Coils

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” Adonis said. “Persephone is…”

  “Crazy,” Narcissus muttered.

  Adonis glared at him. “She’s just lonely, I told you. Even if she did have some kind of breakdown—”

  “If?”

  “I will not let you vilify her!”

  “Interesting as this is,” Cressida said. “Until we swear together, my ass is parking right here.”

  They stared at her, but she was tired of taking everyone’s shit. She kept replaying the kiss with Medusa, and it made her angrier each time. She’d been stupid, so blind, so naive. She felt like a schoolgirl led on by an upperclassman until that fateful day when she thought her crush was going to ask her out and instead asked to copy her homework.

  A nasty little voice inside her sniggered that she should have known someone like Medusa couldn’t have been interested in her, not really.

  She gritted her teeth, and the room seemed to grow darker. Even Adonis seemed to notice. The shine of the Underworld dulled. Mystery and awe had uplifted her, even when it had frightened her, too. She’d had this thrill of excitement akin to a kid in an amusement park, a feeling that said no matter what happened, this was a good time, a magical dream. She’d been the hero who just needed confidence to keep her going.

  Now, though, this was business. She should have been thinking like that since the beginning.

  Adonis and Narcissus were giving each other meaningful looks. Narcissus picked up the cup of tea Echo had brought him and swirled it around before taking a sip.

  Adonis sighed. He stared at Cressida and touched the top of her backpack as if giving her a not-so-subtle reminder that he held her future in his hands. Once Narcissus set his cup down, she grabbed it. He reached out but didn’t touch her, and she brought the tea up to her face. It smelled lovely, like chamomile and honey.

  “Go on,” she said. “Dare me. Threaten me.”

  Narcissus shook his head. “You’ll be trapped here. You won’t be able to move between the layers of the Underworld anymore.”

  She swirled the tea gently. “Isn’t this what you just threatened me with? Didn’t expect me to call your bluff? If I’m trapped here, all your plans will be ruined. Unless Persephone can move between the layers, but she probably can’t either. Eating the food of the Underworld is how she trapped herself here, too, right?”

  “Shh,” Adonis said softly. “Comparing yourself to a goddess is never a good idea.”

  “Especially not a crazy one,” Narcissus said, “who makes crazy demands from the comfort of her crazy house.”

  Laughing without humor, Adonis said, “Stop calling her that.”

  “I’m not going to be jerked around anymore,” Cressida said, getting pretty damn tired of them forgetting she was there, but from what they were saying, Cressida didn’t know if she really wanted to meet Persephone anymore. She just wanted to leave. “The three of us will swear by the river, then I’ll take my aunt, and get the hell out of here. No more games.”

  With a sigh, Adonis scooted her backpack toward her. She set the cup down with a little clink of porcelain. She didn’t put it on the saucer, hoping it would leave a ring on the mahogany table.

  “I’ll be right back,” Adonis said.

  As soon as he was gone, Narcissus shifted over to the other sofa. “Are you going to take revenge on Medusa?”

  Cressida winced, not knowing what kind of revenge she could get, if she even wanted any. “Her sisters will fade. Isn’t that revenge enough?”

  “It might be for some.” He fidgeted with a pillow. “But you could always make things harder for her.”

  “How?”

  “Well, you’re going to the Elysian Fields again. It wouldn’t be too hard to find Perseus and warn him. That way, even if some other poor, living sap winds up down here, Medusa will never be able to carry out her plan.”

  Could she do that? It hurt her chest even to think about it. But Medusa deserved it. Her sisters deserved it. If Adonis and Narcissus had told her the truth, then Medusa had been tricking her from the beginning, no matter that it was for a good cause. Medusa could have just asked for help.

  Now everything between them was built on lies and illusions and promises that no one ever intended on keeping. Cressida pulled out a notebook and started working on the wording of the oath they would take, making sure getting June back occupied the prime spot.

