The Fires of Tartarus

by Emma V. Leech

  The bastard was laughing as Cain, Lucas and Dragon harried him. He was toying with them, waiting for an audience. Waiting for me.

  The moment he saw me, his face changed, satisfaction glinting in those cold, black eyes. He lashed out, and Dragon went flying into the air, crashing back into the tree tops, but there was nothing we could do to help. Cain, though, would never miss an opening. The moment Dis Pater's attention had turned on Dragon, he attacked, the blade in his hand a bright blur as he slammed it with all his force into the god's back. Dis Pater roared with fury and pain as Cain tried to grip the handle to pull out and strike again, but the knife was slick with blood and white hot with magic. I moved forward, my own knife drawn, knowing this was my chance to finish him, but a freezing rush of air slammed me to the ground with the force of an avalanche as the knife flew from my hand and the chill of the dead thrust through me. I screamed in agony as their icy touch seemed to freeze the blood in my veins, but as suddenly as it had begun it was over, and I was pulled to my feet and into Lucas's arms. “Jéhenne?”

  His eyes were wide and terrified, and it took me a moment to find my voice.

  “Fine,” I choked out, wondering how badly I was lying. I was shaking, my shoulder throbbing and pulsing as the pain and the fear, the anger and blood lust of the family coursed through me over and above everything I was feeling myself. “I'm fine,” I repeated and then pushed him away from me with all the force I could muster as a wave of scalding power rushed towards us. I threw myself back into the dirt, scrabbling to recover my knife and heard my name, shouted over the deafening cacophony of the battle raging around me.

  “Oh, sweet Jenny,” he called, his voice thick with triumph.

  I moved towards him through the thick haze, until I was close enough to see. My heart caught in my throat. He had Cain.

  He had forced my brother to his knees, one leg splayed out at an awkward angle with Dis Pater's arm locked around his neck, his head drawn back as far as it would go, white with pain.

  Dis Pater's blood dripped in a steady stream down his arm, covering my brother, but I wasn't stupid enough to believe he was any less dangerous. I only hoped it was weakening him.

  “I am tired of your little tantrums, Circe.” Dis Pater's eyes had lost all trace of amusement now. They were cold and furious, and I was in no doubt of what it would mean for me. “You will stop this now.”

  “Don't you fucking dare, Jéhenne! Don't ...” Cain yelled before Dis Pater tightened his hold on his throat, cutting off his words.

  I tried to breathe, to think, but my lungs were frozen and my brain stalled with fear. I found Cain's eyes, and I knew what they were telling me. He was finished anyway. Whether Dis Pater killed him or not his time was up. I should let him sacrifice himself. He'd be pleased to know he'd played his part in taking Dis Pater down. It would mean something to him.

  Like hell.

  I took a breath, about to do something suicidally stupid when my heart gave a lurch in my chest at a voice behind me.

  “So you're the one everyone is running scared of?”

  Corvus looked Dis Pater over, his gaze considering. He didn't look impressed. I choked on the need to tell him to run, to get as far away as he possibly could as fear made the words freeze. I was so frightened I felt sick, my whole body poised on the edge of what my sanity could stand, icy with dread. He wouldn't take Corvus from me again.

  “You!” Dis Pater snarled. If he had been angry before, the sight of Corvus now sent him into a murderous rage. He dropped Cain as though he couldn't give a damn, and my brother fell to the ground, gasping for breath. I ran to him, my eyes never leaving Corvus. He was looking at Dis Pater like he was something unpleasant that had crawled out from under a rock. Dis Pater looked like he was about to spontaneously combust.

  “Quite a party you have going on, Jéhenne,” Corvus said, his voice even. “I'm hurt that you didn't invite me.”

  “Leave, Corvus,” I begged him. “Go now. Please.”

  Corvus' eyes flicked to me and returned to Dis Pater.

  “You know me then,” he said to Dis Pater, his voice almost conversational.

  Cain wrenched at my arm, his grip painful. “Now, Jéhenne,” he ground out, his voice barely intelligible after being half-strangled. “Now.”

  I realised what he was telling me and gave Decimus the signal, more than relieved to find the big vampire was still alive and ready to respond to my command. I scrambled to my feet, and my attention returned to Corvus and Dis Pater as I prayed Inés and the others would move fast.

