by Molly Ringle
So he went cold with fear when Amphitrite came to his house one day and told him wretchedly that she was pregnant—and yes, it was his, which he wouldn’t have doubted for a moment anyway.
“B-but how?” he stammered. “We’ve been careful…”
She gave him a bitter smile. “I’ve heard women say that pulling out doesn’t work. It would seem they’re right.” For they had indeed become more daring in their intimacy, and now faced the cost.
Twice the usual risk, twice the expected fear. Not only would she be found out by her vicious mistress and punished, but the pregnancy itself could kill her even in the best of living conditions. He was immortal and she wasn’t.
He held her tight, breathing the familiar scent of her hair while he watched the sea out his window. “All right,” he said. “First, your servitude ends now. I don’t care if it breaks the law, you’re coming away with me before anyone can hurt you or make you work another day when you should have the chance to rest.”
She laughed incredulously. “No one’s let me rest during any of my pregnancies. It sounds wonderful, but the children—”
“Are older now. And you’ve said they scarcely notice you, don’t even acknowledge you as their mother.”
“True, but they aren’t horrible like her…”
“We can come back sometimes and see them. But you won’t be safe here anymore.” Poseidon pulled back to look at her. “Second, we’ll get you safely through this pregnancy. I’ll talk to Aphrodite. She might know of ways. Third…” He dropped to his knees, kissing her chest on the way and adding a kiss to her swelling belly. “I marry you.” He looked up at her, partly in fondness and partly in challenge.
Her eyebrows rose in astonishment, then a smile broke across her face. “I marry you.”
He rose and held her a long moment before releasing her. “Fetch your things. We’re going tonight.”
He helped her sneak out. They escaped the city in Euboia where she’d lived her whole life, and traveled many days until reaching Aphrodite’s house. Aphrodite was planning to move to an island of her own, but for now lived in a secluded house in a cool, forested valley. She welcomed them with calm grace, as if men brought their technically stolen pregnant mortal wives to her for advice all the time. Which possibly they did.
After seating her guests on cushions on the floor, and having her servants bring herbal tea, Aphrodite listened to their story. Then she rolled her eyes and leaned across to swat Poseidon on the arm. “You didn’t know pulling out doesn’t work? Goddess above, how did you live this long without figuring that out? Well, stop worrying, both of you.” She smiled at Amphitrite. “Sounds as if you’ve got good luck when it comes to babies so far.”
Amphitrite nodded. “No miscarriages or serious problems yet. But then, this is the first time I’ve been pregnant with an immortal man’s child.”
Aphrodite waved her hand as if to dismiss the concern. “It’s been managed. There are more healthy children out there, born of mortal mothers and immortal fathers, than you might realize.”
“Really?” Poseidon frowned. “I’ve only heard of a few who survived.”
“More than a few,” Aphrodite said. “You think you’re the first to come to me with this problem? No, there’s a certain someone who’s gone through this lots of times.”
Poseidon barely had to think about it. “Zeus.”
“Naturally he doesn’t want Hera to know, so…” Aphrodite drew her fingers across her lips, a casual command to keep it secret.
“We won’t breathe a word,” Amphitrite said. “But the mothers, the children, they were all healthy?”
“Not all. As in any pregnancy, sometimes things go wrong. But the ones who survived were like you: healthy and fertile already. And some say local midwives or witches helped them—taking time every morning to bless the waters in the womb that the baby rests in, something like that? Sorry to say that kind of thing is beyond my skill. But I can give you some herbs that keep the womb in good health, which I promise won’t turn your stomach.”
Amphitrite and Poseidon accepted the herbs with thanks, but at Aphrodite’s mention of blessing the waters, they had exchanged a charged glance.
The couple headed for a neighboring farm, where Aphrodite said they could find lodgings until they found a new home. As they walked Poseidon said, “The waters. It almost makes sense.”
“It makes a great deal of sense,” Amphitrite said. “I’ve always felt I could use my water influence to heal a little faster, and keep my babies healthy when I was pregnant, because after all people are largely water of a sort, and there is plenty of water in the womb.”
