Tempted by Darkness

by Lillian Sable

  The ropes binding him?

  He came completely awake with the agitation of someone who had just realized they weren’t where they were supposed to be, and nothing good was coming for them next. His hands and legs were bound in front of him like a pig being prepared for a luau. His wrists ached when he tested the tightness of the bindings, and when he looked down, the skin had been rubbed nearly raw.

  What the fuck was happening?

  Kidnapping was the first thing that came to mind, but wouldn’t he have remembered being dragged off the street? Hell, he couldn’t even remember how he got home from the bar last night.

  Did he get home from the bar last night?

  Fear naturally came next as he looked around him. Cold walls met his gaze as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. He’d obviously been left in the corner of a large room, based on the drafts of wind freezing his skin. It was too difficult for him to turn his head enough to see what might be behind him. His shoulder ached underneath him, and his head was suspended at an awkward angle unless he let it bend unnaturally. Every part of his body felt like it had been beaten within an inch of his life.

  “Sleeping beauty awakens. Such a pity. I thought perhaps the journey had gotten the best of your fragile human body. Did you sleep well?”

  Adonis couldn’t stop himself from freezing in place, the only natural response when spotted by a predator. That voice washed over him with more coldness than seeped into him from the icy floor. That voice promised pain and suffering beyond any human imagining. But he wasn’t a coward.

  “Who the fuck is asking?”

  Whoever was there only chuckled, the sound like icicles tracing down his spine. “Is that bravery or bravado. I suppose only time will tell.”

  Adonis’s hands clenched into fists. “Easy to say when I’m the one who is tied up.”

  The bindings fell away as if how tightly they’d knotted were only a memory. He stayed frozen for another moment, unsure of what just happened. The man hadn’t come anywhere near him, and his voice had come from too far away to cross the distance so quickly. His ropes had simply unraveled on their own.

  Ignoring the pain of it, Adonis pushed slowly to his feet and looked around him. His instinct hadn’t been wrong about the size of the room. Vaulted ceilings rose impossibly high overhead, lit by streaks of light without any visible source in the windowless space. The floor beneath him was made of some dark stone so cold that it seeped through his shoes to numb his toes.

  And then he looked up to see the man who must have brought him here—if the word man even covered it. This guy looked like he got turned around on his way to a renaissance faire. His hair was so nearly white that it had to be dyed or a wig. The man dressed like someone grabbed Robin Hood and sprinkled him with fairy dust, from the gold doublet that shimmered in the light to the pants that were tight enough to leave nothing to the imagination.

  But the expression on his face was anything but whimsical. Regardless of the ridiculous outfit, this dude clearly took himself deadly seriously.

  “You’re on your feet,” the man commented drily. “Shall we see how brave you are?”

  The world swayed around him as Adonis fought to stay upright. It felt like he hadn’t eaten in days on top of the worst hangover in the world. And this guy, what, wanted to fight him? “Where the hell am I?”

  “The place that I keep my most treasured guests,” the man replied with a smirk. Clearly there was a joke in there he found simply hilarious.

  Despite the strangeness of the surroundings, Adonis innately understood that this man was someone to be feared. Power radiated off him in a way that was palpable, despite the ridiculous costume. Adonis wanted to run in the opposite direction, but there was nowhere to go, and showing fear simply wasn’t his style.

  He compelled his voice not to shake. “Who are you?”

  The strange man regarded him steadily for a long moment, gaze piercing. “You may call me Hades.”

  That forced a surprised laugh from him. “That might be the dumbest name I’ve ever heard.”

  If he hoped that the man would take offense, then he would be disappointed.

  A small smile drifted across the man’s face. “I said only that is what you may call me, not that it is my name.”

  Because it wasn’t enough to kidnap him, now the weird dude felt the need to talk in confusing riddles. “What is your name, then?”

