Cerberus guards Cleveland? It was enough to prompt another sputtering laugh, but she clamped down on it quickly. June was depending on her. This was no time to go insane. After a final look at Cerberus’s snouts, she walked from the alley onto a street only wide enough for foot traffic. Neon signs flickered off glass paned buildings, and towering skyscrapers glowed like some kind of undersea creatures. There were billboards of moving lights, and long, snaking cables that crossed and crisscrossed the buildings, all of it covered in dingy fog that made it impossible to see whether this place had a sky or the roof of a cavern.
People hustled to and fro, going into and out of doors, gathering on platforms stuck to the sides of buildings as if waiting for a train, but an enormous elevator came down from one of the cables, and a bunch of people hurried in while others hustled out.
“Manticore,” someone beside her said.
She turned slowly, as if any sudden movements would shake her from this dream, and when she saw what had spoken, her mouth stayed open. The creature stood as high as her shoulder, and her brain went on autopilot to confirm that it was indeed a manticore. It had the lion body, the human face, a twitching serpent for a tail, and this version had the wings of a bat that some legends included, and some did not.
“Yes?” she tried.
“Manticore.” It shuffled closer, eyeing her up and down.
“Um, good?” This couldn’t be real. She was hallucinating in a cave while some young twerp riffled her pockets.
The creature growled deep in its throat, and she stepped back. A small hand rested against the manticore’s flank, and a short man stepped up beside it.
Satyr, Cressida’s mind supplied: a man with a goat’s lower body, furry chest, and ram’s horns among his curly hair. “Pan?” she said.
He brayed a laugh. “Don’t I wish! But thanks for the compliment!” He leered and then cleared his throat and put on a more businesslike expression, as if she only got a small taste of flirting for every compliment she paid. “Do you want to rent a manticore?”
“Rent?” She looked at it again, and it was still staring. “He’s renting himself?”
“She, darling, and manticores don’t rent themselves. All they really do is say, ‘manticore’ and then do the job assigned to them, mostly guarding valuables. So, what do you say?” He slapped the monster on the flank.
“Manticore,” it said again.
She was about to say no thanks, but now that her brain was engaged, it was hard to turn off. “Why does it only say manticore?”
“What else would it say?”
“Well, if it guards things, why wouldn’t it say, ‘go away,’ or ‘be gone,’ or ‘get the hell out of here before I eat you’? What good does it do saying your own name like a Pokémon?”
He shook his head, and she found it curious that his first words weren’t wondering about what a Pokémon was. “Well, so the person trying to sneak through your house or whatnot knows there’s a manticore there. If he said get out, he could be anything!”
Her survival instincts tried to tell her to walk away, but the stubborn, logical part of her brain put them in a headlock. “But anyone could stand in a dark room and say manticore, and then they wouldn’t have to pay you.”
His mouth worked for a few moments, and he glanced around. “Look, are you trying to make trouble?”
“No! I’m—”
“If you’re not looking for a manticore, why don’t you get the hell out of here?”
And what was she doing standing around arguing with a satyr about manticores when she was in the freaking Underworld? Her stubborn brain finally shut up. “Um, right. Sorry to bother you.”
He gave her another look up and down. “There’s something strange about you.”
“Right. I’m the strange one.” She shifted away, remembering what Nero had told her about living people being a hot commodity.
The satyr moved closer, staring harder, and she hurried into a crowd, but the more she banged into people, the more weird looks she got, as if everyone was cluing in to some subtle hint that she missed. At last, she ended up in an alley, breathing hard, trying to shrink into the darkness to avoid anyone seeing her. Maybe she should have hired a manticore just to keep the curious at bay, but she had no idea what anyone here used as currency.
Here. The Underworld. It was almost enough to make her try throwing up again. She sneaked another peek into the street. Some feeling was rising in her, fighting past the shock and uncertainty. Glee fought past disbelief and even pushed anger aside. It was the Underworld. The freaking Underworld!
And she wouldn’t find June if she was busy gawking. She straightened her backpack and glanced around, looking for someone who seemed trustworthy. Most people had their chins tucked in as they walked, not looking at anyone, just like in large cities around the world. She wondered if there was somewhere she could get a map.
She glanced over her shoulder, and a man walking behind her smiled. His brown hair was artfully tousled, his skin deeply tanned, making the white of his cable-knit sweater gleam. He looked like something out of a catalogue with his perfectly balanced, impossibly handsome face, especially when he winked with bright, turquoise eyes.
When he swaggered closer, she dropped back a bit, just to find out what a dead catalogue model might have to say. He laughed, sporting a smug look, but he couldn’t know that she wasn’t the least bit interested in his body, just curious enough to talk to someone who wasn’t a monster salesman.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders as if that was his right. “Come along, darling.”
She ducked out from under him. “Why should I?”
His face fell, his look so mystified that she laughed. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“That’s my line. Just who do you think you are?”
He blinked. “Adonis.”
She thought he might be joking but then remembered where she was. “No shit, really?”
His smile came back in all its confident glory. “Of course. Now…” He made as if to grab hold of her again, but she shook her head.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
Again, that look of utter confusion, as if wondering how she could be resisting him. “But…I’m…”
“What do you want? Let’s start there.”
