by Chloe Hart
He took her by the upper arms and pushed her away, gently, so he could look into her eyes. “Because that’s what it is to be human.”
She could feel his love pouring over her like a tangible thing, a light that sang along her nerves and through her veins.
“No,” she said, unwilling to accept it.
“I only wanted to live so I could die by your side. But this…this is an even greater gift. More than I ever deserved. I go to death gladly, for Peter’s sake and for yours. I love you, Kit. Now and forever.”
She stared at him, seeing the certainty in his eyes, the conviction that he was doing the right thing. The darkness that had tortured his soul was gone. The way he looked now…he was like an angel. She had to accept this. Had to let him do this. Had to—
No!
She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him desperately, tasting the salt of her tears even as she tasted Luke. His tongue tangled with hers as he pulled her close, so close she could hardly breathe, as if he were trying to make them one body, one being, one soul.
When they finally broke apart he rested his forehead against hers. “Kit—I have to go now. If I stay any longer I’m afraid I’ll never be able to leave you.”
“Then don’t leave me! We’ll find another way—”
“Kit,” he said, and his voice was so full of love something inside of her broke. “My heart is yours. Always.”
He backed away quickly, pulling off the ring he wore on his right hand.
“Hades, I call to thee—let me stand in thy presence!”
He started to shimmer, his body shining like a cloud burning in the sun.
“Luke!” she cried out. “Luke!”
Another second, a flash of light that almost blinded her, and he was gone.
* * *
Kit fell to earth like a bird shot out of the sky, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, leaving nothing but broken bits of wood.
Let me die too. Please, let me die too.
But death did not come.
Her heart continued to beat, her lungs to draw breath. There would be no release.
She thought about trying to help death along, but she knew that was no answer. Even if suicides did go to Hades, as Luke had said some believed, the gods of the underworld would never let her be with Luke.
Wherever he was, he had gone where she couldn’t follow.
Everything that was alive in her had gone with him. She felt like a dead thing, a dried husk. She lay still and listened to the voice of her beloved echo in the empty places.
After a long, long time she became aware of another voice calling to her, calling her by name.
Peter.
She opened her eyes, and saw her brother kneeling by her side. Relief flooded into his face.
“Thank God. Where are we, Kit? What’s going on? The last thing I knew I was being sucked back into hell, and then I was here.” He gripped her hand. “You saved me twice, little sister.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said dully. “It was Luke.”
“Luke?”
He didn’t know about anything that had happened. He was looking down at her with a hundred questions in his eyes, and Kit couldn’t bear to answer them. She had been ripped in two, and she couldn’t…she couldn’t…
Suddenly she was crying, hanging onto the front of his shirt. After what seemed like a lifetime the tears slowed, and she took a deep, shuddering breath.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you cry,” Peter said gently, brushing her hair away from her face. “Won’t you talk to me, Kit? I know I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but as you reminded me not too long ago, I’m your brother and I love you.”
They were sitting on a headland with their backs against a standing stone, looking out at the Atlantic. Peter put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
Then she told him. The story took a long time, but Kit was in no hurry. What was there to hurry for, ever again? The sun had risen to its zenith by the time she finished, and she and Peter sat in silence for several minutes.
“I’ll go back,” he said finally. “I can’t let someone else die for me, Kit—especially not the man you love.”
Kit sighed. “You know that’s no answer,” she said. “Even if you found a way to get back there, he would just go back again to save you. Do you plan to spend the rest of your life exchanging places in the underworld with Luke? And anyway, I don’t think they’d let you. There are so many rules—”
Suddenly she scrambled to her feet. A flicker of anger had ignited in her, flaring quickly in her bruised heart. She began to pace back and forth in the afternoon light.
“God, I’m so sick of this crap. Sick of being messed with. Sick of being called, and commanded, and sent forth, and sent away. Sick of losing people I love.” She stopped, facing Peter with her hands on her hips. “Most of all I’m sick of other people making the rules. Even gods. Especially gods. Luke said once you let other people make the rules, you’re already defeated.”
She took a deep breath. “I won’t be defeated. If they think I’m just going to sit here and take it, they’ve got another think coming.”
“Okay,” Peter said slowly. “I’m with you, Kit, but what exactly can you do about it? How can you go against Hades?”
Her hands curled into fists. “There have to be forces out there more powerful than hell. Come on, Peter, help me! You’re the one who knows this stuff. I’ll go to the ends of the earth, the bottom of the ocean, anywhere I—”
Peter’s head lifted suddenly, and Kit knelt down beside him. “What?” she asked quickly. “You’ve thought of something. I know you have.”
He was looking at the dark gray swell of the Atlantic. They could hear the waves crashing against the shore below them.
“The ocean,” he said, and Kit’s eyes widened.
“The ocean,” she breathed. “God, I should have remembered. Luke talked about water magic, and the ocean, too. He said the gods of the sea don’t live by the same rules that bind those of the earth or the underworld.”
She gripped Peter’s arm. “How do I tap that power?”
