Underworld's Daughter

by Molly Ringle

  “Yeah. Carnation. Little town east of Seattle.”

  “Seattle.” Zoe sounded more interested now. “Well. I could take a sick day and come over.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, suspecting Tabitha’s presence in Seattle had something to do with that proposal. But if it meant magical protection for Sophie, so be it. “Cheers.”

  “See you in a few hours. I’ll track you down.”

  The farmhouse’s oven radiated comfortable heat throughout the kitchen. The smell of roasted turkey mingled with the scent of the spiced cranberry sauce Sophie stirred on the stovetop. Sophie’s mom was manning the stand with their high school employee and both dogs (and a baseball bat), keeping the business open a few extra hours so people could buy their last-minute apples and potatoes.

  Sophie’s dad wore a red apron and sang along with the Perry Como tunes blasting from the speakers on the counter while he chopped potatoes. Sophie and Liam teased him and each other, and debated what kind of pie was the ultimate best and which Christmas movies the absolute lamest.

  In short, she felt surprisingly good. She’d been here only a few hours, but home was already working its restorative magic.

  So now, of course, she missed Adrian and felt bad that he was wandering around outdoors in the cold while she was preparing a feast in a cozy house. She’d have to sneak him out some pie and turkey later. And as many hot water bottles as she could find.

  She went to the sink to fetch a paper towel, and wiped the steam off the window to peer outside. She stopped, squinted, then whipped out her phone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Adrian’s phone buzzed. He wiped the salt off his hands and read the text.

  What are you doing creeping around in the field? And who’s with you?

  “Ah, she’s spotted us,” he told Zoe.

  He waved at the house, and saw an answering blur of movement in the ground floor window.

  Zoe stayed crouched in the tall grass, pouring out the line of sea salt from the paper bag she held. “Well, you insisted in doing this in broad daylight. Say hi to her for me.”

  Zoe’s putting a protection spell around your house so Thanatos won’t ruin your Thanksgiving, he responded to Sophie. She says hi.

  Aww. Thanks! Tell her hi.

  Will do. He slid his phone back into his pocket. “She says hello.” He followed Zoe down the line of salt that wound its way through the mud and high grass. “What if a dog digs up the salt line or something? Does that break the spell?”

  “Nah. I used ordinary Earth magic for most of it, and some of their rain magic too since they’ve got so much of it here. The salt only shores it up a bit.”

  “Okay.” She used to talk like this as Hekate. It made just as little sense to him then.

  She edged along, crouching crabwise, pouring salt. The wind messed up her short hair, and water dripped on her blue parka from the tall wet grass. Zoe grimaced up at the slate-gray sky. “Grim here, isn’t it?”

  “In autumn, yeah. Or winter. Sophie says November here counts as winter. So this’ll protect them?”

  “Well…” Zoe turned the corner behind the fence, and kept pouring out the salt. “It works best against malicious magic, and as far as we’ve heard, Thanatos is dumb as a box of hammers when it comes to magic. But they do use brute force, which sometimes bangs its way through. As brute force does.”

  “Couldn’t you—I don’t know, send a spell to confuse Quentin a while? Or make her drive off a cliff?” Adrian muttered the latter suggestion, but Zoe heard it and shot a warning look at him.

  “We don’t harm others with magic, Ade. Bounces back on us threefold.”

  “But she deserves it! Come on. Surely the universe understands that.”

  “It does, and that’s what Tartaros is for. Also law enforcement. But magic to protect a loved one, that’s all right. Your first instinct was the best.” Zoe emptied out the salt bag, joining the line to its starting point. She stood and squinted at the farmhouse. “There. This’ll help, I think. Feels good. “

  They had managed to draw the line all round the property, mostly in the field. The section in front of the produce stand had been the trickiest. Adrian had to pretend to be browsing pumpkins while Zoe snuck past pouring out salt along the curb. As far as he could tell, Sophie’s mum hadn’t noticed, being busy talking to other customers.

  “Thanks, Z,” he said. “Really. Coming all this way.”

  “No worries. Think I’ll visit Seattle while I’m over here.”

  “Say hi to Tab for me,” he teased, slightly accusatory.

