by Lucy Auburn
Apparently I should've paid more attention to my Greek classics in high school. We studied them in history and literature, but other than the fact that Zeus is a horny monster who turns into animals to rape random women, I barely remember a thing. I do remember, however, something about a minotaur and a maze.
Let's hope there's no horned beast at the end of this maze. Knowing my luck, though, I doubt the place is safe. Best to just find a corner somewhere and wait for my guys to show up so they can escort me the rest of the way through. Even without their memories of our lives together, they'll know how to navigate Hell.
The first stretch of the maze is long and empty. On either side of me, the hedges stretch up high above my head. Experimentally, I wriggle a hand between the close-knit branches, and wince as I encounter thorns. My phoenix regenerating powers close over the shallow cuts within seconds, but even I'm not enough of a headstrong fool to force my way through a hedge of thorns.
So I'll follow the path. That should be easy enough—though, knowing that this is Hell, there's probably a catch. Maybe there's endless torture at the other end; people getting their eyeballs plucked out, men being forced to eat their own dicks, that sort of thing. The only way to find out is to venture forward.
As I walk down the long stretch of corridor, my feet ring out on a hard tile floor. Frowning, I glance down, wondering where the packed earth the hedges were growing out of went. The sight of the tile makes my blood freeze; its a familiar pattern, a Roman throwback that was imported from overseas for some rich lady's decorating sense.
I've seen these tiles before. They're custom, so I know it's not a coincidence. Somehow, despite being all the way in Hell, surrounded by hedges on either side of me, I'm standing in the hallway of Fern Valley Private High School. A school where rich kids tortured me for my non-tailored skirts, mousey brown hair, and checkered past. A school I never dared tell my foster mother Sara I didn't want to go to, because I knew it meant so much to her that I'd made it in—and then she got cancer, I was sent to the group home, and I never returned to this place, or saw her again.
The Fern Valley kids are technically the reason why I ever met the demons in the first place. They were in the middle of trying to kill me—pretty sloppily, I might add—to perform a demon summoning ritual when my powers woke up and protected me by creating a bond with my quartet.
Sure, I might've found them some other way, but as I've learned at the academy, phoenix are created through struggle and death. No supernatural creatures comes back from the dead like us. I wouldn't be where I was if not for those rich assholes.
Which doesn't mean I ever want to see them again for the rest of my life. It's just the tiles for now, but as I look up towards the end of the hallway, I get the terrible foreboding that every step I take will bring me closer to being that weak teenage girl again. The one who cursed beneath her breath, grit her teeth, and failed to fight the loneliness inside. The one without friends. Or anyone to rely on but herself.
Well, I'm not that girl anymore. I still sneak a look over my shoulder to see if I can go back, but nope—the corridor I just came down has crumbled behind me, and there's a huge rift in the ground I'd have to jump over to get back. Hopefully my guys will be able to find me once they've finished the spell, died, and gotten over here.
Resolute, I turn back to face that old world. As I take a step forward, I feel the old school uniform settle around me, bulky and restricting, itchy from head to toe. I'll give Phoenix Academy this much: every sheet and skirt in that school is branded with a golden phoenix, but at least they use a high thread count cotton and natural wool.
Each step down the corridor raises more of that old world for me. Bleach blonde girls with fake smiles appear beside the hedges, closing locker doors that show up out of nowhere, nestled in the thorns. An old teacher of mine, Mr. Grover, appears to frown in my direction and remind me that I'm late on my assignment—whatever assignment that is. And in the distance, I see the bullies who gave me the worst trouble, the ones I met again that night on the cliffs.
Richard, Amanda, Leila, Taylor, and Jake. All rich. All complete assholes, for various reasons, with souls so dark that Lynx took one look at them and sealed their dark fate. It wouldn't shock me if I'm looking at the real versions of them—no doubt that night they died, all five went straight to, well, here.
"Wow." Amanda gives me a good, scornful look up and down, then shoots a fake smile in my direction. "Put on the wrong uniform again, homeless girl?"
