“That,” she continued, grabbing two pieces of Steele off the cart and pressing them into Hades’s and Medea’s hands. “Is what our people have been doing to theirs. She’s a goddess. One of the Graces, if I’m not mistaken.”
Otrera glanced at Hades and he nodded. “The Graces have never attacked us. They’ve never tricked us, they’ve never done anything to us because they’re so minor as far as deities go that even I could overpower them. Now I don’t know about you guys,” Otrera continued, moving in front of Hades and Medea, a piece of Steele in both hands, “but I didn’t sign up for this. The Pantheon is coming here. And they’re going to find her. Which side do you want to be on when that happens?”
“If that’s true,” Narcissus said, a smile in his voice. “Then it’s more important than ever that we break through this shield. We’ll need them,” he motioned to us, “as hostages.”
A few of the demigods hesitated, glancing from the fallen Grace to Narcissus.
A few.
But not enough.
Chapter XLI
Medea
I THREW UP SHIELD after shield after shield as the demigods surged forward. They shoved aside the metal table and I threw up yet another shield, halting their progress, then they broke through that and I threw up another, giving another inch.
Aphrodite had fallen somewhere behind me, but I couldn’t break concentration long enough to check on her. Otrera and Adonis grappled across the tiny room. Sweat broke out along my forehead as I struggled to keep them inside the barrier. Hades stood in front of me, hand linked with mine to pour power into the shield, and that helped a little, but using power with the poison in his system was costing him, and I was running out.
We held out for maybe a minute before the demigods reached us. Pure chaos followed. Hades tried to shield me from the worst of it, but it only took seconds before Deucalion and Neleus had me by either arm and dragged me out of the room.
“No! Let go!” I glanced around for help. But Hades was barely holding his own as he fought demigods carrying weapons that could kill him in an instant. Otrera met my eyes and renewed her struggles, but we were just too outnumbered. No one could help me.
Help yourself. I was the strongest being left on this island. The gods may have outranked me once, but their powers had been poisoned away. Mine were pretty much spent, but every minute I didn’t use them, they slowly built back up. All I had to do was stay alive long enough to use it.
Conscious, not alive. They’d never kill me, I was too useful. But they would separate me from my friends and knock me out so I couldn’t generate any shields or teleport to escape. If I let them take me, I’d end up a never-ending medical donor. Right back where I started.
I’d die before I allowed that to happen.
I increased my struggles against the hands holding me in a frenzy as they dragged me through the long narrow hallway—kicking, screaming, biting, clawing, anything to get them to loosen their grip.
“Stop that,” Deucalion grunted when I managed to kick his leg hard enough to make him stumble. “We’re not going to hurt you, even though you freaking drugged my boyfriend. Narcissus just wants you out of here so you don’t get caught in the crossfire.”
No, he wanted to use me. To lock me up and cut me open. Never again. Never, never, never. “Let me go!” I twisted back and forth. I might not be strong, I might not know how to fight, and my powers might be completely wiped out, but I did not have to make this easy for them.
The ground lurched beneath our feet, sending us all sprawling. I pitched forward, hitting the wall hard enough to see stars.
Get up! Groaning, I did just that.
Deucalion had rolled into the wall just next to me. I scurried away from him, then noticed the odd angle of his neck. His chest rose and fell in pained breaths, his eyes moved wildly until they landed on me. “Can’t—” he gasped. “Can’t—”
He couldn’t die. Not even with a broken neck. Somehow in all the chaos, I’d forgotten that demigods still couldn’t die. Horror crashed over me as I realized the true cost of the battle raging in that tiny observation room. The earth shaking beneath my feet. Water that would wash over this island when it finally broke to pieces and sank.
I knew better than anyone how horrible it felt to be brought to the brink of death only to heal over and over and over again. But what if I got so badly hurt I could no longer heal? Did I count as a demigod? If I died here, would I actually die, or would I suffer endlessly, wishing for death?
The ground bucked again, sending me back down to my knees. Neleus managed to stand, and after a horrified look at Deucalion, the young demigod shuffled his way toward me.
I pitched forward, back, and sideways as the spackled tile floor lurched. How much time did we have before the whole island was destroyed? Where was the Pantheon? It felt like I’d teleported us to this lab days ago, not minutes. But it had been enough time, right? Where were they?
You need to signal Persephone? The memory of Hades’s voice echoed through my mind.
What did Aphrodite say she needed? Death by a divine hand? Did I count as divine? I could dreamwalk and heal and teleport, so maybe. Swallowing hard, I realized it was time for me to stop counting on other people to save me and get out of this mess myself.
I spun, surprising Neleus. He tried to grab me, but I danced backward, lurching a little as the ground continued to shake. How to disable him? I didn’t have any weapons. I wasn’t a fighter. I wasn’t—
Demigods couldn’t die. Would it matter if I counted as divine if the person I tried to kill wasn’t capable of dying? No, I realized with a gasp. Otherwise, Hades would have used one of the demigods to summon her already.
Thinking fast, I spun around and launched myself in the opposite direction, away from the room where all the fighting was happening. Away from the lab, toward the hospital lobby.