But Peter was shaking his head. “You can’t. There’s a reason you don’t hear about humans petitioning the gods of the ocean. They’re incredibly powerful, but they don’t usually interfere in mortal affairs. When they do, it’s not usually a good thing…for us, anyway. The ocean is—”
“Wild, cold, and treacherous. At least that’s what Luke said.”
“He was right.”
“But sometimes unimaginably generous.”
“Maybe. Maybe once in a decade you can catch her in a good mood. There are legends about humans who’ve succeeded. It’s part of the lore I learned. But—”
Kit pulled her brother to his feet. “This is my only chance, Peter. Who were you talking about when you said her? Catch her in a good mood?”
“Thalassa. The goddess of the sea.”
At the sound of her name, Kit tasted power on the air. She trembled with it, and even more, with a strange sense of kinship.
“How can I reach her?”
“You have to go far out into the ocean, down to the very depths. Into the abyss. Thalassa knows everything that happens in her realm. The lore books say that if you call to her, she will hear, and if she’s in the mood, she’ll allow you to come to her.”
Kit frowned. “Which is just another way of telling me it’s impossible. Human beings can’t survive the pressure at those depths. Even if I managed to commandeer a nuclear submarine or something…”
Peter hesitated, and Kit saw it. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
“You have to tell me, Peter. If you can help me you have to do it.”
“There’s a spell I could cast,” he said slowly. “It’s one of the few really powerful spells I know. I’ve never actually used it, though.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a
spell of protection for travelling underwater. It will let you breathe, and allow you to survive the cold and the pressure of the deep ocean. It will also give you speed as you swim, incredible speed, so that you can reach the great deeps in time.”
“In time?”
“The spell lasts less than a day. It may only last a few hours. Kit—”
She folded her arms and glared at him. “You’re going to do it.”
Peter ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I could teach the spell to you. Then you could cast it on me, and I could go.”
“No! Luke’s mine, Peter. If you try to stop me, I’ll—”
Peter took her by the shoulders. “I’m your big brother,” he said quietly. “I can’t help trying to protect you. But I’ve known you your entire life, and you’ve always been as stubborn as the devil. If you’re sure you want to try this, I’ll help you.”
Kit looked out at the ocean, the great swells patterned with light and dark as clouds chased each other across the sun. How dark was it in those waters? How cold? What creatures awaited her there?
Fear caught at her heart, but only for a moment. She thought about Luke, about what he had done for her, and she felt her strength returning. She was a warrior. The man she loved had been taken from her. Was she going to cry about it like a little girl? Or was she going to fight?
“I’m sure,” she said, and Peter nodded.
He laid his hands softly on her hair and began to speak, his words in a language she had never heard.
When he stopped, Kit didn’t feel any different. “Did it work?”
“It worked,” he said. “I don’t know the fastest way down to the beach from here, but—”
“I know the fastest way,” Kit said.
She gave Peter a quick, fierce hug. Then she turned towards the cliffs, her eyes on the far horizon. A moment of perfect stillness, of preparation, and then she took off at a run for the headland, to the place where it overhung the ocean. She ran faster, and faster, her breath coming in great gasps, and when she reached land’s end she launched herself into the air like a great bird, diving, the wind whipping her hair as she plummeted towards the sea.
It was bitterly cold. For an instant Kit thought the spell had failed, but then she was swimming, streaking through the water, moving like a dolphin but with unearthly speed.
Near the surface the ocean was jade green and beautiful. But as she swam she willed herself ever further, ever deeper, and soon she came to places where no light lived.
“Thalassa!” she cried out, willing the goddess to hear. “Thalassa!”
Hours seemed to go by, and she started to wonder how far she had come, how far she had yet to go. The deeps no longer seemed black; strange, unearthly lights could be seen here and there, lights that were somehow more unnerving than the darkness.
Gradually she became aware that she no longer swam alone. She was being escorted by someone or something—several somethings—that she couldn’t see but could feel, racing through the waters beside her. And now there was something ahead of her, a green phosphorescence that reminded her briefly and sickeningly of the lights in the underworld. But as she drew closer she perceived a difference.
This was not a death light. It had its own strange beauty, like the sea itself.
“Thalassa,” she called out again, and this time there was an answer.
“Swim closer, little fish, and let’s see what my servants have brought me.”
It was a cold voice, and Kit shivered. A few minutes more brought her to a chasm in the ocean floor as wide as the Grand Canyon. She shivered again, horribly aware of the weight and pressure of the waters above her. Human beings couldn’t survive this deep—not anywhere near this deep. And now there was a place lower still. Did she have to go in there?
No. Thalassa, apparently, was coming to her. Arising out of that strange light was a darkness, a presence not clearly visible but with things like tentacles extending from it.
Not tentacles, Kit thought suddenly. Wings.
“What are you doing here, human? It has been many years since one of your kind has visited my realm.”
There were other presences here, no more visible than Thalassa herself. Kit had a sense of many minds probing hers, many creatures all around her.
