by Alane Adams
“Get back!” Damian cried.
I tackled Karisto, knocking him loose and rolling him away as the beast began to glow a bright shade of red. Waves of heat washed over us as flames began to lick along its mane, growing larger and spreading until the chimera burned like a funeral pyre.
When the smoke cleared, all that was left were the hooves, the horns, the barbed tail, and some teeth.
“We killed it,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Good riddance.” Macario kicked at the ashes. “It was a menace.”
I squatted down, using a stick to sift through the ash until I found a horn. It had returned to being billy-goat sized. Pulling the Eye of Zeus from my pocket, I held the horn over it. The horn vibrated, shimmying in my hand, and with a whoosh disappeared into the matching shape. My arm shivered as the mirror throbbed with power.
“That’s five,” I murmured. “Only one to go.”
I looked up at Karisto. “Thanks. You saved us.”
The satyr had an odd look on his face. He staggered back a step, and then his hand went to his side. It came away covered in red.
“Karisto!”
He stumbled and fell to his knees.
“I guess that tail stung me,” he grunted. “I’m … sorry.” He flinched as we eased him to the ground. “I made a promise … to my brother. That I would come back. When you arrived, I thought … I thought I could save him. But I think … I always knew he was gone.”
“Hey, don’t talk,” I said. “Get some rest.”
He shook his head. “No. I feel the poison running through me.” He gripped my arm, his eyes feverish. “I can pay you back now.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I die, take me to the priests at Kragos. You’ll have your passage to the underworld.”
“No. Karisto, you can’t give up.”
But the satyr took one last breath and let it out, a faint smile on his lips.
I couldn’t believe it. He was dead. This didn’t feel real.
“I can’t … he can’t be …” I stuttered.
“Hey, Phoebes, it’s okay,” Damian said.
I looked at him in horror. “No, it’s not okay. He’s dead. D-E-A-D, dead. This isn’t some made-up story in one of your books. What if this had happened to one of us?” I was breathing way too fast, and my heart was racing as if I’d just run a marathon.
Macario stepped close. “He is gone, but he can help us go on. You heard what he said.”
“You want us to use his body to get to the underworld?” The thought made me want to throw up.
“Hey, Katzy, it’s what he wanted,” Angie said.
No one spoke as we loaded him onto the Argenta’s back. I climbed in front of her wings, my limbs shaking. We took flight, soaring over the trees back to the sea cliffs. I kept replaying every snip, every sharp word he had ever said. Now I understood why pain had always lurked in his eyes.
The sun was setting when we landed in front of one of the open tombs. We chose it at random, not knowing how it worked.
We hadn’t even had time to unload Karisto when a trio of necros appeared. They waved us away, motioning for us to step back. The twilight shadows highlighted the black x’s that marred their sewn lids. They carefully lifted his body with pale hands and carried him inside without uttering a sound.
That was it. It was over.
We climbed on our pegasuses, flew up to the top of the cliffs, and waited. The winged horses were restless, pawing at the ground as though they were eager to take flight. The air had a chill to it. Macario and Zesto left briefly, returning with some thin blankets from the fishing boat we had left on the shore.
I wrapped mine around my shoulders, staring at the moon. It was a bright round disc in the sky. Mesmerizing. So much so that when a shadow crossed over it, I almost missed it. The creature had a pointed beak and webbed wings like that of a pterodactyl.
The animal landed on a ledge below, out of sight. We waited, ready to take flight. A keening cry echoed eerily in the night. Then the sound of wings flapping was followed by the outline of its shadow wheeling across the sky.
That was our cue.
The pegasuses ran swiftly across the ledge and jumped off the cliff into midair. There was a steep drop before their wings opened and we lifted into the night sky. The creature moved fast, but the pegasuses kept pace.
