Heart of Stone

by Kelly Keaton

  “That depends on various things. None of which are your concern. Those are my terms. A life for a life.”

  Archer’s life for hers, and she wanted so desperately to have a new one.

  I gnawed on the inside of my lip, knowing deep down this was my chance and time was running out. I needed to get into the Underworld pronto. “What if I fail to recover the blade? Then what?”

  “I am patient, Ari. You will have two of your years in which to recover the blade. Should you exhaust all possible ends and sources, you forfeit your soul to me.” She glanced at her train. “Not the outcome I want, but your soul will look good back there with the others...”

  I couldn’t believe I was going to say this, “You’d have to promise to provide me with everything you know about the blade and answer any questions I have about it, whenever I have them,” I said. “If I find the blade has been destroyed, deal’s off.”

  “But you agree, here and now, on the Fields of Asphodel? Two years time, a life for a life.”

  Time pressed down on me and frustration welled back up with a vengeance. I hated being stuck like this, knowing Archer’s fate was breathing down my neck...

  “Yes. I agree.” I just had to make damn sure I found the blade before my time was up. How hard could it be? The thought made me want to laugh hysterically.

  “I agree to help you then, to lead you through the Underworld to your destination. Once Archer is home safe, the clock will begin. Oh, one other thing. I will make a similar offer to Violet.”

  “What?”

  “Should you fail to find the blade, your life can be saved. Violet will have the opportunity to assume ownership of our agreement should you fail. She will then be indentured, if you will, for two additional years. Should at the end of that time, you both have failed. Well, one of you must decide whose life is mine.”

  I made a step toward her. As soon as I did, the spirits that made up her train whipped around, rising behind her like a cobra ready to strike. Angry little things. Protective, too. “She’s just a kid and in two years she’ll still be a kid. You know exactly what she’ll say if you bring the bargain to her.”

  The eyes that stared back at me showed no emotion, no triumph, nothing. I wanted so badly to lash out and knock her and her stupid train on the lifeless ground. “I’ll get you your damn blade.”

  “I know,” she said. “I just made sure of it.”

  And my father had been right.

  “Get me out of this fucking dream,” I said before I did something I’d regret.

  She grabbed the side of her gown and whirled, her train flaring out, the wispy specters flying at me, their faces becoming clearer, their mouths screaming, their eyes empty. I threw my arms up and woke on the couch.

  Jesus.

  Heart pounding, it took me a moment to settle back into my skin and my surroundings.

  Violet was right where I’d left her, sitting on the rim of the fire pit.

  “How long was I out?”

  She glanced over her shoulder and frowned. “What do you mean? You just sat down.”

  I leaned forward. “Awesome.” I put my elbows on my knees, and rubbed my face.

  Violet walked over and sat down beside me, studying me for a minute. “What happened?”

  It was hard to look at her and know what was coming, hard not to pick her up and start running. But it wouldn’t have mattered. I had to hand it to the goddess; she’d played me like the devil played his fiddle. Her little addition of Violet meant I’d stop at nothing to find that damn blade just so Violet wouldn’t assume the task.

  Fear was a fabulous motivator, wasn’t it?

  I told Violet about the dream and Mel’s terms for leading us into the Underworld. “Do not make a deal with her,” I said, grabbing her hands. “Swear to me you won’t. I will find the blade, okay? There’s no need for you to get involved.”

  As she opened her mouth to respond, a cold wind stirred through the atrium, leaves and debris scattering as Mel walked into her sanctum. This Mel was the one I was most familiar with, dressed in a black tank and tight black jeans tucked into tall combat boots.

  “What say you, dark one?” she asked Violet.

  I squeezed Violet’s hands as she regarded Mel. I knew the outcome, knew what was coming. It was like a ride I couldn’t stop, a train about to derail, and I was powerless to stop it. Completely powerless.

  Violet held a certain awe for Mel, and a connection. Mel was dark and light, and there were times Violet felt the same way about herself. Good and bad. In conflict. And, of course, Violet loved all things creepy and dark. It was her nature. Like Mel.

