by T. G. Ayer
Then Evie let out a choked chuckle. What a stupid thought considering she was undoubtedly dealing with a magical spell.
Evie felt the scream building and wanted so badly to let it loose. And she did.
Fury ripped through her and she roared as loud as she was able. She wasn't so sure why she'd screamed, but she'd at least been able to vent some of her anger while doing it. Did it have something to do with the energy created by the Marks? The heat generated by the movement of the dark slithering shadows had been somewhat dampened by the coldness of the magical water-air, but the searing heat was slowly increasing in power.
That burgeoning energy ran through her veins at top speed, infusing her blood as it spread throughout her limbs and torso and mind, consuming her body in entirety.
Filled with a new sense of confidence, Evie scanned the room. As she moved her head, her nostrils widened, bubbles popping out of her nose and floating above her in a little cluster before continuing to rise until they hit the stone ceiling.
Evie stiffened now, shock tightening her chest. She was breathing. She was breathing in water? Like a mermaid or something?
Things were just getting stranger and stranger.
Nephilim were well able to survive long periods without oxygen, to Evie’s knowledge up to twelve hours. But, at some point, she’d taken a lungful of the air-water around her. Or had the magic turned the air already in her lungs into water?
Whatever the case, one big question flashed neon lights at her. How was she still conscious? Drowning being the natural progression after taking a lungful of water, Evie should have have succumbed by now, if only to have fallen unconscious, her human physiology taking over temporarily. She’d have awakened later when the water had been removed from her lungs.
Her attackers may have wanted to incapacitate her, or perhaps create a diversion in order to abduct her without being noticed. Which meant whoever wanted her would be here for her very soon.
And Evie had no way to defend herself, not when she was bound hand and foot by Angel Bonds. The spell powering the bindings was stronger than Evie could imagine. She’d learned a few things about the bonds and the awful truth was that a triumvirate of angelic blood was spilled to create that spell.
And so was the blood of an ancient. Which was the reason spell still remained so powerful. Time continued to tick by at a snail’s pace as Evie struggled against her bonds, hoping that perhaps a good soaking in magically rendered water would cancel out the angelic power of the bands.
But she knew she was wasting her time.
Another stream of bubbles escaped Evie’s nose and she shook her head. As she moved, the water encasing her began to ripple as though an earthquake, or some other seismic event, was sending waves of energy through the liquid creating invisible currents within the contained cell.
Water moved fast past Evie's cheek, a current she hoped meant the end of the strange spell was coming soon. The markings beneath her skin continued to swim along the surface of her forearm, moving faster and faster and, at the same time, generating a pulsing energy which began to ripple through Evie’s body.
She couldn't see the movements of the markings as the sleeves of her shirt were pulled all the way down to her wrists where the cuffs now held them in place. Evie had to send up a small prayer of thanks that her captors hadn't stripped her or searched her body for weapons.
Was that respect or had someone secretly helped her in the way the gargoyle guard had tried to send her a message? Subtle, unspoken assistance?
Evie pushed away the thoughts and focused on the Marks of Hades which were twisting their way around her forearm, even faster now. Her arms pulsed strangely, as though a low vibration was moving through her body, one which gave her a sense of déjà vu.
Perhaps the sense of familiarity of this resonance was because it was similar to the energies Evie had experienced during the Ascension Ceremony, but they were still different enough to make her worried.
And a little afraid.
Evie sighed and steadied herself. It was probably about time she faced her fears. Just because she was now also King of the Underworld, it didn't mean she was immune to fear.
Patrick had often counseled her to respect her fear, to listen when trepidation tapped on her shoulder. Because without fear, one became reckless. The only problem was, her guardian’s advice didn’t fit perfectly into her current situation. Fear wasn’t doing very much for her when it came to coming up with a smart escape plan.
And sitting in her chair, bound by angelic script and powerful magical spells, vulnerable to any attack, Evie could do nothing to protect herself. Her only choice was to wait until those responsible for the attack-of-the-killer-pool-of-water showed their faces and told her what they wanted.
Or ended her life.
Evie swallowed hard as energy pulsed harder through her body. Her skin fairly boiled now, sending the water nearest her body spinning in tiny eddies. She watched them with half her attention while keeping an eye on the door.
She was looking in the wrong direction, of course.
In the corner of the cell to the right of the cell door, Evie spotted a blotch of darkness begin to come together. Water swirled in a spiral, shadows grew thicker and darker, and someone began to take shape. And something instinctive told her that she should recognize this energy.
Something instinctive also told her that whoever this person was, they were dangerous.
Evie stilled her movements, hoping the heated water around her body would not come to the attention of her new visitor. Evie kept her breathing low and as she tried to avoid paying direct attention to the writhing shadow, a memory flickered in her mind...of a visit to Marcellus' office, of a shade, of a dark presence in the Master’s office that Evie knew shouldn't have been there in the first place. Why had she not given the presence more attention?