We rode for hours. At some point I slept, slumped forward, arms wrapped around Argenta’s warm neck. When I awoke, the sun was rising, a slice of orange fire on the horizon. The weird creature circled above a cliff. A river ran over the top, spilling itself into the sea. With a flash of its wings, it disappeared into the curtain of water, parting it for a moment to reveal a dark opening.
The doorway to the underworld.
We set our mounts down on the sand, sending small crabs skittering away.
“So we going in now?” Angie asked, hiding a yawn.
She looked wiped. Damian’s eyes drooped. Macario swayed where he stood.
“No. We’re going to take a break,” I decided. “We deserve one day where nothing’s trying to kill us. We’ll go in first thing tomorrow.”
Their eyes brightened as though I had given them a golden ticket.
CHAPTER 33
Our day on the beach was the most fun we’d had since we’d arrived in this place. We floated on our backs in the aqua-green water, dove like seals, and exulted in having the last traces of gunk and grime washed away.
I stared up at the clear blue sky, trying to stay happy, but a creeping sense of doom sent a chill through me.
The underworld was up next. The underworld, people! You know, the place where dead souls go and hang out for millennia until they fade away into nothingness. It was one thing to face a man-eating lion, or even a multiheaded serpent, but to go there, to that place of darkness and death? I couldn’t do it. I mean, I could, don’t get me wrong. I just couldn’t ask my friends to go. Not after losing Karisto. And there was no point in telling them that. They wouldn’t listen. They would just say, “Yeah, yeah, Katzy, we know, but we’re still going.”
That’s why I had to leave them behind.
The ends didn’t always justify the means. Not at all. If there was one thing I had learned in this place, it was that. My parents thought protecting Olympus meant it was okay to ship me off. The ends justified their treatment of me, dumping their only daughter on a lousy bus bench with nothing to her name. Wrong.
Whether that swan was Zeus or some smart-alecky bird, he’d made me realize one thing. I had to stop acting as if things that happened around me weren’t my fault. I was a demigod, like it or not, with a prophecy hanging over my head. I hadn’t asked for it, but it was mine. Not Damian’s. Not Angie’s. Not even Macario’s.
I was on my own.
Over a supper of broiled fish, Damian filled us in on what he knew about our final stop.
“To get to Hades’s mansion, we have to find a ferryman named Charon and pay him to take us down the river.”
Macario nodded. “And again when we want to leave. That’s important.” He pulled out the bag of coins he carried and counted. “Yes, we have exactly eight. Enough to get in and out.”
“Great,” I said, smiling. “Here, let me hang on to it.”
He hesitated.
“Unless you don’t trust me,” I said, arching an eyebrow.
He looked shamed. “Sure, I trust you. You’ve been a true friend since the day we met. You know, when we went to see the oracle, I wanted—” He stopped, his face flushing with shame. “I was going to let Python eat you. To prove my loyalty to my father. Rid Olympus of its destroyer. But I saw how you all stood up for each other, and I couldn’t do it.”
He thrust the bag of coins in my hand.
I was a complete fink, because I smiled at him and tucked that bag of coins in my pocket and didn’t even blink. I waited until they were asleep, all curled up in the sand under their blankets. The stars were cold overhead as I folded back my
cover and got to my feet, tucking the satchel my mother had given me over my shoulder. My friends were unmoving lumps.
I tiptoed away from the fire, taking the rocky path down the beach to the edge of the cliff. The river poured over the top, flowing down in a rushing torrent. I hiked around the edges of the rocks until I found a well-worn trail that led behind the curtain of water.
The opening was like a giant mouth waiting to swallow me whole. I couldn’t make out a drop of light. Cold air wafted out, raising the hair on my arms.
“Let’s do this, Katzy,” I said aloud to give myself the courage to move my feet forward. The sand gave way to hard ground as I passed through the entrance. I had the smallest lightning bolt I could muster to give me light.
The air was freaky cold, as if the walls were made of ice. The stone was a deep crimson. I tried not to think about whether or not it was the color of blood.
