Sacrifice

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  I’m not ready for that, yet.

  Might never be.

  “You’re one-hundred percent sure it was her?” Theseus asks as we work our way down the path between the two mountains. Dematerializing isn’t possible once we step foot on the island, making the journey by foot necessary.

  As well as frustrating.

  Can’t even use my preternatural speed to eat up the distance. Hades’ own powers ensure that this hike is one of endurance, both physical and mental.

  Physically, it was more difficult to do this when I was a demigod, gifted with only the strength of an immortal.

  Mentally, I’m more shredded than I’ve ever been, and that’s saying something. “You’re seriously doubting my ability to recognize her?”

  “Fair enough.” In his armor—the original, not a modern copy like the one I’m sporting—the founder of Athens continues to follow me, even though this journey might end up deadlier for him than I.

  “Minos probably still has it out for you.”

  “Probably. I did slay his hideous obsession.” By that he means the infamous Minotaur, a being almost as disturbing as the one known as Catobeplas. “I still can’t believe they lied about this in my fucking myth, as well. I didn’t kill that beast with a sword. It was my bare fucking hands.”

  In the distance, a faint bronze glow begins to illuminate the interminable darkness—the light beams that make up the staffs of the sentries that guard the Earth-bound entrance.

  A pair of giant statues, twice as large as the Colossus of Rhodes once stood, one on each side of the opening that resembles a cave.

  It’s not. It’s a gap between this realm and the underworld, an instant portal that will deliver us right at the door.

  Where Cerberus stands guard.

  Or, at least, where he once did. It’s been thousands of years and I never stepped foot in here again after that task. For all I know, he might no longer be the main guard of that dimension.

  Almost in the blink of an eye, the bronze glow morphs into bright light and the landscape before us comes into full view next. The river cutting into the ground. Where it disappears into the cave.

  The aforementioned, massive sentries guarding each side, their light rods lowered in an X formation to bar entry until they grant the seeker access.

  Theseus and I pause ten feet from those staffs, the heat they give off intense enough to blister our immortal skin and singe our pupils.

  Last time, only I approached. He was trapped down there. Out of what remained of my crew, I’d been the only one strong enough—crazy enough—to withstand this as a mortal.

  The sentries’ heads jerk to life and twist in our direction. As one, they address us from within the shadow of their hoods.

  “Heraaaaklesssss.”

  Or more like me.

  “Oh look. They remember you.”

  Ignoring Theseus drawled out comment, I tilt my head back to stare into the black depths of each hood. “I take it your lord is awaiting me.”

  With a swoosh, the staffs are lifted away from the cave entrance and held upright. “Indeed.”

  “That’s not worrisome. At all.”

  “You’re waiting for me up here,” I tell Theseus, watching as the ferryman appears, rowing his boat across the black waters.

  He’s also covered by his hood, yet I suspect this one thing at least hasn’t changed.

  Good ol’ Charon, forever trapped in his service to Hades.

  His shining, bronze skiff cuts its path through the river in our direction.

  “You’re insane. You’re walking straight into your death and I’m supposed to let you waltz right on in.”

  I materialize an ancient, gold coin into my grasp. “It’s not as cut and dry as that. Maybe he wants to kill me on sight; maybe he wants to further use me to advance his plans of revenge. Either way, I’m not the same mortal I was last time I came here. And although I am Zeus’ son, I can guarantee he hates you more than he hates me.” Millions of times more.

  Hades didn’t appreciate his female when he had her—something that clearly runs in the family—but his fixation with her always ran deep. To look upon the face of one of the two fools that tried to take her from him, even though she was already gone by that time?

  He’ll hand Theseus over to Minos in a heartbeat.

  “I don’t see that—”

  “If I die down there, or if I end up eternally trapped, you need to remain free to get her out of there. Swear this to me,” I demand harshly.

  By now, Charon’s boat has come to a stop, floating an inch above the surface now. Peaceful. Undisturbing to the light current below.

  He’s staring in our direction, though. His face is as hidden as it always was, despite what the lore also said about him, but based on the angle of his head, there’s no mistaking his ear’s trained on us.

  Theseus opens his mouth to object.

  At my stare, he slaps his lips closed, jaw twitching. “Fine.”

  Without a word, Charon holds out a thin, nearly emaciated hand, palm up.

  I flick the gold coin onto it and flash onto the boat. “Not a mortal this time, Charon. So keep your tricks to yourself.”

  With the flick of his wrist, the boat faces back in the direction of the crevice and begins speeding toward it at an unnatural speed. “Your immortality will only make this much more painful for you, God of Power.”

  We’re in the blackness of the waterway within another second, too fast for me to respond—

  The first image is a bullet to the brain, releasing a barrage of subsequent memories that bring me instantly to my knees.

  Meg, in those woods the first day I saw her, trying to escape the Nimean Lion itself. Her head tilting slowly back, magenta eyes wide, after she’d run into me. Her hands gripping my shoulders from behind as I shielded her and took on the beast.

  Her amazed stare trailing down my form once I had not only slaughtered it, drenching myself in its blood, but also skinned it with my bare hands.

