Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “The fuck is that?” Quinn asked, palming his Netherblades.

  At that moment, the creature in question let out a series of echoed, enraged bellows.

  “Fucking hell,” I muttered. “She actually did it.”

  “Did what?” Margaret asked, standing just to my other side.

  “You’ve heard of hydras?”

  “Uh. Yeah?”

  “They were one of Persephone’s pet creations. Started life as something much smaller and cuter, but during one of the rather violent arguments she had with Hades, she turned them into something more. She destroyed them shortly afterward and vowed to never create any again.”

  “If I could wake up from this nightmare now, that would be great,” Erin said behind me, and Claire and a few others laughed nervously.

  I watched the hulking creature moving behind the billowing smoke. “They never range far from Persephone. I remember Hades saying that, back when she’d created them. My target is Persephone. I will not tell you where to battle.”

  “I’m with you. You know that,” Quinn said, and the rest of my Guardians seemed to steel themselves. I would not have thought less of them if they’d decided to attack one of the smaller, less harmful looking beasts Persephone had brought with her. I nodded my thanks and we moved, rematerializing between burning trees, into the shadows, around fighting groups of monsters and immortals. I was trying to pinpoint where in the chaos Persephone was. She would not be out in the open; it was not her way. The fact that she had apparently created this little monster army had thrown me for a loop. This was not like her. Of course, yes, she had created these monsters in the first place, but it had always been personal, between her and her husband.

  Of course, this was all personal as well, I realized. This was about Hades, as it always had been. It was about Hades’ daughter. It was about heartbreak and revenge and hopelessness. As much as I wanted to destroy Persephone for all she had done, part of me still felt sorry for her. It is not at odds to feel pity for those we punish. Duty trumps pity, always. But pity, understanding, allows us to see clearly, unclouded by rage or disgust.

  Just now, though, there was definitely rage mixed in with that pity.

  My New Guardians and I darted between fires, slipping in and out of the shadows as we searched for Persephone. I was so focused on sensing for Persephone’s power signature that it took me a while before I realized that we were being trailed by someone.

  Two things happened at once: I finally felt Persephone nearby, just ahead of where we were. And I felt Triton behind us, tracking our every move. I was just about to turn and confront him before he could cause trouble or give away our position, when he ran forward, screaming at Persephone in a half-mad, wild way that sent chills up my spine.

  “You killed them! You psychotic bitch,” I heard him scream as he leapt at Persephone. She turned him aside with a wave of her hand, sending him flying across the smoke-filled air until he crashed into, I realized, the enormous statue of Hades that Hephaestus had created. Triton slumped to the ground.

  “Ate their hearts. I saw it,” Triton sobbed, trying to pick himself up. “Bodies turned to dust,” he added, shouting as he launched himself at her again. Before she could swipe him aside again, which I had the feeling might be enough to send him to the Old Nether, I quickly hurled one of my Netherblades at her. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion: Triton barreling at Persephone, Persephone readying herself to toss him aside again, my dagger flipping end-over-end toward Persephone, the obsidian blade glinting as the firelight hit its edge.

  The blade struck true, lodging in Persephone’s throat, and then everything seemed to happen at once.

  Triton hit her at the same moment the blade struck home. Persephone screamed in rage and pain, yet still managed to knock Triton aside. He went careening into a burning clump of bushes, his body limp. It took me a moment to realize that I did not feel his power signature.

  One more immortal, fallen to Persephone’s madness.

  As she scrabbled to pull my blade from her throat, I threw another one at her. This one struck her chest, and she screamed again. I motioned with my hand, and my New Guardians and I surged forward, charging her, ready to finally, finally put this to an end.

  Persephone made an inhuman sound, one I had not heard before. I gave it no thought as we surrounded her, as my New Guardians closed in on her, Netherblades drawn, ready to stop her if she tried to rematerialize.

