Underworld's Daughter

by Molly Ringle

  They went over and over those same pieces of ground. It was, in a grim way, a relief when Zoe’s text interrupted them.

  It came to them both, cc’ing Nikolaos, and they stopped arguing to check their phones.

  Attack on Tab. We’re all ok for now. Need to regroup and plan.

  Sophie’s stomach clenched in queasiness. She gazed at Adrian. After a few seconds, he advanced and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll keep watch round here. You call Zoe and get the details.”

  She nodded, though her tongue had turned so dry she doubted she’d be able to speak. Adrian and Kiri departed to the front room, where, in the dark, he moved from one window to another and peered out.

  She called Zoe. Zoe gave her the story, and said they’d be finding a different place to sleep tonight, other than either the dorm or the hotel room in Seattle. “You two might think about doing the same,” she said.

  “But my parents and brother are here. They’re asleep. I don’t want to wake everyone up and move them, but I also don’t want to leave them…”

  “Listen, I’ll come over,” Zoe said. “I’ll feel round, same way I did with Tab’s car. If there’s anything like that bomb planted near, I ought to be able to sense it. Then maybe you can stay for now, but think about a new place to go tomorrow, yeah?”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Sophie went out to the living room and caught Adrian up on the conversation, though he’d been hearing details from Freya, who had called him.

  He peeked past the curtain to squint out into the night. “We don’t know if they’ll even target this house anytime soon,” he whispered. “They might be concentrating this attack on Tab. We need to figure out if they know she’s immortal for sure, or if they were just trying to do damage to your friends. I’d bet on the former, if they went as far as a car bomb, and a high-powered rifle as backup.”

  Sophie leaned against the wall, shaking. “So what else do they know?”

  “That’s what we have to find out.”

  Zoe arrived soon. After giving each of them a reassuring hug, she walked the perimeter of the house and the property, trailing her fingertips on the concrete foundation, the cars, the fence, the planter boxes, every potential hiding place for explosives she could think of.

  “Nothing,” she reported when she came back in. “Which isn’t to say they won’t try some other way, sometime. But nothing for now, tonight, as far as I can sense.”

  “I wonder if Quentin even knows her assassin failed yet.” Adrian’s jaw clenched as he scowled out at the empty road. “If I knew where she was, I’d bring her his body myself and dump it at her feet. Then I’d drag her into the spirit realm and leave her for the animals like I told her I would.”

  Sophie sank onto the sofa, wishing she could find some realm free of all this viciousness. Did any such place exist, besides the fields of the Underworld? Maybe she should just move there. With her whole family. Her father might like it, growing magical produce, but Liam would surely get bored and go above ground and get himself eaten by one of those spirit-world beasts…

  Her dazed thoughts tumbled with her into her dreams as she fell asleep on the sofa, with Zoe and Adrian keeping watch in the house.

  The immortals stood or sat about in the fields, some gazing across the glowing expanses in distress, some studying the souls of their fallen companions with stormy expressions, some clustered around Hekate.

  Persephone, Hades, Demeter, Zeus, Hera, Epimetheus, Euterpe, Benna. The fallen had all converged to meet their grieving friends and family. Hermes had spread the word, dispatching others to fetch everyone, until all the immortals had come down here to judge what should be done.

  Ares had come with the rest, though he looked as uneasy as ever. “Why have you not attacked?” he asked the others. “How can you let a savage insult like this stand?”

  For once, no one talked him down, Persephone noted with concern. She tried to do so herself. “Ares, once you reach the state we’re in, you’ll see it doesn’t help, answering violence with violence…”

  He rounded on her. “I never want to be in the state you’re in! I don’t want it to happen to any of us! We need to wipe out these ungrateful swine, and we need to do it now.”

  “I agree.” Artemis’ voice trembled, and her eyes glistened as she took in the row of her translucent companions. “They have gone too far.”

  Dionysos had found Agria’s soul—the only leopard-like animal in the fields—and was kneeling beside her, watching her circle curiously around the soul of a house cat. “They have gone too far,” he said softly. “We need to take a stand.”

