by Heloise Hull
Desperate, I lunged to my feet and bared my teeth in some primal display. I clawed at the chaos with my hands, the last thing I could think to do. The whirlwind swirling around me funneled into a brilliant ring of gold and suddenly—was gone.
It was done.
The square felt as if a great storm had just passed. The air was mostly clean and light, yet there was a stench of ozone that threaded through it. The wild tang danced on my tongue.
Everyone still standing gaped wordlessly. Even Aurick watched warily from a distance. Mechanically, he lifted one foot and then another, moving forward. He knelt down first to Manu and checked for a pulse.
I hadn’t realized how much I wanted that stupid mage to live until Aurick got to his feet and said low, “They’re alive.”
I cleared my throat, but it was hoarse and scratchy, as if I’d been screaming for days. I coughed into my elbow, but still, no one else spoke. What was I supposed to say? Don’t worry, that only happens when I’m scared or angry?
Rosemary wouldn’t meet my eyes. Marco hugged her fiercely, purring in her ear. Coronis looked up to her apartment window where I knew Thessaly was watching it all unfold, her fingers trembling on the window sill.
The look on the faces of my friends and neighbors would haunt me for an eternity. For the first time ever, even Spyro’s head had shrunken in fear. The crown dropped off of it and clattered on the cobblestones as it rolled away.
The god’s voice rang in my ears, but it was only a memory from the twins’ disastrous birthday celebration. Back when I thought I would, at very least, always have my friends. You think they are your family or that they care. Only I can see the real you. No one else will understand. No one else will love you like I do.
He knew then. He knew and he delighted in my ignorance.
“I…” my gaze slid between everyone and the quiet bodies on the cobblestones. “I’ll fix this. I swear.”
Then, with Tiberius clinging to my shoulder, I turned and fled.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Ava, you can’t run from who you are,” Tiberius was saying. I think. He was saying, I was ignoring.
A sharp claw dug into my clavicle. It slowed me down a little.
“Ava!”
I refused to stop or to listen. I was a danger to everyone. The only way to keep them safe was to find Thoth. I would finish this.
“Take me to Nibiru,” I gritted out.
“We need a second to gather our thoughts,” he insisted.
“Why? Just take us there.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is. Aurick has a bone dagger that can do it. You’re a daemon. Either option seems like it will work.”
Tiberius scoffed. “That little toy could only get you to the surface.”
I stopped. “What are you talking about?”
“Imagine the ocean,” Tiberius said. “Aurick’s toy took you to the dock where you can jump on a safely-moored boat. It’s basically the surface of Nibiru.”
“And the cave with Coronis? That wasn't the surface.”
“You dunked your head under water. It was probably a bumpy ride.”
“Fine, then where are we going?”
“To the very bottom of the ocean where no light shines and everything is dangerous and deadly. That’s why I need a minute. It’s been a long time since I went to the deeper parts of Nibiru.”
I slowed to take a corner along the back alley of Marco’s taverna. The scent of lemons from my first date with Aurick drifted over the wooden trellis, or perhaps it was just my remorse and longing pulling the memory from my brain.
Either way, it didn’t matter. I came screeching to a halt as four more Council guards with sarissas stood at the end of the alley. My body went cold, thinking about using chaos again so soon.
“Please, just back away,” I said. “Leave me alone, and no one ever has to know you found me.”
They responded by lowering their spear tips and marching in lockstep.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I begged. Because that was the thing. I did want to use chaos. I did want to hurt them. They were in my way. They had hurt me. That was what a god did; they got revenge, and I could feel it burning within me.
Just as I was about to explode, I noticed a sleek, red tail flipping back and forth along the edge of the alley. Great. That was all I needed, more attitude from Jo. And another witness.
Even before I saw her gorgeous face emerge from the shadows, I could smell some serious pheromones being deployed. They curled inside my nose and lit up my brain, giving me a moment of pure comprehension. Even I wanted to kiss her. Jo, the Cadmean Vixen, had corralled all of our attention, and she looked fine indeed.
