by Bree Despain
I look at Joe as he hangs his head. I recognize the tone coming off him as remorse. “What are you talking about?” I ask him, but part of me fears that I already know the answer. It had been scratching at me since I realized Tobin’s mother is somehow in on what is going on in Olympus Hills—and is covering up for the Underlords. That town isn’t just any town—it is a staging ground for the Underrealm. A place for them to find their Boons and take them away and let the local government cover up their messes. I’d seen Simon once before he was introduced to me as Joe’s manager at Bobby’s restaurant. He’d been at the mayor’s party—the man in the bicycle helmet she’d been meeting with. That was probably the night my name had been added to her list. Which meant that I’d been brought to Olympus Hills for the Underrealm’s convenience, rather than Haden’s being sent to Utah. And the person who brought me there was Joe.…
“I traded you, Daphne,” Joe says, confirming my worst fear. “I traded you for fame and fortune.”
My hands fall to my sides. I can barely keep my grasp on the Compass. My heart drops and feels like it’s being crushed underneath the weight of his words. Suddenly, all the sound stops. There is no music. No notes. No vibrations. The rush of silence makes my head swim and I feel my legs wanting to give way. “How could you?” I ask, but my words are barely audible, and a low, rumbling song of sorrow begins to grow deep inside of me.
“I didn’t know, Daphne. I didn’t know you even existed at the time. It happened after I’d only been with your mother for three days. This man came to me. He claimed to be a talent scout at first. He said he’d heard me play at the Crossroads and he offered me a deal. He said I could be famous; I could be the ‘God of Rock’; he could grant me every dream I had ever had; and all I had to do was stick my hand in a bowl of glittering water and swear that someday I would give him my child in return. I didn’t know your mother was pregnant with you; I swear it. I thought I could cheat the system. I agreed to the deal, thinking I would just never have any children. That’s why I left your mum. That’s why I haven’t touched another woman since.… I didn’t even know you existed until you were three years old.… That’s why I stayed away from you. The guilt was too much to bear, and I knew if I got attached, it would only be harder. And I tried, Daphne … I’ve tried to take it back. I’ve tried to stop this from happening.”
“Then why did you bring me to Olympus Hills?”
Joe’s face crumples. “They couldn’t get to you in Ellis. Simon said I had to bring you to them instead.… I had to have you in place by the time they sent someone for you.… I am so sorry, Daphne.”
“But why?” I ask. I am too stunned to cry. Too stunned to be angry. “Why did you still go through with it?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t explain it.”
“The water,” Haden says. “He made an unbreakable vow.”
“I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t resist. And Simon compelled me not to tell you. But that’s why I was writing the play for you. I wanted you to know how Orpheus survived the underworld, how he escaped, so maybe it could help you.…”
“We’re done now,” Simon says, his weird, resonant tone permeating the room again. “We’ve still got a game to finish. I believe we’re at number six.”
Lexie whimpers.
The silence that buffered me before is completely gone now. I hum to myself, trying to drown out Joe’s song of remorse mixed with the frightened notes coming off of everyone. I can’t concentrate, otherwise.
“You’re not getting tired of holding that heavy gun now, are you, Lexie?” Simon says. “Raise those hands a little higher.”
I shift the tone of my hum so it matches the resonate vibration coming off Simon’s persuasive voice. I don’t know if sending his tone back at him will have any effect on him as it had on the Keres. I’ve never used it on a person before, but I have to at least try it.
Lexie complies with Simon’s order, but she raises her hands only about an inch. The gun is aimed just below Joe’s heart. Tobin’s grip on my arm loosens ever so slightly. I look at Simon. Sweat beads on his forehead. I can see the veins bulging at his neck. It must be taking all his strength to keep this many people under his control. Is he starting to lose his grip? I hum louder, directing the tone at him.
“Five.” He wipes at his nose. “Stop that,” he says about my humming. “It’s annoying.”
I increase the volume.
“Four,” he says to spite me.
“Daphne,” Tobin whispers, squeezing my arm twice.