  *

  It took twenty minutes of hanging from a rafter before their captive told them everything. They’d tried the same tactics they used on the satyr, but this one had been with the organization a little longer and had needed a tad more convincing, but just a tad. Medusa was afraid things were going to get messy, but all it took to get this one’s lips moving was being strung upside down in a warehouse and gently spun like a tetherball.

  Shame he’d had nothing good to tell them. He knew Cressida was being held in a heavily guarded house. Well, they’d expected that. Adonis and Narcissus were both with her. They’d expected that, too. What they didn’t expect was that the house was in the Terrace, the most exclusive place in Asphodel, rumored to be like an extension of the Elysian Fields, but that was just something the residents said to make themselves feel more special, according to those who weren’t invited to live there. And it meant that Cressida was being held close to the palace where Hades and Persephone lived.

  Like Hecate, the rulers of the dead had chosen to make their home among the shades and those who supposedly hadn’t lived their lives to the fullest. Hades did it to be closer to the bulk of his charges, and Hecate said Asphodel suited her better, whatever that meant. But Persephone was trapped in the layer of the Underworld where she’d eaten the famous pomegranate. Rumor said she created the Terrace because she wanted a taste of what her life on Mount Olympus had been like. She no longer returned to the surface world, not since belief in her had waned, and since then, the Terrace had become even more closed off and elitist than before.

  Medusa looked to the distance and imagined she could see the Terrace through the shade fog. Gates surrounded the whole area, which was built on a succession of ledges. The elevators that crisscrossed Asphodel didn’t go there. Everyone had to go through the gates. Behind the Terrace stood a ring of mountains that marked the edge of the Underworld, though they were an illusion, and rumor had it that if you tried to cross them, you’d run smack into a wall like a movie set painting.

  As for who lived in the Terrace, it was a mystery why some were chosen and others were not. Some were people who’d gained favor with Hades or Persephone in life. Well, mostly Hades, and those were few and far between. The people who’d gained favor with Persephone were often young men like Adonis, and they weren’t allowed to live in the Terrace, though it seemed they were allowed to visit.

  With others, though, who knew? Maybe the lord and lady of the Underworld just liked some stories better than others. And it was possible to be kicked out and new people brought in, though that would earn the newcomers the ire of the rest of Asphodel. Living in relative luxury, though, one could afford a lot of ire.

  And now they had to find a way to sneak Cressida out of a heavily guarded, heavily watched section of the Underworld, out of a house that probably belonged to Persephone. The whole place was guarded by chimeras and dragons and all sorts of things that would be pulling guard duty in Tartarus if Hades didn’t need them for his own little community of snobs.

  “Well, that’s it,” Arachne said as they sat outside the warehouse, their captive still swinging gently inside. “We’ll never get into the Terrace.”

  “Never is a big word,” Medusa said.

  “Sorry, Snakes, all the webs in the world won’t get you past the guards at the gate, and neither will his sword.” Arachne pointed at Agamemnon and then at Pandora. “And opening a door to space would probably just get us killed.”

  “I shall have to apologize to Scylla’s family,” Pandora said quietly. “I’m quite embarrassed. I wonder if they’ll
accept a fruit basket.”

  Agamemnon frowned. “I suppose there’s always deception. Sneak into the Terrace and sneak out.”

  “We could wait until they move her,” Arachne said. “Whatever they want her for, it can’t be to hang around in there.”

  “It’ll be ambrosia again,” Medusa said.

  “So we wait until they take her to the Fields, and then we grab her,” Arachne said.

  “No doubt she’ll be highly guarded then as well,” Agamemnon said.

  “Then what’s your idea, Pops?”

  He glared at her. “You’re far more ancient than I am, even though you’ve chosen to look like Undead Barbie.”

  “Shut up,” Medusa said. Both fell quiet, seeming to sense she wasn’t willing to listen to their nonsense.

