by Mari Mancusi
Amanda turns and glares at me suspiciously. “Who are you?”
“She’s with me, luv,” Race reassures her. “I mean, not with me, with me,” he adds quickly as the girl’s eyes narrow. “She’s just a friend.”
“Oh!” The groupie’s face clears. “Okay!” she cries. “Any friend of Race’s is a friend of mine.” She pulls out a glowy purple iPhone from her pocket. “Here, check it out. It’s pretty cool.” She loads up the app and then hands me the phone. Sure enough, it appears to be a social media site for the dead, go figure. Mark Zuckerberg sure has a long reach.
“Wow, that’s pretty cool,” I say, scrolling through her profile. Evidently she’s been dead for twelve months, waiting for judgment. Her blood mate is still alive on Earth and her latest status says she’s pissed because she believes he’s hooking up with another living chick.
“It’s super popular,” Amanda assures me, as she takes the phone back. “I mean, in addition to keeping tabs on the living—though we can’t write on their walls or anything—it also serves as a directory of who’s down here and where. Hades is a huge place, and it used to take hundreds of years sometimes to find someone you know. Now you can look up your past loved ones in the directory and connect with them in an instant.”
I stare at her, wide eyed. What a great idea. I grab the phone back from her and type Sunny’s name into the search bar, my breath lodged in my throat. Would she be here? Could we finally track her down?
>>NO SUCH RECORD.
Damn. That would have been too easy. Guess she hasn’t signed up for an account yet. Or maybe she doesn’t want to. I know the girl was always kind of anti–social media or anything computer related.
“It takes a month or two to get listed,” Amanda adds, catching my disappointed face. “The bureaucracy in this place is mind-blowing.”
“Tell, me about it,” I reply glumly, handing her back her phone. At this rate we’re never going to find the girl, never mind actually have a chance to get her out.
“Wait a second, can I see that?” Jareth suddenly interjects. After glancing at Race and getting his nod of approval, the girl dutifully hands over her phone to him. Jareth’s brow furrows as he attempts to use the touch screen. (Being old school—super, super old school, that is—he struggles with technology sometimes.) But he eventually gets it and then hands the phone back to me.
“Take a look,” he says with a small smile.
I stare down at the screen, doing a double take, my jaw dropping in amazement. My sister may not be listed… but my father is! I look up at Jareth. “Oh my God!”
“Find someone you know?” Amands asks hopefully as Race signs her arm with a Sharpie.
“Yes!” I cry. “How do we go about contacting them?”
“Well, you could write on their wall, but then it would look like it was coming from me. Your best bet might be to use Google Maps. Click on their location and it’ll bring it right up.”
I do as she instructs and, sure enough, a moment later I have a map with my dad’s house pinpointed. I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe there’s hope for us after all!
“Do you know where this is?” I ask Amanda, showing her the map.
She squints at the screen. “Hmm. It’s not in the Way Station. He must have already gotten judged and been given a permanent address. I don’t know how to get there, unfortunately. But I’ll write it down for you. Maybe someone else can help.” She grabs the Sharpie from Race and turns my hand over to scribble the address. “There you go.”
“Thank you so much!” I say, relief flooding through me. “I cannot tell you how helpful you’ve been.”
“Just remember,” she says, giving Race a knowing look. “When you die I want tickets to your first Underworld show.”
“Absolutely,” Race agrees. “As far as I’m concerned, you can have front-row seats.”
I wait for her squeal of delight. But strangely, instead, she suddenly shrinks back in fear, her eyes glued on something behind us. I whirl around to see what’s gotten her so frightened, and my eyes fall upon a six-foot glowing green demon guard, stepping out from the darkness.
“What the… ?” I whisper, turning back around. But Amanda has already fled.
“Put your hands up,” the demon instructs in a deep gravelly voice. “You are under arrest.”
23
On instinct, I grab for my stake, once again lamenting I don’t have something more suited for non-vampire slaying on hand. If I ever get out of this mess alive, I’m so going to make Teifert give me the key to the real weapons closet. After all I’ve been through, I think I more than deserve a slightly sharper stick in my arsenal.