"It fits her terribly." Richard laughs. "What, did you get it from some guy you blew for a chicken sandwich?"
I stare at him, then realize this is all so stupid. Derisively, I tell him, "You got your dick severed." Then I look at the others. "You were disemboweled. I saw you get cut to death with poisoned knives. You were choked out. Each and every one of you is dead—you can't hurt me. I'm the one who rose from the ashes. You're just mince meat."
One by one, the crumble into ash. So does the school around me, fading away. The tile turns to packed earth. The lockers in the hedges disappear. All the rich, scornful students are gone, along with the teachers who never bothered to get to know me.
Great, just great. I would wind up in a psychological torture chamber of some sort that's plucking my worst memories out of my head to fuck with me. The guys were right: Hell is worse than I could've imagined.
But I can't go back. The sudden sound of howling further down the maze behind me makes that clear, along with the scent of demonic hordes in the air, and a prickling at the back of my neck. The army is re-forming to charge Auerbach's wards again, and while time will stand still for me once my guys are dead and the door is closed, it's running forward pretty quickly now.
There are two paths in front of me: the left, and the right. Both look identical. Both have extremely tall hedges. And I'm sure there are torturous memories either direction. So I pick left, because it doesn't matter, turning and running down the short corridor.
It leads to a right turn, then a left, then two rights. Running down the maze, I dart my eyes back and forth, anticipating the next memory that's going to torture me. It doesn't take long; I've got plenty of shit for Hell to pluck out of my mind and force in front of my eyes.
This time, it's one of my least favorite foster moms: LeAnn. And she's already screaming.
"You didn't separate the whites from the colors!" She throws laundry at my feet, and I wince as she gets in my face, her rage incandescent. "Go do it again!"
"It's past your bedtime! Go lie down."
"You've eaten more than your fair share! Go stand in the corner and think about what you've done."
Each time she punished me, it was for something she'd never taught me was a rule in the first place. She seemed to just expect me to know what she wanted—how to do the laundry, when her ever-changing curfew was, how many servings I was allowed to eat at dinner. Sometimes I think she made the rules up as she went along, because it was fun for her to scream. Her temper was extraordinary, and we cowered from her, never quite sure was unexpected burst of anger would come next.
It was a relief to get out of there. One day she decided she'd had too much of my mouthiness and "punished" me by asking CPS to find me another home. That next home with Sara.
Staring this Hell version of LeAnn down, I tell her, "You're a big bully who preys on the weak. There's nothing about you that frightens me at all. Find someone else to pick on."
She vanishes.
I head further down the maze's corridors. This time I go slower, even though I can hear the distant howl of the demonic hordes. Any minute now Auerbach and my quartet will perform the spell. They'll show up here, and we'll figure out a way to escape this place.
For now, though, better to space the terrible memories out a bit. They're not exactly enjoyable. I prefer that the past stay just exactly that: the past.
Of course, the maze has other ideas. A few turns pass me by, and I see a door in the hedge up ahead of me. But I know bette
r than to think that it's my way out.
It's a very familiar door.
With a clear glass knob.
And peeling yellow paint, revealing an off-white paint beneath.
The urge to turn around and go back is overwhelming. But I know better than to think that'll work. Even without the demons, this is Hell—it won't let me out of its grip so easily.
So I walk slowly, carefully, towards the door. Despite the way it shakes and rattles. Even though the locked doorknob keeps wiggling as someone on the other side tries to turn it. I can hear his voice, low and threatening, through the door.
This was one of my early foster homes. One I'll never forget, because it was two long weeks of temporary placement. The girl whose room I shared warned me not to let him in. She escaped out the window that first night and was placed in a group home when they found her.
I followed her advice. Every evening, I locked the door. By the time I was gone, he was threatening to take the lock off. I don't remember why or how I was placed somewhere else—I was too long for the specifics to settle in. I just know I was glad to make it to the next home intact.