  “Okay,” she said, glancing at me with a confident expression. “I’ll do it.”

  A resigned breath flowed out of me and my head fell heavily. “I can’t flippin’ believe this,” I whispered to the floor, shaking my head and feeling--knowing--that this day, this moment would come back to haunt us.

  EIGHTEEN

  AS SEBASTIAN APPROACHED Lamia’s stone throne, the advisor left him to join Phillip who stood to the left of the Dark Mother. Phillip shot him a nasty glare.

  Whatever.

  Sebastian turned his focus back to Lamia. Her eyes shifted to him and he realized they didn’t blink. Her eyes never blinked. Not once since he’d seen her. As though reading his thoughts, her lips thinned.

  Her power crept over him like a heavy black sludge, sinking into his pores, snaking around the inside of his skull and into his brain, eating away his will and self control. Her lure. Her scent. Her unbelievable ability to inspire in him devotion, loyalty, desire was so strong he wanted to weep.

  “Come closer.”

  God, that voice. It stirred in him heat.

  Mine.

  She was his and he’d kill anyone who got close to her. The magnitude of that thought, the utter faith and strength of it made him stumble back and shake his head.

  He blinked hard. Sweat beaded on his skin. He saw a flash of surprise in Phillip’s gaze. Saw the advisor’s brows knit with worry.

  Yeah, he was pretty sure not many vamps stepped back when the Dark Mother said come closer.

  As he stayed there, shaking from the weight of her lure, trying to regain control and force her dirty drug from his system, he saw her creepy eyes light with curiosity. No, they sparked, ignited. She stilled like the predator she was. Her hands gripped the sides of her cold throne and she leaned forward slightly, eagerly.

  And then she was on him, slamming into him so hard he flew back with her clutched to him, her nails digging into his arms as he hit the ground hard. Pain exploded through his neck as she sank long, ancient fangs into his skin and muscle and vein.

  She angled his head to the side, holding it down hard against the floor, her palm flat against his forehead, her nails ripping into his scalp and skin as she drank.

  Her presence, her power suffocated him. It was too much. He was overdosing. Losing it. She was sucking him dry. Every tug of her mouth and every movement she made against his skin elicited a bewildering mix of wild need and deep stomach-clenching disgust.

  Everything in him fought. He squirmed under her, fighting to be free, yet his hands were gripping her hips tightly, pulling her closer.

  His delirious gaze flew to her court as they watched in total shock.

  No one was going to save him. He was alone on a sinking ship. And his fate was sealed. Just as it had been sealed with Athena’s vampire servant Zaria, who’d tortured him relentlessly. Never a chance, never a choice. Neither one gave him a choice. He’d killed Zaria, killed her good. He ground his hips against Lamia. Pleasure shot through him. He’d kill her, too, kill her dead and good.

  Her hair brushed over his face. It smelled so good and yet in another instant it reeked of sweat, blood, and years of oil and dirt.

  Jesus. What was on him? Eating him alive...

  A shot of fear plugged him in the heart and he lurched against her, all his faculties returning in a blinding moment of reality. He sc
reamed, a guttural roar, as if fear itself had reached down and yanked it out of the deepest part of him.

  And then he was fading again, sinking, being sucked down into the vortex of a beautiful lie.

  She was all lies.

  And he loved her so much.

  Such was the power of his goddess, his Dark Mother.

  He closed his eyes and let his muscles go slack, accepting her love.

  A SHOCK OF COLD woke him. He sucked in a breath, water sweeping into his windpipe, choking him. His neck, inside and out screamed in pain. Where she'd fed, it was raw and hot, aching. The cold felt good once he got over the shock and stopped choking.

  “More,” he sputtered.

  “Idiot. She almost killed you. Drank you near death. Next time submit, you fool.”

  Phillip. Perfect.

  “Fuck you.” Another splash of cold washed over him and it felt so good, the cold against his ravaged neck. “Thank you,” he rasped.