Demigods might not be able to die, but the humans on staff could.
Count down from ten, the annoyingly peppy red-headed nurse’s voice echoed in my mind, right out of my nightmares. You may experience slight discomfort.
She had been charmed into obedience. She had to do whatever I told her.
Chapter XLII
Aphrodite
THE SHIELD PROTECTING the small observation room snapped, and this time the demigods nearly reached us before Medea managed to get it recast. Otrera leapt into the fray. A blur of gold against the room’s cinderblock and tile, she fought demigod after demigod to stop them from reaching us, to no avail.
Chaos filled the cramped room. Medea cried out. Hades shifted into a defensive position as an army with Steele bore down on him. But I was too disoriented to stand, too panicky, too uncoordinated. The battle roared on, leaving me mostly ignored.
Hands seized me by my hair, yanking me off the ground, until I found myself, eye to blurring eye, with Calais.
“And where do you think you’re going?” the muscular demigod demanded, sneering at me.
“I’d settle for almost any room you’re not in.” Somehow, I managed to hang on to that shining, silver stake. A painful glance around the room showed me that Otrera was slumped against the wall, head lolling unconscious. Hades was swallowed by a crowd of Steele-wielding demigods. I didn’t see Medea anywhere.
Calais’s fist drove into my stomach and Adonis yelped in pain.
A grin spread across Narcissus’s face as he walked over, somehow still looking gelled, styled, and perfect. “You’re going to tell me how you turned him into a god, or you’re going to watch every one of your friends die.”
My grip on the Steele tightened. I raised it to stab Narcissus, but Calais grabbed it from my hand before I could even move it toward the demigod.
He yanked my head back by my hair and pressed the metal against my neck. “None of that now. Answer his question and
we might let you live. How did you turn Adonis into a god?”
I felt the Steele, cool against my throat, and stopped breathing, stopped swallowing, stopped everything.
“Adonis.” Narcissus plucked at the sleeves of his preppy sweater. “Kill Otrera.”
One of the demigods reached down and untied Adonis, placing a piece of Steele in his hands.
No. I couldn’t let this happen. They’d helped us. “She’s one of you!”
Some of the demigods looked uncomfortable as Adonis shambled over to where Otrera slumped unconscious against the cinderblock wall. But none of them spoke up.
“Stop,” I tried to shout, but the word came out as a hoarse whisper.
Adonis struggled against the order as he raised the silver stake.
“How did you make Adonis into a god? You’ve got three seconds. Three.”
I fought back a sob. If I told them, they’d capture us all. They’d never rest until they had every one of us under control and tortured into promises to grant them divinity. Bound to them and powerless during the transition.
“Two.”
The grim, dark future stretched before me as certain as one of Apollo’s visions. If I wasn’t killed outright, I’d be strapped to one of these tables and experimented on like Adonis. Medea too.
Anything was better than that.
“One.”
Chapter XLIII
Medea
“MEDEA!” NELEUS shouted, hurrying after me. The scrawny demigod seemed to have a much harder time keeping his balance on the lurching ground than I did.
I burst into the hospital lobby and found rubble and corpses. The demigods hadn’t broken down the door to the hidden wing at all. They’d taken shelter in the hospital, the highest, most stable point on the island. When it began to break to pieces, they noticed the single hallway that didn’t collapse, thanks to my shield.
Judging by the lack of horrified screams, it was likely all the humans on staff were already dead. There had to be another way.
Blood. Aphrodite had mentioned once that she’d tried to summon Poseidon with her blood, and she’d been itching to try again. But the shield didn’t allow liquid to pass through, ever since the earthquake.
Shield’s down now.
Beneath me, the ground rumbled and lurched as I picked my way through the broken lobby. The hospital was almost on the highest point of the island. Once the cabins had been farther uphill, but they’d crumbled off the back of the cliff. Everything else was down a very, very steep hill.
Taking off full speed wasn’t the smartest thing to do during the best of times, and running was really not a good idea during an earthquake. But unlike Neleus who followed behind me, I’d heal if I got hurt. I half-ran, half-tumbled, falling, sprawling, rolling until I reached the part of the island that finally flattened out and found myself next to the demolished dining hall.
Veering left, I ran until I hit the remnants of the beach. Waves taller than I was slammed into the shaking island, and I swallowed hard, remembering my fear of the ocean.
“You can do this,” I told myself, searching around for something sharp.
A jagged bit of pipe caught my attention, and I sliced my palm with it before shoving my hand into the water.
Chapter XLIV
Aphrodite
CALAIS’S GRIP ON me loosened as the air crackled with power. My breath caught, and I glanced across the small observation room to Hades. Persephone was coming to save us. She could swoop in, and—
Then I saw the dread on Hades’s face.
Half a dozen demigods held him in place against a cinderblock wall. A length of Steele was pressed against his throat. His dark hair fell over too-pale skin, marred with sweat. The fast rise and fall of his chest revealed a desperation and fear that cut me to the core.
