For a millisecond, her body vanished from this world altogether, but Automedon knew that it would reappear, like all the other Descenders’ had, alive and functioning and covered with the sterile dust of another world. She would lie unnaturally still then, and open her eyes hours later, only remembering that she had been in the Underworld for what, from her perspective, could have been ages.
The Heir might lie in the posture of sleep for hours, but after weeks of study, Automedon had learned that this Descender never truly rested. He had crept in, hung from her ceiling, and waited for the telltale movement of the eyes under the lids that signaled the deep, healing sleep that mortals need. But it never came.
Without true rest, each night she would grow weaker and weaker until the time came for his master to strike.
CHAPTER FOUR
Helen felt the stale air of the Underworld envelop her. She flinched and looked around, half worried that her attempt to think positively had failed, and that she was going to find herself in the pit.
“Do you always wander around hell in your pajamas?” asked a sardonic voice. Helen whirled around and saw Haircut, standing just a few feet away.
“What?” Helen stammered, looking down at herself. She was wearing a nightshirt and shorts with gap-toothed pumpkins and hissing black cats all over them.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the short shorts, and the Halloween motif is hilarious, but I’m getting cold just looking at you.”
Haircut took off his jacket and started stuffing Helen into it without even asking if she was cold. She thought for a moment that she should refuse, but as soon as she felt how cozy his jacket was, she realized that she was freezing her butt off, and decided she’d better not complain.
“I’m wearing what I wore to bed,” Helen explained defensively as she tugged her hair out from under the coat’s collar. She hadn’t given any thought to what she wore when she descended. “So . . . do you always fall asleep with that stupid gold shrubbery on your arm?”
He looked down at his arm and chuckled to himself. Helen couldn’t remember ever hearing laughter in the Underworld, and she almost didn’t believe she was hearing it now.
“A bit too much bling, huh? How ’bout this?” The tree branch that snaked around his forearm shrank until it was no more than a thick gold bracelet. Embossed with a leaf design, it circled his wrist like a cuff. Helen had only seen one other object magically transform like that: the cestus of Aphrodite, which she wore around her neck in the guise of a heart necklace.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Orion Evander. Head of the House of Rome, Heir to the House of Athens, Third Leader of the Rogue Scions, and bearer of the Golden Bough of Aeneas,” he said in a deep and impressive voice.
“Ooh,” Helen hooted sarcastically. “Am I supposed to bow or something?”
To her surprise Orion laughed again. For all his high-and-mighty titles, this guy was definitely not stuck-up.
“Daphne said you were powerful, but she never mentioned you were such a wiseass,” Orion said. Helen’s amused face dropped immediately.
“How do you know my . . . Daphne?” she demanded, awkwardly avoiding the use of the word mother.
“I’ve known her my whole life,” Orion replied, concerned. He took a step closer to Helen and looked her in the eyes, like he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t joking around anymore. “Daphne took a big risk to help me get here so I could help you. Didn’t she tell you I was coming?”
Helen shook her head and looked down, thinking of all the unreturned messages she had left on Daphne’s voice mail.
“We don’t talk much,” Helen mumbled. She was embarrassed to admit it to a stranger, but Orion didn’t look at her like he thought she was horrible daughter or anything. In fact, he smiled sadly to himself and nodded, as though he knew exactly what Helen was feeling. He looked back at her with kind eyes.
“Well, even though you two aren’t close, Daphne wanted you to . . . DUCK!” He suddenly screamed as he grabbed Helen’s head and pushed it down.
A snarling black dog sailed over Helen and hit Orion directly on the chest. Orion absorbed the blow and fell back, his long dagger already in one hand as the other hand held the dog back by its throat. Unsure what she should do, Helen scrambled up to her knees and saw Orion slashing at the snapping head of the creature. He was on his back and he couldn’t get the momentum required to deliver a killing stab. Helen hauled herself up to her feet, but had no idea how to jump into the fight. The beast’s claws raked at Orion’s chest, leaving jagged, bloody scratches.
“This is not a spectator sport!” Orion shouted from the ground. “Kick it in the ribs!”
Helen stowed her shock, planted her left foot, and booted the monster with all her might. It didn’t seem to hurt the hellhound at all. Instead, all the kick managed to do was get the beast’s attention. Helen stumbled back. The monster turned its glowing red eyes on her. She squeaked in terror as the beast dove at her.
“Helen!” Orion said fearfully, snatching the monster by the tail and pulling it away.
The salivating jaws closed just inches away from Helen’s face and, as she covered her head with her arms to protect herself, she heard the hellhound shriek in surprised pain as Orion drove his blade into the back of its skull.
Helen shook herself awake, her arms reaching out and her legs kicking as if she were trying to crest a great wave. She was back in her bedroom.
“No way!” she shouted into the dark.
Helen couldn’t believe it had happened again. She had to learn how to control her passage into and out of the Underworld, or she was never going to be of any use in the fight against the Furies. Especially now that she had found Orion. She couldn’t just disappear on him whenever there was danger.