Evie gritted her teeth against her self-judgement. A whole lot of craziness had taken place over the last few months. She'd seen the shade in the Marcellus’ office before she'd figured out the Master was after the Seals of Hades. She’d meant to brief the Brotherhood on the details of Marcellus' betrayal and on the presence of the shade in his office.
But nothing had gone to plan.
Now the shadow which had lurked in the darkness within Marcellus’ office, was swirling around inside the liquid air of her cell. She forced herself to take slow breaths and to use part of her awareness to probe the markings--Evie had the weirdest feeling that the markings knew something, that they wanted to tell her something.
Would direct contact with the markings help convey any information? Problem was, she couldn’t even reach her markings in order to touch them. Not unless the black script slid down her hand to the skin of her fingers.
Evie blinked at the thought. Then she stiffened, worried that the shadow in the corner may see the movement.
She didn't dare let him see the markings as they would reveal the power she possessed. She shouldn't even be Hades, so who knew what the ramifications would be if the wrong people found out what she now was? And this creature definitely fell into the category of ‘wrong people.’
Barry had been worried enough to warn her to be careful. Julian too had been concerned about what it would mean for Evie to return to the EarthWorld. But she'd had no choice. Her sisters were waiting to be saved from the Control.
Movement from the corner caught her attention and with a sudden speed, the shadow grew darker and stronger, almost as though fuelled by some urgency, that perhaps he knew the guards would come by soon.
Warmth touched Evie’s cheek and fear flickered through her. Initially, the watery air around her had been icy cold, as though the melting air had wanted to convey its dark origins.
But now the water was heated by the power of her markings.
Chapter 5
The hot water spelled danger for Evie.
The shade must have sensed something but he’d grown solid instead of leaving instantly, so he wasn’t onto
her yet. But it was only a matter of time.
And now his very presence sent chills up and down Evie’s spine. She wanted to shudder but he’d see her. He glided closer and she forced herself not to blink as she took in the form and shape of him.
Evie struggled to take a slow breath, to not reveal her horror at the sight of this creature. He'd shrouded himself in a dark grey-brown skin that resembled the partially rotted remains of a carcass long forgotten.
Here and there, darkness ebbed and flowed from rips and cuts, a strange ruby-shaded mist bubbling from the wounds and then ebbing away. He’d clothed his torso and hips in lengths of tattered fabric the color of old blood mixed with molasses.
She wasn't certain why he'd bothered to take on a humanoid form because--whatever this creature was--his natural body could never have been human.
There was an ancient darkness about him, a cloying suffocating evil that had risen from the blackest tunnels of the earth way before intelligent life had taken root in any of the realms of the DarkWorld.
The shade’s presence brought bile to Evie's throat and she had to force the feeling away as the creature widened eyes eerily similar to a human's—though only in shape. The color of pupils and sclera was darker than darkness, shadows swirling and swimming, blackness etched in reds and browns. An oddly humanoid reaction, to show one's emotions in one’s eyes.
And in such soulless eyes too.
His reaction was the strangest thing Evie had ever seen, and the most comical. Like watching a movie starring aliens with giant eyes attempting to look surprised or shocked.
He raised his hands, arms and fingers undulating like a musical conductor as he directed his magic. Energy now spun through the water toward her and she suspected he was angered or frustrated that his magic had been thwarted. A deep dark fear twisted and curled within Evie, all the way to her toes.
A cloying scent now enveloped her and she wanted to sneeze, to wriggle her nose, her brain telling her that something gross inside her needed to be expelled. She wanted to surge from the chair and vomit up her food, a sickness taking deep hold of her senses, the knowledge that the darkness leeching from this creature was now burrowing deep within her body.
But she held back the compulsion and sat still. He’d know how a nephilim would behave under such an attack. He’d know she’d be excellent at holding her breath.
Evie was worried though. Something was wrong with her. It was unusual for her to panic, to be this distracted in a dangerous situation. Was the shade’s magic also affecting her ability to think logically?
And she had even less time to waste.
But what could she do to defend herself? Eyes downcast, she studied her hands. By now a small group of the Marks had gathered at the base of her wrist, near the bone.
Could she coax the markings to move to within reach of her fingertips?
At last, she relaxed a fraction and allowed her mind to reach for the energy of the Marks. Evie flexed her wrist a tiny bit, then tapped her finger and thumb together, keeping the movement out of the line of sight of the shade who was watching Evie, head tilted to one side--a little too far to be comfortable--studying her intently. She prayed he wouldn't see what she was doing. Or read her mind.
That would be very, very bad.
Evie’s skin sparked as the Marks jostled against each other, as though arguing about who was going to go first. At last, the energy pulses eased and a cluster of markings shifted out from beneath the leather cuff. The dark splotches remained close to her wrist, slithering like a ragged snake along the heel of her hand before moving toward her fingers.
Oddly, they seemed to avoid the skin on her palms, a strange thing but no time to think about why. Instead, she counted seconds impatiently as the markings slithered along slowly struggling to gain ground even though all they had to do was cross five inches of her hand.
