I nodded absently. He wasn’t my usual source of wisdom, but his words cemented the determination in my heart. I needed to make a change in my life if I wanted to deal with these Purges myself. And that had to start at the very beginning—with my mom.
Sixteen
Persie
Returning to an empty apartment in the Fleet Wing—named after the former site of the SDC—I sought refuge in my bedroom. I had every intention of waiting for my mom to come back from wherever she was, but the Purges had taken their toll. Ensconced in the comfy covers, sleep tempted me like a wanton mistress.
Where is everyone? My exhausted mind struggled to focus. But with my smoky offshoots keeping them on constant guard, it seemed odd that my parents would suddenly disappear. Then again, I had them on speed dial and they could chalk-door to me in about five seconds flat, so I supposed it wasn’t a massive deal. A note had been pinned to the fridge: Dealing with coven business. Back soon. Ring IMMEDIATELY if you get Purge symptoms. But no specifics, like when they’d left or how long “soon” would be.
“Here’s hoping I don’t Purge before they get back,” I whispered to the ancient stuffed bear on my bed. My beloved Thread Bear, a name given to him by my Uncle Finch. He didn’t reply, but I sensed him listening, and that gave me comfort enough to drift off.
I stirred to the whine of a flying bug. My eyes opened slowly while my hand swatted on instinct, sending the buzzing critter on its way. Above me hung a dense canopy of humungous, dark green leaves, with cerulean sky poking through. Yellowed moss clung to moist tree trunks, and creeping vines swayed like hidden pythons. The humidity covered me in a sticky glaze, turning the air viscous. Even the boughs of the jungle trees seemed heavy and languid, buckling under the sweltering heat of the tropical atmosphere.
I sat up to better gauge my surroundings. My limbs were cooperating, my lungs were taking in the thick air, and my eyes were definitely looking at this jungle terrain, but my mind whispered, None of this is real. I’d gone to sleep and tumbled headfirst into a dream.
Please, not another monster dream. I’ve had enough of monsters for a while. I waited for the crash and crack of something charging toward me through the fecund undergrowth. But nothing came except the sounds of the jungle—the creak of tree branches, the rustle of animals hidden in the greenery, and the drip of condensation hitting lower leaves.
“I haven’t been in a dream jungle for ages.” I spoke aloud to ground myself in the dream, hearing my voice among the sound of the trees and the hidden critters.
I got to my feet and wiped the sweat off my brow. I expected my t-shirt and leggings to cling, since that was what I’d gone to sleep in. But glancing down, I realized I wasn’t dressed for bed anymore. A floaty white dress of gauzy cotton trailed all the way down to the ground, adorned with a lion-head pin at each shoulder. I fumbled for my hair and felt loose curls and two hard barrettes on either side of my head. Unclipping one, I stared at the unfamiliar item. Shaped in gold to look like a harp, or a lyre, the entire thing glittered with sapphires and diamonds.
“Weird.” I slotted it back into my hair and squinted around. The lack of monsters had me puzzled.
I’m here, so now what? A loud splash drew my attention. I whipped around, trying to locate the sound, but the jungle and its lush flora and fauna muffled everything.
I stood perfectly still, and another splash rewarded me. It came from up ahead. Gathering the flowing skirts of my dress, I tiptoed toward the sound. A moment later, I froze on the steep edge of a hole in the ground. One more step, and I would’ve fallen right into it. With my heart racing, I looked down into the hole and saw a deep pool beneath me. The water lay perfectly calm and impossibly clear, tinged with vivid turquoise.
A cenote. A natural underground reservoir of water. Santana and the Catemaco-Levis had spoken about them a few times after their yearly trips to Mexico, talking about how they were usually filled with kids dive-bombing and swinging into the pool. Not this one, though. And there was one other person here: a shadowed figure of a man, standing in the middle of a narrow suspension bridge that crossed over the pool. He had his back to me, a hood over his head. At least I thought it was a hood, but it might have been part of him.
