The Heart of Arima.

by Emma V. Leech

  "We don't have much time," he said sadly, and I felt my heart twist at the tone of his voice.

  “I know how to do it now Corvus, I’ll be able to do it again. This doesn’t have to be the last time.” My voice caught as I realised I might not get the opportunity to do it again.

  He held me tight, his lips close to my ear. "I will never let anything happen to you, Jéhenne, not ever again, I promise. I will always keep you safe, no matter what."

  I sighed and held onto him just as tightly. "Don't worry, I'm never going to let you out of my sight again," I promised in return. "We will always be together, Corvus, even if I have to move heaven and earth to arrange it."

  He smiled but there was sadness behind it and I knew we were both wondering how long we had. How long before fate tore us apart ...again.

  Chapter 41

  I woke the next morning with a fierce pounding in my head. I turned to look at Corvus who was still sleeping peacefully, and thought it very unfair that vampires didn't get hangovers considering the gut rot they drank.

  With the agility of a ninety year old, I hauled my sorry self out of bed and headed, a trifle unsteadily, to the bathroom. I emerged looking a bit more human, though I felt like I'd died the previous day. The colour in my cheeks was entirely due to make-up, as without it I'd looked like death warmed up. It was as good as it was going to get today.

  I staggered down to the kitchen to find Rodney looking equally fragile.

  “Hi,” was all I managed before I laid my head in my hands with a groan. Rodney placed two steaming hot mugs of tea on the table and two glasses of Inés' hangover cure.

  I smiled and tried my best not to look pitiful. from Rodney’s expression I wasn’t doing so well. "Thanks," I muttered and snorted as Rodney winced and held a finger to his lips.

  He rubbed the emerging stubble on his chin, which was one of the new things his upgraded live body was giving him to contend with.

  We both downed the hangover cure with equal amounts of disgust and sipped our tea in companionable silence.

  "You alright then, luv?" he managed a little later when the cure began to kick in.

  I nodded. "Apart from the brass band playing in my head, yeah, fine and dandy. You?"

  He frowned and looked at me with a worried expression. "Got on the wrong side of Cain this morning."

  I grunted with amusement. "I wasn't aware he had a right one."

  Rodney shook his head. "He's stressing about somethin’, in a foul temper he was. I guess it’s all this underworld stuff. He's getting everythin’ ready for us to leave. Tell the truth, luv, it scares the crap outta me.”

  “You’re coming?”

  “Course. Couldn’t let you have all the fun could I?” He gave a grin but it didn’t reach his eyes. “There’s somethin’ else goin' on though, I know it. Corvus is worried about goin’, him an' Cain, I heard em' just before Christmas. I didn't want to tell yer before but I heard em, yellin’ at each other. Corvus is really unhappy, Jéhenne, he don’t want to go.”

  I sat up, feeling uneasy. "Well, you know how he worries about me, you can't expect him to want to take me into the underworld to kill a dragon."

  “Yeah, Jéhenne, I know but that’s the thing. It isn’t the bloody dragon that’s worryin’ him.”

  I sat up a bit straighter. "Well I can understand not wanting to face Hekatê too, can't you? I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do about her!"

  "Yeah," Rodney looked uneasy and I began to feel sick again. "But, I don't think that's it either"

  "Oh. Well then what ...?” I stopped, of course he was worried. The voice in my head had begun when I went to the underworld.

  “I dunno," Rodney carried on. "But if it aint the thought of facin’ a goddess or slayin’ a bleedin’ Ekhidna ... Well, what the bloody hell could be worse than that, Jéhenne?” He stood up and paced around for a moment looking sick. “Whatever it is I don’t wanna know cause it must be friggin scary!” I nodded. I didn't want to know either. He fiddled with one of the chains on his belt for a moment. “I’m goin to ask Amelia to marry me.”

  Amelia and I both knew Rodney had been trying to get up the nerve to propose to her for some time and normally I’d have been thrilled to hear he was going ahead with it. The timing of this, however, made me feel ill. He sat back down and my heart started pounding in my chest. I grabbed hold of Rodney’s hand and he held it, squeezing it tight.