  She hugged him with a calm smile. “Will do.”

  I’m off to look round some more, Adrian texted Sophie. See if I can turn up anyone evil.

  Ok. Be careful! Sophie answered. I’ll save you some food tonight. She peeked out the living room window at him. He had worked his way around to the other side of the house in his mysterious spell-casting with Zoe, who had left. Adrian looked in Sophie’s direction, and she waved at him.

  He waved back and picked his way through the field toward the highway.

  “Who you waving at?” Her dad was right behind her all of a sudden.

  She tried not to jump noticeably, though adrenaline jolted through her. “A friend was walking by.”

  Her dad squinted after Adrian. “Isn’t that the guy who gave you a ride that time?”

  “Yeah. David. This time too.” She tried to sound offhand, pretending to read a text.

  “Could’ve invited him in. We have punch and pumpkin bread.” Her father sounded indignant. Inviting in every friend you could shout at from the front porch on Thanksgiving to partake of cranberry punch and pumpkin bread was practically a legal requirement in his eyes.

  “That’s okay. He’s got plans.” She slipped past him toward the kitchen. “Oops, I better turn off the heat under the sauce.”

  The afternoon consisted of a parade of visitors, friends of her parents or of Liam’s. Soon Tabitha arrived too, bringing Zoe, to Sophie’s surprise.

  “Friend of mine. She’s from New Zealand,” Tabitha said, introducing her to Sophie’s dad.

  “Hi, nice to meet you.” Zoe shook hands with him, and accepted a cup of punch.

  Sophie widened her eyes in a warning flash at Tabitha. Sophie’s dad was already suspicious about anything to do with New Zealand thanks to that tip-off of Quentin’s, which apparently Tab had forgotten. But Terry was smiling and exchanging small talk with Zoe, and before long he stepped aside to answer the door for another visitor.

  Sophie herded Tab and Zoe into the hot kitchen, where they leaned on the counters. Food, plates, and napkins covered the table and every other surface in preparation for dinner.

  “She came to see me, since she was up here doing magic for you,” Tab said with a grin.

  “Shh!” Sophie glanced toward the living room. “Don’t talk about magic. But thank you, Zoe, really.”

  “My pleasure,” Zoe said. “Mind you, it isn’t bulletproof, but it should help.”

  “Are we talking actual bullets?” Sophie asked anxiously.

  “Well. Just an expression, but I guess in the case of some people, yeah.” Frowning, Zoe sipped her punch.

  Sophie exhaled a long breath. She’d been instructed not to think about Thanatos. Holiday; enjoy it. Okay.

  She asked Tabitha how her weekend was going. Despite being an Internet celebrity now, it turned out Tab was still having Thanksgiving dinner in Carnation with her mom.

  “Then my dad tomorrow,” she said, rolling her eyes. Splitting Thanksgiving in two would indeed suck, Sophie reflected. Such was the toll of divorce.

  She thought of her own folks, who were at least sparing Sophie and Liam that fate by allowing an open relationship. Not that Sophie wanted to think about that a second longer than she had to.

  “Are you staying for dinner?” Sophie asked Zoe. “You’re welcome to, if you like.” It made her nervous, anticipating a meal full of her parents grilling Zoe about New Zealand, but
the invitation was the least she could extend.

  Zoe glanced at Tabitha, whose sleeve pressed against hers. “I’m going along to her house for it.”

  “Oh good!” Sophie said, relieved. “That’ll be nice.”

  Tab nudged Zoe’s hiking boot with her own knee-high, three-inch-heeled leather boot. “Thank God. Buffer zone between me and Mom and awkward silence.”

  Sophie watched the nudges, the flashed intimate smiles, and wondered how far this little friendship had gotten. Now she had loyalties on both sides, and didn’t wish for either one to break the other’s heart.

  Tab turned to Sophie. “Are you saving food for Adrian?”

  “Shh!” Sophie hissed.

  “Don’t say the A word,” Zoe reminded Tabitha, grinning.

  “Yes I am, but shush,” Sophie said.

  “I need to meet him,” Tabitha said. “I’ve only seen photos. He looks really cute.” Tabitha picked up a second slice of pumpkin bread and bit into it.

