by Sierra Dean
What was it about this place that smothered all noise? Was that a side effect of the dead? The night road had felt much the same.
The landscape in front of us was the only thing that convinced me we’d crossed the river at all, otherwise things were much the same as they’d been on the other side. From here I could see the rising black cliffs that marked the passage we’d taken. Though the sky overhead was still an angry orange storm, it looked as if the worst of the tempest was centralized over Hades’s temple. A small hurricane of fire and death spun in a slow, intimidating circle above the starting point of our journey.
Leo let out a sigh, crossing his arms and resting them on his knees as he investigated the pile of bones at his feet.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, finally breaking the building tension. “I’m not worth it, you know. I don’t know your sister, but if she’s anything like you, she deserves her life a lot more than I deserve mine.”
I couldn’t look at him and offer him fake comfort. “She’s nothing like me. She’s so much better than me. And you’re right, she’s worth ten of you.” Before he could reply with a hurt rejoinder, I added, “She’s worth ten of me too.”
He fell quiet, whatever he’d been about to say vanishing on his lips.
“Then why? Why was this so important?” Leo shook the bracelet at me, and I put my hand on his wrist to make him stop, pushing his arm back down to his knee.
“That bracelet is going to keep you alive. It’s the only reason Mormo couldn’t kill me at your apartment. If anything happens to me, that’s what’s going to make sure nothing here gets to you.”
Leo lifted his wrist again, glancing at the slim band, taking in all its creepy detail. “That’s why you made me take it in the hall. You thought Manea was going to try to kill us.”
I nodded.
“And you gave it to me knowing you could die without it.” His voice sounded weirdly emotional, and I hazarded a glance at him.
He was staring at me with open wonderment, as though he didn’t quite know what to make of me. I got the feeling he was waiting for me to answer, so I whispered, “Yes.”
“Why?” The sudden shift in his tone was shocking. He was mad at me.
This was entirely unexpected given the direction our conversation had previously been going. “What do you mean why?” I leaned away from him, the intensity of his outburst catching me off-guard.
“That’s got to be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of anyone doing. Are you out of your mind?”
I blinked at him. “Probably.” I certainly had felt plenty foolish since this whole thing began.
Leo shook his head and let out an angry growl. “You don’t know me. You’ve known me, what, two days? What have I done in that time to make you think it was worth it to choose my life over your own?”
I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but I found myself laughing uncontrollably. Since I was already leaning away from him, the laughter made me fall sideways, and I landed in the bone pile, a leg bone or something equally pointy jabbing me in the back of the head.
“Oh, Leo. You still don’t get it.” I chuckled, holding my hand against my aching ribs to mitigate some of the pain. “This isn’t my choice. None of this is about me. Seth wants you alive, so that’s all I want. That’s all I’m allowed to want. If you think there’s a single decision I’ve made in the last twenty years where I haven’t thought of him first, you’re kidding yourself.”
Leo fell silent, and when I sat back up, he was glaring sullenly across the river in the direction we’d come from.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he said.
“Neither did I.”
He looked at me again, and after a moment a small smile ticked at the corner of his mouth. Then he was laughing too, a rich, wonderful booming sound that was entirely wrong for the world around us, yet so welcome all at the same time. “What a ridiculous pair of assholes we are for getting ourselves into this mess.”
“I blame your father.” I braced my hands on the ground to push myself up, but the bones shook beneath me, the ones underfoot sliding away. I fell a foot down the hill before Leo caught me by the back of my jacket.
The bones continued to cascade around us, this time much faster. Leo lost his own purchase, and we both shot forward. He hit me, and we rolled halfway down the slope before coming to a stop on an even plane. I landed on top of him, bracing my hands on his chest and accidentally kneeing him in the crotch in my desperate effort to find my footing.
He swore loudly, and the ground itself rumbled a growl in response.
Leo and I both froze.
“Did you—?”
“Yes.” I cut him off before he could complete his sentence. This whole place felt like a sharp descent into madness, but there was no way we’d both imagined that sound.
More bones slid down the hill, running past us like water in a stream. Soon I was up to my knees in feet and spines. Grinning skulls rolled by with open, laughing mouths, mocking us as they tumbled towards the river’s edge.
We can escape this, and you can’t, they seemed to say.
I got hold of Leo and pulled him up before the bones had a chance to bury him. I held his arm tightly, using him as an anchor while the whole hill shifted around us, threatening to swallow us whole at a moment’s notice.
It took me far too long to realize the reason everything was in motion was because something was moving under the heap.
We were standing on something alive, and we’d woken it up.
Chapter Thirty-One
An enormous black form broke through the heap like a whale breaching the ocean’s surface. Bits of human debris rained down, hitting Leo and me as they flooded towards the River Styx.
We skidded a few feet farther but fought against the bone tide, maintaining a safe distance from the blackened edge of the water’s surface.
Still clinging to Leo, I followed his gaze up to the top of the hill where the creature we’d been standing on had finally decided to show its face.