  They could try to take Cressida as she was moved, though that would be when Adonis would expect them. No doubt they’d act accordingly with guards and traps and blinds. She was mulling the possibilities of finding a way into the Terrace when she felt a tickle in the air, her sisters whispering her name.

  “I’ll be right back.” She walked a short distance from the others and pulled a piece of fog. “What is it?”

  “We have found the living woman.”

  “Me, too. She’s in the Terrace.”

  “She has finally come out where we can see her.”

  Medusa gnawed on her bottom lip. “They must be taking her to the Fields. We’ll have to hurry and put together an ambush. Can you track them? Keep me informed?”

  “She is not moving.”

  Medusa paused. If they were foolish enough to have her walking around where anyone combing through the shade fog could see her, maybe there was hope for sneaking her out after all. “Which house?”

  “The palace, in the garden, wandering. She seems thoughtful, sad.”

  “What?” Hades wouldn’t let Adonis into the palace, which meant Persephone had sneaked him in, but why sneak in Cressida at the same time and risk the chances of exposing Persephone’s lover and a living human? Hades probably didn’t mind the lovers as long as he could pretend they weren’t real, but under his own roof? And what would he think of a living mortal in his midst?

  Unless… “It’s not Cressida, is it? You’ve found June.”

  “Wandering the palace garden.”

  Medusa covered her mouth, but that didn’t stop her smile. If Persephone was cooking up some scheme with Adonis and Cressida, that meant she’d taken her godly eye off June. They were probably planning to either dangle June in front of Cressida or threaten her to get what they wanted. Medusa ground her teeth; she’d thought of doing the same.

  Well, now she had the opportunity to right some of her wrongs. She hurried back to the others. “Change of plans.”

  *

  Cressida couldn’t help feeling a little sad when Persephone didn’t show up for the swearing. Since she hadn’t actually met a goddess, she thought it would be another thing to check off her list. Then she reminded herself that expectation and wonder were stupid, and that she’d abandoned them for sheer, unadulterated fury.

  Adonis and Narcissus swore by the River Styx that everything they’d told her was true to the best of their knowledge, and Cressida was surprised by the lurching feeling inside her. To the last, she’d been hoping Medusa hadn’t lied about everything, but too good to be true was more than just a phrase people occasionally trotted out. It was a mantra she should have learned long before then.

  Still, part of her clung to the idea that they could believe it all they wanted, and it still might not be true. It could be gossip. Medea could be spreading lies. If she wanted to hurt Medusa, what better way than to turn Cressida against her? But every time she clung to those thoughts, she kept coming back to a moment she and Medusa had shared, right after they’d come back from Tartarus, and she’d told Medusa she wanted to lure Perseus out of the Elysian Fields. She’d expected to see joy on Medusa’s face, but Medusa’s expression had been unmistakably guilty. Cressida had been surprised but hadn’t questioned it. Now it seemed like the red flag it should have been, like so many other things were.

  And Medea had sworn on the river, too.

  Adonis and Narcissus swore that they would produce June once they had the ambrosia. Cressida swore that she would retrieve the ambrosia. As she did, she felt the air coalesce around her, as if the very stones of the Underworld were listening. A shimmer in the air seemed to seep into her skin, and she felt it humming within her, along with a subtle tickle in her mind like when she knew she was forgetting something but couldn’t recall exactly what.

  Except now she knew what it was. She needed to get the ambrosia more than anything she’d needed to do before. She wondered if this was how addicts felt. “I’m ready when you are,” she said.

  If she failed to get the ambrosia, she wondered if she’d be banished to the living world after her year unconscious, or if she’d be lost in either Asphodel or Tartarus, left to the devices of whoever found her. She wondered if she’d eventually fall for Medusa again, if she’d someday be as ready to forget the rest of her life had ever existed in exchange for another kiss.