Poseidon slid his hand around her broadening waist. “Then I will be sending all my water influence every waking moment.”
Chapter Thirty
Landon was getting a trip to Europe, all right. On the back of a freaking ghost horse at unbelievable speed while he clung for dear life to the stranger sharing the saddle with him. They’d bound Landon to the stranger with bungee cords so he wouldn’t fall off, but he was taking no chances; he had the guy’s coat gripped tight in both hands, even though they had also tied his wrists together, which made the grip awkward. Landon had never liked heights, nor rides on open-air vehicles like motorcycles, so this was a several-hours-long exercise in terror. It didn’t help that he was likely to face torture at the end of it.
The other two immortals flew alongside them, the woman on a separate horse, and Adrian in some kind of junked bus covered with welded metal and vines, pulled by four ghost horses. God of the Underworld, modern style, or so Landon supposed was the idea. Looked outright crazy to him.
Now they were over the Atlantic Ocean and the sun was setting. His hands were numb with cold.
“What’s your name? What should I call you?” he asked the back of the man’s head.
The guy didn’t bother turning. “M’Lord. Your Excellency. Your Illustrious Highness. I’m not picky.”
“Nice. Fine.”
“Niko,” the woman called, drawing her horse up near theirs.
He glared at her. “Or call me that. Yes, Zoe?”
“What? He’ll have to call us something. I just wondered if we should phone ahead and have any particular part of the Underworld prepared.” She glanced at Landon, then back at Niko.
“No need,” Niko said. “I’ve got it worked out.”
Landon swallowed, feeling sicker. Got the torture chamber in hell all set up, sounded like. He’d break. He’d tell everything. He knew he would.
He thought of his grandmother and tried to be brave for her.
“Is this where you took my grandmother?” he asked.
“No.” Niko sounded curt. “But you might get to see her if you behave.”
Landon lifted his head, intrigued in spite of his fear. “She’s there? Even though this isn’t where you took her?”
“She’s dead, therefore she’s in the Underworld, which is where we’re going. Is everyone in Thanatos this thick? You really shouldn’t go trying to kill people when you’re so dreadfully ill-informed about who they are. Hang on tight.”
Landon gasped and clenched his hands, as well as latching his legs around Niko’s, because they were plunging in a nose-dive toward the ground. “Stop stop stop, no no no, what are you doing, stop!”
He held the last word, the vowel turning into a scream. But right when he expected to smash into the ground in a quick death, they swooshed into darkness, slowed in a descent, and thudded to a stop. Solid ground bumped against Landon’s feet. He’d never been so grateful simply to feel the ground before. The air felt calm and warm after the frigid, blasting wind.
When he looked around and found himself in a big cave with stalactites and an underground river, that didn’t exactly surprise him. That matched the accounts he’d heard. But the glowing stream of human figures pouring like a waterfall into the cave and gliding into a tunnel—well, he’d technically been told about those too, but the sight still made his guts
go watery in terror.
“Come.” Niko hauled Landon off the horse, spun him toward a path following the river, and pushed him.
Landon hated being underground. He didn’t even like basements. But there was really nowhere he could go and no benefit in fighting. Cooperating might even be a good idea, in the long run. So he walked with his captors through the tunnel, stooping as the ceiling lowered.
Then the tunnel let out onto the immense cavern he’d heard about—the Elysian Fields or whatever they might technically be called—and amazement eased his fear a little. He tried to stare in every direction and take it all in, even as Niko, Adrian, and Zoe tugged him down onto a raft on which they crossed the river, then prodded him up the other bank.
If this wasn’t the Underworld, if this was some special-effects team’s doing, then they deserved every award in Hollywood. It was ghoulish and creepy, but fascinating. Ghosts! So many ghosts. All ages and races, drifting about, their curious hands passing through him, their strange glow serving as the light for the whole unearthly landscape. He looked around for his grandmother or anyone else familiar, but didn’t recognize anyone yet.