“I want you to come with me.”
“In order to…”
“To help me.” He spoke so slowly, she wondered if he was trying to figure it out as well.
“If you need help, there are better ways to start than, ‘Come on, darling.’”
He stopped cold and pulled back, his frown suspicious now. “What magic do you have?”
She had to laugh. “Whoever sent you should have done a little more research.” She started walking again. There had to be someone else who could help her.
“Look, are you going to come with me or not?”
“Not.”
“You’re just like your aunt.”
Cold fingers played up and down Cressida’s spine, but she kept any emotion off her face, wanting to know what he knew. “My aunt gave you a hard time?”
“She’s made certain things very difficult.”
“And that’s why she’s now…”
“In the—” He eyed her and smiled. “Nice, but beautiful doesn’t always mean stupid.”
“Where is she?”
He pursed perfect lips. “What if I told you that you’d find her if you came with me?”
“What could I do for you that June couldn’t?”
He eyed her up and down but with a calculating look. She thought he might turn on the smarm again, so she picked up the pace.
“We do need your help,” he said.
“Who is we?”
“Narcissus and myself.”
“Holy shit, Narcissus, too?” The man who’d gotten killed because he couldn’t help flirting with himself and the man who had two goddesses fighting over him because he was so pretty? Their house had to have a
lot of mirrors. She wondered how long it took either of them to get ready.
“Like you needed June’s help?” she asked.
He walked in front of her, going backward. “Help us, and we’ll help you get her back.”
So they either had her and someone else had taken her, or they knew who’d had her from the beginning. At least her odds for being alive looked better and better, though the time it would take to find her seemed like a long road ahead. “From where?”
“Hecate’s palace. You’ll never get her on your own.”
Cressida’s heart sank. Hecate, goddess of magic, patroness of witches. Nero had never said there’d be actual deities in the Underworld. But June was the best at what she did. It was only fitting she’d find the most trouble. “Start at the beginning.”
*
Medusa slid to a stop as Adonis took the mortal woman under his arm. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” She clutched her muddy robe, tempted to go scaly in front of everyone. Bad enough that someone else had gotten to the mortal first, but fucking Adonis? Now the mortal would swoon and fall into his arms, and Medusa’s chance for revenge would be gone faster than a bottle of moisturizer in Adonis and Narcissus’s house.
It was a pity, too. She was quite pretty, young, with intelligent blue eyes and a mass of red curls. She was clearly prepared for a lengthy stay, if the enormous backpack was any indication. And she sparkled with life, a little shimmer that extended just past her enticing curves. When she ducked out of Adonis’s embrace, Medusa choked on her own laugh and picked up speed to try to hear what they were saying.
He tried to charm her, and she thwarted him. Medusa wanted to whoop for joy, wanted to slide right between them and introduce herself, but Adonis mentioned the other mortal and how these two were connected. The young woman tried to play it cool, but Medusa could read the lines in her stiff neck, the slight tremble in her voice. She was worried for the other mortal, her aunt June.
Adonis played on that, claiming he could bring them together again, and she seemed as if she might believe him, but what choice did she have, alone as she was? People on the street were beginning to notice her, no doubt seeing that telltale shimmer. A harpy in a trench coat moved out from under the awning of an Ethiopian restaurant and followed them.
Medusa sped up until she was at the harpy’s side, the harpy’s long claws clacking on the pavement. The harpy glanced down with a woman’s face and then did a double take, staring at Medusa’s muddy robe, her bare feet.
“Hunting mortals, are we?” Medusa asked.
The harpy grinned with sharp teeth. “Yes! Long has it been since I’ve tasted real human flesh.” Her voice screeched like discordant violin strings, and she smelled like the floor of a butcher shop.
Medusa winced and tried to cover it with what she hoped was a convincing smile. “I was just saying the other day that being dead wouldn’t be so bad if we could eat one another.”
“Yes, yes!” The harpy bobbed her head on its skinny neck, her lank hair barely moving. “Now is my chance, yes.” She glared. “I saw her first.”
“Absolutely! But you’ll need some help with him, surely.” She nodded toward Adonis. “A powerful spirit, fully aware. And the woman is a grown mortal. Big enough for two?”
The harpy tilted her head back and forth. “Yes, big enough. I see it. If you help with the man, yes.”
“Perfect.” Adonis and the woman had slowed. Medusa pulled on the harpy’s arm. “Just duck in here a moment, dear, and I’ll tell you my plan.”
Power roiled through her as they stepped into an alley, and the harpy didn’t have time to blink before its flesh shuddered and hardened, petrifying into stone. Medusa’s power might not have been as strong as it was when she was alive, but it was enough to work on some no-name harpy. As she stepped back out, she told herself it was the harpy’s own fault. She should have found out just whom she was talking to.
