by VS Winters
I turned quickly and watched as Crius came blazing through one of the windows, fighting what looked to be another Fury. She looked even angrier than Alecto did when she was corrupted. On the other side of them, the front door flew open and Alecto stood there with her sword drawn, ready to fight. Her brow furrowed as she watched her sister, looking nothing like her sister, battling things out with Crius. With one look from me, we both dove in. Alecto grabbed her sister around the waist, trying to pull her off of Crius, while I lunged toward her to put my hands on her. Crius stopped me with one arm, knocking me to the ground.
"She's got to answer first," Crius yelled out. "If they can't remember after the corruption is gone, then they have to talk before."
I already knew that wasn't the way it was going to work. It didn't matter anyway because as I pulled myself to my feet, the Fury's eyes shifted toward me and a look of recognition washed over her face. She lunged at me, grabbing me by the shoulders and slamming me to the ground. I just laid there, not even moving. It seemed that this Fury could touch me, but what would happen when I touched her? I could feel the energy building in my chest and I yanked my right hand out from her clutches and slapped it hard against her forehead.
Almost instantly the light roared through me, flinging us both in opposite directions. The Fury went straight up, hitting the ceiling and smashing to the ground. I slid across the floor heading straight for the wall. One of the random house plants that had been scattered across the apartment fell from the shelf and sprouted quickly, magic bursting from it. It grew at a feverish speed, catching me right before I smashed into the wall. I slid up the smooth leaf of the plant and plopped back down on my butt, the vine twisted from its base holding me upright.
That time things moved much quicker, and the light had only blinded me for a second. The smell of fresh flowers and purity wafted through the air, calming my senses and easing the burn as the light filtered back into my chest. The energy inside of me waned, but it wasn't nearly as draining as before. I gripped ahold of the vine and it helped me to my feet, holding me there for a moment as I steadied my shaking knees.
Crius moved quickly toward me, putting out his hand and grabbing my elbow. I could feel his large warm hand against my cheek and I leaned into it as he lifted my face, looking me in the eyes. "Are you all right?"
I looked down at my body and back up at him, giving him a quick nod. "I think so. Each time it seems to get a little bit easier, or stronger, I can't figure out which one it is. Either way, I'm okay."
"Megaera, is it you? Is the corruption gone?" Alecto called out as she raced for her sister, now lying on the floor wearing a similar curve-hugging getup, a sword at her side, and her dark hair sprawled out around her.
Alecto's sister stirred, groaning as she lifted up and rubbed the back of her head. There were chips of paint and ceiling all around her, but when she opened her eyes the deep crimson red was gone. She looked up at her sister with shock and nodded her head. "I think so. Everything was such a blur." Her eyes shifted over toward me and she reached up, taking her sister's hand and climbing to her feet. "It's her."
Alecto looked over at me and then back at Megaera. "I wasn't sure at first. But now I know."
I didn't know what they were talking about, and it looked as if Crius didn't either. He watched them carefully as they walked toward me, stopping a few feet away. They glanced at each other and knelt down on one knee, pulling their swords from their sides and resting them point down on the floor. They both hung their heads for a moment and then looked back up at me.
"I don't understand…" I said, looking to Crius for answers.
Alecto nodded. "I thought it was you, but I wasn't sure. Megaera, she must've seen the same thing as me, and we can both feel you even if you aren't quite sure who you are yourself."
My brow furrowed and I shook my head. "I'm confused. You know who I am. I'm Kora."
Megaera smiled. "Before everything happened, before your descent into the underworld, you were kindly known as the goddess of vegetation. They called you Kore."
Alecto looked up at me in a different way, as if she cared even deeper for me beyond her promise to guard me. "Once you descended, you were known by another name, a name that brought protection."
My eyes shifted to Crius, whose mouth dropped slightly open and his gaze filtered off as if he were connecting the dots to something I didn't understand. I stepped forward, closer to Alecto and Megaera. "Who is this protector?"
Megaera, still smiling brightly, gazed into my eyes. "You are Persephone."
Chapter Sixteen
"Absolutely not," Crius said as he moved about, cleaning up the mess from the middle of the floor. "I cannot bring you with me. I was against bringing you with me before, a mortal with powers, but now…you are part of that world, but you don't remember it at all. That's almost more dangerous. That means that down there in the underworld, they know you but you don't know them. They know what they're capable of, but you don't understand the dangers."
"None of that matters," I said angrily, following along behind him. "Don't you understand? They are not going to stop coming for me. Whether they're coming from the underworld or whoever's in charge of this whole situation, they're not going to stop coming. The fight will find me eventually. Look at this. I'm not in my home, I'm not at the speakeasy, I'm in the middle of nowhere in a rundown apartment and they found me here."
"One did," he said stoutly into my face as he turned back with his broom and dustpan. "One found you, and you were here with me and with Alecto. It is different when you're walking into their territory. There are things in the underworld that can create nightmares, tortures. They can leave your mortal body alive while you suffer beyond any brink of your own imagination. If you had been unprepared, even the slightest bit, that Fury, Megaera, would have killed you."