Staring down the door, I look right and left, but there are nothing but hedges on either side. No way down the corridor. No turn at all. The only way through must be... this.
I know there isn't safety on the other side of the door. It's probably just more hedges and bad memories. Maybe there's even a monster on the other side of the door.
I unlock it anyway, and turn the knob despite the churning of my gut. The door swings open into a black abyss. Stepping into it, I smell the cigarette-and-beer stench of that old foster father's breath.
"You'll never get to me," I tell him, trying to sound like the grown woman I am and now the little girl my fear remembers me being. "I'm safe from you now. And if there's any justice in this world, some revenge demon cut you down, and every little girl is safe from you too."
The darkness dissipates. I'm alone in the hedge maze again. But this time, I hear a familiar, distant voice, and the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Ari is here.
It takes me a good, sweat-inducing amount of hiking through endless rows of hedges to find the source of Ari's voice. Finally I see her as I round a corner, visible through a wrought iron gate in the hedges, standing in the middle of a clearing full of rosebushes and fountain.
A fucking garden.
There shouldn't be a fucking garden in Hell. This place should have blood-filled fountains and mass graves. The whole thing is probably a trick—this version of Ari is going to turn to me and open her mouth to reveal rows of teeth or something.
But it feels real. My phoenix blood sings at the sight of her. When I look for a latch in the gate, though, I don't find one—and she's so far away. There's mist surrounding her, and other figures in the mist with her; it must be her three familiars, those shifters she's bonded herself too.
"Ari! Over here!" I wave my hands, jump up and down, and pace back and forth looking for a way through. I even shove my hand into the hedge only to find more thorn. "Ouch—fuck. That was stupid."
Frustrated that all the yelling is getting nowhere, I let my temper do the talking, and form a ball of phoenix fire in my hand. Shooting it in Ari's direction gets her attention—her blue hair flips around her as she turns to face me. But when she tries to walk closer to talk to me, a rift opens at her feet, dividing us permanently.
"Dani!" I can barely hear her voice. "What are you doing here?"
"Not important. What's going on? What are you doing?"
She mouths something back at me—maybe "huh" or "hey" or "huck," who the fuck knows. The ground between us is widening and stretching. Frustrated, I grab the bars and yank back and forth, then try melting them with my fire, but nothing happens.
Ari waves her hands around and says something. I catch snatches here and there—"magic" and "stuck" and "power." But nothing that I can make sense of. As I try to wrench at the iron gates, a sharp hot pain flares at my elbow, and I step back, hissing.
Gaugin's bracelet is glowing brighter than a forge. Whatever is going on, the thing has been activated again, and is apparently punishing me for thinking I could possibly waltz into Hell and back out again without a few bumps on the way.
"Ari, stay there!" I call out. "I'm going to try burning these fucking hedges down."
Knowing my luck, and the fact that this is Hell, they'll probably turn into poisonous ash. Or be invulnerable to fire. But I have to try something.
Stepping back, I form a fireball between my hands, narrowing my eyes at the damned hedges. I raise my hand and prepare to fire.
And the ground at my feet gives way as I drop down, down, further into Hell—through a hole that brings me straight into darkness. My ass hits the bottom of a pit with a thump, and the groan that leaves my mouth is far from ladylike. Blinking, I look around and find myself in nearly pitch black darkness, barely able to see anything around me. Above my head, a thin circle of light marks the spot I just came from.
Apparently Hell doesn't want its wayward Black Phoenix and its trapped Blue Phoenix getting together to burn things down. Well, Hell has another thing coming. Dusting myself off, I get to my feet and decide it's time to figure out how to use this damned bracelet. Seven immortals' power should be able to make me fly or teleport myself or do something besides vaguely heat up from time to time.
Before I can use it, a sudden sense knocks into me so hard that I nearly fall on my ass again.
My guys. Our bond. I feel it suddenly. I didn't even know how thoroughly it was gone until now. It settles into my bones and makes my teeth ache. The sense of them is sudden and overwhelming: bright, determined Ezra, bitter, dark Sebastian, gentle, intelligent Lynx, and brave, foolish Mateo.