  “I agree.” It was Hekate’s voice. Everyone turned to her in surprise. She kept her eyes lowered, staring at the pale grass. “I’m willing to incur black marks against my soul if it means destroying these murderers. The Fates long to get their hands upon them. I can feel it.”

  “My dear,” Rhea said gently, “isn’t it possible it’s you who long to get your hands on them?”

  “Either way,” Hekate said, without even a blink. “Who’s with me?”

  “Truly, I don’t think we should initiate bloodshed,” Hephaestus said, with some timidity.

  Hekate turned a passive glance upon him. “We didn’t initiate it. And what if it wasn’t us who shed the blood? What if it was nature?”

  Dionysos looked from Agria’s soul to Hekate, and rose with a nod. “I stand with you.”

  Hermes waited at Hekate’s back, as if guarding her. He squeezed her shoulder. “And I.”

  “And I,” Ares muttered.

  “And I,” Artemis said.

  Apollo joined. Poseidon joined. Aphrodite joined. Rhea joined. Two of the Muses joined.

  And in the end, those who declined to join agreed not to stand in the way of the rest.

  Sophie awoke to the clink of breakfast plates and the white light of morning. She entered the kitchen to find everything was still surreal: her parents were having breakfast with Adrian and Zoe, and her dad looked up at her and said, “Hey. I’m thinking we have Christmas in some other house this year. Like one in Baja maybe.”

  Sophie glanced at Adrian, who capitulated in a half shrug. “Works for me,” she said. “Kind of like the Witness Protection Program. As long as you don’t tell people where you’re going.”

  “We’ll work out the details today,” her mom said. “Find a good place, get organized, and go this afternoon or tonight. So none of us has to worry so much. Sound good?”

  Sophie nodded, the kinks in her neck relaxing in sweet relief. “Very good.” She glanced up the stairs. “Liam still asleep?”

  “Yeah,” her mom said. “We’ll tell him when he gets up.”

  “Tell him everything?” Sophie looked to Zoe and Adrian, who both clearly wore doubt on their faces.

  Her dad spread jam on his toast. “I’m thinking at first we’ll just tell him it’s meant to be a big secret and we can’t tell anyone. Course, when he sees how we’re getting there, he’s going to need more of an explanation.”

  “He’s going to love that bus,” her mom said.

  Terry shook his head. “Tell you what, your grandma is not going to be pleased with us for bailing on her Christmas visit.”

  “I’ll bring her to see you if you like,” Zoe said, smiling at him. Hekate smiling at her grandmother Demeter, Sophie thought. Not that her dad knew he was Demeter yet.

  She blinked her bleary eyes and turned toward the bathroom to get ready for the day.

  Krystal’s disappointed sigh cut through the quiet of the cabin. “Here it is.” She glared at her phone’s screen, reading aloud. “’A man was accidentally killed by a bus on Capitol Hill last night when he pulled a gun on a crowd after a Luigis concert, and was chased into the street by onlookers. Police also found a car bomb beneath one of the audience members’ vehicles parked on the street, and suspect the two incidents are linked.’ God damn it. Idiot. We shouldn’t have trusted him.”

  “It’s hard to get people to d
o that kind of work,” Landon sympathized, leaning over her chair to look at the phone.

  Betty prodded the embers in the fireplace. “So we still aren’t sure Tabitha’s one of them?”

  “No,” Landon said. “But then, we wouldn’t have been sure if we’d killed her, either.”

  “I say she’s one of them.” Krystal thumped her phone down on her lap. “Ugh. Incompetents.”

  “Sounds like it was mostly bad luck,” Betty said. “No plan is perfect. We’ll try her again before long. Adrian is still the known enemy, and we still go after him today. You ready?”

  Krystal’s frown lifted to a calculating smile. She twirled the end of her red ponytail in her fingers. “Ready.” She beamed across the room at the case containing her newest purchase, which Betty had helped finance: a grenade launcher to attach to a rifle Krystal already owned, and a few high-explosive rounds. They had all been purchased under the table to avoid legal registration, and had set Betty back a couple of thousand dollars. But that was a small price to pay for stopping a threat to the safety of the human race.

