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Copyright © 2016 by Burt Weissbourd
first hardcover edition
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All of the characters and events in this story are imagined, as are many of the Seattle locations. Seattle is, of course, real, though the author has created an imaginary landscape in and around Capitol Hill.
Set in Goudy Old Style
ePub ISBN: 978-1-942600-65-7
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Names: Weissbourd, Burt, author.
Title: Minos : a Corey Logan thriller / by Burt Weissbourd.
Description: First Hardcover edition. | A Vireo Book. | New York [New York] ; Los Angeles [California] : Rare Bird Books, 2016.
Series: The Corey Logan Trilogy
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-942600-40-4
Subjects: LCSH Preparatory schools—Fiction. | Psychiatrists—Fiction. | Mythology, Greek—Fiction. | Murder fiction. | BISAC FICTION/General | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General.
Classification: LCC PS3623.E45925 M56 2016 | DDC 813.6—dc23.
To Kenneth Millar
Contents
Of the 12 Olympian Gods*, These are Featured in Minos:
Other Mythological Figures and Creatures in Minos*
History of the Mythological World
The Minotaur
(Minotauros, “the bull of Minos”)
When Minos claimed the Cretan throne, he prayed to Poseidon to send him a sign as proof of his right to reign. At once, a dazzling snow-white bull (the Cretan Bull) emerged from the sea. Though Minos had promised to sacrifice this bull to Poseidon, he found it so beautiful that he sent it to join his herd and sacrificed another bull instead.
Poseidon, enraged, made Minos’ wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the wondrous, white bull. She confessed her unnatural passion to Daedalus, the master craftsman, who made a hollow wooden cow with wheels concealed in its hooves. Pasiphae climbed inside it wanting to mate with the great white beast. Daedalus wheeled it to the meadow where the bull was grazing. The bull mounted the wooden cow, and Pasiphae gave birth to a horrible monster, the Minotaur, a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Pasiphaë nursed him, but he grew fierce and wild, devouring men for sustenance.
Horrified and ashamed, Minos consulted the Oracle at Delphi about how he might hide his terrible secret. The Oracle told him to have Daedalus construct a gigantic labyrinth, at the center of which he could conceal the Minotaur.
PROLOGUE
Minos admired his work. The scar was still there, if you looked closely, and yes, a thin line ran up from his partially closed eye, across his forehead. But now, there was the birthmark, a scarlet bloom, covering part of his left cheek. The way he did it, the birthmark was darkest in the center where it covered his scar. That way, the scar tissue was not so noticeable under the deep-purple inkblot, staining his cheek from lip to brow. He studied the bottles on the long table, dabbing his swabs in one, then another. Like a painter, Minos made adjustments on his palette before extending the birthmark downward.
He applied the eyeliner, then the shadow. These he used because it pleased the Master. Minos thought he looked fancy, even gaudy, but that was fine if it made the Master happy. The Master found beauty in unlikely things.
He looked again in the mirror and adjusted the overhead Halogens so that his face was fully lit. He liked how his curly black hair, a handsomely crafted wig, rested naturally on his head. Satisfied, he raised his long fingers and framed his face. Minos stood and waited, poised. When he felt steady and easy, even silky on the inside, he began his slow, silent dance. Minos’ fingers curled into fists, finding their marks in the air, uncurling again. His fingers moved deftly, making shapes in the air, until the extended forefinger of each hand settled just above his temples, curling forward. Then he swayed his body, graceful and deliberate.
He was back in ancient Crete,