  “Names have power here, boy. To speak one is to hold a piece of the thing that claims it.” The man’s eyes darkened, like a storm rolling in from the sea. Then he took a step closer, cruel light shining in those eyes that seemed both colorless and vibrant across the spectrum at the same time. “Just as I know that your name is Adonis Raimondo Latimer from Redondo Beach, California, that knowledge gives me power over you.”

  Adonis laughed despite the thrill of awareness that rolled over him. The idea was so absurd it wasn’t even worth engaging with it. What sort of power? But as the man continued to stare at him, Adonis felt an unfamiliar sensation wash over him. It compelled him to fall to his knees and kiss the ground at the man’s feet. It took every ounce of willpower that he had to fight off the terrible desire to supplicate himself.

  “You’re stronger than you look,” Hades commented, voice mild. “That will serve you well here. But you should know that I will always be stronger.”

  But Adonis couldn’t speak, because the next words out of his mouth would be pleading for a release from the terrible pressure growing in his mind. It was as if his entire body had been dipped in hot oil, flesh boiling away in the most agonizing way imaginable. Gritting his teeth against the sudden pain, he managed to stay upright. He couldn’t understand how he knew it, but to give in now and fall to his knees would mean so much worse than just temporary weakness. And he refused to give in, even as every cell in his body screamed in protest at the searing pain.

  An expression that almost looked like grudging respect entered the man’s gaze. He negligently waved his hand, and Adonis’s pain disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Only the memory of it remained, even as sweat soaked his clothes, and his body was left shaking.

  As if by magic.

  “As amusing as this has been, there isn’t any more time for it.” Hades turned abruptly, heels clicking sharply as he strode away. “Follow me.”

  Adonis had no choice but to follow him or be left alone in this strange place. He had no idea what Hades was, but something told him to play along until he figured what it was.

  As Hades disappeared around a corner, Adonis warily went after him. He felt very much like he was inside an abandoned castle in some remote part of the British Isles. Lit sconces hung on the walls, but there was virtually no other decoration. Gaps high above them revealed tantalizing bits of the horizon, but the color of it was all wrong. Adonis had never seen such a red sky before.

  The narrow hallway opened up into a large and drafty space with stone walls and vaulted ceilings. But that wasn’t what had caught Adonis’s attention.

  Glass orbs covered nearly every surface, from the low tables surrounding the room and on shelves built into the walls. His own face reflected back at him dozens of times in the glassy surfaces, making him feel significantly unnerved. But then he saw a totally different face reflected in one orb, one as recognizable as his own.

  “Seph—” Her name caught in his throat, and he whipped around to face Hades, or whatever stupid name the man wanted to call himself. “Where is she?”

  But instead of answering the question, Hades tilted his head to the side and regarded Adonis with an expression of mild interest. “You care for her, don’t you?”

  Adonis felt the spots of red appear on his cheeks, knowing that his face revealed way more than he wanted to let on. “None of your fucking business. Just tell me where she is.”

  “You aren’t going to ask what allows you to see her?” Hades plucked the orb from its place on the wall and held it out between them. “Does your concern for her overwhel
m all curiosity about the place you’ve found yourself in?”

  “I know you’re crazy, so I don’t need any other details aside from that,” Adonis spat, even as his heart rate increased to a desperate tattoo. He wouldn’t show this man any fear. “I don’t really care if you drugged our drinks at the bar then set up this crazy scene. All I need to know is what you’ve done to Seph.”

  “It isn’t what I will do, but what she has already done.” With a smirk, Hades gestured for him to come closer. “Come and see for yourself. The glass reflects only the truth.”

  Adonis was more than a little hesitant to close the distance between himself and the apparent crazy person holding a glass ball out to him. He didn’t have any answers about how he had come to be here, not even sure he wanted to ask them, but it was clear this Hades was unpredictable and dangerous.

  But Hades made no move to harm or attack as Adonis took a careful step forward. He held the orb high in the air so that both of them could clearly view the scene reflected in its surface.

