Hades: Modern Descendants

by elda lore

  “Am I dead?” she blurted, her voice shaking again. The sound of that quiver pricked at my heart. No, stabbed me like arrowheads. I wanted to hear the glorious mystery of her laughter instead.

  “No,” my father scoffed, shaking his head back and forth. “No, you, my dear, are very much alive.” His tone shifted. The way he looked at her put me on edge. His eyes illuminated brighter yellow, the center dot of black swirling ever so slightly. My heart ticked louder, bracing for the potential of a storm. My hand vibrated with need to grip Persephone, attach her to me in some way.

  “Are you going to kill me?” The uncertainty of her voice crushed me. That pin-prick sensation shattered my internal organ into a million shards like a dropped wine glass.

  “No, my dear. That’s not what we do in here.” My father selected his words carefully. No, death did not happen in here. Typically, Death took his victims before entering the underworld. The Guards transported those cursed to our gates. Her vibrant energy of life opposed every creature within my home. The inquisitive eye of my father forced me to explain in brief how I found her in the river, attacked by someone, and saved her.

  “What happened to the man?”

  “I don’t know.” I did not bother to look back after I broke his arm and snapped his neck. She was my only concern.

  “That is not your call, son.” My father sensed the truth and I lowered my head. I’d done the right thing for her. I did not care about the incidental.

  “Tell me your name, dear.” My father’s long, bony fingers traced a pattern over his lips aggressively, increasing the gray tint of his skin to a darker tone.

  “Persephone Fields…sir.” My father’s fingers paused. His yellow eyes opened wide and he leaned forward. Then his eyes narrowed, the yellow highlighted to gold and his gray skin blackened. He stood slowly and turned his head to the left. Outside the dark window lay the massive land of Fields’ agricultural estate, a property my father longed to possess to expand his resort empire. An evil grin curled his lips, exposing his yellowish teeth.

  “You’ve brought me a gift.” His eyes gleamed with pleasure at me. My first instinct was to shake my head and clarify. No, no I had not brought her to you. Reality took its time to seep through me. My father would use her, regardless.

  “Thank you, son.” The words crushed me. It was so rare that I pleased him. His praise longed for daily, but never received. My head lifted taller, prouder. The grin on my face matched my creators and I turned to share it with Persephone. Then it fell. The fear in her eyes as she stared at my father reminded me what I’d done. The clench of her tiny hands at her sides strangled my father’s gratitude. The rapid rise and fall of her chest wrapped in the gauzy sheet matched the pulse of pain within me. My eyes shot back to my dad.

  His hands rubbed together before him. He had a plan.

  “Dad?” I questioned weakly. I rarely called him by the term, as he preferred sir.

  “She will be the bait. That property for her return.”

  Persephone gasped. “What?”

  “Your family’s property for your return.” My father spoke slowly as if speaking to an imbecile.

  “They’d…” She paused, questioning the response of her family. “It’s been in our family for centuries. It’s all we have. It’s more than our livelihood. The land is like…like family.” Her voice pleaded. My father glared back at her.

  “Land is family?” he scoffed. “You humans are so silly about things. Pick another piece of land,” he growled, dismissively waving his hand toward the window and the acres of property spreading flat for miles.

  “You pick another piece of land,” she bit and my head pivoted toward her, surprised at the sharpness of her tone and the fact she spoke in such a manner to my father.

  “Oh, but my dear, it’s that land I long for.” His eyes near fluorescent, he opened them wide, adding the full smile of his lips, exposing yellowed teeth. His hair hung past his shoulders, graying in color with a sharp slash of white here and there. He combed a hand through it, and it stood out rock-star wild. Persephone held her ground, staring out the window at a black sky turning the color of midnight blue.

  “I’d never let them trade the land for me.” Her head rose with defiance. Her hands clenched to firm fists at her side. Her veins spread up from her wrist in rivers of blood under the surface. My father stepped around his desk and pressed his shoulder to rest on the floor to ceiling window. His head turned to match her gaze out the glass.

