Myths of Immortality (The Sphinx Book 3)

by Wagner, Raye

  Athan’s heart thrummed a racing tempo of fear. The ferryman of Death had unnaturally pale skin, similar to that of the Skia. His irises and pupils were as dark as pitch. His prominent cheekbones jutted out, making him appear malnourished and gaunt. But most disturbing were his lips. Stained the color of fresh blood. And then his tongue wiped—no, licked the blood off, as if his dessert had been interrupted and he’d taken a hurried last bite that had smeared across his lips.

  “You are in my domain right now. Don’t tempt—”

  “We’re here for Hope.”

  Charon sneered. “There is no hope in the Underworld.”

  “No,” Xan corrected, coming forward. He tapped Charon’s bony hand with the tip of his immortal dagger. “We’re here to get Hope, the Sphinx, out of the Underworld. She’s not dead, so she doesn’t belong here.”

  Charon’s sneer became a smirk. “Yes, she was here, this monster of whom you speak.” He pulled his hood off to reveal a pasty, bald head, eyes sunken deep in their sockets, and skin pulled tightly over his bony skull. “Is she why you’ve come?”

  Athan shot Xan a look, trying to tell him to shut up.

  Xan didn’t even look his way. “Yes, Lord. We would petition for your aide.”

  Athan wanted to hit him. You didn’t petition gods for aide. Gods were selfish. It was always a bargain when dealing with them.

  “I see.” Charon looked back and forth between the two demigods. And then his eyes lighted on something behind them.

  Athan turned to see Dahlia staring at the divine ferryman. Her eyes were dilated, and her lips parted as her breath came out in shallow gasps.

  “She has been marked by Thanatos’s guard. You will have a difficult time getting her out of the Underworld.”

  Xan sucked in a low breath. “Nothing that happened would require her death.” His voice was low, as if to spare his cousin the words.

  “True, but Death has called her for some time.”

  What was he saying? Dahlia?

  “What of the Sphinx?” That was why they were here. Everything, everyone else, would have to wait. Even the rest of Athan’s team.

  “Yes. Your riddle.” Charon licked his lips and turned his dead eyes back to Athan. “She crossed here. Thanatos was her guide. I do not think things will end well for her.”

  Thanatos, the god of death. Athan had seen him rip the soul from Hope’s mother. Why would Thanatos help Hope? And why would Hope allow Thanatos to help her after he killed her mother?

  “We would like to stop him.” Athan remembered the animosity between the two gods of the Underworld.

  “Aye,” Xan agreed. “Will you help us?”

  Charon frowned as if mulling over the proposition. “You have a soul?” He pointed to the dead man in the hospital gown. “Did you bring him through the portal?”

  Athan nodded. There was no need to tell him about the Skia they’d fought.

  “Then you may pay me for passage. I will take you across the river Acheron.” Charon turned and glided back to his ferry.

  Athan grabbed the dead man, and Xan went to get Dahlia.

  The boat rocked as they climbed aboard. What had appeared as a small skiff, large enough for one, elongated and easily accommodated the five of them.

  Xan sat on the only bench, just below Charon’s feet, jaw clenched. The dead soul stood at the bow, staring over the edge, his milky eye frozen on the deadly water. Dahlia stood behind him.

  Athan braced for the movement as Charon pushed back, the bottom of the boat scraping along the rocks until the river sucked it away. A painful moan bubbled through the water, and a claw-like appendage broke the surface and scrabbled at the edge of the boat.

  With a crack, Charon smacked the already mangled fingers, and they released their tenuous grip before sinking back into the darkness.

  “Don’t fall in,” Dahlia told the soul and pulled him back from the edge. She held his wrist loosely, as if abhorring the touch but knowing the necessity of it.

  Charon hissed something unintelligible from under his hood.

  Foreboding clawed its way up Athan’s chest into his throat, making it difficult to catch his breath. Something about Dahlia being cut by a Skia blade. And now she was able to see and touch the dead? That wasn’t right. Xan would never forgive Athan if something were to happen to Dahlia.

