Hellenic Immortal Read Free Page A

list of modern improvements I don’t care for. I just can’t get the hang of them. And by the time I do, the world will probably have moved on to something even more annoying. On the positive side, we seem to be getting closer to open sesame actually working, so I have that to look forward to.
    The room was extremely unspectacular: a single bed, a small TV, a couple of bureaus, a tiny bathroom with a shower that was definitely for one, and a window that didn’t overlook the strip. It was just the kind of room you got if you didn’t want anyone to know you had access to a large amount of money.
    I collapsed onto the bed in the dark.
    This had not turned out to be anything like the getting-my-mind-off-things vacation I was expecting.
    After Clara left, I spent a couple of days consoling my resident pixie, Iza—she was possibly more upset about it than I was—and talking to an ex-pat Russian named Tchekhy on the phone.
    Tchekhy is not the best person in the world to go to for advice, unless you need advice on how to break the law without getting caught. He does my passports for me. But as one of the few living people aware of my unique nature, he was the only sentient being I could reach easily that also spoke in polysyllables. (Pixies are notoriously simple-minded.)
    “You need to get off that island,” he suggested wearily after what was the third or fourth day of hashing out my relationship problems.
    “That may be a good idea,” I agreed. “Where do you suggest I go?”
    “I would recommend a place as opposite to where you are as possible.”
    “Europe?” I guessed. Conveniently, the same place Clara went.
    “No,” he said quickly, clearly thinking along similar lines. “How about Las Vegas?”
    In my mind, Vegas was a bright, shiny place with excitement and glamour and enough to do to keep me occupied for a good decade or two. And plenty of bars.
    It had been about forty years since the last time I was in a casino (Vegas then too, in the sixties, when it was much sleazier) which was just long enough for me to forget the dirty secret—there may be no more depressing place on the planet than the floor of a casino. Although there was an outside chance I had simply forgotten how to have fun.
    On top of that, there was Ariadne’s warning, which had only made me feel worse.
    I needed to get the hell out of Vegas, but one of the cardinal rules when it came to disappearing was that you had better know whom it is you are disappearing from first. And I had no clue how to resolve that.
    As I lay on the bed and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized there was something resting on the bureau that hadn’t been there the last time I was in the room. I turned on the light.
    Resting atop a silver room service tray was a bottle of red wine, a bottle of mineral water, and a small ceramic bowl. Leaning against the bowl was an envelope.
    I took a look at the wine bottle first. According to the label, it was a dry red from Thessalia. Greek vintage.
    It was about as subtle as the drachma.
    The envelope contained a small place card, which I opened. A folded piece of paper dropped out. I picked it up and unfolded it, and nearly fell over at what I saw.
    Something you need to understand about the Greeks—they liked their wine, and by that I mean they were willing to risk blindness, madness, or death in order to continue drinking it. If you think I drink a lot, that’s only by modern standards. In Athens, I was modest.
    The problem was the drink itself. It took many centuries for mankind to figure out how to make wine that wouldn’t kill them. But since I was the only one who could wait that long, what the Greeks did was cut their version of wine with water. And then they threw parties that lasted for two to five days in order to drink that wine. (The word moderation wasn’t invented until Christianity was.) It was the responsibility of the host to decide how much water to add to the wine, which was a big deal because it