  “You think you might not come back.”

  He shrugged. “Oh, you know me, luv. Probably gettin’ me knickers in a twist over nothin’. I--I just want her to know how I feel like, before I go, just in case.”

  I shook my head. “You go ahead and propose, Rodney. It’s about bloody time but you don’t need to worry about the trip because you’re not coming.”

  “You what?”

  “You’ve almost died before on my account, I’m not putting you through it again, or me come to that. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

  Rodney stood up and looked down at me severely. “Now jus’ hold on a minute, luv. I appreciate you lookin’ out for me, I do really but Corvus, he asked me to go, he wants me there an’ I’m goin’.”

  “I’ll talk to Corvus ...”

  “No, luv. You’re not listenin’," he said, sounding really angry. "Even if he hadn’t asked, I’d still go. You need me there, I know you do, an’ you an’ Corvus, you’re family. If anything ‘appened to either of you I wouldn’t be able to live wiv me self. I’m a big boy now. If I’d ‘av been human still I’d ‘ave been in me box donkey’s years ago, I can decide for me own self. Got it?”

  I must have looked shocked by his tone of voice as he sighed.

  “Oh bleedin’ hell, Jéhenne, I didn’t mean to yell at you.” He pulled me into an awkward hug. “I’m sorry, luv, I know I shouldn’t ‘ave told yer any of this but I didn’t know who else to talk to. I don’t want to tell Amelia yet and I’m freakin’ out here.” He let me go and I looked up at him to see the worry in his eyes.

  “I gotta bad feelin’, Jéhenne,” he admitted and I nodded sympathetically. I felt like that most of the time. "I know you're not feelin' great either, luv, and I'm sorry but ..."

  “What is it?”

  “Cain, he's waitin' for you.”

  Of course. I knew my time had run out. “Where is he?”

  “He’s just gone up. Said he needs to talk to you while the family are sleepin’”

  I swallowed and nodded, my voice seemed to have deserted me. I knew he was going to tell me who it was, who wanted me back. I wanted to run away, to go anywhere but back up the stairs.

  That just wasn’t an option though.

  I climbed the stairs feeling like my legs were filled with lead to find Cain sitting in the apartment, staring at the fire. He too looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. I’d discovered my brother was a serious kind of guy, not exactly a bundle of laughs. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a sense of humour, he just hid it well, but even for him he seemed deeply unhappy. If there was a way I could get out of having this conversation I reckoned I’d take it. I sighed and sat at the other end of the sofa with a sick feeling swirling in my stomach.

  “It’s Dis Pater.”

  That was it. No breaking it to me gently, no comforting hand to hold. But that was Cain all over.

  “W-what?” I figured I must have misheard him. “You’ve got to be joking?”

  He was turning a throwing star round and around in his hands but he looked up at me. “You know I don’t joke.”

  “Dis Pater, Lord of the underworld? Dis Pater ...the god? We can’t be talking about the same thing here, I mean, is there another Dis Pater?” I knew from his expression that I wasn’t going to get the answer I was hoping for. “But, Cain, w-what on earth would a god want with me? I mean I’m nothing, nobody! OK I’m a witch but so are loads of other women. Well maybe not loads but ...”

  “Jéhenne.”

  I got up and starte
d to pace around the room. “You’ve made a mistake. It has to be ...”

  “Jéhenne!" he shouted. "Stop. Stop fighting it and think about him ... now that I’ve told you his name, think about him.”

  “I ... I ... Oh God no.”

  I sank to my knees as his face came vividly to mind, and not just his face, images, memories of us together. We had been happy. We had been lovers. “Does Corvus know?”

  “Yes, I had to tell him.”

  I realised that must have been what Rodney had heard. He had known about this all over Christmas and said nothing. Oh God, I felt sick. My heart was beating so hard I thought it would be enough to wake the vampires. Now I knew why Cain had wanted to have this little chat in the day time. He got up and threw some wood on the fire, for which I was grateful. Suddenly I was freezing cold and started to shiver. He pulled a throw off of one of the chairs and draped it around my shoulders before pouring out two glasses of whisky. He handed one to me and sat beside me on the rug.