“Hello, god-born,” she said in her smoky, man-eater voice.
Tiberius was reduced to stuttering, and I saw the guards freeze, their spears drooping to the ground like over watered daisies.
“It looks like you need some help,” she continued, now moving between the guards, brushing her fingers across one’s chest and letting her tail caress another’s cheek.
I stared, confused. “Why would you help me? You don’t like me.”
“I don’t like to see anything hunted.” She flipped her tail along their necks, and their arteries pulsed. “And I especially don’t appreciate Council members invading our peaceful island for their hunts. Even for you, Ava.”
My jaw was having a hard time working. “You don’t?”
“Also, we goddesses have to stick together.”
“You mean, you’re a goddess too?”
Jo sashayed past the guards, their eyes following every twitch of her hips. “I’m not as literal as you, of course, but all women are goddesses. Don’t you agree?”
Tiberius nodded vigorously, and I found myself nodding, too. The guards all certainly were.
Somehow, Jo’s eyebrow pointed in the opposite direction of the rest of us bobbleheads. “This is your exit cue, Ava.”
“Oh, yes. Exit.” I shook myself out of my daze. “Thank you, Jo!”
Even from this distance, I could see Jo’s pheromones enveloping the entire back alley in ruby red. Marco was going to have to find a high pressure water hose to get rid of all of that sexiness.
I bounded through the mostly deserted town, weaving from shadow to shadow. Jo’s scent rapidly faded from my system the further we got, but I could hear voices in the distance. More guards were assembling.
“Better get ready for that deep dive,” I warned Tiberius. “We don’t have much time.”
The chipmunk clung to my shoulder, his sharp claws digging into my skin. At first, I thought he was merely trying to hold on, but then everything swirled. It felt as if I was running through a waterfall of molasses, syrupy and thick. I gasped, trying to breathe life-giving air into my lungs before stumbling and falling to my knees.
Tiberius was chittering in my ear, but to my oxygen deprived brain it sounded like a high-pitched squealing. I wanted to shake him free, to shake out of this, to suck in air. This was a mistake.
The pressure on my lungs grew. It felt like trying to breathe through a wool sweater while being smothered with a mattress. Was this drowning? Panic slipped deeper into my core, and I tried to move my head, to turn and see Aurick and my friends one last time.
Nothing worked. My body began to convulse. All around me, the world flickered shades of gray. Aradia was gone, if it ever existed. Night and day ebbed and eddied, churning as it flowed in a free fall around me.
“You have to say it, Ava!” Tiberius sounded frantic. “We’re going deep into Nibiru and you’ll need to say it.”
I garbled out nonsense. Didn’t he understand? I was barely conscious.
“Repeat after me,” he roared, still clinging to my shirt. “Take courage! No one is immortal.”
“Take courage,” I sputtered. “No one… is immortal!”
Then—
Air. Glorious, sulfuric-tinged air. A man with two faces glared at me and then was gon
e. That was weird, but at least I could breathe again.
I opened my mouth as wide as it would go, practically dislocating my jaw. The insides of my cheeks hurt. I could feel them swelling. I’d bitten them as we’d passed through the realms.
“What just happened?”
Tiberius was curled in the crook of my neck, shaking uncontrollably. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken an archon to Nibiru. I’m not sure I’ve ever accompanied a god.”
“That admission should have been in the fine print,” I wheezed.
“Nobody reads the fine print. Besides, we’re both fine.”
My chest still felt like an elephant had used it as a cushion. “I don’t feel fine.”
“We’re alive. That’s what I meant. Well, for now. Don’t look on either side. Keep your eyes fixed in front of you.”
“Tiberius, you’re scaring me.”
“Good. You may actually be immortal, but not in this body. If you want to survive long enough to take on Thoth and claim Ava as your own, permanent form—dubious, all of it, by the way—then you can’t engage with the spirits you find here. They’re hungry and much more feral than those tame librarians.”
