Christopher Pike - The Immortal

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THE IMMORTAL

THE ETERNAL ENEMY

ROAD TO NOWHERE

MONSTER MASTER OF MURDER

CHAIN LETTER 2: THE ANCIENT EVIL

WHISPER OF DEATH

BURY ME DEEP

DIE SOFTLY

WITCH

SEE YOU LATER FALL INTO DARKNESS

LAST ACT

SPELLBOUND

GIMME A KISS

REMEMBER ME

SCAVENGER HUNT

ALSO DONT MISS CHRISTOPHER PIKE'S WHODUNIT TRILOGY-FINAL FRIENDS:

THE PARTY THE DANCE THE GRADUATION

All available from Archway Paperbacks Published by Pocket Books

Tine Ancient City Was Alive.

I crested the hill and looked down at the ruins in the moonlight.

The city was new.

I blinked. Nothing changed, although everything already had.

The city was alive.

People, beautiful creatures in long, colored robes, walked among pillared walkways and sat upon marble

chairs. Their long hair, gold and black and red, hung like shawls over their shoulders. They moved as if in

a dream, or perhaps it was because I was in a dreamlike state. For I could not say how I felt at that

moment. I should have been in shock. But I didn't register what I saw as real because I no longer felt

human. I moved forward, toward them, wanting to be a part of them. Yet it was as if my feet no longer

touched the ground. They floated and I drifted. I could vanish into space in an instant. It was good. I was

in the right place at the right time. I was coming home to a place beyond space and time. A portion of my

mind left me then, and a larger part of my soul entered the void.

I stepped into the city.

I sat down on a smooth white seat.

Someone noticed me. Then another. They smiled joyfully, hopefully.

I closed my eyes and waited for them to come to me. To serve me.

Books by Christopher Pike

BURY ME DEEP

CHAIN LETTER 2: THE ANCIENT EVIL

DIE SOFTLY

THE ETERNAL ENEMY

FALL INTO DARKNESS

FINAL FRIENDS #1: THE PARTY

FINAL FRIENDS #2: THE DANCE

FINAL FRIENDS #3: THE GRADUATION

GIMME A KISS

THE IMMORTAL

LAST ACT

MASTER OF MURDER

THE MIDNIGHT CLUB

MONSTER

REMEMBER ME

ROAD TO NOWHERE

SCAVENGER HUNT

SEE YOU LATER

SPELLBOUND

WHISPER OF DEATH

THE WICKED HEART

WITCH

Available from ARCHWAY Paperbacks

For orders other than by individual consumers, Archway Books grants a discount on the purchase of 10 or more

copies of single titles for special markets or premium use. For further details, please write to the Vice-President of

Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New 'fork, NY 10020.

For information on how individual consumers can place orders, please write to Mail Order Department, Paramount

Publishing, 200 Old Tkppan Road, Old Tkppan, NJ 07675.

AM ARCHWAY PAPERBACK

Published by POCKET BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it

was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of

this "stripped book."

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination

or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

por jOsie

AN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK Original

An Archway Paperback published by

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-671-74510-7

First Archway Paperback printing July 1993

10 98765432

AN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Cover art by Brian Kotzky Printed in the U.S.A. IL14+

Chapter 1

My sleep, as our plane neared Greece, changed, but I cannot say how. I would like to say that a dream,

a vision maybe, entered my unconscious state and filled me with wonder and fear. But if this happened I

cannot remember it. I do know I sensed the approach of this ancient land before I awoke. I sensed it in

the same way a child senses home, and awakens, just before the parents pull the car into the driveway.

The stir in my sleep was familiar. I was coming home—to a place I had never been before.

Then I heard the captain's voice announcing that we had begun our descent. I opened my eyes and was

momentarily blinded by the morning light, a morning that had never come so swiftly for me before. The

flight attendants had pulled up the window shades. Yawning, stretching, I glanced over at Helen Demeten

She was already wide awake and staring at me.

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

"Are we there yet?" I asked.

"Fifteen minutes," Helen said.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Hours. You snore."

"I don't snore," I said quickly.

"It must have been the soul that occupies your body while you sleep that snores," Helen replied.

My mouth tasted like the last thing I had eaten before I passed out, which I think was old peanuts. I sat

up straighter, heard my neck crack, and swore to myself that I must be getting old. I was stiff as a

corpse.

