by Molly Ringle
***
“What was Adrian like before? I mean, before he found out he was Hades?” The query darted out of Sophie’s mouth on an impulse, surprising even herself. Sure, it had been on her mind, the question of whether she and Adrian would love each other without all these epic memories. It was important to ponder that kind of thing. Still, she hadn’t exactly intended to ask Zoe out loud.
The two of them were standing in the Underworld, awaiting an answer to a request they had sent out among the souls, seeking information about modern Eleusinian Mysteries groups. They might learn something that would disturb them, but Sophie was finding that the asking and taking action felt better than the hiding in quiet corners she’d been doing.
Now her mouth was producing even more asking, it seemed, and on more romantic topics.
Surprise gleamed in Zoe’s gray eyes. “Haven’t you two ever talked of that?”
“Some. But what was he like to you?”
Zoe smiled. She kicked her hiking boot’s heel against a lumpy rock formation. “Well, he was nerdy. At least about some things. He was only average at math, so not nerdy in that sense, but he could be a fireball in class discussions in social studies. Got all passionate about ethical causes and animal rights and things. Also about various comic books and bands and television shows. Those you’ve probably talked about.”
“Yeah. We share tastes there.” Sophie found she was smiling, recalling their fandom comment threads on her blog. It seemed like ages ago, but it had only been last year.
“Somewhere on my hard drive I’ve got bits of stuff he wrote in high school. Essays about things, and write-ups he did for me to describe the visual side of graphic novels or movies, because I couldn’t see back then.” Zoe chuckled. “He made them quite funny at times. Like: ‘She’s wearing a dress that looks like those crocheted things my Nana drapes on the back of her armchairs.’ I’ll send them to you if you like.”
“Yes.” Sophie cleared her throat to make her voice less timid. “I’d like that. Thanks.”
Zoe’s attention sharpened as she gazed into the crowd. “Here we go.”
An open path was forming in the masses, making way for one soul who walked toward Zoe and Sophie. He was short, around fifty years old, with a thick bristle of graying hair, and smile lines etched into his pale skin.
“You were seeking someone recently murdered, involved in the modern worship of the Lord and Lady,” he said in the Underworld tongue. “I believe that was me.”
“We are sorry for your unjust death.” Sophie resorted instinctively to the answer Persephone used to give. “We’ll do our best to bring about justice for you.”
He nodded in gratitude.
“What’s your name?” Zoe asked. “And when were you killed?”
“Ciaran O’Slatraigh,” he said. “I was killed on the thirteenth of December, in Dublin.”
“An Irishman.” Zoe switched to English, smiling. “Would you prefer English, then? We’re a Kiwi and a Yank, so we can accommodate that.”
“That’d be lovely. Cheers.” His brogue rippled into evidence as he switched languages too.
“I’m Sophie, and this is Zoe. Then do you think you were killed because of your involvement in this group?”
“I’m sure of it. We’re a small coven, a select set who’s kept certain traditions and secrets safe for, well, thousands of years as far as we know. The central secret was how to step into the spirit realm.” Ciaran nodded to their glowing surroundings.
A shiver ran up Sophie’s body. “You’ve done it, then? Switched realms? People have been able to, all this time?”
“Indeed they have. We don’t do it much, mind. Only on special ceremonial occasions, and only with the company of a select trained priest or priestess of our coven. And we stayed at the sacred sites, never went far. Wandering off in this realm was generally regarded as a dangerous and ill-conceived idea.” He chuckled.
“It would have been,” Zoe said with a smile, “but only because of the wild animals. The spirits wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“No, I see that now,” he agreed.
“Then you had a piece of Underworld gold,” Sophie said.
“Used to, yes. The gold leaf, kept safe through antiquity. Well, some man, who I now am sure gave us a false name, began studying with us, at our little library archive we keep at Trinity College. We trusted him at first, though not too far of course. No one got all the secrets until they’d been with us for many years, though we were happy to provide study material for those who were curious, up to a point. But he began getting too keen, nosing about in the records without permission. One night I came and found him in the vaults. He’d broken in. He’d found the gold leaf and the copy of the old scrolls that gave instructions for traveling over.”