The fat, pockmarked demon takes one look at my “weapon” and sneers, lowering his spear in my direction and taking a menacing step forward. “Oh, you want to fight, do you?” he says in a throaty growl, his extreme enthusiasm for my non-surrender more than a little disconcerting. I suddenly realize I have no idea the extent of the prowess of the creature I’ve picked a fight with.
“Rayne…” I can hear Jareth say behind me, his voice tight with worry.
“I’ve got this,” I mutter back to him, keeping my eye on the demon, stake raised and ready. I am slayer. Hear me roar.
I consider firing some Buffyesque-style banter back at the demon, but then decide, in this case, actions speak louder than words. With a solid, roundhouse kick, I slam my foot against his spear, succeeding in knocking it from his unsuspecting claws. His eyes widen as it goes clattering down onto the pavement. Yeah, baby! Guess he wasn’t expecting someone so leet amongst the living.
“You like that, big boy?” I ask, deciding now that I’ve disarmed him so easily I have the right to a little gloating. “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from.”
I lunge at him, throwing my full weight against his meaty frame. He stumbles backward and for a moment I think I have him down, but at the last minute he manages to keep his balance. He grabs my shoulders and I bite back a shriek as his ragged claws dig into my flesh. (Guess manicures aren’t so big in the Underworld.) With an über-powerful thrust, he shoves me backward and I find myself flying through the air, my back slamming against one of the concrete buildings behind me. My head hits hard; I see stars as I crumple to the ground.
As I struggle to stay conscious, I watch as Jareth springs into action, his left fist connecting with the demon’s head followed by his right fist slamming into its stomach. Green blood spurts from the demon’s bulbous nose and the creature grunts in agony as it tries to hit Jareth back with weakened limbs. But my vampire ex-boyfriend is too strong, too quick, dodging his blows while raining down more of his own. I grin, pride swelling inside me as I watch his technique. Sometimes I forget he’s been a vampire general for hundreds of years. His prowess in battle is awesome.
I feel movement above me and realize Race is holding out a hand, ready to help me to my feet. I take it, pulling myself up and preparing to help Jareth out with the guard—not that he probably needs it. But just as I manage to take that first stumbling step back into battle, the bloody, beaten guard manages to pull a whistle from around his neck and put it to his lips.
Suddenly, five more demon-shaped shadows emerge from the darkness from all sides.
Uh-oh.
The largest of the new demons—a seven-foot-tall monster—grabs Jareth by his shirt and yanks him off the guard he’d been fighting, as if he were nothing more than a pesky fly. I gasp in horror as he locks my ex-boyfriend in a crushing embrace and points a stake straight at his heart. The other guards surround us, spears pointed and ready.
“That’s enough!” the giant guard cries. “Surrender now or he will die!”
I slowly raise my hands and Jareth and Race do the same. What else can we do? One false move and Jareth will become a permanent resident of this place. I let out a frustrated breath. What was I thinking, going after that guy like that? Once again, I’m too brave for my own good and have put people I love in danger.
�
�Look,” I try, taking a cautious step forward, wanting desperately to atone for my idiocy, “we’re not here to cause any harm. We tried to check in with your boss, but Cerberus turned us away. Trust me, we don’t want to be here, wandering around, any more than you want us to be.”
“And what business do you have with the Master?” one of the other guards demands, grabbing his spear and poking it uncomfortably in my direction. What happens when one gets staked here? I wonder wildly. Do you go back to the other side of the river and start all over again? ’Cause I’m guessing Charon won’t be too excited about giving me another free trip. Especially since he did warn me about the patrol…
“We only wanted to pay our respects,” I try. No need to bring up the whole thing about my sister. “You know, bow to him, seek out his wisdom, all that jazz?” I take another cautionary step forward, trying to keep a brave face.
Big mistake.