Helen didn’t waste a second. She called her mother immediately, intending to ask about Orion, but as usual, she was sent to voice mail after two rings. She left her mother a message, but instead of telling her about Orion, Helen got so annoyed she wound up asking if Daphne was avoiding her. She hung up, disgusted by the whiny tone in her voice. Daphne had never been there for Helen. She didn’t know why she had even bothered to call.
Helen scrubbed her hands over her face. She was okay, but she couldn’t say the same for Orion. She would never forgive herself if something had happened to him. Helen wanted to climb under her covers and send herself back into the Underworld, but she knew that it would be a wasted effort. Time and space moved differently down there, and even if she descended immediately, she wouldn’t arrive in the same place or the same time as when she had left.
She folded her arms in consternation, and as she did so, she realized that she was still wearing Orion’s jacket. She patted the pockets and found his wallet. After about half a second of moral quibbling, Helen opened it and riffled through, curious.
Orion had two driver’s licenses—one from Canada and one from Massachusetts. Both said that said he was eighteen years old and legally allowed to operate heavy machinery, but neither of his licenses listed his last name as Evander, the name he had given her. His American driver’s license said his last name was Tiber, and in Canada his last name was listed as Attica. He also had a student ID from Milton Academy, a well-known prep school on the south shore of Massachusetts, that said his name was Ryan Smith.
Smith. Yeah, right. Helen wondered if all Scions were creativity impaired when it came to aliases, or if “Smith” was the running joke among demigods.
She looked for any other bit of information she could find in the remaining pockets of his jacket, but all she came up with was four dollars and an old paper clip. She paced around her icebox of a bedroom, thinking of her options. She was desperate to know if Orion was okay, but she wasn’t too sure it was a good idea to go poking around in his life. With four different last names, Orion was obviously a secretive guy. Helen couldn’t go looking for him without blowing whatever cover he was trying to create for himself.
She briefly wondered
why he needed all the aliases, then almost immediately answered her own question. The Hundred Cousins had tried to kill off all the other Houses, and until they discovered Helen and her mother, they’d believed that they were the only Scions left in the world. As Head of the House of Rome and Heir to the House of Athens, Orion had probably spent his whole life on the run, hiding from the Hundred Cousins, the largest faction of the House of Thebes. They made it their mission to hunt down Scions from the other three Houses and kill them. If Helen went looking for Orion, she knew that she would only give him away. Like she had Hector, she realized suddenly.
It hadn’t occurred to her before, but now Helen was certain that it was her fault that Hector had been found. Cassandra had foreseen that the Hundred weren’t actively trying to kill her at the moment, but Cassandra had also said they were still keeping tabs on her—probably watching her every move. And Hector had been discovered as soon as he made contact with her. If Helen went looking for Orion, she would lead the Hundred straight to him.
Helen shivered, partly from the cold and partly from fear. She wrapped Orion’s jacket a little tighter around her shoulders and decided that she was not going to be able to fall back to sleep right away. She went downstairs and heated up some of the casserole her dad had left her and then sat down at the kitchen table to eat, get warm, and think about what she should do next.
When she had finished her late meal she went back up to bed, still debating whether or not she should tell the Delos clan about Orion. A part of her was starting to believe that the farther she kept herself away from Orion, the better off he would be.
“Kneel, slave,” Automedon said, and faced the rising sun.
Zach did as he was told. He heard his master mumbling something in Greek and saw him take a beautiful, jeweled dagger out of the sheath on his hip. Automedon finished speaking, kissed the blade, and turned to face Zach.
“Which is your strong hand?” he asked almost pleasantly. That frightened Zach.
“My left.”
“The mark of Ares,” Automedon said with surprised approval.
Zach didn’t know how to respond to that. He hadn’t had any say in which hand was stronger, so how could it be a compliment? He decided to hold his tongue. His master usually preferred it when Zach was silent.
“Hold it out,” Automedon ordered.
Zach extended his left hand, trying to keep it from shaking too much. His master hated any signs of weakness.
“Do you see this dagger?” Automedon asked, not expecting a reply. “This was my blood brother’s dagger. His mother gave it to him before he went to war. Pretty, isn’t it?”
Zach nodded solemnly, his outstretched hand trembling underneath the beautiful blade in the cold dawn.
“Did you know that a part of a warrior’s soul is kept inside his weapons and his armor? And when you are killed in battle, and your opponent takes your armor and your sword, he owns a bit of your soul?”
Zach nodded. In the Iliad there were several heated fights about who got whose armor. More than one of the great heroes died in dishonor over armor. He knew it was a really big deal.
“That is because we all swear on our arms. It’s the oath that puts our souls inside the metal,” Automedon explained intensely. Zach nodded to show he understood. “I swore my loyalty on this dagger once, as did my brother before me. I swore to serve or die.”
Zach felt a burning sensation across the palm of his hand, like a needle of fire had just been shot through it. He looked down and saw that he was bleeding freely, but that it was only a flesh wound and it wouldn’t cause him any permanent harm. Automedon grabbed his wrist and directed the blood to flow across the blade of the dagger, until both sides and all the edges were bathed in Zach’s blood.
