Then came the screams. Horrible, pain-stricken wails the likes of which she’d never heard before. It sounded like someone was getting their arm cut off, or their insides ripped out. She flinched against them, horror overcoming her. When another cry came and she recognized who the voice belonged to, she almost threw up.
Her stomach heaved and bile rose up in the back of her throat, tears pooling in her eyes, overflowing. She tore the delicate flesh of her wrists and ankles trying to force her way out of the rope bonds.
Micah.
“Need more convincing?!” Persephone called over the din, her cackle coming soon after. “You can stop it, Spencer! Call him up! Summon him! Save him! They’ll tear him apart if you don’t! Over, and over, and over—”
“No!” Spencer vociferated. The same buzzing energy shot through her once more, only this time it shot her back, chair and all. The impact with the wall snapped her head forward and split the chair into pieces. One of the wood shards pierced through her shoulder blade, and another her right side, but she barely felt it.
Her eyes were locked onto the spot she’d just been sitting, where now the flames grew so high they flicked against the ceiling.
The fire circle widened, splitting open the ground in the process. Swirls of black began to twist out of the hole, like pieces of an inky tornado spinning out of control. They separated, five individual masses taking shape around the gap, just as it began to sink in on itself.
The second the hole was completely closed, the flames vanished, gone like they’d never been. There wasn’t even a single burn mark to be seen. The only things that remained were the spirits who were now visible in human forms.
There were four men and a woman. One of the men held the female up in his arms.
She was wearing a long purple robe that looked like it had been created back in ancient Greece. A gold band wrapped around her forehead, accentuating the lightness of her straight blonde hair. She was unconscious.
That wasn’t what held Spencer’s attention however. Micah was one of the men, and he was being held on either side. There wasn’t any blood on him, but she could see how pale he was, how weak. He leaned on the men for support, barely able to keep his eyes open.
“You did it,” Persephone whispered in awe. She stepped towards the unconscious woman, lifting a hand to delicately graze her cheek.
The girl being held in the man’s arms wasn’t a spirit at all. It was a body. They’d yanked out Persephone’s body.
Spencer tried to get up, tried to move, anything, but her body refused to comply. Her arm hung limply at her side, and she realized with a sick twist of irony that she’d lost too much blood. She really was going to die again.
“Micah,” her voice came out raspy, like sandpaper had been rubbed against her vocal chords.
Obviously he heard her, because he lifted his head with effort. When his hazel eyes landed on hers, he let out a small strangled sound and tried to go to her. The men held him tightly in place, and all he could do was barely flail in their arms.
“I can’t hold this form for much longer,” the spirit with her body told Persephone.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You are not as strong as the boy.”
He made a face at that, but dutifully kept his mouth shut.
She rested her palms against the chest of her body, closing her eyes. A small smile tugged at her lips as she tilted her head back.
Spencer knew she had to do something to stop this, but she still couldn’t move, and the world was beginning to grow hazy, black smoke outlining the edges of her vision. This couldn’t be how it ended. She was stronger than this. She had to be stronger than this…
Helplessly she watched as a yellow glow began to build up around Sarah’s body. Persephone was about to transfer her soul over. She was going to do it, and there was nothing Spencer could do.
Chapter 31:
Spencer managed a gasp when Persephone was tossed away like a rag doll and the spirit holding her body lost control and became transparent.
Both Sarah’s and her actual body dropped to the ground with thuds, and she let out an ear-piercing howl of fury at having been interrupted no doubt seconds before she was about to reenter her form.
Spencer’s confusion dissipated some when Hadrian appeared right before the closed door. A small sound of relief slipped past her lips, causing her chest to heave some in the process, but she didn’t care. He was here. Everything was going to be ok.
“Destroy him!” Persephone pointed at the two souls still holding Micah.
Obediently they began to pull him in two different directions, renting a scream from his lips.
“No!” Tiny bolts of green visibly zigzagged underneath her skin, and she somehow found it in her to lift her right hand a few centimeters off the floor. She aimed it at them, not really knowing what she intended to do, and shoved at the energy inside her with all her might.
The two souls glanced her way, eyes widening, a second before they burst apart; becoming nothing more than clouds of quickly dissipating charcoal dust.
Micah’s spirit deposited itself to the ground. He didn’t move.
“No, no, no.” Desperately she tried to get her body to cooperate, to move. She couldn’t lose him again. She just couldn’t. Especially if he was just a soul. If he died like this, he’d cease to exist for real. He’d be nothing.
“Spencer!” Hadrian started for her, fear in his blue eyes alerting her to what she’d already been able to figure out on her own.
Yup, she was most definitely dying.
Persephone screamed, thrusting out an arm. She had him pinned to the wall by Micah’s unconscious form, tiny hand wrapped around his neck and holding him at least a foot off the ground.
“You go to her?!” she spat, full of indignation. “After everything you’ve put me through, you go to her?! That pathetic little bitch?! How dare you!” She shot her other arm forward, shedding one of Sarah’s arms in the process.