  I realized, too late, that rematerializing was the last thing we needed to worry about her doing. Maybe she was too weak from the injuries she’d sustained from my blades. Maybe she was just too far gone to realize that she could have gotten away. Maybe, and this was what I believed in my heart, she had no intention of running anymore, determined to bring as many immortals as she could down with her.

  I felt the ground tremble, a crashing sound behind me, and when I turned, it was to see one of her hydras, four of its heads plunging down toward us. It moved impossibly quickly for something of its unnatural size, and my Guardians and I scattered. I rolled a few feet away and jumped to my feet as the hydra’s fetid breath clouded the air nearby, as its enormous serrated teeth snapped at the place I’d just been. A quick glance showed that my New Guardians had all done the same, either running, rolling, or rematerializing out of the creature’s path of destruction. It bellowed rage, and then all but one of its heads thrashed down toward a Guardian, and we were forced to scatter once again.

  I glanced around. We were mostly isolated. The other creatures and the burning structures and forest were between us and the other immortals. I could still hear the sounds of them battling, even above the hydra’s enraged screeches. I glanced up at the hydra, at its thick, scaled hide, which had an almost metallic glint to it, and wished I had Hades’ sword with me. My daggers would be nearly useless against a creature like that.

  I could dematerialize back to London, grab it, and then come back, I thought as I dove away from one of the hydra’s attacks again. But that would mean leaving my New Guardians to deal with this. I saw Erin dart away from one head, only to have another head immediately close in on her from behind. I rematerialized, shoving her out of the way just in the nick of time. She landed on the ground with an “off,” then saw what I’d saved her from.

  “Thanks, boss,” she said in a hoarse voice. I nodded and pulled her up. The smoke was getting to all of us. My eyes were burning, tears running down my face. My lungs felt as if they would explode from the effort of trying to breathe in the inferno. The air around us felt like an oven, and sweat rolled down my forehead, and between my shoulder blades.

  I glanced to the left and saw Quinn leap at the monster with his Netherblade. The blade struck true, sinking deep into the hydra’s flesh, but the hydra barely seemed to notice. One of its heads dove toward Quinn, who rematerialized away. He immediately attacked the monster from another angle. My other New Guardians seemed to pick up on his cue. It was better than doing nothing, after all.

  We’ll get the monster. I know you want Persephone, Quinn said in my mind.

  I looked past the monster and my Guardians to see Persephone there, watching the scene with all the delight of a child at a carnival. I appeared behind her, Netherblades drawn. At that same moment, I saw Mollis, Nain, Hephaestus, Brennan, and Artemis reach the clearing where we had been fighting. Persephone’s second hydra joined the fight, attacking the new threats to their mistress.

  I could end this, at least.

  I reached forward, grabbed Persephone by the hair, and held a Netherblade to her throat. “Call them off,” I demanded.

  She looked at me, and I realized that something was very, very wrong. Her eyes were empty, vacant, totally lacking the usual cunning, observant look Persephone usually had.

  “You always were a fool, Eunomia,” a voice said behind me, and I turned. Persephone, the real Persephone, stood behind me, dressed in white flowing robes, eyes glowing with power. It thundered, swirled around her. I glanced
at the thing I held in my hands.

  “Decoy. Because you’re just that gods damned stupid,” Persephone said. “And I am so sick of dealing with you. You continue to be a thorn in my side.”

  I shoved the false Persephone away. The real Persephone gave some kind of signal with her hand, and the false Persephone attacked, lunging at me.

  “You gave this thing that much power?” I asked as I dove away from Persephone’s double, remembering how just the impact from her hand had been enough to end Triton’s life in the mortal realm.

  “Of course. One should have the most powerful tool possible, don’t you think?” Persephone asked.

  I spent what felt like an eternity dodging the Persephone double’s blows. One caught me, barely, and sent me flying toward the statue of Hades. I didn’t even have time to rematerialize to avoid the impact, it all happened so quickly. I hit the enormous metal statue and crumpled to the ground. False Persephone was coming toward me from my left as I pulled myself up. I nearly passed out as pain tore through me at the moment. Several broken ribs, at least, and my right arm, which had hit the statue, dangled uselessly.