What do you think she’d be willing to give to save you? I recalled saying to him as his panicked eyes darted to the Steele Calais held against my throat.
Narcissus didn’t seem to notice the power in the air. He continued to count down from three amidst the broken glass from the shattered one way mirror.
We don’t give them leverage if we can help it.
“No!” I knew what he was going to do the second before he did it.
Black lightning crackled in Hades’s hands. Calais flew backward, Steele falling to the tile floor in the same instant that a protective shield sprang up around me, Adonis, and Otrera. A wave of power swept the room. Every demigod within the building fell to their knees, souls ghosting out of their bodies in a wave of destruction.
“Why didn’t he just do that in the first place?” Adonis snapped free of Narcissus’s charm, dropping the Steele.
I screamed, rushing to Hades’s side as he fell to the ground. He’d diverted the power healing him from the poison. It was the only way he could have tapped into that much strength. But unlike when I’d diverted my power to save Adonis, his powers hadn’t gone anywhere else.
Dropping to my knees, I slid to his side as the lightning faded in a burst of black. When the poison raged through him, attacking his powers, he’d have nothing left to heal the damage it caused. But I could heal him. Somehow, I could—I would—
Agony ripped through me when I tried.
His very cold hand gripped mine. “Stop.”
“Give your powers to her. Will them all over, there’s time! We can heal you, we can—” That wouldn’t work. Any attempt at divine healing would make the problem exponentially worse. That’s why I’d been stuck on the island for all those months. “No,” I gasped as his chest spasmed.
His shaking hands pulled an object from the air. An old, lopsided coin. An obol, my brain provided, along with a bunch of historic information I didn’t need to know. Ancient Greeks used to put these coins on the eyes of the dead.
He pushed it into my hand. “Give this to her.”
A sob tore through my throat when I took the coin. The obol pulsed, light bending around it as it sucked up something.
Hades let out a long rattling breath, then went completely and utterly still.
The air in the room displaced with a pop. The Pantheon had arrived. But I didn’t notice until Persephone started screaming.
Chapter XLV
Persephone
MY PHONE BUZZED in my pocket. I ‘ported to a tiny inlet of land I’d spotted on my search and took a quick look at the screen. Coordinates!
Without bothering to read the rest of Poseidon’s message—he had not yet mastered the art of texting with brevity,—I hurried to the location he’d given me.
Hades was right in front of me. His dark hair plastered to his face, ice-blue eyes closed, strong, muscular features rendered slack and weak. What had they done to him?
Aphrodite leaned over him, a curtain of gold hair cascading over him. Something was wrong with her arm, but I hardly noticed because for a second, one second, I was so relieved to see them both. They were right there.
Then I realized why he was lying so still, and my world shattered.
No.
“Hades!” Power exploded through the room as I completely and utterly lost control. The earth trembled. Lightning lanced from a sky somehow suddenly visible above me.
The ground cracked open in a chasm of red sand impossibly deep for this shallow of an island. Tartarus. The schism in the realms felt like a thousand pins and needles skittering across my flesh. Strange gray forms scattered across the red sands, climbing the chasm walls, shimmering out of sight as they crossed the threshold from the Underworld to the Living Realm.
Aphrodite went rigid when I screamed, her glamour shredding to pieces. Too late, I realized that she was linked to me, to my out-of-control power. But I couldn’t rein it in. Couldn’t make it stop.
He was gone. He was gone. He
couldn’t be gone!
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Poseidon shouted, his ocean eyes wild. “You’ll kill us all, you stupid girl!” He threw himself between me and Aphrodite, reaching for my shoulders to shake sense into me.
I didn’t mean to hurt him. But he went flying, crashing, tumbling away from me. Athena, Ares, and the others shouted, trying to get me to stop.
But I was far too gone to heed their cries.
Chapter XLVI
Medea
THE SECOND MY blood touched ocean, the beach trembled. Air crackled with enough electricity to lift my hair. I recognized that power. I’d only felt it once, but it was so strong, I’d know it anywhere.
Persephone was coming.
This is it, I thought, barely able to suppress my excitement. The moment everything changes. I’d finally have a place where I belonged. It might take time to get as close to everyone as Aphrodite seemed to be, but I felt confident that I could manage.
I took off toward the ruins of the hospital with a grin, passing a panting Neleus on the way.
“Are you kidding me,” the scrawny demigod shouted as I darted past him.
“Try to keep up,” I called behind me. “You don’t want to miss this.”
I skidded back into the hidden wing and stopped so fast, Neleus slammed into me.
Chaos.
Pure and utter chaos.
Power emanated from the tiny blonde, filling the room, then burst outward in all directions. The roof exploded in a chunk of rock, dust choking the air. Walls shattered as the ground split. Persephone screamed, trying to rein in her power, but it was clear she’d lost control.
Hot, white light filled the room. It passed over the bodies of prone demigods, too damaged to fight any longer, but not able to die. Their souls ghosted out of their bodies then shattered in a burst of energy.
Venus Rising: Book 3 Aphrodite Trilogy (The Daughters of Zeus 6) Page 23
