I set the lilin down next to her. “Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll keep watch.”
She cracked one eye. “We can’t just sleep out in the open here. We’ve managed to come across non-dangerous creatures so far, but trust me, that’s going to be rare.”
“You think you can walk then?”
She nodded. “We’ll walk until we find something that looks a little safer.”
I didn’t think we’d find anything like that here, but I kept that to myself. After picking up the lilin, I turned and strode toward the huge rock wall I’d seen from the ledge. Something had been carved at the bottom. Turning my head, I saw that quite a few of the spirits followed us and I thought of a group of prairie dogs I’d seen in a zoo once. They’d followed along the fence when I’d walked on the other side. I guess not a lot happened here to keep the ghosts occupied.
The lilin grunted, started wiggling and actually tried to feed again. Without hesitating, I walked by a tree and slammed her head into it. Cruel, I know, but the thing had killed people and decimated forests in my world. She deserved some pain.
We walked for what felt like an hour before reaching another rock wall that seemed to stretch into the sky. Dead tree trunks twisted together at its base and I squinted, spying a clearing in the center of them. I pointed. “There’s a good place to rest.”
Phro trudged that way, squeezed through the narrow opening and plopped onto the ground. “That’s it for me,” she said.
A shadow crossed over her and I looked up to find masses of those spirits hovering over our heads. A sense of foreboding made me set the lilin down again. I pulled out my knife just as I heard a horrible racket. Thunderous crashes that sounded like they were coming our way. I moved away from the trees and around a rocky corner and saw a boulder rolling and bouncing down a huge hill. It came to rest at the bottom. Squinting, I stared up the side of the mountain, my mouth dropping open because I knew exactly who that tiny figure at the top was.
I’d read the story of Sisyphus. The son of a king who had tricked the gods and escaped this world, only to be sent back to live eternity in punishment. He was already making his way down the mountain to where he’d push that boulder all the way up it again.
I walked back to the trees and dragged the lilin inside them. Phro was out. I settled in to keep watch, trying to ignore the plethora of emotions tearing me up. Exhaustion, worry over my friends back in my world, and the absolute and utter fear that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life and would be stuck in this world forever.
Chapter Fourteen
Mist swirled off the river in thick waves that crawled over the land like it was alive. The air here felt heavy and a few times I thought I might keel over because it drained my already exhausted body. I should have tried to sleep when Phro passed out. Instead, afraid, I’d pulled strong vines off nearby trees and tied up the lilin. We’d left her in that stand of trees, her swollen, bloody face showing such terror I actually hesitated. Then I dredged up the memory of all those young people in the audience and the spirits of the dead teenagers.
She deserved anything that came her way, hungry or not.
It was still hard to walk away and leave someone that vulnerable.
“You need to harden yourself, Bergdis.”
It took a lot of my concentration to keep from limping. My leg and my arm were on fire and I felt like Harry Freakin’ Potter, with his damned scar that reacted whenever the bad guy was near. I kept looking around for dweller demons. I couldn’t astral project and snap their spirit heads off here.
“Bergdis!” Phro snapped.
“Don’t call me that.”
“It is your given name and it’s a strong name that has meaning. Your mother was a true warrior and I’m damned sick of you being ashamed of the name she bestowed upon you.” She took a deep breath and yelled, “Bergdis!”
And it was like she let out a spirit mating call. Hundreds of them gathered—the ones that had been following us, and new ones. They milled about me and through me. Gasping, I shut my eyes and tried to peel dimensions and it was like trying to peel an unripe avocado. The layers were stuck, refused to budge. But as I turned in a circle, trying to evade some of the creepier ghosts, I saw the shimmery outline of my cord behind me.
I did fall to my knees then.
We weren’t stuck here forever.
Dizziness kept me grounded for a few seconds and I had to swallow several times before I could speak. I looked up at the goddess. “Phro, I can see my cord.”