My feet began to move without my permission, heading to the suspension bridge. Putting one hand on the rope banister, my heart beat with sudden urgency—but this time, the urgency came from him. I had to reach the shadowy man. I didn’t fear him or his shadowy form; I feared he would disappear before I could get to him.
“Who are you?” I called, walking tentatively down the bridge. It swayed violently, but my eyes fixed dead ahead. I wasn’t afraid. If it snapped, the pool would catch me. If I didn’t reach him in time, I felt I would lose something inexplicably valuable.
The silence turned thick, like everything else in the jungle.
“Tell me who you are.” I hurried faster along the rope bridge. He didn’t answer, though I thought I saw his head dip to his chest.
My feet hit the solid planks of wood and I ran for him, hand outstretched. I barely slowed when I touched his shoulder. My fingertips passed straight through him. A cold sensation shivered up my hand, as though I’d stuck it into an ice bucket. Still, I didn’t feel any fear, only confusion.
“Hello?” I shouted, the rock walls of the cenote throwing my voice back to me. The perfect, natural echo chamber.
“Here you are.”
I spun around in surprise, but there was no one there. The reply had come from inside my head. A voice I recognized.
“Leviathan?” I whispered, not wanting the name to echo back.
“My Persephone,” he said.
I scanned the platform and noticed two drying footprints where the shadow man had stood. “Why are you in my dream?”
“We parted on bad terms, and I wished to make amends. I am sorry that I alarmed you. It was not my intention.” His voice susurrated all around me.
“Are you sorry for giving this curse to me?” I looked up at the edge of the cenote, trying to spot that figure again.
Leviathan chuckled. “I will say it again: it is a gift. It is yours. It has always been yours. It is your legacy.”
My legacy? Hadn’t I longed for one of my own? Perhaps, that age-old saying had come back to bite me: be careful what you wish for. Or, perhaps, this really could be the start of something. A way to put myself on the map. I beamed giddily at the thought, my entire being floating on a wave of sudden positivity, my head swimming with the warmth of the jungle. Purging monsters didn’t have to be a death knell to life as I knew it. Purge beasts powered the Bestiary. Their energy was invaluable. What if I could turn it into something useful?
“I see that you are thinking.” Leviathan disturbed me again. “Thinking is beneficial. The sooner you come to accept this, the better it will be for you.” Silence echoed in my head briefly before he continued. “I must confess that I lied to you before.”
I sucked in a syrupy breath. “What do you mean?”
“I do want more than to get to know you. I want to help you,” Leviathan admitted. “I could not say so in front of your mother. She would never believe it. She would think there were conditions to my help. There are not. I want you to do well, and to succeed. That is all.”
I shuffled to the edge of the platform, my eyes wide and excited. That warm feeling sank deeper into my chest, coating my heart in honeyed delight. “You want to help me?”
“More than anything.” I could almost feel him smiling inside my head. “Come to me. I will show you the truth. I will show you the world. I will show you what it could be like.”
The shadow man appeared again on the other side of the rope bridge. My heart jolted with that same fear of losing him, whoever he was. Was he Leviathan? Or someone else? I had no idea, but everything inside me wanted to follow him. I darted across the platform and up the rope bridge, Leviathan’s words falling away. The shadow man disappeared again, only to reappear a short distance away, one arm l
eaning casually against a moss-speckled tree.
I have to know who you are! I sprinted after him. The pattern repeated, over and over. I got close and he vanished, then reappeared again, leading me on a frantic chase through the jungle. I tripped on vines and exposed roots more times than I cared to count, and sweat dripped off me by the bucketload, but I couldn’t give up. I had to know.
Suddenly, I skidded to a halt at the perimeter of a clearing. An overgrown plinth rested in the middle, and on top of the plinth, a large glass box, snarled up in so many creepers that it looked like it’d been strapped down. Dark blue flowers spotted the thick vines, their leaves bright white aside from thin tiger stripes of sea green. It looked like the box had been here for a long time.
“Where are you?” I cried out, moving closer. I couldn’t lose him. I had to be near him. He made me feel floaty and light, euphoric in a way that I hadn’t in… forever.
The shadow man appeared behind the plate glass, dark palms pressed to the pane. “I am trapped, Persephone. Help me, so I may help you.”