  Her lack of fear in me despite my savagery—despite having witnessed that mad side of me during our very first meeting. A side that had sent lifelong acquaintances scurrying for safety.

  She seduced me that very first night. Climbed into my lap by the fire and whispered in my ear, telling me exactly what she wanted.

  How hard.

  How fast.

  How rough.

  She hadn’t been a virgin and neither had I, yet I’d never encountered a woman so brazen in my life.

  It thrilled her that I could possibly break her with my demigod strength.

  I was a wild animal with the knowledge that she wanted me bad enough to risk such a thing just to have me inside her.

  And she was mine ever since that night. All mine. Every moment of every day. Every obstacle of every labour. Mine.

  Until I walked away from her.

  Until I abandoned her.

  These memories are crisper than ever. More vivid than when I lived those moments firsthand. The agony triggered is worse than any I’ve ever felt.

  As if every moment I spent missing her for over two-thousand years has been combined into a single deluge of heartbreak.

  Clutching at my head, I shout at the top of my lungs. Not just because of the pain, but in the vain hope that my own immortal scream can somehow drown out the sound of her voice.

  Eyes squinted, I glare into Charon’s robed back, his outline visible in the bronze glow given off by the skid. “Enough of this!”

  Without turning from his task, he continues rowing across the black waters at what seems like lightspeed, the equally black cavern walls flying by in a blur. “Pay your penance, God of Power. It is only the beginning of what you owe.”

  “Herakles,” her softened voice murmurs from the ancient past. Her fingers trail over my bare chest; a mortal’s hand, yet with the ability to send my entire being erupting into sensation from a single graze alone. “You will take me with you when the time comes. Right?”
r />   “Of course, I will, Meg. Of course I will.”

  I meant it. Gods help me, I did. I had every fucking intention of keeping my little mortal by my side. Of finding a way to gift her with her own immortality so that we’d never have to part.

  Until that gathering with the gods at the gates of Olympus.

  Until my glowing, godly father pulled me aside and whispered it could not be. That mortals were not allowed inside. That the Fates were the only ones with the power to decide who became immortal.

  Until he told me I had to make a choice then and there: become a god, or turn my back on everything I’d sacrificed my life for in order to return to Earth with Megara.

  And I made the wrong choice.

  “I made the wrong gods damned fucking choice!” I roar at everyone and everything, nearly crushing my skulls from the intensity of my grip. “It was the wrong choice!”

  “Of course it was,” Charon intones, rowing in that calm way of his.

  The boat continues to shoot across the waters at dizzying speeds, even for the immortal eye.

  As a mortal, I hadn’t picked up on it. Not while bombarded with every vision the river Acheron demanded I relive.

  Now, I’m both reliving the past in a way worse than before, and also capable of seeing the unnatural progression into the Underworld.

  I try crawling across the smooth bottom of the boat. To do what? Who the fuck knows. Maybe in this enraged insanity of repeated time, I’m being pushed to entertain the idea of bodily restraining the ferryman.

  As if he’s the one responsible for the woe the river requires.

  I’m inches from him, a gloved hand extended toward his back. White-and-gold armor gleaming with bronze light.

  Soul decimated with eons of regret relieved in what seems like seconds, the weight magnified to planetary dimensions.

  The boat suddenly slams to a halt.

  I’m listed by invisible hands. Flung.

  My back impacts upon the black-sand shores in front of the most megalithic temple of all time.

  The largest there ever was in the Greek pantheon.

  A black, pillared palace that put even my father’s in Olympus to shame.

  Hades’ home.

  The true beginning the Underworld.

  Charon flicks the gold coin back at me. It bounces off my armored-chest and onto the sand next to me. “Keep it. It’s the least I can return to you considering what you’re about to face.” He lifts his hand in farewell, accidentally brushing aside part of his hood.

  Bearing a face that’s the opposite of his hand. Showing a glimpse of bright green eyes, tanned skin, and a haunting, eternal youth stained by endless despair.

  He’s gone in a whisp of smoke shortly after, dispersing into whatever pocket of this dimension he usually resides.

  Leaving me here, temples throbbing, whispers of blood thirst awakened in my mind.

  The constant effect I have to deal with each time my temper and heartache are provoked.

  Turning in the sand, I stare up at the mountain-sized palace, with its three-hundred foot tall entryway and remind myself that the solution to this pain lies within.

  Facing my uncle is the only way to have a chance at getting close to Megara again.

  Which makes me pity that damned fool. I surpassed what I surpassed as merely a mortal with superstrength.

  Now, I’m returning as a god. And whether he’s older, more powerful than me, won’t matter.

  My will always was such a bane.

  I won’t be leaving without Meg. Whether the king of this realm likes it not.

  CHAPTER 4

  HERAKLES

  Persephone isn’t waiting at the entrance to the throne room. She never was, actually. As I said previously, she had managed to escape her husband centuries before I was even born.

  There’s no Cerberus standing before the silver, gilded doors.

  The silence is staggering. It makes the size of the main hall seem three times larger than it already is.