“Please, Daph, don’t trade yourself for me,” Joe sobs. “You can still run. You can still—”
“Three! Two!” Simon screeches through gritted teeth. Blood drips from one of his nostrils. “What’s it going to be, Daphne?”
“Don’t,” Haden says, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Simon’s mouth starts to form the word one, and I can see Lexie cringing, her finger on the trigger.
“Stop,” I say. “Take it. Take the Compass. Take me.” I hold the Compass out to him in my left hand, as far as I can, with Garrick gripping my shoulder. “Just take it, okay?”
Simon steps away from Dax and reaches for the Compass. I swing my right arm as Tobin’s grip on me falls away, and I slam my fist right into Simon’s already bleeding nose. He stumbles backward, clasping his face. “Why, you little bi—”
At that moment, a burst of lightning combusts from Haden’s petrified arm. He twists his hand just enough to send the bolt into the fluorescent light above Simon’s head. Glass and shattered plastic rain down on us.
chapter fifty-five
HADEN
Lightning swirls and builds in my chest—threatening to explode through my rib cage if it doesn’t find a place to go. When Daphne hits Simon, his hold on me weakens enough for me to channel the energy into my frozen arm. Brim, still clinging to my shoulder, yowls in protest, but I twist my hand enough to aim the bolt above Simon’s head.
The force of the bolt’s recoil throws me backward as the light fixture above us explodes. Tobin grabs Daphne, pulling her out of harm’s way as shards rain from the ceiling. Simon covers his head and shrieks, “One!” just as Lexie drops the gun.
It clatters to the floor.
His hold on us is broken.
A large hunk of plaster from the ceiling hits Joe, and he sinks to the ground. Garrick runs for the door.
Simon scrambles for the gun, crawling over plastic shards to get to it. Dax goes after him, but Simon sends his elbow back, slamming it into Dax’s neck. Dax rolls over onto his side. “Stop breathing,” Simon says, glaring into Dax’s eyes.
Brimstone yowls from her perch on my shoulder, her claws sunk deep into my skin, but it’s enough to get me moving again. I push myself up from the floor in response to her protests, in time to watch Dax clutch desperately at his own breathless throat and Simon reach for the gun. I go after him. But I’m too late. His hand closes over the handle as I lunge at him. He thrusts the gun against my chest.
“No!” Daphne screams.
Simon shrieks with pain and yanks his hand back, dropping the gun—a small gray cat is attached to his wrist by her teeth. Brim, who had leapt from my shoulder when I went for Simon, has sunk her tiny fangs into his arm.
He shakes his arm violently and sends Brim flying. She hits the top of the table—hard—and rolls a couple of times across the surface, then lands on her four little feet next to Sarah’s finger paints. She hisses and spits, turning in a circle and baring her minuscule teeth in anger.
“Are you an idiot?!” I rasp. “You’ve made her angry.”
“I’m not afraid of your kitten,” Simon says, sucking the blood from the small puncture marks in his wrist.
Brim shakes and growls. The noise grows deep and fierce.
“She’s a full-grown hellcat, you harpy mouth. Do you have any idea what happens when you get a hellcat really mad?”
Simon’s eyes widen. He goes for the gun, but I kick it under one
of the couches. A crack echoes through the room as the table Brim stands on collapses under her weight. Lexie shrieks and cowers in the far corner of the room—with good reason. A giant paw, bigger than my own head, swipes at Simon’s back, sending him crashing into Sarah’s easel. A great, hulking, three-headed panther—almost as large as my car—glares down at me. She huffs huge breaths simultaneously from her three mouths, making my hair float up for a second before settling back down around my ears. A swift movement catches the corner of my eye.
“Watch out,” I shout to the beast as Simon takes a swing at her with a piece of wood from the broken easel. The wood cracks and splinters against the panther’s back.
The beast’s three heads roar in pain. Simon has only made her angrier. Turning her attention away from me, she pounces on him.
I try to rouse Dax, who lies in a faint in the middle of the floor as Simon’s screams fill the room. Daphne runs for Joe and tries to pull him up. She still clutches the Compass tightly in her hand. The beast has Simon by the throat now. She shakes him violently back and forth. His limbs flail in the air like he’s made of nothing but bloody rags. The panther releases him, and lets him try to crawl away before she pounces on him again, flips him over, and tears at his stomach.