"Do we get breakfast?" I asked.

"We just had breakfast," Helen said.

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"You didn't look hungry." Helen made a face. "You need a breath mint, Josie."

"I need a shave and a shower," I said—and my name is Josie Goodwin, and I'm a girl.

"Brush your teeth and ask a flight attendant for some orange juice. He might take pity on you. The Swiss

are very polite."

We were flying Swiss Air, nonstop from L.A. to Athens. Helen and I were in coach, my father and his

new babe, Sylvia—or "Silk," as she preferred to be called—up front in first class, where they could

stretch their legs as far as they wished. Not only were their seats as big as ones at home, but all the

champagne they wanted was on the house. I wondered if Daddy and Silk were stewed. He was drinking

THE IMMORTAL

since he'd met his latest. My dad was a Hollywood screenwriter. He was one of the best. I didn't know

what Silk was other than a pain in the ass.

"All right," I said, grabbing my carry-on bag and lurching to my feet. "Don't let anybody take my seat."'

"It's not as though you can wait outside until we land," Helen called after me.

My skin was the color of wet plaster in the bathroom mirror. My blond hair was matted to my head. The

veins in my eyes were the color of whiskey. And I was supposed to be pretty—really, somebody

somewhere had told me that. I think it was my last boyfriend—Ralph. I had really liked him, Ralphy Boy.

So had Helen, for that matter. But Ralph had moved away, and Helen and 1 were still friends.

I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Then I used the toilet, and that thing almost took off my butt

when I flushed it. Incredible suction—I could have believed I was on the Space Shuttle. As I left the

lavatory I asked a flight attendant if I could have a hit of orange juice, and he handed me a cup, made me

drink it on the spot, and then told me to get in my seat. But the blue ocean, incredibly gorgeous in the first

morning light, still looked a mile below us, so I rambled up to first class to see my dad.

He was sharing a joke with redheaded Silk. Outside of Hollywood, they would be an unlikely pair. Dad

had balding gray hair that had failed to respond to transplants and rolls of fat that were immune to fad

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

diets—he was a battered fifty. Silk must have passed her midthirties, although she was still striving to be

ready for teenage auditions. Her face was great, but hard somehow. Her firm chin may have been an

implant. Her green eyes were definitely contacts. But that hair—I had to grant that Silk had hair worthy

of her nickname. It flowed all the way down to her butt, which had ridden the most expensive exercise

bicycles in Beverly Hills.

But in Hollywood such couples were natural. An out-of-work actress of questionable talent latching onto

an out-of-work screenwriter of immense talent. Who was hoping for more? Daddy or Silky? In their own

sad way they did fit together.

Sad for me.

"Hi, guys," I said, interrupting their chuckles. "Did you miss me?"

"Josie," Dad said. "We checked on you an hour ago and you were out for the count."

"You were snoring like a pig," Silk said.

I gave the sweetest smile. "At least I get it out of my system when I'm asleep," I told her.

"Jo," Dad muttered.

"Daddy," I said innocently.

But I hadn't insulted Silk, because she was too stupid to realize it. Or maybe I was wrong about that.

Sometimes, when I was feeling paranoid, I wondered if Silk took in everything and simply filed it away

for future reference, when her position was stronger.

THE IMMORTAL

"I cannot rest a moment on a plane without my blue bomber," was all Silk said.

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

"A sleeping pill," my dad said dryly. "Be grateful you slept, Josie. We're getting in early. You'll be ready

for the sun and the water and we'll be in bed." He looked tired. "At least I got some writing done."

"Did you?" I asked hopefully. My father always brought his laptop computer when he traveled, but he

seldom did anything more on it than write letters. He was currently doodling on a sci-fi script that he

hoped would put him back on the studio executive lunch circuit. But he had writer's block—no, it was

more like writer's wall, writer's mountain, writer's black hole. He hadn't had an original idea in the past

year. His drinking wasn't making the situation any better. That was another reason I disliked Silk. She

was under the erroneous belief that booze got the juices flowing.

My father nodded to the laptop resting on his lap and chuckled grimly. "I signed on, put in the date and

time, and reread my notes."

I touched his shoulder. "The word muse is Greek. Maybe one of them is still hovering around the islands

and will drop in and pay you a visit."