  “I’m still cold.”

  “It’s the shock. Drink the whisky, it will help.”

  “I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  “Just drink it, Jéhenne. This day is not going to get any better.”

  Oh God. My brother, the optimist. I took a sip and grimaced. I hated neat whisky but a small puddle of warmth grew in my belly, which was something.

  “Why me?”

  “You were promised to him from the beginning, Jéhenne. I don’t know all the details. There are legends, stories, things I’ve heard over many centuries of trying to find out about you. I’ve been piecing together the details, trying to find the truth in the rumours and as far as I can gather Hekatê sold you to him- in exchange for the key.”

  “She what?”

  “Just listen.”

  I took a bigger sip of whisky and noticed that my hand was trembling.

  “Dis Pater and Hekatê had some sort of agreement between them. Hekatê was hungry for more power and she coveted the key to Erebus. Dis Pater apparently saw a girl, one that tended Hekatê’s temple, and he wanted her. You have to understand, Jéhenne, he is a man who always gets what he wants. You must know the story of Persephone?”

  “She was abducted by ...Hades?”

  “Hades, Dis Pater, Pluto, he has many names. Her mother, Demeter searched the world with help from Hekatê. It is said that she refused to let the earth fruit until she was returned to her but Dis Pater had tricked Persephone into tasting the food in the underworld, a handful of pomegranate seeds, and she was forced to spend half of the year in the underworld ...with her husband.”

  I looked up at him in confusion. “But that’s just a legend, a myth? Isn’t it?”

  Cain sighed and massaged his forehead with one hand. “You’ve been to the underworld, Jéhenne, and after everything you’ve seen and experienced, you can still ask me that? Many of those stories are grossly inaccurate. As the world turns, the histories and the names change. The Greeks, the Romans, Norsemen, they all have their versions of events, their own spin on the story. It’s true some are complete lies but the majority of them have at least a grain of truth at their heart. They are the same stories, told and retold in different versions.”

  “So she gave me to him, gift wrapped I imagine?” I asked bitterly.

  “From what I have heard you weren’t exactly unhappy about the arrangement, quite the opposite, in fact.”

  I flushed, remembering the vision I’d had of myself, covered in jewellery and surrounded by wealth and how I had greeted Dis Pater when he woke me. No, it didn’t look like I had been unhappy about the situation.

  “So what happened? He wanted me, he got me, what changed?” I looked at Cain, who watched me. I always found it unnerving, his eyes were exactly like mine, the same shape, same shade of green but there was nothing there when you looked at him. They say the eyes are the windows of a person’s soul and his were empty. What did that mean?

  “Do you know how the gods gain power?”

  I shook my head.

  “Worship. The more that worship them, sacrifice to them, the more their power grows. Hekatê made the deal with Dis Pater with one proviso - you would live one human life span, born into a family of powerful witches, you would get close to the Emperor of Rome himself and bewitch him into worshiping the old gods. Constantine had declared Christianity the official religion of Rome. The old ways were being forgotten, outlawed and the old gods found their powers waning. You were born into this world with a mission, Jéhenne, and you were on your way to completing it. You had already caught the eye of the Consule but I think Hekatê and Dis Pater underestimated something.”

  “What?”

  He smiled and suddenly I could see the freckle-faced boy who had been my little brother. It was like the sun had come out to warm his face. “You, Jéhenne. In the underworld you wouldn’t have stood a chance, you would have been brain washed, told what to think, what to say, what to believe. They thought that they could still control you in the same way here but you were born into the human world, a world where you could think for yourself- and that’s what you did. I was very young then but I believe you began to question what you were being told to do. You began to doubt that you were following the right path and then, out of the blue something happened that changed everything.”

  “Corvus.”

  “Corvus,” he agreed. “I remember when you met him, he was kind to me. I liked him. He was a good man.”