  Law enforcement would thank Betty Quentin someday, if they ever found out the whole story.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The hours tumbled by. The Darrow family packed clothes and Christmas presents, and researched places to stay. Adrian and Zoe, who stuck around to guard them, conferred with them about their options and agreed it was probably safe to stay in a remote cabana in Baja California, and certainly more comfortable than camping in the spirit realm. Adrian would come along to keep watch, just in case. Sophie even dared to let herself become a tiny bit pleased, looking forward to swimming in the warm sea with him in the tropical night.

  But organizing it and getting ready was taking all day. Soon it was 4:00, and the sun was setting in the dim December sky.

  Sophie checked in with Tab, who was still deeply shaken about the attack, and uncertain about even setting foot in the living world. Zoe agreed to spend the evening near her, though Freya was already there—maybe because Freya was already there, Sophie thought. It tired her to sort out the romantic complications among those three. Meanwhile, Niko remained in living-world Seattle, searching for any other would-be killers, though he reported no success so far.

  Liam was done packing, and was bouncing off the walls in excitement about the sudden secret trip to Mexico. Sophie smiled dryly as she pictured how much more excited he’d be when he realized they were taking a supersonic spirit horse bus instead of a passenger jet.

  Liam wanted to dash down the road before leaving and pick up a present from his buddy. Since the others were still getting ready, his parents let him.

  Sophie watched him bop away in the fading light, and immediately worried about his safety. She decided to send Adrian after him if he didn’t come back within half an hour.

  Adrian had prowled from window to window most of the day, taking breaks to look at computer screens and messages, and to eat when Sophie reminded him to.

  At the moment, her parents were still up in their room, packing and squaring away details by phone or email.

  She found Adrian in the study. “Come on, have some leftovers. We should eat them up before we go.”

  “Suppose so.” He went to the window facing the field behind the house, and looked out into the twilight gloom. He frowned. “Do you see someone out there?”

  Sophie looked too. “No, but it’s getting dark. Wait.” Her stomach dipped in alarm. “Yeah, by the fence—I did see—”

  The flash of fire sliced across her words. Adrian flung himself at her and seized her. The sounds of glass shattering and a roaring explosion vanished to silence within a second, and instead of hitting the floor they fell a foot or two through space to the wet, cold ground. The landing bruised her hips and elbows and made her grunt in pain.

  Sophie flailed free of him in the muddy dead leaves and scrambled up, staring around the spirit realm in panic. “What happened? Oh my God, what happened?”

  “This way.” Adrian leaped up too, and grabbed her hand, pulling her along. “I switched realms to get us out of the way.”

  “I know that, but what is happening in the other realm right now?” she shrieked.

  His body and voice trembled as he rushed her between trees, counting off paces. “Something not good.”

  “Is the house burning? Adrian! My parents!”

  Rather than answer—and surely he had no answer, any more than she did—he wrapped his arms around her and switched realms again.

  Flames bloomed up into the sky, filling her vision as she turned. She and Adrian stood in the field beside the house, far enough away to be out of danger, but even from there the heat licked at her face. The whole house was burning, collapsing, almost unrecognizable already as the humble wood frame gave itself up to the fire.

  She screamed, the sound raw and tearing into her lungs. She lunged forward, but Adrian confined her against his chest, holding her as she struggled.

  “No!” he said. “You can’t go in, don’t you dare, don’t even try.”

  “My parents!” She fought with all her strength. “We have to get them out!”

  “Sophie, I’ll try, but a fire like that…” His voice sounded shredded and broken.

  Somewhere in her distraught mind she remembered Kiri had been around the house, not to mention Pumpkin and Rosie. At least Liam was out, but the dogs, her parents…this couldn’t be happening.

  People were shouting and calling. A car or two had stopped on the road, and Phil Shenk, the retired man who lived in the next farmhouse over, was running toward them.

  Adrian looked at him. “Are you safe with him? Do you know him?” he asked rapidly.

  Sophie nodded, returning her horrified gaze to the fire.

