Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  One by one, the immortals rematerialized into Mollis’s office. The first to appear were my Guardians, and they rallied around me, surrounded me. My original ones, particularly Quinn, knew what this meeting would mean for me in particular. They stuck together, giving each other strength. Each of us stung in our own way at our failure to stop the undead before it had come to this. It did not matter to us that the deck was stacked against us, that we were likely never meant to succeed. All that mattered was that we had failed. Quinn took my hand in his, squeezed it gently.

  “It’ll be okay, boss,” he said quietly.

  “Those words have never been more empty, Quinn.”

  He gave me a small smile. “We’re here until we’re not. I plan to go out fighting.”

  I nodded. “Me too. Thank you.”

  He ducked his head and released my hand. I observed as more immortals appeared. Athena. Artemis and Sean, Hephaestus and his family. Gaia and Lethe. Spirit daemons. I had just seen all these beings. We had watched Mollis threaten the world with her wrath. In the end, the world would be faced with something far worse.

  Nain arrived and went to his wife, and I watched as they stood in one another arms, his forehead pressed to hers. It was a private moment, yet I could not tear my eyes away. I knew she was telling him, mentally, what she would tell everyone once they’d all assembled. His posture spoke of anger, rage. His flesh reddened as it did when he became emotional, and his demon form would present itself soon if he did not get himself under control.

  And yet, angry as he was, he held his wife gently against his body. She leaned on him, and he leaned on her. How had two beings as rage-filled, as violent, as Mollis and Nain ever managed to build a marriage like that? How could such love and tenderness come from two beings created for destruction?

  As I watched them, I felt Brennan appear. His power called to me louder than any words could. I looked up and picked him out of the crowd immediately. His eyes met mine, and I went to him, squeezing between other immortals as I crossed the room.

  “Eunomia,” he said quietly as he bent and gently claimed my lips. I wanted to pull him closer, keep his mouth on mine for as long as I possibly could. In the end, I let him pull away. It was the first stage of letting go.

  Practice makes perfect, yes? I think that is what mortals say when they try to convince themselves that they will get better at something. I only wondered if it sounded like as much a lie to them as it did to me.

  “What’s this all about?” Brennan asked quietly. “Molly and Nain look like they’re about to break shit.”

  I shrugged. “It is better if Mollis says it.”

  He studied me for a moment, then gave a terse nod.

  “Okay. The imps tell me this is everyone,” Mollis said, her voice carrying above the din of the assembled crowd thanks to a spell that the witch, Ada, was currently working. I noticed that though she said “everyone,” one of us was very much absent. There was no sign of Persephone, and I knew there would not be.

  The crowd went silent, all eyes turned toward where Mollis stood. The wall she had destroyed with the desk in her earlier fit of rage had, as Hades’ palace had always done, magically repaired itself since the incident. Only the fact that the desk was still sitting in the courtyard indicated that anything at all had happened.

  “I need to say some things, and they’re not the kind of things you’re going to want to hear, or believe, for that matter. I still don’t want to believe them,” she began. “There are two things. I’ll start with the least nightmarish.”

  She told the assembled immortals about what we had found: Persephone had created the undead. She had taught my sisters how to create more. She had used a dream god to cover her tracks from Mollis. She had used the undead as a distraction while she worked on her primary plot: bringing her former husband, the god of death, Hades, back to life.

  The room erupted in chaos. Half of the immortals were in disbelief, and the others were enraged that any of them would do something so reckless and selfish. And yet… not having known Persephone as well as I had, many of them did not find it that unbelievable. She had always seemed closed off from everyone else, aloof. Her world had centered on Hades and she’d had very little interest in anything else. And, her deep hatred of Mollis was not exactly a secret.

  “So our focus, for the next little bit, will be in making sure we find Persephone and punish her. And if you think I’m being harsh, it’s only because you haven’t yet heard what I’m about to tell you. This is what her actions have brought us to.” Mollis paused and she glanced my way. For just an instant, our eyes met, and it gave me strength. I knew that no matter what else happened, she would be a loyal friend to me. It did not make it all better, but I felt less alone. I tried to hold onto this moment, the last moment before I knew I would be forced to kiss happiness goodbye. I tried to memorize the sensation of Brennan’s body leaning into mine, the way we maintained physical contact despite having barely spoken in weeks, the warm scent of him surrounding me. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to cry.

  “As many of you know, Eunomia and her New Guardians have been tirelessly hunting the undead. It has been an impossible task, to expect thirteen Guardians, no matter how amazing they are, to rid the earth of the undead. And every last one of them would need to be destroyed, or else the cycle would begin again. This is not news to any of you,” Mollis added, and I assumed there were nods in response. At the moment, I could not look anywhere but at my shoes. I was aware of my new Guardians standing behind me, and I was unsure of when they had moved closer to me. I was grateful for it.

  “The undead mess has only gotten worse. E and her team have cleaned up some of the first cities overrun with the undead, but as you know, they now roam the Earth. They are everywhere.” The immortals in the room were silent, the mood noticeably tense.

  Or perhaps that was just me. I kept my gaze glued to the floor.