I touched my hand to the glass, caressing it. “You said you didn’t have any terms.” He might have been in a different form, but that voice couldn’t have belonged to anyone but Leviathan.
“It is not a term. I can only help you from outside my cage.” Leviathan’s creepily human eyes showed through the swirling shadow of his face. “Without my body, I am nothing. I cannot give you the help you need. I have to be free.”
I pulled my hand back. “But you’re in my dream. I don’t have the power to free you from here, even if I wanted to.”
“You only have to let me out in this dreamworld.” His voice swam with anguish, inspiring sorrow in me. I didn’t want the shadow man to be sad. “Free me. So I can help you.”
“Tell me the truth, first.” I stepped away slowly, though my heart urged me to move closer again, and his shadowy fingers raked the glass in desperation.
“The truth… Persephone, this is your destiny.” His eyes shone brightly, mesmerizing me. “You were not born by chance. You were born because Chaos needed you. It needed your strength and integrity. Chaos wanted you to take up my mother’s mantle.”
I drifted back toward him, hooked by his words. They surrounded me like a woolen blanket on a cold night, making my heart swell. “Chaos needs me?”
“You are the generator. You are the personification of its cosmic energy. You are power itself.” His voice lulled me into a dopey smile, and my chest swelled with the prospect of being important.
“I like the sound of that.” I giggled and quickly covered my mouth. Nothing about this should’ve been funny, but I couldn’t help it. Laughter just bubbled up of its own accord. The colors of the jungle were so bright, and his eyes looked so inviting. I had nothing to fear from him. It was only a dream.
Leviathan pushed a hand against the glass, and it turned weirdly human, though tinged with blue and green and black. “Release me into your dreamworld, Persephone. Let me aid you.”
Drawn by his hypnotic voice and the magnetic pull of a light that glowed in the darkness of the enclosure, I approached the door to his prison. All the while, my eyes stayed fixed on that throbbing light. My hands came up as though they belonged to someone else, but I didn’t mind. He’d made a persuasive case for his freedom, and what harm could he do within the parameters of my dreamworlds? He promised to help. He wants me to succeed. Chaos wants me to succeed. My woozy brain seemed convinced that he had good intentions, but it was too foggy to be sure. Plus, I couldn’t really focus on anything other than that steady green flash. Even the verdant greenery of the jungle had faded into the background.
I hesitated moments away from opening the door, though I wasn’t sure why. As I paused, a creature dropped down onto the top of the enclosure, snatching my attention away from the spellbinding glow. I had no idea where it had come from, but this beastie wasn’t new to me. A fluffy cotton ball of a creature, with two wide, black eyes. They blinked at me now.
This is realer than I think. Through the marshmallow cloud that had become my brain, it proved hard to tell if the thoughts were mine or if they belonged to the strange puffball. It sounded like my inner monologue, but who knew? For the first time tonight, a spike of true terror javelined through my heart.
“No.” I scrunched my eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath, making myself feel it in my actual lungs. It was cold and dry.
I forced my eyelids open a crack. The jungle no longer existed, replaced with the icy darkness of Leviathan’s hall. Right in front of me stood the glass door to the monster’s enclosure, my hands a few inches from the lock. I scrambled backward as Leviathan burst out of the black smoke inside, his dagger-like claws scraping the pane.
“Let me aid you. Free me,” he implored.
I sleepwalked here! I remembered running through the jungle. Me, chasing the shadow man relentlessly to that clearing. I hadn’t run through any kind of jungle—I must’ve run from my bedroom to the Bestiary, playing Leviathan’s twisted game.
“You lied!” I snapped. “You tricked me!”
“It was the only way I could communicate with you.” That strange flash drew my eye, emitting from the appendage on his forehead. The angler-fish bulb, used to entice sea creatures closer to his jaws. “But my motive is true. I want to show you what you could be. For that, I need to be out of this cage.”
I shook my head, trembling at the thought of how close he’d come to escape. “Even if I had the magic to let you out of your box, I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.” I heaved in a steadying breath. “You lied for your own benefit. You tried to hypnotize me into letting you loose. This isn’t about helping me at all, it’s about helping you!”