They've done it.
They've died.
Now for the rest of the foolish plan.
Heart beating double time with excitement, I summon them to me.
They arrive all at once, take one good look at me, and draw their weapons.
Chapter 15
Ezra approaches me, his green eyes narrowed, blade naked and ready for battle. "A Grim summoned us here. I can feel her control. Sebastian, get into position."
"Ready."
"Wait just a—"
Mateo doesn't give a warning. He just shoots me in the kneecap. I cry out, stumbling forward, the pain immense. The bullet went through skin and bone alike. There are pieces of me spattering the ground.
They don't remember me.
They don't love me.
And if I don't do something fast, they're going to kill me.
Especially Mateo, who's got his finger on the trigger and is pacing close, prepared to shoot again. I don't think he'll kneecap me the second time around. The dark look in his eyes is brutal.
Ezra says, "I guess death by bullets works too."
Snarling, I instinctively reach out and tug on our bond, yelling at Mateo, "Drop the gun!" Then I turn my eyes to Sebastian, who's been sneaking up behind me this whole time, and tell him, "Dump your poisonous knives. All at him." To Ezra I command, "Shut up and sheath that sword," and to Lynx, "Whatever you're thinking of doing, don't. Keep your hands and rope to yourself."
I take a deep breath. It's hard to ignore the glares I'm getting. They're so... cold. And it's not just because we're locked deep in a dark pit of Hell. Without their memories, without our shared experiences, their eyes are empty and their hearts closed off to me.
At least they're still in their same bodies. That part won't change unless the deaths take for good, and they return to the mortal realm, at which point, I've been told, they'll never remember me again. And they won't be free of their contracts at all. I've got to get through to them down here, in Hell.
Of all the places in the world for our story to end, this is not it, and this is not how. As my knee knits itself back together, bone regrowing, skin stretching over the wound, I force myself up to my feet and stare them down.
"I di
dn't summon you four here to kill me," I tell them. "We have too much to do, and we have to work together to do it."
Sebastian snarls. "There is no we, Grim. As if we'd ever work with one of your kind. Whatever you have planned, expect a fight from us."
"She must be powerful," Lynx says, warning in his voice. "Take care. No weakling Grim would be able to summon the four of us and control us like this."
"Shut up," Ezra advises him, green eyes pinned on me. "She doesn't need to know our plans."
A bead of sweat rolls down my back. This is going to be even harder than I thought, and for all the wrong reasons. When I imagined this, I knew they'd be confused, maybe even reluctant, but not this.
I forgot that I was born a Grim.
We're mortal enemies, just like phoenix and Grims.
Well, I'm not my father's daughter, damn the lying bastard. Gritting my teeth, I summon fire in my palms, and study the edges of the pit we're in. There are sconces set into the wall, the torches in them dry and dead. Pacing around the room with a bit of a limp, I light them one by one.
"Wow." Mateo whistles, long and low. "I've never seen a Grim do that."
Ezra is staring at me, his expression changed. In a resigned voice, he says, "She's not merely a Grim. She's a Black Phoenix."
"Took you long enough," I tell him, lighting the last torch and frowning as I face off against him. "Why didn't you use your powers the instant you saw me?"
He narrows his eyes in my direction. "Why would I need to, Grim? I felt the tug of your summoning of us. The rest was obvious. And just because you also have phoenix powers don't mean you're not still a Grim."
"If I summoned you, how did I do it?" I ask him, motioning around the room. "There are no summoning circles anywhere on the wall or floor."
Lynx studies the ground, but Mateo cocks his head, frowning at me. "Invisible ink!"
I stare at him. "Really? You think I brought invisible ink with me to Hell?"
"It would be unusual for a Grim to summon us in Hell." Sebastian sounds reluctant to admit this. "Their spirits don't cross over with their powers. And no mortal has escaped the inner circle in millennia."