  “So feisty like your namesake,” he muttered. “We’ll see about that,” he smirked, one eyebrow twitching. Persephone took a step before me, her gaze pinned to the sight of the brightening sky. The midnight blue shaded to a lighter tint. The sun pushed back the night. A switch flicked and the darkening shades began to fall inside the two paned window. Light was prohibited inside our dark haven. Persephone stepped forward, bracing both hands on the glass.

  “No,” she cried out. “No, I won’t let them do it.” Tears burst from her eyes and my brow pinched in wonder. I’d seen humans cry plenty of times. Death brought tears, but her tears appeared for something else. I did not understand. We’d already assured her we would not kill her. She was not dead. Why did those tears fall?

  “I won’t let you have it.” Her body followed the lowering shade. Her hands squeaked down the glass as they slid. Her legs buckled until she collapsed to the ground. Her waist pressed forward while her hands traveled the length of the shade.

  “No, please no. At least, let me say good bye.” Her anguished voice tore at my heart, ripping it to shreds and scattering it around the room. On her knees, her head on the floor at the connection between carpet and window, she sobbed. Her delicate shoulders shook as one flat palm beat on the window and the other smacked the floor.

  “Mama,” she cried out like I’d heard the dying do. Her spine curved as she curled into herself and nerve-wracking cries rippled through the office. My father stared down at her for a moment, then stepped back to sit behind his desk. Persephone’s outburst dismissed by him as nothing more than a tantrum. He’d witnessed them from my mother often. Sometimes members of the underworld would beg to be returned. It was never a possibility.

  I could only take a few seconds of her pain before I approached her.

  “I wouldn’t do it,” my father muttered, as I knelt beside Persephone’s folded body and hesitantly reached for her back. My hand hovered over her spine, questioning my father’s warning. I lowered my firm fingers and she flinched. Her head shot up and her tear-streaked cheeks faced me.

  “Don’t. Touch. Me.” She snarled like Curby could do and I sat back, startled by the bite of such an innocent creature. Her blonde hair wild around her face, clung to her cheeks in places damped from tears. I reached out a pointed finger to brush back a thick strand. Her hand rose and slapped mine away. Her voice lowered, the growl animalistic: “Don’t.” Her shoulders rose and fell with the strength of that word, but tears continued to stream down her face.

  I waited. Patience, surprisingly, a virtue I possessed. I didn’t have many, but patience I owned. I could wait out her tantrum, although her pain seemed more than an errant child, or ice queen, not getting her way. Her plea begged for something greater than a trinkety bobble or unwarranted attention. Her hands covered her face and she cried harder, visibly shuddering. Slowly, her back peeled from the covered glass behind her. Her shoulders slumped and her head fell forward into my chest.

  I risked a glance at my father, whose staring eyes returned to their normal color. The pupil danced as it did, but his pinched brow confounded his regal appearance. I looked away and hesitantly wrapped an arm around her back. I recalled soothing her while we rode through the Cave of Decision and I tried to replicate the calm I offered her then. She didn’t flinch this time as the flat of my hand met her back. Slowly, my palm relaxed and curled to match the shape of her spine. I rubbed hesitantly up and down. My head bent and I inhaled the unusual scent of her hair. Flowers? Possibly. Sunshine, ma
ybe. A pinch of jealousy nipped me as I thought of her smelling like my cousin, Solis.

  We couldn’t stay on the floor for much longer. My knees ached in this position and I slipped my other arm under her rear, forcing her to fall against my chest as I cradled her. I rose slowly. Her head fell to my shoulder as she continued to cry quietly. The silent tears were almost worse. The effortless roll of streams from her eyes, yet the lack of sound, unnerved me. Defeat. She’d succumbed to the idea she was our prisoner. Shifting her in my arms, one of her arms wrapped over my shoulder and encircled my neck. Her face pressed over my left pec. Time wanted to stand still in my heart.

  “Normal rules apply,” my father said behind my back. “If she gives in to one of the seven levels, she stays. That includes eating and drinking.”

  I understood, once again, why my mother hated him.

  Darkness

  [Persephone]

  I slept. My mind refused to accept the reality of where I was and I let my body take the rest it needed. I waffled through nothingness, not allowing my thoughts to believe this was happening to me. I let the cool, black silk sheets envelope me in seductive comfort. They slithered and slid over my body, a soothing brush of material as I lay still. Caught in a dream like state between full sleep and complete wakefulness, my thoughts raced. The underworld? Hell? I couldn’t reconcile the events in my head. Attacked by someone, rescued by another, to be kidnapped and held for ransom. My family wouldn’t pay all their land for me. It was too much to give up. I didn’t understand why Hades and his father by the same name wanted the property anyway. This had to be a nightmare.