  A shock of pained surprise stabbed through his heart. Seph, or a girl who looked just like her, skipped down a stone path holding the hands of two men who looked like extras out of a Cirque du Soleil show. That wasn’t even the part that surprised him most, even though he’d never seen her so much as go on a date. It was the look on her face that really got to him.

  As much as he liked being around her, it was impossible not to notice how awkward she could be around most people. It had taken him years to get inside of her shell and prove himself a trustworthy friend, much less making any progress toward something more.

  But this Seph wasn’t the shy and quiet girl that he had spent the last few years trying to get to know better. This one laughed and smiled, seeming to fully possess her own body with a confidence that real Seph had never possessed. And the look of coquettish delight on her face was an expression that Adonis could only dream of seeing on her face when she looked at him.

  A pang of sadness moved through him, followed quickly by the heat of jealousy.

  Adonis looked away. “I don’t want to see any more of this, just tell me where she is.”

  “On her way here, assuming she can arrive in time,” Hades murmured, a cruel smile twisting the corners of his lips. “Are you sure you don’t want to see more? It’s a nice way to wile away the time.”

  It was only then that Adonis realized the man was taunting him. He intended the scene to get exactly this reaction out of him. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “But it gets so much better. Just watch.” Hades turned the orb in his hands, making the scene shift as if it were being skipped ahead in time. “Here. Tell me what you think of this.”

  Unable to tear his gaze away, Adonis was forced to watch as Seph threw herself into the arms of one of the men, kissing him with passion. His heart tightened into a painful knot in his chest.

  Without stopping to think through the consequences, he lashed out and slapped the orb from Hades’s hand. It flew across the room and smashed against the far wall, bursting into a thousand glittering pieces.

  When he turned back, Hades held an identical orb in his hand. Perhaps it was even the same one, because when Adonis looked again, there were no longer shards of glass on the ground.

  The unreality of it had finally started to get to him. This had to be a dream or a nightmare. This strange man with wild eyes and a cruel smile couldn’t possibly be real. The Seph he knew nearly jumped out of her skin when he touched her arm, she wouldn’t make out with two men she had only just met.

  “Would you like to see more?” Hades murmured, voice perfectly mild.

  “No!” Adonis was starting to hyperventilate. He pinched himself hard on the arm, but the pain did nothing to wake him up. And he could feel things that shouldn’t be possible in a dream, the cold that numbed his toes even through his shoes and the pain in his back from being trussed up like a hog. “This can’t be happening.”

  Hades sighed as if disappointed. “I’ve always found this part to be the most tedious, I have to admit. You are a pawn in a game that isn’t within your capability to comprehend. If Persephone can complete the challenges, she will win your life as victor. If not, it becomes forfeit. And mine.”

  Adonis wasn’t stupid, and his mind was perfectly capable of connecting the dots. But understanding something and believing it were two entirely different things. “You’re the Hades. From Seph’s play.”

  The man nodded once, eyebrow raised. “You’re not quite as slow as I expected.”

  But Adonis wasn’t ready to completely relinquish his hold on reality, not yet. “That’s just a story, none of it is real.”

  “Would you like me to prove it to you?”

  Adonis understood then that challenging Hades was a bad idea, but it was too late to take the words back. The man made a gesture like he was batting away a particularly irritating fly.

  “What the hell—”

  A wide chasm opened up in the floor at Adonis’s feet, and he had to scramble back as it ate up the ground in front of him. He stared down into a hole that seemingly had no bottom, or at least not one close enough to see.

  Hades tossed the orb he was holding into the chasm. Adonis watched as it winked in the light and then disappeared into the darkness. He listened hard but never heard it hit the bottom.

  With a negligent glance down into the hole, Hades looked back at Adonis with a smirk. “This is where I put things that I want to forget about. I’m told they’re bottomless, but I’ve never tested the theory myself. After a year or two spent plummeting into darkness, I wonder if you’d believe I was real then.”

