Underworld's Daughter

by Molly Ringle

  She hardly knew what had happened during the last several minutes. She’d been taken over by what she could only describe, in this dizzy aftermath, as the righteous fury of angels—or, likelier, gods.

  When she had opened her eyes in an unclouded moment of strength to see the stooped Betty Quentin standing over her, not even watching her, not even properly keeping hold of the gun she held, Sophie had let all her howling grief and rage surge forth. It had even felt a bit like someone else’s grief and rage. Perhaps Zoe had thrown magic her way.

  And immortal strength too. No way could Sophie have flung Quentin across the field like that otherwise. And fear ordinarily would have made her shake as she faced down a Thanatos assassin with a gun. Instead she had walked straight at the redheaded woman, didn’t even flinch when the bullet grazed her shoulder, and fired back. She had shot someone.

  Now she did more than flinch. The tendon curving from her right shoulder into her neck stung and throbbed. She touched it and winced, finding blood soaking her T-shirt and sweater. The gouge hadn’t hurt much before, as if her temporary strength had shielded her from pain too, but now the pain increased with each breath. She’d need medical help. But she had to see Liam first.

  And with the thought of Liam, the rest of the evening crashed down upon her mind. She wilted until her forehead almost touched her knees, and let the tears drip down her nose and into her filthy jeans.

  Footsteps whispered through the grass. She looked up. It was Nikolaos, his face paler and less merry than when he had arrived. He knelt and hugged her, saying nothing.

  She stayed in his arms a long spell, letting her silent tears soak his clothes instead of hers.

  Then he sucked in a breath and murmured, “Gods, girl, you’re wounded. Why didn’t you say?”

  “I’ll live.” It came out sounding mournful. She sniffled and asked, “What’d you do with Quentin?”

  He cleared his throat. When he answered, his voice retained its usual flippant quality, but with a strained undertone. “Took her high up on my horse to give her a nice view in the starlight. Very high indeed. Not a height a person would want to fall from.” The flippancy dropped away, and he added softly, “At least it was fast.”

  Sophie closed her eyes and shuddered again. But she stayed huddled against Niko, and whispered, “Good.”

  “Is it?” He still spoke softly. “Won’t the Fates chain me up even longer now, Persephone?”

  Wincing at the pain in her shoulder, she glanced up at his anxious eyes. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “But if it were up to me, I’d pin a freaking medal on you.”

  He smirked and glanced away.

  “Did I kill the girl?” Sophie asked.

  “Doubt it. Only hit her in the hip. Should give her a good world of hurt, though. Maybe a limp forever, if we’re lucky.” His gaze slid to Adrian. “Well, come on. Let’s get the pair of you back.”

  Niko transferred them to the spirit realm, carried Adrian to the bus, and attached his own horse to the team before driving them back to Carnation. On the quick ride, Sophie held Adrian across her lap. But he felt and smelled alien, with all the blood, and the pain in her shoulder in combination with the horror at losing her parents had flared into a nauseating headache that marred any possibility of love or comfort.

  She did love Adrian. She didn’t want him to die. And she refused to let Thanatos win. But she couldn’t stand the pain anymore, the fighting. She wasn’t strong enough. Life had become a nightmare.

  What if she could turn the clock back to the night three months ago when Adrian had texted, Are you interested in being kidnapped again, then? What would she answer, knowing what she knew now?

  No, she thought, closing her eyes in nausea and agony. No, please, leave me in peace.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Dawn was filtering into the cloudy sky before Adrian could hold onto a thought without it spiraling away into nonsense. He still couldn’t talk. His tongue wouldn’t obey when he tried. He lay in the back of the bus, piled under blankets. Freya and Niko sat with him. His hair felt clean and damp, and his clothes were changed, so they must have been washing him and taking care of him. They teased him with fake cheer, suggesting maybe the bullet had given him the partial lobotomy he’d always needed, which would surely improve his personality.

  He tried to force words out, which resulted only in an angry growl.

  Niko looked away, and Freya relented. “Sophie’s fine, dear. I mean, not fine, of course. She’s with Liam, and they’re…coping. Together. Tab and Zoe are with them.”