He looked up at me. "You're the only muse I need."

His compliment had a grain of truth in it. I often helped my father with story ideas. I had a knack for it.

The plane shook beneath my feet. I almost fell into Daddy and Silk's laps.

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

"Better sit down, dear," Silk said. "We wouldn't want you to get hurt before your vacation begins."

"I'd rather not get hurt on my vacation either," I said, like the snotty little girl I could be. Saying "See you

soon," I turned and hurried back to my seat. Once there, Helen helped me fasten my seat belt.

"I didn't tell you that the Athens airport is the foulest place on the face of the Earth," Helen said. She had

visited Greece the year before. Indeed, it was largely because she raved about her vacation that we were

all going now. "They hate Americans with a passion. They'll spit on you the moment you get off the

plane."

"But the pamphlets say the Greek people are warm and friendly," I protested.

"They're not so bad on the islands. But the airport is bizarre. Terrorists hold weekly meetings there. They

sell plastique in the restrooms. You can be shot for saying, 'Hey Zeus.'"

"What?"

"'Jesus.' That's 'Hey Zeus' in Spanish. Plus the food is lousy," she added.

"Well, we won't be there long."

"We have to take a cab to another airport to catch our plane to Mykonos," Helen continued. "The cab

drivers hate Americans. If you don't tip them enough they drive you back to Athens Airport and tell the

people there that they didn't spit on you enough."

"You are exaggerating a tiny bit. I can tell."

Helen shook her head. "It is all very true." She

THE IMMORTAL

returned to her book—a travel guide to Mykonos and Delos. Like she was the one who needed to read

it and not me. The plane shook some more. Over the speakers the captain said that we would be on the

ground in three minutes and that the flight attendants should sit down.

"Tell me more about the nude beaches on Mykonos," I said.

Helen lit up. She was pretty when she smiled. Her hair was brown, a no-nonsense short cut, her small

nose cute, something to squeeze if you were into such things. She was slight—two inches shorter than my

five five—but not bony. I thought she was pretty, but even though I had known her forever, I didn't know

what she thought. She had a talent for many things: singing, dancing, homework, art. Yet I got asked out

more often, even though all I could do was help my dad with his stories.

When Helen wasn't smiling, she looked like she wasn't happy. But she would laugh when I told her that,

and I would be reassured.

"The nude beaches are combined with several of the regular beaches," Helen said. "Not everyone is

naked—maybe half. But few women wear tops." Helen paused. "Are you going to wear your top?"

"When my dad's around, yeah," I said. "But I'll take it off if he's not there. I'm not that shy. But I don't

think I want to go totally nude. Are you going to?"

Helen hesitated. "If you don't, I won't."

"Are there a lot of gorgeous guys?"

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

"You mean, are there a lot of gorgeous body parts?"

"Yeah." I laughed. "Certain body parts?"

Helen nodded. "Yeah."

I rubbed my hands together. "I love vacations."

I was not a virgin, nor were Helen and Ralphy Boy. Oh, I say that so flippantly. It was not a kinky

threesome—at least, not in one time frame. But Ralph Frost would certainly remember Josie Goodwin

and Helen Demeter in the years to come— although maybe not in that order, since he'd gone out with

Helen first. But I can honestly say I didn't steal Ralph from Helen. He had broken up with her before he

asked me out. Of course, I could have said no. That's what friends are for, I know, to say no when it

matters, as often as they say yes. But I didn't, then or later, when Ralph worked his seductive charm on

me and we did it on the floor of his bedroom beside his huge aquarium and his bug-eyed fish. Nowadays

it was hard for me to think of sex without remembering those fish. Helen, I suppose, must have the same

problem.

Anyway, I think I broke Helen's heart a little for being with Ralph, and I was sorry for that. It was kind of

a relief when Ralph moved away. Yet I didn't understand why he had never written to me—not a single

letter, not even a card. I really did care for him. Oh well, I tried to console myself, Helen mattered more.

A few minutes later the plane landed smoothly, and when it came to a halt everyone jumped up at once

THE IMMORTAL

if they were going to be the first off. Helen and I were patient. I stacked my books back in my carry-on

bag. I was currently into courtroom thrillers and was thinking of becoming a lawyer. Helen and I had

graduated from high school a month earlier, in June. But with that thought I was being practical, because

what I really wanted to be was a screenwriter like my father. The problem was, even though I was

wonderful at thinking up stories, I didn't have the discipline to sit down and write anything. I couldn't even

complete a letter. I wondered if Ralph hadn't written because I had never written to him.