  The fog rose from the river and swirled around them in small eddies. Charon pushed his pole through the dark water of despair, and the scraping continued. A faint scratching that made Athan’s skin crawl. How had he not heard the scraping before?

  Charon delivered another thwack to an interloper, and bile burned the back of Athan’s throat as he watched a mangled head sink below the surface.

  “Someone say something. That grating is going to drive me insane,” Dahlia said.

  “Those monsters are the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.”

  Dahlia snorted. “That’s not really helpful.”

  Athan looked between the two of them. “I’ve never heard it before, not until this trip.” He glanced back to Charon. “Why is that? And what are those things?”

  “The dead,” Charon said.

  Athan gritted his teeth against the snappy reply. The god said nothing more, and Athan wanted to rip the hood from his head and yell at him. Why was he being so obtuse?

  “But why are they in the river?” Xan asked.

  The boat rocked. Athan shuffled to try to regain his footing. Dahlia screamed, but the sound was cut short by a large splash.

  “Shite!” Xan scrambled past Athan to the edge of the boat.

  Dahlia thrashed in the water as hands, arms, and bodies clamored over each other, clawing at her. She screamed, but the sound was cut short once again as the pale-fleshed monsters pulled her under.

  “Excuse me?” Hope asked one of the men behind a stall. She’d picked him because his tables were filled with bright toys. As she drew closer, what at first appeared to be dolls, seemed to morph as she studied the small figures. The heads were the same rock as the rest of the Underworld, but the faces painted on the black stone were grotesque caricatures of pain. The bodies were stuffed, and deep red stained the fabric in the spots of vital organs.

  “Yes, girlie? You want to buy a haunt for someone you left behind?” He continued to sell her. “These have been sanctified by the goddess Hecate. Sure to bring chaos to whomever betrayed you.”

  She shook her head. “I’m looking for someone. How do you find someone here?”

  The merchant narrowed his gaze. “Who you be looking for?”

  “It’s time to go, Hope.” Asbolus grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the stall.

  The merchant’s gaze went from curious to cunning. “A centaur is watching her. She is still aliv—”

  “Stop now, or I’ll have Thanatos put you in Tartarus.”

  The man chuckled. “I fear Hades more than the god of death. See here, is this the—?”

  “Halt!”

  Hope turned and her heart skipped a beat. Three men, pale skinned with eyes dark as the rock beneath them, advanced toward her. Skia. Perhaps Thanatos sent them for her.

  “Hades would have a word with you,” the one in front called.

  Oh gods. She reached for her blades, but of course she didn’t have them. Her heart pounded against her ribs, demanding that she run. Hope backed away, inching toward a side street leading out of the square.

  “We will not hurt you, monster.”

  Right. She didn’t believe them at all.

  “Stop right there, Marcus,” a familiar voice hissed.

  Hope glanced to her right, and she froze in panic.

  Darren.

  Darren was there. The Skia that had attacked her in Goldendale was flanked by a half dozen other men all with the same pasty skin and black eyes.

  Time slowed.

  “We found her first, Darren. You can go back and let Hades know. We’ll bring her in.”

  Darren laughed. “Who said anything about b
ringing her in?”

  The first one, Marcus, scrunched up his face just before a black blade buried itself between his eyes. The creature fell backward, sending the other two behind him scrambling for blades. But they were outnumbered and clearly caught by surprise. In seconds there were three bodies on the ground.

  By the time the third body fell, the merchant had disappeared. There was screaming in the background, peripheral noise, indicating Hope’s fear was well grounded.

  “Little monster, you’ve come to my world.” The telltale leer widened into a sickening, distorted grin.

  “What do you want?”

  Darren pulled a blade from the other Skia’s body and held his arms wide as black blood dripped to the dark ground. “Retribution.”

  He leapt forward, closing the distance between them. As he drew the blade back, Hope grabbed his wrist. Turning into his body, she kneed him in the groin.