  He swallowed, begging her with his gaze for more information.

  She took his half-numb hand between hers and looked at his fingers. “We haven’t been able to take her to the Underworld yet to see her parents. A bullet injured her shoulder, and she needed to spend the night in the hospital. It’s giving her some pain, but it isn’t serious. Those idiots will need more guns before they can do that to anyone else. Niko stole all their weapons he could find, from their van before he confronted them, and from the cabin too. That should set them back at least a little. Oh, and Quentin’s dead. Niko killed her.”

  Adrian widened his eyes in surprise, and shot a glance at Niko, who only met his gaze for a moment and then looked away as if distracted. The relief Adrian felt at the news soon diminished. Killing Quentin wouldn’t matter much. Thanatos would never quit. They would just assign a new leader and keep at it.

  Adrian flexed his tongue and managed a word this time. “Ares.”

  “Oh yes,” Freya said. “We know now. Ares’ soul is the redhead.” Freya gave a scornful laugh. “Ares. Such a douche. He always was. At least we can trace him. We have that against them now.”

  Soon Adrian could speak again, and not long after that he could sit up and eat. Niko said he had picked Quentin’s pocket before flinging her off his horse, and thereby got Sophie’s phone back and returned it to her. So Adrian texted her: I’m awake. I love you. I’m so sorry. When can I see you?

  She didn’t answer.

  “Don’t fret,” Niko said. “Zoe and Tab won’t let anything happen to her. She’s probably asleep.”

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Adrian texted Zoe next. Also, I hate life.

  No problem, you idiot, she responded. Me too but it’ll get better. Sophie’s resting. We’ll summon you soon.

  When he had recovered his strength and his ability to move normally, Adrian sent Niko and Freya off to spy on the redheaded woman and her accomplice, and to scout around for any other immediate danger. They all knew the errand was unnecessary, merely a measure to let him be alone for a bit.

  They were already in the spirit-world region of Carnation, the usual spot he parked the bus when taking Sophie home. When he switched realms now, no farmhouse rose behind the line of trees. Instead there stood a blackened pile of rubble, the stench of smoke stinging his nose even from fifty meters away. Yellow police tape surrounded the lot, and people in uniforms picked through the ruins and spoke to neighbors. Adrian wandered closer, feeling sick.

  A family. A home. A business. A dog. Countless possessions and Christmas gifts and dreams of the future. All destroyed because of him, because he loved a girl and stubbornly insisted on having her with him.

  His phone buzzed, and he yanked it out, hoping Sophie was texting him with a message of forgiveness.

  But it was Zoe. They’re ready to go. Come with the bus and fetch us?

  Be there soon, he responded.

  He switched realms again, got into the bus, and automatically followed his sense of Sophie to her location at the hospital.

  Probably it was wrong to wish Thanatos had killed him last night. Even that wish was selfish, because if he had died, Sophie might have more pity for him and less reason to hate him. And he shouldn’t think such things; he shouldn’t think anything except how to help her, how to stop Thanatos and other murderers, and how to take every gram of punishment the universe wanted to heap upon him. He deserved it.
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br />   Angrily he smeared away the tears under his eyes, and brought the bus down near the hospital. No, he was not even allowed to cry. He’d be stealing grief that was rightfully hers.

  He tied up the horses and switched over, finding himself in a half-full parking lot. He moved to the sidewalk and followed it to the hospital.

  Zoe and Niko sat on a bench outside, Kiri and Rosie at their feet. The dogs wagged and whined as Adrian approached, though Kiri of course much more frenetically. He dropped to his knees on the concrete and hugged her, letting her lick his face over and over.

  He pulled out a bandanna and wiped his face off, then turned to collapse on the bench next to Zoe and hugged her too.

  She held him a long moment, then punched him on the arm.

  “Ow!”

  “Goddess above, you twerp. Do not sacrifice yourself ever again. I told you.”

  Adrian only offered a penitent smile in answer. He couldn’t promise not to do it again.