  Chapter Twenty

  “E!” I heard Mollis shout. I forced myself up and took a step back away from False Persephone.

  I felt a cool hand grip my hair.

  “I will take this pleasure myself. Goodbye, Guardian,” Persephone whispered.

  It all happened in an instant. Her hand in my hair, the wicked blade drawing across my throat, cutting so deeply that I immediately felt my throat filling with blood,

  I heard Mollis scream, Brennan roar.

  And then Persephone sliced again as I fell and, for just a moment, I felt nothing at all.

  It must have only been a moment or two at the most. When I was next able to see, it was not as I had ever seen before. The first thing I realized, of course, was that I was looking at my own body, sprawled on the ground at Persephone’s feet, head separated completely from my body. My legs were bent, my hands at my throat. It all looked very undignified.

  Persephone stood over my body, blade in hand, and laughed even as Mollis’s rage-filled scream filled the air, even as my husband’s roars turned to the kind of sound I never would have imagined coming from him. He lost his panther form and knelt, naked, on the ground near my body, that horrendous, grief-filled sound continuing to fill the night. My New Guardians had gathered.

  I witnessed all of it, and felt oddly detached, as if I was watching it all happen to someone else. The screams, the cries, the way, all at once, my friends and family seemed to come to the same idea: vengeance. They turned their attentions toward Persephone and her clone, and at that moment, I felt myself being pulled away.

  It was cold, and it was dark, and the echoes of what I had left behind still echoed in my ears. I still felt weirdly detached. I had lost so much. I had failed. I would never see my husband or friends again. Shouldn’t I be crying? Shouldn’t I be angry?

  Whatever it was that was left of me, my essence, my energy… whatever one would call it, seemed incapable of strong emotion, it seemed. It accepted what was as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Which, I guess, it is. Death, after all, is part of life. Nothing lasts forever, not even the gods. I knew that better than anyone.

  I felt myself being pulled toward what I knew was the Old Nether. I would resurrect there, just as all immortals did.

  I did not want to. I did not want to spend eternity with monsters, demons, and former enemies, some of them sent here by my own hand. I did not want to live among the endless throngs of souls the Old Nether contained. I could just stay like this, aware but not aware, alive but not alive.

  I felt it the moment my essence crossed the threshold into the Old Nether. Its energy was familiar, though no longer comforting. I floated, drifted. I could hear monsters of old, things that had only lived in the Old Nether, created by Persephone to help guard Tartarus. With no one around to tame them, they had gone feral. I could hear conversations all around, feel the essences of millions of other souls, and not a few immortals.

  And still, I floated.

  After a while, I felt my essence sink to the ground. I wanted to fight it. I wanted to fight the sensation of solid ground, because being able to feel something, anything, was a likely sign that the resurrection process was beginning.

  Please, whichever gods there are to hear me, just leave me this way. Do not make me live an eternity here, locked away from everything I love, I begged.

  And then I realized it was already happening. I was feeling emotion again. If I had a body, I would have been sobbing, screaming. As it was, I felt ready to explode with my grief and anger and I was incapable of doing a single thing about it.

  All I could do was wait, and dread the fact that when I was fully back, I would be stuck here with my memories.

  The entire process probably took seconds. Maybe minutes, but they felt like an eternity as I felt myself grow more aware of my surroundings, as I began to feel the first stirrings of life in my resurrected body. First, an initial, weak thump of my heart, then another, then another until it settled into a steady bump-thump, bump-thump. A gasp as my lungs filled with air. Prickles along my flesh as cool air hit my new body, the scratchy irritation of rough ground beneath my back.