“Thank the gods.” She shooed some of the spirits away. I could tell she was still slightly afraid of them because she made sure not to let her hands get too close.
I closed my eyes, not even bothered any longer by the ghosts because this new realization chased away a cloying panic I hadn’t even realized I carried. My fear of being here, my worry over getting to Nikolos in time—these things had sort of obscured the panic. The relief made my legs feel too loose to stand on.
But this, after all, was about getting to Nikolos.
Renewed determination flooded me and I stood and growled at the spirits around me until they backed off.
“Fierce,” Phro drawled out, impressed. “Keep that look right there. We’re about to meet a real bitch of a goddess. And watch your damned mouth, Bergdis.”
I briefly closed my eyes. “Every time you use that name, the spirits are reminded of its meaning. Can you just stop?”
“Spirit protection might come in handy. Especially here.” She started walking, then stopped and turned to me. She began to twist her long hair into a knot that looked surprisingly elegant. “Watch your words. You will have to bargain. Don’t fuck this up.”
“Goddess, the mouth on you here.”
We came to an iron fence with intricate scrollwork that stretched for acres either way. In the center of the dead, root-strewn yard stood a two-story, gable-roofed house.
“This is it.”
I frowned at Phro. “How do you know? You said you hadn’t been here.”
She pointed to the golden snake emblem on the brick chimney of the house. “Tisiphone shares your affinity for snakes.”
“I don’t have an affinity for them. They just follow me around.”
“Thank goodness or we’d be digesting food in a large serpent’s stomach about now.” She approached the house slowly. “This doesn’t seem like a place she would live. It should be bigger, more ornate.”
A cobblestone path wound around, putting the front door of the house to the side. We followed it only to find the house grew much larger on the backside. It morphed into a massive stone structure that backed up to a mountain of rock. A wide opening, big enough to fit four semis side by side, was to the right of the house. A carved-ivory throne with intricate etchings sat empty next to the doorway. I stopped walking, stared at that fancy chair and felt my skin crawl. Again, I tried to peel the dimensions and this time, I caught the shimmering outline of a person. “We’re not alone, Phro.”
“Of course we aren’t.” She stood taller suddenly, confident. She didn’t smooth her hands down her dirty clothes or do any other fidgety movements that would show any discomfort. Instead, Phro strode to that throne and glared at it.
Deep laughter sounded before a form solidified. It came from a woman with wide, masculine shoulders and form, all draped in a golden tunic. As I walked closer, I took in the bloodstains on the material and the tangle of snakes writhing at her feet. Her hair was a mass of stripes in black, white and gold.
“To see the lovely Aphrodite brought so low is entertainment indeed.” Her voice, scratchy and deep, probably came as a result of the scar that spanned her throat. Someone had taken a knife to her neck at some point.
“This coming from someone who guards the gates of the underworld.” Phro sneered at a couple of snakes who approached to inspect her feet.
I came to stand next to her and the snakes abandoned her entirely to snuggle around my ankles. The bloodstained goddess sitting on
the throne eyed them like they’d lost their minds. When she raised her gaze to me, her power brushed over my skin. I fought back an instinctive shiver, deciding right then we’d get our business with her out of the way and move on. I got the feeling that if I truly locked gazes with those black eyes, I’d receive images I wouldn’t be able to scrub from my mind. Even with a quick glance, flashes came to me of things that made me want to curl up in a fetal position.
“We are looking for a Minoan warrior, one who hasn’t been here that long,” I said, subtly shaking my foot to try and dislodge one of the snakes.
“He hasn’t? What is time here?” She frowned and leaned over, her multicolored hair swinging forward as she tried to coax her pets back. A few more came to slither over my feet and she sat back, eyes narrowed. “I know of your warrior. He came with the Dark Soul.”
“Soul?” I lifted an eyebrow. “The Dark One had a soul? How is that possible with my—” I broke off the question I’d been aiming at Phro. I didn’t want these beings knowing anything about my brother.
