by Jamie Wyman
“Good luck,” he said.
And just like that, he was gone. Though I’m sure he didn’t take the door, I heard a phantom slamming noise. This jarred me into motion. I grabbed Mal and yanked him out of the hotel room. I still had my backpack, but I knew its contents were worthless to Hades.
“Where are we going?” Mal asked as I dragged him down the path.
“Your room.”
“You can’t be wanting a quickie. Not now.”
“Nope. No sex. I need to go through Marius’s things. He had to have something in his storage shed, something he brought with him that would fetch a satyr’s ransom.”
Once in the room, I began tossing the drawers. Marius had always had an eye for fashion, but as I pulled shirt after shirt out of the drawers, I began to curse his nature as a clotheshorse.
“All right, we need to find something. Something unbeatable.” I groaned. “Christ, how many silk ties does one man need?”
Mal let out a nervous laugh as he dumped the contents of Marius’s bag on the bed. “That’s my brother. Posh bastard more interested in looking flash.”
“Didn’t look so ‘flash’ the last time I saw him,” I murmured.
Mal didn’t meet my eyes, but his hands slowed down as they searched through the random swag on the mattress. His voice was soft and as vulnerable as a scared child’s. “He wasn’t— I mean, when you saw him, was he…?”
I stopped ransacking the room and took Mal’s hands. “Hey,” I said calmly, drawing his gaze to meet mine. Tears had pooled in his sapphire-blue eyes. “You were right. He’s alive.”
The satyr’s lip trembled. “The last thing I said to him… Shit, I was a twat. An’ I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know he wouldn’t come back.”
“Stop,” I barked. “He is coming back. Do you understand me? We’re going to find something here and we’re going to go get him.” My words spilled out of me in quick waves that couldn’t cover the fact that I was crying, too. “And you’re not the only one who fucked up. But we’ll get him back. And we’ll both be able to tell him— Well, we’ll make up for those last moments, okay? They won’t be the last. Not by a long shot. Got it?”
Malcolm closed his eyes, set his features to stony resolve, and nodded.
“All right. Let’s get to looking, then.”
I let go of his hands, and Mal moved to the other bedside bureau and searched the drawers while I sifted through Marius’s possessions. A silver cigarette case—empty. A sealed, unlabeled black bottle—full, though of what I couldn’t tell. One of Eris’s poker chips.
“What was it you said?” Malcolm asked, his tone curious.
I set aside a phial of white light. “What?”
“That you wish you could take back. What was it you said?”
“The problem’s not what I said, rather what I didn’t say.”
He tossed aside another damn silk tie, this one gold. “Ah,” he said, nodding with a wry chuckle. “That.”
“Yeah.” I dragged my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what half of this shit is!”
Clothes stopped flying, and I looked up to see Mal had frozen, his eyes fixed on whatever lay in the drawer.
“Found summat,” he said.
Mal dipped into the drawer with both hands. He lifted the contents as gently as he would a baby. The wooden box was carved with intricate vines and beautiful symbols. With excruciating care, he delivered the box to the bed and laid it on the pillow. He thumbed an unseen latch and opened the casket.
Marius’s pan pipes gleamed from inside. I remembered the awe in his face when he had taken those out at the shed. How his fingers had caressed them, how his lips had pursed just so. When he played them, it had been with the utmost reverence. Of all things—clothes, money, or connections—this bundle of reeds was truly his most prized possession.
I shook my head. “No.”
“What?” Mal chuffed. “Why not?”
“You know how feels about those.”
“If it’s the only way to save him, surely he’ll understand!”
“It’s not like he can just pick up another set!”
“This is all we’ve got, Cat,” Mal roared. “This is the best chance we have. Pipes made by Pan himself. One of a kind.”
“They’re the only thing he loves. It would break his heart to lose them. You know that.”
“Yeah, and the gods know that, as well. They’ll take sick fun out of accepting this over anything else because it will continue to hurt him. One last kick in his ass.”
Shit. I hated it when satyrs were right.