  Obviously, a building of sorts. We’d originally exited his bedroom into a hall, then went up an elevator. From both his father’s office and this apartment, I was able to see my family’s land, which meant this side of the building faced east. It also meant I was in the city not too far from home.

  Home. I wanted to hug my mother. I wanted to see my grandfather. I missed Swanson and Veva. Even Tripper, and his salacious thoughts. For all the hours I had complained about the heat and hard work on the farm, I didn’t want to be in the dark during the daylight hours. The blinds shut tight, blocked out the sunlight, refusing to allow day to peek inside this horrible hell where I was housed. I had no sense of time within these walls and I lay on my side withering beneath the silky comfort of darkness.

  A restless stir from within the room jolted me upright. I blinked several times, struggling to adjust my eyes to the blackness around me. I heard the rustle again and tilted my head to the left. Against the wall stood a long couch, with the outline of a body on it. A hoodie covered his head and his back lay toward me, but I knew who it was: Hades. My forehead ached and I rubbed the heavy crease forming from all my unanswered questions. Again, what did his family want with my family’s land? Why was I here? Why didn’t he return me? Why didn’t he let the man attack me? Let him be the one to run off with me? The conundrum continued as I recalled how gentle he’d been when we rode through the horrible cavern. His hand soothed me from the sounds. His warning to block the temptation calling out to me. Then in his father’s office, his tender touch to calm my sobs and his care to cradle me as he carried me back to his room. Why the gentleness, if I was a hostage?

  My head ached further and I needed a drink of water. I slipped to the end of the bed, tangled in both sheet and toga. Nearing the edge, a muffled sound rumbled just off the foot of the bed. Slowly, I shifted to a crawl, one hand in front of the other to the foot-end, peering over the edge ever so slightly when…

  Woof! Then snarls and growls. Three heads fought one another to get closer to me as I scrambled backward, too frightened to scream. Scampering to the middle of the bed, I was tackled onto my back. Bound by arms around mine, a weight pressed over me, pinning me to the mattress.

  “Did he nip you?” A voice breathed against my neck. I didn’t have the strength to verbally respond, not to mention the heaviness of him over me. I shook my head.

  Pulling back, he peered down at me, braced on one arm while the other still wrapped around my waist. Our eyes connected for a moment and the fear in his did nothing to ease mine.

  “You’re certain he didn’t bite you?” His eyes roamed my body, scanning briefly down my neck, chest and arms. The scan was quick, but the concern lingered.

  “Curby,” he snapped over his shoulder in the direction of the dog-like creature. The size of a small pony, his demeanor presented nothing like the docile pets we used for rides at the fair.

  “I’m sorry about that. He’s still adjusting to you.”

  “Adjusting to me?” I snapped. “I’m the one adjusting.” I shook out of his hold, wiggling under him and he quickly sat back. “This whole thing is like a nightmare and I keep telling myself to wake up.” I sat up as well, and pushed back toward the headboard. He moved to the edge of the bed, twisting toward me.

  “I’d like to make you more comfortable. It will get better.” His tone attempted to reassure me, but I didn’t believe him. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t know him.

  “Better?” I snorted. “Take me home. That will make this better.”

  He turned his back to me and reached down to pet the creature at his feet. “I can’t.”

  I peeled my feet out from under the sheet and slipped them to the floor. Standing, my foot tangled in the floor-length material I still wore and I tripped. Stumbling forward, I crashed to the carpet. Instantly, Hades appeared by my side.

  “Are you okay?” His ugly hands with talon-like claws reached for my arm, but I flinched back. Yesterday, I was intrigued by his strange beauty; today, his deceit made him hideous.

  “Don’t touch me,” I snarled, falling back on my rear end. Hunched downward, he rose to stand over me. His hand dangled forward offering assistance, but I refused, struggling once again with the tangle of material around my legs.