I reached forward and took the broom from his hand, making him stop and look at me. "Who taught you to sweep? You're just brushing it all over the place."
He lifted a brow. "I'm sorry. That wasn't in the training logs to be a Titan."
I was surprised at his sarcastic comment, finally glad to see a bit of that personality for once. I shook my head and began to sweep as he held the dustpan. "Maybe it should. I'm sure you don't spend your entire life doing…Titan things." I stopped and looked up at him, my face easing a bit in anger. "I've withstood two Fury attacks now. Three, if you count the first one. I know you want to protect me. I know that the light is important to everyone, and I also know that you feel the need to protect me."
He looked away, but I stepped in front of him, shaking my head. "I feel it too. The need to protect each other. And no matter how much I don't understand it, I trust that you are strong and that you can handle yourself. You have to trust that I'm stronger than I look. You cannot keep leaving me here. We can get so much more done together."
He opened his mouth to say something but I put my hand to his lips. "I'm not here to argue with you. I'm going with you this next time, and we're going to figure out what's going on. I can't just sit here and wonder if the next creature to break through is going to be the last that I save. I can't keep wondering if you'll never come back…"
I broke my eye contact with him, feeling a lump in my throat. He cleared his and I glanced over at him as I finished sweeping up the last of the pieces of the ceiling piled up on the floor. "You're not my hostage. I don't like it, and I don't think that you fully understand what you're getting yourself into, but if you insist."
I gently looked over at him and nodded. "I insist."
He put up his arm and motioned to Alecto and Megaera. I watched as he walked into his bedroom with the two Furies following behind him. I slowly made my way to the door as he flipped over the mattress, revealing a compartment beneath it. It was the one place I hadn't looked.
Sneaky.
He pulled out several large pieces of armor, golden in color, with a large roaring lion on the front of them. "If you're going, you're going cove
red in armor. And don't even try to fight me. You're going to wear a lot of it. Every part of you needs to be bundled up. Whether Persephone is inside of you or you are Persephone or not, you have a mortal body and I fear that your soul is not protected."
From the look of the armor, I knew it was going to weigh me down, but I wasn't going to argue with him. I dropped the broom and the dustpan and hurried over, watching as Alecto and Megaera gathered the pieces and laid them out on the mattress on the floor. Crius pulled the last bit out and looked to the two Furies, nodded his head, and walked back out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
Megaera clapped her hands. "It's been a while since I got to put armor on someone. Let's get to work. He doesn't look like a very patient person and this might take a bit."
I stripped down and stood there, putting on the pieces as they asked me to. All the while, I thought about him, Crius, standing on the other side of the door, not wanting to take me because he was scared. Because he knew that there was a connection between the two of us. I didn't know what to expect, or think even, but I knew that as long as I was with him, I would be okay.
By the time we were done putting on the armor, I was slightly fearful that I wouldn't be able to move. There was a bodysuit underneath to protect my skin, a shield across my chest and my back, shields across my thighs and my calves strapped on together, and thick gloves. They tried to put a helmet on me but it was way too big, and I begged Alecto just to act like she couldn't use her magic to make it fit me.
"It won't do you any good anyway." Alecto winked at me and tossed it to the side.
Megaera looked me up and down and shook her head. "It looks good on you. It looks like it used to."
I glanced down at the armor and wondered, if they were right about me, had the armor been mine? I didn't even think about the fact that it fit me when we put it on. It was a question I could ask Crius later, but right then, I knew he was ready to go. When we walked out of the bedroom, he looked me up and down, then walked around me making sure that every tie was tight and every piece fit perfectly. "Where's the helmet?"
Alecto cleared her throat stepping forward. "It didn't quite fit and the material, being from Olympus, really didn't work with the magic. She'll be fine without it down there."
Megaera nodded. "In fact, it might be better because she'll be able to hear better."
Crius narrowed his eyes at both of them but shrugged his shoulders and turned around, grabbing his dagger, and sticking it into the sheath on his belt. He wasn't wearing any armor, and had taken his white tunic off, revealing his hard, strong arms and chest. I had to push the thought out of my mind, as I was afraid I might boil myself inside that suit if I got too warm.
"We want to go with you, to continue to protect Kora," Alecto said, standing tall.
Crius shook his head. "We need stealth over force in this situation. I cannot take Kora back to the speakeasy, but that doesn't mean that there aren't creatures there that are in need of protection. I let the bar owner know that you will be coming there to help keep watch over people, to take into custody anyone who may be corrupted. We will find you when we get back."
They both looked to me, and I trusted what Crius was saying so I gave them a nod. They bowed back to me, Alecto holding my gaze for just a moment before they took each other's hands and disappeared out of sight.
Crius turned to me. "Are you ready?"
I nodded my head at him, hurrying along behind him as we left the apartment and headed out to his car. He opened the door for me and I struggled to get inside, sounding like tin cans rolling behind a car. He closed the door behind me, but there was no way I was putting my seatbelt on. It didn't matter anyway. If we got into an accident, all I had to do was roll into a metal ball and I would be more than fine.