  “Yeah, you seem pretty real,” Adonis acknowledged as his heart rate slowly returned to normal. He kept a watchful eye on the edge of the chasm, worried that the edge might shift closer.

  “Not completely, but perhaps soon.” Hades picked up another of the glass orbs and tossed it at Adonis, who just barely caught it before the thing tumbled to the ground. “You can see not only what is, but what perhaps will be. Perhaps you might see a vision of your future. Take a look.”

  Heart aching, Adonis lifted the orb to his face hoping to see another image of Seph’s face. It barely mattered to him what she was doing, but he needed to know that she was okay. If Hades was threatening him with bottomless pits, what was he doing to her?

  But Adonis saw only a reflection of his own face. Then the orb went cloudy as if suffused with smoke. He suddenly felt lightheaded and overcome with a somnolence like he’d been drugged. Swaying on his feet, he fell to his knees, inches from the chasm that yawned down into an eternal fall. The urge to pass out overwhelmed him, but the orb stayed in his hand, and it was impossible to tear his gaze away from it.

  He barely heard the last words Hades spoke before the world faded around him, but the mocking note was unmistakable.

  “Enjoy oblivion, boy.”

  Chapter Ten

  I spent about thirty minutes trying to explain what the hell was going on to Cleo, but by the time I’d repeated myself for the dozenth time, I was about to give up. Not only was she acting willfully unable to parse the details, but she focused on precisely the wrong things.

  Ryn had gone off to scout ahead, seeming more than a little unsettled by our kiss. I was trying not to think too hard about that. Cerberus seemed patently uninterested in our conversation and had wandered off to the edge of the trash heap.

  “Okay, let me get this straight,” Cleo insisted, the same thing she always said when we were about to start the story all over again. “All of that shit you created, the art and the play, it’s based on a magical world that actually existed that also happens to be full of crazy hot men.”

  Choosing to ignore the hot men part because that’s a road I didn’t want to go down, I shrugged. “That’s about the long and short of it. If we ever make it out of here, there’s probably something in there that will take the edge off.”

  “As if I’d ever go crazy,” Cleo scoffed. She got the sard
onic look I cast her and gave me an apologetic smile. “You know what I mean.”

  As far as she was concerned, it was impossible for me to play tricks on her like this, which meant that this place had to be real. It was as simple as that. I envied that confidence in herself. “You’re not even going to ask how we got here?”

  “Magic, obviously.” She peered at the necklace around my neck, mouth falling open slightly as one of the stones changed color. “I’m not saying I understand how it’s possible, but it clearly is. I refuse to be that idiot who denies the magic thing is happening when the crazy person starts freaking out. That bitch always dies early in the movies.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Where the hell was this cool-ass Cleo before. You love telling me that I’m crazy as fuck.”

  She stroked my arm in a comforting gesture. “That’s because you are, honey. But this place is obviously real.”

  “It’s really going to hurt when I punch you square in the tits.” I gestured at the overturned bowl full of maggoty fruit that lay a few feet away. “Next time you’re trapped in a garbage heap delusion, I’ll just leave you there and watch while you eat worms.”

  She made a gagging face. “Was I really going to eat that?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Okay, you’re right. You’re always right. Now can we get the fuck out of here?”

  “Gladly,” I snapped, even though our banter left a light feeling in my chest. Cleo was an asshole, but so was I, and it was a huge relief to have her back. Regardless of the finer details, I needed the person that always gave me honesty even when it hurt. “But you’re still a bitch.”

  “Right back at you, babe.”

  Feeling better than I had in hours, I looped my arm through hers and pulled her down the path. “And we really need to talk about how you relate everything back to movies or television because I think you might have a problem. The first step to recovery is admitting it.”

  “You can recover my foot from your ass if the Netflix password gets changed,” she declared with a cheeky smile. “All work and no streaming services makes Cleo a dull girl.”