Whoever it was stopped at the door, and then pushed it open to step inside. The moonlight cascaded around the familiar form, shining off the silky material of his dress shirt.
“Brodie?” She frowned as he entered the building, stopping so that he was only five or so feet from her.
“She’s awake,” he called over his shoulder, an evil glint entering his eyes.
“About fricken time,” came the reply, a second before a petite blonde girl stepped in to join them. “We don’t have all night you know?”
“Sarah?” She glanced between her classmates. What the hell was going on here?
Sarah was dressed for the dance in a flowing ruby dress with matching heels. Her hair had been swept off to one side and pinned in place, thick curls of blonde hair hanging over her thin left shoulder.
“Guess again,” Sarah said, bending down so that Spencer could get a good look at her eyes. Black eyes. No irises. No whites.
Yup. Definitely not Sarah. Which meant… A closer inspection of Brodie showed that he was also sporting the all black look, and it wasn’t just his outfit.
“Spirits,” she grated, thinking herself the stupidest person on the planet for not figuring it out sooner. “You possessed them.”
“Aw, good,” the bitch-currently-not-Sarah pulled back and gave a mocking clap, “we can skip over the explaining portion of our evening. Perhaps we should merely introduce ourselves. This is Pirithous,” she rested a hand on Brodie—or Pirithous’—chest.
Spencer recognized the name, and it must have shown on her face because her two captors laughed.
“My reputation precedes me, I see,” he said in a deep voice, one suddenly so unlike Brodie’s that it made it easier to believe he’d been possessed. Again.
“You were trapped in the Underworld,” she responded. Obviously, seeing as how he was currently one of the released spirits. Still, she didn’t see the connection between them and her. Shouldn’t they be happy that she’d released them? Wasn’t that their goal? To get out?
“Bright, isn’t she?” The spirit possessing Sarah rolled her eyes. “Honestly, what does he see in you?”
“Who?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Why, Hadrian, of course,” came the response. “But, then again, it’s not like he has a choice but to keep you around, isn’t that right?” She leaned in a little closer, her expression turning cruel. “Gotta make sure you don’t snap.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spencer grated, already growing tired of all this.
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” She pulled back in disgust. “He wouldn’t have told you. Why bother? It’s not like anyone expected you to stick around for very long. Most of us rarely do. Once they find out about you, it’s basically over.”
“What’s over?” She struggled against the ropes, even knowing it was useless. “What are you talking about, and why are you doing this? Where’s Thayer? If he’s going to kill me, he might as well god-up and do it himself.”
She lifted a thin blonde brow, the bitchy look coming off strange on Sarah’s otherwise always friendly face. “Seems like you really went and shoved your whole arm into my cookie jar.”
“What—”
“Thayer isn’t here,” she cut her off coldly.
Ok, fresh confusion. If Thayer wasn’t the one behind all of this, then who was? Why was she currently tied up in an abandoned building? It wasn’t like she had anything that escaped spirits could want. Unless the goal was to somehow get to Hadrian; to hurt him.
“I can see the wheels turning, mortal,” the bitch continued.
“If you’re not doing this for Thayer, then why?” Spencer asked. “He’s the one who wants me dead. He’s the one who’s been after me this whole time.”
“Told you he was getting all my credit,” Pirithous said.
“Which is what we wanted, love,” the bitch responded through clenched teeth. “Remember?”
Cold terror filled her chest, making it even harder to breathe past the aching in her head. The room was still a little wavy, and she wondered briefly what they’d drugged her with.
“You’re the one who possessed Brodie before, too,” Spence accused, glaring at Pirithous.
“Guilty.” A grin split across his face, too wide to be considered normal.
“And Syd? Did you push her into the pool?”
“Uh, no. As much as I’d love to take the credit for that one, that really was Thayer. It was easy to fool you all, considering he was using escaped spirits to do his dirty work as well. It was just a matter of timing the attacks perfectly, so it would appear as though he was the culprit.”
Alright, the God of Death had drowned her friend, but hadn’t possessed her other one turning him into a psycho freak. That was something, at least. Obviously the spirit driving the car that almost hit both her and her dad was one working for Thayer. And the one that attacked Sarah…
“You’ve been in her this whole time, haven’t you?” she asked the spirit in Sarah’s body.
“Hmm,” she shrugged a slim shoulder. “Maybe there’s hope for your intelligence after all.”
“But,” she frowned, “you almost got her killed. She ran out into the middle of the street.”
“Yes, an unfortunate mishap. I wasn’t expecting to actually get across the river, so I was shocked when I found my soul being sucked into a living body. It took some adjusting, especially considering the host was high on drugs at the time, what’s it called? Acid? I’ve never experienced it myself; we had other sorts of delights where I came from.”
Positive she didn’t want to know the answer, Spencer steeled herself and asked, “And just where is it that you come from exactly?”
“That’s right,” she brightened wickedly. “I still haven’t introduced myself. My name is Persephone. I’m a Walker, just like you.”