As the dark smudges reach the edge of Evie's thumb, she curled the digit into her palm and closed her forefinger onto the skin now covered in the dark Marks of Hades.
Images rushed through Evie’s mind and she stiffened, neck tight as though caught within the mesh of an electric shock. Something was happening to Evie, and before she could waste precious moments wondering, she received her answer. The Marks of Hades delivered the history of the shade, in all its evil glory, right into Evie's consciousness. She’d known the marks had wanted to tell her something, but the knowledge they passed on to her now was way beyond her imagination.
Evie’s terror only amplified as she glanced at the creature in the corner of the cell. Terror that filled her until she was afraid to breathe, knowing what this creature was capable of, knowing she knew the truth in a visceral way, as though she'd been there at the very beginning.
Evie shook her head slightly. The barest of movements, though it helped her to ground her thoughts. This was about the worst time possible for her to truly begin to understand the meaning of the Marks, and how they were meant to help the god of the underworld do his job.
Why had Julian not told her the truth of the Marks? They were a conduit of information, a living repository of history that would be with her throughout the term of her role as Hades.
Evie swallowed slowly and shifted in her seat. Her head swam with the knowledge of this evil, and what it probably intended. Why had this particular evil sought her out? What did this ancient creature have to do with Evie? And why had it been lurking around in Marcellus's office? But more than that, she hated the fact that she could do nothing while being restrained.
It didn't matter what knowledge she possessed, it didn't matter what power she had, her escape was impossible. Bound by the Angel Bonds, she could not protect herself. Even her wings had been bound, the feathers cramped within the net of leather, all inscribed with the words of the angelic spells, all designed to contain a nephilim, to imprison a nephilim.
But in that moment, Evie understood that she wasn't just a nephilim.
She'd known she was also Hades, but knowing what the Markings were, a flicker of hope had found its way into her mind and she caught a hold of it like a lifeline.
For that is what it was. A lifeline, a possible solution to her problems.
The Angel Bonds held her angelic powers captive, and there was nothing she could do to get around that. But those angelic words were incapable of holding the God of the Underworld hostage.
So the magic of the Angel Bonds couldn’t stop her from using her Hades power to protect herself.
Chapter 6
Now Evie understood what the energy that had been building within her skin really meant, what she could do with that power that had been flowing within her since the moment she'd completed the Rite of Ascension. The Markings, were living spirits ready to provide Evie with knowledge whenever she should need it.
And she'd need it now.
And the dark evil was now approaching her, one tiny step at a time. He moved as though flailing within a pool of water, as though time had slowed his movements to half speed. She shifted her gaze until she looked at the door, chin up higher so her peripherals would catch more of this creature’s shape and form. Energy pulsed around him but Evie now knew what he was.
When she'd first seen him, her mind had labeled him as a shade. She'd been more accurate than she'd known back then. He was a shade, a splinter of the real being who most definitely wasn't here in the cell with her. This thing was a shard, sent to deliver the message he wanted her to hear, to deliver her ending.
He'd sent a part of himself to her cell to kill her, for whatever reason. Evie planned on finding out why. Though she knew there was little likelihood that she'd be able to extract that kind of information from the Splinter of the Darkness. Because that was what this evil was called.
In every language there was an ancient name for him, and the simplest label was the darkness. But truly, he was nothingness, he was evil, he was living hell. If Hades was the god of hell, then this being was the very epitome of hell, something that even Hades could
never hope to destroy.
And this thing was roaming around in the EarthWorld.
And now this creature was inside her cell with Evie. She tried to control her breathing as the energy of the marks grew stronger, to an almost white hot heat on her skin. She shifted again as the shade took another step closer, close enough for her to see the pores in his strange skin.
Evie's mind now contained an endless knowledge of what this sentient being could do, the destruction he was capable of causing, and the secrets that lived beyond the knowledge of the DarkWorld that had been handed down from one generation to the next.
It all felt as though it had been a terrible lie told to the people to avoid mass panic. And since her knowledge told her that he hadn't been active enough over the last few centuries for there to be much of a concern perhaps it had been the right call to keep his existence a secret.
Shadows began to leak off his dark form, trailing like wisps of smoke, swirling around him as though he were soon to melt away into nothing right in front of Evie. His mouth widened and the magic within the cell shivered, vibrating at a level that the resonance irritated Evie's nerves and making her flinch at the sound it wasn't loud in volume or high in pitch but rather the waves of the noise felt like their were smothering her consciousness.
It was all far too inexplicable for Evie to put her thoughts into a logical progression. For now she kept her attention mainly on him as he tilted his head back and opened his mouth. Smoke threads spilled out as he let out a cry, a soundless call that was loud enough to strike deep into Evie's ears.
The pain dug deep inside her ears and she felt warmth begin to pool then spill out of her ears and trail down the side of her neck. But even with her shattered eardrums, she still remained conscious and she could sense his frustration.
He pushed more energy into his magic and she understood his frustration. He'd assumed this would be a simple thing, set the magic and allow Evie to drown, to lose consciousness.