A small group of normal-looking people—solid, not glowing—hurried into view from over a hill covered with whitish grass. Maybe these were immortals too, or at least living mortals.
One of them, Landon realized, was Sophie Darrow. The recognition made him suck in his breath with a hiss. Fear flashed through him. If anyone on Earth, other than Adrian Watts, had reason to mutilate Landon, it was Sophie.
She apparently recognized him at the same moment. Her eyes widened, and she stumbled to a stop, her friends jostling around her.
Landon took in the three people with her and realized one was young Liam Darrow, the other survivor from her household. Okay, make that the third person on Earth who’d want to torture Landon.
“What’s he doing here?” Sophie said, her voice rusty.
“He’s going to tell us everything he can,” Adrian said, “or he’s going to be sorry.”
“In fact,” Niko said, “I think he’s going to be sorry either way. I think he’s already sorry.”
“He looks pretty sorry,” Zoe said dryly.
Landon, shaking, scraped up the courage to look Sophie in the face. He parted his chapped lips, finding he had the absurd wish to apologize to her. But his throat stayed paralyzed. Wouldn’t it sound like mockery if he said he was sorry? Or wouldn’t the words at least be horribly, nastily inadequate?
“Who is that?” Liam asked. “Is that—oh my God, is that the guy?”
He must have gotten a nod from Adrian or someone, because his young face suddenly contorted into a look of homicidal fury.
Sophie grasped her brother’s arm as if to hold him back, though he hadn’t lunged forward yet. “Where are you taking him?” Sophie asked.
“I have a spot picked out,” Niko said. “You needn’t ever see him. Unless of course you’re after some dreadfully boring conversation.” Niko yanked at Landon’s tied wrists again, and led him off down a path between hills.
***
Sophie’s knees gave out. She sank to the ground and bent her head over her lap. Breathe, don’t be sick, just breathe.
She and Liam had left the trailers and had Tab and Freya bring them down here when Zoe texted ahead that they were returning with “news.”
Or a prisoner. Guess that counted as news.
Somewhere in the world, every day, someone faced their family’s murderers in court. She wasn’t the only one to feel like this. Seeing Landon Osborne face to face was a gruesome shock, but it could be survived.
Someone hugged her, and leathery-chic perfume wafted around her as Tab sat beside her. “It’s okay, dude. We captured him. Head of freaking Thanatos, and we got him. Things are going to get better now.”
Sophie nodded, and breathed in and out a few times. “Just didn’t like seeing him. Never will, I’m thinking.”
“I get that.”
Sophie lifted her head. Freya walked up, along with Isabel’s and Terry’s souls. They would have heard one of their killers had been captured. Liam stood farther down the path, alone, watching Landon get marched away by Niko and Zoe. Liam had been braiding together another rope of willow and ivy to attach to spirit dogs for fun, and now he flicked the length of it against the ground as if wanting to whip Landon with it. Adrian walked behind the prisoner, but he slowed and glanced back at Sophie. When her gaze met his, he pivoted and returned to her.
He knelt in front of her. “Sorry. God, I’m sorry, we should have warned you.”
She gave a half-shrug, and glanced up at her parents. Being souls, they were always so serene. At times such as now, that quality was comforting.
“Glad you got one,” Terry said to Adrian.
“We know where another is,” Adrian said, “but we’re waiting to see if we can spring a larger trap. Stop the whole organization, not just the ones who were directly involved in…” He swept his gaze across the Darrow family.
“What are you going to do to him?” Sophie asked.
Adrian sank back on his heels. Fallen gray leaves from a nearby ash tree rustled under his weight. “Get information. Try to convince him to help. Ideally without having to…” He lifted his hand, palm up, then let it drop. “I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t want to torture anyone. Not even them.”
“It was pretty bad-ass what Niko did to Quentin,” Tab said. “But still…”
“It’s disturbed him,” Freya said, standing nearby with her arms folded.
Adrian nodded. “It’s clear he doesn’t want to do it again. None of us do, except in self-defense. And we can get information from Landon, it’s just, how much will it actually help?”