“I did not lie about that.” Leviathan stretched his mouth in a creepy grin. “This is your destiny.”
I took another step back. “What are you talking about?”
“You will rule this world, in the image written in your legend. This is your destiny.” His bioluminescence pulsed faster.
“My destiny? My legend? This is ridiculous! You’re making stuff up.” I stood my ground, ignoring that flashing orb in case it drew me in again. There was a chance he wasn’t making it up, but I wasn’t willing to accept that. It sounded like storybook nonsense; something his mother had told him to make him feel better about life in a box.
Leviathan laughed. “Well, not yours alone. We are bound; this, you know. But our bond is deeper than you realize. We will rule over a world of eternal Dark, filled with my brethren. An underworld crafted into the only world. And you will be my queen. It is decreed. The legend of Persephone will come to pass. You will reign over the beasts of Chaos at my side. Their mother. My wife. My Persephone.”
Persephone. the name the monster had bestowed upon me. I looked at my attire. It was just my t-shirt and leggings again, but in the dreamworld it had been distinctly Grecian. Was my name more than just a name? Was it about the myth herself?
Abducted by a smitten Hades, the young Persephone was trapped in his underworld against her will. Her mother, Demeter—the goddess of the harvest—looked high and low for her, until Helios—the all-seeing sun—finally took pity and told Demeter what had happened to her daughter. Nothing of the earth had grown while Demeter despaired, and the people pleaded with Zeus for help as their bodies grew weak. Zeus forced Hades to return Persephone to her mother.
But it was too late. Persephone had already eaten six pomegranate seeds. And, in Greek mythology, if a person ate food from their captor, they were bound to them. To save the people from starvation, an exchange had to be made. Persephone would spend part of the year in the underworld, at Hades’ side, and the rest of her time would be spent on the surface, with her mother. That was why the harvest came in seasons; life grew when Demeter’s daughter could visit her, but when Persephone was forced to return to her dark husband, Demeter’s despair overtook her once more.
Persephone, the goddess of the underworld.
; “No.” I backed away, bile rising in my throat. “I don’t want any part in that. You’re not getting out, and you’re not having your underworld on Earth. I’ll stop you, and that starts with keeping you in that box! You can rot in it, for all I care!”
It’s just a name. And those ancient legends had nothing to do with me. They’d expired when the Ancient Greek deities fell out of favor, if the original Persephone had even existed at all.
“The monsters deserve freedom. Sooner or later, you will come to understand that the magical world has been living on borrowed time. Its exploitation of monsters must end. We are not fuel.” Leviathan showed no sign of concern, like he could already see the endgame in sight. “You cannot fight this.”
“I will fight it,” I seethed.
“Not when you see that they are your brethren, too.” Leviathan grinned, his teeth snapping together. “My gift will show you the truth. You will see what it is like to be one of us. And you will understand, at last.”
The hall door burst open and Tobe tore in on all fours, his claws clacking on the marble as he barreled toward me. In one smooth movement, he scooped me up into his furry arms and waved a paw at Leviathan’s enclosure. A thrumming shield went up, blocking him from view. But not before Leviathan had the last word.
“You are a traitor to your kind, Tobe! I will have a special place in my hell for you!”
Tobe didn’t dignify Leviathan with a response. Instead, he carried me right out of there, so close to his chest that I heard the rapid drumming of his heartbeat through his fur. He might not have shown it on his stoic face, but he was afraid. And that made two of us.
Seventeen
Persie
Back in Tobe’s forest dwelling, I finally got to see the inside of his cottage. I sat in an armchair, enveloped in an oversized tartan beside a roaring fire, clutching a cup of coffee between shaky hands. It looked like any countryside cottage might—quaint and homey, with too much crammed inside—only everything had to be bigger to accommodate a Beast Master. Unfortunately, even the sight of Tobe-sized couch cushions couldn’t warm the chill inside my heart.
Harley Merlin 18: Persie Merlin and Leviathan’s Gift Page 14