  “Tink, what’s going on?” Brennan whispered, leaning toward me. I just shook my head.

  “E was approached by Nyx. She has woken from her sleep, disturbed by the imbalance the undead have caused here. She is… I was going to say unhappy, but the truth is that she’s pissed. The truth is that she’s also a useless bitch.”

  The immortals in the room gasped, and I could only imagine that they were looking around the same way I once had, afraid that our Creator had heard.

  “Yeah, I said it. Here’s what our glorious Creator has given us: the date of our destruction. She told E she was tired of it all and wanted to start fresh, that the undead had destroyed her precious balance. E begged her for more time. Nyx gave her until the full moon, which, in case you haven’t been keeping track, is four days from now.”

  “So, what happens in four days?” Poseidon asked.

  “Nyx destroys the world. Our time is up,” Mollis said quietly, and the immortals in the room started shouting, talking, some of them crying, all at once. For my part, I remained staring at the floor, all too aware of Brennan’s gaze, of the way he had moved his body away from mine.

  “Eunomia?” he asked.

  “So we’re fucked,” Mollis shouted over the immortals. “We’re fucked, and there is no getting out of this. But we know who fucking got us into this situation. I might be going down. I might be ending. I might be nothing more than space dust or whatever the hell you want to call it four days from now. But I swear on everything I am that I am taking the bitch who did this to us down with me. So it’s your choice. You can sit around and cry over what we’re losing. Or you can be the bunch of angry, vindictive bitches I know you all are and help me find her so I can at least make sure she pays for doing this to us. Are you with me?” Mollis shouted.

  The immortals answered her shout with frenzied, angry shouts of their own.

  All but one, who stood looking at me before taking me by the arm and rematerializing us away.

  The next time I opened my eyes, we were standing in the living room of our flat in London. Brennan p
romptly let go of my arm and stepped away.

  “How many times did I ask you what was wrong? How many times did I try to get you to tell me something, anything, about what was going on with you? And then I stand there today and get to hear Molly break it to me, along with everyone else, that the world is ending, and we’re powerless to stop it, and my wife knew all along?”

  I did not answer.

  “Eunomia.”

  “What do you want me to say, Brennan?” I asked, finally looking up and meeting his eyes.

  “I want you to tell me why you kept it from me.”

  “Because there is nothing you can do. Because I did not want your last few days spent dreading the end, knowing that your time here is limited. I did not want your last moments to be ones of fear. I did not want you to feel what I have been feeling.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Almost two weeks,” I said quietly.

  “Jesus Christ, Eunomia,” Brennan said, turning around and raking his fingers through his hair. Then he turned back to me. “I’ve never asked a damn thing of you other than that you’d be honest with me.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t realize it was so hard. I didn’t realize it was impossible to get a straight answer.”

  “Did you not hear what I said? I know. And I was trying to make your last days as pleasant as possible. Now, you will be angry. You will be afraid. You will be mourning all of the things you love. I did not want it for you.”

  “You don’t get to pick, E,” he said. He met my eyes again and stepped away. “I guess your New Guardians knew.”

  “Yes.”

  “How long has Molly known?”

  “Molly just found out today. I have been avoiding her as well.”

  “Of course you have,” he said quietly. He did not sound angry anymore, and that was somehow worse. “So, right up until the end, I still can’t get you to lean on me a little.”

  “I am not good at leaning on anyone. You knew this when we married.”

  “I did.”

  “Did you honestly expect me to change?”

  He looked up at me, and the look in his eyes made my heart ache. “I hoped I’d eventually be worthy enough to be the one you leaned on. I hoped that someday, you’d realize that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  “Nothing, except accept me as I am,” I said.

  “So I’m supposed to change, and you get to stay the same?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “If you do not think I have changed since we have been together, you have not been paying attention.”

  “How could I? I never see you.”

  “And that is my fault?” I asked. My voice was pitched higher than I would have liked, but I could not help it. “If you were listening at all, you know I have been dealing with some things.”

  He took a breath. “I know. I’m not trying to be an asshole. I have no idea what we’re doing.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “I’m… I feel like I failed you. I failed us. If I had been more of what you needed, maybe you would have been able to tell me what was going on with you. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to shoulder the burden all on your own. I wasn’t the man you needed.”

  “You were. You always have been. I did what I thought was best. I would do it the same way all over again if I had to. You had two more weeks of not fearing your last moments, of not having to look at your son and know that each little moment, each laugh, each hug, just brings you closer to the last one you will ever have. I wanted happiness for you, and I know it is in short supply of late. But I wanted to make it as peaceful as I could for you. I am not good at being there for you. I am not good at communicating myself to you. But I love you. I am sorry I am incapable of showing it the way you need me to.”

  He looked away, and I went back to looking at the floor. The only sounds were his soft breaths, the clock ticking in the hallway, the neighbor’s television, up too loud as usual.

  “So we have four days left,” he finally said.

  “You should spend them with your son. And Artemis,” I added.

  “And if I wanted to spend at least some of them with my wife?”

  “You know I—”

  “You are busy. I know,” he said. “You know that vengeance is pointless now, right? Nyx said it’s over, it’s over. Molly accepts it. Molly has to have her vengeance, because that’s who Molly is. She is judgment and vengeance personified. You don’t have to be that. Your part of the fight is over.”