  A rough hand grabbed his jaw. Pain exploded through his neck at the movement. He blinked as Phillip’s face came into stark focus. “How did you do it?”

  “What?”

  “How did you resist her?” He squeezed, angry.

  A laugh grew from some sick, twisted part him, grew until he was laughing in Phillip’s face. He was slapped hard; his head flew to the side, pulling the skin over his wound. The pain was so bad, his stomach revolted and he gagged.

  Another splash of water. Thank God for the little perks, he thought. He spit out water, glaring at Phillip. “What’s it been, centuries for you? You followed the bitch in and now you can’t get out. None of you. She’ll never let you go. Never let you go.” He fell into laughter again.

  “We don’t want to go, you piece of shit. She’s our Queen, our Mother. It is an honor, a privilege to serve her.”

  “Serve how? Lounging around some rank ass cave all your life?”

  Phillip’s nose nearly touched his. “Careful, boy. You know not of the service I do.”

  “Don’t take it personal Mother found a new toy, Phil. I’m sure she still loves you.”

  This time the water came flying at him, along with the bucket. It knocked him right in the mouth. The pain was worth it since it sent Phillip storming from the room.

  “You shouldn’t provoke him,” the advisor’s soft voice came from the corner of the room. She was leaning against the wall, lost in the shadow of the candlelight. “He does a great service.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet he does. How far from her influence are we?”

  “Not far enough.” The advisor stepped from the shadows to the table that held two fat candles. She sat and watched him for a long moment.

  “You gonna get me down from here?” His arms were pulled taut, chained to the stone wall.

  She eyed him for a long moment, considering. She might have pity on him, she might be given to moments of crazy, but there was also intelligence and a great amount of sincerity in her dark eyes. “Tell me about New 2.”

  He blinked.

  “Don’t look so surprised. Of course I know about it. We all do. We might live here, but we know what goes on in the world. That’s where our Queen went and retrieved you, is it not?” He didn’t respond. “We have heard the Novem is no more.”

  “More or less.”

  “They’re all dead then, the Novem?”

  “Would it make you happy if they were?”

  That sadness again, her pain a living thing that reached across the distance between them and grabbed hold of his heart. He refused to feel for her. Her pain was her own. Though, why she should feel pain that the Novem was--

  “You knew one of them?”

  At first he didn’t think she'd answer. She shoved back the chair with a shrug. “A long time ago.”

  He felt so badly for her that he wanted to tell her that not everyone had died, to give her some kind of hope. “God,” he cursed, angry that she messed with his emotions, “what is it with you? You’re like her, aren’t you?” The advisor hesitated, her brows drawing together in confusion. “Like Lamia, throwing her power around, making you feel things that aren’t your own to feel, that you don’t want to feel.”

  Her features remained deceptively composed, but she’d paled considerably. “No,” she answered at length. “I’m nothing like her at all.”

  And then she left, closing the door and locking it behind her.

  Well, shit. He’d meant to play nice so she'd let him off the wall.

  Any other time, he could pull the chains free, but Lamia had drunk him near-dry, and his limbs were useless. Any energy he had left was sluggishly repairing the damage she’d done and rebuilding his blood supply. Not that it’d work, there was too much gone. He needed blood, and he needed it bad.

  Weariness came over him then, and his head fell low; he didn’t have the strength to hold it up anymore. His mind drifted and Ari’s image played like a movie in his head. He tried to push it away, not wanting her here, not wanting to bring her into this place.

  The devotion Lamia inspired was built on lies and deception. It wasn’t a thing freely given, and therefore not a thing to be nurtured and cherished. It was nothing. She was nothing.

  And Ari, Ari was . . . everything.

  NINETEEN

  INSIDE, MY EMOTIONS WERE strung tight. What a fucking nightmare. I glared at Mel. Not only was she a master at orchestrating nightmares in the dream state, but she was pretty damn brilliant at creating them in reality too. She’d certainly knocked the ball out of the park right here in the atrium.

