by Melody Rose
“Esme, I--” I tried to protest, but my friend wouldn’t let me.
“Think of Cheyenne, dammit, or you’re going to kill me all over again, and I really don’t want to go back to the Underworld, got it?” Esme snapped, the calmness breaking.
I would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so dire. It was great to hear Esme act like herself again, the sarcastic, witty friend I’d known for years rather than trying to sound like a grief counselor. It was just what I needed, a sense of normal, to refocus.
I closed my eyes and focused on my body. I recalled the sensations I felt when Cheyenne wrapped her arms around me. It had been over a year since I exploded, so it had been a while, but she was able to press herself up against me, withstanding the heat of the sun to calm me down. It was so vivid that I thought I could feel her forehead against mine, smelling her familiar scents of campfire and iron. While they weren’t the most appealing scents, they always reminded me of her.
Cheyenne’s kiss always did the trick. I remembered her lips on mine. They moved softly, tentatively as the world exploded around us. It was a different kind of explosion, something that existed between the two of us.
Slowly, the sunlight receded from my limbs. A sense of coolness washed across my face as I came down off the edge. With each memory, each step back, my body temperature cooled to a manageable level.
When I couldn’t get the last of the fire to leave my body, I changed tactics mentally. I told myself and the fire within me that if I exploded now, I would never see Cheyenne again. I would never experience her kisses, her touches, her laughter ever again. If I didn’t pull my shit together, that would be the end of the happiest parts of my life.
Like a tap measure being snapped back into place, the fire zapped out of me. It recoiled back into my core, controlled and contained.
I dared to open my eyes so I could assess the damage. However, aside from some patches of melted snow and a dozen or so charred trees, everything looked okay. Even the fire wall disappeared, as always happened when I regained control over my powers. That left Esme and I standing with the female in statue form while the air smelled like burnt toast.
My friend let out a breath she’d been holding and put her hands on her knees, dropping the laurel leaf. I watched her chest heave up and down as she gulped in lungfuls of air. I picked up the leaf and couldn’t help but laugh at her.
“You asshole,” Esme said through her breaths. “For a second there, I thought you really were going to blow up.”
“You did the right thing, bringing up Cheyenne,” I said, my cheeks flushing a bit from the thought of my girlfriend. “Thanks for thinking of it.”
“No problem,” Esme said as she straightened herself back up. “I’m just glad I’m not a pile of ash right now.”
“Me too,” I said with an uneasy smile, a little guilt pricking at my stomach. “I’m sorry, Esme.”
“I’m just glad I came when I did,” she said with a sigh. She put her hands on her hips and cracked her back. “I saw you dart off like a horse in the races right when I reached the top of the hill to the base. I knew something had to be wrong when you didn’t even acknowledge me. I haven’t even checked in with the commander yet.” Esme bit the corner of her lip nervously. “I’m going to be in trouble the minute I get back, aren’t I?”
“I don’t think so,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m going to report this right away and say that I couldn’t have done it without your help.”
“Well, that’s nice of you and all, but what exactly are you going to report?” Esme said as she gestured to our new piece of lawn art. “I mean, what even is this thing? She looks human, but when I saw her through that plant, which we’re going to have to talk about that by the way, she was purple and ghostly. Like a spirit or something.”
“I know,” I said as I circled the statue, my hands on my hips. “I haven’t seen any monster like it.”
“Yeah, nothing corporeal like that,” Esme agreed. “The closest thing I can think of is the spirits in Tartarus.”
There was a moment of silence that passed between the pair of us. Esme never talked about the few days she spent in the lowest level of the Underworld. It was an unimaginable hell, and as far as I knew, she was the only mortal to have come out of it and back to Earth with a second chance.
“When I was down there,” Esme said after taking a moment to clear her throat. She didn’t look at me but kept her eyes on the statue the whole time. “They looked like that, like a ghost filled with moving liquid. Mortals were different colors than the immortals, but of course, the immortals were only there temporarily.”
“Did this one look like an immortal or mortal?” I asked, not wanting to pry too much but also knowing that we needed this information. The more we could bring back to Officer Quinton, the easier it would be for all of us.
“Immortal, definitely,” Esme said with a sharp now. She licked her lips and rubbed her hands together, either from nerves or to keep them warm against the cold. “Like a daemon spirit for sure.”
My mind reeled as I sorted through the possibilities. While I didn’t have Cheyenne’s encyclopedia of knowledge, I did pass both Mythology 101 and 102. So I had a fair amount of Greek stories stored in my mind.
“What happened leading up to the chase?” Esme asked, trying to narrow down the clues herself. “I mean, what was with the leaf and how did you know to use it to see her?”
“My dad,” I said, not bothering to hide the begrudging tone in my voice as I spat out the words.
Just as I thought they would, Esme’s eyes bugged out of her head. “Okay, we’re going to unpack that later, but did he say they were like some magic plant that can see invisible things?”
“He told me that it would help me see the truth,” I reported as I stuffed my hands in my pockets to warm them up. Now that I didn’t have the adrenaline from running or the sunlight pulsing through my veins, the winter chill started to affect my body. “I used it on my other Fotia members because they were acting weird.”
