The light around her dimmed and she held a small crown of flowers in her hand. It was covered in wild flowers that were tucked in among winding twigs. She stopped just before us and waves of heat rolled off of her like the sun, and the smell of wild flowers drifted over us. “Warlocks, welcome.”
I gave a small bow. “Persephone.”
Beckett followed suit. “Persephone.”
“You have traveled the many underworld rivers and mastered the lessons learned with each one. You must continue along this path to complete your journey.” She pointed to a long winding road that led up a mountain in the distance. “There you will find the challenges set forth.”
Her voice was calm and sweet like a song I knew but couldn’t recall. “Will that lead us out?”
“Eventually yes.” She held the crown out toward me. “You both have done well. I bestow this crown upon you. You must keep it and collect the tokens for accomplishing each challenge. Hook them into the crown for safekeeping.”
I wanted to ask her so many things. Was Hades really mean? Did she like it down here? What was it like to be the queen of the underworld and if she didn’t like it, was she taking volunteers to take her place? Nova would be the first choice, but damn if this place didn’t capture my interest. Well, after the torture and everything.
I stepped in closer to her. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
When she placed the crown on my head, she held her hand out toward it and strands of vines ran down and braided themselves in among my hair, securing it in place. “There now, it’s pretty.”
“Thank you.” I ran my fingers over the soft leaves in my hair.
“I must go. I only have so much time here.” She turned and six white horses pulling a black chariot with golden flames stopped just behind her. She walked around the back and stepped up then took the reins. “It’s not easy being queen.”
She winked and spurred the horses forward. A second before they took off, her whole outfit completely changed from the bohemian flower child to femme fatale. A strapless black leather corset that matched her tight black leather pants covered her torso. Her hair still held the flowers, but they too turned black. She snapped the whip on the ground beside her and the chariot shot forward. The horses flew across the ground like a rocket and in an instant she was gone.
“I want to be just like her when I grow up.” Both a bohemian princess and queen of death.
“God help me.” Beckett chuckled and grabbed my hand. “Come on, we have a long way to go before we reach the end of that path.”
I turned to take a step, but my feet were cemented to the ground. I jerked against them. “I-I can’t move.”
Beckett too struggled to move. “What the hell?”
“Not hell, warlock. Justice.” A low hissing voice filed the air.
My heart rate skyrocketed. “Is this part of the challenge?”
“I don’t know.” Every muscle in his body strained and his smoke poured from his hands. The ground exploded around his feet and leapt up into the air. Rocks and dirt flew in all different directions and he landed in a crouch next to me.
“Impressive, young warlock.” A woman materialized right in front of us.
“Nemesis?” Beckett narrowed his eyes. “You can’t be part of this.”
“Oh no, why not?” She was deadly beautiful, with pin straight raven hair parted down the middle that fell to just above her shoulders. Her crimson red dress wrapped around her body and billowed in the wind. Long sleeves ran from her wrists down to the ground. Hulking gray wings jutted from her shoulders and she held a scale in one hand. But the most unsettling of it all was the crimson blindfold she wore over her eyes.
Beckett cleared his throat. “This is a challenge meant to teach control not dole out justice.”
She tilted her head to the side like a hawk studying its prey. “Justice is met out in many different ways. It’s all about balance.” She held the scale up and it teeter-tottered on the tip of her finger. “You think you take a little ride on a pretty little boat and you pass the first test. How is that balance? How is that fair?”
I wiggled my legs, trying to break free. “What is she talking about?”
“What is she talking about?” Nemesis raised her voice and mimicked me in a mocking tone. “This is about balance. You think passing these trials is as easily as you taking a math test and I will not allow it.”
“That is not for you to decide.” Beckett’s whole body stiffened and he spread his legs as though preparing to attack.
I looked from her to him and back again. Her wings pulsed and she threw her head back laughing. “That’s exactly what I’m here for.”
He pulled the dagger from behind his back and leapt forward with it held high over his head. She threw her hand out and a cloud burst from her, covering him from head to toe. She cackled to the ceiling once more. The knife clattered to the ground and Beckett was gone.
“No!” I screamed and my magic exploded out of me in a shock wave. It knocked Nemesis off her feet long enough for me to kick the rocks holding me free. I ran at her and grabbed the sides of her dress and hauled her to her feet. “Where is he?”
She pressed a single finger to the center of my chest and I flew back. My feet kicked over my head and I landed in a heap of dust an inch away from the water, water I wasn’t supposed to touch. I scrambled to stand then ran at her once more. I didn’t hold back. I let my power roll within me and shot it out of my hands at her. At the last second she sucked in a deep breath and along with it all my power.
“Enough of these games.” She lifted her hand and I floated in midair.
I pinwheeled my arms and kicked out my legs, yet I couldn’t move. “Let me down.”
“How about no.” Again she turned her head in that birdlike manner as though she could see me through her blindfold. “You think this is to be easy? The Fallen pushed us to the breaking point and for what? Balance. It is all about balance. If the challenges are to be easy then what is there to learn?”