A cold hand closed around Sophie’s heart in anticipation of what came next. Zoe’s face tensed too.
Ciaran looked down at the ground. “I tried to stop him. He killed me on the spot. Shot me with a gun I hadn’t seen him carrying, and ran out.”
Zoe and Sophie allowed a few seconds of silence.
“We think we know who he is,” Zoe said, “and believe me, we’re quite keen to catch him ourselves.”
“But he does have this gold leaf, then,” Sophie said. “And it really does get people into this realm.”
“It does. I’ve traveled over myself.” Ciaran gave them a wistful smile. “The absolute best moments of my life. Pure magic.”
Sophie smiled back, pushing down the sadness within. “I know the feeling. Your secret mystery club sounds pretty awesome. Wish we’d known you were around sooner.”
“Well, then, we wouldn’t be very secret if you knew, would we?”
“Good point. Do you think there are more groups like yours? Who have the gold and the method, and can cross over?”
“There are certainly other covens who know of this realm, and who speak reverently of Persephone and Hades and Hekate and all of you.” He cast a respectful glance from one woman to the other. “But the actual crossing-over, that’s rare. We suspected there wasn’t much of this gold about, so we protected it as best we could. We didn’t do a good enough job, sorry to say.”
“It’s not your fault,” Zoe said. “The people who killed you, they’re called Thanatos, and they’re utterly ruthless and have been around as long as your covens and Mysteries have. It’s us they’re after, really; us they want to destroy. It’s everyone’s bad luck they finally managed to steal your secrets.”
“One other question, since your group was so good at magic,” Sophie added. “Do you think anyone out there could…use it for the wrong purposes? I mean—” She glanced at Zoe. “Zoe’s always assured us it rebounds on people if they try. But we seem to keep learning the picture’s more complicated than we thought, so…”
“Oh, that’s always been going on, unfortunately,” Zoe answered for him. “And more so as you get further along toward modern times.”
“That’s what I’ve heard as well,” Ciaran said.
Sophie grimaced in dismay. “What? But how?”
Zoe shifted her stance, resting a foot on the base of the lumpy rock. “I’ve been thinking back on it, on all the lifetimes where I got involved with witchcraft, in covens and temples and things. I never tried the evil stuff, nor did the others I associated with, but we heard about such people. With enough folk amassing enough magical knowledge over the centuries, they’re bound to find loopholes. Things that let them do what they want, even if it hurts others.”
“But—at least in the afterlife—”
“Tartaros gets them, oh yes, and how. But either they don’t know that or don’t care, because they’re getting away with it in the short term.”
“We heard of such folk too,” Ciaran added. “Not many, I’m thankful to say, but an occasional lone practitioner out there, pulling some twisted sacrifice that buys them time against the inevitable backlash, and lets them do harm until then.”
Sophie let her ba
ck sag against the rock. “The world sucks. Bad people getting away with their crap for way too long, all over the place. Tartaros needs to step in sooner.”
“Mm,” Zoe agreed. “Or maybe that’s what immortals are meant to be for. If we’re ‘meant’ for anything.”
“Yeah. I’ve thought that.” A corner of Sophie’s damaged heart warmed, and her gaze slipped to the red and white wildflowers spangling the grass. “Like what Adrian does. Catching murderers where he can.”
“He’s the man. In his quiet emo way.” They both looked to Ciaran again, and Zoe added, “Thank you so much, Ciaran. Rest assured we’re looking for your bastard murderer, and we’ll call on you again to let you know how it goes.”
He bowed. “A pleasure merely to meet the pair of you. It’s I who am at your service, as ever.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tracy walked down the forest path outside Vratsa, Bulgaria, alone as he had promised. If he didn’t return in an hour, Krystal and Yuliya and their local Thanatos contact were supposed to come look for him, or for what remained of him. But Tracy wasn’t afraid, not even with the rumors of Tenebra’s fearsome power. He had more than enough to offer her.