“Weird how?” Esme prompted.
“They were planning a coup against the commanding officer,” I told her. “It was like they had no sense of duty or law or anything. I had never seen anything like it. When I used the laurel leaf, this daemon spirit or whatever was hovering over them.”
“Controlling them?” Esme asked, the words clogging in her throat.
“I wasn’t going to use those words because, you know…” I didn’t need to fill in the blank there because we both knew about her recent history with being possessed. “Yes, exactly like that.”
“Could it be Eris?” Esme growled, the vengeance coming across clearly in the way her fists clenched at her side or how her eyebrows knotted together.
“Goddesses don’t look like that,” I answered, trying to give her some reassurance. “And, to be honest, I don’t think she would be scared of fire.”
“She was scared of fire?” Esme wondered. A light appeared in her eyes as if that was the final piece to the puzzle for her, the one that had fallen on the floor, but it was all she needed to finish the picture. “So it wasn’t Eris, but it was pretty damn close.”
“You know who it was,” I said. It wasn’t a question because I recognized the way Esme looked when she got an epiphany. I walked around to her side of the statue so I could face her when she explained everything.
“One of the Amphillogiai,” Esme said confidently.
“Bless you,” I said in response because I didn’t know what else to say. I was one hundred percent sure that whatever she had just said wasn’t covered in Mythology 101 or 102. That much was for sure.
Esme rolled her eyes in response to my clueless answer. “You might not know them by that name, but I’m sure you’ve heard of them. They were Eris’s children, the ones released from Pandora’s box.”
My mouth popped open in shock. “Seriously?”
“Uh-huh,” Esme nodded. “From what you told me about her effect on t
he soldiers, I think this one was Dysnomia, the spirit of lawlessness. Their only fear was fire because it was a symbol of hope for the mortals.”
“That makes sense,” I said as I glanced at the statue, marveling at the way the pair of us were able to capture it. Another thought occurred to me.
“That must be why we were stationed here,” I concluded, snapping my fingers, though because of the cold, the sound was stunted. “The spirits would have given off magical energy but wouldn’t be easily noticeable by mortals. They affect us internally, not externally.”
“Right,” Esme agreed, but she didn’t look nearly as happy as I did about figuring this out.
“Well,” I said as I put my hands on my hips, feeling accomplished. “We’ll have to go back and tell Officer Quinton. I won’t mention the part about the rebellion, and hopefully, we can get back to campus now.”
An unexpected amount of hope flooded my chest at the thought of going back. Even though Esme had just got there, if the threat was terminated, then we would either get re-stationed or get sent back to campus. I thought about getting to see Cheyenne and knowing that we could help her with the tools and finding her father.
Esme bit on her thumbnail. “I hate to break it to you, Ansel, but I don’t think Dysnomia was the only daemon spirit in the area,” she said with a wince.
It was as if she’d shut hope back inside Pandora’s box. My face fell. “What do you mean?”
“I’m guessing you don’t know how many children Eris had, do you?” Esme quizzed with a sympathetic gaze. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, a clear sign that she was nervous and didn’t want to share this information with me.
“I don’t,” I said through gritted teeth.
“There are ten total,” Esme reported, scuffing some snow up in the air with her boot. “And they tend to travel as a group to wreak the most havoc.”
I closed my eyes for a moment as I let the weight of her words fully sink in. “So you’re telling me that there are nine more of these invisible bastards that are probably hanging around base somewhere?”
“Most likely,” Esme said with a cheeky smile as if that would make the situation better.
I exhaled deeply, my breath curling into the air. It was visible for a solid moment before it disappeared into the ethos. “Well, then, I guess we better tell the commanding officer what we’re up against. It’s not monsters we’re fighting. It’s literally chaos.”
“The good news is we have a way to fight them,” Esme said, her cheeky smile turning into a genuine one. She gestured to the statue behind her. “We just have to put them back in the box. Or something close enough.”
My eyes wandered back to the trapped daemon spirit. Then I shifted my gaze from Esme to myself and back again. Soon, my face matched my friend’s with a smile to rival hers.
“It looks like you got here at just the right time then,” I said as I held out my hand for a high five.
She slapped it jovially, and we left our carnage behind as we ventured back up to camp.
24
“Hey Cheyenne,” someone said from an ocean away.
My dream self perked up excitedly. It had been stuck in the forge, making scythes over and over and over again. Dream Me churned them out like a factory machine, and it was a redundant and anxiety-inducing process. So I welcomed the change to wake up and step out of my own subconscious.
“We’re here,” the voice continued to whisper.
My eyes snapped open at those two words as if they were as sharp as alarm clocks.
Darren stood over me with a weary smile on his face. He pushed up his glasses on his nose and offered me a hand to help me out of the bunk. I took it and got myself to my feet. The boat only swayed slightly, and I had to take a minute to get my footing.
“Violet says we’re here,” Darren repeated. “Well, not here, here. We have to take the rowboat to shore because there’s not a dock to bring the boat to, so she’s anchored us a way off.”