“You think that was easy? Ha!” My body twisted and turned like an astronaut in zero-g. “I nearly bled out.”
“Too easy. You want him back, your man. Then good luck. I’ll meet you at the end.”
“The end of what?” She wasn’t making any sense. She wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with this. The Fallen were in charge and she was messing it all up. Beckett and I were supposed to be together, not split up and tossed around.
“Everything.” She hissed and held her hand out. Clouds floated around me and I felt myself soaring through the air. To where, I didn’t know. All I knew was I needed to get Beckett back and I needed him back now!
Chapter 47
Astrid
I shot out of Nemesis’ cloud and rolled across the cold, damp ground. There was no stopping me. Rocks smacked into my back, and sides yet the crown stayed on my head, but the vines holding it in place ripped at my hair. I came to a screeching halt when I smacked into a hard slab of stone. The wind whooshed from my lungs and I struggled to catch my breath. I let my arm fall across my rib cage and blinked against the spinning world. “That sucked.”
As it slowly began to right itself, I sat up and leaned against the stone. “Oh crap.”
Row after row of gravestones lined the small area. Each one was more dilapidated than the other. The night sky stretched out above me and the smell of damp moss filled my nose. The air was warm and sultry. A slow fog rolled over the ground, covering it completely and only letting the stones pop out of the top of it. I rose to my feet and pressed my hand to the bruises forming on my ribs. “Yeah, this isn’t creepy at all.”
Tall weeping willows stood like reaching shadows against the light of the full moon. A symphony of crickets and frogs filled the air as I spun around to figure out where the jerk of justice sent me. On one end of the field was an old little white church or what remained of it. The roof was caved in and the door hung off its hinges. “Yeah, not going in
there.”
I turned in the opposite direction to find a path running down the center of the graveyard, the only path without fog on it. “Does anyone else smell a trap here?”
I knew I was talking to myself, but I was freaked out and trying not to die horror movie style. A deep wolf-like howl pierced the night, silencing even the crickets. A chill crept up my spine and suddenly I wanted more than anything not to be completely alone out here. Smoke seeped from my hand down to my feet and I shook them out. “Come on, not now.”
“What’s up?”
I jumped ten feet into the air and threw up my heart out of my butt. I didn’t know what happened, but it was not in my body anymore. I pressed my hand to my chest. “Am I dead?”
“Don’t think so.”
I looked down at the top of the gravestone next to me. “Odin, what are you doing here?”
His voice was low and scratchy. “You summoned, I here.”
A brown paper bag sat on the stone next to him. “What’s that?”
He hiss chuckled. “Chicken nuggets.”
“Odin, Maze is going to skin you alive.” I opened the bag and took a nugget out and handed it to him.
“He can try.” He took a big bite and began to purr.
“Dude, now is not the time. We have to find Beckett.” I gazed down the path leading into the woods. Something in me told me not to go there, not to venture into that darkness. But I couldn’t portal or call anyone to come get me.
“Why don’t you just ask her?” He pointed a paw behind me and I spun on my heels.
A woman wearing a long dark cloak walked toward me as if she’d just stepped out from the church. Her white blond hair peeked out from under the hood. A floating torch hovered just above her palm as she took slow, methodical steps. On her one side was a dog the size of a small horse, its was hair gray and wiry. It looked like part wolf, part greyhound. It threw its head back and that ear-piercing howl filled the air once more. On her other side a small creature resembling a ferret ran beside her. A perfect black line of fur covering its eyes, making it look like it was about to rob someone. Possibly me.
“She doesn’t look like the type to give directions.” I took a small step back.
She wound her way through the gravestones. Adrenaline ran through my system and I didn’t know whether to stay put or run my ass off in the opposite direction. Run, definitely run. I was about to turn on my heels when the fog rose up in a dense wall behind me. Stay it is.
“Do you know who I am, child?” She stopped a few rows of dead people away from me.
I shook my head. “Should I?”
She rolled her icy eyes. “They never do.” She mumbled as though speaking to her pets. Then she lifted her pointy chin. “I am Hecate, the original witch and the one who gave you that.”
She pointed to my shoulder. I drew my sweater down off my shoulder, exposing the half-moon scar I’d gotten from my house sorting ceremony. “This? But why?”
“Because I thought you might be worthy. Now I’m not so sure.” She pursed her full lips and clasped her hands in front of her.
“What does it mean?” I ran my finger over the raised pinkened skin.
“Nothing, if you can’t prove yourself,” she snapped. “My disappointment is great.”
I cast my eyes down toward the ground. “I am trying.”
“Not good enough, Astrid. And this little quest Matteaus has you on . . . child’s play. If you are worthy of your powers, I should at least be involved in that decision. But do you think I was? No, I was not.”
“Wait, so you’re not part of the mission he has me on?” I went from being embarrassed to annoyed in zero point two seconds.
She shook her head. “Nemesis and I, among others, are fed up with your lack of respect for the power bestowed upon you. And so we thought it was time to teach you a lesson.”
“You’re the ones who took Beckett.” I took a step toward her and my power rose to the forefront, seeping from me onto the ground toward her. “Give him back.”