But Mal knew what he was talking about. I’d been around enough of the high and mighty crowd to know that this sort of dig would be precisely the thing that would turn Hades’s head.
“Dammit.” I sighed. “Fine. Fine. But this was your idea. If this works…just don’t blame me, all right?”
Mal moved sluggishly, as if the whole thing was a burden he was not prepared to bear. He reached out to close the box.
“No, don’t get too hasty,” I said. “You’re going to need to use those.”
He blanched, real fear striking him across the face. “What?”
“How else do you expect to get to the Temple of Pan in less than an hour? Hail a cab and speed across to the mainland? That is where Marius said it was, right?”
“B-but…I d-don’t,” Mal stammered. “I mean, I can’t. It’s…”
“Your birthright. Come on. You can play us there.”
“No, I can’t. I’ve never been there.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it bloody matters!”
“You’re wasting time,” I snapped.
“I can’t do it!”
“Bullshit, Mal, I know you can.”
“And just how do you work that one out?”
I gave him a level stare that would’ve made Marius proud. “Blood calls to blood.”
“Shit,” he hissed. Mal paced quickly, like a caged cat looking for a way out. But he knew I was right. Even if he didn’t like it, he knew.
Without another word, Mal picked up the pipes. I closed the box and held it close to my chest.
The satyr moistened his lips and played a trembling note. “I dunno if I know the right tune.”
“Of course you do,” I said, keeping my voice soft and reassuring now. In truth, I was annoyed as hell. We didn’t have time to spare. Our hour was almost up. And if Mal didn’t know the tune, we were fucked. And not in the fun way he’d like. I reached into myself and pulled out some hokey movie bullshit. “Just focus on it. This is part of your heritage. It’s in your blood.”
Mal gulped down his nerves. “Right. I’m just as much Pan’s grandson as Marius, right? I can do this.”
He closed his eyes but didn’t relax. His face was a harsh mix of determination and fear as he brought the reeds to his lips again. At first, the notes quivered breathily, like a nervous child singing a solo at a Christmas pageant. Soon, though, Mal found his voice and pushed it through the pipes with every erg of himself he could muster.
The song was light and lilting. Damn near playful. The notes stirred a new cauldron of butterflies in my belly, but these weren’t flutters of desire or fear. No, this was joy. Simple, pure joy. A summer breeze wafted in from the beach and tossed my hair. I closed my eyes and let the song touch me, let it seep into my frozen, petrified heart and work a little magic.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“You Part The Waters”
Mal stopped playing.
When I opened my eyes, the hotel room was gone. Rocks of all sizes and queer shapes jutted out of the sandy earth. For a moment, I thought we’d traveled to the Otherworld again. However, this place wasn’t devoid of color. In fact, it looked more like someone had taken a paintbrush to the rocky walls of the cliff face before me. Stripes of tarry black mixed with the light brown of fresh-baked bread. The higher up the rock wall my gaze traveled, the more uniform the colors becam
e. Slate gray outcroppings were covered in a dry, brittle grass.
This place looked as if two different cliffsides had been smashed together. To my left, the wall was red as the martian landscape. It boasted a covering of lush, green shrubs that swept off toward the horizon.
Meanwhile, the slab in front of me was pale and parched. Where its neighbor had only been shaped by eons of erosion and exposure to the elements, this side had been carved with hammer and chisel. In a diagonal line following the natural slope of the earth, three alcoves had been cut into the rock. Though weathered, the scalloped details of the arches were still evident. Beneath the highest of these alcoves was a vast archway. Unlike the other carvings, this doorway had no decoration to it, no imagination.
“I’ve gone and done it now,” Mal said, crestfallen. He stared at the barren ruins in the cliff and sighed. “This can’t be the place.”
The sound of a waterfall glided over the hill, and I thought of Marius’s tales of the Temple. Of his lagoon hideaway.
“This is the place,” I said. We were alone, but I felt eyes on me from all directions. “Hurry,” I whispered, opening the casket. “Stash the pipes before someone sees.”