  Cressida snarled and turned away so Narcissus and Adonis wouldn’t see. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t her fault she’d been so trusting. It wasn’t wrong to trust people; most people weren’t looking to dick everyone over. But even though her logical mind told her this, she couldn’t help seeing all the times she might have spotted it, all the times Medusa talked around questions rather than answered them, the little clues that said no one could be as altruistic as Medusa pretended to be. But Cressida had stubbornly believed in integrity. She’d known people who always helped others before they helped themselves, but she felt as if she shouldn’t have expected everyone she met to be the same.

  Maybe that was the worst thing Medusa would ever do to her: make her suspicious of everyone from now on.

  Adonis handed her back the harpe of Cronos inside its sheath, and she buckled it around her waist. “I don’t know if you’ll need it,” he said, “but better safe than sorry.”

  “I notice you waited until after the oath to give it to me.”

  He grinned. “Like I said, better safe than sorry.”

  “No doubt Medusa will try to snatch you back,” Narcissus said, “probably while we’re in route.”

  “I wouldn’t go with her even if she begged.”

  They glanced at each other, and Adonis shrugged. He walked toward the door, but Narcissus lingered. “I wonder, is one of the reasons you agreed to help us because you know we’re at cross purposes with Medusa, and you want to hurt her?”

  She sneered so she didn’t have to sputter that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t any of his business. “Now you don’t want my help?”

  He lifted his hands in surrender. “Just a friendly question. The desire for revenge can eat you up fast. Don’t let it follow you into the world of the living when your task here is done.”

  She stalked past him to where a few of their gang waited at the doors. Someone draped a cloak over her, and she pulled the hood up. Someone else was chanting, calling an illusion into being.

  “Think you’d forgive her in my place?” Cressida asked as Narcissus regained her side.

  “Do what you like. I’m just warning you that if you hold on to revenge and mistrust, you’ll make yourself sick.”

  It was so like something her aunt would have said that she nearly sobbed a laugh. “I just want this to be over.” Frantic energy had carried her along so far, but it wasn’t fun anymore, not the danger or the awe. She barely glanced at the palatial homes around them, barely looked at the view of the whole of the Underworld lying before her, elevator lines crossing and crisscrossing it. She could see mountains in the distance, past the shimmer of shade fog, and if she squinted, she imagined she could see the hole where she’d outrun Cerberus and began this whole adventure.

  She realized she hadn’t done more than nap since she’d gotten here, and that made
her think of food, which made her stomach grumble. She dug into her snacks as they strode through the Terrace, out the gate, and onto one of the elevators that traversed the rest of Asphodel. The doors opened and closed multiple times, but any other passengers were put off by the car full of gang members.

  She suddenly wanted her bed more than anything. She’d wind up in the covers and have a good cry. Pathetic! One woman lied to her, tried to use her, and she was reduced to tears? The thought stiffened her spine. People had been trying to use each other since time immemorial; she couldn’t go to pieces when it happened to her.

  But she kept reliving the looks they’d exchanged, the kiss, the way she’d gone back to Aix’s prison to get Medusa out. How Medusa must have been laughing at her then. She’d probably kissed Cressida just to avoid laughing in her face.

  When Cressida looked up, Narcissus was staring at her, and she gave him a dark look. What did he know? Just because he’d been sentient for thousands of years he thought he was an expert on everything. His tale wasn’t even a revenge story. He’d died because he was stupid. Who drowned in a puddle trying to make out with his own reflection? It was a blessing he’d never had children.

  But she would take his advice to heart, stupid as he was. When she returned to the land of the living, she wouldn’t give a single thought to Medusa. If any student or professor brought her up, Cressida’s only response would be that someone as odious as Medusa had probably deserved to be killed. If she’d even existed. Which she hadn’t. Because she was a monster. And an asshole.

  Cressida’s silly, rational mind told her she didn’t really believe that, but she told it to shut up, take a break for a while, and let anger rule for once. It helped a bit, carrying her all the way to the gate of the Elysian Fields without the elevator car stopping again. That suited her fine even as it seemed to confuse the gang, who muttered something about how it must be a slow day out on the streets. Whatever. She wanted to get this over with.