The guards react, surrounding me and suddenly I have spears pointed at pretty much all my extremities. “Sorry, sorry!” I cry, holding my hands up higher. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You will surrender to us now,” the head guard states in a flat voice. “Or we shall drive you through.”
“But—”
“Rayne!” Jareth interrupts, still pinned by the other guard. His face is white and filled with fear. “How about we do as the nice gentlemen say, shall we?” he suggests in a taut voice.
Right. Of course he’s right. Just shut up, Rayne. For one second, just shut the hell up.
“Fine,” I resign, dropping my hands. “We surrender, I guess.”
The head guard drops his stake from Jareth’s chest and the others retract their spears. Three of them pull out cords of silver rope and begin roughly tying our wrists together behind our backs. The silver burns at my skin in the most itchy, painful way imaginable and I squirm as one of the guards tightens my restraints. “Okay, okay, I’m bound and helpless already. Enough!” I cry. Not that I’m under any delusion that my protests will do any good.
Once we’re all tied up, the head guard barks an order to his men in some weird demon language, and one of them shoves me so hard in the back that I almost trip over my own feet again. Guess that’s our cue to start walking. I shuffle forward, doing my best to keep my balance with my hands tied behind my back. From the windows of the buildings surrounding us, I can see curious eyes, watching the scene attentively. Ugh. Don’t they have anything better to do? And won’t anyone here try to help us?
Suddenly, as if in answer, a loud, almost primal cry crashes through the streets. The giant guard looks up in surprise, just in time to have a huge boulder—dropped from somewhere above—slam down hard on the top of his head. He lets out a groan of agony before collapsing to the ground in a dead faint.
As the other guards clamor around him, trying to make sure their leader is okay, I look up, trying to figure out where the rock had come from. It’s then that my eyes fall upon a blond, tanned, total meathead of a man, swooping down from a high hotel balcony, using a clothesline the way Tarzan would have used a vine. He drops down in front of the other guards and whips a sword from his belt, waving it menacingly in their direction. Ah, now there’s a weapon suited for demon slaying!
The demons—confused and disorganized without their fearless leader—scramble for their spears. But in the chaos, they mostly end up jabbing each other instead of our rescuer. The blond Adonis, who seems to possess the skills of a Samurai and the flexibility of a member of Cirque du Soleil, works quickly, slicing and dicing, and before you know it, there are five bleeding demons piled all around us, utterly incapacitated. Damn, this guy is good!
“Wow,” I cry, looking up at our rescuer, more than a little impressed. “Thanks!”
“My pleasure,” he says, flashing us a brilliant, white-toothed grin. It’s then that I realize he’s different from the others. No purple haze, no green demon glow. He’s alive. Just like us!
With a deft flick of his sword, he breaks through my restraints, then moves on to help Race and Jareth. Once we’re all free, he beckons for us to follow him. “Come on,” he urges. “They’ll be more of them coming. We must get out of here.”
We don’t need a second invitation. When he takes off, we run after him, exhaustion eclipsed by adrenaline. Down the dark streets, through alleyways and back roads, up stairs and down, until we come to edge of a wide black river, with a small rowboat pulled up to the shore. As I lean down, hands on my knees, gasping for breath, the man pushes the boat into the water, then gestures for us to all get in.
“Let’s go,” he says, looking beyond us, searching the streets with an anxious look on his face. But there’s no one coming. We’re safe for now.
We climb into the boat and our rescuer scrambles in behind us, pushing off from the shore and into the dark, black waters of the river. As we float downstream, the ugly lights from the Way Station fade behind us until they’re only a mere glimmer.
“Is everyone okay?” our rescuer asks, looking us over carefully as he rows.
I nod, then glance over to Jareth and Race. They nod, too, though they both look pretty shaken. “Who were those guys?” I ask.
“The Demon Patrol,” the man explains. “Mercenaries, paid by the Big Ugly to police the streets of Hades. Not that there’s usually much to do—most people are so shell-shocked when they get here, they tend to keep in line. So when these guys come up against a real bona fide threat like the living, they tend to get a little… enthusiastic.”