She was almost positive that this night could not get any more screwed up. For a few minutes she just stared at the other girl, sure she was making stuff up to be funny. But as time ticked away, it became more and more clear that it wasn’t a joke at all. The spirit possessing Sarah really was Persephone.
Persephone, the girl that Hadrian had told her didn’t exist. The girl in the myths who was forced down to the Underworld to be his bride. Also the one who a very egotistical Pirithous had entered Hades for, with the intent to kidnap.
Had everything that Hadrian said to her been a lie? From the get-go, he’d insisted that he was single and that this woman, the one currently standing right in front of her, wasn’t real.
“You don’t look like a fictitious character to me,” she whispered. A strange emotion was bubbling up in her chest: betrayal. She’d never felt anything quite like it before, and certainly not as powerful. Micah had never done anything that warranted losing her trust.
It really had all been a game, and now he’d sent his crazy bitch of a wife to kill her.
Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, and her pride struggled to contain them. She would not give these two the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She would not let them go back to Hadrian and talk about how she’d sobbed like a child.
He wouldn’t do this to you, part of her pressed, in a last ditch attempt to convince herself she was wrong about him. She needed time to think, to figure things out. Unfortunately, time was something she most certainly did not have.
“He said I wasn’t real?” She didn’t seem too pleased about this. “That bastard. Well, I’ll show him. I’ll get my revenge and make him pay, starting with you.”
Wait…
“Hadrian isn’t in on this with you?” she asked, barely able to keep the hope from entering her voice.
“If Hadrian was on my side,” she spat, “then I wouldn’t have any need of you, now would I? You think I like wasting my time here in some half-fallen-down building, stuck in some other girl’s body?”
“I still don’t know what you want with me.” She a
ssumed those other questions had all been rhetorical, and so didn’t touch them. The last thing she needed was to piss the clearly already unstable spirit off.
“I need you to open the gates,” Persephone said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and that Spence was the stupidest, lowliest creature on the face of it for not getting that on her own. “My spirit was able to pass through the miniscule gap you and that boy created, but not my body. And I need my body. I’m certainly not going around like this for an eternity.” She motioned down at Sarah’s form.
It was official. She was bat-shit crazy.
“I can’t open the gates,” Spencer insisted. “Micah was the one slipping through them, not me.”
“He was only able to do that because you wanted him too,” Pirithous explained. “He’ll resurface now if you will it. Summon him. Bring him here so that the gateway splits open long enough and wide enough for her body to be brought through. Then we’ll let you go.”
“Maybe,” Persephone added with a sly smirk.
If Persephone was the same one from all the myths, then that made her a goddess. She wouldn’t need to be dead to go down to the Underworld. Maybe Hadrian had somehow found a way to trap her down there?
What if the myth was true, and he’d kidnapped her and forced her to marry him, then got sick of having to let her go for six months out of every year? If she was being held against her will…
But Spencer hadn’t seen her any of the times she’d visited, and his home certainly didn’t seem like a woman had lived there. As much as she wanted to hate him for lying to her, she knew deep down that Hadrian would never do something like. Hell, he would never need to force a woman to be with him.
Which could only mean that if her body was trapped down there, it was for a reason that involved something terrible. She was being punished. For what?
“I can’t open the gateway,” Spencer said again. “You’ve got the wrong girl.”
“We can make you do it,” Persephone sneered. “Asking was just an attempt at being polite. You have no choice here, mortal. You will open the gates and release my body, or I will hunt down every single person you’ve ever spoken to and kill them. Starting,” she produced a curved blade from the skirts of her dress, holding it up in the light, “with this one.”
“No!” Spencer screamed and struggled to stop her as Persephone ran the edge of the blade across Sarah’s left wrist.
Instantly blood rushed up, running like a faucet onto the hard wood floor. It pooled within seconds, creating a large puddle at their feet. The wound stretched all the way across her wrist, and had been cut so deep that it gaped open an inch down.
“I can feel her soul slipping away,” Persephone said in a euphoric tone. Her eyes actually rolled to the back of her head, as she swayed slightly in the red stiletto shoes. “Like a plastic bag blowing on the wind, helpless. Oh. There she goes.”
Her eyes opened up on Spencer once more. “All gone.” She lifted the knife to Brodie’s chest. “Should we do another?”
“No! Don’t!” Spencer desperately tried to think of a way out of this, but her mind was blank. There had to be something she could do. Some way to distract them long enough for…For what? It wasn’t like anyone was going to find her all the way out here.
“Perhaps a change in tactics,” Pirithous suggested gently, almost lovingly, taking the blade from Persephone’s hand and stepped around Spencer.
She shook when he disappeared behind her out of sight, and flinched when his arm came around so that he held the knife directly in front of her face. She watched in horror as it was slowly lowered, until the sharp tip of it hovered just over the pale flesh of her bared thigh.
“Open the gates,” he hissed into her ear.
“I—I can’t.” Internally she screamed as the first line was drawn into her skin. She refused to fall apart in front of them. The next cut was deeper, red welling up to meet the silver of the blade. She felt drops of it slide down the side of her leg to mingle with Sarah’s blood currently soaking into the wood of the floorboards.