Eventually we got off the plane. Customs was a joke. They didn't even look at our passports—just saw

that we were Americans and waved us through. No one even glanced at our bags. And Helen had

lectured us on how strict they were.

The airport was hot and sweaty and crowded. We each changed some money. I had my own; it wasn't

courtesy of my dad. I worked with a caterer twenty hours a week. The official currency of Greece was

the drachma. Right then we got a hundred and sixty of them for a dollar. I changed two hundred U.S.

dollars, and with the wad they handed me in return I felt rich. Helen was anxious to get us over to the

other airport to make our connection to Mykonos. Helen was always neurotic about time.

No one spit on us, but no one smiled either. We left the airport, our bags piled in a couple of rental carts,

and got in a long line to catch a cab. The sun was

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

intense and I began to perspire. The buildings in the vicinity were dirty. I couldn't complain—I was from

L.A.

"It's cooler on Mykonos," Helen said as I wiped my forehead.

"That's good," I said. "How long is the flight there?"

"A half hour," Helen said.

"Will there be someone to meet us at the airport?" Silk asked. She had dressed up for the trip—always a

mistake. Her purple dress and coat were close to being ruined. She had brought more bags than the rest

of us combined. Helen and I were dressed casually in khaki shorts. Dad had on a pair of pants he should

have thrown out the year before. He had to unbutton them to sit down.

"It's questionable," he said.

"Oh, Bill, didn't you make sure?" Silk asked, a whiny tone to her voice. Silk had a habit of whining when

she was tired and if she didn't get her daily nap, which was supposed to be at about five o'clock. I hated

whiners.

"I faxed the people at the hotel a number of times, honey," Dad said. "They said they'd do what they

could. We can always catch a cab."

"The cab drivers on Mykonos are all crazy," Helen told Silk. "They hate redheads with a passion. They

think they're witches."

"Oh, dear," Silk said.

We finally got a cab. The driver drove like a madman. I supposed I would have done the same if I

THE IMMORTAL

had to wait in line at the airport several times a day—it would have driven me nuts. He took us straight to

Olympic Airlines. At the terminal I had to help with Silk's luggage—we all had to. I handled her bag

roughly; it felt as if it was stuffed with back issues of Cosmopolitan, maybe an X-rated video or two.

We groped our way inside, out of the heat and into an oven, and still no one spat on us. Helen looked

disappointed when I pointed that fact out to her.

The flight to Mykonos was in forty minutes. I amused myself by sitting on the floor—all the seats were

taken—and reading my latest thriller. The hero was about to find out that the woman he was defending

had not only actually committed the murder but had cheated on the bar exam as well when the two of

them had taken it twenty years earlier. Spicy stuff. I glanced over at my father as he typed in a few words

on his laptop and gave him a wink. He smiled—he knew he wasn't going to write more than a useless

sentence or two in a crowded airport.

At last we were on the plane, a two-engine prop job that I hoped had been built in the U.S. Inside,

before takeoff, it was a thousand degrees, and it warmed my heart to see Silk on the verge of passing

out. But the air-conditioning came on once we were in the air. I sat in the back of the plane beside Helen.

She peered out the window.

"I have always dreamed of renting a sailboat and sailing from island to island," she said, almost with a

sigh. "Wouldn't that be heaven?"

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

"It does sound wonderful," I said. "Maybe we can do it when we get older—and learn to sail."

"Sailing around these islands is not always that easy. There's a wind that comes up around Mykonos

called the meltimi. One second the water is flat and calm and the next it's churning. The meltemi will

probably kick in a time or two while we're here."

Half an hour later we were at Mykonos. We had to walk from the plane to the terminal. The airport was

small; there were no pushing crowds. The surrounding terrain was rocky, hilly—what tourists thought all

Greek islands were. Yet even though it was arid, it was beautiful. I liked it immediately. Athens had not

been as horrible as Helen had described, but there had been a certain heaviness to the place. Mykonos

was the opposite. There was a feeling of life in the air, of fun, of adventure. Indeed, I suddenly felt as if I

had reached an important crossroads in my life. I knew this would be a trip to remember for a long time.