Sarah’s right arm dangled like a discarded marionette, but the pale outline of another stuck straight through Hadrian’s chest. Persephone’s spirit was literally inside of him.
He gritted his teeth, reaching up to attempt tugging her arm out. Sweat beaded across his forehead. “The only bitch here,” he grated, “is you.”
She snarled, pushing even deeper, up to her elbow. Bringing her face close to his, she twisted Sarah’s mouth into a harsh distorted version of itself. “You chose me,” she reminded him. “You picked me. I will not be denied. Not any longer.”
“Shoulda had me swear on the river Styx,” he somehow managed past the obvious pain. “I locked you up for a reason, Persephone. You’re too far gone for this world.”
She tossed him to the other side of the room with ease, stalking after him and taking him up again once more.
Spencer sobbed, hating herself for being so weak. Hating herself for getting them all into this mess. Her eyes searched out Persephone who was still in Sarah’s body, the slit wrist visible. Then Brodie who was quite possibly dead as well over in the far right corner. Micah...
This was all her fault. None of this should have happened.
“I should never have come back,” she whispered aloud, feeling the truth of it right down to her very soul.
She should have just stayed dead.
She blinked as everything came to a standstill. Persephone’s mouth hung open, stuck on a word even though no sound came out, and Hadrian’s fist was halfway to her side. But neither of them were moving. They were frozen.
What the…
“Do you mean it, Spencer Perry?”
The voice, so like Hadrian’s, had her eyes snapping in its direction. She sucked in a breath when she spotted Thayer kneeling by her side, watching her with intense interest, like she was a bug or a specimen.
She tried to move away, and seeing her struggle, he lifted a hand gently to her shoulder.
“Be calm, little Walker. I’m not here to hurt you,” he said softly, in a ki
nd tone she’d never heard him use before. Honestly, that she didn’t think he was capable of using.
“Am I—” she tried to wet her dry throat, then gave up, “Am I dead?”
He shook his head, strands of dark hair falling over his forehead. He followed her gaze when she glanced back over to Hadrian. “He’ll be alright,” he informed her. “She cannot kill him. He is a god.”
“What did you do?” She had to force the words out of her mouth, it becoming more and more difficult to speak. An intense pain in her side where the six inch piece of wood protruded reminded her she didn’t have much longer to get answers.
“Death does not abide by time,” he told her. “It is held back by no one, thwarted by no one. I heard you, Spencer Perry. Did you mean it?”
“Did I mean what?” She could barely recall what she’d said four seconds ago at this point, the blood loss too great.
He blinked his green eyes almost lazily, like he had all the time in the world to just hang around chatting. She guessed that he did, all things considered.
“That you wish you’d stayed dead?” he said, searching her face. “That you wish your true end had come that night on the bridge?”
Finally she thought she saw what he was getting at, and she used most of the strength she had left to frantically nod her head.
“Yes,” she rushed out. “Yes. Take me back. Let me die there, for real. For good.”
He cocked his head, something glimmering behind his gem like eyes. “You want me to turn back time?”
“You just said you could do it,” she pressed. “Please, don’t let this happen to them,” she motioned to everyone in the room with her chin. “Let me die there, and spare them all of this pain.”
She could give her life for theirs. She’d do it willingly. Whether she ended up in the Asphodel Meadows with Micah or not didn’t matter right now. She couldn’t let all of this happen; couldn’t ruin all of these lives, just so she could be with her boyfriend. Before she might have been able to turn the other way, to pretend this wasn’t her fault so that she and Micah could be together forever. But now…
She wasn’t the same girl she’d been then. It was time she accepted that.
Finally.
“Please,” she repeated when all Thayer continued staring down at her.
He seemed to think it over some more, and then the corner of his lips turned up ever so slightly, reminding her a lot of his brother. “No.”
She sucked in a breath. “What?”
“My answer is no, Spencer Perry. I will not turn back the clock.”
“Why?” the word came out in another sob. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? My death. Take it then, on the bridge. It’s not their time to go. It wasn’t Sarah’s time to go.”
“Sometimes Death comes before its time,” he told her. “She is too far gone to bring back now. She would not come back the same. Too much time has passed.”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed, growing frustrated with all of the underlying meanings that she never seemed able to decipher. “If you go back and keep me dead on that night then this would never have happened. She wouldn’t have died in the first place.”
“My decision is final, Walker.”
“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” Her head lolled a little on the ground as most of the lingering fight left her. He was just here to torment her, wasn’t he? To sit with her through her final moments as a constant reminder of how powerless she truly was.
“You did not think you banished Pirithous miraculously, did you?” Her look must have belied that’s exactly what she’d thought because he chuckled. “Poor Spencer Perry. Doesn’t even know who she is.”
Yeah, tell her something she didn’t know.
“And you do?” she asked. “You know who I am?”
He shrugged. “Maybe not who you are, but I know what you are.”
Her brows furrowed. “Tell me.”
“You’re a Gravewalker.”
That sounded…ridiculous. She watched him for any signs that he was messing with her, screwing with the dying girl, but found none. He really meant it. He really thought she was this…Gravewalker thing.