  “If I am going to die, I will die as I lived: bringing those who need to face their final justice to the God of Death. I will die hunting.”

  “What about the other parts of your life, Tink? A Guardian isn’t all you are.”

  I took a step back, away from him. “It is all I know how to be. Besides, can you honestly stand there and tell me that you can forgive me for keeping this from you? Can you honestly say that you can look at me now and think anything other than that we failed at marriage, that what we had…it wasn’t enough. Did you see Mollis and Nain today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see the way they held one another, supported one another? We do not have that. And you want it. You have tried to get us to that point. I cannot be that. And I am sorry. You deserve that kind of marriage, and I could not give it to you.”

  “I wanted a marriage with you, Eunomia,” he said tiredly. “I don’t need it to look like anyone else’s marriage. All I ever wanted was for you to love me, trust me, and lean on me when you needed it.”

  “The way Mollis did when you were together,” I said quietly.

  “Let’s not. Okay?”

  “Oh, let’s. Let’s not pretend that no matter how much you love me, you were ultimately happier with Mollis when things were going well.”

  He snorted. “Yeah. Right. It was awesome being in love with someone and knowing you were their second choice all along, that even when she was with you, she was wishing it was someone else. That was great.”

  “And yet. She allowed you to take care of her the way you want to. She depended on you. She let you organize her life and keep her on track. That is what you want from me, yes?”

  He looked away. I knew I was not wrong. He was happy in those days, being Mollis’s lover and most trusted confidant.

  “I am not Mollis. I am not a thirty-something year old who believed she was human and lived a confusing life. I am ancient, and I am powerful, and I have spent my entire existence being feared by the just and the wicked alike. I am not going to rely on anyone to organize my days or tell me everything will be all right when I damn well know it will not. I do not need that. What I need, is someone who loves me for who I am, who can accept me as I am without wishing I was something completely different.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I kept going. “I love you. I love you as I have never even believed it possible to love anyone. I have never expected you to change who you are for me.”

  He stood, watching me, and there was an air of finality to the look that passed between us.

  “I have work to do,” I said, finally looking away from him, even as it felt like my heart had been shredded. It was nearly impossible to breathe around the ache in my soul.

  “Eunomia,” he said quietly. “Don’t go. Stay with me one more time.”

  “As much as I want to, and I do,” I emphasized, “there are imps patiently waiting on your windowsill, which likely means that you are needed. Probably by Nain.”

  “They can wait.”

  “How do you do that?” I asked him.

  “Do what?”

  “Decide to turn your back on your duties? I have tried to do that, and even when I left for a few years, I still kept notes on every soul I found, in case things ever worked out and I was able to return to my work. When Gaia created the Netherwoods, and we had a place to imprison the souls again, I went back and found every one of them.”

  He studied me. “I just decide what’s more imp
ortant at the time. It’s a judgment call.”

  I let his words filter through my mind for a while, and then I shook my head. “Maybe there is something truly wrong with me. Even when I tell myself that those words make sense, I know that I would do what I was created for. Maybe I am the zealot they have always accused me of being. Maybe I have been a fool to try to be anything else,” I finished, and forced myself to meet his eyes. “Farewell, Cub.”

  His shoulders slumped, just a little, and he swallowed hard. “Take care, Tink. I love you.”

  I gave him a small smile and took another step away. “I love you, too.” One more step away, and then I closed my eyes, and I felt myself being pulled apart and away from him as I rematerialized back in the Netherwoods.

  At least I would only have four days to think about how much I missed him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The hunt began immediately, dozens of angry immortals marching throughout the world, rematerializing, chasing leads, all of us finally with one unified purpose: find Persephone and bring her to justice. Of course, it had taken the end of the world to end the constant squabbling and backbiting between the immortals of the Aether and the Nether, between gods and lesser gods, between spirit-daemons and their more powerful counterparts. For once, there were no “betters” among us, no clawing for power or respect.

  It was a new kind of imbalance, and I had a feeling that Nyx probably abhorred that, as well.

  Together, Mollis, Nain, and I had already covered thousands of miles looking for Persephone. Our hunt had been mostly silent, and we were trailed by imps and Netherhounds. Along the way, I destroyed every undead I found, just on principle, and we captured, judged, and punished every wandering soul we came across. It was a flurry of busy-ness, and I knew that Mollis was feeling much of what I was: that there was only so much time left, and so much vengeance to get.

  Tisiphone had suggested looking in Greece, through some of the ancient holy sites. Several had been devoted to Persephone, but there was not even a hint of her in any of the places we’d looked. We walked along a barren road near the coast. The sun was setting blood-red, bathing the glass-like surface of the sea in a crimson glow. Mollis wore baby Hades strapped to her back, and Zoe clung to Nain’s neck as he carried her on his shoulders. The children, accustomed as they already were to seeing their parents destroy enemies, were unfazed when we stopped to punish souls or when I destroyed the undead. They watched calmly, seeing far too much, it seemed. I tried not to mourn the fact that we would never see what they would ultimately become.