The place was deserted—not a single guard in sight—which kind of made sense because who would be foolish enough to want to enter?
After several steps, a narrow set of stairs descended into blackness. Taking a deep breath, I walked down.
The coins jangled in my pocket, reminding me what a traitor I was. Angie would probably pound me when I saw her again. If I saw her.
“Eeeeeee.”
I froze at the noise. The hair rose on the back of my neck.
“Eeeeee, oooooo, aaaaaahhh.”
It sounded like multiple beings, maybe underworld zombies just ahead.
“Get back, zombies.” I held the bolt in front of me. “Or I’ll send you—” Where would I send someone who was already dead? “Back to your grave.” Ugh! I was such an idiot. I couldn’t even think of a proper insult for a dead zombie.
“Feeeee-beeeee.”
Oh, rats entrails. The zombies knew my name.
“Feeee beeee isssssss aaaaaaa raaaaaaaat.” Phoebe is a rat?
Wait, that sounded like …
Angie stepped out into the circle of light, hands planted on her hips. Next to her stood Damian and Macario. All of them glared at me.
I bristled at their interference. Couldn’t they just mind their own business for once? “What?”
“What? That’s all you have to say?” Angie demanded.
“Fine. What are you doing here? I don’t need you tagging along.”
I pushed past them, but Angie spun me around.
“You do not get to walk away from us. You think we didn’t know you were going to dump us? I knew it the moment you asked Macario for the coins.”
“So why didn’t you stay away? I can do this on my own.”
Her glare deepened. “Of course you can’t, you idiot. Even if you could, why would you want to? We came all this way to help you, because we’re your friends, but as soon as things get too hard, you walk away. Look, there goes Phoebe Katz.”
I flinched at the truth in her words, but it didn’t change my decision.
“This is my problem, my prophecy, my fate. You guys should be back at Dexter worrying about the next history project, not fighting hydras or outsmarting a sphinx that wants to eat us. Karisto died because of my stupid quest.
I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you guys, even you, Macario.”
“That may be, but I’ve never had so much fun in my entire life,” Damian said.
I gawked at him. “Seriously? I’ve made you the bait, like, a dozen times. You could have been eaten by a lion, a hydra, or a fire-breathing goat. I mean, come on, Damian, how mental are you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never been part of something that mattered. This—us four—we matter. I don’t know if we’re going to destroy Olympus or not. So far, things aren’t looking good. But I do know we’re trying to do the right thing. And I know that being with you guys is better than being safe back home. So no, Phoebe, you don’t get to dump us. Not today.”
I took out the mirror and studied it. Smoke streaks and cracks marred the face. It had been through a lot. Only one opening remained. The other five bulged with the power of the talismans we had collected. It felt heavy in my hands. Like it bore a great burden. Tingles of power ran up my spine, hinting at what I would be able to do once I completed it.
Feeling a weight lift off my shoulders, I tucked the mirror away and straightened. “Damian, ideas?”
He smiled. “If we keep going, we’re bound to run into one of the rivers that leads to Hades’s mansion. Cerberus guards the entrance. We don’t have to actually go inside. With any luck, we can get a snip of his tail and be on our way.”
I looked around at my circle of friends. “All right then, let’s go raise some underworld chaos. Who knows, maybe I’ll destroy this place too.”
CHAPTER 34
The steps continued downward in an endless descent. We might as well have been heading to the center of the earth. The only sounds were the scrape of our boots over the stone and the rustle of fabric. Macario fell asleep on his feet, stumbling and nearly sending me tumbling headfirst down the steps. When we finally reached bottom, my legs were jelly. A gloomy cavern awaited us. In the dim light, I could just make out a stone bridge suspended over a pit of darkness. The bridge led to a massive wooden set of double doors. A large H was inlaid in bronzed metal in the center.
We scurried across the bridge in a tight knot, half expecting something creepy to leap out of that darkness and grab us. Macario shined his sun bolt at the bottom of the cavern, but the shadows swallowed the light, leaving only inky darkness.