“Tisiphone,” Phro started.
But the goddess threw her head back as loud and strangely deep masculine laughter poured from her throat. “Your red-haired warrior here knows nothing of what she is, nor her brother.”
I gritted my teeth and kept myself from pulling my knife by sheer will alone. “So explain it to me.”
Phro gripped my arm, sent me a warning glare. “Watch your words.”
“Can you tell me what you know of my warrior?” I asked Tisiphone. Surely that was innocuous enough.
“The man who thwarted the Dark Soul, the one who ruined so, so many plans. He’s a desired commodity here. Everyone wants a piece of him.”
The fury that suddenly ate into my belly made me see black. “Tell me who holds him.”
“What good will that do you? She who holds him has no intention of giving up her toy.”
“I brought another of her toys back for bargaining.”
“Ooh, bargain.” She leaned forward, held her hand out to the group of snakes now gathered at my feet instead of hers.
I had to work to keep my expression calm and controlled. While I wasn’t exactly afraid of snakes, they still gave me the heebie-jeebies, especially in large numbers. I doubt one would bite me, but if they started to fight each other and missed… Cold sweat popped up on my skin.
“What sort of bargain?” Tisiphone asked, her voice dripping anticipation.
I looked at Phro who’d closed her eyes. I got the feeling she was counting in her head to keep her patience. I nudged her and lifted my eyebrow. “What? That’s the plan, right?” I stood straight and faced the throned goddess. “I have reason to believe whoever has the warrior lost a lilin. I brought her back.”
Tisiphone clapped her hands. “Oh that one! She does make things around here interesting and now that she’s pulled the ultimate in punishments, we will all enjoy her talents.”
“So you will trade?”
“Neither are mine to trade.” One of her snakes circled up her leg and coiled in her lap. She stroked it lovingly. “Tell me how you plan to get out of here.”
“I have my ways.”
Chuckling, she scratched the snake under the chin. Did snakes have chins? “You plan to follow that ridiculously long umbilical cord?”
“Ew, that’s not what it is.”
She smirked. “That’s probably good since Eurynomus is following it.” Her mouth turned down this time. “My disloyal pet will probably be eating him soon. Can’t have creatures escaping my world, can I?”
“Can you tell me who has my warrior?”
She inclined her head. “Kampe.”
Phro made a strangled noise in her throat and for the first time since we’d come around Tisiphone’s house, she showed a bit of emotion in the paling of her skin.
I didn’t blame her. This was one creature I knew about. Cyclops’s jailer—the half dragon, half woman monster Zeus killed when he wanted access to her prisoner. “Why does she have him?”
“Kampe was next in line to escape the portal and was there when your warrior jumped in to save the world.” She shuddered, stroked her snake as if for comfort. “Kampe wanted out more than most here, and that’s saying a lot.” She narrowed her eyes at Phro. “Your father doesn’t want her out.”
“She can’t hurt my father.”
“Can’t she?” Tisiphone’s shrug was elegant. “Being here, in a state of undead, for want of a better word, has changed her. She has an interesting effect on anything too long in her presence.”
I thought of Nikolos, chained and snarling at me, slicing up his wrists to get at me—wanting to hurt me—when Nikolos, in his right mind, would never, ever do such a thing. “What exactly is her effect?”
“Now, if I told you that it would ruin our sport.”
Phro stepped forward and the snakes around Tisiphone’s feet hissed and zigzagged toward her. She merely kicked them away before frowning at the goddess. “There will be no sport. She has Kampe’s lilin and she will trade her for Nikolos.”
“He is not mine to trade. Follow the river. Kampe’s arena is just beyond.”
“You owe me, Tisiphone. A favor for a favor.”
“Have I not answered all your questions?”
Phro took another step. “I have not yet requested my favor. Remember that.”
Tisiphone laughed. “You have no power here, Aphrodite. To have been banished to the human spirit realm. Bah! You are now as weak as a human.” She sneered. “Weaker even. Especially to this one.” She looked me up and down. “She will make most excellent sport.”