Then again, how else did she explain the green electricity? How had she been able to banish Pirithous? And she’d torn those souls holding Micah apart. Destroyed them just as she’d seen Hadrian do to the one on the beach. She’d simply pictured what it had looked like in her mind and then…
“What’s a Gravewalker?” she asked. The room clouded over again, and her eyelids drooped shut once, before she forced them open again.
“Perhaps we should wait for Hadrian to explain things,” Thayer said, his voice fading in and out as if they were underwater. “We’re running out of time.”
“I want to know now,” she insisted. She only had a few more minutes at best to live, and she wasn’t going to die a second time without first understanding what the hell was really going on here.
“I’ll give you what you really want,” he leaned closer and whispered. “If you agree to a deal.”
He’d changed his mind. He was going to bring her back in time and kill her permanently after all.
Hope bloomed in her chest, and she nodded—at least, she tried to.
He must have seen it because he continued. “You agree to bind your soul to me and my brother.”
“Which one?”
His lips quirked. “Hadrian, of course. You bind yourself to us so that I may watch over you, so that I may ensure you do not step out of line. You’ve proven yourself to be nothing like her,” he nodded his head towards Persephone, “but only time will tell if that will remain the case once you know who you are. But know this, if you do show even one sign that you’re following in her footsteps, make one wrong move, I will trap your soul in Tartarus for all eternity.”
She shivered, unsure if it was from the loss of blood or his clear threat.
“So,” he asked,” do we have a deal, Spencer Perry?
If her soul was bound to them, did that mean that she wouldn’t be allowed in the Asphodel Meadows? Did that mean she wouldn’t be with Micah? She’d known that was already a distinct possibility. She couldn’t be selfish now.
She nodded before she could stop herself.
“I need you to say the words, Spencer,” he said softly.
“Yes, we have a deal,” and then for reasons unknown to her, she continued, “I bind my soul to you and Hadrian. I swear it on the river Styx.”
Thayer smiled down at her, but not the cruel grin she’d grown accustomed to. This was gentle, easy. Friendly even.
She braced herself for what was to come, for the familiar rushing of the frozen water speeding past her head, whipping her body to and fro.
“So shall it be,” he proclaimed, then reached for her.
She screamed as he ripped the shards away, turned onto her back and blinked up at the ceiling past her tears. All at once her strength began to return, her vision cleared and the ache in her head began to dissipate. When she was positive she could move again, she looked down. There was still a tear in her dress where the cut had been, but her skin had closed up.
He’d gotten back to his feet, and stood over her staring down.
“I…” she licked her lips. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m giving you what you really want,” he said simply, and she watched as he walked away, moving over to Micah’s side just as the world around them began to come alive again.
Hadrian’s growl forced her attention towards him, and Spencer shot upright when his fist connected with Persephone’s side, sending her sprawling. He glanced her way, seemed momentarily shocked to see she was alright. He spun just in time to see Persephone coming at him.
He twisted, the force driving her head first into the wall. Blood spurted from her nose.
“Wait!” Spencer cried. “Don’t hurt her!”
“Your friend is already dead,” he reminded her, slamming Sarah’s head back once mo
re.
Persephone laughed. “Such a liar,” she tisked. “You can bring her back, Spencer. She doesn’t have to stay dead. All you have to do is will her here. Summon her spirit.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Hadrian said.
“No, listen to the man who didn’t even have the decency to tell you the truth of what you are,” Persephone added. “Who told you I wasn’t real. I’m very much real, don’t you think, Spencer?”
“Spence—”
“Enough.” Persephone glared at him, but directed her comments towards Spencer. “He’s a liar. Haven’t you wondered why he agreed to make a deal with you in the first place? The God of the Underworld must have better things to do than grant the request of a silly little girl, no?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Hadrian repeated.
“He just wanted to know how you were pulling it off. You didn’t even realize what you were doing, summoning a soul out of the Underworld every day. Something like that takes great concentration, and power. Two things of which you weren’t using. He was curious about you. That’s all it was.”
“No,” he shook his head, blue eyes pleading with her. “You know that’s not true.”
“You said you were curious.” Spencer didn’t know why she was listening to anything Persephone was saying, but at the same time, she was making valid points. She’d always wanted to know why he’d agreed to help, when the myths said he’d turned away countless others before her.
“About Micah’s love for you,” he admitted. “What you are, what you became after your death, might make you capable of bringing souls out of the Underworld, but only if you really use your abilities. Abilities you didn’t even know you had. It was a joint effort between you two. Micah’s love was so strong, that he was reaching up just as you were reaching down. His love for you was strong enough to break through the gate and cross the river unharmed. With purpose.
“Remember I told you that souls who make it to the river end up at random places? They can’t choose a destination, but you acted like a beacon, leading him through the darkness. That’s why he was able to appear whenever you were around, and it’s why he couldn’t remember where he was every other time. Crossing the river jumbled his mind; he wouldn’t know where he was, or where he was going. Until you guided him to you. You acted as his tether, holding him to this world.”
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