The frigid air invigorated his lungs. His thick Scottish wool cap and coat kept him warm. A light snowfall yesterday had dusted everything with white: path, bare trees, boulders and surrounding crags. A few wide-winged dark birds circled high above in the gray sky. Such a bleak and magical landscape. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear wolves howling, or to see Tenebra emerge from a hut that scuttled about on chicken legs. It was that kind of European forest.
“Erick Tracy.”
He came up short, catching a breath as he blinked at the woman.
She surely hadn’t been there a second before, standing right in front of him in the middle of the path. She lifted one thin eyebrow. “I was wearing a spell so you wouldn’t notice me until I wished you to.”
Her English was accented with something he guessed was Eastern European, though he couldn’t place the exact country.
He recovered from his surprise with a gracious smile. “I’ve heard such magic is your specialty. I see that’s no exaggeration.”
“One of my specialties.” She wore all gray: long skirt, winter boots, puffy coat, beret. Her shoulder-length hair was gray too, with threads of white and black. She was of middle height, middle age, average weight, unremarkable appearance—but if you examined those close-set pale eyes and that mouth with its habitual downward turn, you caught glimpses of coldness, hardness. Some people might have called her countenance “chilling.” But for all Tracy knew, this was part of a glamour too; a disguise showing her as she wanted to appear.
“You’ve read the information I sent you,” Tracy said. “We have an update.”
“Oh?”
“I took the gold token to one of the sites on our map, near here, as a test run yesterday.” He held her glinting eyes an extra second before continuing. “It works. We can enter the spirit realm.”
“Ah…” The interested syllable reminded him oddly of the wind creaking the door of an abandoned house. “There is much power to be found in that realm, I am certain. Especially the Underworld itself.”
“Which is where we’ll go directly, or will aim to. We have it narrowed down to just a couple of sites in Greece. I most definitely would like someone of your abilities to come along.”
“The golden apple,” she said. “This is an immortality fruit, I take it?”
“Yes.” He hadn’t put it in writing with that exactitude, but anyone with enough mystical training would understand the hints he’d dropped in his email.
“And these unnaturally strong bringers of chaos, they have eaten of it.”
“Yes. Which is why we must destroy it, and them.”
“My price…” She lifted one crooked forefinger. “Is that I eat the fruit before the tree is destroyed.”
He had suspected she would propose such a thing. No powerful loner sorcerer worth her salt could resist a boon like that. Still, he hesitated. “Our mission of course is that no one should be immortal. Not even on our side. Believe me, I understand the temptation, but—”
“That is my price.” Her tone had become ominous. “Grant it and you will have only one immortal in the world to worry about, and I plan to keep to myself as much as possible. I would only wish to be left to my devices, to enjoy myself forever. And I would be on the side of your organization forever, too.”
Tracy nibbled the edge of his lower lip, nodding. “That does have its appeal.”
“In addition, I can help hide your team and this golden artifact from the dangerous others, while we are searching for the Underworld.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I was hoping you could. We could use that.”
“Another of my specialties that might interest you…” Tenebra glanced up, muttered something, and beckoned to the sky.
One of the large birds circled lower, and finally landed on the ground a few meters away and folded its wings. It was a buzzard, or something similar, and it watched Tenebra alertly.
She cast her hand toward it, and hissed, “Sormajhaturm.”
The bird convulsed, then collapsed in the snow. Tracy walked slowly to it and touched the toe of his shoe to its limp body. Dead.
He looked at her. “Are you certain you could do such a thing to our unnaturals? They’ve proven quite hard to destroy.”
“The spell rips the soul from the body.” She stood as straight and casual as ever. “I do not see how anyone could live after that.”
“I’m interested to try it and find out.” He squinted at her. “Forgive me, but I’m curious. In my mystical studies, I was given to understand that magic such as this rebounds upon a practitioner. Threefold, some say. How do you escape that?”