Hellcats always play with their prey before killing it.
Simon’s screams turn to whimpers. The beast turns away from what remains of his body. His blood saturates the fur on her muzzles. Her giant paws are soaked in it. Anger and frenzy cloud her eyes and she bares her teeth at me while crouching, preparing to attack. Her tail twitches wildly behind her, taking out what remains of the table.
Tobin grabs Sarah, pulling her out of her stupor, and they run along the side of the wall, trying to get out of the way. But one of the beast’s heads catches the movement, and she swats hard in their direction. Her claws tear into Sarah’s side, flinging her across the room. She bounces off the window, as if she were only a pebble, and lands in a crumpled heap.
“No!” Daphne shouts.
“Blast that thing!” Tobin says, pointing at the beast.
“It’ll only make her angrier.” I push myself up to my knees. “The only way to stop a hellcat is to stab it through the top of its spine.” I pick up a broken metal table leg from the ground. “Tobin, get Lexie and Daphne out of here. I need to stop Brim.”
“No,” Daphne says. “I’m not leaving.”
“Go.” I rise slowly, cautiously. The beast’s eyes lock on the metal bar in my hand.
“I’ve calmed Brim before” Daphne says. “I can do it again.”
“This isn’t the same. She’s not herself. She’ll tear us apart and then the rest of the people in this hospital.” I can’t bear the thought of slaying Brim—my Brim, my family—but I will have to try, for all our sakes. She and I are bonded. She always finds me. The beast will pursue me if I run, ripping through anything or anyone who gets in the way. In a city this big, that could mean hundreds of casualties.
“Let me try.”
Brim growls, the sound echoing off the stark walls.
“Get out of here!” I shout at the others. I brandish the bar in front of me and send a pulse of electricity crackling around it.
Tobin and Lexie make a break for the door. The panther looks as though she is about to spring after them. Daphne waves her arms, grabbing the cat’s attention away from them.
“Brim,” Daphne says, in a gravelly voice that sounds like the growl coming from the beast. She holds her hands out in front of her and slowly approaches the three-headed panther.
“Don’t,” I caution.
One of the beast’s heads snaps at her.
Daphne is undaunted. “It’s me, Daphne. You like me, remember? Haden and I sang to you.”
Brim snorts through all three of her noses.
Tobin and Lexie try to escape through the doorway, but a sharp squawk from Lexie snatches my attention. I turn slightly away from Brim and Daphne to see the man from the motorcycle chase—or at least I assume it is the same man, as his face is still obscured by the helmet—standing in the doorway, blocking their escape. He has Garrick by the back of his collar. Lexie tries to push him out of her way, but he responds by shoving Garrick at her. The two stumble to the ground. Tobin takes a swing at the masked man’s stomach. The man blocks the blow and then slams his gloved fist across his jaw, sending him sprawling. Tobin shouts as he hits the back of one of the couches.
The noise distracts Daphne momentarily and her gaze breaks from Brim’s eyes. The beast sends a paw out and swipes Daphne’s feet right out from under her. She hits the ground, her elbow slamming against the linoleum first, and the Compass flies out of her grasp. It sails up into the air and then slides across the floor until it comes to a stop only a few feet from the doorway. My attention is torn in two directions as the panther crouches over Daphne, growling, and the man in the motorcycle helmet stoops down and grabs the Compass.
“No,” I shout, forcing a bolt of lightning through my chest and into my hand. I don’t know which direction to throw it. Brim roars. I run for Daphne, but throw the bolt over my shoulder to try to stop the man as he runs to the door. The lightning hits the doorjamb as the man jumps through it. I try to take aim with a second bolt, but I am too late. The man escapes.
I whirl back around toward Daphne and the beast, with the long bar in my grasp. Daphne lies on the ground; the beast is on top of her. The panther rears back her three heads.
Daphne opens her mouth. I expect her to scream, but instead she starts to sing. It’s a faint, strangled sound at first.