I grabbed Phro’s arm before she could say anything else. “Thank you for your help,” I said to Tisiphone before dragging Phro back to where we’d left the lilin. The glorified succubus writhed in fury and had already chewed through some of the vines. Blood dotted the corners of her lips where she’d hurt herself.
“You will regret this.” Her eyes darkened and her power built.
I made a fist, held it in front of her face. “You have got to have the worst headache after all we’ve put you through. Do you really want me smashing my fist into that nose again? You’re already never gonna be pretty now.”
She shut up. I lifted her and flung her over my shoulder. Phro and I headed back toward the river and it felt as if thousands of eyes were on us. I looked up to find the mass of cannibal spirits. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Something moved under the ground a few yards from us and I halted, waited to see if it would rise to the surface. It merely kept going, reminding me of a movie I’d loved as a kid about these giants worms that attacked people in the desert. “Phro? Why did her mention of sport piss you off enough to nearly fight the ruler of the underworld?”
“She’s not the ruler. She’s merely the guardian of the gates.”
I shifted the lilin to my other side to see if it would ease up the pressure on my sore leg. I’d noticed it hurting more and more down here. “Sport? What did she mean?”
“It’s what the gods do for entertainment. Pit creatures against each other and wager. Word will already have gone out across the land here. Those who walk with freedom will probably arrive at Kampe’s arena before we do.”
I went cold. “Are you saying I will have to fight this dragon creature in some kind of cage fight? Seriously?”
“I think so. But she’s like eight feet tall. Slow, lumbering. If you can get the jump on her, you’ll win.”
I wondered if I should point out the lack of conviction in her tone.
Reading the myths and watching crazy movies as a kid doesn’t prepare a person when facing the real thing. I had this sort of bad CG image from Clash of the Titans in my mind because, even as a kid, I’d wondered if the writers had meant for Harry Hamlin to be fighting Medusa or Kampe. What I faced here couldn’t have been more different. Slow and lumbering weren’t fitting descriptions and I shot a quick glare at Phro.
“What? It was a long time a
go and apparently she shrunk in this realm.”
I closed my hands into fists so I didn’t throttle the goddess and stared at the woman-dragon thing walking toward me. She was my height and her scaly lower body moved with a grace that mesmerized—a sort of slinky, yet strong stride. Her upper body was all woman, from her toned arms and shoulders to her narrow waist. Luckily she wore a red vest over her well-endowed chest. Her scales were dark brown and the lizard-shaped legs that came out from her torso should have made her walk funny. Her hands sported long black claws and my eyes flared wide when she came close enough for me to see her feet. Like Tisiphone, she had serpents there, but unlike Tisiphone, it looked like the snakes actually made up her feet. She walked on them.
“Phro, how did Zeus kill her?”
“Lightning bolt.”
Great. I had no access to anything electrical and one knife wasn’t going to be all that effective with this creature. Not as fast as she moved and not with those thick brown scales. I scanned the area for weapons, but the only things in the room were chains bolted into the walls. Even with my extra strength, I doubted I could pull those loose.
It hadn’t taken us long to reach the arena, which was another surprise. Phro and I had walked right through an open door into a deep dirt pit with wooden beams that didn’t look as if they worked as supports, though they were fastened to the ceiling. Was it a ceiling if it was only a circle of stone that was open around the tops of the walls a good twenty feet? Rows of chairs and benches went around the entire room and clanging noises and cries of pain came from the doors that were placed at ten-foot intervals.
Was he here? Were any of those cries his?
My heart pounded, my palms were sweating and the grin that stretched Kampe’s face made me want to run screaming. Rows of sharp white teeth filled her mouth like she carried shark DNA in addition to that of a dragon. She reached up to gather her long black hair into a ponytail, not once taking her gaze off me.
Blood of an Ancient: A Beri O'Dell Book, Book 2 Page 20