Or faces.
The three heads of Cerberus—and all six of his slick black eyes—stared down at us.
Three slavering mouths pulled back their lips to expose impossibly long and sharp yellowed teeth. When it growled, the sound came from all three throats and shook me to my soul.
We’d literally woken the sleeping giant, and it. Was. Pissed.
“Nice doggy,” Leo said. “Niiiiice doggy.”
I gaped at him, my attention temporarily taken off the massive killing machine towering over us. “Nice doggy?”
Leo glared at me and adjusted his stance, trying to find better footing. It was impossible. As the dog continued to rise from its slumber, the bones poured down around us until I was forced to pull myself out of a hip-deep pool of human remains.
If we stood here much longer, the dog wouldn’t need to bother eating us, because we’d drown in a heap of dry bones. I wasn’t sure what idea scared me more: quick death from ten-ton jaws, or to have my last breath be full of finger bones. Neither was too appealing, to be honest.
My first instinct was to run, but we could barely stand on the hill without staggering. If we made a break for it, we’d end up in the river, and as option C it didn’t seem like a much better way to die.
Charon knew exactly where he was dumping us and had left us here anyway. The evil, immortal prick.
But why would he ferry us to certain death after making such a big show of getting a promise from me about Sunny? Seemed like a lot of effort to go through to put us in an impossible situation. Which led me to believe there must be a way out of this we weren’t seeing. Some solution that wasn’t obvious.
I had a demigod with a bracelet of invincibility standing next to me. Surely he must be good for something other than thievery and bad jokes.
Then I saw it in his eyes.
Our salvation.
“Look at me.” I grabbed hold of him, turning his body towards me and sending both of us sliding ano
ther foot down the slope.
His gray eyes had become deep, gloomy pools, the same green-tinged charcoal color as a cloud threatening to turn into a tornado. I hadn’t known before if he had any of his father in him, in a power sense, but as the first flicker of lightning danced across his irises, I broke into a broad smile.
I could have laughed or cried, but neither seemed like the right response.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Cerberus growled again, the bones around us rumbling and rattling in chorus. But for the first time since we’d arrived here there was a glimmer of hope. Because if Leo was his father’s son and carried any of Seth’s ability, I could use it.
It didn’t matter how dormant it was. If the spark was inside him, that was all I needed.
Of course, using it might kill me anyway, but I’d deal with that if and when it became an issue. I wasn’t going to turn down this opportunity for something as small and insignificant as my potential death.
Any other time I’d have worried that using his powers would damage him, but as long as he had that bracelet on his wrist, I knew it couldn’t kill him.
Just hurt him real bad.
“I’m going to do something, and you’re not going to like it,” I told him matter-of-factly.
“Is it any worse than the situation we’re already in?” He spoke in a rapid-fire burst that made the full sentence sound like one long word.
He grabbed me by the waist as another small landslide threatened to take me down with it. Instead of putting me down, he held on to me, his arms locked around my middle, and the warm plane of his chest pressed against mine. This much closeness would normally bother me, but something about the added proximity to Leo felt comfortable, like it was perfectly natural for him to be holding me like this.
Actually, the more of me touching him the better. I recalled the way Seth had put his hands on me when he channeled his full power into me. This would be much the same. Instead of drawing the energy of the storm from the sky, I’d be pulling it out of Leo. Touch was a great way to get as much out of him as I could all at once.
“This might hurt a little.”
He began to reply, but I kissed him.
At first he was startled by the gesture—one I hadn’t intended romantically—and he went still beneath my mouth. But as the spark inside him responded to me, so too did the man. His hands moved from my waist to my thighs, and he lifted me, positioning me so my legs wrapped around him. I didn’t argue, needing the support for what I was about to attempt.
His skin simmered and radiated so hotly I could feel his synapses firing underneath my fingertips. I may not have meant the kiss as a seduction, but damn if it wasn’t turning out to be a hot one. I gripped the back of his neck, tilting my head for a better angle as he opened his mouth to me.
I’d owe him an apology after this, but my brain was too foggy right then to remember why it was wrong.
The electric feel of his skin sang to me, like his whole body only existed so that lightning could take human form. Being this near to him fed me, energized me, reminded me of the glory of being alive.
How could I complain about being a Rain Chaser when it felt this good?
Then the hurt came.
The first spark bit at my tongue, like licking a battery. Then his body felt like it was less human and more like a live wire. I opened my eyes in time to see his snap open, the storm so alive inside his irises they were blue-white and blinding.
What surprised me, though, was the lack of fear on his face. This had to be the first time he’d had the lightning pulled out of him, otherwise he wouldn’t have been shocked to learn about his divine parentage. Yet he wasn’t panicking.
If my whole body was starting to leak pure energy I would have freaked the fuck out.
Leo just kissed me harder.