  He glanced past her to nod a greeting at Niko. Niko barely returned it, then went back to gazing in abstraction at the shrubs. In this life, murder had probably never been among his crimes until now. Even killing someone who deserved it, like the head of Thanatos, would shake up a person.

  Zoe nodded to the glass doors. “Here they are.”

  Adrian leaped to his feet as the small crowd emerged from the hospital: Tabitha, Sophie, Liam, and a pair of older people whom Adrian assumed were relatives or family friends.

  His gaze latched with despair onto Sophie. She looked far worse than he had been led to expect. Thick white bandages covered the side of her neck and bulked up her right shoulder. Her face was so pale as to be almost yellow, with purplish circles of weariness surrounding her eyes. Her lips drooped as if she had never laughed in her life. And when her gaze met his, it did so only for a second, then slipped back to the ground.

  He stepped up and hugged her as gently as he could. But she flinched and murmured, “Don’t touch me.”

  Possibly she only said so because of the pain of her stitches, and the nausea that the whole experience would leave upon a person. But the words still lodged like thorns in his flesh. He swallowed, pulling back his arms. “Sorry. Um. Shall we take you there? You and Liam.”

  She nodded.

  “You’re sure you’ll be safe?” the older woman asked, laying her hand on Sophie’s uninjured arm. Sophie didn’t flinch at that, Adrian noticed. “You have a place to stay? Everything’s set up?”

  “We’ve got them covered,” Tabitha said. “They can stay with me at first, and we’ll make other arrangements later. We’ll make sure they keep in touch so no one worries. But right now they have to talk to some people.” She had her arm around Liam, who hadn’t said a word. He was gazing down at Rosie, who had wandered up to lean against his legs.

  “Maybe we should come,” the man said.

  “Not for this one,” Tab assured. “We’ve got it. But I’m sure they’ll need you soon.”

  The man and woman hugged Liam and Sophie and gave their grieved, anxious goodbyes, promising to check in soon.

  Watching them walk across the parking lot, Adrian asked Tab, “Who are they?”

  “Their grandma and their uncle,” she said.

  His soul deflated further. More actual people whose hearts he had helped break. There would be so many, the more he looked around…

  “Where do we have to go now?” Liam’s voice shook with dread.

  “Okay, buddy, this might actually be fun,” Tab said brightly. “Like Sophie told you, we have a lot to show you and explain to you. And some of it’s wicked cool. Are you ready?”

  Liam glanced at her in doubt, but a flicker of tired amusement did cross his face. Gratitude for Tabitha bloomed in Adrian’s mind. He and Zoe and Niko all stood shaken and damaged and of little use to the Darrow children. But Tabitha, whom he had thought likeliest to crumple under pressure, had stepped up and become their cheerful strength. In this life she had loved Sophie longer than he had, after all.

  They moved out to a spot between parked cars. Zoe picked up Rosie. Tabitha circled her arms around Liam. Adrian, to avoid being rebuffed by Sophie again, picked up Kiri, leaving Niko to draw Sophie into his arms. She seemed lost in contemplation, as if barely noticing who held her.

  Together they all switched realms. Liam’s gasp mingled with the wind in the empty meadow.

  “What’d I tell you?” Tab said. “Wicked cool.”

  Adrian led the group to the bus, which Liam paused to stare at in fascination.

  Sophie came to life a little more, turning to her brother and starting to explain in a soft voice. “This is why I told you not to be too upset. I couldn’t tell you till now; it wouldn’t have made sense. This is the spirit realm. We’re going to be able to see Mom and Dad and talk to them, but we won’t be able to touch them, okay? And we can’t tell Grammy and everyone else, not yet. It’ll be hard. Still, it’s going to help a lot, seeing them.”

  “But where are they?” he said. “What do you mean? What is all this?”

  “Let’s talk while we ride,” Tabitha suggested. “It’s a long flight.”

  While everyone got settled in the bus, Adrian tried one last time. Sophie had chosen the seat behind his, so she could sit beside Liam. Standing at the driver’s seat, Adrian reached out to run his finger, light as a snowflake, down her cheek.

  She twitched away. “I said don’t touch me.”