“And what would they have done to us?” Jareth asks. “If you didn’t arrive?”
Hercules shrugs. “Depends on their mood. If they felt like following the rules, they would have thrown you in prison and allowed Hades to dictate your fate. Or they might have decided to make you permanent residents and take their time doing it. Like I said, they’re pretty bored. And they love carnage.”
I shudder, neither scenario sounding much better than the other. “Well, we really, really appreciate you rescuing us,” I tell him. “You came just in time.”
He flashes me another big grin. “I would have liked to have found you earlier. Less messy that way. I started hearing rumors of a group of living vampires wandering around, asking questions. I’d been trying to track you down all night before the patrol found you. I was seconds too late.”
“And who are you again?” I ask.
He gives a small bow. “Hercules, at your service.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Hercules? You mean like the legendary Greek god Hercules? Son of Zeus?” Wow. I guess that explains the super muscles…
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” he jokes. “Lucky for you I was down here to pay a visit to my girlfriend. Otherwise, I’m not sure things would have worked out so well for you, no offense.”
“Well, we definitely appreciate it,” Jareth says. “Thank you.”
Hercules waves him off. “My pleasure. So what are you doing down here, anyway? This isn’t exactly a great spot to vacation, you know.”
“We were trying to get an audience with Hades,” I explain. “To get him to agree to release my sister’s soul before she’s judged.”
Hercules nods knowingly. “Ah, yes, the old soul-release attempt. We get people down here at least once a decade trying to get their loved ones out.” He gives me a sorry look. “I hate to break it to you, but Hades is pretty stingy with releasing them these days—ever since his little frenemy, Lucifer, knocked him out of the Guinness Book of Hell Records for number of captured souls. He’s been desperate to catch up and very stubborn about releasing any he’s already gathered.”
I bite my lower lip. That doesn’t seem good. “But it’s still possible, right?” I ask, not ready to give up hope.
“Anything’s possible. You have to go in there with something he wants,” Hercules explains. “Oh, and get an appointment to begin with. That’s tough in and of itself.” He drags his oar down on the ground, slowing the boat. “So where would you like to go in the meantime?
” he asks. “Any friends or family that might be able to take you in while you’re figuring things out? Otherwise the Demon Patrol is going to find you again. And this time I won’t be there for the rescue.”
I draw in a breath. “My father,” I tell him, showing him my hand with the address. “Do you know how we can find him?”
Hercules studies my hand for a moment, then gives me an impressed look. “Nice location,” he tells me. “Over on the outskirts of the Elysian Fields. He must have been a pretty good guy on Earth to score such a killer address.”
My mind flashes back to my father, on the ground, dying of iron poisoning after saving my life. “Yeah,” I agree. “He was.” From the corner of my eye, I catch Jareth shooting me a sympathetic look.
Hercules releases the oar and the boat starts floating down into a dark tunnel, under a sign that reads: ENTERING THE CIRCLES.
“Circles?” I question.
“Not up on your Dante, are you?” Hercules asks. “Well, no matter. These are the Circles of Hell. Depending on how you sinned during your life, you might end up stuck in one of these for eternity.” He shudders. “Trust me, once you see them for yourself, you’ll never want to sin again.” He points over to a small island on the port side of the boat. “See that? We’re passing through Lust right now. A neighborhood dedicated to those who couldn’t keep it in their pants.”
I lean over the side of the boat to look. At first glance, the place looks like some kind of Grecian fantasy island, with beautiful, angelic-looking creatures sashaying around with barely any clothes covering their perfect bodies.
“What’s so hellish about that?” I ask.
“Look closer,” Hercules directs as we glide by. “Do you see the souls?”
I take another look, this time realizing there are purple-tinged spirits also wandering the island. Each spirit is chained up with a nasty looking collar around their necks. When one of the spirits happens to glance at one of the goddesses passing by, he jerks violently, then crumples to the ground.