“Great. So if I die, I’ll have to wait until my next reincarnation and hope I find Aradia and magic all over again?”
“In a nutshell.”
“Was that a chipmunk joke or a Tefnut joke? I couldn’t tell.”
Tiberius flipped his nail up my nostril, which helped control the soul crushing fear, but not the small sneeze that escaped.
A shimmering area to my left moved a fraction. It looked like asphalt on a hot, summer day.
Tiberius noticed. “Keep moving. Don’t look at it. Don’t call it. Don’t do anything.”
I thought of Thessaly. Somehow, I doubted she had much time left before the curse reclaimed her. And Aurick. He would mourn, and maybe he would wait for my next reincarnation. Maybe another forty or fifty years would be nothing to a being like him.
“What’s that saying? The ‘no one is immortal’ thing,” I asked, hoping the conversation would act like blinders on a horse. If Tiberius could prance me through this parade, that would be great, because my own thoughts were rather dark right now.
“An Orphic tradition. It helps when piercing the veil into the depths of Nibiru. This is the crossing place between the gods and the mortals. The ancient Greeks understood this. That’s why they placed money in the form of an obol on the mouths of their dead for the boatman.”
“Even in death, they had to pay?”
“We all do. Some secret sects went even further and placed gold leaves etched with the words they needed to appease Queen Persephone. It was all fairly formulaic stuff. You could also tell her that Bacchus had released you from death and hope she was feeling merciful.”
“Did that work?”
“Not really, but the golden papers were a sort of death passport and guide map all in one.”
“Like the Coffin texts,” I thought, once again facing Mestjet’s eyes.
“Don’t say her name,” Tiberius hissed.
“I only thought about her name!” I protested.
“Well, don’t do that either,” he said, glancing over my shoulder. “You’ll call her shade to you. She’ll probably be vengeful.”
“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m a murderer.” The words slipped from my tongue, bitter as Campari.
“Of course not. It was self-defense so stop wallowing in self-pity. Some shades like that emotion, too. You do not want to meet those guys.”
“For an immortal guide, you are not making this easier. Hey, why are you still a chipmunk and not… you know. Whatever a daemon really is in its natural habitat.”
Tiberius wiggled his whiskers. “I am what’s comfortable for you.”
“I think you like being a chipmunk.”
“And I think you are deflecting instead of concentrating on figuring out where Thoth’s consciousness is located.”
I stumbled over a rock. “I’ve got to do that myself? I thought—”
“What? That I would know? I only help immortals. I don’t keep a day journal on their whereabouts.”
“Ok. Ok. Calm down. No need to get squirrelly.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”
“Tiberius?” I paused, holding my belly. I felt sick. Like I might be violently ill on all of the lichen growing next to my feet. It was the only thing here that wasn’t a study in gray, an absence of warmth.
“Hold steady,” he murmured. “We’re coming to a more populated area. Are you picking up anything? Any feelings of animosity or love?”
“I never loved Thoth,” I gritted out through the pain.
“I wouldn’t assume that. Your history together is long.”
“No, I feel nothing. Only complete and utter wrongness. Like that time you wore my mascara on your whiskers. Or the time I used chaos magic. Oh, wait. Both those things are happening now. My life is one big ball of wrongness.”
“This is going to be tougher than I thought,” Tiberius lamented. He scampered onto my shoulder and leapfrogged into my hair. Ignoring the complete rats’—or chipmunks’—nest he was going to make of it with his claws, I let him direct me along a blackened cliff edge. Below, deep currents of water and jetties swirled with debris. The remains of previous visitors, I assumed.
I had a sudden and intense stab of longing for Aurick and his steady calm. He would know what to do. He’d have some weird grave good and that little smirk to keep us going.
“Close your eyes,” Tiberius urged. “It will keep the fear at bay, which should help with the nausea. I’ll watch over you.”