  Considering it’s the size of two football fields put together, even an immortal like me is taken aback. There was life in this place once. A mixture of immortal beings and the morose souls of the dead, but these walls once teemed with activity.

  This isn’t the Hades I visited on that fateful quest. It’s become a symbol of emptiness.

  As if it’s an imitation of its ruler’s heart.

  A hole with nothing left to fill it.

  Hades was always a rank bastard, yet there’s one thing that was always known among us all.

  Losing Persephone? It ruined the male. Left him changed in ways that brought out the worst in him.

  Fucking hate having any reason to relate to him, but there it is. A common thread that unites us outside our shared blood.

  Not that it excuses what he’s done. Who he’s kept from me. What he turned her into.

  Beyond those doors will be the god himself. And even if he isn’t, that throne room and the hall leading to it are the only places in the Underworld that thrum with his power whether he’s there or not.

  Which means that, after that ride into this realm that left my brain tilted and off balance, I’m about to enter another mindfuck I’ll have to deal with.

  That godsforsaken glitching of reality that will be magnified by my immortal vision, making it much more unbearable than the last time I was here.

  I head straight for those doors. Within seconds, I’ve slammed them open; a warning to my uncle.

  I’m coming.

  Although by now he’s aware of my arrival. No one enters or leaves here without him knowing it.

  Dematerializing or using my full speed down the passageway is as prohibited as it was on the way to the Earthen entrance. As I take my first steps on the black, velvet runner, my surroundings fracture in three.

  Statues of the immortal side of my Greek family shake as reflections of themselves hover over them. Other statues of unknown beings do the same, the visual static bearing down on me from all sides.

  A statue catches my eye. It’s a male, dressed in what looks like a black trench coat. Carvings adorn his bared arms, like flat scars.

  Or tattoos.

  I remember it now. From my last visit. And the other . . .

  Down the hall, that second statue of the same male, this one sporting angel wings and devil horns.

  They’re the only unmoving effigies in the distorted mess pulsating above me.

  Meg, I remind myself. The only word that needs to matter and the only one with the ability to focus me.

  Eyes locked straight ahead, I place a foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Eventually, the archway opening to the throne room is within reach.

  I barrel straight past it as fast as I can—

  And come to a halt at the sight of him.

  A male even more infamous than I became.

  “Ah, if it isn’t my long-lost nephew . . .”

  His voice reverberates from what seems to be three different directions, just as the world continues to split around us. Bottomless black eyes appear to glow from the darkness.

  His giant, silver throne reflects light off his matching crown, yet the rest of him is lost to the shadows.

  “Hades,” I force out, a sensation I hardly ever experience awakening in the pit of my chest.

  I won’t say it’s fear, yet it’s definitely akin to it. Not that I’m ashamed at the feeling. I am the God of Power and as such its voice recognizes Hades’ intensity in the air.

  His primordial force born of the gods know how many millennia of existence.

  I might carry the calling within me, but not even I am as powerful as this male.

  The very male I’ve come to confront.

  “Come.” A black hand outstretches, beckoning me closer. “Come closer, Herakles. After all, I have what you want. Don’t I?”

  Not “what” but who.

  “And what do you fucking want in return for her, Hades?” Senses on high alert, I mentally s
can my surroundings for any type of threat as I approach him.

  “Me?” he asks, drawing out the word. Even with only his crown and eyes visible, I can see the moment he leans back in his throne. “I’m not the one that wants anything.”

  “Of course you fucking are!” My roar bounces off the cavernous ceiling. “You always want something. It’s what you do when it comes to us. One scheme after the other. One punishment followed by the next. All because my father condemned you to this shit existe—” My diatribe is cut off by the solid, invisible force I crash into.

  The one that sends me flying backward and stops me from getting my hands on him.

  Hades’ deep laughter is the next sound that rebounds through the space. “Your father never had the means to imprison me, boy. Although I know he loves to pretend he did.”

  What? The immediate response that bubbles is full of denial.

  Yet what the fuck am I denying actually? What is possibly the unveiling of another lie? That my father wouldn’t be capable of sustaining such a story just to further his own glory?

  I lift myself off the floor, thoughts crashing into each other. It doesn’t matter what the story is. Think of Meg. “Fuck all that. How dare you do anything to her just to get back at me for being his son?” After I’ve spent my entire existence cursing the fact. Even as I underwent those cursed labors to become a god, I loathed him for siring me.

  The only reason I even dragged myself and so many others through that hell, why I needed to become a god and be somebody, was to escape the punishments his wife kept sending my way.

  The female whose name-sake I carry.

  She made it her mission to destroy me since I was a baby to make sure I never forgot what an ill-begotten mistake I was.

  I’m almost too deep in my thoughts to hear Hades’ next chuckle.

  “Boy, all I did was save her . . . from what you brought upon her.”

  Words are like keys, they say. Capable of unlocking different doors based on their meanings. Context.

  His words open a never-ending realm of self-loathing and guilt, even as I sense what I know is the truth of what he’s saying. “I didn’t make her an Erinye. I didn’t turn her into a . . . a . . .” A creature desired, revered, feared and loathed among all immortals alike. “You dragged her down here to punish me!”