Mal put the bundle of reeds back in its box and stowed the casket in my backpack. And just in time. Deep inside the archway, the cliff quivered and a shape emerged. Whatever it was, its steps clicked lightly on the rocky terrain. I saw the vague silhouette of a short person—well, a biped at least. He wore something on his head that fanned out to either side.
Beside me, Mal shivered. “Oh, bollocks.”
The figure stepped into the light, and I gasped. Staring at me with golden eyes was a goat. He was small—shorter than me, even—with limbs as frail as a child’s. His fur was a light-cream color mottled with snowy white. He wore a tight braid on either side of his face and had a long white beard. Horns—tortoiseshell and smooth—jutted out of his skull and twisted off to either side of his head. These were far longer than any I’d seen sprout from Marius or Mal.
The goat walked on his rear legs. From beneath the hem of his indigo robe, I could see hooves. He was different from the common barnyard animal, though, in that he had the slender arms of a human. Though stubby and furry, his fingers were just as functional as mine.
“Mage,” he said, his voice both nasal and gruff. “I wasn’t certain you would come.”
I remembered the golden eyes peering at me from the shadows of Hades’s chamber. “You were there, too,” I said. “Trying to bargain for Marius’s life.”
He dipped his bearded chin. “Hades called you Catherine Sharp. You are marked for Asgard.” He poked forward with one of those nubby fingers, indicating my mark and stating the obvious all at once.
I smiled, but there was little joy in it. “Aw, and here I don’t know anything about you.”
“I am called Astraios. And I am the high priest of the Sileni.”
Malcolm retreated a step, his shaking breaths audible even over the sound of his feet on the gravel.
Astraios fixed those alien eyes on Mal and cocked his head. “Who is this?”
I chanced a glance at Mal. His face had lost all color. Suddenly the weight of all he’d been through these past few days dawned on me. He’d been tricked into finding his brother and luring him into a trap. He’d accidentally killed me—asshole. He’d seen magic and deities and the fucking River Styx. And now he was faced with a very real example of a heritage he’d all but forgotten. He stood in the shadow of the temple to his grandfather. That in and of itself was pretty heavy.
Quite honestly, I’d have probably thrown up by that point. The fact that Mal was staring uselessly, mouth gaping like a cod, was stellar on his part.
“Malcolm?” I asked softly.
Something of the moment must have infused him, for he swallowed hard and stood a little straighter. When he spoke, it was with a little more dignity than I’d heard before. “I’m Malcolm, second son of Llyr, who was the son of Pan ’imself. I’m here to take my brother home.”
Astraios narrowed his eyes. “Are you?”
“Aye. And I’ll kick the goat ass of anyone who tries to get in me way.”
I sighed. Well, so much for dignity.
The Sileni’s muzzle curled in a sneer. “I see.”
Mal nodded for punctuation. I resisted the urge to pat him on the head. Poor guy.
“We are here to bid for Marius’s life,” I said, loading my words with respect.
“The Sileni welcome you to our sacred temple,” he intoned with a bow. “The auction will begin shortly. Please, come in and join the others.”
With a click, he turned on his hooves and motioned for us to follow him through the arch and into the mountain itself. We’d only gone twenty feet into the cave when darkness fell in a pall. Mal’s lemon-yellow orb sparked to life in his hand, illuminating the walls with the citrusy glow. Soon, we came to a dead end. Our guide, however, didn’t break step. We passed through rock as easily as through air, and as we did, I felt magic shiver around us.
“Is it a glamour?” I asked.
Astraios spared me a glance over his shoulder. “Set on this temple by Pan before his departure.”
“Why?”
“To keep out the marauding riffraff. Romans. Christians,” he spat with disdain. “Any number who would defile this sacred ground. These days it protects our rites from the prying eyes of tourists. Or worse, scientists. Archaeologists who would take our relics and hide them in museums.”
“So outside we see ruins, but it’s actually—”
“The ruins are all too real, woman,” he snapped. “We veil the cave so that none may come unbidden into our sanctuary.”