  “We could go find him,” Zoe suggested. “Want to?”

  Tabitha looked at the clock on the microwave and sighed. “Can’t now. We better get to my mom’s house.”

  They hugged Sophie and thanked Terry for the punch and pumpkin bread, and trotted down the front steps into the chilly air.

  “New Zealand.” Terry watched them go. “That’s odd.”

  “I know, right?” Sophie turned to the kitchen again. “Almost dinner. Let’s clean up the table.”

  “So this is interesting,” Landon said.

  “What’s that, dear?” Betty Quentin looked up from the newspaper.

  “Krystal and I have been searching through people Sophie and Adrian know, on social networks and stuff, to see if there are any leads to other unnaturals. Krystal just sent me a bunch of links. Looks like Sophie’s best friend from high school, one Tabitha Lofgren, is suddenly hanging out with celebrities and showing up at expensive parties. Maybe hosting them in some way—that isn’t clear.”

  “Money and power. Definite warning signs. Did she have money before?”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. She was from that same little town as Sophie, which doesn’t look exactly rich.”

  Betty folded the newspaper up and regarded him. “And is she near Sophie? Protecting her, maybe?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. She’s at school in Seattle now, and these parties are all over the country. L.A., New York, San Francisco. A lot of travel.”

  “Travel’s easy if you have their forms of transportation.”

  Landon looked dubiously at her. “Ghost horses?”

  “I know, it’s crazy. But Sanjay said so, and the old records did too, and obviously they have some way to move around fast in that other realm.” Betty set aside the newspaper and heaved herself out of the chair to prepare turkey sandwiches for their low-key Thanksgiving dinner. “Well. Perhaps we can find someone in Seattle willing to get a closer encounter with this Tabitha.”

  “See if she’s immortal?”

  “If she is, we’d best know sooner rather than later.”

  Adrian had found nothing all day, zero. He hoped that meant Thanatos wasn’t in town, rather than meaning he’d managed to miss them. Of Carnation’s small stock of cafes and stores, most were closed due to the holiday, so he had to remain outdoors in the near-freezing air and intermittent drizzle.

  At dinnertime he checked in once more with Sophie, then admitted defeat and flew back to the Airstream in Oregon to warm up with a hot shower and a meal. Then, unable to bear the idea of sleeping a whole state away from her when he didn’t have to, even with the protection spell in place, he returned with all his warmest camping gear and parked the bus in the spirit realm outside her house.

  In the back of the bus he set up the tent on top of a thick blanket—warmer and drier than the ground—and got inside it with a lantern. He wrapped Kiri up with him in a down-filled sleeping bag and read a book until Sophie texted him at 11:00 p.m.

  Got your food. Come to the side door.

  When he tiptoed up to the house, all was silent within, and without too. Only an occasional car swooshed past on the highway.

  Sophie opened the door and stuck her head out. Adrian climbed the two wooden steps to meet her. She slipped out, shut the door quietly behind her, and handed him a heavy paper plate covered with foil. The food’s warmth radiated through the bottom into his palm as he took it.

  “Thanks,” he whispered. “You didn’t have to. I’ve got food.”

  “Yeah, but you have to taste my pie.”

  It was asking too much to resist that double entendre. He murmured, “Yes, I do,” and leaned in for a deep kiss. She caught his face in both hands and indulged him. Her spice-flavored tongue fenced with his until he had to pause to catch his breath.

  A scrabble of toenails rattled inside the house, and a small dog started barking furiously. Its head popped into view over and over in the door’s window.

  Sophie sighed. “That’s Pumpkin. Pumpkin, no!” She pushed Adrian toward the stairs. “You better go.”

  “But…”

  “I can’t tonight. Tomorrow. Go!”

  He obeyed, stepped up to kiss her once more, then jumped off the stairs. He dived into the spirit realm in mid-air before landing on his feet on the wet ground, carefully cradling the plate so the food wouldn’t get smashed.

  Back in the bus, tucked under half a dozen blankets plus the sleeping bag, he texted her.

