. Or so I thought.
    Something was very, very wrong.
    “Nice, huh?” Chester commented from a few feet away.
    “I think I’m in love.” I was there to get over another woman and I was drunk, but I also may not have been kidding.
    “Me too,” Chester agreed. “You want another?” He meant the scotch.  
    I pushed forward the glass, because I almost never turn down a refill, and surveyed the room again. It occurred to me I had spent much of the last several days looking for Ariadne to the extent that I probably ignored anyone else who might have also been tailing me. It was a classic trick, and if it was being played on me, I was an idiot for not recognizing it sooner.
    But the trick doesn’t really work that well if the misdirect—the girl—tells you she’s a misdirect. So she was either an unwilling participant or something else was going on, and I was too drunk to figure out what that was. I was not, however, too drunk to be paranoid about the idea.
    I have been known to suffer from occasional bouts of what might be considered—in someone else—mild paranoia. It’s sort of an offshoot of the I-have-a-feeling-I’m-being-watched sensation that everybody gets where usually it’s nothing, but the one time it isn’t, is the one we all remember. I’ve been right about that sensation hundreds of times, and not because I’m endowed with some special sort of psychic power; it’s just that when you have millions of chances to choose from, you’re bound to be right often enough to think there’s something to it. It’s one of those quirky human things that aren’t much of a big deal if you’re planning on a normal lifespan, but which become enormous after several thousand life spans. I have the same problem with déjà vu .
    So while it was very likely that nobody on the vast, but largely empty casino floor, was someone I’d seen before that evening, since I have sixty millennia of memories to pan through there was really no way to be sure. And once Ariadne had put the idea of it in my head, it wouldn’t leave.
    I needed to get off the casino floor, and I needed to find Ariadne again. Ironically, inasmuch as I’d just insisted she go away. “Hey,” I said to Chester, “have you ever seen her before?”
    “Not before tonight, no sir,” he said.
    I put a one hundred dollar chip on the bar. “How about now?”
    Chester smiled. “She was cute, wasn’t she?”  
    He thought I was looking for a date. A fine assumption.
      “Honestly, if I’d seen her before I would have remembered it.” Chester swept up the chip anyway, and then took down Ariadne’s glass.  
    “How about the drink?” I asked.
    “Rum and Coke,” he answered.
    “But how’d she pay for it? Room charge?”
    “Sorry. Cash.”
    I nodded. “Thanks. Guess I’ll just have to hope I run into her again.” I got up to leave, but Chester stopped me.
    “There is this,” he said, holding up a coin. “She gave it to me as a tip. Says it’s worth twenty bucks. I think she was yanking my chain.”
    I took the coin from him. Larger than a quarter, but not much heavier, it was a dull gray and had the face of Athena on one side. “It’s a drachma,” I informed him. “And it’s not worth twenty bucks. Here’s thirty for it. That’s a better exchange than you’ll get in a bank.”
    “Yeah, okay.” Chester looked confused, but was happy to take my money.
    I covered my tab and slipped the drachma into my pocket, wondering if the mysterious Ms. Ariadne had expected me to question Chester, or if she always tipped in outdated coinage.
    *   *   *
    It took me a few minutes longer than it should have to get back into the room, thanks to the electronic key card, which I’m adding to the long