“Oh, star of mine …,” she sings. The panther stops midstrike and stares at her, two of her three heads cocked with curiosity. “High in the sky. Were I a bird, to thee I’d fly.”
I recognize the words. It’s the lullaby that my mother used to whisper to me. The one that made me want to be able to soar like owls from their roost.
Daphne sings another line of the song.
The beast seems mesmerized by her voice. I come up behind her, the electrified metal bar in hand, and take aim at the top of her spine. I want Brim’s death to be as quick as possible.
Unwavering, Daphne keeps singing.
The beast sighs, and I raise the electrified bar, ready to strike.
Daphne catches my attention by shaking her head. “Don’t!” her eyes say to me. “Sleep, my little starling.” She whispers the last line of the song.
Brim’s three mouths yawn and then her body convulses with a great shudder as it curls in on itself. Seconds later, she is a little ball of fur again, curled up and snoring on top of Daphne’s chest.
“I … I can’t believe that worked,” I say, taking in the odd scene. It would have been a pleasant picture, if not for all the blood. I’ve never felt gratitude so strongly before as I do in this moment. I know Daphne did this not only to save herself and Brim—she’d done it for me. So I wouldn’t have to lose the one thing I had left that had always loved me.
Daphne sits up, cradling tiny, sleeping Brim in her arms. “So that’s what happens when you get a hellcat mad.”
“I told you she wasn’t good company in tight quarters.”
“Well done, Daphne,” Dax groans, struggling to get up from the floor where he lies.
“Nice of you to finally join us again,” I say.
He gives me a pointed look that quickly softens as he pats his chest, as if trying to force more air into his lungs. He winces and closes his eyes, needing rest before trying to stand.
Daphne checks on Joe. “What happened?” he moans, starting to regain himself.
“Sarah,” she says, suddenly remembering the Oracle. She sets Brim on the ground and rushes toward the woman, who looks like nothing more than a crumpled pile of bloody bathrobe and matted hair. Daphne turns her over, brushing the hair from her face. A raspy, croaking noise slithers out from between Sarah’s lips. It sounds like she’s trying to say the word Compass.
“He got away,” Daphne says frantically. “
That man stole the Compass. What am I supposed to do?”
“You will get the Compass back. You will use it to seek the Key. Only you can open the lock that guards it. You are the Anoich …” Sarah winces and takes a panting, shallow breath as if she’s just run up several flights of stairs. “Anoichtiri. Your heart and soul will open the lock.…” Her next breath is faint, more of a wheezing. She trembles. “My time has come.… Daughter of the Music.” Her eyes roll back into her head and a faint smile crosses her lips. Her back arches against the hard floor. A glittering blue light emanates from her body and a gale-force wind whips around us. When it fades away, Sarah lies limp and lifeless on the linoleum.
The sky outside grows dark, as if a large cloud is blotting out the sun. In the dimness, I notice a different light. It’s a strange, pulsing glow that reflects off the walls and windows. The origin of it comes from somewhere near Simon’s body—or rather the amulet that lies on the ground beside him. It blinks with a green light, almost like a beacon.
“What is that?” Daphne asks, leaving Sarah. “Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know.” I am unsure if it belongs to Simon, or if the Motorcycle Man dropped it when he made his escape.
I kneel next to Simon’s body and reach for the amulet—but he grabs my wrist. He’s still alive—despite his body having been torn open, his intestines spilling out of his gut. “Elios,” he whispers, blood trickling from his mouth. Tears of pain stream from his eyes. “Elios, please.”
“What is he saying?” Daphne asks.
“He’s begging for mercy.” But I don’t know why. There’s nothing I can do to save him now.
“We can’t leave him like this,” Daphne says, baffling me once again with her concern for those who’ve wronged her.
“You’re right,” I say, placing my hand over Simon’s chest. She turns away as if she knows what I am about to do. I send a shock of lightning into his rib cage until his grasp on my wrist falls away.
After a moment, Daphne turns back to me. “Are you okay?” she asks, extending her hand toward me to help me stand.