There was a gentleman waiting for us—Mr. Ghris Politopulos. At first I assumed he was a hired hand at

the hotel where we were staying, but he was both the owner and the manager of the place. His face was

fascinating, thick-lipped with a warm smile and the palest, coldest blue eyes I had ever seen—one of

which was lazy, rolling this way and that as he scanned our luggage.

"Welcome to Mykonos," he said in heavily accented English. "You will love it here. But this"—he

gestured to our bags—"you don't need so many

THE IMMORTAL

clothes here. Mykonos is always warm this time of year."

"I have many of your father's things in my bags," Silk said to us, annoyed at the hired help questioning

what she'd brought.

"Do our rooms have ocean views?" Helen asked Mr. Politopulos.

"One of the rooms does," he replied.

Helen flashed a glance my way and we shrugged in unison. We both knew which room would be ours,

and that was fine. Helen's parents had paid for her plane ticket, but my father was shouldering the hotel

bills. Helen's trip was a present from my father to me.

We boarded Mr. Politopulos's van and headed for the hotel. Mykonos was not big, only ten miles

across, and soon we were bouncing our way along the outskirts of Hora—the main city on the island.

Mr. Politopulos explained the colorful history of Hora. Egyptians, Phoenicians, Cretans, and Ionians had

all lived on the island in the b.c.s. Turks and an endless train of pirates had run the place later—the

population would explode, then become almost extinct depending on which way the winds of war were

blowing. It wasn't until the 1950s that tourism took hold and island life began to resemble what it was

today. At that Mr. Politopulos laughed, saying that Mykonos was basically a big party island. He had

been born on Mykonos and had lived his whole life there.

We never entered Hora, however, but turned south away from the city for the remainder of the ride to

our

CHRISTOPHER PIKE

hotel. It was only then I got my first good look at the sea, and I was in love. The water was a jewel blue

the California coast would never know, the sand clean and uncluttered, lazily draped with brown bodies

of enviable shape and elusive covering. Already I could see several pairs of male buns and knew I would

have a crick in my neck long before the vacation was over.

Helen pointed to an island out at sea, perhaps five miles away. "That's Delos," she said. "The most sacred

island in the Aegean Sea."

"Why is it so sacred?" I asked.

"Because Apollo and his sister Artemis were born there," she said.

The sun flashed in my eyes as I stared at the island. I had to close them briefly, and once more I had that

same sense of coming home that I had had on the plane. I felt I had been to this place before.

"I want to go there soon," I whispered.

"We'll go there tomorrow," Helen said, watching me.

Our hotel was simple, with whitewashed walls built to withstand the heat and sun. It was well situated

beside a beach, but close enough to town so that we could walk in at night for the party life. Mr.

Politopulos checked us in and showed us our rooms, helping us with our bags. Dad and Silk's suite was

spacious and on the second story overlooking the surf. Mr. Politopulos warned us to watch the doors

and windows when the wind was blowing.

"A man last week got struck on the head by a

THE IMMORTAL

window and had to be taken to the hospital for stitches," he said. "The melt€mi—it blows fiercely when

the gods are in the mood."

"The gods," I muttered. "Does anyone in Greece worship the ancient deities?"

Mr. Politopulos smiled, his lazy eye staring at my rubber sandals, his other one regarding my face. "Not

worship," he said. "But many still respect them."

Our room was on the ground floor, in the back. It had a view of sorts. It overlooked a corner of the

swimming pool, where, by golly, there were a lot of naked females enjoying the sun. We had narrow twin

beds and a bathtub that looked as if it had been designed for a race of dwarfs. Neither of us believed we

would be spending that much time in our room.

"Are you tired?" I asked Helen. Her brown eyes were bloodshot.

"A little. But if I sleep now I'll never get on the schedule here." She stowed her cheap suitcase in the

corner. Her family didn't have much money, even though it seemed as if they must because their only

daughter had gone to Greece twice in a year. Her parents were anxious to keep her happy—for various

reasons. Of course my dad was running low on funds as well. He had to sell something soon, even if it

was only a movie-of-the-week or a sitcom pilot.

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Christopher Pike - The Immortal

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