  “I know you,” Dis Pater sneered. “You have been a thorn in my side since the day she met you.” He looked at the cuffs with derision. “And now she keeps you as her little pet I see.”

  Corvus’ eyes darkened, though his face remained impassive. “And here you are, a god, still running after her, still desperately trying to make her yours.” He gave Dis Pater a nasty smile. “You really can't have what it takes to keep her satisfied if she feels the need to keep running back to me. It's rather pathetic.”

  I reacted instantly. Dis Pater may be a god, but he was also an arrogant, narcissistic, stereotypical male. No slight to his manhood was going to be well-received. I may not be able to kill him outright without getting close enough to use the knife, but I could remove his target. The surge of energy I threw lifted Corvus off of his feet and flung him backwards into the forest. I heard him yell with fury at my intervention and there was a shattering, splintering noise as trees began to fall, and I prayed I hadn't inadvertently staked him, but he had more chance of survival than with Dis Pater, whose black eyes turned on me in fury.

  “Still protecting that ... creature?” His fists clenched, the power around him blazing so that the desperate battle around us appeared blurred, like the frantic fight for our lives was being viewed through a heat haze. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cain moving slowly behind him. He was pulling himself along the ground, his face drawn and utterly determined, and with sickening realisation I saw that his leg was badly broken. I stopped myself from looking directly at him, not wanting to take Dis Pater's attention away from me. I knew he was going for the Knife of Belial. The wound he had inflicted hadn't come close to killing the bastard and neither would the next. But every time Dis Pater had to heal a serious wound he was weakening himself, and that gave us a chance.

  I backed up, not needing to feign the fear he would be able to see in my eyes.

  “I love him,” I said, proud of myself for replying with a steady voice. “And I will never stop fighting you.”

  He took a step closer and I paused. I couldn't take him away from where Cain was, he didn't have the strength to move far. So I swallowed and stood my ground, hearing my heart beating in my ears even over the screech of dying spirits and the horrified screams of my family being cut down around me. The stench of blood and fear, death and magic rose around us, so thick you could almost touch it.

  Dis Pater stepped closer but not so close I could do him any damage. “This ...” he waved his hand at the chaos around us. “This could have been avoided,” he said, speaking to me like he was scolding a child. “You could have done as I had asked, and I would have given you everything. You would have had power ... Anything you desired.”

  “The only thing I ever wanted was Corvus,” I replied, my voice flat, and his eyes narrowed, the power around him shimmering, the heat of it burning my skin.

  “And now you and everyone you care about will suffer for that,” he spat. “And you will know for the rest of your days that they are suffering because of you.”

  He raised his hands, and I heard a thud as the dagger landed squarely in his back. He roared in fury, and I saw my brother's face tense as the swirling mass of spirits moved as one and rushed towards him.

  “No!” I screamed and this time my connection to the key was instant. The spirits changed direction at the last moment and turned on Dis Pater. He batted them away like he was swatting flies and turned back to me ... and t
hen it happened. The pentacle surrounding us began to waver, an opening breaking to my right. My heart picked up, a murmur of fear rippling through the family, and Dis Pater threw back his head and laughed.

  “Well it seems your little trap isn't as well made as you believed, little one.” He sounded unbearably smug, and I wished I knew how to access all those godly powers I was supposed to possess, as I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted to rip that smirk off his face. It wasn't enough to kill him. I wanted to make him suffer - but killing him would just have to do for now.

  I grasped Sariel's knife and threw myself at him, knowing that it was futile, but I was too far gone to stop myself. He snatched at my wrists, laughing.

  “You know I've been thinking about a little place in the country, and this one looks perfect,” he said with a sickening smile, gesturing back towards the Château. “Such easy access to work, no commute and ...” He looked me over with a lascivious expression that made my stomach churn. “Such interesting entertainments to come home to. Come, lover, and show me around our new home.”

  He kept hold of my wrist, the dagger barely held in my grasp as my fingers became numb. Dragging me behind him, he stepped easily through the crumbling ward and on into the woods.