She held up her left hand and spread it open. Her first finger was missing. “Long ago I found another spell that allows one to make a sacrifice as an advance payment. So far, it has worked. There has been no rebound.”
Tracy blinked. “I see. You are a dedicated woman indeed.”
Tenebra lowered her hand. “Some say the spell exacts further payment after death,” she said dismissively. “But I see no proof of such matters.”
Given they were about to enter the Underworld, where possibly such punishments were in fact exacted upon departed souls, Tracy wondered if she might change her beliefs before long. However, if she meant to become immortal, then indeed, that payment could be put off quite a long while. And regardless, it would be her problem, not his.
“Well, then,” he said. “If you’re willing to employ the skills at your disposal toward our ends, I accept your terms. Mind you, I think we should keep this special condition confidential, between ourselves. The rest of our group—well, they might not approve. Ideologically, you understand.”
“That is fine.” The avarice burned brighter in her eyes. “Then I look forward to working with you.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Landon had nothing to do but think. They left him alone most of every day, and his guards didn’t usually talk to him. The memories pressed in on all sides, and with nothing to lose, he dropped his resistance and let them in. He entertained each lifetime a short while, then moved it along and stepped farther into the past—not so much because Niko had told him to, but because he was grudgingly curious.
It didn’t take long for him to start to believe. He understood he’d been in the Underworld lots of times before, and so had everyone else. He accepted that the immortals were legendary down here, known by all the souls as part of the history of the Underworld even during the long span when the “gods” were just mortals like the rest of humanity. He also grasped the disturbing trend that nearly all of the immortals were considered a force for good in the world. And the few that weren’t, well, they were really only viewed as nuisances, not sources of true evil. True evil came from people like murderers. People who behaved like Thanatos members, to look at it one way.
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And he knew that, on occasion, he’d led a harmful enough life that he’d been confined to the caves of punishment. Not for long; the vine latching him to the wall had been skinny, and had disintegrated and fallen away to free him after a few years at most. But somehow the memory of being there was the scariest of all the disturbing things he could remember.
He was huddled up, hugging his knees, contemplating that place, when Niko arrived, balancing a tray of food on top of his head.
Landon looked at him as he unlocked the door. “Is my grandmother in the caves underneath?” He’d wanted to ask about her again, but hadn’t dared for fear that asking would somehow make things worse for him—or for her, even. Now, under the morbid sway of these thoughts, he had to know.
Niko paused, then swung the door open and swept the tray down to the ground. “But of course.”
“Then…you don’t…” He stopped. No, the immortals didn’t control those caves, couldn’t free anyone down there even if they wanted to. Landon got that now, or at least his memories insisted it was true.
Niko rotated the keys around his finger. “If you’re not hungry yet, we could go see her.”
Goosebumps shivered up all over Landon’s body. He nodded.
Niko bungee-corded Landon’s wrists together behind his back and guided him out of the cell, keeping one hand around Landon’s upper arm. Now that Landon’s own unwashed stench didn’t fill his nostrils, he was able to notice that Niko smelled nice. Sort of natural and spicy. Landon glanced sideways at his captor, who was his own height and maybe his own age. With his beautiful classic-statue profile and unusual but urbane accent, Niko was totally the kind of guy Landon would have hit on in one of the clubs he had, on rare occasion, slipped into for some adventure.
Right. If he weren’t an enemy, holding Landon prisoner. Oh hi, Stockholm Syndrome. Landon snorted humorlessly to himself, and shoved those fancies out of his head.
Diverting his attention was easy enough to do, since where they were going was getting eerier by the second. After skirting the edge of the fields full of ghosts, Niko led him into a crevice in the wall, hidden behind an outcropping of rock. Niko switched on a flashlight. The tunnel sloped downward. Its sides got so close together Landon could have touched both at once if his arms had been free. The air got stuffier and hotter, as if some furnace waited at the bottom. Or some hell.