Something, Sophie noticed, was starting to push out her sickly fear. Anger. Fury at what Landon and Quentin and Krystal had done to her family, to her life. “I’d say he’s earned a little torture. In case you have to resort to that, don’t feel too guilty.”
Adrian glanced down the path. “Well. Niko’s clever, and Zoe’s got magic, so possibly we’ll get the information some other way.”
The prisoner and his captors had disappeared around the bend of the dark path. Liam strode off after them.
“Where are they taking him?” Freya asked.
“I’m not sure exactly.” Adrian jumped to his feet. “Niko seems to have a plan. Suppose I’ll go see.”
The anger tingled in Sophie’s limbs, infusing her with strength. She got up. “I’m coming too.”
Everyone came: her parents’ souls, Liam, Tab, and Freya. They walked a few minutes and came upon Niko ushering Landon into a jail cell of sorts. It stood in the back part of the cave that was mostly columns and stalagmites, where the souls didn’t wander much, and where Sophie never went much either, which was why she hadn’t noticed it until now. The cell was perhaps ten feet by six, two of its walls the natural rock of the cave, and the other two made of metal bars welded to the columns. Part of the metal section was open as a gate, with two thick bike locks hanging on it. A bucket with an odd lid stood in the corner, which Sophie recognized after a moment as a camp toilet.
Adrian stopped to take in the cage, perplexed. “How long has this been here?”
“Few weeks,” Niko said. “Round the time I was bringing down all that material for wiring and plumbing upgrades, I brought this stuff down too. No one noticed when I put it all up, observant lot that you are.”
“We did rather have other things going on,” Zoe pointed out. “In other parts of the cave.”
Sophie marched forward, pushed past Zoe at the cell’s open door, and stormed straight to Landon, who cowered on his knees with his hands tied before him. He lifted a cringing face to her. She curled her right hand into a fist, pulled it back, and punched him in the mouth.
It was hard enough to send him reeling sideways onto the ground. She heard a few gasps and hissed breaths around her, but no one said anything.
Landon lay wincing and gaspin
g, his glasses crooked. Blood welled up on his lip and dripped onto the dirty floor.
Liam rushed forward and kicked Landon hard in the stomach. Landon grunted and curled up, gagging.
Sophie caught her brother’s arm with her left hand. On her right, her knuckles were throbbing in pain. “We’re not thugs, unlike some people. That’ll do for now.”
Liam was breathing heavily, as if ready to do a lot more beating-up, but he drew back at her touch.
Turning, she expected to see shock or disapproval on her friends’ and parents’ faces. So it was a pleasing surprise to find them all looking…proud. Yeah, that was definitely pride in her parents’ gazes. Her immortal friends gave her nods of approval.
Walking out of the cell, Sophie blew on her bruised, hot knuckles.
“Give me that.” Zoe took Sophie’s right hand, and with an invisible pulse of magic sent a cool healing sensation through it. She let go. “There, all better, if you want to do it again.”
Sophie smiled. She glanced at Adrian. He leaned sideways against the outside of the bars, one hand curled around them above his head, gazing at her with a small smile that suggested admiration.
“Well,” Sophie said to him in defense, “I hit you once. And he deserves it way more. So.”
“Only fair,” he agreed.
“He’s got a lot more to undergo before the score’s evened,” Niko said. “Out we go, friends.”
They all trooped out of the cell, leaving Landon alone inside. Niko swung the barred door shut and locked both of the U-shaped bike locks, then pocketed the keys. Landon watched miserably from the floor, licking blood off his lip and still gasping from the belly kick.
“We’ll chat later,” Niko told him.
“My hands,” Landon said. “Can’t I at least…”
“Come over here.” Niko produced a switchblade knife so smoothly that Sophie couldn’t even have said where he’d pulled it from. Landon knocked his shoulder against the ground and heaved himself up, and shuffled over on his knees. Niko swiped the blade between the bars and sliced the rope that bound Landon’s hands.