I closed my eyes, ignoring the screaming voice in my head telling me this was crazy, and let Tiberius move us forward among the lichen-covered rocks. It felt as if we were in an endless wasteland, and I wondered if this was what the ancient Greeks called the Asphodel Meadows. Souls weren’t meant to have a happily ever after in death. They just hung out, sort of in neutral.
After an hour of trudging through marshy bottoms with sludge lapping at my feet, my fingers began to tingle. The pins and needles sensation grew stronger. “Tiberius? Something is happening to my body.”
“The gods’ powers aren’t as strong in Nibiru. It’s why the supernaturals drew them into battle here and why archons were needed to help transverse the realms. All forms of your magic will weaken.”
“Even for me? I’m not in my godly body.”
“Ava, I really can’t figure you out. You’re in a mortal body, but possess god magic. I have no blessed idea what you’re capable of. Still and forever a mystery. I’d say never change, but I’d really like to know.”
Finally, I cracked my eyes open. The landscape was starting to turn a fuzzy peach color at the horizon. I saw rows of saplings, snapped in half. It felt… familiar. I’d seen this place before.
“Is this the afterlife for everyone?” I asked.
“Yes and no.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“What do you want to know?” Tiberius asked.
“I’m just confused. Did the Greeks get it right?”
“Yes.”
“Then how am I here if I’m Egyptian?”
“Because there are as many entrances into the afterlife as there are ways up a mountain.”
“So, Nibiru is where we all come, but it’s not the same for everyone.”
“Exactly. What did you subscribe to in life? What do you wish to see upon your demise? What sort of god will let you in?”
“That makes sense.”
“Although, part of me thinks it’s all an illusion, even to gods and daemons. Perhaps the dead only see whatever Nibiru allows them to see. Perhaps it’s different for every shade.”
“You see, right there you explained it pretty well, and then you blew it all up. Not cool, chipmunk.”
Something white shone in the distance. I had to shield my eyes with my hand to blunt the stinging light. Tiberius led me closer.
My insides clenched in panic. “You mean you didn’t know before? I thought you were my guide.”
“I had a general idea, but now I know exactly where we are.”
“So, you’re refusing to admit we were lost. I see why you inhabited a male chipmunk.”
Tiberius refused to take the bait. “This is the southern pillar that was once held aloft by the Titan Krios.”
“This is one of the four pillars?” To me, it looked like a large, marble wall that rose out of sight.
“Yes. It’s hard to tell, but it’s actually on its side. I’m not sure your still-mostly human mind could comprehend how gigantic it is.” We walked a little further down where a large crevasse gaped like an open wound.
“What’s with all the dead flowers?” I bent to examine a withered vine with small buds that were covered in fuzzy mold so thick I couldn’t even begin to identify what they used to be.
“Krios was the god of the coming spring.”
I brushed my fingers across the crumbling vines and a sudden wind skittered across my skin. It was a tad humid, but not unbearably so, and it smelled like orange blossoms. I closed my eyes. “Mm, spring.”
When I opened them, everything seemed painted in a high gloss, like I was standing in a Baroque oil painting as the artist put on the finishing gesso touches. It was beautiful… and terrifying.
Now that the scene had become HD, I could see shades shimmering all around us. “How did we miss that?” I whispered.
“Their signature was too weak.”
“But they’re solidifying.”
“Yes. It seems our presence is encouraging them.”
“The Knight warned me that shades were gathering around the pillars,” I remembered.
“And you didn’t mention it?”
“It slipped my mind. If you haven’t noticed, I have a lot going on.” Sweat sheened my skin, and I could feel it exuding from my pores. That was a lot of dead people. “Why are they here?”
“I think they believe they can surge into Axis Mundi if they’re ever propped up again and… well, I’m not sure. Either enjoy the sun of the godly realm or try to tear the gods to pieces. Who knows what a soul desires after death?”