"How far away is this?" I asked as Crius climbed in and started the engine.
"The drive isn't far, but the walk is a bit of a ways," he replied as he pulled off.
I watched out of the window as we drove through whatever city we were in and then out of it. I had to be honest, I half-expected him to lead me down several dark alleys, through some abandoned building, and down some secret hatch in the floor that led us to the underworld. But instead, we drove quickly down a narrow road and then off the beaten path to the coverage of the forest. I wasn't even fully sure we were driving on a real road at that point. He drove so fast that I had to close my eyes, nervous he was going to plow us straight into a tree.
When the car came to a stop and turned off, I opened my eyes. Ahead of us, lit up by the lights of the car, was a cave. "We're going in a cave? Did you bring your bear spray?"
"I left it in my other pants," he said with the straightest face I had ever seen on a person.
Sarcasm, level one thousand.
I got out of the car before he could come around to help me and had to keep myself from chuckling. That was a good answer. We walked up to the mouth of the cave and he turned toward me, standing so close I could smell his skin. I ran my tongue across my lips nervously and glanced up into his eyes. He had pulled his long silver hair back into a low ponytail and it made his eyes even darker within the shadows.
"This cave is a portal to the underworld," he said, not breaking eye contact. "This is important, so listen to me. You need to follow directly behind me. You cannot, and I will repeat that, cannot look back."
My lip quivered slightly and my eyes shifted toward the dark entrance to the cave. "What happens if I look back?"
There was a dramatic pause and I wondered if he hadn't done it on purpose. He was very theatric, but all of the gods seemed to be that way. "The souls that will follow us will trap you. When they do, I will not be able to help you. You will not be able to move on. Dead or alive, you will be stuck…for eternity."
Chapter Seventeen
The cave wasn't actually much of a cave. After walking through the dark entrance, it was like stepping through a veil, the other side still dark but not pitch black, shrouded on both sides with sickly looking trees, and the road beneath my feet crackled like gravel. My mind played tricks on me, and I was glad I couldn't see the ground as I thought up a whole bunch of things that could've been beneath my feet, and none of them you could buy at the Home Depot.
My eyes shifted around, but I stayed close to Crius, who had slowed his pace just a bit. Through the whispers in the wind, I could hear haunted voices calling out, moaning, even crying. The hair on the back of my neck stood up straight and goosebumps peppered my arms. Yet, in the warm, still air shrouded in secrecy and mystery, there was a familiarity to it. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what I had seen before, or even what I had felt before, but it was as if somewhere in my lifetime or a lifetime before, I had been right there on the crackly road.
I kept pace with Crius, making sure to be far enough back that I didn't step on his heels, but close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I needed to. It was creepy sure, but that strange familiarity took away some of the fear. It was kind of like being a kid and being afraid of the basement. You hurry through because you're scared something will grab you, but after being down there a million times, when you make it back to the top safely you almost chuckle at yourself for being so stupid.
I tried to block the noises out, the aching voices that sounded as if they were suffering so badly. Part of it broke my heart, but the other part feared what I couldn't see. Through the cries and shrieks, over the whispers, a voice called out, catching my attention. "Persephone…"
My feet slowed, thinking I had heard it wrong, or was my mind making it up. I centered my vision back on Crius and continued on. A few steps farther though, the voice whispered again. "Persephone…"
My steps stuttered and out of pure reaction I almost turned around. Before I could though, Crius stopped in front of me and I ran right into the back of him, my cheek slapping against his shoulder blade. I stumbled backward and he reached around behind him, grabbing my wrist. He pulled me close to him and held me there tightly. Tur
ning his head just slightly, he spoke in a low growl. "Can you do this?"
My brow furrowed and I shook my head. "What do you…"
He gripped my wrist tighter and pulled me even closer. "I told you that you can't turn around. Can you do this?"
I nodded, my head still pressed against his skin. "Yes."
He released me and began to walk again, slower this time. I kept up with him, closing my eyes from time to time trying to shake the voices from my ears. It was starting to get to me, the sound swirling around in my brain. I felt almost disconnected, and I shook my head, knowing that it was part of being there. The voices were too distracting, and I felt like they penetrated me every time they echoed out behind us.
In an attempt to push them back, I moved closer to Crius, knowing that a conversation would help me. "When I was at my house, before the creature set it on fire, I was able to speak to a phoenix. The phoenix told me that those like him and in your world actually have a name for the corruption. They call it deicide."
Crius snapped his head to the side and his footsteps paused, giving me pause as well so I didn't ram right into him. He only stayed still for a moment, but in that moment, I could tell there was something about that name that struck him. I thought for sure he would talk to me about it, especially after everything we'd been through and talked about together. We were living in some sort of déjà vu type of state.
"Does that sound strange to you?" I asked. "I know that you feel what I do. I can sense that I have been places before, but they aren't familiar like they should be. It's all foggy. And you, I have the sense that I've been places with you as well, but the memories of it are so distant that it's like they aren't my own."