  Chapter 37

  His grip on my wrist made my bones feel fragile, like they would shatter at any moment under the strength of his grasp. My feet slid through the soft mulch of the woodland floor as he pulled me, my hand cold, my fingers barely able to move as I tried desperately to keep my hold on the knife as he dragged me down the pathway, but it was no good. I could only watch as it slipped and dropped from my grasp.

  I struggled and screamed and lashed out, burned him so fiercely my own flesh began to blister, called on the spirits, drew on my connection to les Corbeaux until the skies were alive with the frantic sound of beating wings and thousands of crows, ravens and magpies tore down at him, slashing with beaks and claws, their cries raucous and full of fury. I threw everything I could think of at him, but he wasn't lord of the Underworld for nothing, and he seem to turn it all aside, repel it like oil on water. All of my magic, all of my power ... It seemed to slide over his skin and fade away. I'd been kidding myself. I would never be strong enough.

  The thought sickened me. How fucking pathetic. Maybe I wasn't truly a goddess, not in the way it mattered. But I wasn't done yet.

  I pulled against his hold on my wrist, feeling something snap as pain, white hot and blinding, exploded up my arm. I ignored it and grasped his wrist with my other hand, swinging myself into the air, putting all my weight behind my body and slamming my feet into his right knee. His leg buckled and he went down, face first on the forest floor. His grip slackened and I scrambled away, lurching drunkenly back down the path, my right arm now totally useless as I searched the ground for where the blade had fallen, glinting in the soft, dead leaves of the woodland floor.

  I snatched it up just as his arms closed around me, trapping my arms by my side. I screamed and struggled, my vision blurred by the rush of thousands of wings as the birds tried to claw at him but he just strode through them, carrying me as I thrashed in his arms, lashing out with my feet.

  The path was familiar, though, and I knew what lay in wait. I counted his steps from the moment he strode past an ancient beech tree, estimating the distance with his much longer strides before his foot hit the ground, and everything around us exploded. I sent a fire spell blazing around myself, rolling to the ground and scrambling away as far as I could as his grip went suddenly slack, and I crouched down, cowering away from the terrible power of the spell I had set as the fire burned around me.

  A moment later I dared to open my eyes, blinking, dazed, gazing through the flames at a world gone white and glassy, my ears ringing with the sound of the explosion. I pushed myself to my feet, slipping as my boots skidded on the now slippery path. My heart was beating in my throat as I allowed the fire spell to lessen, so that it burned merely at my wrists, the blue flames flickering against towers of ice. They thrust up through the ground like stalagmites, cold and sharp and deadly. A forest of frozen daggers, some of them twenty feet tall, others tiny but lethal enough to cripple you if you stood or fell onto them.

  I stepped carefully, seeing no sign of a vengeful god but nowhere near stupid enough to believe my luck had finally turned.

  I paused as a thick red stripe caught my eye, vivid and violent against the pure, glittering white around me. Dis Pater's blood. I smiled as hope flickered to life. The blood slid from the deadly point of an icy shard that rose taller than me, the sides of it slicked and splattered with crimson. My hopes rose further as I walked alongside. There was plenty of it, and I had no need to follow the rich scent that pulled me on, perfuming the gory trail as I left the frozen enclosure the spell had created and crept forward with care into the relative gloom of the woods.

  I gripped the dagger in my left hand, my right cradled against my chest. My wrist was broken, and I thought my shoulder might be dislocated. All things Inés could heal in a few hours if we had that kind of time. I was under no illusions. We were fighting for our lives here and unless Dis Pater had suffered a significant injury we were doomed.

  Despite the noise of the battle, the screams, the beating of wings and the cold rush as the spirits shrieked past, my world had narrowed to each step I took along the path, the war raging behind me drowned out by the fearful beat of my own heart.

  I placed each foot down with care, checking my surroundings, looking for signs of the spells we had laid all around the woodland. I checked my grip on the knife, hefting the reassuring weight of it. I was nowhere near as competent with my left hand as my right but there was nothing to be done about it. I was here and somehow Dis Pater had to die.

  All my senses strained to their limits, trying to hear the slightest movement over the chaos and the pulse that thundered in my ears. A rustle in the undergrowth to my left had me spinning in alarm, knife raised but the attack came from my right as a hard body ploughed into me, sending me sprawling to the ground. I screamed in agony as I landed heavily on my broken wrist. My vision grew hazy as I fought to stay conscious, and he grabbed my left hand, smashing it to the ground to release the knife I held.