The sizzling sensation radiated out of him and into me. In the back of my mind I was aware that Cerberus was growling and the sound was louder now than before, but the only thing I was able to focus on were the literal sparks flying between the demigod and me.
I was like an empty glass, and as I kissed him, the cup filled. When I felt as if I couldn’t take any more, that even the slightest drop beyond this would cause me to tear apart, I pushed myself away from him, breaking the connection between our mouths with a gasp. My skin was prickling from the inside, alive with bees. It hurt, but was overwhelmed with the power flowing through me.
For once the pain wasn’t dragging me down.
Leo was panting, his eyes bright and wild. “Whoa.”
I didn’t waste any time replying. The power was active and ready, and I had no idea how long it would hold out. All I knew was I needed to unleash it now before it vanished.
I’d never done anything like this. When Seth had used me, he’d commanded the energy. Any time I’d done it on my own I was drawing from the source, like drinking from a faucet. Leo was more like a Dixie Cup, and I was going to drain him in an effort to keep us alive.
I kept one hand on his chest as I disentangled myself from his grip. At first he seemed unwilling to let me go, but when I withdrew, he let me. I found my uneven footing once again, and with a hand pressed against his abs, I lifted my other palm to the sky.
Sparks danced across my fingertips, fireworks like snaps of blue and white. I drew from the energy inside me, everything I’d drained from him, and it felt like a long chain inside me being tugged tight, the links straining. The tension passed through me and into him, and he let out a small “Oof” before bracing himself on me.
Where his hands met my shoulders, new chains formed within me, and I stumbled forward a step, as if my fingers were pulling me ahead. The bracelet on his wrist was glowing faintly, and I wondered what this might do to him if he wasn’t wearing it.
My answer came when the pain I was inflicting on him slammed back into me like a full-body punch.
My breath came in short puffs, and I closed my eyes, refining my focus. So this was the sensation of having death turned back on you.
The electricity swelled up all at once, as if it had been held back by a dam and was unleashed, flooding through me in an excruciating explosion. Lightning burst from my palm, and like with Seth before, I worried the sheer volume of the pain might shatter me. Yet part of it, something inexplicable, edged towards pleasure. It was unlike anything else I’d ever experienced, this god-fueled power surge, and apparently Leo would suffice just as well as Seth had.
Except I was the one in charge here.
Instead of being used as a puppet, now I was the master. It was so much power I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle it.
The first bolt hit the middle dog head right between the eyes.
It yowled, a sound so loud and fearsome my insides quivered. The two other heads began to growl and whine, each responding in turn to the pain being experienced by the middle head. I wondered if they could feel it too, or if each head had its own brain and therefore different pain receptors.
If I made it out of here, I could think about the biology of underworld canine guardians all I wanted. Now was the time to focus on finding a way around this thing.
The dog rose to its full height, easily twenty feet high or more. The shadow it cast blotted out the light of the flaming sky and created an aura of artificial cold around us. It was so sudden and so chilling my breath fogged out in front of me like it would on a cool winter’s day.
Drool poured from the corner of the center head’s mouth, a long string of thick liquid that dropped slowly to the ground nearby, forming a miniature pond of dog spit. The two other heads continued to snarl, this time from much higher up now that the creature was standing.
I hadn’t liked the thing when it was napping. Now that it was awake I understood completely why Hades used it as his sigil. As mascots for hell went, it did the trick nicely.
I also knew that Cerberus had only one job to do for its master, and it was a job the creature took so seriously that failur
e was not an option.
Cerberus existed to keep the dead from leaving the underworld.
I’d heard stories of bold men trying to escape these hallowed, unwelcome grounds, but they’d always rung a bit false. As if someone would come to the underworld with meat to ply the dog with. Having been here now, I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to come prepared for the eventualities that might arise.
Cerberus took another step forward, and that’s when I spotted it. A sight so beautiful and perfect I had to restrain myself from shrieking with delight.
The three-headed dog was standing in front of a door.
A door that would lead us out.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Seeing the exit was one thing.
Actually getting to it was quite another.
There were a few things I could see that were going to get in our way when it came to an easy escape. First, the bone hill had all but collapsed, meaning the door out was about fifteen feet up the side of a black rock mountain pass. Well out of easy reach and possibly too high to climb to if no suitable foothold existed.
Second, there was no way we’d be able to make a run for it, even if I could distract all three heads at the same time.
Lastly, I’d just shot the dog in one face with a lightning bolt, and all that had done was make it angrier.
Things were not looking great.
Yet I still felt buoyed. We’d gotten past Charon with only a cheap necklace and a promise I had no intention of keeping. Now all we had to do was get through that door, and we could kiss this stupid place goodbye.
How did people find this so difficult?
Had Hades really believed this was a challenge worthy of our forgiveness? And why had Manea agreed to it?
My hubris took a back seat to reality when the dog heads growled in unison and the middle one lowered itself towards us, one eye closed from my blast and its lips curled back showing teeth thicker than Leo’s legs.
Right.