Chapter Three
Hecate’s palace had a metal fence around it like the one surrounding the White House. Cressida curled her hands around the bars and stared across a lush green lawn spotted with purple and yellow flowers. In the distance, the palace rose like Zeus’s temple, gleaming white amidst the flashing lights of surrounding skyscrapers. It lived up to some of what Cressida had been expecting of the Underworld in general. Huge columns held up a high, peaked roof, and statuary dotted the yard. Braziers glittered around a large reflecting pool, and hints of gold shone from inside the palace’s huge open doorway. Cressida squinted, but the fence was set too far away for her to really tell what lay inside. No one moved in or out, and she stood on tiptoe, trying to see past the shadows. It wasn’t like looking at a relic or museum replica. The feel of it hummed in the air, as if it proclaimed itself a sacred place. Even without any people, the palace seemed vibrant and, for lack of a better term, alive.
“If we stay long enough, it will shift into something else,” Adonis said.
She blinked away visions of the palace’s interior, the wonders it would hold. “What?”
“Well, sometimes it becomes a high-rise or a medieval castle or a big pile of cotton candy or whatever she wants it to be. She is the goddess of magic, after all. The whole thing is nebulous.”
Cressida’s imagination popped like a soap bubble, and she let her hands fall to her sides. “That’s a little disappointing.”
He put on an exaggerated pout. “Aw, the goddess will be so sad to hear that.”
She gave him a dark look. “What is with the Underworld anyway? Where are the theaters? The agoras? The tombs and stadiums? This is all just so…” She gestured at the modern architecture warring with the ancient and sometimes coming up somewhere in between, most with a decided lack of columns. “Anachronistic.”
He snorted. “Well, excuse us for not being Greece-land. We keep abreast of culture. It filters down to us. We may be dead, but we’re not blind, deaf, and dumb.” He thought for a moment. “Well, except for the blind, deaf, and dumb.”
“Then you should know we don’t say dumb anymore.”
He barked a laugh. “Sometimes, things change so fast up there we can’t keep up.”
“Fast,” she said, thinking on the millennia that separated them. “Right.”
“How else do you think we’re communicating? We hear all the languages. Well, those of us who are aware hear them. If the shades know what’s going on, they’re not telling anyone.”
“Shades?”
He gestured upward at the fog.
She glanced that way but saw nothing. “What?”
He sighed, jumped, and snagged a piece of fog. She took a step back. No one could grab fog, or maybe that was his undead superpower. She flicked through the myths she knew but couldn’t find anything similar. When he brought the fog close to her face, she leaned in, watching the swirling shapes until she noticed they were staring back at her.
She jumped away. “It has a face!”
Adonis laughed so hard, he leaned forward on his knees. “Of course it does. It’s a ghost, a shade.”
“But you’re all ghosts!”
He put his hands on his hips, and the shade wriggled in his grasp. “Excuse me? I’m a sentient dead person.”
“Right. Sorry, don’t know all the terms yet.”
He shrugged. “You’ll learn.”
“So?” She gestured at the shade, still a little queasy at seeing it wiggle.
He let it go, and it drifted up to rejoin the rest. “Not everyone who died is able to live like those of us who are aware. Most of them just drift around. It’s belief from people in the mortal world that sustains us. The more people who remember our names, the more substantial we are, though how often you mortals get things wrong is astounding.”
“You were mortal, too, pal, or you wouldn’t be dead.”
“You know what I mean.” He sighed. “I guess one day mortals won’t remember any of us, and then we’ll all become shades.”
“Poor things.” It was a bummer, and she wonder
ed if the same fate awaited everyone who died, no matter where they wound up, if every person who’d ever lived but wasn’t remembered was floating around in their own afterlife. It gave her a sinking feeling, as if the world was sliding out from under her feet, and she tried to banish the thought.
“It’s weird,” Adonis said. “Sometimes, one of the shades will come popping into awareness as his or her life is discovered by some scholar who’ll publish a paper on the Internet and boom, instant sentience.”
“Are they aware of anything?”
“They have a kind of joined consciousness. The rest of us use them to communicate with one another.”
She stared, horrified, but he shrugged again. “This whole place is shaped by the collective consciousness of the people who live here, but we can’t do everything we dream about. We’re not telepathic. We have to use the tools we’re given.”
She stared at the modern town, the flashing lights. “So right now you’re all stuck on ultra-modern?”
“I like it. We went through a French Revolution thing once. That was terrifying.”
She nodded but ducked a little to stay out of a patch of billowing shade fog. “So, do you know Hecate?”
“Not personally. Narcissus and I know almost everyone else worth knowing here. We can’t cross over to the Elysian Fields—none of us can—and I suppose I could visit those writhing around in Tartarus, but who would want to?”
Cressida pictured both the Elysian Fields, rumored home to the heroes of Greek myth, and the fabled Tartarus, where Zeus cast those who’d committed heinous crimes against the gods. She wondered if either would look as she’d imagined them, if the Fields were green meadows or if Tartarus was a craggy, violent land covered in punishments. She went through the layers of the Underworld in her head. “So that just leaves the Fields of Punishment and the Meadows of Asphodel. Where are they?”
“You’re standing in them. Well, the Fields of Punishment aren’t really a thing, not anymore. All the really bad people and creatures are locked in Tartarus, and no one really remembers the people who were stuck in the Fields of Punishment anymore, so they just sort of merged into Asphodel.”
Coils Page 4