  Violet had just made a deal with a devil, of sorts. And proclaimed she was going with us into the Underworld. Mel hadn’t helped matters much by saying Violet was safer with her than alone in Olympus.

  I wanted to shake her tiny body, to give voice to the scream that was lodged in my throat. How could she so easily and readily put her life in the crosshairs? I was pissed at her decision, awed at her bravery, and humbled that she’d appointed herself my personal shieldmaiden.

  The amount of courage and calmness and selflessness she had was remarkable.

  I didn’t know whether to hug her or yell at her.

  Mel went to the fire pit and snapped her fingers. Instantly, fire shot high, lighting the inner sanctum in a warm orange glow. But that didn’t last long as the warmth gave way to cold, the flames becoming an unearthly array of white, blue, gray, and black.

  I glanced at Violet then at Mel. “You sure about this?”

  “Violet is safe with me by her side.”

  Having spoken, Mel stepped over the rim and into the pit, the light of the flames illuminating her darker side, casting her in a surreal glow. “Follow me.”

  Eerier words were never spoken, I thought, stepping over the rim and reaching for Violet’s hand to help her over.

  “This way,” Mel said before walking into the center of the pit. The flames swirled around her.

  Violet’s grip on my hand tightened. “It’s okay. It won’t burn us,” I promised, knowing Mel wasn't about to harm us before she could get her precious blade.

  A hand shot out from the flames, grabbed my wrist and yanked me in. Flames rose high around me and Violet, waving around in a ghostly dance. A bone-deep cold bit my skin wherever the flames touched. The tug on my wrist had me stumbling forward. As I went, I glanced over my shoulder to see the inner sanctum through a gray veil.

  When I turned around again, the ghostly flames grew darker until blackness swirled around my body and then completely enveloped us.

  And then we were out.

  And back on the road near the fields of swaying corpses. Just like my dream. Only this time it was more vivid, more intense. Sorrow and pain hung in a gray haze over the barren landscape. The lifeless incorporeal forms of those who had died moved and moaned in a slow, lost migration.

  So many. Hills and hills of them.

  Their echoes filled the air. Their endless wandering and suffering, the bleakness of it all seemed to pull the life force from me
like a tiny unraveling thread.

  We didn’t belong here among the dead. All my senses and instincts were rebelling, telling me to leave before it was too late.

  “I’ll give you the grand tour as we go,” Mel quipped, gliding forward as her Goth street clothes slowly disappeared like fire burning the edges of paper, leaving behind the silvery jeweled gown she’d worn in my dream.

  She paused, glancing over her shoulder with a faint glint of amusement as a gleaming silver staff grew from her grasp.

  Violet’s lips formed a perfect circle of awe as she stared at the bejeweled gown and its spectral train. “You’re like a star,” she whispered reverently.

  One of Mel’s eyebrows quirked in surprise. She hadn’t expected such open adoration. In fact, I was fairly certain she’d hadn’t experienced the reaction in a long, long time, if not ever. For a second, she seemed to flounder, stuck in the utter shock of the moment. Then, she snapped out of it, clearly not liking being thrown off-kilter. With a frown, she held out her hand and a fat, smoke-colored, uncut stone fell into her palm.

  She tossed the stone to Violet.

  I let out a low whistle. It was a large, uncut diamond. Violet knew her jewels and from the look on her face, it hadn’t taken her long to figure out what lay in her palm. She gripped it tightly and brought it to her chest before training her amazed eyes on Mel who appeared even more uncomfortable.

  “This way,” she commanded in a sharp tone. “And do not interact with the dead.”

  Violet and I hurried to catch up.

  As we walked down the road, I studied the landscape. Nearly everything in the Underworld was identical to the things I’d seen in my nightmare. My gaze kept returning to the fields of gossamer corpses, the image of my mother stamped across my memory as she wandered in eternal agony.

  “Were you telling the truth in the dream?” I asked, my voice trailing off. “About my mother.”

  “She is not here, Ari. Her afterlife is pleasant.”