  She spoke the words gently enough, but he retracted his arm as if bitten.

  Her hazel eyes darted to him unhappily. “I’m sorry. But for now, I can’t.”

  He forced a sympathetic smile. “Of course. Understood.” He turned and sat down, pretending in his haze of heartache to inspect the willow-and-ivy reins.

  Tab leaned forward from Liam’s other side, and her hand fell on Adrian’s shoulder. While Sophie and Liam spoke, Tab murmured, “Don’t worry, bro. She’ll come around.”

  He threw a halfhearted smile back across his shoulder, and gave her hand a pat before she withdrew it. It was tempting to believe Tab, to think Sophie only didn’t want his touch today, and would want it again someday. But when he thought of the smoking ruins of her house, of her parents lying dead, he easily believed that a person could never want to be touched again by the fiend who had caused all of that.

  His heart frosted over. Setting his expression into impartial stone, he checked that everyone was ready, then snapped the whip and launched the horses off toward the Underworld.

  Chapter Sixty

  Straton and his followers had of course left the site outside Argos immediately after killing Persephone, Hades, and Demeter. But Hermes and Artemis tracked them down, stealthily following reports of a band of brigands camping in the woods. Three nights after the murder, they brought the news back to Hekate that they had caught up with them. They’d found the group, or at least the better part of them, carousing around a campfire in the hills.

  The immortals choosing to partake in vengeance assembled there in the spirit realm. Hekate arranged them in a circle, corresponding to Hermes’ and Artemis’ reports of the boundary of the enemy campsite. Hekate, Hermes, and Dionysos had collected the most frightening masks from the Dionysia: those with animal fangs, or metal blades as teeth, red slits or skull-like holes as eyes, and horns or beaks or tusks warping their wearers into monsters. Hekate handed the masks around and each immortal put one on. The circle of lurid visions stood ready. The moonlight sparkled on the frost. The wind rippled their wool cloaks.

  Wild beasts in the spirit realm as well as the living one usually avoided the immortals’ particular scent. But Hekate could call them to her if she wished.

  Now she lifted her face to the cold wind and closed her eyes, and reached out through the hills. In the thousands of life threads crisscrossing the land, she focused on those belonging to large animals who ate flesh, and who were particularly ravenous tonight, in the desolate winter. She called them to the circle.

  After an i
nterlude of windy silence, they began to arrive. Paws and claws rustled the dead leaves on the ground. Growls and predatory panting breaths filled the air. Hekate opened her eyes.

  Lions, leopards, crocodiles, wolves, and bears, or creatures like them, drew closer out of the darkness. All the beasts were twice as large as the ones in the living world. Having called them, Hekate now also did her best to send them the message that the immortals were too dangerous to eat, but that the animals would soon have their feast if they waited.

  “One apiece,” Hekate instructed her companions. “Go.”

  In a whirl of motion, the immortals turned to the beasts, and each captured one and held it tight. Hekate held a giant black wolf, its dog-like smell pungent as it squirmed and snarled in her hold. Dionysos had snared a striped wildcat as large as Agria. Aphrodite grappled with an all-white lion. Hermes held down a huge crocodile, its armored tail whipping. Goddesses and gods all around stood ready with their living weapons.

  Hekate called above the snarls of the animals, “Three, two, one. Switch!”

  Everyone switched realms. The torches gave way to the campfire, and a sprawl of travelers appeared across the ground, stinking of wine and sweat. Screams arose as the criminals spotted the giant beasts and their masked keepers, and spun to realize they were surrounded.

  “For your part in the destruction of the sacred immortals,” Hekate shouted, “the goddesses and gods decree that your blood shall feed the beasts of the spirit realm. Release!”

  The immortals let go of the animals.

  The carnage was immediate and shocking. Shrieks tore upward and then were choked off as the hungry animals bit into necks. Any victim who managed to dodge and run for the darkness was caught by the circle of immortals and thrown back into the arena. Hekate forced herself to watch, though with each dark spatter of blood and each wrench of jaws that tore a bone from a socket, she wanted to close her eyes. But this was her doing. She should own it and look upon it.