  I opened my eyes. Amethyst sky overhead, interrupted here and there by a twinkling white star, black branches criss-crossing overhead. I let out a rage-filled scream, testing my newly-formed vocal chords. Tears ran down the sides of my face, down into my ears, and I screamed and wept and cursed every immortal who had led me to this end. My chest heaved, and I could barely breathe over the force of the sobs that wrenched from deep within me. Trying to halt the crying only led to more crying, harder sobbing.

  I felt empty, and yet so full of rage and loss that the two feelings should have been impossible to feel at the same time. How can one be this empty and this full? I screamed again and pounded the earth. I rolled over and buried my face against my arms, trying to close in on myself, trying not to be, as if that was ever a possibility. This was my hell. A lifetime, an eternity of service, and this was my reward: forever stuck here away from everything I love.

  All I could think about was Brennan. Of course, I would miss Mollis and the others. I would miss the mortal realm itself. But Brennan was what made me scream, made me cry so hard my throat and chest burned with it. My head ached. My nose ran. And still, I could not seem to stop the angry sobs that rose up in me.

  I forced myself up on wobbly legs and took a few unsure steps. After a while, walking felt natural again.

  I walked. There was the old palace, Hades’ former home, rising in the distance. Not knowing what else to do, I made my way there.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I walked. Hades’ former palace grew infinitesimally larger as I got closer to it. I could have rematerialized, I suppose, but if I was stuck here for eternity, there was really no point in trying to hurry things along.

  I would try the gateway, of course, I thought to myself. The gateway to the mortal realm was near Hades’ palace. It had led into a prison where anyone who entered from the mortal realm could immediately be captured and questioned. The only one who had ever come to us that way was Mollis.

  As I walked, memories flashed though my mind. Meeting Mollis for the first time at the burial service for one of her allies. The night Nain had died. Saving Brennan from my sisters’ torture. Sitting, day after day, with Brennan at Mollis’s bedside, becoming friends in our shared worry and grief.

  Later, becoming so much more.

  Dancing.

  Warm, teasing, demanding lips on mine.

  Flying together over Tokyo.

  Making love, feeling more alive than I have ever felt before.

  Matching silver bands.

  “You are never getting rid of me.”

  The tears started flowing again, and I swiped them away but the scenery continued to blur in front of me.

  Dear go
ds, I had wasted so much time. I could never, ever get it back. I would never be able to hold him again, smell the warm, comforting scent of him again, kiss him, feel him deep inside me. I would never again feel the little thrill that came with the moment his eyes met mine, the warmth that came from the most casual of touches. I would never get the chance to watch him sleeping beside me again, to run my fingers through his beard and hear him tell me how much he loved me.

  I stopped, unable to keep walking as another bout of sobbing hit me. I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to force myself to stop. It was worse because I knew that as much as I was grieving, he was grieving too. I had left him, when I’d promised him forever, just as he had promised it to me.

  I have never broken a promise. It is just not something I do.

  I started walking again, Hades’ palace looming on the horizon. I barely paid attention to the souls that I passed. There were simply too many of them, and I did not care. Sadness began to give way to anger, and I held onto that.

  He was there, battling Persephone and her monsters, and I was not able to fight at his side.

  All of that time, all of that effort, and in the end, I would not be able to make sure Persephone got the punishment she deserved. Yes, Mollis was there, along with many other powerful immortals. But seeing what I had seen of Persephone, it was clear that she had become impossibly powerful. I did not doubt now, what Phantasos had said about her eating the hearts of immortals. She had wanted power, and she had taken it. It made sense that once she saw how the hearts had empowered the undead, she would try it herself. She always had been a bit of a scientist, an inventor at heart. And it had worked more brilliantly than we could have ever imagined.

  There was some concern, too, that her son’s power being in Persephone might affect Mollis’s ability to fight her. The same had been true of Hades Senior and Mollis. They had fought, but never with the same intensity they had been able to fight others. Whether it was something in the blood or some sense of familial loyalty, I did not know. But if it was in the blood, if it was in the power, Mollis would not be capable of fighting Persephone. Not the way she ordinarily would be able to.