She needed to do something, couldn’t just sit here and let them turn her into mincemeat. But what? She couldn’t do what they were asking, that was for sure, and not only because she simply wasn’t capable of doing it.
If Persephone wanted out, it wasn’t for anything good. Already she’d proven that she was a malicious spirit—or goddess, or whatever—and Hadrian had to have a good reason for not telling her about the bitch. He had to.
Another slice carved across her collarbone, and she glanced down to see the white chiffon of the top of her dress instantly soak up the blood.
“I really liked that dress,” she forced past her clenched teeth. The cut burned like a hot iron was being pressed against it, and her flesh was sizzling under the heat. She wanted to cry out, to beg them to stop, but couldn’t make herself do it. She’d never been a pushover before.
She’d been a great friend before the accident on the bridge. Before Micah’s death. She would have done everything and anything for someone in need, even if she hadn’t known them. She’d let herself slip so far away these past months that it was hard to rediscover herself, but she clung to that single notion now.
She didn’t need to be an exact replica of the person she was, but she needed to draw from those aspects she’d held in high esteem. Which meant she wouldn’t cower before them, no matter what they did.
Pirithous’ fist connecting with her face had her head snapping to the side, and her thoughts scattering like a thousand tiny shards of glass. He caught the chair before it could completely topple, righting it with a deafening clack of the legs against the floor.
She immediately felt her cheek begin to swell.
“Go ahead,” she hissed when he brought the knife to her throat. She tilted her head back and met his gaze, anger brimming in her green eyes. “I’ve already died once.”
He pressed the tip into her, a single bead of blood rolling down.
“Wait,” Persephone held up a hand, stopping him. “Her reaction was greater when we murdered the girl. We will return to the original method of inflicting pain. Kill the boy.”
Pirithous straightened with a frown. “If I do that then I will no longer have a form here.”
“So you’ll take a new one,” she said back in annoyance. “Do you not think I can handle the girl alone? There’s an entire gym full of warm bodies. Take your pick and return.”
“The deal was I would get my body back,” he pressed. “You swore an oath.”
“Yes, yes,” she waved him off. “Just do it already.”
Everything seemed to slow down, and she watched as Pirithous stepped to the side, into her line of vision. He lifted the knife to his throat, and it was like someone had hit the slowmo button on the TV. He was going to kill Brodie.
She might not be able to see the marks of Death, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that Brodie didn’t have one. Neither had Sarah. These two had come into their lives and yanked away everything just because they could.
A well of dormant electricity began to ricochet up her spine, darting just beneath the surface of her skin. She felt it accumulate within her, pooling at the center of her chest around her heart. It thrummed inside her, blocking out all thought, all reason.
Just as the blade was about to slice across Brodie’s neck, she pushed forward in her chair. While the restraints held her back, the energy was set loose and she watched in shock as a cloud of neon green electricity shot towards Pirithous.
He was thrown clean across the room, slamming into the wall. Brodie’s body dropped down in a heap, but a black mass remained upright for a split second, before letting out a blood curdling scream and being sucked down into the floor. Pirithous’ arms clawed at the floorboards in an attempt to stop his descent, but within moments he was swallowed, and there was no sign left of him.
“Oh my god.” Spencer had wanted him gone, wanted him back in the Underworld and away from Brodie and
now… Had she done that? How had she done that?
“Well,” Persephone turned back to her with her hands on her hips. “I suppose he’d worn out his usefulness.”
Her mouth hung open and she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Brodie’s body. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. He’d hit the wall pretty hard… Had she inadvertently killed him?
“Don’t look so down, love.” Persephone bent and picked up the discarded knife. “It gets easier with time.”
“Wha—what does?” She struggled to calm her racing heart enough that she could focus.
“Sending spirits back to the Underworld,” she answered nonchalantly. “Banishing them is easy. It’s the pulling them out part that generally takes more practice. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that, seeing as how you seem to be the one exception. For me it was different, harder. I never successfully drew my loved one out.” She grew sullen for a moment, then the twisted humor was back.
“Anyway,” she went on, playing with the knife in her hands, “now that you’ve proven your worth, I’m gonna need you to open the gateway. And don’t—” she lifted a finger to Spencer’s lips when she went to argue, “say you can’t do it. You can, and you will. Or so help me, I’ll have my minions rip Micah’s soul apart below.”
She stiffened. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” Persephone pulled back. “Do I look like the type to bluff, mortal? I’ve waited centuries for this moment, planned for it. Do you really think I don’t have ways of entering the Asphodel Meadows? Of taking out whoever I wish? And you’ve just sent Pirithous back. I doubt he’s pleased. Might be taking it out on your boyfriend even as we speak.”
“You’re lying.” Micah was safe. He had to be safe.
“Need proof?” She lifted a hand, snapping her fingers with a coy expression.
The room appeared to go up in flames, green fire licking at every wall, reaching up through the floorboards. Spencer would have been terrified, would have feared she was about to burn alive, if it weren’t for the fact Persephone stood unmoving right in the center of it all.
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