“We should take a minute and think about this,” I said, once we reached the other side. “Maybe one of us should wait here in case we get locked in.”
“Don’t look at me, I’m going,” Damian said.
“Angie?”
“Nope. Always wanted to see this place.”
“Sun-brain?”
He scowled. “You think the son of Apollo is a coward? That is not how I will earn my father’s respect.”
I punched him lightly on the arm. “Hey—you don’t need to earn anyone’s respect. Apollo is lucky to have you as his son.”
He looked pleased but it didn’t budge him. “I am still going with you.”
I threw my hands up. “Fine, you’re all certifiable. Do we knock or what?”
The pair of doors didn’t have any handles or knobs.
“Maybe they’re open.” Angie walked to the door and held up two hands, palms forward, and thrust on them.
The top half of her disappeared through the door as if it wasn’t there.
“Angie!”
I lunged to catch her, grabbing her ankle as she fell through the door, and found myself pulled through along with her. We tumbled onto a tiled floor, grunting as two more bodies came hurtling in atop us.
“Get offa me,” Angie grunted, pushing us off.
We found ourselves in a small room with four windowless white walls. An abnormally pale woman with fuchsia pink lips and a beehive hairdo sat hunched behind a small desk stacked with piles of papers. She could have been twenty or eighty. Her eyes were hidden behind cateye glasses. She stamped each sheet vigorously and moved them to another pile.
“Welcome to the underworld,” she said in a bored voice without looking up. “Hero, zero, or pure evil?”
“Excuse me?” I said.
She pointed to a sign on the back wall and continued working.
Damian read the sign. “All Heroes must submit proper documentation of Epic Deeds to be considered for entrance to Elysium. Those sentenced to eternity in Tartarus will be transferred directly to the Pit of Torment for processing. All others report to Asphodel Meadows to be assigned After-Life Duty according to Life Rankings.”
“Um, excuse me, but we’re not dead,” I said.
Miss Paper Stamper’s hand froze in midair. “Then why are you here?”
“We need to get to Hades’s mansion.”
She raised her eyes and I flinched. Pools of inky black looked back at me without a trace of white.
“You
do know this is the underworld?”
“Yes.” I gulped. Those eyes were like a living darkness.
“And that only the dead are allowed in?”
“Yup.”
She drummed her fingers. “This is highly irregular.”
“But we can go in, right?”
She shuffled through the papers on her desk until she found the one she wanted. “Sign here.” She held out a fountain pen and pointed to a line at the bottom. “It waives Lord Hades from any and all liability should undue harm come to you, including death, dismemberment, and the odd maiming.”
I scanned the page, but the words were scrawled in a cryptic language.
“Phoebes, let’s think about this,” Damian said.
“No signature, no entry,” Miss Paper Stamper warned.
What was the point of thinking? Carl’s life depended on me going in. I snatched the pen and scribbled my name. A sudden gust of wind blew across the desk, creating a cyclone of papers around Miss Paper Stamper. We ducked as the room became a hurricane.
“Knock it off, Phoebes!” Damian shouted
“It’s not me!”
And then everything vanished. The walls dissolved around us, and we were in the underworld.
The place was massive. Rolling green hills blanketed with scarlet poppies stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by a dark ribbon of river. The colors were muted as if a sepia filter had been applied. A distant iron mountain belched black smoke that left the sky a canopy of murky gray.
We were standing at some kind of crossroads. A blinking neon sign planted in the ground read ELYSIUM with an arrow pointing off to the right. A golden pathway led to a set of padlocked gates hung with a sign that read HEROES ONLY. Behind the gates, a brightly lit high-rise building glittered like a Vegas casino. A giant inflated pink flamingo on the roof bobbed from side to side. Throbbing music pulsed through the air. I could swear I heard laughter and splashing from a pool.