  You like those memories sometimes, so…there’s one from about a year after the plague. We were at Zeus & Hera’s for a feast. Hekate didn’t come. She was with Demeter that night. At the table you put some olive oil in your hand and…well, try to remember. See you tomorrow. ;)

  Oh reeeally? she answered in a few minutes. Ok, off to look for some olive oil in my dreams. Night. ;)

  Enjoy. And that, he thought, snuggling down with a smile, was as close to sexting as he dared get for right now.

  But maybe he’d go further, depending how she liked that memory.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Damn, Adrian, Sophie texted him the next morning. Good choice.

  She had found the memory easily enough in her dreams, and, as she told him in their ensuing flirtatious text conversation, it kept her volcanically warm all night.

  She wandered through her lazy post-Thanksgiving Friday. She munched leftovers, helped her mom at the produce stand, did homework, and napped on the sofa while her dad watched football. But she kept replaying the hot evening in ancient Greece in her mind. It was more than a little distracting and slowed her studying down to a crawl.

  When she was with Adrian, she missed home. At home, she wanted Adrian. The flowers were always prettier on the other side of the fence. Was that what it meant to be an adult and move out of the house? You had to slice your heart in half and place it in two receptacles that couldn’t be joined? Probably. She could see how that’d be a normal enough situation for anyone. Maybe that’s what the story of Persephone’s kidnapping and half-a-year arrangement with Hades meant to people long ago: in part, it simply reflected the sadness of leaving your parents and getting married.

  But for the record, that Hades/Persephone marriage was still in excellent shape thirteen years after their daughter was born, if their sex life was any indication.

  As Adrian had recounted, Persephone and Hades had attended a feast at Zeus and Hera’s palace, while Hekate, now thirteen though still looking at least eighteen, spent the night with her grandmother. Both Hekate and Demeter disliked the grandstanding of Hera and Zeus’ parties, and were happy to give Persephone and Hades a night out.

  The palace overflowed with treats and the happy chatter of the immortals and their chosen guests. The plague was finally gone, several months behind by now, and after a period of exhausted quiet, everyone was reviving to new life. While their friends conversed around the table after the meal, in the light of oil lamps reflected in the jeweled metal bowls and plates, Persephone found herself entertaining the
notion of showing Hades how glad she was for his company. She tipped olive oil into her hand from a small bowl, and slid her hand up Hades’ thigh, beneath his tunic, under cover of the tabletop. No one else even noticed, as far as she could tell—except perhaps Hermes, who at one point gave them a particularly knowing smirk from farther down the table.

  The situation, to sum it up, had escalated deliciously all evening and culminated in a dark glade in the spirit realm as soon as they left the feast.

  With that scene in Sophie’s mind, by bedtime on Friday she felt she was going to spontaneously combust if she didn’t see Adrian soon.

  Finally her parents and Liam went to bed. The house fell quiet. Sophie coaxed Rosie and Pumpkin into the study on the first floor, where their cedar-stuffed dog beds lay, and shut the door so they wouldn’t bark if she snuck someone into the house.

  She texted Adrian around midnight: Everyone’s asleep. Think you can come visit?

  Sure, he answered in a minute. Side door?

  Yep. See you.

  When he arrived, she was ready by the door, shivering and barefoot. She let him in. Tonight she wore her sexy robe rather than her everyday terrycloth. The sexy one was made of dark red silk with a pattern of roses, and stopped at mid-thigh. Beneath it she wore only a pair of cream-colored silk panties. Thus the shivers. But she was sure to warm up soon, with what she had planned.

  Her heart thudded as Adrian’s gaze traveled from the robe to her bare legs and back up again. His expression morphed into gratified surprise. “Hey.” He kissed her, his lips chilled by the November air. He stroked her waist, his hands equally cold even through the silk. Luckily he’d be warming up before long too.

  “How was your day?” She snuggled up against him. “Said in your texts you got some errands done.”

  “Yeah, the usual Underworld stuff. Looked some more for Thanatos; couldn’t find anyone. Nothing to report really.”

  “Ah well. Come on up.”

  They tiptoed upstairs and shut themselves into her bedroom. She leaned back against the closed door, pulling him to her in a longer, wetter kiss.

  He chuckled. “Miss me?”