  Darren laughed, a wheezing sound of death. He pulled her close until her body was flush with his cold one. “I’m dead. That doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  She still held his wrist and used her body weight to pull his arm down as she dropped to the ground. As he bent forward with her momentum, she jumped up, driving her elbow into his nose. She let go of his hand, and scooting away, she shifted into a defensive stance.

  “You’ve gotten better,” Darren hissed as he wiped black fluid from his face.

  She counted six Skia. Far too many for her to defeat on her own . . . unless she had blades.

  Hope ran to the fallen bodies. She pulled the blades from the dead Skia’s body, and a cold liquid black as pitch ran down the blades onto her hands. With the practiced aim Xan had taught her, she threw one blade and then the other. One Skia dropped, and then the second went down.

  But then Darren was in front of her again. “You’ve gotten much better.”

  He swung with his blade and followed with his fist. She ducked and blocked, countering with a fist of her own, before dancing back away.

  “Your style is different, too.”

  She couldn’t run until she’d killed them. Not unless she was much faster . . . “Asbolus!”

  There he was in the alley on the other side of the square. Despite being muscular and strong, the centaur was avoiding the fight. What was wrong with him?

  She didn’t have time to think about it. Two more Skia circled in. Hope paced back, shifting her position until both attackers were coming from the same direction. One threw a knife, a sad attempt really, and she ducked. Grabbing a handful of the gruesome dolls, she threw them at the Skia. It was only enough to make him flinch, and she grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm as she stepped behind him.

  She moved just in time. The second Skia drove his blade right where she’d been standing, into the other Skia’s chest. His grip on his blade loosened, and Hope wrenched it free and shoved it into the second Skia’s eye.

  Three left.

  Another Skia charged her. Hope had just enough space to arc step behind him, but as she pushed her acquired blade between his shoulders, she saw he’d been a decoy.

  “Drop it,” Darren hissed, his blade at her throat.

  She let go of the blade buried in the Skia’s back. “You cut me before, and it didn’t kill me,” she taunted with bravado she’d learned from Xan. “This is not the end for me.”

  “You’re in my world, Hope.” His arm came around her neck in a choke hold. “And you’ve lost all your power.”

  Hope tucked her chin, trying to prevent the pressure from cutting off her blood supply to the brain. She stomped on his foot and clawed at his arm, but his grip was too much.

  There was a crash, and Hope was thrown forward.

  Someone yelled, and Asbolus was up on his back legs kicking a Skia in the chest.

  Another voice, this one softer, and someone pulling her body. Her vision tunneled, the edges darkening with her mind, demanding escape. She was going to black out. As her vision swam, she saw Thanatos appear. He raised his arm and blasted—literally blasted—a Skia. It was like shards of darkness scattered as another Skia disappeared with the god’s force.

  And then darkness took her.

  As Athan searched the waters for Dahlia, all he could think was Xan didn’t know how to swim. How could he not know how to swim? Why hadn’t he learned?

  Athan kicked off his shoes and pulled out his daggers. With a silent plea to his father, he jumped over the edge of the boat.

  Icy fingers clawed at him, terrifyingly cold like that of a Skia blade, and Athan lashed out with his blades instinctively. He opened his eyes and saw human bodies in various stages of decay surrounding him, leering at him. One reached out again, but withdrew as soon as Athan pulled his blades in front of him.

  A frenzy of activity indicated Dahlia’s most likely position, and Athan kicked through the sludgy river. He slashed forward with his immortal blades and then back, the silver knives seeming to glow in the murky depths.

  Skeletal bodies emaciated with hunger opened their mouths in silent screams, exposing their rotten insides. Stringy hair floated around him, and he cut through the strands and continued to push forward to the thrashing movement ahead.

  Time seemed nonexistent. Seconds felt like hours. Hours of cutting through bodies. The mangled limbs floated by, only to be grabbed by one of the water demons, hunger flashing across its face. Athan kicked upward and gulped a mouthful of air, and an earful of Xan’s profanity, before something pulled him under. Again he lashed out with his knives.

  And then Dahlia was in front of him, eyes wide with terror, and her hair writhing in the darkness as if it were alive. Her clothes were torn, her skin scratched and scraped.