“Gotcha,” I said through a yawn. I wiped some stray, dry spit off the side of my mouth and cracked my neck from side to side. “How was the rest of the journey?”
Darren shrugged. “Not terrible. I found the whole traveling underwater thing kind of unnerving, to begin with, but eventually, it was kind of peaceful.”
“Glad someone enjoyed it,” I said apprehensively as I thought about the last time I was on the Argo and got horribly seasick. I was glad that I was knocked out enough to last through the entirety of this journey too.
“You should have seen the look on Benji’s face, though,” Darren said with a giggle. “The poor guy didn’t know what to do with himself.”
I rolled my eyes at the thought of Benji freaking out over the underwater journey. Then I thought back to the battle that led up to this impromptu journey. “Did you figure out what was up with Violet?”
“Not exactly,” Darren said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “She is fine now, but all she managed to tell me was that she felt like she had to argue with you. It was like she wasn’t in control of her words any more or her choices.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said, the uneasy feeling in my stomach not coming from the movement of the boat.
“Me neither,” Darren confessed. “But she said that feeling isn’t there anymore. It was only when she was close enough to the branch leaders.”
“I need to figure out what is up with those fuckers,” I muttered.
“And we will,” Darren assured me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “But fire, we’re going to find your dad.”
We both went above deck, blinking in the sunlight. Bright blue ocean surrounded us on all sides while a cloudless sky hung overhead. They looked to be mirrors of one another. It was a beautiful sight, one that took my breath away as I stared out into the distance.
“Wow,” I breathed. “While I’m not a big fan of being on the ocean, I will always admire its beauty.”
“I, for one, like to be above it, not below,” Benji said as he approached us, hands on his hips defiantly.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Darren offered.
“Speak for yourself,” Benji snapped, sounding more defensive than necessary.
“I always do,” Darren said, smiling a cheeky grin.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” Violet said as she hopped off the upper deck, where the steering wheel sat. She jogged over to us and handing me a pair of binoculars. “Ogygia is just there,” my friend said with a point out west.
I lifted the binoculars to my eyes and turned into the direction Violet suggested. Sure enough, there was an island with lush green mountains and a tan sandy beach around the perimeter. The other thing I noticed was a sort of shimmer jutting out from the island.
“Is that…?” I wondered aloud, the binoculars still pressed to my eyes. “Some kind of protective barrier?”
“That thing with the pinkish tint?” Violet checked. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Knowing Calypso, I bet it’s there to keep people in rather than keep people out, but you never know. We should be careful when we row in all the same.”
I lowered the binoculars and let Darren and Benji have a look through them. I turned to Violet to see about the next steps. “Can we all fit in one rowboat?”
“I mean, yeah,” Violet said. I could sense the hesitation in her voice.
“What is it?” I asked, wanting to address her issue head-on, whatever it may be.
“I don’t know how comfortable I feel with leaving the Argo unattended,” Violet replied honestly.
“Oh,” I sighed. “I understand. So do you want to stay behind then?”
“I thought we could break off into two teams of two,” Violet suggested. “I know Darren offered to stay with me, and I know Benji is ready to get the hell off the boat.”
“You can say that again,” Benji agreed without a single bit of hesitation.
“That works for me,” I said. “I think we can take some flares or something
to signal if we’re in trouble.”
“Good plan,” Violet said as she clapped her hands together. “Let’s get you two ready to ship off.”
It didn’t take long for the four of us to load the rowboat with some necessary supplies. We hoped that the journey to retrieve Hephaestus wouldn’t take that long, but Calypso was an unknown entity. It might take more convincing than we were prepared for.
Nevertheless, Violet and Darren lowered the rowboat with Benji and me down into the ocean. It was a smoothish landing, with only a little saltwater sloshing into the boat. Benji recoiled from it as if an eel had jumped in rather than a pint of water. I glared at him, silently telling him to pull it together. In response, Benji stuck his tongue out at me. I rolled my eyes, and we began rowing out to Ogygia’s shoreline.
Darren and Violet waved and saluted to us from the deck of the ship. We responded in kind before we made enough distance where we couldn’t make out their faces anymore. Benji and I got into a healthy rhythm, utilizing our upper body strength to move the boat forward. However, about halfway there, we were both running out of breath.
“They need to offer rowing classes at the Academy,” Benji said through heavy lungfuls of breath. He continued to row, but I could tell he was getting tired. I was in the same boat. Literally.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I agreed, giving him a half-smile.
“Do you think the Nero branch has those classes?” Benji wondered as he pinched his eyebrows together, thinking back.
However, I didn’t answer him because I noticed two things at that moment that sent shivers down my spine. One was the fact that an eerie darkness descended over us, as though large clouds blocked out the sun. And the second was the fact that I could see the air when Benji spoke.
Just then, a bone-chilling cold descended over us. Goosebumps appeared up my arms and legs. My fingers went numb, as if I had dunked them in a bucket of ice. Benji’s body exhibited the same signs as I watched his naturally tan skin turn pale in the sudden cold.