“Speak, human. Have you brought me a gift?” she asked, and Kit’s heart sank.
Stupid, she thought to herself. She hadn’t even thought about an offering. What the hell could she have brought? What do you get the ocean goddess who has everything?
“My name…my name is Kit Bantry. I have come to ask a favor, my lady,” she said, and her voice sounded thin and weak to her own ears.
“Then you have taken your life in your hands. Why should I grant you a favor? I’m more inclined to offer you as food to one of my children.”
Kit tried to see the creature before her more clearly. What could she say to convince Thalassa to help her? Why should Thalassa help her?
Because if she didn’t, she would never see Luke again.
She found herself swimming forward.
“My lady, I beg you to restore Luke Cadris to me. He sacrificed himself to Hades to—”
“Silence! How like a human, to come empty handed into my realm and expect me to—”
“Mother!”
It was a new voice, coming from the shadows to her right. Something about this voice was familiar, sweetly familiar, like a piece of music she’d heard as a child.
Whatever it was swam to her side, and Kit saw that it was a seal—or at least, something that had taken the shape of a seal. Brown eyes like deep pools, like—
She felt something in her hand, something with sharp edges. Kit looked down and saw a white shell there.
She looked up in sudden recognition.
“Mother, she does bring a gift. I ask you to grant her request for my sake.”
“Daughter of the sea,” Kit said softly, wonderingly, and the seal swam in a circle around her, pausing behind to nudge her forward. Kit drifted closer to Thalassa, holding out her hand.
A current eddied towards her, and the shell was gone.
There was a long pause. Then—
“A generous heart,” Thalassa murmured. “And a love that is stronger than death.”
Kit felt something searching her mind, probing gently. “Ocean blood runs in your veins, my child. Far back in your ancestry there was a selkie, or a mermaid, or another one of my folk.”
There was another pause. “The dearest of my daughters has spoken for you. Your gift is acceptable, Kit Bantry. Your request shall be granted. I’ll have a little word with Hades…”
Thalassa chuckled suddenly. “I do believe I will enjoy that. Really, I’m not at all sorry you came. Your beloved will be waiting for you on the shore, if you make it out of the ocean alive. But he will no longer possess his human life. That was given for your brother, in a sacrifice that cannot be undone. Can you love a vampire, child?”
“Yes! Oh, yes. Thank you, Thalassa, for—”
But she was gone.
Kit could feel the absence where she had been. The abyss lay before her, dark, mysterious, strange…
She drifted forward, almost mesmerized. Then she heard Luke’s voice calling her, so clearly she spun in the water to see if he was behind her.
A thrill of joy hummed along her spine. Thalassa had said he’d be waiting for her on the shore.
If you make it out of the ocean alive…
The spell! How much longer did she have?
A sudden rush of fear, until the seal brushed against her again.
Kit looked down, and then the seal’s form was changing, her outlines blurring, until a dolphin was there before her.
Kit felt strength flooding through her. With the dolphin by her side she turned and swam, up, up, fathoms up, into the regions where the light penetrated, and then east towards the rocky coast of Wales.
She was moving fast, but Kit felt hours pass as they swam. They were still a mile from
the shore when Kit felt the spell starting to fade.
Her companion didn’t desert her. When the spell ended Kit cried out with terror and the bitter cold, but then she felt something swim between her legs. Kit gasped in surprise, feeling the dolphin’s power like an ocean swell beneath her. She grabbed onto the dorsal fin instinctively, and then they were cleaving through the water again, the dolphin bearing her easily.
Kit held on tight. She felt no fear now, only joy. The cold felt like a blessing, like the essence of life, and the fierce salt wind sent a thrill through her very bones.
The sun was behind them, making the water shine like gold. She could see the cliffs clearly now, the rocky shore, the beach—and there at the water’s edge, standing in full sunlight, the figure of a man.
“Luke!” she cried out.
She was only a few yards away now. Luke strode forward to meet her. The dolphin flipped over suddenly, tossing her, and they had been going so fast that Kit tumbled, rolling across the wet sand until she came to rest at Luke’s feet.
She blinked up at him.
“Well, well, well,” he said, grinning down at her. “Look what the tide brought in.”
He knelt down and scooped her up from the sand, sitting down on the beach with her in his lap.
“My God, that was a sight to see,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “If I live another four hundred years I’ll never forget it. You riding into shore like a Valkyrie, with the sun a golden chariot behind you.”
Kit slid her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest.
“Speaking of the sun…I couldn’t help noticing that you’re not turning into ash.”
“I know. When Thalassa got me out of the underworld, Hecate’s curse was lifted.”
“It looks good on you,” she said softly.
“What does?”
“The light.”
His arms tightened around her.
“But, Luke…you’re a vampire again. You gave up your hope of heaven.”
He shook his head. “You’re my heaven, Kit. As long as we’re together, I’ll never have to wonder what paradise is like.”
Joy surged through her. “I feel the same way,” she whispered. “But what about the afterlife?”