Amber light swelled, and we found ourselves at the mouth of the tunnel. We’d entered a vast circular chamber. It wasn’t exactly a football stadium, but the room was larger than most churches I’d seen. We stood above it all, separated from the floor by a winding stone staircase. Below us, all sorts milled about.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting—perhaps a handful of gods or minions bearing gold and myrrh. This? This was just…
“Oh fuckin’ hell,” Mal said for both of us.
Quite the crowd had turned out for Marius. At least a hundred bodies filled the space below. The churning mass of voices held the electrified excitement of a crowd of sports fans. All that was missing were a few vuvuzelas. Any moment—if given the proper spark—they could turn into a violent mob. A mob capable of wielding magic and biting with sharp, pointy teeth.
Astraios led us down the narrow, unstable stone steps. Though the priest kept his hands folded together in front of his chest with the solemnity of a monk, Mal and I palmed the wall for support. Between this and my experience with Hades’s Spiral Staircase of Infinite Suckage, I had a feeling I’d be done with stairs for a good long while.
When I get back to Vegas. I’m taking every damn elevator I possibly can.
“Do you lot live here?” Mal asked. “It’s a bit…rough.”
Astraios’s horns dipped. “We keep rooms in a monastery nearby. Though that is where we spend much of our time, this is our sanctum. Our most sacred place. When our lord returns, these halls will be resplendent with his radiance.”
I shivered. Marius. That’s why they wanted him. To make him their god.
As we neared the main floor, I saw that some of the visitors were being herded behind golden ropes to keep them pinned closely to the walls. Other Sileni—goats in robes a few shades drabber than Astraios’s—worked the crowd like ushers.
“What’s up with the ropes?” I asked.
“Spectators. They’ve no stock in the auction itself but have come to watch Fate play her hand.”
“Reality television, Greek-god-style?”
Astraios ignored me. “If you wish to bid,” he said, “you will join the rest of the interested parties near the center.”
Mal and I followed the Sileni’s outstretched hand. Chaos slowly became order, rings of people forming a
ccording to their purposes. Far more had turned up to watch than to bid. In the audience I saw all sorts—some I recognized but most I didn’t. There were dwarves, elves—looking very much like garden gnomes rather than anything you’d see from Tolkien—and demonic-looking things, all shriven of their glamours. Lovely women gathered in pockets, noses held high as they preened. Some of these women trailed leaves, or seemed to have smooth bark for skin.
“Dryads,” a voice purred in my ear. “They have an interest in satyrs.”
I whipped around to find Dahlia staring at me. She wore a white gossamer dress, a light sheen of glitter, and her preternatural beauty. Her mahogany skin was flawless, save for the black oak-leaf tattoo at her throat. Even that dark mark added to her allure, though. And she knew it. Eyes like honey gazed at me from behind that perfect, cold mask, and my ex-girlfriend tossed her raven hair.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, unable to keep the tremor from my voice.
“Officially?” Dahlia held up a small velvet bag and shook it in front of my eyes. Its contents made no sound, but the act was jarring enough that I could almost hear my guts twist. “Same as you, I hear.”
“You’re here on Fae business?” I asked. “Why would either of the queens want Marius?”
“Who says it’s Mab or Titania that wants him?” She pocketed the pouch. “I’m bidden to come, and therefore, I’m here. Charged to score one satyr. Slightly used,” she added cheekily, mimicking Hades’s earlier words.
I didn’t see the humor. Slipping into my comfortable loathing for Dahlia, I crossed my arms over my chest. “And unofficially?”
My ex appraised me, her gaze sliding up and down my body, lingering over my wrist, my hair. She drew in a breath and let it out with a hint of sadness. “I wanted to see you.”
“You’ve seen me. Are we done?”
Her full lips spread into a smile.
Oh gods, that smile. I’d been a fool for it one too many times.
“You have no idea.” Without another word she glided away, fluttering here and there to offer greetings to other guests.
I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with this now. My ex issues would have to wait. Turning back to Mal, I saw that he was staring up at the tall ceiling. He hadn’t even noticed Dahlia. Probably for the best, really, but quite a feat all the same.