  The dead man was nowhere to be seen.

  Athan pointed her toward the surface, and she shook her head.

  What could that even mean? Keeping his blade locked under his thumb, he grabbed her arm and pulled. As soon as the immortal blade touched her skin, anger replaced the fear in her expression, and she reached to her waistband, withdrawing her own divine blades.

  As they rose through the Acheron, something hard smacked Athan on the head, making his eyes water. They broke the surface, and Xan was at the bow of the boat holding Charon’s pole.

  “Bloody Hell!”

  Both Athan and Dahlia reached for the pole, and Xan dragged them back to the boat. Xan reached over the side and pulled Dahlia up over the lip of the skiff.

  Athan kicked at the sludge, and then sharp pain stabbed him in the calf. Darkness exploded across his vision, and his mind emptied of everything except pain. Gods, the pain. He . . . couldn’t . . .

  He was sinking. And even though he knew that was bad, so bad, he couldn’t stop it from happening. Weightlessness cradled him for a moment, and then air whooshed by and he landed with a thud on his back.

  “If you die, I will be so pissed.” Xan’s voice scratched through the blackness.

  All the motion made Athan’s stomach churn, and he rolled onto his side and threw up. Sludge from the Acheron gushed from his mouth, tasting of blood and beef. He retched again, and when he saw a partially decomposed stump of a human digit, he vomited until his throat was raw and nothing more would come out.

  The words surrounding him made no sense, and Athan stared up at the blackness above. The faint phosphorus lights almost looked like stars, but the smudges of light refused to come into focus. A dull throbbing in his left leg reminded him of his near death.

  The noise snapped into clarity.

  “If you’d told me Skia had come for him, I would’ve warned you. He was to be damned, and nothing was going to stop it.” Charon’s pale features were contorted in rage. “Foolish demigods.”

  “How were we supposed to know—?”

  “There are no secrets in the Underworld. None. There is no need for lies or deception.” Charon’s bony finger prodded Xan in the chest. “Consider this your lesson. You are lucky they are both alive . . . still.”

  Athan wasn’t sure it was luck.


  The boat stopped, and Athan lifted his head. A familiar sensation tugged at his mind, and he recognized the dock he and his father had used when the Fates told him about the Sphinx.

  As they disembarked, Charon held Athan back.

  “Make sure you thwart Thanatos, Son of Hermes. That was our agreement.”

  Athan nodded. If Thanatos was trying to harm Hope in anyway, Athan would thwart all he could. He stepped off the boat and onto the solid dock, his clothes in tatters.

  “And do not confuse your despair with reality,” Charon called as he pushed the boat away from shore. Before Athan could form a reply, Charon and his ferry disappeared.

  Athan let out a breath, pushing away his worry and concern. They had crossed the river Acheron, and now they had to make it through the Underworld and get Hope.

  Failure was not an option.

  She was being carried. The movement was jarring as they shifted her in their arms. She wanted to protest but couldn’t find the strength to open her mouth.

  Voices whispered vehement words, and Hope caught bits and pieces of the conversation.

  “Not what we’d agreed . . . actually hurt her . . .” The voice was familiar and had the inflection of the divine. But he was angry.

  “. . . would’ve healed . . . or are you pretending?”

  The man carrying her sucked in a breath and swore.

  Hope wanted to tell the other person that the pain wasn’t pretend. There was no way to pretend this much. But she decided she didn’t care enough to expend the effort.

  When she opened her eyes, the first thing Hope saw was the god of death sitting at her bedside. His gray T-shirt was rumpled, and his angular features were distorted in a grimace. As soon as their eyes met, the frown disappeared.

  “Did you rescue me?” She cleared her throat and accepted the bottle of water.

  Thanatos waited until she’d finished all of it and then threw the empty bottle into a waste bin in the corner. He ran his hand through his hair in a very human gesture of frustration. “What were you thinking?”

  Hope pulled herself up, groaning as every muscle in her body protested the activity. As soon as she was upright, Hope leaned back against the upholstered headboard, exhausted by her puny effort.