  “He still is.”

  Cain frowned into his whisky glass before tipping the last of it down his throat. “Just as Corvus has told you not to trust me because he has heard the stories, heard of the things I have done, so have I heard stories of him. I know that he loves you, Jéhenne, but you really don’t know him.”

  “I know everything I need to,” I snapped at him, irritated that he had to make a dig at Corvus even in the middle of such a conversation.

  He snorted. “No, you really don’t.”

  “So tell me then.”

  “Oh no, another man’s stories are not mine to tell but one day you will hear them and I hope you will be prepared to face them.”

  We were silent for a moment, I was angry and he knew it.

  “Do you understand what this means for you, Jéhenne?”

  I shrugged. “I’m guessing nothing good.”

  “The gods made a deal and you were it. Hekatê wants the key and Dis Pater wants you. Hekatê sent you back here without his permission this time to keep the key safe from her daughter’s grasp. I think you agreed to it so that you could find Corvus but your mother in this lifetime would not let you use your magic, she used drugs and psychiatrists to make you forget your memories, forget who you were and your purpose was lost to you.”

  I handed Cain the glass. “Think I might need another,” I said a little shakily. Suddenly everything began to make a horrible kind of sense. My whole life, my whole existence had been mapped out for me. What would have happened to me, how would history have changed, if I had never met Corvus? The implications were too big, too incredible. Cain got up and poured another measure. “What does it mean for me, for all of us?”

  “They are gods, Jéhenne, we are not. Even today with so few that still believe and worship them, their power is nothing that any of us can stand against.”

  I took the glass from him and had to hold it in both hands as I was shaking so badly. “He’ll take me back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t we just not go? I ... I’ll keep the key. I fought Hekatê off once, I can do it again.”

  Cain looked at me with pity in his eyes. “First of all, Jéhenne, you are in debt to Sariel; that is not something you can ignore. He has told you what he expects of you, you have no choice in the matter, you made a deal with him, and in any event it makes no difference. You may be able to keep Hekatê at bay if you keep the key, and yes Corvus and I agree you must keep it but Dis Pater will come for you, he holds the other key, Jéhenne, and even if he d
idn’t ...” He trailed off and I didn’t need to hear the words to know what came next.

  I shook my head. “No, no, no ... There must be a way! I can’t, I can’t go back to him, Cain ... I can’t, I won’t!” I was getting hysterical, whisky on an empty stomach first thing in the morning was one thing, add in a life’s history I knew nothing about and the fact my future was about to go to hell and I thought I was pretty justified in losing the plot. Cain gripped me by the shoulders and made me look him in the eyes.

  “He won’t have you, Jéhenne; I give you my word he won’t.”

  “That’s what Corvus said,” I whispered. “But you can’t stop him, can you, either of you?” He let go of my shoulders and looked away.

  “There is always a way, Jéhenne. If you are willing to do anything, sacrifice anything ... There is always a way if you are prepared to pay the price.”

  Chapter 42

  The whisky swirled in my stomach and I could feel acid at the back of my throat. The truth finally hit home. There was nothing Corvus, Cain or anyone else could do, no matter what either of them said. I wondered if Corvus himself had accepted that fact yet, or did he truly believe there was a chance he could win against a god? If he did he was kidding himself as well as me. Dis Pater would come for me and no one would be able to stop him. I would never see Corvus again.

  Cain had gone. He had given me a hug, along with his promise, just as Corvus had. He would keep me safe, Dis Pater would never have me ... But I knew they were empty words. There was no way out. I couldn't even kill myself as my soul and the key would go straight to Hekatê and they’d both have what they wanted. Well I figured I had nothing to lose. I couldn’t win but I wouldn’t make it easy for them. When Dis Pater took me I’d make him so bloody miserable he would be begging Corvus to take me back inside of a week.

  I just wished with all my heart that I had longer. I knew now why Corvus’ words had struck me, we don’t have much time. He wasn’t talking about the spell. He was talking about the time before we were parted again ...forever.