“Earn him back.” She held her hands up and flames erupted from her palms.
Her dog lowered its head and growled at Odin. Odin swiped at the air and hissed in his direction. I stepped in front of him. “Why don’t you pick on something your own size, like the ferret?”
“It’s not a ferret,” Hecate snapped. “It’s a polecat.”
“Looks like a ferret!” I didn’t know why I was goading her, but she was involved with taking Beckett and throwing me off my mission, so she would get all the New York sass I could muster.
Odin leapt down off the stone and walked to my side. A weird growl/tearing sound came from him and his body twitched. His bones pushed out against his black fur in a painful jutting manner. I turned to Hecate. “Stop it, you’re killing him.”
“Tis not I!”
Odin jumped up, three times the size he was before. He opened his mouth and a feral growl escaped his lips. His fangs glistened in the night, his eye sparked, and he prowled away from me.
“A panther. You can turn into a freaking panther?”
“You said pick on my size. This my size.”
Hecate’s dog moved away from her side as well. The two animals faced off against each other.
Her eyes widened. “At least you’re showing some promise.”
“Eat magic, bitch.” I threw my hand out and fired off a ball of golden energy at her.
She threw her hand up and blocked it with her flames. She threw a fireball at me and I dove behind a stone. “You can do better than that. Hell, baby warlocks can do better than that.”
The impact exploded the top of the stone to rubble that rained down on me. Odin and the dog ran at each other full force. The dog leapt at him with its teeth bared and snarling. Odin swiped his paw across the dog’s face as it tackled him to the ground. They twisted and turned in a tornado of teeth, growls, and hisses.
“No, Odin!” I wanted to protect him.
Odin rolled onto his back and shoved all four of his paws into the dog’s gut, launching it up into the air toward the woods behind us. Trees bent and cracked and the dog yelped. Odin took off after it. “Got this, kill bitch witch.”
Confident he could handle the devil dog, I shoved my hands into the ground and pictured the vines shooting up around her in a cage. The ground shook beneath my feet and the sound of cracking branches filled the air. I jumped up in time to see the vines shoot from the ground like poles. My magic rolled from me and the vines lashed out like whips, snaring her around her wrists and ankles. I threw my arms up and the vines lifted her off the ground and spread her limbs out like a starfish.
I took a step toward her. “Tell me where he is or I will have them rip your arm from your body.”
“Better. But perhaps a little more creative.” She opened her hands and flames singed the vines to ash and she dropped down before me. “My turn.”
She sucked in a deep breath and blew it at me. The wind wound around me in a cyclone, sending my hair flying straight up around me. My feet lifted up off the ground and I started to spin like I was on the teacup ride at the state fair. The world blurred into one color and I couldn’t tell up from down. I closed my eyes, fighting my own treacherous equilibrium. I fought against the wind holding my arms down and slowly brought them up. Picturing myself peeling this cyclone off the way I would take a dress off that was too tight.
Gold surrounded me and my feet slowly touched down onto the ground. I threw the cyclone back at her and dropped down onto one knee, fighting to catch my breath and not vomit at the same time. I’d done enough spinning for one night. I threw it at her, yet she caught it in the palm of her hand, holding it like she would a penny. She closed her fingers over it. “Eh, okay.”
“Okay?” I called upon everything I had in. Thick black clouds rolled overhead, covering the stars from sight. Lightning forked out across the sky and I summoned it down to my hands. I held my arms out to my sides and let it strike, one then the other. It didn�
�t burn. All I felt was pure power.
Hecate arched her perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I shot a bolt at her, tagging her right in her hip. She lifted up off the ground and flew back. She smacked into the gravestone, rendering it to ash. As she struggled to her feet, I shot another, sending her flying again. And another. She flew back toward the church. I held both my hands overhead, summoning twice as much power to my hands. Bolts slammed down from the sky as if Zeus himself was handing them to me. Electricity sizzled in my hair and down my arms.
Hecate lurched to her feet and held her hands out in front of her. “Okay, Astrid, enough.”
Too late. Darkness rolled in me and I let it go. I screamed and shot those bolts right into her chest. Flames erupted from her arms as she soared through the sky and smacked into what was left of the little white church. The remains crumbled on top of her and I sucked in a deep breath. Bolts of lightning speared down to the ground around me and I had to release the power I used to summon it. I took slow deep breaths, holding back that dark tide I could only call my own. The lightning subsided and the clouds rolled back, letting the bright moon shine down on me once more.
I turned toward the woods. “Odin?”
The dog flew from the woods like a bat out of hell with its tail tucked between its legs. It yelped and ran in the opposite direction. The ferret followed suit and ran off after the dog. A moment later Odin trotted out back in his one-eyed black cat form. He leapt up on the gravestone where the bag of nuggets sat undisturbed. He shoved his head into the bag and tried to pull it back out, but the bag got stuck around his neck. “Astrid, a little help here.”
“Really, you take on devil dogs but a paper bag gets the best of you?”
Wicked Wish (The Royals: Warlock Court Book 2) Page 23