  “Damn it,” I grumbled, tugging here and pulling there. My feet finally free, I used my own hands to push myself upward. “You want to make me comfortable, let’s start with my clothes. Get me out of this Halloween costume.”

  “Halloween?” he smirked, and the scar across his lips, parted. His eyes were hard to see in the dim light of the room but I felt them laughing at me.

  “Yes, Halloween. When people dress up likes witches and monsters like…” I paused. I wanted to say like him, but his face fell as I spoke and I stopped the insult.

  He nodded once. “Let’s go shopping.” Without another world, he spun on his heels and I struggled to keep up, slipping on the lacy sandals of earlier that covered my sore feet.

  --

  The place was dark. It had to be the middle of the night or early hours before dawn. We exited an elevator and stood in the middle of a large, spacious room. Looking at the fichus trees, overstuffed furniture, and luscious carpets, I’d assumed we were in a lobby of sorts.

  “Where are we?”

  “This is Hades Emporium.”

  “The resort?” I interjected. My eyes widened as we walked through the dimly lit space. We didn’t see a soul as we crossed the long expanse. The Emporium was a new multimillion-dollar casino resort. The heart to the growing city off old Route 66, it stood imposingly stern on the edge of our property. An off-the-path metropolis promised to be the city of sin in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. I hadn’t been in here before. The ornate designs on the ceiling and the gold columns decorating the hall presented another world. It was ancient Greece mixed with modern luxury.

  We stopped abruptly before a set of double doors. Without a key, Hades waved his hand and the door popped open.

  “How did you do that?” I whispered despite the empty surroundings. He ignored me, leading me into another hallway with ornate tile and gold etched wallpaper. Lights remained low as we entered some type of clothing boutique.

  “Try on whatever you’d like. What would make you more comfortable?”

  “I can’t just take things.” My voice rose an octave. “That’s stealing.”


  His lip tweaked upward on one side and his eyes lowered in humor. He shook his head.

  “You aren’t stealing. We own the hotel. We own the shops. You can have whatever you’d like.” He leaned against the checkout counter and crossed his ankles while pressing his hands into the wood behind him. He tipped up his chin in assurance and I wandered the racks. The clothes were much more expensive than I’d ever afford, much finer than I’d wear. Rich silks and scratchy wools. Cashmere sweaters and denim jeans that cost over a hundred dollars. I didn’t know what to select because I’d never had such elegant clothing before. After a few minutes, Hades’ patience tired. He stepped to a rack and presented me with a soft crew neck sweater, a cotton hoodie, two T-shirts and three jeans.

  “Go try these on.”

  His guess at my size was spot on. The skinny jeans fit perfectly and were appropriate for the cooler temperature of the hotel. The air conditioning had to be down in the fifties. I shivered as I tried on the sweater. White with an edging of pearls at the waist and wrists, it was pretty and feminine. I walked out of the fitting room wearing my new outfit with the strappy sandals loosely wrapped around my ankles.

  Hades took the remaining clothes from my hands, placed them in a bag, and led me to another store across the way. A shoe lover’s wonderland, I couldn’t decide between the brown riding boots or ballet flats in silver. He made me sit and slipped on each pair, like the fairy tale prince he didn’t represent. He sat across from me and held up my foot to examine my bare feet. Upon his inspection, he noticed the gashes from the river rocks of two nights’ ago. The pad of his thumb hovered over my foot.

  “We need to get you something for that.” His voice mumbled low and tender. His brow furrowed. He slipped the silver flats on my feet and held out a hand to help me stand. Despite his tenderness, I ignored his touch. I’d rather walk over those river rocks a second time with my gashed feet than accept his help. I stood and followed his lead to another location: a pharmacy. He took ointment and bandages. Carrying my bags, we re-entered the gorgeous lobby. A set of double doors led to a covered balcony and I realized we were not at ground level. As we neared, I noticed the darkened sky turning to a dull midnight blue. The sun was coming. I raced for the oversized gold double doors and tugged at the large handle. My arms pulled with great effort and no result. Staring through the thin column of window beside the massive wood, my forehead pressed against the glass, and I stared, willing the color change to happen faster. I heard a faint hum and looked up to notice blinds crawling down the panes to block the brightening day.