“Swear on your blood, spilled over this blade, that you will serve or die.”
What choice did he have?
“I swear it.”
The next morning, Helen sat with Cassandra in the Delos library for another session of what she secretly thought of as “Sundays with Sibyl.” She still hadn’t decided whether to tell the Delos family about Orion or not. Twice she’d opened her mouth to ask if Cassandra could “see” whether or not Orion was still alive, and both times she’d closed it again. The third time she was spared, because Claire came barging into the library, closely followed by Matt, Jason, and Ariadne. All four were demanding that they be allowed to join in on the research.
“We’ve been through this before,” Cassandra said firmly. “We can’t risk it. Some of these scrolls have curses imbedded in them that could harm the uninitiated.”
The other three turned to Claire expectantly.
“So initiate us,” Claire said, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes in challenge. “Make us priests and priestesses of Apollo.”
“Say that again,” Jason said, turning to Claire. He was so stunned there was almost no expression on his face.
“That’s the plan you’ve been working on for the past two days? The one you told us not to worry about?” Matt asked in an increasingly high-pitched voice.
“Yup,” Claire responded, completely unfazed.
“Oh, honey. There is no way I’m becoming a priestess,” Ariadne said. She shook her head definitely. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d risk my life to help Helen, but join the clergy? Uh-uh. Sorry.”
“Why not? Do you even know what it means to become a priestess?” Claire asked. “Well, I’ve done some reading and I can tell you, it’s not what you’re all thinking.”
Claire explained that the ancient Greeks were much more relaxed about the whole priest thing than any modern-day religion. They had to remain childless while they served the god Apollo, but no one was expected to be a priest or a priestess forever. You could leave whenever you wanted. Then there were a few little rules about keeping various parts of your body clean, making regular burnt offerings accompanied by some basic chanting, and observing a day of fasting once every new moon to honor Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis. That was about it.
“Oh. Well, sign me up then,” Ariadne with a grin and a shrug. “I can totally handle making sure that the creases between my toes are cleansed before joining others at table, just don’t ask me to give up—”
“We get it, Ari,” Jason interrupted, not wanting to hear what his sister was about to say. “So, how would we go about this?”
“There’s bound to be some kind of test we have to pass,” Matt added, intrigued. He seemed to be warming up to the idea of becoming a priest of Apollo.
“The Fates decide who gets to join. Then the Oracle performs the ritual of initiation,” Claire replied, looking pointedly at Cassandra.
“Me?” Cassandra said, taken aback. “I don’t know how to . . .”
Cassandra broke off when Claire sheepishly handed her an old parchment. It had obviously been stolen out of the Delos library, which meant that for days now, Claire had been breaking into the library and searching through potentially cursed scrolls before she had found it. There was a moment of silence as it sunk in for everyone just how dangerous Claire’s actions had been.
“I had to do something!” Claire protested to no one in particular. “Helen’s been putting herself through hell, literally through hell, every night. . . .”
“And what makes you think Helen is more important than you are?” Jason asked, his face turning bright red with anger. “You could have been killed by some of the stuff written in those scrolls!”
“I can’t just sit back and watch my best friend suffer! I won’t do it, even if I am only mortal,” Claire shouted back at him, like she was quoting something he had said to her.
“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it,” he said as he threw up his hands and made a frustrated noise.
“Guys,” Helen said as she tried to step between them, tapping her hands together in the universal sign for “time out.”
“Just stay out of this!” Jason yelled. He brushed past Helen on his way to the door. “You’re not
the center of everyone’s universe, you know.”
The door slammed behind him, and an uncomfortable pause followed. After a moment, Claire whirled around to face Cassandra.
“Can you do it?” Claire demanded. Helen was surprised to see tears sparkling in her eyes. “Can you initiate us, or not?”
Cassandra looked up from the scrolls she had been studying since Claire had handed them to her, and paused to gather her thoughts.
To Helen, it looked like Cassandra was as unconcerned with the emotional quarrel between Jason and Claire as she would be with a TV show that happened to be on in the background while she was trying to read. In a way, this was more disheartening than anything that had been said during the fight. Jason obviously held some kind of grudge against Helen, but at least they all cared about each other. Helen didn’t know if the same was true of Cassandra anymore.
“Yes I can,” Cassandra said. “But that’s not the right question to ask me.”
“Should Cassandra initiate us, Sibyl?” Matt asked, his eyes narrowed like he was testing a dangerous theory that could blow up in his face.
The room got cold. The eerie, glowing aura of the Oracle overtook Cassandra’s girlish frame, bowing her shoulders until she was stooped over and shadowing her face until she looked like an old woman. When she spoke again her voice was a chorus as the Three Fates spoke through her.
“You all are found worthy and shall suffer no injury from the knowledge you seek. But be warned. For suffering awaits you all.”
The acid-purple glow of the Oracle’s aura snuffed out, and Cassandra fell to the ground in a heap.
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