  “Sophie! My God!” Phil said, gasping for breath as he reached her.

  Adrian handed her over to him. “Stay here,” he told her firmly. Then he jumped the wooden fence, sprinted to the house, and slammed through the side door. He disappeared into the flames. Sophie crammed her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming again. How could she have sent him in there? But how could she not send him in there to save her parents?

  “What happened?” Phil asked in hushed horror.

  Sophie only shook her head to indicate she had no idea. Though of course she did. Thanatos. Grenades. They did things exactly like this. And right at the moment when they must have spotted Adrian in the window…

  An animal’s silhouette wriggled into view between her and the flames. Kiri! She was pulling someone: a dark body on the ground. Sophie and Phil climbed over the fence and rushed forward.

  After one look, a look that stretched forever though it only lasted a few seconds, Sophie spun away and threw up into the bushes by the fence.

  Her mother. Burned like a fireplace log. Dead.

  Sophie staggered back and dropped to the muddy ground on her knees, her whirling head bent over her lap. Soft dog fur settled against her side. Kiri whined softly. She reeked of burning hair, and Sophie fought the need to scream or vomit again.

  New shouts made her look up in dread. Someone had leaped out a second floor window and went tumbling across the garden: Adrian, clothing aflame, holding another body in his arms.

  Phil and a woman from one of the cars ran forward to them. Adrian had let go of Terry, and rolled across the ground until the flames were extinguished. But Sophie’s father lay still. She didn’t wish to go any closer, not when she saw how the other people cringed and covered their mouths and said, “Oh, my God.”

  Sirens howled. Red lights flashed against the treetops, competing with the flickering fire. An ambulance and a fire truck pulled into the driveway.

  Adrian tottered to Sophie and collapsed to his knees before her. Kiri whined, scooting over to place her chin in his lap. He bent over the dog and hugged her, and buried his face in her singed fur. “I’m sorry, Sophie.” Smoke or tears, or both, had roughened his voice into unfamiliarity. He lifted his head, and in his face she
saw the bleak answer to her hope.

  “No. They can’t both be dead, they can’t be.” She couldn’t breathe; she squeaked out the words past paralyzed lungs.

  He turned his head suddenly, glaring into the fields past her. Soot grimed him all over. “Whoever did this isn’t far.” He leaped to his feet. “I’ll find them and I’ll throw them into that fire.”

  “Don’t,” she begged. “They were trying to get you. Don’t go straight to them.”

  “I’m stronger and faster than them, and they need to die.” He dashed for the fence, startlingly quick, and in seconds he was over it and out into the dark of the fields. Kiri barked and ran after him, leaping the fence and vanishing.

  Betty Quentin watched the fiery orange glow light up the sky from across the field while she waited in the nondescript van they had purchased yesterday. Excitement and hope beat in her chest. She exchanged a glance with Landon, behind the wheel, who once again sat ready as the getaway driver. They were parked on the quiet rural road half a mile behind the farmhouse, on the other side of the field. At dusk, Krystal, dressed in full camouflage, had snuck through the tall grass with her grenade launcher. After several silent, tense minutes, the twilight had bloomed loud and bright with the explosion.

  That meant Krystal had seen Adrian: identified him positively, and fired. It meant that, as Betty and her companions expected, Terry and Isabel had allowed Adrian into their household and were harboring him.

  Betty drew in a long breath, and sighed. “Pity about the family. I did try to warn them.”

  Landon echoed her sigh in answer, sounding uneasy.

  Betty’s cell phone rang. She glanced at it to find Krystal’s code name, and answered. “Hello?”

  “He didn’t die!” Krystal kept her voice carefully quiet, but still conveyed intense annoyance.

  “He didn’t die?”

  “Neither did Sophie. I just saw them both. He tried to save her parents, but he survived. I think they’re dead, whatever good that does us.”

  “Where is he? Can you still get a shot at him?”

  “Too many people around now. I’d get caught.” She seethed out an infuriated breath. “Great, and now he just disappeared into the field on the other side. Probably looking for me. Wish he’d come this way.”