The Rising
Page 15

“Yeah, yeah. So okay, these satyrs liked to run around, drinking and chasing women and playing some kind of harmonica. Their leader was a guy named Silenus, who had visions of the future.”
“Ah . . .”
“He was a minor god,” Corey said. “He taught Dionysus.”
“Like Chiron and Achilles.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, right. You slept through Greek and Roman mythology. You said you didn’t need to know it because it wasn’t applicable to your life. Guess you were wrong, huh?”
Daniel chuckled.
“So Silenus was a minor deity,” I said. “What’s the connection to you?”
“It’s complicated. You remember those long stories we had to write in English last year? Mr. Parks accused me of having constancy errors?”
“Continuity errors,” I said.
“Whatever. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Your characters changed names. More than once.”
“Only by a few letters,” he said. “Anyway, obviously Parks never read myths. Those guys were zinging out continuity errors all the time. Sometimes Silenus was one guy and sometimes sileni was a word used for all his followers.”
“It’s the influence of other cultures. Plus regional difference and the impact of oral storytelling.”
“Was that an exam answer you memorized?” He shook his head. “No one likes a keener, Maya. Stuff the commentary or I’ll call your brother back.”
“I heard that,” said a voice from the woods.
“Yeah?” Corey called back. “You know how to avoid hearing things you don’t want to? Don’t eavesdrop.”
“Hard to do when you have super hearing,” Ash said as he stepped into the clearing.
“Also hard to do when you won’t go very far, in case that Uzi-toting sparrow finds you.”
Ash flipped him off and strolled back to the “campfire,” taking his time, so we wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking he wanted to join us.
“Yeah, you’re a sileni,” Ash said as he lowered himself onto a log.
“You knew?” Corey said. “Thanks for the 411.”
“You never asked.”
“I’m asking now, then. What else can you tell me?”
Ash shrugged. “Nothing, really. I know what benandanti, xana, and sileni are, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me, so I didn’t see the point in studying up. You’re supposed to see visions, which I guess you do. That’s your main power. That and charm.”
“Charm?”
Another shrug. “Like benandanti have the power of persuasion, sileni have the power of charm. People like them. Doesn’t seem as if that one kicked in yet. Maybe someday.”
“Hey, I’ve got charm. It just works better on chicks.” He glanced at me. “Right?”
I arched my brows.
“Not you,” he said. “I mean chicks I actually like.”
Daniel sputtered as my brows went higher.
Corey glared at both of us. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “Speaking purely from an observational standpoint, you have your charms. Particularly with girls who’ve been drinking or whose sense of judgment is otherwise impaired. Which probably comes from the satyr angle.”
“Very funny. What happened to wanting to make me feel better about this whole vision thing?”
“That was before I discovered you’re a Greek god. I don’t think you get to feel bad about that.”
“Greek god?” He smiled. “I kinda am, aren’t I?”
“Great,” Daniel muttered. “His ego really needed that.”
“A minor Greek god,” I said. “Very minor. Possibly with a horse tail. Or goat legs.”
Corey reached over to thump me in the arm and I ducked away, laughing.
I could see Ash getting ready to leave again, so I turned to him. “Is there anything else you can tell us? About any of the types?”
He shrugged. “Probably not. Depends on what you already know.”
I could just ask him to tell us everything he did, but I had a feeling that the more specific our questions were, the more likely he was to answer. Lengthy discourses weren’t his style. Yet another reason to wonder if we really were related after all.
“Can we tell you what we know and you can help us fill in the blanks?” I asked.
“Guess so.”
His tone suggested he’d really rather not, but he’d agreed, so I plowed forward before he changed his mind.
According to Ash, Project Phoenix hadn’t attempted to resurrect four extinct supernatural types. It had tried for six. Two had been a complete bust, though, as far as anyone could tell, which is why they weren’t on Mina Lee’s list. As for what those two types were, Ash didn’t know. It didn’t concern him.
That seemed like a selfish way to look at things. But living in Salmon Creek, I could afford to pursue anything that interested me. I had parents who gave me everything I needed. I didn’t even have to take a part-time job. No Salmon Creek kid did. Our “job” was school. If we wanted to do more, we were encouraged to volunteer in our community.
If you lived on the streets, though, your job was survival. You couldn’t afford to take an interest in much that didn’t directly affect you. Obviously, Ash had focused on the skin-walker aspects of Project Phoenix. Anything else, he’d learned incidentally. I couldn’t imagine not wanting to know more. Not being curious. But so far, he hadn’t shown much curiosity about anything—our situation, our experiences, our lives. Maybe even that—basic personal curiosity—is a luxury for some.
Given his lack of interest, I suppose it was surprising how much he remembered of things he’d heard in passing. He knew what the four successful types were even before meeting us. He also knew that every kid between the ages of fifteen and seventeen in Salmon Creek had been a Project Phoenix subject.
Every kid between fifteen and seventeen. Every kid in our grade, most in the grade below us, and a few in the grade above. That didn’t even cover all the subjects, though. There’d been a lot of attrition at the beginning—parents realizing they didn’t want their kids being brought up in a lab after all, however utopian that lab might be. All four skin-walker parents went on the run, as Rafe already told me. Which is why they’d fought so hard to get me back into the fold.