  “Get off me, you bastard!” I smashed my head backwards, hearing the crunch of bone and a growl of fury as I followed up with my left elbow as hard as I could, but the body pinning me down didn't budge.

  “I always liked you this way,” he growled in my ear, his warm breath sending fear sliding down my spine like a serpent in my bones. “I miss fucking you so much, even after everything you have done, you ungrateful bitch. Whoring yourself out to that unworthy creature.” I shuddered as his lips touched my neck, terrified beyond thought, but I forced myself to open my eyes, to look around me for a way out, a distraction. “You have devalued yourself, tainted your powers,” he carried on as a fine, fragile thread drifted in front of my face. “He has weakened you!” His words were full of fury and disgust, and I felt his spittle, wet on my cheek. I swallowed hard, trying to get a breath as he pressed down harder, pushing himself against me, kicking my legs apart. The pain in my wrist as he ground into me was sickening, and I felt my grip on consciousness waver again as my vision began to white out. No. I blinked as something drifted into view and looked again, focusing on the tiny thread and following it up, craning my neck back as far as I dared, until I saw the bright flash of a pair of apple green eyes.

  The thread drifted a little closer, and I closed my eyes with a sigh and began to cry.

  “I'm sorry,” I sobbed. “You're right, I can't fight you. I could never fight you. All this time I have been fooling myself.” I let go of the knife, letting it rest on the floor, my hand splayed out to the side of it. I let the tension go out of my body, allowing the sobs to overwhelm me. It wasn't hard. My family were in desperate trouble, we'd already lost more than I could stand to mourn, and they could not fight forever. Daylight would come, and we would be defeated by the sun. Dis
Pater need only wait us out. It was almost over.

  His laugh was harsh and sickening as his hand left my wrist and slid down my arm.

  “Finally you understand.” A big hand reached up and stroked my hair, a tender touch that made me want to run screaming, and I had to force myself to not flinch away. “I will have to punish you of course, little one,” he said, his voice conciliatory now, as though I had forced him into this situation, as though he regretted that he would have to reprimand my bad behaviour. “But in time - if you please me - perhaps I can forget all the trouble you have caused.” His mouth brushed over my ear, his teeth biting gently. “You will please me ... won't you, little one?”

  I whimpered, the sound full of terror at the idea of having to please him, knowing only too well what that meant for me, but I forced myself to nod, to go along with him. “Please, you're hurting me, my wrist ...” I sobbed, sounding broken and defeated and hating myself as it was only too true.

  “Poor baby,” he crooned before deliberately pushing his considerable weight hard against me. I screamed, the pain like lightning under my skin. Gasping, I tried to draw air into my lungs to fight the nausea and the desire to give up. I was so tired.

  He laughed, pitiless and mocking. I remembered exactly why I had to keep fighting. The bastard. I wouldn't let it end like this. I would fight him for all eternity if I had to. He shifted, getting up, his heavy arm pushing under me, wrapping around my waist and hauling me to my feet. I fought through the pain, waiting for the moment that tiny, delicate thread of magic drifted close enough to grasp. I knew it was futile, knew I was clutching at straws, but if it gave me even a second to distract him, I'd take it.

  I snatched out and grasped the thread, and I twisted in his hold, wrapping it tightly around his neck. For a moment he frowned, looking at me in confusion, not realising what I'd done. And then he tugged hold of the delicate thread, and it illuminated. The trees around us glowed in the darkness, the tiny strands lit up like strange fairy lights. The tiny skulls and bones and shells glowed too, so very fragile. Dis Pater laughed at me, at the desperation in my eyes as I stumbled away from him. He thought it was all so fucking funny. I kept my eyes on him and lunged to the side, snatching up the knife and holding it so tight my knuckles hurt. Up in the trees there was movement, and I caught my breath, willing Kai not to draw his attention, but then the foolish boy swung down, the end of the strand wrapped around his hand. He darted into the woodland on the other side of the bemused god and then back again to stand beside me. The thread had wrapped around Dis Pater as he ran, circling him at a distance. Kai trembled, and I reached out and held his hand. Dis Pater watched, shaking his head.